The influence of the Greek religion upon Greek morality was not wholly favorable. The attribution by the Greeks of human frailties and vices to their gods tended to depress human morality, since men are never better than their gods. It is true that the moral character of the gods of any people is a creation of the moral consciousness of that people; still, after once called into existence and enthroned, these divinities react upon their creators and shape in a greater or less degree the moral character of their worshipers.
But though there were elements in some of the Greek cults, particularly in those of Dionysus[430] and Aphrodite in the later period,[431] that were harmful to morality, still in general Greek morality found in religion at once a restraining and a stimulating influence.
Even as early as the Homeric Age religion had become a moral force. It is the fear of the gods even more than the fear of men which is the motive force for rightdoing.[432] Odysseus’ request of Ilus of Ephyra for poison with which to smear the points of his arrows is refused through fear of the divine anger, and Priam in praying Achilles for the body of Hector admonishes him to have reverence for the gods.
And throughout later times the gods are the guardians of morality. They are the avengers of perjury. They are the punishers of him who breaks the law of hospitality. Especially does Zeus, as the god of hospitality, “take note of those who welcome and those who maltreat the stranger.”[433] The shrines of all the gods are places of refuge and sanctuary. The suppliant at the altar is sacrosanct. Here the hand of the avenger of injury is stayed. “Mercy,” says Sophocles, “shares the judgment seat of Zeus.” As the god of the suppliant, Zeus not only protects but purifies and delivers. Thus were the high moral qualities of mercy and forgiveness thrown into relief, and men, while taught self-restraint, were imbued with reverence for these attributes of character.
This high morality of the Greek religion reached its culmination in the worship of the Delphian Apollo. In truth, the history of Delphi is a large part of the history of Greek morality. It reflected from age to age the deepening moral perceptions of the race. The oracle thus stood in close relation with the great teachers of Greece. The ethical impulse of Pythagoreanism seems to have gone forth from Delphi. Apollo gave a religious sanction to the emancipation of the slave, and thus promoted social morality. The slave given his freedom by his master at Delphi became, as a freedman, sacrosanct.[434] Apollo stimulated also political morality. Through the Delphic Amphictyony his influence was exerted in mitigating the barbarities of war between Greek and Greek, and in creating an Hellenic fraternity. Thus through religion was the narrow sphere embraced by the ordinary moral feelings of the Greeks broadened and brought to cover wide federations of cities and tribes.
Greek religion also exercised a stimulating influence upon morality through the Mysteries, especially through those of Eleusis. The greater number of these religious fraternities had an ethical aim—“the aim of worshiping a pure god, the aim of living a pure life, and the aim of cultivating a spirit of brotherhood.”[435]
Significance for Greek morality of the absence of a priestly caste
But the most noteworthy fact concerning Greek religion in its relations to Greek morality is this—that it was a religion practically without a priesthood. For there never arose in Greece a priestly class like that in Egypt, in Persia, in India, and in Judea. This is a fact of supreme importance in the history of Greek morals. It prevented the growth of a theocratic morality, with its artificial ritual duties and its conservative tendencies.
It is interesting to note that it was the early rise of philosophy in the Greek cities of Ionia that saved Hellas from the domination of a sacerdotal caste. For at the time this philosophy arose the Orphic doctrines were overspreading Greece. Now this was a priestly religion, that is, a religion interpreted and administered by priests. Its triumph in Greece would have meant the establishment of a powerful national priesthood. This misfortune was prevented by the intellectual and philosophical movement in Ionia. It is this fact which leads Professor Bury to pronounce the rise of the study of philosophy in the Ionian cities one of the most important facts in the history of Hellas; for “it meant the triumph of reason over mystery; it led to the discrediting of the Orphic movement; it insured the free political and social progress of Hellas.”[436] And all this meant the keeping of the ground clear for the upgrowth and development of an essentially lay or secular morality, a morality that found its sanctions alone in the human reason and conscience.
The doctrine of race election; Hellenes and Barbarians