Ζεύς ἐστιν αἰθὴρ, Ζεὺς δὲ γῆ, Ζεὺς δ’ οὐρανὸς,
Ζεύς τοι τὰ πάντα, χὥτι τῶν δ’ ὑπέρτερον.
And Sophocles, also in similar lines, proclaims the unity and universality of God. And Theocritus, in his ‘Idylls,’ echoes the same sentiment. The same cast of thought, the same lofty idea of God, is found among the ancient Romans. Lucan exclaims in his ‘Pharsalia:’—
‘Jupiter est quod cumque vides, quo cumque moveris.’
Valerius Soranus makes him the one universal, omnipotent God, the Father and Mother of us all:—
‘Jupiter omnipotens, regum rerumque deumque
Progenitor genetrixque deum deus unus et omnes.’[26]
Can any statement be larger and more inclusive than this?[27] Such indeed was the true philosophic idea of Jupiter, as entertained by the best and most exalted in ancient days. You must go to the highest sources to learn what the highest notions of Deity are among any people, and not grope among the popular superstitions and myths. Then, again, what nobler expressions of our relation to an infinite and universal spirit of God are to be found than in Epictetus and Seneca? ‘God is near you, is with you, is within you,’ Seneca writes. ‘A sacred spirit dwells within us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and all our good. There is no good man without God.’ And again: ‘Even from a corner it is possible to spring up into heaven. Rise, therefore, and form thyself into a fashion worthy of God.’ And again: ‘It is no advantage that conscience is shut up within us. We lie open to God.’ And still again: ‘Do you wish to render the gods propitious? Be virtuous.’ One might cite such passages for hours from the writings of these men. Can you, then, think that our notions of God and duty were so low and so debased?
“Look, too, at our arts. Art and religion with us and the Greeks went hand in hand. If you seek the true spirit of religion among any people, you will always find it in the productions of their art. In sculpture, the most ideal of the plastic arts, you will see the real features of the gods. They are grand, calm, serene, dignified, and above the taint of human passion; claiming reverence and love in their beauty and perfection beyond the human. Here there is nothing mean or low. So godlike are they even in the poorer specimens of their noble figures that have come down to you, that you yourselves recognize in them ideal grace and power. Read the reflection of our faith in their forms and features, and you will find in it nothing vulgar, nothing degrading. The best personifications of your own divinities in art look poor beside them. God himself in your pictures is feeble compared with the divine Jupiter of Phidias; the Madonna weak and tame beside the august grandeur of his Athene. Christ in your art is pitiable beside the splendor of Apollo; so far from being the highest type of even man, he is almost the weakest, composed of pale negatives, and with nothing very positive and grand; while your saints are affected, cowardly, and cringing, compared with the heroic demigods of Greece. In art, at least, the ancient deities still live and command reverence from a serene world beyond change. Would you know what our faith was, look at the great works of art and at the best thoughts of the greatest minds we owned, and not at the corrupted text of popular superstition. These, indeed, were worthy of reverence. They lifted the thoughts and cleared the spirit, and filled it with a sense of beauty and of power. Who could look at that magnificent impersonation of Zeus at Olympia, by Phidias, so grand, so simple, so serene, with its golden robes and hair, its divine expression of power and sweetness, its immense proportions, its perfection of workmanship, and not feel that they were in the presence of an august, tremendous, and impassionate power?”
“Ah!” I exclaimed, “that truly I wish I could have seen—what majesty, what beauty, it must have had!”
“Ay!” he answered. “No one could see it and not be enlarged in spirit by it.”
“Was, then, the Athena of the Parthenon,” I asked, “equal in merit?”