Atheism in Pagan Antiquity Part 4

In its main outlines this is all the information that I have been able to glean about the general decline of the belief in the G.o.ds during the h.e.l.lenistic period. Judging from such information we should expect to find strong tendencies to atheism in the philosophy of the period. These antic.i.p.ations are, however, doomed to disappointment. The ruling philosophical schools on the whole preserved a friendly att.i.tude towards the G.o.ds of the popular faith and especially towards their wors.h.i.+p, although they only accepted the existing religion with strict reservation.

Most characteristic but least consistent and original was the att.i.tude of the Stoic school. The Stoics were pantheists. Their deity was a substance which they designated as fire, but which, it must be admitted, differed greatly from fire as an element. It permeated the entire world. It had produced the world out of itself, and it absorbed it again, and this process was repeated to eternity. The divine fire was also reason, and as such the cause of the harmony of the world-order. What of conscious reason was found in the world was part of the divine reason.

Though in this scheme of things there was in the abstract plenty of room for the G.o.ds of popular belief, nevertheless the Stoics did not in reality acknowledge them. In principle their standpoint was the same as Aristotle's. They supposed the heavenly bodies to be divine, but all the rest, namely, the anthropomorphic G.o.ds, were nothing to them.

In their explanation of the origin of the G.o.ds they went beyond Aristotle, but their doctrine was not always the same on this point. The earlier Stoics regarded mythology and all theology as human inventions, but not arbitrary inventions. Mythology, they thought, should be understood allegorically; it was the nave expression partly of a correct conception of Nature, partly of ethical and metaphysical truths. Strictly speaking, men had always been Stoics, though in an imperfect way. This point of view was elaborated in detail by the first Stoics, who took their stand partly on the earlier naturalism which had already broken the ground in this direction, and partly on sophistic, so that they even brought into vogue again the theory of Prodicus, that the G.o.ds were a hypostasis of the benefits of civilisation. Such a standpoint could not of course be maintained without arbitrariness and absurdities which exposed it to embarra.s.sing criticism. This seems to have been the reason why the later Stoics, and especially Poseidonius, took another road. They adopted the doctrine of Xenocrates with regard to demons and developed it in fantastic forms. The earlier method was not, however, given up, and at the time of Cicero we find both views represented in the doctrine of the school.

Such is the appearance of the theory. In both its forms it is evidently an attempt to meet popular belief half-way from a standpoint which is really beyond it. This tendency is seen even more plainly in the practice of the Stoics. They recognised public wors.h.i.+p and insisted on its advantages; in their moral reflections they employed the G.o.ds as ideals in the Socratic manner, regardless of the fact that in their theory they did not really allow for G.o.ds who were ideal men; nay, they even went the length of giving to their philosophical deity, the "universal reason," the name of Zeus by preference, though it had nothing but the name in common with the Olympian ruler of G.o.ds and men. This pervading ambiguity brought much well-deserved reproof on the Stoics even in ancient times; but, however unattractive it may seem to us, it is of significance as a manifestation of the great hold popular belief continued to have even on the minds of the upper cla.s.ses, for it was to these that the Stoics appealed.

Far more original and consistent is the Epicurean att.i.tude towards the popular faith. Epicurus unreservedly acknowledged its foundation, _i.e._ the existence of anthropomorphic beings of a higher order than man. His G.o.ds had human shape but they were eternal and blessed. In the latter definition was included, according to the ethical ideal of Epicurus, the idea that the G.o.ds were free from every care, including taking an interest in nature or in human affairs. They were entirely outside the world, a fact to which Epicurus gave expression by placing them in the empty s.p.a.ces between the infinite number of spherical worlds which he a.s.sumed. There his G.o.ds lived in bliss like ideal Epicureans. Lucretius, the only poet of this school, extolled them in splendid verse whose motif he borrowed from Homer's description of Olympus. In this way Epicurus also managed to uphold public wors.h.i.+p itself. It could not, of course, have any practical aim, but it was justified as an expression of the respect man owed to beings whose existence expressed the human ideal.

The reasons why Epicurus a.s.sumed this att.i.tude towards popular belief are simple enough. He maintained that the evidence of sensual perception was the basis of all knowledge, and he thought that the senses (through dreams) gave evidence of the existence of the G.o.ds. And in the popular ideas of the bliss of the G.o.ds he found his ethical ideal directly confirmed. As regards their eternity the case was more difficult. The basis of his system was the theory that everything was made of atoms and that only the atoms as such, not the bodies composed of the atoms, were eternal. He conceived the G.o.ds, too, as made of atoms, nevertheless he held that they were eternal. Any rational explanation of this postulate is not possible on Epicurus's hypotheses, and the criticism of his theology was therefore especially directed against this point.

Epicurus was the Greek philosopher who most consistently took the course of emphasising the popular dogma of the perfection of the G.o.ds in order to preserve the popular notions about them. And he was the philosopher to whom this would seem the most obvious course, because his ethical ideal-quietism-agreed with the oldest popular ideal of divine existence.

In this way Epicureanism became the most orthodox of all Greek philosophical schools. If nevertheless Epicurus did not escape the charge of atheism the sole reason is that his whole theology was denounced off-hand as hypocrisy. It was a.s.sumed to be set up by him only to s.h.i.+eld himself against a charge of impiety, not to be his actual belief. This accusation is now universally acknowledged to be unjustified, and the Epicureans had no difficulty in reb.u.t.ting it with interest. They took special delight in pointing out that the theology of the other schools was much more remote from popular belief than theirs, nay, in spite of recognition of the existing religion, was in truth fundamentally at variance with it. But in reality their own was in no better case: G.o.ds who did not trouble in the least about human affairs were beings for whom popular belief had no use. It made no difference that Epicurus's definition of the nature of the G.o.ds was the direct outcome of a fundamental doctrine of popular belief. Popular religion will not tolerate pedantry.

In this connexion we cannot well pa.s.s over a third philosophical school which played no inconspicuous role in the latter half of our period, namely, Scepticism. The Sceptic philosophy as such dates from Socrates, from whom the so-called Megarian school took its origin, but it did not reach its greatest importance until the second century, when the Academic school became Sceptic. It was especially the famous philosopher Carneades, a brilliant master of logic and dialectic, who made a success by his searching negative criticism of the doctrines of the other philosophical schools (the Dogmatics). For such criticism the theology of the philosophers was a grateful subject, and Carneades did not spare it. Here as in all the investigations of the Sceptics the theoretical result was that no scientific certainty could be attained: it was equally wrong to a.s.sert or to deny the existence of the G.o.ds. But in practice the att.i.tude of the Sceptics was quite different. Just as they behaved like other people, acting upon their immediate impressions and experience, though they did not believe that anything could be scientifically proved, _e.g._ not even the reality of the world of the senses, so also did they acknowledge the existing cult and lived generally like good heathens.

Characteristic though Scepticism be of a period of Greek spiritual life in which Greek thought lost its belief in itself, it was, however, very far from supporting atheism. On the contrary, according to the correct Sceptic doctrine atheism was a dogmatic contention which theoretically was as objectionable as its ant.i.thesis, and in practice was to be utterly discountenanced.

A more radical standpoint than this as regards the G.o.ds of the popular faith is not found during the h.e.l.lenistic period except among the less noted schools, and in the beginning of the period. We have already mentioned such thinkers as Strato, Theodorus, and Stilpo; chronologically they belong to the h.e.l.lenistic Age, but in virtue of their connexion with the Socratic philosophy they were dealt with in the last chapter. A definite polemical att.i.tude towards the popular faith is also a characteristic of the Cynic school, hence, though our information is very meagre, we must speak of it a little more fully.

The Cynics continued the tendency of Antisthenes, but the school comparatively soon lost its importance. After the third century we hear no more about the Cynics until they crop up again about the year A.D. 100.

But in the fourth and third centuries the school had important representatives. The most famous is Diogenes; his life, to be sure, is entangled in such a web of legend that it is difficult to arrive at a true picture of his personality. Of his att.i.tude towards popular belief we know one thing, that he did not take part in the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds. This was a general principle of the Cynics; their argument was that the G.o.ds were "in need of nothing" (cf. above, pp. 60 and 41). If we find him accused of atheism, in an anecdote of very doubtful value, it may, if there is anything in it, be due to his rejection of wors.h.i.+p. Of one of his successors, however, Bion of Borysthenes, we have authentic information that he denied the existence of the G.o.ds, with the edifying legend attached that he was converted before his death. But we also hear of Bion that he was a disciple of the atheist Theodorus, and other facts go to suggest that Bion united Cynic and Hedonistic principles in his mode of life-a compromise that was not so unlikely as might be supposed. Bion's att.i.tude cannot therefore be taken as typical of Cynicism. Another Cynic of about the same period (the beginning of the third century) was Menippus of Gadara (in northern Palestine). He wrote tales and dialogues in a mixture of prose and verse. The contents were satirical, the satire being directed against the contemporary philosophers and their doctrines, and against the popular notions of the G.o.ds. Menippus availed himself partly of the old criticism of mythology and partly of the philosophical attacks on the popular conception of the G.o.ds. The only novelty was the facetious form in which he concealed the sting of serious criticism. It is impossible to decide whether he positively denied the existence of the G.o.ds, but his satire on the popular notions and its success among his contemporaries at least testifies to the weakening of the popular faith among the educated cla.s.ses. In h.e.l.las itself he seems to have gone out of fas.h.i.+on very early; but the Romans took him up again; Varro and Seneca imitated him, and Lucian made his name famous again in the Greek world in the second century after Christ. It is chiefly due to Lucian that we can form an idea of Menippus's literary work, hence we shall return to Cynic satire in our chapter on the age of the Roman Empire.

During our survey of Greek philosophical thought in the h.e.l.lenistic period we have only met with a few cases of atheism in the strict sense, and they all occur about and immediately after 300, though there does not seem to be any internal connexion between them. About the same time there appeared a writer, outside the circle of philosophers, who is regularly listed among the _atheoi_, and who has given a name to a peculiar theory about the origin of the idea of the G.o.ds, namely, Euhemerus. He is said to have travelled extensively in the service of King Ca.s.sander of Macedonia. At any rate he published his theological views in the shape of a book of travel which was, however, wholly fiction. He relates how he came to an island, Panchaia, in the Indian Ocean, and in a temple there found a lengthy inscription in which Uranos, Kronos, Zeus and other G.o.ds recorded their exploits. The substance of the tale was that these G.o.ds had once been men, great kings and rulers, who had bestowed on their peoples all sorts of improvements in civilisation and had thus got themselves wors.h.i.+pped as G.o.ds. It appears from the accounts that Euhemerus supposed the heavenly bodies to be real and eternal G.o.ds-he thought that Uranos had first taught men to wors.h.i.+p them; further, as his theory is generally understood, it must be a.s.sumed that in his opinion the other G.o.ds had ceased to exist as such after their death. This accords with the fact that Euhemerus was generally characterised as an atheist.

The theory that the G.o.ds were at first men was not originated by Euhemerus, though it takes its name (Euhemerism) from him. The theory had some support in the popular faith which recognised G.o.ds (Heracles, Asclepius) who had lived as men on earth; and the opinion which was fundamental to Greek religion, that the G.o.ds had _come into existence_, and had not existed from eternity, would favour this theory. Moreover, Euhemerus had had an immediate precursor in the slightly earlier Hecataeus of Abdera, who had set forth a similar theory, with the difference, however, that he took the view that all excellent men became real G.o.ds.

But Euhemerus's theory appeared just at the right moment and fell on fertile soil. Alexander the Great and his successors had adopted the Oriental policy by which the ruler was wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d, and were supported in this by a tendency which had already made itself felt occasionally among the Greeks in the East. Euhemerus only inverted matters-if the rulers were G.o.ds, it was an obvious inference that the G.o.ds were rulers. No wonder that his theory gained a large following. Its great influence is seen from numerous similar attempts in the h.e.l.lenistic world.

At Rome, in the second century, Ennius translated his works into Latin, and as late as the time of Augustus an author such as Diodorus, in his popular history of the world, served up Euhemerism as the best scientific explanation of the origin of religion. It is characteristic, too, that both Jews and Christians, in their attacks on Paganism, reckoned with Euhemerism as a well-established theory. As every one knows, it has survived to our day; Carlyle, I suppose, being its last prominent exponent.

It is characteristic of Euhemerism in its most radical form that it a.s.sumed that the G.o.ds of polytheism did not exist; so far it is atheism.

But it is no less characteristic that it made the concession to popular belief that its G.o.ds had once existed. Hereby it takes its place, in spite of its greater radicalism, on the same plane with most other ancient theories about the origin of men's notions about the G.o.ds. The G.o.ds of popular belief could not survive in the light of ancient thought, which in its essence was free-thought, not tied down by dogmas. But the philosophers of old could not but believe that a psychological fact of such enormous dimensions as ancient polytheism must have something answering to it in the objective world. Ancient philosophy never got clear of this dilemma; hence Plato's open recognition of the absurdity; hence Aristotle's delight at being able to meet the popular faith half-way in his a.s.sumption of the divinity of the heavenly bodies; hence Xenocrates's demons, the allegories of the Stoics, the ideal Epicureans of Epicurus, Euhemerus's early benefactors of mankind. And we may say that the more the Greeks got to know of the world about them the more they were confirmed in their view, for in the varied multiplicity of polytheism they found the same principle everywhere, the same belief in a mult.i.tude of beings of a higher order than man.

Euhemerus's theory is no doubt the last serious attempt in the old pagan world to give an explanation of the popular faith which may be called genuine atheism. We will not, however, leave the h.e.l.lenistic period without casting a glance at some personalities about whom we have information enough to form an idea at first hand of their religious standpoint, and whose att.i.tude towards popular belief at any rate comes very near to atheism pure and simple.

One of them is Polybius. In the above-cited pa.s.sage referring to the decline of the popular faith in the h.e.l.lenistic period, Polybius also gives his own theory of the origin of men's notions regarding the G.o.ds. It is not new. It is the theory known from the Critias fragment, what may be called the political theory. In the fragment it appears as atheism pure and simple, and it seems obvious to understand it in the same way in Polybius. That he shows a leaning towards Euhemerism in another pa.s.sage where he speaks about the origin of religious ideas, is in itself not against this-the two theories are closely related and might very well be combined. But we have a series of pa.s.sages in which Polybius expressed himself in a way that seems quite irreconcilable with a purely atheistic standpoint. He expressly acknowledged divination and wors.h.i.+p as justified; in several places he refers to disasters that have befallen individuals or a whole people as being sent by the G.o.ds, or even as a punishment for impiety; and towards the close of his work he actually, in marked contrast to the tone of its beginning, offers up a prayer to the G.o.ds to grant him a happy ending to his long life. It would seem as if Polybius at a certain period of his life came under the influence of Stoicism and in consequence greatly modified his earlier views. That these were of an atheistic character seems, however, beyond doubt, and that is the decisive point in this connexion.

Cicero's philosophical standpoint was that of an Academic, _i.e._ a Sceptic. But-in accord, for the rest, with the doctrines of the school just at this period-he employed his liberty as a Sceptic to favour such philosophical doctrines as seemed to him more reasonable than others, regardless of the school from which they were derived. In his philosophy of religion he was more especially a Stoic. He himself expressly insisted on this point of view in the closing words of his work on the _Nature of the G.o.ds_. As he was not, and made no pretence of being, a philosopher, his philosophical expositions have no importance for us; they are throughout second-hand, mostly mere translations from Greek sources. That we have employed them in the foregoing pages to throw light on the theology of the earlier, more especially the h.e.l.lenistic, philosophy, goes without saying. But his personal religious standpoint is not without interest.

As orator and statesman Cicero took his stand wholly on the side of the established Roman religion, operating with the "immortal G.o.ds," with Jupiter Optimus Maximus, etc., at his convenience. In his works on the _State_ and the _Laws_ he adheres decidedly to the established religion.

But all this is mere politics. Personally Cicero had no religion other than philosophy. Philosophy was his consolation in adversity, or he attempted to make it so, for the result was often indifferent; and he looked to philosophy to guide him in ethical questions. We never find any indication in his writings that the G.o.ds of popular belief meant anything to him in these respects. And what is more-he a.s.sumed this off-hand to be the standpoint of everybody else, and evidently he was justified. A great number of letters from him to his circle, and not a few from his friends and acquaintances to him, have been preserved; and in his philosophical writings he often introduces contemporary Romans as characters in the dialogue. But in all this literature there is never the faintest indication that a Roman of the better cla.s.s entertained, or could even be supposed to entertain, an orthodox view with regard to the State religion.

To Cicero and his circle the popular faith did not exist as an element of their personal religion.

Such a standpoint is of course, practically speaking, atheism, and in this sense atheism was widely spread among the higher cla.s.ses of the Graeco-Roman society about the time of the birth of Christ. But from this to theoretical atheism there is still a good step. Cicero himself affords an amusing example of how easily people, who have apparently quite emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the official religion of their community, may backslide. When his beloved daughter Tullia died in the year 45 B.C., it became evident that Cicero, in the first violence of his grief, which was the more overwhelming because he was excluded from political activity during Caesar's dictators.h.i.+p, could not console himself with philosophy alone. He wanted something more tangible to take hold on, and so he hit upon the idea of having Tullia exalted among the G.o.ds. He thought of building a temple and inst.i.tuting a cult in her honour. He moved heaven and earth to arrange the matter, sought to buy ground in a prominent place in Rome, and was willing to make the greatest pecuniary sacrifices to get a conspicuous result. Nothing came of it all, however; Cicero's friends, who were to help him to put the matter through, were perhaps hardly so eager as he; time a.s.suaged his own grief, and finally he contented himself with publis.h.i.+ng a consolatory epistle written by himself, or, correctly speaking, translated from a famous Greek work and adapted to the occasion.

So far he ended where he should, _i.e._ in philosophy; but the little incident is significant, not least because it shows what practical ends Euhemerism could be brought to serve and how doubtful was its atheistic character after all. For not only was the contemplated apotheosis of Tullia in itself a Euhemeristic idea, but Cicero also expressly defended it with Euhemeristic arguments, though speaking as if the departed who were wors.h.i.+pped as G.o.ds really had become G.o.ds.

The att.i.tude of Cicero and his contemporaries towards popular belief was still the general att.i.tude in the first days of the Empire. It was of no avail that Augustus re-established the decayed State cult in all its splendour and variety, or that the poets during his reign, when they wished to express themselves in harmony with the spirit of the new regime, directly or indirectly extolled the revived orthodoxy. Wherever we find personal religious feeling expressed by men of that time, in the Epistles of Horace, in Virgil's posthumous minor poems or in such pa.s.sages in his greater works where he expresses his own ideals, it is philosophy that is predominant and the official religion ignored. Virgil was an Epicurean; Horace an Eclectic, now an Epicurean, then a Stoic; Augustus had a domestic philosopher. Ovid employed his genius in writing travesties of the old mythology while at the same time he composed a poem, serious for him, on the Roman cult; and when disaster befell him and he was cast out from the society of the capital, which was the breath of life to him, he was abandoned not only by men, but also by the G.o.ds-he had not even a philosophy with which to console himself. It is only in inferior writers such as Valerius Maximus, who wrote a work on great deeds-good and evil-under Tiberius, that we find a different spirit.

Direct utterances about men's relations.h.i.+p to the G.o.ds, from which conclusions can be drawn, are seldom met with during this period. The whole question was so remote from the thoughts of these people that they never mentioned it except when they a.s.sumed an orthodox air for political or aesthetic reasons. Still, here and there we come across something. One of the most significant p.r.o.nouncements is that of Pliny the Elder, from whom we quoted the pa.s.sage about the wors.h.i.+p of Fortune. Pliny opens his scientific encyclopedia by explaining the structure of the universe in its broad features; this he does on the lines of the physics of the Stoics, hence he designates the universe as G.o.d. Next comes a survey of special theology. It is introduced as follows: "I therefore deem it a sign of human weakness to ask about the shape and form of G.o.d. Whoever G.o.d is, if any other G.o.d (than the universe) exists at all, and in whatever part of the world he is, he is all perception, all sight, all hearing, all soul, all reason, all self." The popular notions of the G.o.ds are then reviewed, in the most supercilious tone, and their absurdities pointed out. A polite bow is made to the wors.h.i.+p of the Emperors and its motives, the rest is little but persiflage. Not even Providence, which was recognised by the Stoics, is acknowledged by Pliny. The conclusion is like the beginning: "To imperfect human nature it is a special consolation that G.o.d also is not omnipotent (he can neither put himself to death, even if he would, though he has given man that power and it is his choicest gift in this punishment which is life; nor can he give immortality to mortals or call the dead to life; nor can he bring it to pa.s.s that those who have lived have not lived, or that he who has held honourable offices did not hold them); and that he has no other power over the past than that of oblivion; and that (in order that we may also give a jesting proof of our partners.h.i.+p with G.o.d) he cannot bring it about that twice ten is not twenty, and more of the same sort-by all which the power of Nature is clearly revealed, and that it is this we call G.o.d."

An opinion like that expressed here must without doubt be designated as atheism, even though it is nothing but the Stoic pantheism logically carried out. As we have said before, we rarely meet it so directly expressed, but there can hardly be any doubt that even in the time of Pliny it was quite common in Rome. At this point, then, had the educated cla.s.ses of the ancient world arrived under the influence of h.e.l.lenistic philosophy.

CHAPTER VII

Though the foundation of the Empire in many ways inaugurated a new era for the antique world, it is, of course, impossible, in an inquiry which is not confined to political history in the narrowest sense of the word, to operate with anything but the loosest chronological divisions. Accordingly in the last chapter we had to include phenomena from the early days of the Empire in order not to separate things which naturally belonged together.

From the point of view of religious history the dividing line cannot possibly be drawn at the Emperor Augustus, in spite of his restoration of wors.h.i.+p and the orthodox reaction in the official Augustan poetry, but rather at about the beginning of the second century. The enthusiasm of the Augustan Age for the good old times was never much more than affectation.

It quickly evaporated when the promised millennium was not forthcoming, and was replaced by a reserve which developed into cynicism-but, be it understood, in the upper circles of the capital only. In the empire at large the development took its natural tranquil course, unaffected by the manner in which the old Roman n.o.bility was effacing itself; and this development did not tend towards atheism.

The reaction towards positive religious feeling, which becomes clearly manifest in the second century after Christ, though the preparation for it is undoubtedly of earlier date, is perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon in the religious history of antiquity. This is not the place to inquire into its causes, which still remain largely unexplained; there is even no reason to enter more closely into its outer manifestations, as the thing itself is doubted by n.o.body. It is sufficient to mention as instances authors like Suetonius, with his nave belief in miracles, and the rhetorician Aristides, with his Asclepius-cult and general sanctimoniousness; or a minor figure such as Aelian, who wrote whole books of a p.r.o.nounced, nay even fanatical, devotionalism; or within the sphere of philosophy movements like Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism, both of which are as much in the nature of mystic theology as attempts at a scientific explanation of the universe. It is characteristic, too, that an essentially anti-religious school like that of the Epicureans actually dies out at this time. Under these conditions our task in this chapter must be to bring out the comparatively few and weak traces of other currents which still made themselves felt.

Of the earlier philosophical schools Stoicism flowered afresh in the second century; the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself was a prominent adherent of the creed. This later Stoicism differs, however, somewhat from the earlier. It limits the scientific apparatus which the early Stoics had operated with to a minimum, and is almost exclusively concerned with practical ethics on a religious basis. Its religion is that of ordinary Stoicism: Pantheism and belief in Providence. But, on the whole, it takes up a more sympathetic att.i.tude towards popular religion than early Stoicism had done. Of the bitter criticism of the absurdities of the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds and of mythology which is still to be met with as late as Seneca, nothing remains. On the contrary, partic.i.p.ation in public wors.h.i.+p is still enjoined as being a duty; nay, more: attacks on belief in the G.o.ds-in the plain popular sense of the word-are denounced as pernicious and reprehensible. Perhaps no clearer proof could be adduced of the revolution which had taken place in the att.i.tude of the educated cla.s.ses towards popular religion than this change of front on the part of Stoicism.

Contrary to this was the att.i.tude of another school which was in vogue at the same time as the Stoic, namely, the Cynic. Between Cynicism and popular belief strained relations had existed since early times. It is true, the Cynics did not altogether deny the existence of the G.o.ds; but they rejected wors.h.i.+p on the ground that the G.o.ds were not in need of anything, and they denied categorically the majority of the popular ideas about the G.o.ds. For the latter were, in fact, popular and traditional, and the whole aim of the Cynics was to antagonise the current estimate of values. A characteristic instance of their manner is provided by this very period in the fragments of the work of Oenomaus. The work was ent.i.tled _The Swindlers Unmasked_, and it contained a violent attack on oracles.

Its tone is exceedingly pungent. In the extant fragments Oenomaus addresses the G.o.d in Delphi and overwhelms him with insults. But we are expressly told-and one utterance of Oenomaus himself verifies it-that the attack was not really directed against the G.o.d, but against the men who gave oracles in his name. In his opinion the whole thing was a priestly fraud-a view which otherwise was rather unfamiliar to the ancients, but played an important part later. Incidentally there is a violent attack on idolatry. The work is not without acuteness of thought and a certain coa.r.s.e wit of the true Cynical kind; but it is entirely uncritical (oracles are used which are evidently inventions of later times) and of no great significance. It is even difficult to avoid the impression that the author's aim is in some degree to create a sensation. Cynics of that day were not strangers to that kind of thing. But it is at any rate a proof of the fact that there were at the time tendencies opposed to the religious reaction.

A more significant phenomenon of the same kind is to be found in the writings of Lucian. Lucian was by education a rhetorician, by profession an itinerant lecturer and essayist. At a certain stage of his life he became acquainted with the Cynic philosophy and for some time felt much attracted to it. From that he evidently acquired a sincere contempt of the vulgar superst.i.tion which flourished in his time, even in circles of which one might have expected something better. In writings which for the greater part belong to his later period, he pilloried individuals who traded (or seemed to trade) in the religious ferment of the time, as well as satirised superst.i.tion as such. In this way he made an important contribution to the spiritual history of the age. But simultaneously he produced, for the entertainment of his public, a series of writings the aim of which is to make fun of the Olympian G.o.ds. In this work also he leant on the literature of the Cynics, but subst.i.tuted for their grave and biting satire light causeries or slight dramatic sketches, in which his wit-for Lucian was really witty-had full scope. As an instance of his manner I shall quote a short pa.s.sage from the dialogue _Timon_. It is Zeus who speaks; he has given Hermes orders to send the G.o.d of wealth to Timon, who has wasted his fortune by his liberality and is now abandoned by his false friends. Then he goes on: "As to the flatterers you speak of and their ingrat.i.tude, I shall deal with them another time, and they will meet with their due punishment as soon as I have had my thunderbolt repaired.

The two largest darts of it were broken and blunted the other day when I got in a rage and flung it at the sophist Anaxagoras, who was trying to make his disciples believe that we G.o.ds do not exist at all. However, I missed him, for Pericles held his hand over him, but the bolt struck the temple of the Dioscuri and set fire to it, and the bolt itself was nearly destroyed when it struck the rock." This sort of thing abounds in Lucian, even if it is not always equally amusing and to the point. Now there is nothing strange in the fact that a witty man for once should feel inclined to make game of the old mythology; this might have happened almost at any time, once the critical spirit had been awakened. But that a man, and moreover an essayist, who had to live by the approval of his public, should make it his trade, as it were, and that at a time of vigorous religious reaction, seems more difficult to account for. Lucian's controversial pamphlets against superst.i.tion cannot be cla.s.sed off-hand with his _Dialogues of the G.o.ds_; the latter are of a quite different and far more harmless character. The fact is rather that mythology at this time was fair game. It was cut off from its connexion with religion-a connexion which in historical times was never very intimate and was now entirely severed. This had been brought about in part by centuries of criticism of the most varied kind, in part precisely as a result of the religious reaction which had now set in. If people turned during this time to the old G.o.ds-who, however, had been considerably contaminated with new elements-it was because they had nothing else to turn to; but what they now looked for was something quite different from the old religion. The powerful tradition which had bound members of each small community-we should say, of each towns.h.i.+p-to its familiar G.o.ds, with all that belonged to them, was now in process of dissolution; in the larger cities of the world-empire with their mixed populations it had entirely disappeared.

Religion was no longer primarily a concern of society; it was a personal matter. In the face of the enormous selection of G.o.ds which ancient paganism came gradually to proffer, the individual was free to choose, as individual or as a member of a communion based upon religious, not political, sympathy. Under these circ.u.mstances the existence of the G.o.ds and their power and will to help their wors.h.i.+ppers was the only thing of interest; all the old tales about them were more than ever myths of no religious value. On closer inspection Lucian indeed proves to have exercised a certain selection in his satire. G.o.ds like Asclepius and Serapis, who were popular in his day, he prefers to say nothing about; and even with a phenomenon like Christianity he deals cautiously; he sticks to the old Olympian G.o.ds. Thus his derision of these const.i.tutes an indirect proof that they had gone out of vogue, and his forbearance on other points is a proof of the power of the current religion over contemporary minds.

As to ascribing any deeper religious conviction to Lucian-were it even of a purely negative kind-that is, in view of the whole character of his work, out of the question. To be sure, his polemical pamphlets against superst.i.tion show clearly, like those of Oenomaus, that the religious reaction did not run its course without criticism from certain sides; but even here it is significant that the criticism comes from a professional jester and not from a serious religious thinker.

A few words remain to be said about the two monotheistic religions which in the days of the Roman Empire came to play a great, one of them indeed a decisive, part. I have already referred to pagan society's att.i.tude towards Judaism and Christianity, and pointed out that the adherents of both were designated and treated as atheists-the Jews only occasionally and with certain reservations, the Christians nearly always and unconditionally. The question here is, how far this designation was justified according to the definition of atheism which is the basis of our inquiry.

In the preceding pages we have several times referred to the fact that the real enemy of Polytheism is not the philosophical theology, which generally tends more or less towards Pantheism, but Monotheism. It is in keeping with this that the Jews and the Christians in practice are downright deniers of the pagan G.o.ds: they would not wors.h.i.+p them; whereas the Greek philosophers as a rule respected wors.h.i.+p, however far they went in their criticism of men's ideas of the G.o.ds. We shall not dwell here on this aspect of the matter; we are concerned with the theory only. Detailed expositions of it occur in numerous writings, from the pa.s.sages in the Old Testament where heathenism is attacked, to the defences of Christianity by the latest Fathers of the Church.

The original Jewish view, according to which the heathen G.o.ds are real beings just as much as the G.o.d of the Jews themselves-only Jews must not wors.h.i.+p them-is in the later portions of the Old Testament superseded by the view that the G.o.ds are only images made of wood, stone or metal, and incapable of doing either good or evil. This point of view is taken over by later Jewish authors and completely dominates them. In those acquainted with Greek thought it is combined with Euhemeristic ideas: the images represent dead men. The theory that the G.o.ds are really natural objects-elements or heavenly bodies-is occasionally taken into account too. Alongside of these opinions there appears also the view that the pagan G.o.ds are evil spirits (demons). It is already found in a few places in the Old Testament, and after that sporadically and quite incidentally in later Jewish writings; in one place it is combined with the Old Testament's account of the fallen angels. The demon-theory is not an instrument of Jewish apologetics proper, not even of Philo, though he has a complete demonology and can hardly have been ignorant of the Platonic-Stoic doctrine of demons.

Apart from the few and, as it were, incidental utterances concerning demons, the Jewish view of the pagan G.o.ds impresses one as decidedly atheistic. The G.o.d is identical with the idol, and the idol is a dead object, the work of men's hands, or the G.o.d is identical with a natural object, made by G.o.d to be sure, but without soul or, at any rate, without divinity. It is remarkable that no Jewish controversialist seriously envisaged the problem of the real view of the G.o.ds embodied in the popular belief of the ancients, namely, that they are personal beings of a higher order than man. It is inconceivable that men like Philo, Josephus and the author of the Wisdom of Solomon should have been ignorant of it. I know nothing to account for this curious phenomenon; and till some light has been thrown upon the matter, I should hesitate to a.s.sert that the Jewish conception of Polytheism was purely atheistic, however much appearance it may have of being so.

It was otherwise with Christian polemical writing. As early as St. Paul the demon-theory appears distinctly, though side by side with utterances of seemingly atheistic character. Other New Testament authors, too, designate the G.o.ds as demons. The subsequent apologists, excepting the earliest, Aristides, lay the main stress on demonology, but include for the sake of completeness idolatry and the like, sometimes without caring about or trying to conciliate the contradictions. In the long run demonology is victorious; in St. Augustine, the foremost among Christian apologists, there is hardly any other point of view that counts.

To trace the Christian demonology in detail and give an account of its various aspects is outside the scope of this essay. Its origin is a twofold one, partly the Jewish demonology, which just at the commencement of our era had received a great impetus, partly the theory of the Greek philosophers, which we have characterised above when speaking of Xenocrates. The Christian doctrine regarding demons differs from the latter, especially by the fact that it does not acknowledge good demons; they were all evil. This was the indispensable basis for the interdict against the wors.h.i.+p of demons; in its further development the Christians, following Jewish tradition, pointed to an origin in the fallen angels, and thus effected a connexion with the Old Testament. While they at the same time retained its angelology they had to distinguish good and evil beings intermediate between G.o.d and man; but they carefully avoided designating the angels as demons, and kept them distinct from the pagan G.o.ds, who were all demons and evil.

The application of demonology to the pagan wors.h.i.+p caused certain difficulties in detail. To be sure, it was possible to identify a given pagan G.o.d with a certain demon, and this was often done; but it was impossible to identify the Pagans' conceptions of their G.o.ds with the Christians' conceptions of demons. The Pagans, in fact, ascribed to their G.o.ds not only demoniac (diabolical) but also divine qualities, which the Christians absolutely denied them. Consequently they had to recognise that pagan wors.h.i.+p to a great extent rested on a delusion, on a misconception of the essential character of the G.o.ds which were wors.h.i.+pped. This view was corroborated by the dogma of the fallen angels, which was altogether alien to paganism. By identifying them with the evil spirits of the Bible, demon-names were even obtained which differed from those of the pagan G.o.ds and, of course, were the correct ones; were they not given in Holy Writ?

In general, the Christians, who possessed an authentic revelation of the matter, were of course much better informed about the nature of the pagan G.o.ds than the Pagans themselves, who were groping in the dark. Euhemerism, which plays a great part in the apologists, helped in the same direction: the supposition that the idols were originally men existed among the Pagans themselves, and it was too much in harmony with the tendency of the apologists to be left unemployed. It was reconciled with demonology by the supposition that the demons had a.s.sumed the masks of dead heroes; they had beguiled mankind to wors.h.i.+p them in order to possess themselves of the sacrifices, which they always coveted, and by this deception to be able to rule and corrupt men. The Christians also could not avoid recognising that part of the pagan wors.h.i.+p was wors.h.i.+p of natural objects, in particular of the heavenly bodies; and this error of wors.h.i.+pping the "creation instead of the creator" was so obvious that the Christians were not inclined to resort to demonology for an explanation of this phenomenon, the less so as they could not identify the sun or the moon with a demon. The conflict of these different points of view accounts for the peculiar vacillation in the Christian conception of paganism. On one hand, we meet with crude conceptions, according to which the pagan G.o.ds are just like so many demons; they are specially prominent when pagan miracles and prophecies are to be explained. On the other hand, there is a train of thought which carried to its logical conclusion would lead to conceiving paganism as a whole as a huge delusion of humanity, but a delusion caused indeed by supernatural agencies. This conclusion hardly presented itself to the early Church; later, however, it was drawn and caused a not inconsiderable s.h.i.+fting in men's views and explanations of paganism.

Demonology is to such a degree the ruling point of view in Christian apologetics that it would be absurd to make a collection from these writings of utterances with an atheistic ring. Such utterances are to be found in most of them; they appear spontaneously, for instance, wherever idolatry is attacked. But one cannot attach any importance to them when they appear in this connexion, not even in apologists in whose works the demon theory is lacking. No Christian theologian in antiquity advanced, much less sustained, the view that the pagan G.o.ds were mere phantoms of human imagination without any corresponding reality.

Remarkable as this state of things may appear to us moderns, it is really quite simple, nay even a matter of course, when regarded historically.

Christianity had from its very beginning a decidedly dualistic character.

The contrast between this world and the world to come was identical with the contrast between the kingdom of the Devil and the kingdom of G.o.d. As soon as the new religion came into contact with paganism, the latter was necessarily regarded as belonging to the kingdom of the Devil; thus the conception of the G.o.ds as demons was a foregone conclusion. In the minds of the later apologists, who became acquainted with Greek philosophy, this conception received additional confirmation; did it not indeed agree in the main with Platonic and Stoic theory? Details were added: the Christians could not deny the pagan miracles without throwing a doubt on their own, for miracles cannot be done away with at all except by a denial on principle; neither could they explain paganism-that gigantic, millennial aberration of humanity-by merely human causes, much less lay the blame on G.o.d alone. But ultimately all this rests on one and the same thing-the supernatural and dualistic hypothesis. Consequently demonology is the kernel of the Christian conception of paganism: it is not merely a natural result of the hypotheses, it is the one and only correct expression of the way in which the new religion understood the old.