We Philologists Part 9

126

At what a distance must one be from the Greeks to ascribe to them such a stupidly narrow autochthony as does Ottfried Muller![10] How Christian it is to a.s.sume, with Welcker,[11] that the Greeks were originally monotheistic! How philologists torment themselves by investigating the question whether Homer actually wrote, without being able to grasp the far higher tenet that Greek art long exhibited an inward enmity against writing, and did not wish to be read at all.

127

In the religious cultus an earlier degree of culture comes to light a remnant of former times. The ages that celebrate it are not those which invent it, the contrary is often the case. There are many contrasts to be found here. The Greek cultus takes us back to a pre-Homeric disposition and culture. It is almost the oldest that we know of the Greeks--older than their mythology, which their poets have considerably remoulded, so far as we know it--Can this cult really be called Greek? I doubt it: they are finishers, not inventors. They _preserve_ by means of this beautiful completion and adornment.

128

It is exceedingly doubtful whether we should draw any conclusion in regard to nationality and relations.h.i.+p with other nations from languages. A victorious language is nothing but a frequent (and not always regular) indication of a successful campaign. Where could there have been autochthonous peoples! It shows a very hazy conception of things to talk about Greeks who never lived in Greece. That which is really Greek is much less the result of natural apt.i.tude than of adapted inst.i.tutions, and also of an acquired language.

129

To live on mountains, to travel a great deal, and to move quickly from one place to another . in these ways we can now begin to compare ourselves with the Greek G.o.ds. We know the past, too, and we almost know the future. What would a Greek say, if only he could see us!

130

The G.o.ds make men still more evil; this is the nature of man. If we do not like a man, we wish that he may become worse than he is, and then we are glad. This forms part of the obscure philosophy of hate--a philosophy which has never yet been written, because it is everywhere the _pudendum_ that every one feels.

131

The pan-h.e.l.lenic Homer finds his delight in the frivolity of the G.o.ds; but it is astounding how he can also give them dignity again. This amazing ability to raise one's self again, however, is Greek.

132

What, then, is the origin of the envy of the G.o.ds? people did not believe in a calm, quiet happiness, but only in an exuberant one. This must have caused some displeasure to the Greeks; for their soul was only too easily wounded: it embittered them to see a happy man. That is Greek. If a man of distinguished talent appeared, the flock of envious people must have become astonis.h.i.+ngly large. If any one met with a misfortune, they would say of him: "Ah! no wonder! he was too frivolous and too well off." And every one of them would have behaved exuberantly if he had possessed the requisite talent, and would willingly have played the role of the G.o.d who sent the unhappiness to men.

133

The Greek G.o.ds did not demand any complete changes of character, and were, generally speaking, by no means burdensome or importunate . it was thus possible to take them seriously and to believe in them. At the time of Homer, indeed, the nature of the Greek was formed flippancy of images and imagination was necessary to lighten the weight of its pa.s.sionate disposition and to set it free.

134

Every religion has for its highest images an a.n.a.logon in the spiritual condition of those who profess it. The G.o.d of Mohammed . the solitariness of the desert, the distant roar of the lion, the vision of a formidable warrior. The G.o.d of the Christians . everything that men and women think of when they hear the word "love". The G.o.d of the Greeks: a beautiful apparition in a dream.

135

A great deal of intelligence must have gone to the making up of a Greek polytheism . the expenditure of intelligence is much less lavish when people have only _one_ G.o.d.

136

Greek morality is not based on religion, but on the _polis_.

There were only priests of the individual G.o.ds; not representatives of the whole religion . _i.e._, no guild of priests. Likewise no Holy Writ.

137

The "lighthearted" G.o.ds this is the highest adornment which has ever been bestowed upon the world--with the feeling, How difficult it is to live!

138

If the Greeks let their "reason" speak, their life seems to them bitter and terrible. They are not deceived. But they play round life with lies: Simonides advises them to treat life as they would a play; earnestness was only too well known to them in the form of pain. The misery of men is a pleasure to the G.o.ds when they hear the poets singing of it. Well did the Greeks know that only through art could even misery itself become a source of pleasure, _vide tragoediam_.

139

It is quite untrue to say that the Greeks only took _this_ life into their consideration--they suffered also from thoughts of death and h.e.l.l.

But no "repentance" or contrition.

140

The incarnate appearance of G.o.ds, as in Sappho's invocation to Aphrodite, must not be taken as poetic licence they are frequently hallucinations. We conceive of a great many things, including the will to die, too superficially as rhetorical.

141

The "martyr" is h.e.l.lenic: Prometheus, Hercules. The hero-myth became pan-h.e.l.lenic: a poet must have had a hand in that!

142

How _realistic_ the Greeks were even in the domain of pure inventions!

They poetised reality, not yearning to lift themselves out of it. The raising of the present into the colossal and eternal, _e.g._, by Pindar.

143

What condition do the Greeks premise as the model of their life in Hades? Anaemic, dreamlike, weak . it is the continuous accentuation of old age, when the memory gradually becomes weaker and weaker, and the body still more so. The senility of senility . this would be our state of life in the eyes of the h.e.l.lenes.

144

The naive character of the Greeks observed by the Egyptians.