The incongruity of all this with any adequate conception of deity is
patent, if once the critical attitude be adopted; and it was adopted by
some of the clearest and most religious minds of Greece. Nay, even
orthodoxy itself did not refrain from a genial and sympathetic
criticism. Aristophanes, for example, who, if there had been an
established church, would certainly have been described as one of its
main pillars, does not scruple to represent his Birds as issuing--
"A warning and notices, formally given,
To Jove, and all others residing in heaven,
Forbidding them ever to venture again
To trespass on our atmospheric domain,
With scandalous journeys, to visit a list
Of Alcmenas and Semeles; if they persist,
We warn them that means will be taken moreover
To stop their gallanting and acting the lover,"
[Footnote: Aristophanes, "Birds" 556.--Translation by Frere.]
and Heracles the glutton, and Dionysus, the dandy and the coward, are
familiar figures of his comic stage. The attitude of Aristophanes, it is
true, is not really critical, but sympathetic; it was no more his
intention to injure the popular creed by his fun than it is the
intention of the cartoons of Punch to undermine the reputation of our
leading statesmen. On the contrary, nothing popularises like genial
ridicule; and of this Aristophanes was well aware. But the same
characteristics of the god which suggested the friendly burlesque of the
comedian were also those which provoked the indignation and the disgust
of more serious minds. The poet Pindar, for example, after referring to
the story of a battle, in which it was said gods had fought against
gods, breaks out into protest against a legend so little creditable to
the divine nature:--" O my mouth, fling this tale from thee, for to
speak evil of gods is a hateful wisdom, and loud and unmeasured words
strike a note that trembleth upon madness. Of such things talk thou not;
leave war and all strife of immortals aside." [Footnote: Pind. Ol. IX
54.--Translation by E. Myers.] And the same note is taken up with
emphasis, and reiterated in every quality of tone, by such writers as
Euripides and Plato.
The attitude of Euripides towards the popular religion is so clearly and
frankly critical that a recent writer has even gone so far as to
maintain that his main object in the construction of his dramas was to
discredit the myths he selected for his theme. However that may have
been, it is beyond controversy true that the deep religious sense of
this most modern of the Greeks was puzzled and repelled by the tales he
was bound by tradition to dramatize; and that he put into the mouth of
his characters reflexions upon the conduct of the gods which if they may
not be taken as his own deliberate opinions, are at least expressions of
one aspect of his thought. It was, in fact, impossible to reconcile with
a profound and philosophic view of the divine nature the intrigues and
amours, partialities, antipathies, actions and counter-actions of these
anthropomorphic deities. Consider, for example, the most famous of all
the myths, that of Orestes, to which we have already referred. Orestes,
it will be remembered, was the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
Agamemnon, on his return from Troy, was murdered by Clytemnestra.
Orestes escapes; but returns later, at the instigation of Apollo, and
kills his mother to avenge his father. Thereupon, in punishment for his
crime, he is persecuted by the Furies. Now the point which Euripides
seizes here is the conduct of Apollo. Either it was right for Orestes to
kill his mother, or it was wrong. If wrong, why did Apollo command it?
If right, why was Orestes punished? Or are there, as Aeschylus would
have it, two "rights", one of Apollo, the other of the Furies? If so,
what becomes of that unity of the divine law after which every religious
nature seeks? "Phoebus," cries the Orestes of Euripides, "prophet though
he be, deceived me. I gave him my all, I killed my mother in obedience
to his command; and in return I am undone myself." [Footnote: Euripides,
Iph. Taur. 711] The dilemma is patent; and Euripides makes no serious
attempt to meet it.
Or again, to take another example, less familiar, but even more to the
point--the tale of Ion and Creusa. Creusa has been seduced by Apollo and
has borne him a child, the Ion of the story. This child she exposes, and
it is conveyed by Hermes to Delphi, where at last it is found, and
recognised by the mother, and a conventionally happy ending is patched
up. But the point on which the poet has insisted throughout is, once
more, the conduct of Apollo. What is to be made of a god who seduces and
deserts a mortal woman; who suffers her to expose her child, and leaves
her in ignorance of its fate? Does he not deserve the reproaches heaped
upon him by his victim?--
"Child of Latona, I cry to the sun--I will publish
thy shame!
Thou with thy tresses a-shimmer with gold, through the
flowers as I came
Plucking the crocuses, heaping my veil with their gold-
litten flame,
Cam'st on me, caughtest the poor pallid wrists of mine
hands, and didst hale
Unto thy couch in the cave. 'Mother! mother!' I
shrieked out my wail--
Wroughtest the pleasure of Kypris; no shame made the
god-lover quail.
Wretched I bare thee a child, and I cast him with
shuddering throe
Forth on thy couch where thou forcedst thy victim, a
bride-bed of woe.
Lost--my poor baby and thine! for the eagles devoured
him: and lo!
Victory-songs to thy lyre dost thou chant!--Ho, I
call to thee, son
Born to Latona, Dispenser of boding, on gold-gleaming
throne
Midmost of earth who art sitting:--thine ears shall be
pierced with my moan!
Thy Delos doth hate thee, thy bay-boughs abhor thee,
By the palm-tree of feathery frondage that rose
Where in sacred travail Latona bore thee
In Zeus's garden close."
[Footnote: Euripid. Ion, 885.--Translated by A. S. Way.]
This is a typical example of the kind of criticism which Euripides
conveys through the lips of his characters on the stage. And the points
which he can only dramatically suggest, Plato expounds directly in his
own person. The quarrel of the philosopher with the myths is not that
they are not true, but that they are not edifying. They represent the
son in rebellion against the father--Zeus against Kronos, Kronos against
Uranos; they describe the gods as intriguing and fighting one against
the other; they depict them as changing their form divine into the
semblance of mortal men; lastly--culmination of horror!--they represent
them as laughing, positively laughing!--Or again, to turn to a more
metaphysical point, if God be good, it is argued by Plato, he cannot be
the author of evil. What then, are we to make of the passage in Homer
where he says, "two urns stand upon the floor of Zeus filled with his
evil gifts, and one with blessings. To whomsoever Zeus whose joy is in
the lightning dealeth a mingled lot, that man chanceth now upon ill and
now again on good, but to whom he giveth but of the bad kind, him he
bringeth to scorn, and evil famine chaseth him over the goodly earth,
and he is a wanderer honoured of neither gods nor men." [Footnote: Il.
xxiv. 527--Translated by Lang, Leaf and Myers.]
And again, if God be true, he cannot be the author of lies. How then
could he have sent, as we are told he did, lying dreams to men?--
Clearly, concludes the philosopher, our current legends need revision;
in the interest of religion itself we must destroy the myths of the
popular creed.