THE RELIGION OF THE ATHENIANS.
"All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion
(deisidaimonesterous). For as I passed through your city, and beheld the
objects of your worship, I found amongst them an altar with this
inscription--'TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.' Whom therefore ye worship...."--ST.
PAUL.
Through one of those remarkable counter-strokes of Divine Providence by
which the evil designs of men are overruled, and made to subserve the
purposes of God, the Apostle Paul was brought to Athens. He walked
beneath its stately porticoes, he entered its solemn temples, he stood
before its glorious statuary, he viewed its beautiful altars--all
devoted to pagan worship. And "his spirit was stirred within him," he
was moved with indignation "when he saw the city full of images of the
gods."[95] At the very entrance of the city he met the evidence of this
peculiar tendency of the Athenians to multiply the objects of their
devotion; for here at the gateway stands an image of Neptune, seated on
horseback, and brandishing the trident. Passing through the gate, his
attention would be immediately arrested by the sculptured forms of
Minerva, Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, and the Muses, standing near a
sanctuary of Bacchus. A long street is now before him, with temples,
statues, and altars crowded on either hand. Walking to the end of this
street, and turning to the right, he entered the Agora, a public square
surrounded with porticoes and temples, which were adorned with statuary
and paintings in honor of the gods of Grecian mythology. Amid the
plane-trees planted by the hand of Cimon are the statues of the deified
heroes of Athens, Hercules and Theseus, and the whole series of the
Eponymi, together with the memorials of the older divinities; Mercuries
which gave the name to the streets on which they were placed; statues
dedicated to Apollo as patron of the city and her deliverer from the
plague; and in the centre of all the altar of the Twelve Gods.
[Footnote 95: Lange's Commentary, Acts xvii. 16.]
Standing in the market-place, and looking up to the Areopagus, Paul
would see the temple of Mars, from whom the hill derived its name. And
turning toward the Acropolis, he would behold, closing the long
perspective, a series of little sanctuaries on the very ledges of the
rocks, shrines of Bacchus and Æsculapius, Venus, Earth, and Ceres,
ending with the lovely form of the Temple of Unwinged Victory, which
glittered in front of the Propylæa.
If the apostle entered the "fivefold gates," and ascended the flight of
stone steps to the platform of the Acropolis, he would find the whole
area one grand composition of architecture and statuary dedicated to the
worship of the gods. Here stood the Parthenon, the Virgin House, the
glorious temple which was erected during the proudest days of Athenian
glory, an entire offering to Minerva, the tutelary divinity of Athens.
Within was the colossal statue of the goddess wrought in ivory and gold.
Outside the temple there stood another statue of Minerva, cast from the
brazen spoils of Marathon; and near by yet another brazen Pallas, which
was called by pre-eminence "the Beautiful."
Indeed, to whatever part of Athens the apostle wandered, he would meet
the evidences of their "carefulness in religion," for every public place
and every public building was a sanctuary of some god. The Metroum, or
record-house, was a temple to the mother of the gods. The council-house
held statues of Apollo and Jupiter, with an altar to Vesta. The theatre
at the base of the Acropolis was consecrated to Bacchus. The Pnyx was
dedicated to Jupiter on high. And as if, in this direction, the Attic
imagination knew no bounds, abstractions were deified; altars were
erected to Fame, to Energy, to Modesty, and even to Pity, and these
abstractions were honored and worshipped as gods.
The impression made upon the mind of Paul was, that the city was
literally "full of idols," or images of the gods. This impression is
sustained by the testimony of numerous Greek and Roman writers.
Pausanias declares that Athens "had more images than all the rest of
Greece;" and Petronius, the Roman satirist, says, "it was easier to find
a god in Athens than a man."[96]
[Footnote 96: See Conybeare and Howson's "Life and Epistles of St.
Paul;" also, art. "Athens," in _Encyclopædia Britannica_, whence our
account of the "sacred objects" in Athens is chiefly gathered.]
No wonder, then, that as Paul wandered amid these scenes "his spirit was
stirred in him." He burned with holy zeal to maintain the honor of the
true and only God, whom now he saw dishonored on every side. He was
filled with compassion for those Athenians who, notwithstanding their
intellectual greatness, had changed the glory of God into an image made
in the likeness of corruptible man, and who really worshipped the
creature _more_ than the Creator. The images intended to symbolize the
invisible perfections of God were usurping the place of God, and
receiving the worship due alone to him. We may presume the apostle was
not insensible to the beauties of Grecian art. The sublime architecture
of the Propylæa and the Parthenon, the magnificent sculpture of Phidias
and Praxiteles, could not fail to excite his wonder. But he remembered
that those superb temples and this glorious statuary were the creation
of the pagan spirit, and devoted to polytheistic worship. The glory of
the supreme God was obscured by all this symbolism. The creatures formed
by God, the symbols of his power and presence in nature, the ministers
of his providence and moral government, were receiving the honor due to
him. Over all this scene of material beauty and æsthetic perfection
there rose in dark and hideous proportions the errors and delusions and
sins against the living God which Polytheism nurtured, and unable any
longer to restrain himself, he commenced to "reason" with the crowds of
Athenians who stood beneath the shadows of the plane-trees, or lounged
beneath the porticoes that surrounded the Agora. Among these groups of
idlers were mingled the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus, who
"encountered" Paul. The nature of these "disputations" may be easily
conjectured, The opinions of these philosophers are even now familiarly
known: they are, in one form or another, current in the literature of
modern times. Materialism and Pantheism still "encounter" Christianity.
The apostle asserted the personal being and spirituality of one supreme
and only God, who has in divers ways revealed himself to man, and
therefore may be "known." He proclaimed that Jesus is the fullest and
most perfect revelation of God--the _only_ "manifestation of God in the
flesh." He pointed to his "resurrection" as the proof of his superhuman
character and mission to the world. Some of his hearers were disposed to
treat him with contempt; they represented him as an ignorant "babbler,"
who had picked up a few scraps of learning, and who now sought to palm
them off as a "new" philosophy. But most of them regarded him with that
peculiar Attic curiosity which was always anxious to be hearing some
"new thing." So they led him away from the tumult of the market-place to
the top of Mars' Hill, where, in its serene atmosphere, they might hear
him more carefully, and said, "May we hear what this new doctrine is
whereof thou speakest?"
Surrounded by these men of thoughtful, philosophic mind--men who had
deeply pondered the great problem of existence, who had earnestly
inquired after the "first principles of things;" men who had reasoned
high of creation, fate, and providence; of right and wrong; of
conscience, law, and retribution; and had formed strong and decided
opinions on all these questions--he delivered his discourse on the
_being_, the _providence_, the _spirituality_, and the _moral
government_ of God.
This grand theme was suggested by an inscription he had observed on one
of the altars of the city, which was dedicated "To the Unknown God." "Ye
men of Athens! every thing which I behold bears witness to your
_carefulness in religion_. For as I passed by and beheld your sacred
objects I found an altar with this inscription, 'To the Unknown God;'
whom, therefore, ye worship, though ye know him not [adequately], Him
declare I unto you." Starting from this point, the manifest carefulness
of the Athenians in religion, and accepting this inscription as the
evidence that they had some presentiment, some native intuition, some
dim conception of the one true and living God, he strives to lead them
to a deeper knowledge of Him. It is here conceded by the apostle that
the Athenians were a _religious people_. The observations he had made
during his short stay in Athens enabled him to bear witness that the
Athenians were "a God-fearing people,"[97] and he felt that fairness and
candor demanded that this trait should receive from him an ample
recognition and a full acknowledgment. Accordingly he commences by
saying in gentle terms, well fitted to conciliate his audience, "All
things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in religion." I
recognize you as most devout; ye appear to me to be a God-fearing
people,[98] for as I passed by and beheld your sacred objects I found an
altar with this inscription, "To the Unknown God," whom therefore ye
worship.
[Footnote 97: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
[Footnote 98: "Ôs before deisid.--so imports. I recognize you as
such."--Lange's Commentary.]
The assertion that the Athenians were "a religious people" will, to many
of our readers, appear a strange and startling utterance, which has in
it more of novelty than truth. Nay, some will be shocked to hear the
Apostle Paul described as complimenting these Athenians--these pagan
worshippers--on their "carefulness in religion." We have been so long
accustomed to use the word "heathen" as an opprobrious
epithet--expressing, indeed, the utmost extremes of ignorance, and
barbarism, and cruelty, that it has become difficult for us to believe
that in a heathen there can be any good.
From our childhood we have read in our English Bibles, Ye men of Athens,
I perceive in all things ye are _too superstitious_ and we can scarcely
tolerate another version, even if it can be shown that it approaches
nearer to the actual language employed by Paul. We must, therefore, ask
the patience and candor of the reader, while we endeavor to show, on the
authority of Paul's words, that the Athenians were a "religious people,"
and that all our notions to the contrary are founded on prejudice and
misapprehension.
First, then, let us commence even with our English version: "Ye men of
Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are _too superstitious_." And
what now is the meaning of the word "superstition?" It is true, we now
use it only in an evil sense, to express a belief in the agency of
invisible, capricious, malignant powers, which fills the mind with fear
and terror, and sees in every unexplained phenomenon of nature an omen,
or prognostic, of some future evil. But this is not its proper and
original meaning. Superstition is from the Latin _superstitio_, which
means a superabundance of religion,[99] an extreme exactitude in
religious observance. And this is precisely the sense in which the
corresponding Greek term is used by the Apostle Paul. Deisidaimonia
properly means "reverence for the gods." "It is used," says Barnes, "in
the classic writers, in a good sense, to denote piety towards the gods,
or suitable fear and reverence for them." "The word," says Lechler, "is,
without doubt, to be understood here in a good sense; although it seems
to have been intentionally chosen, in order to indicate the conception
of _fear_(deidô), which predominated in the religion of the apostle's
hearers."[100] This reading is sustained by the ablest critics and
scholars of modern times. Bengel reads the sentence, "I perceive that ye
are _very religious_"[101] Cudworth translates it thus: "Ye are every
way _more than ordinarily religious."[102]_ Conybeare and Howson read
the text as we have already given it, "All things which I behold bear
witness to your _carefulness in religion_."[103] Lechler reads "very
devout;"[104] Alford, "carrying your _religious reverence very
far_;"[105] and Albert Barnes,[106] "I perceive ye are greatly devoted
to _reverence for religion_."[107] Whoever, therefore, will give
attention to the actual words of the apostle, and search for their real
meaning, must be convinced he opens his address by complimenting the
Athenians on their being more than ordinarily religious.
[Footnote 99: Nitzsch, "System of Christ. Doctrine," p. 33.]
[Footnote 100: Lange's Commentary, _in loco_.]
[Footnote 101: "Gnomon of the New Testament."]
[Footnote 102: "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 626.]
[Footnote 103: "Life and Epistles of St. Paul," vol. i. p. 378.]
[Footnote 104: Lange's Commentary.]
[Footnote 105: Greek Test.]
[Footnote 106: Notes on Acts.]
[Footnote 107: Also Clarke's Comment., _in loco_.]
Nor are we for a moment to suppose the apostle is here dealing in hollow
compliments, or having recourse to a "pious fraud." Such a course would
have been altogether out of character with Paul, and to suppose him
capable of pursuing such a course is to do him great injustice. If "to
the Jews he became as a Jew," it was because he recognized in Judaism
the same fundamental truths which underlie the Christian system. And if
here he seems to become, in any sense, at one with "heathenism," that he
might gain the heathen to the faith of Christ, it was because he found
in heathenism some elements of truth akin to Christianity, and a state
of feeling favorable to an inquiry into the truths he had to present. He
beheld in Athens an altar reared to the God _he_ worshipped, and it
afforded him some pleasure to find that God was not totally forgotten,
and his worship totally neglected, by the Athenians. The God whom they
knew imperfectly, "_Him_" said he, "I declare unto you;" I now desire to
make him more fully known. The worship of "the Unknown God" was a
recognition of the being of a God whose nature transcends all human
thought, a God who is ineffable; who, as Plato said, "is hard to be
discovered, and having discovered him, to make him known to all,
impossible."[108] It is the confession of a _want_ of knowledge, the
expression of a _desire_ to know, the acknowledgment of the _duty_ of
worshipping him. Underlying all the forms of idol-worship the eye of
Paul recognized an influential Theism. Deep down in the pagan heart he
discovered a "feeling after God"--a yearning for a deeper knowledge of
the "unknown," the invisible, the incomprehensible, which he could not
despise or disregard. The mysterious _sentiments_ of fear, of reverence,
of conscious dependence on a supernatural power and presence
overshadowing man, which were expressed in the symbolism of the "sacred
objects" which Paul saw everywhere in Athens, commanded his respect. And
he alludes to their "devotions," not in the language of reproach or
censure, but as furnishing to his own mind the evidence of the strength
of their _religious instincts_, and the proof of the existence in their
hearts of that _native apprehension_ of the supernatural, the divine,
which dwells alike in all human souls.
[Footnote 108: Timæus, ch. ix.]
The case of the Athenians has, therefore, a peculiar interest to every
thoughtful mind. It confirms the belief that religion is a necessity to
every human mind, a want of every human heart.[109] Without religion,
the nature of man can never be properly developed; the noblest part of
man--the divine, the spiritual element which dwells in man, as "the
offspring of God"--must remain utterly dwarfed. The spirit, the personal
being, the rational nature, is religious, and Atheism is the vain and
the wicked attempt to be something less than man. If the spiritual
nature of man has its normal and healthy development, he must become a
worshipper. This is attested by the universal history of man. We look
down the long-drawn aisles of antiquity, and everywhere we behold the
smoking altar, the ascending incense, the prostrate form, the attitude
of devotion. Athens, with her four thousand deities--Rome, with her
crowded Pantheon of gods--Egypt, with her degrading
superstitions--Hindostan, with her horrid and revolting rites--all
attest that the religious principle is deeply seated in the nature of
man. And we are sure religion can never be robbed of her supremacy, she
can never be dethroned in the hearts of men. It were easier to satisfy
the cravings of hunger by logical syllogisms, than to satisfy the
yearnings of the human heart without religion. The attempt of Xerxes to
bind the rushing floods of the Hellespont in chains was not more futile
nor more impotent than the attempt of skepticism to repress the
universal tendency to worship, so peculiar and so natural to man in
every age and clime.
[Footnote 109: The indispensable necessity for a religion of some kind
to satisfy the emotional nature of man is tacitly confessed by the
atheist Comte in the publication of his "Catechism of Positive
Religion."]
The unwillingness of many to recognize a religious element in the
Athenian mind is further accounted for by their misconception of the
meaning of the word "religion." We are all too much accustomed to regard
religion as a mere system of dogmatic teaching. We use the terms
"Christian religion," "Jewish religion," "Mohammedan religion," as
comprehending simply the characteristic doctrines by which each is
distinguished; whereas religion is a mode of thought, and feeling, and
action, determined by the consciousness of our relation to and our
dependence upon God. It does not appropriate to itself any specific
department of our mental powers and susceptibilities, but it conditions
the entire functions and circle of our spiritual life. It is not simply
a mode of conceiving God in thought, nor simply a mode of venerating God
in the affections, nor yet simply a mode of worshipping God in outward
and formal acts, but it comprehends the whole. Religion (_religere_,
respect, awe, reverence) regulates our thoughts, feelings, and acts
towards God. "It is a reference and a relationship of our finite
consciousness to the Creator and Sustainer and Governor of the
universe." It is such a consciousness of the Divine as shall awaken in
the heart of man the sentiments of reverence, fear, and gratitude
towards God; such a sense of dependence as shall prompt man to pray, and
lead him to perform external acts of worship.
Religion does not, therefore, consist exclusively in knowledge, however
correct; and yet it must be preceded and accompanied by some intuitive
cognition of a Supreme Being, and some conception of him as a free moral
personality. But the religious sentiments, which belong rather to the
heart than to the understanding of man--the consciousness of dependence,
the sense of obligation, the feeling of reverence, the instinct to pray,
the appetency to worship--these may all exist and be largely developed
in a human mind even when, as in the case of the Athenians, there is a
very imperfect knowledge of the real character of God.
Regarding this, then, as the generic conception of religion, namely,
_that it is a mode of thought and feeling and action determined by our
consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being_, we claim that the
apostle was perfectly right in complimenting the Athenians on their
"more than ordinary religiousness," for,
1. They had, in some degree at least, that faith in the being and
providence of God which precedes and accompanies all religion.
They had erected an altar to the unseen, the unsearchable, the
incomprehensible, the unknown God. And this "unknown God" whom the
Athenians "worshipped" was the true God, the God whom Paul worshipped,
and whom he desired more fully to reveal to them; "_Him_ declare I unto
you." The Athenians had, therefore, some knowledge of the true God, some
dim recognition, at least, of his being, and some conception, however
imperfect, of his character. The Deity to whom the Athenians reared this
altar is called "the unknown God," because he is unseen by all human
eyes and incomprehensible to human thought. There is a sense in which to
Paul, as well as to the Athenians--to the Christian as well as to the
pagan--to the philosopher as well as to the peasant--God is "_the
unknown_," and in which he must forever remain the incomprehensible.
This has been confessed by all thoughtful minds in every age. It was
confessed by Plato. To his mind God is "the ineffable," the unspeakable.
Zophar, the friend of Job, asks, "Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?" This knowledge is "high
as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?"
Does not Wesley teach us to sing,
"Hail, Father, whose creating call
Unnumbered worlds attend;
Jehovah, comprehending all,
Whom none can comprehend?"
To his mind, as well as to the mind of the Athenian, God was "the great
unseen, unknown." "Beyond the universe and man," says Cousin, "there
remains in God something unknown, impenetrable, incomprehensible. Hence,
in the immeasurable spaces of the universe, and beneath all the
profundities of the human soul, God escapes us in this inexhaustible
infinitude, whence he is able to draw without limit new worlds, new
beings, new manifestations. God is therefore to us
_incomprehensible_."[110] And without making ourselves in the least
responsible for Hamilton's "negative" doctrine of the Infinite, or even
responsible for the full import of his words, we may quote his
remarkable utterances on this subject: "The Divinity is in part
concealed and in part revealed. He is at once known and unknown. But the
last and highest consecration of all true religion must be an altar 'to
the unknown God.' In this consummation nature and religion, Paganism and
Christianity, are at one."[111]
[Footnote 110: "Lectures," vol. i. p. 104.]
[Footnote 111: "Discussions on Philosophy," p. 23.]
When, therefore, the apostle affirms that while the Athenians worshipped
the God whom he proclaimed they "knew him not," we can not understand
him as saying they were destitute of all faith in the being of God, and
of all ideas of his real character. Because for him to have asserted
they had _no_ knowledge of God would not only have been contrary to all
the facts of the case, but also an utter contradiction of all his
settled convictions and his recorded opinions. There is not in modern
times a more earnest asserter of the doctrine that the human mind has an
intuitive cognition of God, and that the external world reveals God to
man. There is a passage in his letter to the Romans which is justly
entitled to stand at the head of all discourses on "natural theology,"
Rom. i. 19-21. Speaking of the heathen world, who had not been favored,
as the Jews, with a verbal revelation, he says, "That which may be known
of God is manifest _in_ them," that is, in the constitution and laws of
their spiritual nature, "for God hath showed it unto them" in the voice
of reason and of conscience, so that in the instincts of our hearts, in
the elements of our moral nature, in the ideas and laws of our reason,
we are taught the being of a God. These are the subjective teachings of
the human soul.
Not only is the being of God revealed to man in the constitution and
laws of his rational and moral nature, but God is also manifested to us
objectively in the realm of things around us; therefore Paul adds, "The
invisible things of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, from the
creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are
made." The world of sense, therefore, discloses the being and
perfections of God. The invisible attributes of God are made apparent by
the things that are visible. Forth out of nature, as the product of the
Divine Mind, the supernatural shines. The forces, laws, and harmonies of
the universe are indices of the presence of a presiding and informing
Intelligence. The creation itself is an example of God's coming forth
out of the mysterious depths of his own eternal and invisible being, and
making himself apparent to man. There, on the pages of the volume of
nature, we may read, in the marvellous language of symbol, the grand
conceptions, the glorious thoughts, the ideals of beauty which dwell in
the uncreated Mind, These two sources of knowledge--the subjective
teachings of God in the human soul, and the objective manifestations of
God in the visible universe--harmonize, and, together, fill up the
complement of our natural idea of God. They are two hemispheres of
thought, which together form one full-orbed fountain of light, and ought
never to be separated in our philosophy. And, inasmuch as this divine
light shines on all human minds, and these works of God are seen by all
human eyes, the apostle argues that the heathen world "is without
excuse, because, knowing God (gnontes ton Theon) they did not glorify
him as God, neither were thankful; but in their reasonings they went
astray after vanities, and their hearts, being void of wisdom, were
filled with darkness. Calling themselves wise, they were turned into
fools, and changed the glory of the imperishable God for idols graven in
the likeness of perishable man, or of birds, and beasts, and creeping
things,...and they bartered the truth of God for lies, and reverenced
and worshipped the things made rather than the Maker, who is blessed
forever. Amen."[112]
[Footnote 112: Rom. i. 21-25, Conybeare and Howson's translation.]
The brief and elliptical report of Paul's address on Mars' Hill must
therefore, in all fairness, be interpreted in the light of his more
carefully elaborated statements in the Epistle to the Romans. And when
Paul intimates that the Athenians "knew not God," we can not understand
him as saying they had _no_ knowledge, but that their knowledge was
imperfect. They did not know God as Creator, Father, and Ruler; above
all, they did not know him as a pardoning God and a sanctifying Spirit.
They had not that knowledge of God which purifies the heart, and changes
the character, and gives its possessor eternal life.
The apostle clearly and unequivocally recognizes this truth, that the
idea of God is connatural to the human mind; that in fact there is not
to be found a race of men upon the face of the globe utterly destitute
of some idea of a Supreme Being. Wherever human reason has had its
normal and healthful development, it has spontaneously and necessarily
led the human mind to the recognition of a God. The Athenians were no
exception to this general law. They believed in the existence of one
supreme and eternal Mind, invisible, incomprehensible, infeffable--"the
unknown God."
2. The Athenians had also that consciousness of dependence upon God
which is the foundation of all the primary religious emotions.
When the apostle affirmed that "in God we live, and move, and have our
being," he uttered the sentiments of many, if not all, of his hearers,
and in support of that affirmation he could quote the words of their own
poets, for we are also his offspring; [113] and, as his offspring, we
have a derived and a dependent being. Indeed, this consciousness of
dependence is analogous to the feeling which is awakened in the heart of
a child when its parent is first manifested to its opening mind as the
giver of those things which it immediately needs, as its continual
protector, and as the preserver of its life. The moment a man becomes
conscious of his own personality, that moment he becomes conscious of
some relation to another personality, to which he is subject, and on
which he depends.[114]
[Footnote 113:
"Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;
All need his aid; his power sustains us all,
_For we his offspring are_."
Aratus, "The Phænomena," book v. p. 5.
Aratus was a poet of Cilicia, Paul's native province. He flourished B.C.
277.
"Great and divine Father, whose names are many,
But who art one and the same unchangeable, almighty power;
O thou supreme Author of nature!
That governest by a single unerring law!
Hail King!
For thou art able, to enforce obedience from all frail mortals,
_Because we are all thine offspring,_
The image and the echo only of thy eternal voice."
Cleanthes, "Hymn to Jupiter."
Cleanthes was the pupil of Zeno, and his successor as chief of the Stoic
philosophers.]
[Footnote 114: "As soon as a man becomes conscious of himself, as soon
as he perceives himself as distinct from other persons and things, he at
the same moment becomes conscious of a higher self, a higher power,
without which he feels that neither he nor any thing else would have any
life or reality. We are so fashioned that as soon as we awake we feel on
all sides our dependence on something else; and all nations join in some
way or another in the words of the Psalmist, 'It is He that made us, not
we ourselves.' This is the first _sense_ of the Godhead, the _sensus
numinis_, as it has well been called; for it is a _sensus_, an immediate
perception, not the result of reasoning or generalization, but an
intuition as irresistible as the impressions of our senses.... This
_sensus numinis_, or, as we may call it in more homely language,
_faith_, is the source of all religion; it is that without which no
religion, whether true or false, is possible."--Max Müller, "Science of
Language," Second Series, p. 455.]
A little reflection will convince us that this is the necessary order in
which human consciousness is developed.
There are at least two fundamental and radical tendencies in human
personality, namely, to _know_ and to _act_. If we would conceive of
them as they exist in the innermost sphere of selfhood, we must
distinguish the first as _self-consciousness_, and the second as
_self-determination_. These are unquestionably the two factors of human
personality.
If we consider the first of these factors more closely, we shall
discover that self-consciousness exists under limitations and
conditions. Man can not become clearly conscious of _self_ without
distinguishing himself from the outer world of sensation, nor without
distinguishing self and the world from another being upon whom they
depend as the ultimate substance and cause. Mere _coenoeesthesis_ is not
consciousness. Common feeling is unquestionably found among the lowest
forms of animal life, the protozoa; but it can never rise to a clear
consciousness of personality until it can distinguish itself from
sensation, and acquire a presentiment of a divine power, on which self
and the outer world depend. The _Ego_ does not exist for itself, can not
perceive itself, but by distinguishing itself from the ceaseless flow
and change of sensation, and by this act of distinguishing, the _Ego_
takes place in consciousness. And the _Ego_ can not perceive itself, nor
cognize sensation as a state or affection of the _Ego_ except by the
intervention of the reason, which supplies the two great fundamental
laws of causality and substance. The facts of consciousness thus
comprehend three elements--self, nature, and God. The determinate being,
the _Ego_, is never an absolutely independent being, but is always in
some way or other codetermined by another; it can not, therefore, be an
absolutely original and independent, but must in some way or another be
a _derived_ and _conditioned_ existence.
Now that which limits and conditions human self-consciousness can not be
mere _nature_, because nature can not give what it does not possess; it
can not produce what is _toto genere_ different from itself.
Self-consciousness can not arise out of unconsciousness. This new
beginning is beyond the power of nature. Personal power, the creative
principle of all new beginnings, is alone adequate to its production.
If, then, self-consciousness exists in man, it necessarily presupposes
an absolutely _original_, therefore _unconditioned, self-consciousness_.
Human self-consciousness, in its temporal actualization, of course
presupposes a nature-basis upon which it elevates itself; but it is only
possible on the ground that an eternal self-conscious Mind ordained and
rules over all the processes of nature, and implants the divine spark of
the personal spirit with the corporeal frame, to realize itself in the
light-flame of human self-consciousness. The original light of the
divine self-consciousness is eternally and absolutely first and before
all. "Thus, in the depths of our own self-consciousness, as its
concealed background, the God-consciousness reveals itself to us. This
descent into our inmost being is at the same time an ascent to God.
Every deep reflection on ourselves breaks through the mere crust of
world-consciousness, which separates us from the inmost truth of our
existence, and leads us up to Him in whom we live and move and
are."[115]
[Footnote 115: Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. p. 81.]
Self-determination, equally with self-consciousness, exists in us under
manifold _limitations_. Self-determination is limited by physical,
corporeal, and mental conditions, so that there is "an impassable
boundary line drawn around the area of volitional freedom." But the most
fundamental and original limitation is that of _duty_. The
self-determining power of man is not only circumscribed by necessary
conditions, but also by the _moral law_ in the consciousness of man.
Self-determination alone does not suffice for the full conception of
responsible freedom; it only becomes, _will_, properly by its being an
intelligent and conscious determination; that is, the rational subject
is able previously to recognize "the right," and present before his mind
that which he _ought_ to do, that which he is morally bound to realize
and actualize by his own self-determination and choice. Accordingly we
find in our inmost being a _sense of obligation_ to obey the moral law
as revealed in the conscience. As we can not become conscious of self
without also becoming conscious of God, so we can not become properly
conscious of self-determination until we have recognized in the
conscience a law for the movements of the will.
Now this moral law, as revealed in the conscience, is not a mere
autonomy--a simple subjective law having no relation to a personal
lawgiver out of and above man. Every admonition of conscience directly
excites the consciousness of a God to whom man is accountable. The
universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in history, has always
associated the phenomena of conscience with the idea of a personal Power
above man, to whom he is subject and upon whom he depends. In every age,
the voice of conscience has been regarded as the voice of God, so that
when it has filled man with guilty apprehensions, he has had recourse to
sacrifices, and penances, and prayers to expatiate his wrath.
It is clear, then, that if man has _duties_ there must he a
self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only a real
will can be legislative. If man has a _sense of obligation_, there must
be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If he is _responsible_,
there must be a being to whom he is accountable.[116] It can not be said
that he is accountable to himself, for by that supposition the idea of
duty is obliterated, and "right" becomes identical with mere interest or
pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to
society--to mere conventions of human opinions and human
governments--for then "_right_" becomes a mere creature of human
legislation, and "_justice_" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the
strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against
such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind
feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human
governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all
their powers are derived. That higher law is the Law of God, that
supreme authority is the God of Justice. To this eternally just God,
innocence, under oppression and wrong, has made its proud appeal, like
that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming
ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the
weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the
strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all
obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God.
The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even
while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his
obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom
we live, and move, and are."
[Footnote 116: "The thought of God will wake up a terrible monitor whose
name is Judge."--Kant.]
This feeling of dependence, and this consequent sense of obligation, lie
at the very foundation of all religion. They lead the mind towards God,
and anchor it in the Divine. They prompt man to pray, and inspire him
with an instinctive confidence in the efficacy of prayer. So that prayer
is natural to man, and necessary to man. Never yet has the traveller
found a people on earth without prayer. Races of men have been found
without houses, without raiment, without arts and sciences, but never
without prayer any more than without speech. Plutarch wrote, eighteen
centuries ago, If you go through all the world, you may find cities
without walls, without letters, without rulers, without money, without
theatres, but never without temples and gods, or without _prayers_,
oaths, prophecies, and sacrifices, used to obtain blessings and
benefits, or to avert curses and calamities.[117] The naturalness of
prayer is admitted even by the modern unbeliever. Gerrit Smith says,
"Let us who believe that the religion of reason calls for the religion
of nature, remember that the flow of prayer is just as natural as the
flow of water; the prayerless man has become an unnatural man."[118] Is
man in sorrow or in danger, his most natural and spontaneous refuge is
in prayer. The suffering, bewildered, terror-stricken soul turns towards
God. "Nature in an agony is no atheist; the soul that knows not where to
fly, flies to God." And in the hour of deliverance and joy, a feeling of
gratitude pervades the soul--and gratitude, too, not to some blind
nature-force, to some unconscious and impersonal power, but gratitude to
God. The soul's natural and appropriate language in the hour of
deliverance is thanksgiving and praise.
[Footnote 117: "Against Kalotes," ch. xxxi.]
[Footnote 118: "Religion of Reason."]
This universal tendency to recognize a superior Power upon whom we are
dependent, and by whose hand our well-being and our destinies are
absolutely controlled, has revealed itself even amid the most
complicated forms of polytheistic worship. Amid the even and undisturbed
flow of every-day life they might be satisfied with the worship of
subordinate deities, but in the midst of sudden and unexpected
calamities, and of terrible catastrophes, then they cried to the Supreme
God.[119] "When alarmed by an earthquake," says Aulus Gellius, "the
ancient Romans were accustomed to pray, not to some one of the gods
individually, but to God in general, _as to the Unknown_."[120]
[Footnote 119: "At critical moments, when the deepest feelings of the
human heart are stirred, the old Greeks and Romans seem suddenly to have
dropped all mythological ideas, and to have fallen back on the universal
language of true religion."--Max Müller, "Science of Language." p. 436.]
[Footnote 120: Tholuck, "Nature and Influence of Heathenism," p. 23.]
"Thus also Minutius Felix says, 'When they stretch out their hands to
heaven they mention only God; and these forms of speech, _He is great_,
and _God is true_, and _If God grant_(which are the natural language of
the vulgar), are a plain confession of the truth of Christianity.' And
also Lactantius testifies, 'When they swear, and when they wish, and
when they give thanks, they name not many gods, but God only; the truth,
by a secret force of nature, thus breaking forth from them whether they
will or no;' and again he says, 'They fly to God; aid is desired of God;
they pray that God would help them; and when one is reduced to extreme
necessity, he begs for God's sake, and by his divine power alone
implores the mercy of men.'"[121] The account which is given by Diogenes
Laertius[122] of the erection of altars bearing the inscription "to the
unknown God," clearly shows that they had their origin in this general
sentiment of dependence on a higher Power. "The Athenians being
afflicted with pestilence invited Epimenides to lustrate their city. The
method adopted by him was to carry several sheep to the Areopagus,
whence they were left to wander as they pleased, under the observation
of persons sent to attend them. As each sheep lay down it was sacrificed
to _the propitious God_. By this ceremony it is said the city was
relieved; but as it was still unknown what deity was propitious, an
altar was erected _to the unknown God_ on every spot where a sheep had
been sacrificed."[123]
[Footnote 121: Cudworth, vol. i. p. 300.]
[Footnote 122: "Lives of Philosophers," book i., Epimenides.]
[Footnote 123: See Townsend's "Chronological Arrangement of New
Testament," note 19, part xii.; Doddridge's "Exposition;" and Barnes's
"Notes on Acts."]
"The unknown God" was their deliverer from the plague. And the erection
of an altar to him was a confession of their absolute dependence upon
him, of their obligation to worship him, as well as of their need of a
deeper knowledge of him. The gods who were known and named were not able
to deliver them in times of calamity, and they were compelled to look
beyond the existing forms of Grecian mythology for relief. Beyond all
the gods of the Olympus there was "one God over all," the Father of gods
and men, the Creator of all the subordinate local deities, upon whom
even these created gods were dependent, upon whom man was absolutely
dependent, and therefore in times of deepest need, of severest
suffering, of extremest peril, then they cried to the living, supreme,
eternal God.[124]
[Footnote 124: "The men and women of the Iliad and Odyssey are
habitually religious. The language of religion is often on their
tongues, as it is ever on the lips of every body in the East at this
day. The thought of the gods, and of their providence and government of
the world, is a familiar thought. They seem to have an abiding
conviction of their _dependence_ on the gods. The results of all actions
depend on the will of the gods; _it lies on their knees_ (Theôn ev
gounasi keitai, Od. i. 267), is the often repeated and significant
expression of their feeling of dependence."--Tyler, "Theology of Greek
Poets," p. 165.]
3. The Athenians developed in a high degree those religious emotions
which always accompany the consciousness of dependence on a Supreme
Being.
The first emotional element of all religion is _fear_. This is
unquestionably true, whether religion be considered from a Christian or
a heathen stand-point. "The _fear_ of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom." Associated with, perhaps preceding, all definite ideas of God,
there exists in the human mind certain feelings of _awe_, and
_reverence_, and _fear_ which arise spontaneously in presence of the
vastness, and grandeur, and magnificence of the universe, and of the
power and glory of which the created universe is but the symbol and
shadow. There is the felt apprehension that, beyond and back of the
visible and the tangible, there is a _personal, living Power_, which is
the foundation of all, and which fashions all, and fills all with its
light and life; that "the universe is the living vesture in which the
Invisible has robed his mysterious loveliness." There is the feeling of
an _overshadowing Presence_ which "compasseth man behind and before, and
lays its hand upon him."
This wonderful presentiment of an invisible power and presence pervading
and informing all nature is beautifully described by Wordsworth in his
history of the development of the Scottish herdsman's mind:
So the foundations of his mind were laid
In such communion, not from terror free.
While yet a child, and long before his time,
Had he perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed
So vividly great objects, that they lay
Upon his mind like substances, whose presence
Perplexed the bodily sense.
... In the after-day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
He sat, and even in their fixed lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
Even in their fixed and steady lineaments
He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind....
Such was the Boy,--but for the growing Youth,
What soul was his, when, from the naked top
Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked:
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay
Beneath him; far and wide the clouds were touched.
And in their silent faces could he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallowed up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life,
In such access of mind, in such high hour
Of visitation from the living God.[125]
But it may be said this is all mere poetry; to which we answer, in the
words of Aristotle, "Poetry is a thing more philosophical and weightier
than history."[126] The true poet is the interpreter of nature. His soul
is in the fullest sympathy with the grand ideas which nature symbolizes,
and he "deciphers the universe as the autobiography of the Infinite
Spirit." Spontaneous feeling is a kind of inspiration.
It is true that all minds may not be developed in precisely the same
manner as Wordsworth's herdsman's, because the development of every
individual mind is modified in some measure by exterior conditions. Men
may contemplate nature from different points of view. Some may be
impressed with one aspect of nature, some with another. But none will
fail to recognize a mysterious _presence_ and invisible _power_ beneath
all the fleeting and changeful phenomena of the universe. "And sometimes
there are moments of tenderness, of sorrow, and of vague mystery which
bring the feeling of the Infinite Presence close to the human
heart."[127]
[Footnote 125: "The Wanderer."]
[Footnote 126: Poet, ch. ix.]
[Footnote 127: Robertson.]
Now we hold that _this feeling and sentiment of the Divine_--the
supernatural--exists in every mind. It may be, it undoubtedly is,
somewhat modified in its manifestations by the circumstances in which
men are placed, and the degree of culture they have enjoyed. The African
Fetichist, in his moral and intellectual debasement, conceives a
supernatural power enshrined in every object of nature. The rude Fijian
regards with dread, and even terror, the Being who darts the lightnings
and wields the thunderbolts. The Indian "sees God in clouds, and hears
him in the wind." The Scottish "herdsman" on the lonely mountain-top
"feels the presence and the power of greatness," and "in its fixed and
steady lineaments he sees an ebbing and a flowing mind." The
philosopher[128] lifts his eyes to "the starry heavens" in all the depth
of their concave, and with all their constellations of glory moving on
in solemn grandeur, and, to his mind, these immeasurable regions seem
"filled with the splendors of the Deity, and crowded with the monuments
of his power;" or he turns his eye to "the Moral Law within," and he
hears the voice of an intelligent and a righteous God. In all these
cases we have a revelation of the sentiment of the Divine, which dwells
alike in all human minds. In the Athenians this sentiment was developed
in a high degree. The serene heaven which Greece enjoyed, and which was
the best-loved roof of its inhabitants, the brilliant sun, the mountain
scenery of unsurpassed grandeur, the deep blue sea, an image of the
infinite, these poured all their fullness on the Athenian mind, and
furnished the most favorable conditions for the development of the
religious sentiments. The people of Athens spent most of their time in
the open air in communion with nature, and in the cheerful and temperate
enjoyment of existence. To recognize the Deity in the living powers of
nature, and especially in man, as the highest sensible manifestation of
the Divine, was the peculiar prerogative of the Grecian mind. And here
in Athens, art also vied with nature to deepen the religious sentiments.
It raised the mind to ideal conceptions of a beauty and a sublimity
which transcended all mere nature-forms, and by images, of supernatural
grandeur and loveliness presented to the Athenians symbolic
representations of the separate attributes and operations of the
invisible God. The plastic art of Greece was designed to express
religious ideas, and was consecrated by religious feeling. Thus the
facts of the case are strikingly in harmony with the words of the
Apostle: "All things which I behold bear witness to your carefulness in
religion," your "reverence for the Deity," your "fear of God."[129] "The
sacred objects" in Athens, and especially "the altar to the Unknown
God," were all regarded by Paul as evidences of their instinctive faith
in the invisible, the supernatural, the divine.
[Footnote 128: Kant, in "Critique of Practical Reason."]
[Footnote 129: See Parkhurst's Lexicon, under _Deisidaimonia_, which
Suidas explains by eulabeia peri to Theion--_reverence for the Divine_,
and Hesychius by Phubutheia--_fear of God_. Also, Josephus, Antiq., book
x. ch. iii, § 2: "Manasseh, after his repentance and reformation, strove
to behave himself (tê deisidaimonia chrêstheia) in the _most religious
manner_ towards God." Also see A. Clarke on Acts xvii.]
Along with this sentiment of the Divine there is also associated, in all
human minds, an _instinctive yearning_ after the Invisible; not a mere
feeling of curiosity to pierce the mystery of being and of life, but
what Paul designates "a feeling after God," which prompts man to seek
after a deeper knowledge, and a more immediate consciousness. To attain
this deeper knowledge--this more conscious realization of the being and
the presence of God, has been the effort of all philosophy and all
religion in all ages. The Hindoo Yogis proposes to withdraw into his
inmost self, and by a complete suspension of all his active powers to
become absorbed and swallowed up in the Infinite.[130] Plato and his
followers sought by an immediate abstraction to apprehend "the
unchangeable and permanent Being," and, by a loving contemplation, to
become "assimilated to the Deity," and in this way to attain the
immediate consciousness of God. The Neo-Platonic mystic sought by
asceticism and self-mortification to prepare himself for divine
communings. He would contemplate the divine perfections in himself; and
in an _ecstatic_ state, wherein all individuality vanishes, he would
realize a union, or identity, with the Divine Essence.[131] While the
universal Church of God, indeed, has in her purest days always taught
that man may, by inward purity and a believing love, be rendered capable
of spiritually apprehending, and consciously feeling, the presence of
God. Some may be disposed to pronounce this as all mere mysticism. We
answer, The living internal energy of religion is always _mystical_, it
is grounded in _feeling_--a "_sensus numinis_" common to humanity. It is
the mysterious sentiment of the Divine; it is the prolepsis of the human
spirit reaching out towards the Infinite; the living susceptibility of
our spiritual nature stretching after the powers and influences of the
higher world. It is upon this inner instinct of the supernatural that
all religion rests. I do not say every religious idea, but whatever is
positive, practical, powerful, durable, and popular. Everywhere, in all
climates, in all epochs of history, and in all degrees of civilization,
man is animated by the sentiment--I would rather say, the
presentiment--that the world in which he lives, the order of things in
the midst of which he moves, the facts which regularly and constantly
succeed each other, are not _all_. In vain he daily makes discoveries
and conquests in this vast universe; in vain he observes and learnedly
verifies the general laws which govern it; _his thought is not inclosed
in the world surrendered to his science_; the spectacle of it does not
suffice his soul, it is raised beyond it; it searches after and catches
glimpses of something beyond it; it aspires higher both for the universe
and itself; it aims at another destiny, another master.
[Footnote 130: Vaughan, "Hours with the Mystics," vol. i. p. 44.]
[Footnote 131: Id. ib., vol. i. p. 65.]
"'Par delà tous ces cieux le Dieu des cieux réside.'"[132]
So Voltaire has said, and the God who is beyond the skies is not nature
personified, but a supernatural Personality. It is to this highest
Personality that all religions address themselves. It is to bring man
into communion with Him that they exist.[133]
[Footnote 132: "Beyond all these heavens the God of the heavens
resides."]
[Footnote 133: Guizot, "L'Eglise et la Societé Chretiennes" en 1861.]
4. The Athenians had that deep consciousness of sin and guilt, and of
consequent liability to punishment, which confesses the need of
expiation by piacular sacrifices.
Every man feels himself to be an accountable being, and he is conscious
that in wrong-doing he is deserving of blame and of punishment. Deep
within the soul of the transgressor is the consciousness that he is a
guilty man, and he is haunted with the perpetual apprehension of a
retribution which, like the spectre of evil omen, crosses his every
path, and meets him at every turn.
"'Tis guilt alone,
Like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mode,
Fills the light air with visionary terrors,
And shapeless forms of fear."
Man does not possess this consciousness of guilt so much as it holds
possession of him. It pursues the fugitive from justice, and it lays
hold on the man who has resisted or escaped the hand of the executioner.
The sense of guilt is a power over and above man; a power so wonderful
that it often compels the most reckless criminal to deliver himself up,
with the confession of his deed, to the sword of justice, when a
falsehood would have easily protected him. Man is only able by
persevering, ever-repeated efforts at self-induration, against the
remonstrances of conscience, to withdraw himself from its power. His
success is, however, but very partial; for sometimes, in the moments of
his greatest security, the reproaches of conscience break in upon him
like a flood, and sweep away all his refuge of lies. "The evil
conscience is the divine bond which binds the created spirit, even in
deep apostasy, to its Original. In the consciousness of guilt there is
revealed the essential relation of our spirit to God, although
misunderstood by man until he has something higher than his evil
conscience. The trouble and anguish which the remonstrances of this
consciousness excite--the inward unrest which sometimes seizes the slave
of sin--are proofs that he has not quite broken away from God."[134]
[Footnote 134: Müller, "Christian Doctrine of Sin," vol. i. pp. 225,
226.]
In Grecian mythology there was a very distinct recognition of the power
of conscience, and a reference of its authority to the Divinity,
together with the idea of retribution. Nemesis was regarded as the
impersonation of the upbraidings of conscience, of the natural dread of
punishment that springs up in the human heart after the commission of
sin. And as the feeling of remorse may be considered as the consequence
of the displeasure and vengeance of an offended God, Nemesis came to be
regarded as the goddess of retribution, relentlessly pursuing the guilty
until she has driven them into irretrievable woe and ruin. The Erinyes
or Eumenides are the deities whose business it is to punish, in hades,
the crimes committed upon earth. When an aggravated crime has excited
their displeasure they manifest their greatest power in the disquietude
of conscience.
Along with this deep consciousness of guilt, and this fear of
retribution which haunts the guilty mind, there has also rested upon the
heart of universal humanity a deep and abiding conviction that
_something must be done to expiate the guilt of sin_--some restitution
must be made, some suffering must be endured,[135] some sacrifice
offered to atone for past misdeeds. Hence it is that men in all ages
have had recourse to penances and prayers, to self-inflicted tortures
and costly sacrifices to appease a righteous anger which their sins had
excited, and avert an impending punishment. That sacrifice to atone for
sin has prevailed universally--that it has been practised "_sem-per,
ubique, et ab omnibus,_" always, in all places, and by all men--will not
be denied by the candid and competent inquirer. The evidence which has
been collected from ancient history by Grotius and Magee, and the
additional evidence from contemporaneous history, which is being now
furnished by the researches of ethnologists and Christian missionaries,
is conclusive. No intelligent man can doubt the fact. Sacrificial
offerings have prevailed in every nation and in every age. "Almost the
entire worship of the pagan nations consisted in rites of deprecation.
Fear of the Divine displeasure seems to have been the leading feature of
their religious impressions; and in the diversity, the costliness, the
cruelty of their sacrifices they sought to appease gods to whose wrath
they felt themselves exposed, from a consciousness of sin, unrelieved by
any information as to the means of escaping its effects."[136]
[Footnote 135: Punishment is the penalty due to sin; or, to use the
favorite expression of Homer, not unusual in the Scriptures also, it is
the payment of a debt incurred by sin. When he is punished, the criminal
is said to pay off or pay back (apotinein) his crimes; in other words,
to expiate or atone for them (Iliad, iv. 161,162),
syn te megalô apetisan syn sphêsin kephalêsi gynaixi te kai
tekeessin.
that is, they shall pay off, pay back, atone, etc., for their treachery
with a great price, with their lives, and their wives and
children.--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," p. 194.]
[Footnote 136: Magee, "On the Atonement," No. V. p. 30.]
It must be known to every one at all acquainted with Greek mythology
that the idea of _expiation_--atonement--was a fundamental idea of their
religion. Independent of any historical research, a very slight glance
at the Greek and Roman classics, especially the poets, who were the
theologians of that age, can leave little doubt upon this head.[137]
Their language everywhere announces the notion of _propitiation_, and,
particularly the Latin, furnishes the terms which are still employed in
theology. We need only mention the words ilasmos, ilaskomai, lytron,
peripsêma, as examples from the Greek, and _placare, propitiare,
expiare, piaculum_, from the Latin. All these indicate that the notion
of expiation was interwoven into the very modes of thought and framework
of the language of the ancient Greeks.
[Footnote 137: In Homer the doctrine is expressly taught that the gods
may, and sometimes do, remit the penalty, when duly propitiated by
prayers and sacrifices accompanied by suitable reparations ("Iliad," ix.
497 sqq.). "We have a practical illustration of this doctrine in the
first book of the Iliad, where Apollo averts the pestilence from the
army, when the daughter of his priest is returned without ransom, and a
_sacrifice_ (elatombê) is sent to the altar of the god at sacred
Chrysa.... Apollo hearkens to the intercession of his priest, accepts
the sacred hecatomb, is delighted with the accompanying songs and
libations, and sends back the embassy with a favoring breeze, and a
favorable answer to the army, who meanwhile had been _purifying_
(apelymainonto) themselves, and offering unblemished hecatombs of bulls
and goats on the shore of the sea which washes the place of their
encampment."
"The object of the propitiatory embassy to Apollo is thus stated by
Ulysses: Agamemnon, king of men, has sent me to bring back thy daughter
Chryses, and to offer a sacred hecatomb for (yper) the Greeks, that we
may _propitiate_ (ilasomestha) the king, who now sends woes and many
groans upon the Argives" (442 sqq.).--Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets,"
pp. 196, 197.]
We do not deem it needful to discuss at length the question which has
been so earnestly debated among theologians, as to whether the idea of
expiation be a primitive and necessary idea of the human mind, or
whether the practice of piacular sacrifices came into the post-diluvian
world with Noah, as a positive institution of a primitive religion then
first directly instituted by God. On either hypothesis the practice of
expiatory rites derives its authority from God; in the latter case, by
an outward and verbal revelation, in the former by an inward and
intuitive revelation.
This much, however, must be conceded on all hands, that there are
certain fundamental intuitions, universal and necessary, which underlie
the almost universal practice of expiatory sacrifice, namely, _the
universal consciousness of guilt, and the universal conviction that
something must be done to expiate guilt_, to compensate for wrong, and
to atone for past misdeeds. But _how_ that expiation can be effected,
how that atonement can be made, is a question which reason does not seem
competent to answer. That personal sin can be atoned for by vicarious
suffering, that national guilt can be expiated and national punishment
averted by animal sacrifices, or even by human sacrifices, is repugnant
to rather than conformable with natural reason. There exists no
discernible connection between the one and the other. We may suppose
that eucharistic, penitential, and even deprecatory sacrifices may have
originated in the light of nature and reason, but we are unable to
account for the practice of piacular sacrifices for substitutional
atonement, on the same principle. The ethical principle, that one's own
sins are not transferable either in their guilt or punishment, is so
obviously just that we feel it must have been as clear to the mind of
the Greek who brought his victim to be offered to Zeus, as it is to the
philosophic mind of to-day.[138] The knowledge that the Divine
displeasure can be averted by sacrifice is not, by Plato, grounded upon
any intuition of reason, as is the existence of God, the idea of the
true, the just, and good, but on "tradition,"[139] and the
"interpretations" of Apollo. "To the Delphian Apollo there remains the
greatest, noblest, and most important of legal institutions--the
erection of temples, sacrifices, and other services to the gods,... and
what other services should be gone through with a view to their
_propitiation_. Such things as these, indeed, _we neither know
ourselves, nor in founding the State would we intrust them to others_,
if we be wise;... the god of the country is the natural interpreter to
all men about such matters."[140]
[Footnote 138: "He that hath done the deed, to suffer for it--thus cries
a proverb thrice hallowed by age."--Æschylus, "Choëph," 311.]
[Footnote 139: "Laws," book vi. ch. xv.]
[Footnote 140: "Republic," book iv. ch. v.]
The origin of expiatory sacrifices can not, we think, be explained
except on the principle of a primitive revelation and a positive
appointment of God. They can not be understood except as a
divinely-appointed symbolism, in which there is exhibited a confession
of personal guilt and desert of punishment; an intimation and a hope
that God will be propitious and merciful; and a typical promise and
prophecy of a future Redeemer from sin, who shall "put away sin by the
sacrifice of himself." This sacred rite was instituted in connection
with the _protevangelium_ given to our first parents; it was diffused
among the nations by tradition, and has been kept alive as a general,
and, indeed, almost universal observance, by that deep sense of sin, and
consciousness of guilt, and personal urgency of the need of a
reconciliation, which are so clearly displayed in Grecian mythology.
The legitimate inference we find ourselves entitled to draw from the
words of Paul, when fairly interpreted in the light of the past
religious history of the world, is, that the Athenians were a religious
people; that is, _they were, however unknowing, believers in and
worshippers of the One Supreme God_.