With the movement in Greek thought which is generally known as sophistic,
a new view of popular belief appears. The criticism of the sophists was
directed against the entire tradition on which Greek society was based,
and principally against the moral conceptions which hitherto had been
unquestioned: good and evil, right and wrong. The criticism was
essentially negative; that which hitherto had been imagined as absolute
was demonstrated to be relative, and the relative was identified with the
invalid. Thus they could not help running up against the popular ideas of
the gods, and treating them in the same way. A leading part was here
played by the sophistic distinction between _nomos_ and _physis_, Law and
Nature, _i.e._ that which is based on human convention, and that which is
founded on the nature of things. The sophists could not help seeing that
the whole public worship and the ideas associated with it belonged to the
former—to the domain of “the law.” Not only did the worship and the
conceptions of the gods vary from place to place in the hundreds of small
independent communities into which Hellas was divided—a fact which the
sophists had special opportunity of observing when travelling from town to
town to teach; but it was even officially admitted that the whole
ritual—which, popularly speaking, was almost identical with religion—was
based on convention. If a Greek was asked why a god was to be worshipped
in such and such a way, generally the only answer was: because it is the
law of the State (or the convention; the word _nomos_ expresses both
things). Hence it followed in principle that religion came under the
domain of “the law,” being consequently the work of man; and hence again
the obvious conclusion, according to sophistic reasoning, was that it was
nothing but human imagination, and that there was no _physis_, no reality,
behind it at all. In the case of the naturalists, it was the positive
foundation of their system, their conception of nature as a whole, that
led them to criticise the popular belief. Hence their criticism was in the
main only directed against those particular ideas in the popular belief
which were at variance with the results of their investigations. To be
sure, the sophists were not above making use of the results of natural
science in their criticism of the popular belief; it was their general aim
to impart the highest education of their time, and of a liberal education
natural science formed a rather important part. But their starting-point
was quite different from that of the naturalists. Their whole interest was
concentrated on man as a member of the community, and it was from
consideration of this relation that they were brought into collision with
the established religion. Hence their attack was far more dangerous than
that of the naturalists; no longer was it directed against details, it
laid bare the psychological basis itself of popular belief and clearly
revealed its unstable character. Their criticism was fundamental and
central, not casual and circumstantial.
From a purely practical point of view also, the criticism of the sophists
was far more dangerous than that of the old philosophers. They were not
theorists themselves, but practitioners; their business was to impart the
higher education to the more mature youth. It was therefore part of their
profession to disseminate their views not by means of learned professional
writings, but by the persuasive eloquence of oral discourse. And in their
criticism of the existing state of things they did not start with special
results which only science could prove, and the correctness of which the
layman need not recognise; they operated with facts and principles known
and acknowledged by everybody. It is not to be wondered at that such
efforts evoked a vigorous reaction on the part of established society, the
more so as in any case the result of sophistic criticism—though not
consciously its object—was to liquefy the moral principles on which the
social order was based.
Such, in principle, appeared to be the state of things. In practice, here
as elsewhere, the devil proved not so black as he was painted. First, not
all the sophists—hardly even the majority of them—drew the logical
conclusions from their views in respect of either morals or religion. They
were teachers of rhetoric, and as such they taught, for instance, all the
tricks by which a bad cause might be defended; that was part of the trade.
But it must be supposed that Gorgias, the most distinguished of them,
expressly insisted that rhetoric, just like any other art the aim of which
was to defeat an opponent, should only be used for good ends. Similarly
many of them may have stopped short in their criticism of popular belief
at some arbitrary point, so that it was possible for them to respect at
any rate something of the established religion, and so, of course, first
and foremost the very belief in the existence of the gods. That they did
not as a rule interfere with public worship, we may be sure; that was
based firmly on “the Law.” But, in addition, even sophists who personally
took an attitude radically contradictory to popular belief had the most
important reasons for being careful in advancing such a view. They had to
live by being the teachers of youth; they had no fixed appointment, they
travelled about as lecturers and enlisted disciples by means of their
lectures. For such men it would have been a very serious thing to attack
the established order in its tenderest place, religion, and above all they
had to beware of coming into conflict with the penal laws. This risk they
did not incur while confining themselves to theoretical discussions about
right and wrong, nor by the practical application of them in their
teaching of rhetoric; but they might very easily incur it if attacking
religion. This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that we do not
find many direct statements of undoubtedly atheistical character handed
down from the more eminent sophists, and that trials for impiety are rare
in their case. But, nevertheless, a few such cases are met with, and from
these as our starting-point we will now proceed.
As to Protagoras of Abdera, one of the earliest and most famous of all the
sophists, it is stated that he began a pamphlet treating of the gods with
the words: “Concerning the gods I can say nothing, neither that they exist
nor that they do not exist, nor of what form they are; because there are
many things which prevent one from knowing that, namely, both the
uncertainty of the matter and the shortness of man’s life.” On this
account, it is said, he was charged with impiety at Athens and was
outlawed, and his works were publicly burned. The date of this trial is
not known for certain; but it is reasonably supposed to have coincided
with that of Diagoras, namely, in 415. At any rate it must have taken
place after 423-421, as we know that Protagoras was at that time staying
in Athens. As he must have been born about 485, the charge overtook him
when old and famous; according to one account, his work on the gods seems
to belong to his earlier writings.
To doubt the correctness of this tradition would require stronger reasons
than we possess, although it is rather strange that the condemnation of
Protagoras is mentioned neither in our historical sources nor in
Aristophanes, and that Plato, who mentions Protagoras rather frequently as
dead, never alludes to it. At any rate, the quotation from the work on the
gods is certainly authentic, for Plato himself referred to it. Hence it is
certain that Protagoras directly stated the problem as to the existence of
the gods and regarded it as an open question. But beyond that nothing much
can be deduced from the short quotation; and as to the rest of the book on
the gods we know nothing. The meagre reasons for scepticism adduced
probably do not imply any more than that the difficulties are objective as
well as subjective. If, in the latter respect, the brevity of life is
specially mentioned it may be supposed that Protagoras had in mind a
definite proof of the existence of the gods which was rendered difficult
by the fact that life is so brief; prediction of the future may be guessed
at, but nothing certain can be stated.
Protagoras is the only one of the sophists of whom tradition says that he
was the object of persecution owing to his religious views. The trial of
Socrates, however, really belongs to the same category when looked at from
the accusers’ point of view; Socrates was accused as a sophist. But as his
own attitude towards popular religion differed essentially from that of
the sophists, we cannot consider him in this connexion. Protagoras’s trial
itself is partly determined by special circumstances. In all probability
it took place at a moment when a violent religious reaction had set in at
Athens owing to some grave offences against the public worship and
sanctuaries of the State (violation of the Mysteries and mutilation of the
Hermae). The work on the gods had presumably been in existence and known
long before this without causing scandal to anybody. But, nevertheless,
the trial, like those of Anaxagoras and Socrates, plainly bears witness to
the animosity with which the modern free-thought was regarded in Athens.
This animosity did not easily manifest itself publicly without special
reasons; but it was always there and might always be used in case of
provocation.
As to Protagoras’s personal attitude to the question of the existence of
the gods, much may be guessed and much has been guessed; but nothing can
be stated for certain. However, judging from the man’s profession and his
general habit of life as it appears in tradition, we may take for granted
that he did not give offence in his outward behaviour by taking a hostile
attitude to public worship or attacking its foundations; had that been so,
he would not for forty years have been the most distinguished teacher of
Hellas, but would simply not have been tolerated. An eminent modern
scholar has therefore advanced the conjecture that Protagoras
distinguished between belief and knowledge, and that his work on the gods
only aimed at showing that the existence of the gods could not be
scientifically demonstrated. Now such a distinction probably, if
conceived as a conscious principle, is alien to ancient thought, at any
rate at the time of Protagoras; and yet it may contain a grain of truth.
When it is borne in mind that the incriminated passage represents the very
exordium of the work of Protagoras, the impression cannot be avoided that
he himself did not intend his work to disturb the established religion,
but that he quite naïvely took up the existence of the gods as a subject,
as good as any other, for dialectic discussion. All that he was concerned
with was theory and theorising; religion was practice and ritual; and he
had no more intention of interfering with that than the other earlier
sophists of assailing the legal system of the community in their
speculation as to relativity of right and wrong.
All this, however, does not alter the fact that the work of Protagoras
posed the very question of the existence of the gods as a problem which
might possibly be solved in the negative. He seems to have been the first
to do this. That it could be done is significant of the age to which
Protagoras belongs; that it was done was undoubtedly of great importance
for the development of thought in wide circles.
Prodicus of Ceos, also one of the most famous sophists, advanced the idea
that the conceptions of the gods were originally associated with those
things which were of use to humanity: sun and moon, rivers and springs,
the products of the earth and the elements; therefore bread was identified
with Demeter, wine with Dionysus, water with Poseidon, fire with
Hephaestus. As a special instance he mentioned the worship of the Nile by
the Egyptians.
In Democritus, who was a slightly elder contemporary of Prodicus, we have
already met with investigation into the origin of the conceptions of the
gods. There is a close parallel between his handling of the subject and
that of Prodicus, but at the same time a characteristic difference.
Democritus was a naturalist, hence he took as his starting-point the
natural phenomena commonly ascribed to the influence of the gods.
Prodicus, on the other hand, started from the intellectual life of man. We
learn that he had commenced to study synonyms, and that he was interested
in the interpretation of the poets. Now he found that Homer occasionally
simply substituted the name of Hephaestus for fire, and that other poets
went even further on the same lines. Furthermore, while it was common
knowledge to every Greek that certain natural objects, such as the
heavenly bodies and the rivers, were regarded as divine and had names in
common with their gods, this to Prodicus would be a specially attractive
subject for speculation. It is plainly shown by his instances that it is
linguistic observations of this kind which were the starting-point of his
theory concerning the origin of the conceptions of the gods.
In the accounts of Prodicus it is taken for granted that he denied the
existence of the gods, and in later times he is classed as _atheos_.
Nevertheless we have every reason to doubt the correctness of this
opinion. The case of Democritus already shows that a philosopher might
very well derive the conceptions of the gods from an incorrect
interpretation of certain phenomena without throwing doubt on their
existence. As far as Prodicus is concerned it may be assumed that he did
not believe that Bread, Wine or Fire were gods, any more than Democritus
imagined that Zeus sent thunder and lightning; nor, presumably, did he
ever believe that rivers were gods. But he need not therefore have denied
the existence of Demeter, Dionysus and Hephaestus, much less the divinity
of the sun and the moon. And if we consider his theory more closely it
points in quite a different direction from that of atheism. To Prodicus it
was evidently the conception of utility that mattered: if these objects
came to be regarded as gods it was because they “benefited humanity.” This
too is a genuinely sophistic view, characteristically deviating from that
of the naturalist Democritus in its limitation to the human and social
aspect of the question. Such a point of view, if confronted with the
question of the existence of the gods, may very well, according to
sophistic methods of reasoning, lead to the conclusion that primitive man
was right in so far as the useful, _i.e._ that which “benefits humanity,”
really is an essential feature of the gods, and wrong only in so far as he
identified the individual useful objects with the gods. Whether Prodicus
adopted this point of view, we cannot possibly tell; but the general body
of tradition concerning the man, which does not in any way suggest
religious radicalism, indicates as most probable that he did not connect
the question of the origin of the conceptions of the gods with that of the
existence of the gods, which to him was taken for granted, and that it was
only later philosophers who, in their researches into the ideas of earlier
philosophers about the gods, inferred his atheism from his speculations on
the history of religion.
Critias, the well-known reactionary politician, the chief of the Thirty
Tyrants, is placed amongst the atheists on the strength of a passage in a
satyric drama, _Sisyphus_. The drama is lost, but our authority quotes the
objectionable passage _in extenso_; it is a piece of no less than forty
lines. The passage argues that human life in its origins knew no social
order, that might ruled supreme. Then men conceived the idea of making
laws in order that right might rule instead of might. The result of this
was, it is true, that wrong was not done openly; but it was done secretly
instead. Then a wise man bethought himself of making men believe that
there existed gods who saw and heard everything which men did, nay even
knew their innermost thoughts. And, in order that men might stand in
proper awe of the gods, he said that they lived in the sky, out of which
comes that which makes men afraid, such as lightning and thunder, but also
that which benefits them, sunshine and rain, and the stars, those fair
ornaments by whose course men measure time. Thus he succeeded in bringing
lawlessness to an end. It is expressly stated that it was all a cunning
fraud: “by such talk he made his teaching most acceptable, veiling truth
with false words.”
In antiquity it was disputed whether the drama _Sisyphus_ was by Critias
or Euripides; nowadays all agree in attributing it to Critias; nor does
the style of the long fragment resemble that of Euripides. The question
is, however, of no consequence in this connexion: whether the drama is by
Critias or Euripides it is wrong to attribute to an author opinions which
he has put into the mouth of a character in a drama. Moreover, _Sisyphus_
was a satyric play, _i.e._ it belonged to a class of poetry the liberty of
which was nearly as great as in comedy, and the speech was delivered by
Sisyphus himself, who, according to the legend, is a type of the crafty
criminal whose forte is to do evil and elude punishment. There is, in
fact, nothing in that which we otherwise hear of Critias to suggest that
he cherished free-thinking views. He was—or in his later years became—a
fanatical adversary of the Attic democracy, and he was, when he held
power, unscrupulous in his choice of the means with which he opposed it
and the men who stood in the path of his reactionary policy; but in our
earlier sources he is never accused of impiety in the theoretical sense.
And yet there had been an excellent opportunity of bringing forward such
an accusation; for in his youth Critias had been a companion of Socrates,
and his later conduct was used as a proof that Socrates corrupted his
surroundings. But it is always Critias’s political crimes which are
adduced in this connexion, not his irreligion. On the other hand,
posterity looked upon him as the pure type of tyrant, and the label
atheist therefore suggested itself on the slightest provocation.
But, even if the _Sisyphus_ fragment cannot be used to characterise its
author as an atheist, it is, nevertheless, of the greatest interest in
this connexion, and therefore demands closer analysis.
The introductory idea, that mankind has evolved from an animal state into
higher stages, is at variance with the earlier Greek conception, namely,
that history begins with a golden age from which there is a continual
decline. The theory of the fragment is expressed by a series of authors
from the same and the immediately succeeding period. It occurs in
Euripides; a later and otherwise little-known tragedian, Moschion,
developed it in detail in a still extant fragment; Plato accepted it and
made it the basis of his presentation of the origin of the State;
Aristotle takes it for granted. Its source, too, has been demonstrated: it
was presumably Democritus who first advanced it. Nevertheless the author
of the fragment has hardly got it direct from Democritus, who at this time
was little known at Athens, but from an intermediary. This intermediary is
probably Protagoras, of whom it is said that he composed a treatise, _The
Original State, i.e._ the primary state of mankind. Protagoras was a
fellow-townsman of Democritus, and recorded by tradition as one of his
direct disciples.
In another point also the fragment seems to betray the influence of
Democritus. When it is said that the wise inventors of the gods made them
dwell in the skies, because from the skies come those natural phenomena
which frighten men, it is highly suggestive of Democritus’s criticism of
the divine explanation of thunder and lightning and the like. In this case
also Protagoras may have been the intermediary. In his work on the gods he
had every opportunity of discussing the question in detail. But here we
have the theory of Democritus combined with that of Prodicus in that it is
maintained that from the skies come also those things that benefit men,
and that they are on this account also a suitable dwelling-place for the
gods. It is obvious that the author of the fragment (or his source) was
versed in the most modern wisdom.
All this erudition, however, is made to serve a certain tendency: the
well-known tendency to represent religion as a political invention having
as its object the policing of society. It is a theory which in
antiquity—to its honour be it said—is but of rare occurrence. There is a
vague indication of it in Euripides, a more definite one in Aristotle, and
an elaborate application of it in Polybius; and that is in reality all.
(That many people in more enlightened ages upheld religion as a means of
keeping the masses in check, is a different matter.) However, it is an
interesting fact that the Critias fragment is not only the first evidence
of the existence of the theory known to us, but also presumably the
earliest and probably the best known to later antiquity. Otherwise we
should not find reference for the theory made to a fragment of a farce,
but to a quotation from a philosopher.
This might lead us to conclude that the theory was Critias’s own
invention, though, of course, it would not follow that he himself adhered
to it. But it is more probable that it was a ready-made modern theory
which Critias put into the mouth of Sisyphus. Not only does the whole
character of the fragment and its scene of action favour this supposition,
but there is also another factor which corroborates it.
In the _Gorgias_ Plato makes one of the characters, Callicles—a man of
whom we otherwise know nothing—profess a doctrine which up to a certain
point is almost identical with that of the fragment. According to
Callicles, the natural state (and the right state; on this point he is at
variance with the fragment) is that right belongs to the strong. This
state has been corrupted by legislation; the laws are inventions of the
weak, who are also the majority, and their aim is to hinder the
encroachment of the strong. If this theory is carried to its conclusion,
it is obvious that religion must be added to the laws; if the former is
not also regarded as an invention for the policing of society, the whole
theory is upset. Now in the _Gorgias_ the question as to the attitude of
the gods towards the problem of what is right and what is wrong is
carefully avoided in the discussion. Not till the close of the dialogue,
where Plato substitutes myth for scientific research, does he draw the
conclusion in respect of religion. He does this in a positive form, as a
consequence of _his_ point of view: after death the gods reward the just
and punish the unjust; but he expressly assumes that Callicles will regard
it all as an old wives’ tale.
In Callicles an attempt has been made to see a pseudonym for Critias. That
is certainly wrong. Critias was a kinsman of Plato, is introduced by name
in several dialogues, nay, one dialogue even bears his name, and he is
everywhere treated with respect and sympathy. Nowadays, therefore, it is
generally acknowledged that Callicles is a real person, merely unknown to
us as such. However that may be, Plato would never have let a leading
character in one of his longer dialogues advance (and Socrates refute) a
view which had no better authority than a passage in a satyric drama. On
the other hand, there is, as shown above, difficulty in supposing that the
doctrine of the fragment was stated in the writings of an eminent sophist;
so we come to the conclusion that it was developed and diffused in
sophistic circles by oral teaching, and that it became known to Critias
and Plato in this way. Its originator we do not know. We might think of
the sophist Thrasymachus, who in the first book of Plato’s _Republic_
maintains a point of view corresponding to that of Callicles in _Gorgias_.
But what we otherwise learn of Thrasymachus is not suggestive of interest
in religion, and the only statement of his as to that kind of thing which
has come down to us tends to the denial of a providence, not denial of the
gods. Quite recently Diagoras of Melos has been guessed at; this is empty
talk, resulting at best in substituting _x_ (or _NN_) for _y_.
If I have dwelt in such detail on the _Sisyphus_ fragment, it is because
it is our first direct and unmistakable evidence of ancient atheism. Here
for the first time we meet with the direct statement which we have
searched for in vain among all the preceding authors: that the gods of
popular belief are fabrication pure and simple and without any
corresponding reality, however remote. The nature of our tradition
precludes our ascertaining whether such a statement might have been made
earlier; but the probability is _a priori_ that it was not. The whole
development of ancient reasoning on religious questions, as far as we are
able to survey it, leads in reality to the conclusion that atheism as an
expressed (though perhaps not publicly expressed) confession of faith did
not appear till the age of the sophists.
With the Critias fragment we have also brought to an end the inquiry into
the direct statements of atheistic tendency which have come down to us
from the age of the sophists. The result is, as we see, rather meagre. But
it may be supplemented with indirect testimonies which prove that there
was more of the thing than the direct tradition would lead us to
conjecture, and that the denial of the existence of the gods must have
penetrated very wide circles.
The fullest expression of Attic free-thought at the end of the fifth
century is to be found in the tragedies of Euripides. They are leavened
with reflections on all possible moral and religious problems, and
criticism of the traditional conceptions of the gods plays a leading part
in them. We shall, however, have some difficulty in using Euripides as a
source of what people really thought at this period, partly because he is
a very pronounced personality and by no means a mere mouthpiece for the
ideas of his contemporaries—during his lifetime he was an object of the
most violent animosity owing, among other things, to his free-thinking
views—partly because he, as a dramatist, was obliged to put his ideas into
the mouths of his characters, so that in many cases it is difficult to
decide how much is due to dramatic considerations and how much to the
personal opinion of the poet. Even to this day the religious standpoint of
Euripides is matter of dispute. In the most recent detailed treatment of
the question he is characterised as an atheist, whereas others regard him
merely as a dialectician who debates problems without having any real
standpoint of his own.
I do not believe that Euripides personally denied the existence of the
gods; there is too much that tells against that theory, and, in fact,
nothing that tells directly in favour of it, though he did not quite
escape the charge of atheism even in his own day. To prove the correctness
of this view would, however, lead too far afield in this connexion. On the
other hand, a short characterisation of Euripides’s manner of reasoning
about religious problems is unavoidable as a background for the treatment
of those—very rare—passages where he has put actually atheistic
reflections into the mouths of his characters.
As a Greek dramatist Euripides had to derive his subjects from the heroic
legends, which at the same time were legends of the gods in so far as they
were interwoven with tales of the gods’ direct intervention in affairs. It
is precisely against this intervention that the criticism of Euripides is
primarily directed. Again and again he makes his characters protest
against the manner in which they are treated by the gods or in which the
gods generally behave. It is characteristic of Euripides that his
starting-point in this connexion is always the moral one. So far he is a
typical representative of that tendency which, in earlier times, was
represented by Xenophanes and a little later by Pindar; in no other Greek
poet has the method of using the higher conceptions of the gods against
the lower found more complete expression than in Euripides. And in so far,
too, he is still entirely on the ground of popular belief. But at the same
time it is characteristic of him that he is familiar with and highly
influenced by Greek science. He knows the most eminent representatives of
Ionian naturalism (with the exception of Democritus), and he is fond of
displaying his knowledge. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that he uses it
in a contentious spirit against popular belief; on the contrary, he is
inclined in agreement with the old philosophers to identify the gods of
popular belief with the elements. Towards sophistic he takes a similar,
but less sympathetic attitude. Sophistic was not in vogue till he was a
man of mature age; he made acquaintance with it, and he made use of
it—there are reflections in his dramas which carry distinct evidence of
sophistic influence; but in his treatment of religious problems he is not
a disciple of the sophists, and on this subject, as on others, he
occasionally attacked them.
It is against this background that we must set the reflections with an
atheistic tone that we find in Euripides. They are, as already mentioned,
rare; indeed, strictly speaking there is only one case in which a
character openly denies the existence of the gods. The passage is a
fragment of the drama _Bellerophon_; it is, despite its isolation, so
typical of the manner of Euripides that it deserves to be quoted in full.
“And then to say that there are gods in the heavens! Nay, there are none
there; if you are not foolish enough to be seduced by the old talk. Think
for yourselves about the matter, and do not be influenced by my words. I
contend that the tyrants kill the people wholesale, take their money and
destroy cities in spite of their oaths; and although they do all this they
are happier than people who, in peace and quietness, lead god-fearing
lives. And I know small states which honour the gods, but must obey
greater states, which are less pious, because their spearmen are fewer in
number. And I believe that you, if a slothful man just prayed to the gods
and did not earn his bread by the work of his hands—” Here the sense is
interrupted; but there remains one more line: “That which builds the
castle of the gods is in part the unfortunate happenings ...” The
continuation is missing.
The argumentation here is characteristic of Euripides. From the injustice
of life he infers the non-existence of the gods. The conclusion evidently
only holds good on the assumption that the gods must be just; and this is
precisely one of the postulates of popular belief. The reasoning is not
sophistic; on the contrary, in their attacks the sophists took up a
position outside the foundation of popular belief and attacked the
foundation itself. This reasoning, on the other hand, is closely allied to
the earlier religious thinking of the Greeks; it only proceeds further
than the latter, where it results in rank denial.
The drama of _Bellerophon_ is lost, and reconstruction is out of the
question; if only for that reason it is unwarrantable to draw any
conclusions from the detached fragment as to the poet’s personal attitude
towards the existence of the gods. But, nevertheless, the fragment is of
interest in this connexion. It would never have occurred to Sophocles or
Aeschylus to put such a speech in the mouth of one of his characters. When
Euripides does that it is a proof that the question of the existence of
the gods has begun to present itself to the popular consciousness at this
time. Viewed in this light other statements of his which are not in
themselves atheistic become significant. When it is said: “If the gods act
in a shameful way, they are not gods”—that indeed is not atheism in our
sense, but it is very near to it. Interesting is also the introduction to
the drama _Melanippe_: “Zeus, whoever Zeus may be; for of that I only know
what is told.” Aeschylus begins a strophe in one of his most famous choral
odes with almost the same words: “Zeus, whoe’er he be; for if he desire so
to be called, I will address him by this name.” In him it is an expression
of genuine antique piety, which excludes all human impertinence towards
the gods to such a degree that it even forgoes knowing their real names.
In Euripides the same idea becomes an expression of doubt; but in this
case also the doubt is raised on the foundation of popular belief.
It is not surprising that so prominent and sustained a criticism of
popular belief as that of Euripides, produced, moreover, on the stage,
called forth a reaction from the defenders of the established faith, and
that charges of impiety were not wanting. It is more to be wondered at
that these charges on the whole are so few and slight, and that Euripides
did not become the object of any actual prosecution. We know of a private
trial in which the accuser incidentally charged Euripides with impiety on
the strength of a quotation from one of his tragedies, Euripides’s answer
being a protest against dragging his poetry into the affair; the verdict
on that belonged to another court. Aristophanes, who is always severe on
Euripides, has only one passage directly charging him with being a
propagator of atheism; but the accusation is hardly meant to be taken
seriously. In _The Frogs_, where he had every opportunity of emphasising
this view, there is hardly an indication of it. In _The Clouds_, where the
main attack is directed against modern free-thought, Euripides, to be
sure, is sneered at as being the fashionable poet of the corrupted youth,
but he is not drawn into the charge of impiety. Even when Plato wrote his
_Republic_, Euripides was generally considered the “wisest of all
tragedians.” This would have been impossible if he had been considered an
atheist. In spite of all, the general feeling must undoubtedly have been
that Euripides ultimately took his stand on the ground of popular belief.
It was a similar instinctive judgment in regard to religion which
prevented antiquity from placing Xenophanes amongst the atheists. Later
times no doubt judged differently; the quotation from _Melanippe_ is in
fact cited as a proof that Euripides was an atheist in his heart of
hearts.
In Aristophanes we meet with the first observations concerning the change
in the religious conditions of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. In one
of his plays, _The Clouds_, he actually set himself the task of taking up
arms against modern unbelief, and he characterises it directly as atheism.
If only for that reason the play deserves somewhat fuller consideration.
It is well known that Aristophanes chose Socrates as a representative of
the modern movement. In him he embodies all the faults with which he
wished to pick a quarrel in the fashionable philosophy of the day. On the
other hand, the essence of Socratic teaching is entirely absent from
Aristophanes’s representation; of that he had hardly any understanding,
and even if he had he would at any rate not have been able to make use of
it in his drama. We need not then in this connexion consider Socrates
himself at all; on the other hand, the play gives a good idea of the
popular idea of sophistic. Here we find all the features of the school,
grotesquely mixed up and distorted by the farce, it is true, but
nevertheless easily recognisable: rhetoric as an end in itself, of course,
with emphasis on its immoral aspect; empty and hair-splitting dialectics;
linguistic researches; Ionic naturalism; and first and last, as the focus
of all, denial of the gods. That Aristophanes was well informed on certain
points, at any rate, is clear from the fact that the majority of the
scientific explanations which he puts into the mouth of Socrates actually
represent the latest results of science at that time—which in all
probability did not prevent his Athenians from considering them as
exceedingly absurd and ridiculous.
What matters here, however, is only the accusation of atheism which he
made against Socrates. It is a little difficult to handle, in so far as
Aristophanes, for dramatic reasons, has equipped Socrates with a whole set
of deities. There are the clouds themselves, which are of Aristophanes’s
own invention; there is also the air, which he has got from Diogenes of
Apollonia, and finally a “vortex” which is supposed to be derived from the
same source, and which at any rate has cast Zeus down from his throne. All
this we must ignore, as it is only conditioned partly by technical
reasons—Aristophanes had to have a chorus and chose the clouds for the
purpose—and partially by the desire to ridicule Ionic naturalism. But
enough is left over. In the beginning of the play Socrates expressly
declares that no gods exist. Similar statements are repeated in several
places. Zeus is sometimes substituted for the gods, but it comes to the
same thing. And at the end of the play, where the honest Athenian, who has
ventured on the ticklish ground of sophistic, admits his delusion, it is
expressly said:
“Oh, what a fool I am! Nay, I must have been mad indeed when I thought of
throwing the gods away for Socrates’s sake!”
Even in the verses with which the chorus conclude the play it is insisted
that the worst crime of the sophists is their insult to the gods.
The inference to be drawn from all this is simply that the popular
Athenian opinion—for we may rest assured that this and the view of
Aristophanes are identical—was that the sophists were atheists. That says
but little. For popular opinion always works with broad categories, and
the probability is that in this case, as demonstrated above, it was in the
wrong, for, as a rule, the sophists were hardly conscious deniers of the
gods. But, at the same time, at the back of the onslaught of Aristophanes
there lies the idea that the teaching of the sophists led to denial of the
gods; that atheism was the natural outcome of their doctrine and way of
reasoning. And that there was some truth therein is proved by other
evidence which can hardly be rejected.
In the indictment of Socrates it is said that he “offended by not
believing in the gods in which the State believed.” In the two apologies
for Socrates which have come down to us under Xenophon’s name, the author
treats this accusation entirely under the aspect of atheism, and tries to
refute it by positive proofs of the piety of Socrates. But not one word is
said about there being, in and for itself, anything remarkable or
improbable in the charge. In Plato’s _Apology_, Plato makes Socrates ask
the accuser point-blank whether he is of the opinion that he, Socrates,
does not believe in the gods at all and accordingly is a downright denier
of the gods, or whether he merely means to say that he believes in other
gods than those of the State. He makes the accuser answer that the
assertion is that Socrates does not believe in any gods at all. In Plato
Socrates refutes the accusation indirectly, using a line of argument
entirely differing from that of Xenophon. But in Plato, too, the
accusation is treated as being in no way extraordinary. In my opinion,
Plato’s _Apology_ cannot be used as historical evidence for details unless
special reasons can be given proving their historical value beyond the
fact that they occur in the _Apology_. But in this connexion the question
is not what was said or not said at Socrates’s trial. The decisive point
is that we possess two quite independent and unambiguous depositions by
two fully competent witnesses of the beginning of the fourth century which
both treat of the charge of atheism as something which is neither strange
nor surprising at their time. It is therefore permissible to conclude that
in Athens at this time there really existed circles or at any rate not a
few individuals who had given up the belief in the popular gods.
A dialogue between Socrates and a young man by name Aristodemus, given in
Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, makes the same impression. Of Aristodemus it is
said that he does not sacrifice to the gods, does not consult the Oracle
and ridicules those who do so. When he is called to account for this
behaviour he maintains that he does not despise “the divine,” but is of
the opinion that it is too exalted to need his worship. Moreover, he
contends that the gods do not trouble themselves about mankind. This is,
of course, not atheism in our sense; but Aristodemus’s attitude is,
nevertheless, extremely eccentric in a community like that of Athens in
the fifth century. And yet it is not mentioned as anything isolated and
extraordinary, but as if it were something which, to be sure, was out of
the common, but not unheard of.
It is further to be observed that at the end of the fifth century we often
hear of active sacrilegious outrages. An example is the historic trial of
Alcibiades for profanation of the Mysteries. But this was not an isolated
occurrence; there were more of the same kind at the time. Of the
dithyrambic poet Cinesias it is said that he profaned holy things in an
obscene manner. But the greatest stress of all must be laid on the
well-known mutilation of the Hermae at Athens in 415, just before the
expedition to Sicily. All the tales about the outrages of the Mysteries
_may_ have been fictitious, but it is a fact that the Hermae were
mutilated. The motive was probably political: the members of a secret
society intended to pledge themselves to each other by all committing a
capital crime. But that they chose just this form of crime shows quite
clearly that respect for the State religion had greatly declined in these
circles.
What has so far been adduced as proof that the belief in the gods had
begun to waver in Athens at the end of the fifth century is, in my
opinion, conclusive in itself to anybody who is familiar with the more
ancient Greek modes of thought and expression on this point, and can not
only hear what is said, but also understand how it is said and what is
passed over in silence. Of course it can always be objected that the
proofs are partly the assertions of a comic poet who certainly was not
particular about accusations of impiety, partly deductions _ex silentio_,
partly actions the motives for which are uncertain. Fortunately, however,
we have—from a slightly later period, it is true—a positive utterance
which confirms our conclusion and which comes from a man who was not in
the habit of talking idly and who had the best opportunities of knowing
the circumstances.
In the tenth book of his _Laws_, written shortly before his death, _i.e._
about the middle of the fourth century, Plato gives a detailed account of
the question of irreligion seen from the point of view of penal
legislation. He distinguishes here between three forms, namely, denial of
the existence of the gods, denial of the divine providence (whereas the
existence of the gods is admitted), and finally the assumption that the
gods exist and exercise providence, but that they allow themselves to be
influenced by sacrifices and prayers. Of these three categories the last
is evidently directed against ancient popular belief itself; it does not
therefore interest us in this connexion. The second view, the denial of a
providence, we have already met with in Xenophon in the character of
Aristodemus, and in the sophist Thrasymachus; Euripides, too, sometimes
alludes to it, though it was far from being his own opinion. Whether it
amounted to denial of the gods or not was, in ancient times, the cause of
much dispute; it is, of course, not atheism in our sense, but it is
certainly evidence that belief in the gods is shaken. The first view, on
the other hand, is sheer atheism. Plato consequently reckons with this as
a serious danger to the community; he mentions it as a widespread view
among the youth of his time, and in his legislation he sentences to death
those who fail to be converted. It would seem certain, therefore, that
there was, in reality, something in it after all.
Plato does not confine himself to defining atheism and laying down the
penalty for it; he at the same time, in accordance with a principle which
he generally follows in the _Laws_, discusses it and tries to disprove it.
In this way he happens to give us information—which is of special interest
to us—of the proofs which were adduced by its followers.
The argument is a twofold one. First comes the naturalistic proof; the
heavenly bodies, according to the general (and Plato’s own) view the most
certain deities, are inanimate natural objects. It is interesting to note
that in speaking of this doctrine in detail reference is clearly made to
Anaxagoras; this confirms our afore-mentioned conjectures as to the
character of his work. Plato was quite in a position to deal with
Anaxagoras on the strength not only of what he said, but of what he passed
over in silence. The second argument is the well-known sophistic one, that
the gods are _nomôi_, not _physei_, they depend upon convention, which has
nothing to do with reality. In this connexion the argument adds that what
applies to the gods, applies also to right and wrong; _i.e._ we find here
in the _Laws_ the view with which we are familiar from Callicles in the
_Gorgias_, but with the missing link supplied. And Plato’s development of
this theme shows clearly just what a general historical consideration
might lead us to expect, namely, that it was naturalism and sophistic that
jointly undermined the belief in the old gods.