■^< ^^0^ _ t^o^ . " ^liK : ^ ^ V 9> A BRIEF VIEW GREEK PHILOSOPHY UP TO THE AGE OF PERICLES PHILADELPHIA: LEA AND BLANCHARD. 1846. /9 d ^ Vfc % k 48 65 55 AUG -6 1942 PHILADELPHIA : T, K. AND P. G. COLLINS, FEIHTERS. / ;/ INTRODUCTION. Nearly three years ago a small volume crept into print entitled " Philosophical Theories and Philoso- phical Experience by a Pariah." It purported to be, and was, the result of deep communings with unseen things which suffering had produced in one who be- lieved in a God, and as a consequence of that faith believed that in whatever he permitted even, there must be latent good ; and, therefore, resolved to seek, and hoped to find it. At that time two only were privy to the publication ; the Thinker, and the Friend who edited those thoughts because they were his own also ; and who, possessing the sinews of — printing — determined that they should no longer form the mere private solace of one or two. An unexpected success attended the experiment : the philosophy propounded was approved ; its appli- cability to all the great purposes of life was acknow- ledged ; and, very shortly after, a society was formed for the purpose of editing more works of the same kind; in which sound views of science, and great philosophical principles should be clearly and shortly brought forward, for the benefit of those who had neither time nor inclination to seek them in more volu- minous works. Since that time three more tracts have l|een ushered into the world under the auspices of this society : — the Theories have gained publicity in the lecture room of the Royal Institution, and have found favor in the sight both of philosophers and divines. Physiologists of no mean fame have listened and praised; and among those whom our age looks up 6 INTRODUCTION. to as great in science, many have bestowed so liberal a share of commendation as to outgo the most san- guine hopes of the friends who first associated them- selves for a purpose which they thought a good one, but of whose success they were uncertain. This state of things has put an end to the dual existence of the Pariah, and the Theorist is now but one among many pledged to contribute to the com- mon stock: and he knows not how he can do so better than by presenting as his quota, a short view of a subject which has hitherto slumbered in pon- derous folios and quartos, or in fearful ranges of oc- tavo volumes clad in one livery, which put a man's reading courage to the test, and justify him in call- ing himself bold, who takes down the first volume. Horace's warning of the danger that whilst avoiding the Scylla, lengthiness, we may full into the Charyb- dis, obscurity, will doubtless occur to the imgentle reader, for times have changed' since worthy au- thors addressed their intended victims as gentle^ — the Theorist can only answer to the thought, that he hopes to steer his barque safely between the two. If, furthermore, any of these ungentle personages should wonder why so old a subject as Greek philosophy should be brought forward; he answers, that though we owe the chief of our scientific acquirements to the spirit of inquiry which the literature of Greece awoke, when Europe was slumbering in contented darkness ; few are aware of how much that literature has done for us : and he wishes to lead his country- men, and countrywomen too, to do it more justice;^ The simple monk who complained of the Greek tongue, and especially of " the book called the New Testament," in that language, as a "pestilent inven- tion;" — and the military despot who forbade it to be taught in his schools, knew it better than we do : they INTRODUCTION. 7 feared it; for it is the language of the free man, whose mind brooks shackles as ill as his body. We who have drunk at its pure fountain go on our way refreshed, but ungratefully forget whence we obtained the invigorating draught ; and too often imagine that we exalt Christianity by detracting from the merits of the great men of antiquity, "who having not the law, were a law unto themselves;" and who, if the sun of the Gospel had not yet risen upon the earth, at least pointed to its dawning. Clement of Alexan- driaf whom we must allow to have been a competent judge of such matters, explicitly says, "Philosophy was needful to the Greeks before the coming of the Lord, for the purifying of their lives,* and even now it is useful to piety ; being a kind of rudimentary teaching for those who upon conviction receive the faith." " For," he adds a little further on, "philoso- phy to the Greeks, was what the law was to the He- brews, a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ."! It is strange that with such testimony before us, and with many of the works of that age in our hands also, we should have been so generally led astray by a misunderstood passage or two in the epistles of St. Paul, where he is referring to sophists, and not to philosophers; and no less grievous is it, than strange ; for such misunderstandings make the first steps in ancient lore a dangerous trial. It is a fearful moment when we discover that any part of what we have been taught in our childhood by those we most venerate, is not true: — the very foundation of our best hopes is shaken, and it is well if in that frightful wrench of our reason from our affections, we remain calm enough to examine how much we must forego, t Clem. Alex. Strom., lib. i. c. 5. 8 INTRODUCTION. how much retain. Could we know the private his- tory of most "free-thinkers," as they termed them- selves, — "infidels," as they have been termed by others, — we should most probably find that the greater number,— as we know has been the case with many, — were made what they were by some such revulsion of feeling as that above described. It is time then that the possibility of any such lament- able results should be prevented, by putting into the hands of all, the means of knowing, and consequently of teaching, the unadulterated Truth. The child might thus receive from his mother in his infancy, the rudiments of the knowledge which his after pro- gress must be grounded upon; and thus the best years of his life would not be wasted in wwlearning, when that process is most dangerous, and when there is much hazard that, along with the prejudices of the nursery, the great truths of religion and morality may also be discarded. Science, divine and human, would then stand before him in loving companionship : and what advance Avould be too great for one whose na- ture was indeed become what Plato had dreamed long ago ; — a blessed harmony of the seen and the unseen, the intellectual and the corporeal. The age of pious frauds and political humbug is passing away : men, and women too, are beginning to be weary of receiving dogmata upon trust: and if there be, as assuredly there is in this age, much of crude and wild theory, and of contempt for what had before been held in honor, let us at least impute it to its right cause, and meet the evil with its proper remedy. The human soul asks for the Truth: let us give it; — for surely that God who made man for himself, and who is Truth, has made that the road to peace and to happiness. It may be needful here to premise that in order to INTRODUCTION. 9 compress matter that usually has filled large volumes into so small a space, it has been requisite to omit all the arguments by which the writer has been in- fluenced to choose one account rather than another, where there were conflicting statements. It is the business of an author who writes a compendium of this kind, to exert his own best judgment in the choice of his materials, in order to give the reader a clear notion of the subject he has undertaken to ex- plain ; not to weary him by contrasting the discre- pancies between ancient authors, and by detailing the reasons why one witness is more credible than another. In many instances the choice of testimony must be founded on a deep study of human nature generally; a subject too large to be here discussed: the writer, therefore, can do no more than ask his reader to have candor enough to believe that he has left no author unexplored that could throw light upon the subject. The results of his reading, his expe- rience in the world, and his contemplations in soli- tude, are here given, and he conscientiously believes in their general truth; but his judgment, like that of others, is fallible ; and those who have the time, will always do well to examine and judge for them- selves. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. 1800 1550 1500 1400 1250 1225 1215 1194- 1184 1180 1100 About this time the Israelitish family settle in Eg^'^pt, and Greece is peopled by a tribe from Asia, called by the ancient writers, Pelasgi. Argos and Sicyon were the first kingdoms, known as such, in the region thus colonized. The ancient walls and monuments, called Cyclopean, being found where the Pelasgi are said to have settled", were probably their work. Another , tribe, the Hellenes, though the weaker of the two at first, gradually gain the supremacy. They first appear in Phocis, and about Parnassus, under their king Deucalion, spread into Thessaly, and drive oat the Pelasgi. The Hellenes consisted of four tribes, ^olians, lonians, Dorians, and Achaians. The Israelites leave Egypt. Cecrops leads a colony from Sais in Egypt, to Attica; and Cadmus from Phoenicia to Breotia. Danaus arrives in Argos from Egypt, and persuades the people to depose their monarch, and receive him in his room. Rameses the Great, or Sesostris, pursues his conquests. Pelops comes from Mysia to Argos. Minos reigns in Crete, and clears the sea of pirates. The Argonautic voyage to Colchis. Orpheus flourish- ed about this time. The seven chiefs besiege Thebes; but it is only taken by their sons in a second attempt. > Trojan war. The descendants of Hercules endeavor to recover their father's kingdom by the aid of the Dorians and .'Etolians: but the first attempt under Hyllus, the son of Hercules, fails. The grandsons of Hyllus, Telephus, and Cresphontes, with Eurysthenes and CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 11 Procles (the sons of the third brother Aristodemus) succeed in their enterprise. During this time the JGtolians plant colonies, about 1124 b. con the coast of Mysia and Caria, and in the island of Lesbos. By the successful invasion of the Heraclidge, Argos, Sparta, Messenia, and Corinth, became Doric; the Achaians being driven out. Elis fell to the ^Etolians, the allies of the Dorians. The Achaians fell back on the lonians, and settled themselves in the part afterwards called Achaia. The lonians were received by the Athenians, who were of the same race. Sparta during the time it was peopled by the Achaians, was first governed by the princes of the house of Perseus; and then, in consequence of marriage, by Menelaus, of the house of Pelops : but under the Dorians it fell to the lot of Procles and Eurysthenes, whose descendants continued to share the sovereign power; a king being chosen from each family. Agis was the son and successor of Eurysthenes, and the two families were hence called Proclidae and Agidae. The distinction be- tween Lacedemonians and Spartans took its rise probably from this conquest: the former were the Achaian cultivators, the latter the Dorian victors. The Israelites ask a king, and Saul is chosen. Codrus saves Athens by his voluntary death when the Dorians threatened that state. The Archons for life M^ho succeed him, continue from 1068-752. The lonians, under Neleus, the son of Codrus, settle in that part of Asia Minor afterwards called Ionia, and in the islands of Samos and Chios. Lycurgus gives laws to Sparta, and introduced Homer's poems to notice. Spartan wars with Tegea and Argos, and affairs with Messenia. Rome founded. Archons of Athens limited to ten years magistracy, but still chosen from the family of Codrus. - First Messenian war, ended by the taking of Ithome, and the voluntary death of the Messenian king Aristodemus. The Messenians become tributary to Sparta, giving the produce of their land to the 12 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 689 682 668 679 650 640 622 victors. During this war the college of Ephors was established. Shalmanesar, king of Assyria, carries the ten tribes of Israel into captivity. Gyges, king of Lydia. Flourishing state of the Ion- ian cities. The ten years archonship abolished in Athens and yearly archons substituted. Aristomenes begins a struggle with Sparta for the recovery of Messenian independence. He is foiled, and Eira is taken, and the Messenians re- duced to the condition of Helots. Numa Pompilius, king of Rome. About this period Ardyes, king of Lydia, conquers Priene in Ionia. Thales born. Draco, archon of Athens, publishes his code. Josiah finds the book of the law and enforces its observance. B.C. 610 598 568 561 560 557 556 552 OLTMP. XLII 3 XLT. 3 nil. 1 XIV. 4 IV. 1 "■" 4 LVI. 1 IVII. 1 Anaximander born 1 Cyion endeavors to seize on the sovereign power at Athens. -; Jeremiah prophesied about this time. The expiation for the murder of Cy- lon's adherents made by Epimenides. Solon chosen archon with a charge to revise the laws. Anaximenes born 1 Tyranny of Peisistratus in Athens. Cyrus, king of Persia, ascends the throne of the Medes also. Peisistratus is driven out. Sardis taken by Cyrus, Croesus, the ki of Lydia, made prisoner, and the king- dom of Lydia added to the Persian do- minions. Peisistratus, having allied himself by mar- riage with the family of Megacles, is ele- vated a second time to the tyranny. ] He is driven out a second time by Mega- cles. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 13 B.C 548 540 538 536 528 514 OLTMP. xyiii. 1 XX. 1 rxi. 1 LXIII. 1 ixvi. 3 500 496 490 486 480 479 478 477 469 XXX. 1 XXXT. 1 XXXII. 3 XXXIII. 3 XXXV. 1 XXXV. 2 3 4 XXXVIII. 4 Death ofThales. Phocsea besieged by the troops of Cyrus ; the inhabitants ask a truce to deliberate respecting capitulation, and in the inte- rim embark on board their fleet, and abandon the city. They found Elea or Velia in Magna Graecia, and Massilia in Gaul, besides some settlements in Cor- sica. Pythagoras establishes his school of philosophy in Crotona. Third elevation of Peisistratus to the ty- ranny. He reigns till his death. Cyrus restores the Jews to their country. Death of Peisistratus. Hipparchus, the son of Peisistratus, slain by Harmodius and Aristogeiton ; conse- quent real tyranny of Hippias : return of the Alcmeeonidse, and banishment of Hippias. Cleisthenes, the son ofMega- cles, augments the number of the coun- cil from 400 to 500, and divides the tribes anew, making ten instead of four. The revolt of the Ionian states. Anaxagoras born. Miletus taken by the Persians. Battle of Marathon. Aristeides banished from Athens by ostra- cism. Heroic death of Leonidas and his compa- nions at Thermopylae 6lh July. Battle of Salamis 25th September. Anaxagoras comes to Athens this year? aged 20 years. Battles of Plataea and Mycale 25th Sep- tember. Repeal of the law of Solon by which the Thetes were excluded from the govern- ment. The long walls to Piraeus built. Socrates born. Themistocles banished by ostracism this year or the following. 14 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C. 468 466 465 461 456 451 449 446 444 441 431 430 429 428 ixxix. 4 txxxi. 1 rxxxii. 4 txxxiii. 3 LXXXIV. 1 IXXXT1I.2 tXXXTII.2 3 4 LXXXTIII.l Cimon's victories over the Persians. Themistocles condemned — flies to Persia, Great earthquake at Sparta, and insurrec- tion of the Helots. Cimon banished by ostracism. Parme- nides flourished about this time, and Zeno Eleates his scholar, who was 25 years his junior. Callias archon. Anaxagoras, then 44, comes to Athens a second time 1 The Decemvirs established at Rome writ- ten laws, drawn up by them from those of Athens. Death of Cimon. Pericles makes a thirty years truce with the Lacedaemonians. Public accusation of Anaxagoras, Aspasia and Pheidias. Anaxagoras is banished. Thucydides, the son of Melesias, Pericles' political rival, banished by ostracism. Melissus, the pupil of Parmenides, defends Samos ineffectually against the Athen- ians. Outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. Plato born. Death of Pericles. Death of Anaxagoras. GREECE IN A SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. FROM 1800 B. C. TO 1044 B. C. About eighteen hundred years before the Chris- tian era, a barbarous horde, under the guidance of a chief named Inachus, migrated from the coast of Asia Minor to the islands and coasts opposite ; which, previous to that time, if we may judge from the ex- ploits which the traditional stories of this people assigned to their heroes,* had been the haunts of wild beasts, which found shelter among rocks and forests as yet untrodden by the foot of man. We are not told the cause of this migration : but as we find in- dubitable monuments of two great empires, even at that early period, the one in Egypt and the other in India — we may perhaps add another also, bordering on the Euphrates, — it is not unreasonable to conclude that what we have seen occuring, even in our own days in North America, may have happened in this case also. The increasing force and population of a civilized people pressed upon the uncivilized tribes around: and voluntarily, or otherwise, the latter left the more fertile lands to their stronger competitors, and retreated to wilder hunting grounds. It was thus, probably, that the whole of Europe became peopled : the pressure from behind drove the more * Hercules, Theseus, and others are celebrated most espe- cially as destroyers of wild beasts. Even Apollo is chiefly famed as an expert archer, and one of his main exploits was the destruction of an enormous serpent. 16 GREECE IN A barbarous tribes farther and farther north, till its most inhospitable regions were at last inhabited ; for among the scanty records of our Teutonic ancestors even, we find the tradition of a chief* with his followers arriving from Asia. At least a century was spent by the Pelasgit in a state of the wildest barbarism ; ignorant, if we may credit their own traditions, of the commonest arts of life, and wandering over the country with no settled habitation: but by degrees they associated into states, and Sicyon and Argos appear to have been under the government of their respective chiefs before 1500 B. c. Pressed on again by other tribes, the Pelasgi passed over into Italy, into Crete, and into the ad- joining islands; and the four Hellenic families, the Dorians, the Achaians, the Cohans, and the lonians, spread over the lands they retired from. ' Colonies, too, from the more civilized countries, from Egypt, from Phoenicia, and from Mysia, fixed themselves in different parts ; and, probably, like other colonists settling among a rude people, carried with them the arts of war as well as of peace, and either by force or persuasion subjugated those whom they found in possession of the country. Cecrops, an Egyptian from Sais, is said to have founded Athens about four generations after the migration of Inachus ; and Cad- mus, a Phoenician, not far from that time, founded Thebes in Boeotia. About 1500 b. c. Danaus, an- other Egyptian, arrived in Argos, but here he found a monarchy established, and a walled town. He was allowed to bring forward his claims to admis- sion before an assembly of the people ; and they, led * Odin. t This is the name given by Greek writers to the first inhabit- ants or rather colonizers of the country. SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 17 by what they considered an omen sent by the gods, were induced to depose the reigning monarch, and receive Danaus in his room.* We cannot tell what the arguments were which the Egyptian prince em- ployed in pleading before the people : we may con- jecture that the benefits of superior science were urged, since we find it recorded that Argos having previously been without water, save what fell from the heavens, the daughters of their new king taught the inhabitants the art of digging wells. Four of these wells were in after times held sacred, and re- ceived especial honors.t We may guess at the re- volution in manners caused by the administration of this monarch, from the circumstance that the ap- pellation of the people was changed from Pelasgi to Danai; a term which we find very frequently ap- plied by Homer to all the Greeks assembled before Ilium. The situation of Greece, with its numerous islands, soon led the people to undertake maritime and pirati- cal expeditions. That of the Argonauts, from the mythological grandeur with which it has been so carefully invested, would appear to have been either the first or the most important. But in those times, the pirate, like the Sea Kings of the Norwegians, was a gentleman ; and no discredit, as Thucydides informs us,t was attached to this mode of convey- ing away the property of others. The marauding expedition of Jason took place, probably, about 1250 B. c. It was during the times of the Judges of Israel ; a period when the law of meum and tuum appears to have been very obscure all over the world. , * Pausan. 1. ii. c. 19, and Eurip. Orest. t Strabo, lib. viii. X Thucyd. lib. i. 18 GREECE IN A Most chronologers place the Trojan war, cele- brated in the Iliad, about 1200 b. c* At that time the Achaian states, for so Homer terms them, were rude, but yet raised far beyond absolute barbarism. We find bards celebrating the exploits of their heroes ; Sidonian workmanship adorning their vases, and their robes ; and a kind of rough luxury in the courts of their princes, which reminds us of the state of Mexico or Peru, when discovered by Cortez and Pizarro. It matters not whether we consider the Homeric poems as the work of one man, or the lays of different bards collected ; still they must be valid evidence of the state of manners about that time, for their geographical correctness shows that they could not have been written any long time after the events took place. In these early ages no maps or books of travels furnished the romancist with the means of giving* verisimilitude to his tale; therefore geogra- phical precision could only have been attained by personal knowledge, or the narration of actors in the scenes recorded. About a hundred years after this, an event occur- red which for a time threatened to overcloud the dawning civilization of Achaia. This was the ir- ruption of the Dorians, a mountain tribe, who pre- served in their fastnesses much of the rudeness of their forefathers. They were invited to this invasion of the more civilized regions by the descendants of Hercules, who having been expelled by Eurystheus from the countries which they considered theirs by right of inheritance or conquest, took advantage probably of the weakness and disunion among the Achaian states, which followed upon the Trojan war, to urge their claims anew. A first but unsuccessful * From 1194 to 1184 b. c, Heeren. SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 1^ attempt had been made under the guidance of Hyl- lus, the son of Hercules, about 1180 b. c. ; his de- scendants, having leagued with the ^tolians also, finally triumphed. Argos, Sparta, Messenia, and Corinth, fell under the Dorian rule:* the Achaians, driven step by step from their country, fell back upon the lonians, who occupied the coast nearest to Asia; and they in their turn, driven on before the advancing tide of invasion, retreated upon Attica, where they were hospitably received by the Athe- nians, who sprang from the same stock. But the narrow territory of Attica could not long maintain so large an increase of population, and in 1044 b. c. Androclus and Neleus, the sons of that Codrus who by his self-devotion had saved Athens from Dorian conquest, led an Ionian colony back to the coast of Asia Minor: cities were founded,! and the province thus taken possession of, received thenceforth the name of Ionia. The islands of Samos and Chios * Probably the dissensions between the aristocratic and popu- lar factions in after times, had the character of a war of caste. The conquering Dorians had usurped the property in the soil ; the conquered Achaians were the cultivators, for them, of lands which were once their own. Thus it was in Lacedaemon where the Spartans, i. e., the' Dorian conquerors, remained a distinct people from the Lacedaemonian cultivators, who, again, were a step above their former slaves, the Helots, and those who were afterwards reduced to a state of slavery. The contests for poli- tical supremacy between the patricians and plebeians of Rome, Avere probably of the same kind, for the very names of the ple- beian consuls sound barbarous and strange among those of the patrician families, as if they were of a different race. We may see a modern illustration of this state of things in Ireland, where the conquered and the conquering people have failed to amalgamate. t There were ten Ionian cities, i. e., Phocaea, Erythrae,Clazo- mene, Teos, Lebedus, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, and Miletus. The latter was the nurse of that philosophy which afterwards made Athens famous. 20 GREECE IN A too, the latter said to have been the residence of Homer, received Ionian colonies. Thus the civilization which was checked for a time by the conquests of the Dorian hordes, was preserved in the cities of Ionia, and sent back its missionaries, after a time, to achieve a nobler victory — that of arts and philosophy over ignorance and barbarism. From this period the people of Greece may be considered as divided into two great families, the Ionian and the Dorian, in which the others were in great measure absorbed. The Athenians may be looked upon as the representatives of the first; the Spartans of the last. It would be a wearisome and hopeless labor were I to attempt to trace with any accuracy the theology or philosophy of these early periods, buried as they are under a mass of allegory and fable, which we have now no means of removing; yet in the very scanty records of those times, there are traces of a purer morality, and a more worthy religious belief than is exhibited in the gross mythology of the Ho- meric poems.* The date assigned to the migration conducted by Inachus from the Asian shore, coin- cides very nearly with that of the removal of the Israelitish family into Egypt. At that time the wor- ship prevalent among the Nomade tribes of Asia, if we may judge from the book of Job, seems to have been that of One Almighty Creator, typified by, and already beginning to be confounded with the light, * Herodotus, lib. ii. c. 53, gives it as his opinion that Homer and Hesiod were the inventors of the genealogies and names of the gods; and Diogenes Laertius reports that Pythagoras was said to have descended into the infernal regions, and to have there seen Homer and Hesiod suffering various punishments for what they had reported about the gods. Diog. Laert. in vita Pythag., lib. viii. ^ 21. SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 21 or sun ; the rest of the heavenly bodies sharing in the reverence paid to the apparent source of life. Herodotus states that at Dodona he was told that they had formerly sacrificed and prayed to the Deity in general, without giving any name or names to the object of their worship ; but that after a long time, the names of the gods M^ere brought them from Egypt. Plato mentions a tradition of one God governing the universe, though generally in so strangely disguised a form that we may fancy that the fate of his master Socrates inspired him with some fear of speaking too plainly.* Aristoteles is more explicit, and avers,t that " it was an ancient saying received by all from their ancestors, that all things exist by and through the power of God who being One was known by many names according to his modes of manifest- ation." The very early division of the more polished na- tions of India and Egypt into castes, which occa- sioned a separation of the priesthood from the people, was probably the cause then, as it always has been, of a grosser worship on the part of the latter. The learned sacerdotal caste reserved to itself the more abstruse parts of theology ; partly perhaps from a natural desire to keep up the superiority which, how- ever acquired, is always gratifying ; and partly, too, from an opinion that the doctrine was too sublime for the comprehension of the ignorant multitude. Then came the plan of teaching the people by symbols which, from their more tangible nature, were likely to impress themselves on the recollection better than abstract truths. The key to these mysterious symbols was in the hands of the priests ; and possibly they * Plato, Politicus and TinriEeus. t Aristot. de Mundo, c. 6, 7. 22 GREECE IN A themselves hardly knew how far the people in gene- ral had lost sight of their original meaning. We may turn to times nearer our own for an almost parallel instance : for when the irruption of barbarians into the Roman empire gave the Christian ministers the superiority in learning, they soon were tempted to use it in the same way. Feigned miracles and a more gross and tangible worship were made use of to subjugate or to captivate the minds of the ignorant people about them ; for, finding them too rude to be argued into a better faith, they thought that by first obtaining a superstitious reverence, they might finally guide them to better things:* They forgot that when they had loaded religion with ceremonial observances, there was danger that even the priests themselves, at some future time, might possibly become infected with the general superstition, and suffer the substance to escape whilst they were grasping the shadow of truth. Doubtless the sacerdotal caste of Egypt retained for a considerable time the remembrance of the occult meaning of the symbols they used ; and supposed they were preserving the knowledge of a theology whose vivifying influence they were daily losing more and more, as it became a source of worldly advan- tage, till at last they saw in it only a fable which was useful to them.t They, too, had to encounter at * When the pagan Anglo-Saxons were first converted to Christianity, we find Gregory, the Roman bishop, thus writing to the missionaries he had sent into Britain — " And because they (the Saxons) have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them . . . to the end that whilst some gratifications are outwardly per- mitted them, they may the more readily consent to the inward con- solation of the grace of God." Bede's Eccles. Hist., chap. 30, t The transition from Gregory indulging his heathen con- verts with solemnities in honor of " the nativities of the holy SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 23 times the invasion of barbarians, on whose supersti- tious fears they might depend for safety : or they had to resist, as a corporation, the encroachment of mo- narchs upon their privileges, in which contest, again, the superstition of the people was an useful ally. Thus the motives for encouraging a grosser worship were strong ; the danger was remote, and at that time unknown. Few, even now after the experience of ages, seem to be aware that there must be a ra- tional conviction of the truth of our faith ere it will influence the heart and life : and it has been the error of all ages to imagine that it is better to keep the people ignorant, and obedient to guidance, than to give them the light which will enable them to guide themselves. The difficulty of the undertaking has generally been the first discouragement : indo- lence and the love of power have usually done the rest. Orpheus is the person to whom ancient writers have attributed the introduction of a multitude of gods. He is said to have been a Thracian; — to have accompanied Jason and the other Argonauts on their piratical expedition, — to have visited Egypt, — and to have brought from thence the doctrines with which he afterwards corrupted the rude but simple theology of Greece. The poems and hymns attri- buted to him are many of them considered to be spurious, or much interpolated; but as far as ancient testimony goes, there seems little doubt that the doc- trine he taught was that of One Self-existent martyrs, to the end that they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of God" — to Leo X. exclaiming, — " This fable of Jesus Christ has been very useful to us" — is curious and instructive. The step had then been made from the apostolically-minded though ill-judging prelate, to the selfish maintainer of the interests of his caste. 24 GREECE IN A God, the Maker of all things, who is present to us in all His works : but this great truth was disguised under a mass of fables.* We may take as a speci- men one of those which has reached us. "The origin of the earth was ocean : when the water sub- sided, mud remained, and from both of these sprang a living creature ; — a dragon having the head of a lion growing from it, and in the midst, the face of God: by name Hercules or Chronos," (time.) By him an immense egg was produced, which being split into two parts, one became the heavens, the other the earth. Heaven and earth mingled, and produced Titans or Giants.t Material things having been produced by some mysterious operation of the Divinity upon Chaos, all were held to be imbued with a portion of the Divine Essence : and as, according to the doctrine of the sacerdotal caste, the Supreme Deity was too mighty to be approached by the vulgar, every object in nature was, as it were, deified, for the use of the people ; and the portion of the Divinity by which it was supposed to be animated, had a peculiar name given to it, by which it might be invoked. The initiated, for the mysteries are said to owe their com- mencement to Orpheus, were taught that the Oner Supreme Deity was the source of all, and that the tutelary gods of air, fire, earth, (fee, were in fact only emanations of his power, made manifest to men by tangible and visible objects. But when the Most High was no longer to be approached by the vulgar, the especial manifestation was soon individualized, and a polytheism which probably the first intro- * See Cudworth, Syst. Int. cap. iv. '5s 17, and Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil, pars ii. lib. i. cap. 1, where the Orphic doctrines are fully discussed. t Athenagoras, Leg. pro Christ, p. 17, folio ed. SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 25 ducers of this mysterious doctrine never contem- plated, was built upon it. Itis curious that to this day the rude tribes of Africa and of North America retain something of this early doctrine : the fetiche of the Negro, and the " medicine bag" or amulet of the Red Man, both consist of in- significant .objects supposed to have some mysterious, in-dwelling, Divine potency linked to, yet quite dis- tinct in nature from the object visible to the eyes. The fetiche in Africa even now is not unfrequently a stone or a tree, or some other inanimate object; and if we look back into the early times we are treating of, we shall find the same thing. The representa- tion of the Cithaeronian Juno, worshiped by the Thespians, was the trunk of a tree : — another of the Samian Juno, was a branch or log, afterwards fashioned into something of a human shape by the order of Procleus the Archon. Diana and Ceres were represented in like manner:* and the Dioscuri among the old Spartans had no image save two beams or trunks of trees, united by two transverse pieces.! The ancient Romans worshiped the god of war, under the form of a spear; the Scythians deified a sabre ; the Arabs, down to the time of Ma- hommed even, had their sacred stone. We might have been puzzled by these short notices, had we not an instance of this kind of early worship record- ed more at length. When the patriarch Jacob had * Clem. Alex. Protrept. c. 4. See also Tertull. adv. Gentes. Lucan, in his description of the sacred grove felled by Caesar's orders, describes the representations of the Deities as rude trunks of trees. " Simulacraque moesta deorum Arte carent, caesisque extent informia truncis." Pharsal. lib. iii. 1. 411. t Plutarch, De amor. frat. 26 GREECE IN A had a divine vision, he awoke out of his sleep, and said, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven." And Jacob arose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put for a pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil on the top of it, and vowed, "If God will be with me .... so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house ; and of all that Thou shalt give me, surely I will give the tenth unto Thee." This place he called Bethel: — some centuries later Bethel was an idolatrous temple. The history of this one was probably the history of all. The mysterious doctrine of Orpheus which gave tangibility and distinctness to the notions of the Deity, soon struck the imagination of the poet: Homer and Hesiod took it up, and finished the in- dividualizing process, by giving names and forms* to the various sub-deities of the different powers of nature. Yet these were, for a long time, only the poetical version of the old belief: — ^the One Supreme God still held the reins, and Destiny was looked up to as the ruler of these sub-gods, no less than of men. iEschylus, whose tragic genius found fitter matter in the simple, but sublime traditions of his forefathers, -than in the ridiculous and disgusting tales of the Homeric mythology, has handed down to our days this part of the still popular faith, in his noble drama of Prometheus Chained : where he re- presents Jupiter as sending to beg from the prophet * Athenagoras, after quoting Herodotus for the above asser- tion respecting Homer, adds, that until the statuaries had given human shape to the gods, they had not been named even. SEMI-BARBAROUS STATE. 27 the knowledge of the yet future decrees of Destmy. Prometheus, v/ho pretends to no foreknowledge but that of some few of these decrees which had been communicated to him., indignantly refuses to gratify the curiosity of his oppressor; who, in consequence, inflicts further tortures upon him, but cannot obtain the desired prediction. The expressions put into the mouth of Prometheus are remarkable,* and the whole drama so wars against our general notions of the popular belief at that time, that in order to ex- plain the possibility of such a public recitation being permitted and approved, we must suppose an under- current of a very different theology from that of Hesiod. The invectives which the oppressed Titan utters against the neiv power of Jove ; the allusions nP. ou raura, rauTtj fxoipa, 'ttcii rS'KST