GREEK RELIGION. The ideas of a per fect god, revelation, creeds, dogmas, conscience, divine love, etc., were not present in the Greek religion. The Greeks believed in a personal god, who was interested in the welfare of cer tain men, and these men longed for the protec tion and sympathy of that god, to whom they prayed and sacrificed. Shrines of these various deities were everywhere. Religious practices were numerous; but religion rested lightly on men's shoulders. Religious rites and festivals were most frequently occasions of joy.
Zeus was the father, the paternal ruler. The other gods were mere ministers in the divine government of the world. To the Greeks, man was like god, and god like man. So they could enter into definite relations with their gods; they recognized that communion underlies wor ship. The myths about the gods were believed to be true—at least by the vast majority— just as sincerely, as a modern Christian child be lieves in Santa Claus. But the myth was never an article of creed; it was kept free from the in fluence of theology. Greek religion as such was guiltless of system and wholly devoid of method. For worship the gods had definite shrines where they had specific names. Religion and morality were separate and distinct, though they tended later to become united. The god of each shrine was treated as if he were independ ent of the other gods. There were as many re ligions as cities; and the cult of a city made no appeal to an outsider. Each god was worshipped independently— as if the other gods did not exist, just as in some Catholic countries one saint is worshipped while others are apparently forgotten. The temples and shrines were su pervised by the state; priests were appointed • and temples built by the people as a whole; and religious law was administered in courts estab lished and maintained by the authority of the state. Greek religion remained to the end an untheological religion; the only authority for ritual was the tradition of each particular shrine, handed down from remote antiquity. From the
interchange of ideas there arose two types of sacrifice, one a joyous festival in honor of the god, the other a solemn rite to appease an angry deity. But everybody was free to think of the gods as he chose. The comic poet, Aris tophanes, could make fun of them—that was immaterial so long as the public worship con tinued undisturbed.
Greek The Greeks did not wor ship physical objects. Zeus was father of gods and men; rain came from Zeus; the thunder bolt was his weapon; his home was in Olym pus. Dionysus was the god of wine, Posei don of the sea. Nevertheless, Dionysus was a human god, visiting one place after another; Poseidon was a lover of horses and fond of the battlefield; Apollo was the prophet who re vealed to men the divine will and he was the great musician, the healer of disease and the god of shepherds; Aphrodite was the most hu man of all the gods, the spirit in whom was manifested human love as a fundamental prin ciple of the universe. Thejoy of the spring is poetry for us; for the Greek it was the joy of that community of nature of which he himself was a part. The religion of the Greeks was not a worship of nature, but a worship of spirits in na ture. The gods differed from man only in degree. In Homer they exhibit the same passions as men: Love, hate, jealousy, revenge, guile; i they are greater only in might. Leto is the mother proud of her children, Hera the queenly wife, Persephone the gentle daughter; Poseidon granted safety to sailors; Athena and Hephaestus taught men the arts and crafts; Demeter showed them how to cultivate grain.
The relation of the gods to each other was similar to the relation which exists between members of a council. That the gods belonged in the same society with men working together toward a common goal— this was the concep tion of the Greeks regarding the principle of divine government in the world. And there were evolutions and revolutions among the gods as among men; earth had its counterpart in heaven.