Comparative ReligionCarpenter, J. Estlin (Joseph Estlin)
Religion
Comparative Religion
Carpenter, J. Estlin (Joseph Estlin)
Religions
else will go on the same."
This mechanical reproduction of a whole previous age down to its
minutest details did not, however, really engage the higher Greek
thought. That was chiefly occupied with the {242} abiding contrast
between that which is and that which _appears_; how could the ultimate
Unity present itself in such infinite diversity? what was the relation
of the world of change and succession to the enduring substance that
lay behind? In such questions man and his destiny had but a small
share. Pindar might sing how "God accomplisheth all ends according to
his wish; God who overtaketh the winged eagle and outstrippeth the
dolphin of the sea, and layeth low many a mortal in his haughtiness,
while to others he giveth glory unspeakable: if any man expect that in
doing ought he shall be unseen of God, he erreth." The tragedians
might wrestle with dark problems of crime and fate; and poetry and
philosophy might agree in presenting the world as the scene of a divine
thought, the manifestation of a divine energy. Regularities, fixities,
invariable successions, pointed to a definite order, divinely
maintained. But to what did it lead? What place was there in it for
man? His future might be moralised; the unethical Hades of Homer might
be replaced by the judgment-scenes of Plato; but no world-process is
suggested for the elimination of evil or the fulfilment of any divine
end. Plato might throw out the hint that Delphi should become the
interpreter of religion to all mankind; the mysteries might be opened
to slave as well as freeman, and might even admit those who were not of
Hellenic race; but there were no prophet's {243} glimpses of a purpose
leading to some all-embracing goal. Zeus orders all as he wills.
Individuals are punished, but the misdeeds, like the sufferings or
sorrows of man, are lost in the harmonious majesty of the Whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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