He is a secularist in his view of a physical universe, and he foreshadows a secular treatment of ethics based on ideas of φύσις and heredity, though a chorus of his maidens may praise chastity as “the fairest gift of the Gods.” It was therefore possible, though most unjust, that Aristophanes should call him an atheist. On the other hand, he is capable of profound religious sentiment and exalted religious utterance, and strikes out flashes of light that might kindle and illuminate a higher religion. Therefore it was possible for Clemens of Alexandria to find in some of his words a foreshadowing of Christ.[112.1] He remains for us an enigma, and probably no final judgment will ever be pronounced upon him, in which we shall all agree. But the student of Greek religion must confront these two questions about him: (_a_) What was his real sentiment concerning the popular religion? (_b_) What were his contributions to religious thought, and what was likely to be his influence on the religious temperament? To make up one’s mind on these questions demands a long and critical study, {113} also a tactful sense of the distinction between Euripides the playwright and Euripides the thinker. It is the confusion of this distinction that leads, for instance, to the strangely erroneous views held concerning the religious significance of his ‘Bacchæ.’ A sympathetic reading of many of the plays must convey the impression that certain cult-figures and legends of the polytheism filled the poet with scorn and loathing; and at times he seems to compose as if he had a personal hatred of Apollo and Aphrodite in particular, for instance, in the Ion and Hippolytus. When he can interpret Aphrodite as a cosmic force he can dilate on this as beautifully and ardently as Lucretius; if he could have believed that Apollo was merely the Sun, as he tells us ‘the wise’ were well aware, he might have forgiven him. But it is the real personal Aphrodite of Homer and Helen, the personal Apollo, the father of Ion, the seducer of Kreusa, and the beloved ancestor of the Athenians, that rankled in his mind. When he handles the story of the madness of Herakles and brings madness on the stage, he uses her first as his mouthpiece to convey to the Athenians what he thought of Hera;[113.1] just as he puts into the mouth of Amphitryon his own mordant criticism of the action of Zeus.[113.2] Yet with other parts of the polytheism he seems at times in the most glowing sympathy; in the Hippolytus, for instance, where he expresses for the first time in literature the religious rapture of purity; in the Bacchæ where he discovers the necessary phrase for the expression of the Bacchic communion, for the ecstasy of the Mænad-revel on the mountain, in verses that tingle with the nature-magic {114} which was at the root of this wild cult. Yet no one should be deceived into thinking that he is preaching the cause of Dionysiac worship; for the