Necessarily polytheistic in its origins, religion tended nevertheless
towards monotheism. The subordination which disciplined the heads of
the tribes on earth also ranged the divinities under the authority of a
supreme head. Force at first gave this supremacy. Zeus was the king
of gods and men because he was stronger than all of them put together.
This is the natural order of ideas. Force first imposed itself on
weakness; then intelligence conquered force; lastly, justice and love,
which is the supreme form and flower of righteousness, obtain supremacy
over intelligence itself. The highest and the chiefest is no longer
the strongest, or the wisest, but the best. In becoming moral, man has
moralised his gods, who, in their turn, becoming models and
authorities, have greatly helped to moralise the race.
It is very surprising that this evolution in the direction of moral
monotheism did not complete itself in the Indo-European family. But
the fact is that that family encountered an invincible barrier in the
very nature of its primitive mythology. The Greek and Hindu
philosophers, no doubt, pushed the notion of God to that of His
spirituality and unity, but they did not succeed in transforming the
religion of their race. Their rational criticism had power to
dissolve, but not to change. Their monotheism remained always an
object of speculation more or less esoteric. When, in the second and
third centuries of our era, in competition with Christianity,
Graeco-Roman polytheism endeavoured to reach a sort of monotheism, it
could only return to the most glorious mythus of its infancy, to the
worship of the Sun, and raise it to supremacy among the symbols of
their faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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