LECTURE I

THE GODS OF GREECE


It has become fashionable to divide the rival tendencies of modern
thought into the two classes of Hellenistic and Hebraistic. The division
is an arbitrary and somewhat misleading one, which has done less than
justice both to the Greek and to the Hebrew genius. It has associated
Greece with the idea of lawless and licentious paganism, and Israel with
that of a forbidding and joyless austerity. Paganism is an interesting
word, whose etymology reminds us of a time when Christianity had won the
towns, while the villages still worshipped heathen gods. It is difficult
to define the word without imparting into our thought of it the idea of
the contrast between Christian dogma and all other religious thought and
life. This, however, would be an extremely unfair account of the matter,
and, in the present volume, the word will be used without reference
either to nationality or to creed, and it will stand for the
materialistic and earthly tendency as against spiritual idealism of any
kind. Obviously such paganism as this, is not a thing which has died out
with the passing of heathen systems of religion. It is terribly alive in
the heart of modern England, whether formally believing or unbelieving.
Indeed there is the twofold life of puritan and pagan within us all. A
recent well-known theologian wrote to his sister: "I am naturally a
cannibal, and I find now my true vocation to be in the South Sea
Islands, not after your plan, to be Arnold to a troop of savages, but to
be one of them, where they are all selfish, lazy, and brutal." It is