played the role of the god who sent the unhappiness to men.


133

The Greek gods did not demand any complete changes of character, and
were, generally speaking, by no means burdensome or importunate . it was
thus possible to take them seriously and to believe in them. At the time
of Homer, indeed, the nature of the Greek was formed · flippancy of
images and imagination was necessary to lighten the weight of its
passionate disposition and to set it free.


134

Every religion has for its highest images an analogon in the spiritual
condition of those who profess it. The God of Mohammed . the
solitariness of the desert, the distant roar of the lion, the vision of
a formidable warrior. The God of the Christians . everything that men
and women think of when they hear the word "love". The God of the
Greeks: a beautiful apparition in a dream.


135

A great deal of intelligence must have gone to the making up of a Greek
polytheism . the expenditure of intelligence is much less lavish when
people have only _one_ God.