that all these gods were and had been liable to the taint of sorrow
for the death of their earthly children, (as the Homeric Jupiter
for Sarpedon, Thetis for Achilles, Calliope, in Euripides, for
her blooming Rhesus;) all were liable to fear; all to physical
pain; all to anxiety; all to the indefinite menaces of a danger
not measurable.[Footnote: it must not be forgotten that all the
superior gods passed through an infancy (as Jove, &c.) or even an
adolescence, (as Bacchus,) or even a maturity, (as the majority of
Olympus during the insurrection of the Titans,) surrounded by perils
that required not strength only, but artifice, and even abject
self-concealment to evade.] Looking backwards or looking forwards,
the gods beheld enemies that attacked their existence, or modes of
decay, (known and unknown,) which gnawed at their roots. All this
I take the trouble to insist upon: not as though it could be worth
any man's trouble, at this day, to expose (on its own account) the
frailty of the Pantheon, but with a view to the closer estimate of
the Divine idea amongst men; and by way of contrast to the power
of that idea under Christianity: since I contend that, such as is
the God of every people, such, in the corresponding features of
character, will be that people. If the god (like Moloch) is fierce,
the people will be cruel; if (like Typhon) a destroying energy,
the people will be gloomy; if (like the Paphian Venus) libidinous,
the people will be voluptuously effeminate. When the gods are
perishable, man cannot have the grandeurs of his nature developed:
when the shadow of death sits upon the highest of what man represents
to himself as celestial, essential blight will sit for ever upon
human aspirations. One thing only remains to be added on this
subject: Why were not the ancients more profoundly afflicted by
the treacherous gleams of mortality in their gods? How was it that
they could forget, for a moment, a revelation so full of misery?