142 RELIGION OF GREECE
(14) The Hellenic conception of piety.—KicéBeu, ‘piety,’ consisted in giving the gods their due; righteousness is justice to the gods.* Mythologi- cally, the idea is expressed by Hesiod (Theog. 535) as a regular compact of mutual duties and rights (xplvecOac) made in Methone between Zeus and Prometheus as the representatives of gods and men. Law and public opinion required that the gods be given their due; but that personal honour be paid them there was no necessity. Their char- acter and position might be ridiculed so long as no intention was shown to do away with their wor- ship. The ypadt dceBelas was directed only against him that sought to alter or infringe the established ceremonial. The atheist (4@¢0s) was obnoxious to the law because his principles made the cultus unnecessary. : ¢
The worship of new deities was forbidden in Athens, until the Ecclesia, or the Nomothetai act- ing under its direction, sanctioned the introduction of a new cult, and settled the ceremonial belonging to it. But the effective prohibition of foreign rites was hindered by various causes. It was no one’s business to protest against a new worship or prose- cute the worshippers; the duty, disagreeable and entailing ill-will from a considerable section of the people, was left to the patriotic piety of the nation to carry out, and seldom found any one to perform it. An openness to novelties, a receptivity for foreign thought, characterized the Athenians ; and foreign citizens and foreign religions (é7/@ero) found in general an equally free access to the city. See below, C, § III; above, A, § VII (2).
A higher conception of evcéBeva, however, was not wanting. Fear of the god was from the first no prominent part of the idea of piety. Through- out the literature, love is a much more important element. Zeus is the father of gods and men, not as being their creator, but as a father-like ruler (Aristot. Pol. i. 12). The good man is the man beloved of God. The gods were full of goodwill towards men. The passages where the fear of God is mentioned often show that a high idea is implied in the word ‘fear’ (iva yap déos, évOa Kai aidws, Plat. Huth. 12C). The word deutdaiuer occurs in the sense of ‘pious’ in Xenophon and Aristotle (Pol. v. 11. 25).
But the other conception of God as hurtful to men, and of the Divine action as showing itself in calamity, is not absent (see C, § I). In later times devordarpovia, as the superstitious fear of God, is distinguished from eicéBea. This sense is first found in Polybius, if we except the doubtful chapter of Theophrastus (Char. xvi.). Moreover, the expression ‘justice towards God’ is often used in a better sense than that of mere compliance with an external law. But such finer thoughts probably belonged only to the few; it is hardly possible to attribute any ideas of the kind to Nicias, who was to many the ideal of a pious man. The picture that Plato gives of the religion of his time is a very dark one. In one place (Legg. x. p. 885) he says that some disbelieve in the gods, and others think that they are moved unjustly by gifts and vows. Still worse is the account given by Adeimantos and Glaucon in ftep. ii., where the strolling soothsayers who sell pardons to the people, and teach them that a few ceremonies and a little money will gain forgive- ness for all sins, are especially inveighed against.
It must, however, be remembered that these passages are purposely one-sided. The truth is that popular thought was unable to reconcile the love of the gods and the fear of the gods, which constituted the central antithesis of Hellenic re- ligion. Their religion provided no help in the
* Ct. Plat. Protag. 331, Rep. i. 331B; Cie. de Nat. Deorum, i. 41, 116.
RELIGION OF GREECE aE Se ee ee
difficulty. Ideas of sin, of the wrath of Heaven, were present to all men ; and those who could not themselves rise to higher thoughts sank to super- stitious practices to avoid the consequences of the euilt which they felt themselves laden with. The mythological legends handed down from an older stave of religion, and frequently gross and revolt- ing in character, still clung to the gods of the national religion. The gods seemed themselves to sanction hateful and immoral acts, and exposed themselves as much to the ridicule of men as to that of their peers (J. i. 600; Odyss. viii. 3438). The better thought of Greece rejected and abolished these fables; but the vulgar often justified their evil deeds by the example of the gods.*
As the Hellenic State grew, and as art separated itself from the service of religion, the seculariza- tion of all cultus proceeded with rapid strides. The productions of the fine period of art were not made to be worshipped, but to be admired in the temple. The spectacular side of religion became every year more prominent. If it could not satisfy the religious wants of the people, it aimed at least at satiating them with fine shows. In many temples the cultus, though never wholly wanting, was quite subordinate to the purposes of State offices and of occasional pageants, which had far more of a political than a religious character. See also C, § III (4).