Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/86

62 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE ethical belief which stirred the national interest or the emotions of a particular poet. Orpheus— Revelation and Mysticism In studying the social and the literary history of Greece, we are met by one striking contrast. The social history shows us the Greeks, as the Athenians thought themselves, ' especially god - fearing,' or, as St. Paul put it, 'too superstitious.' The literature as preserved is entirely secular. Homer and Hesiod men- tion the gods constantly ; but Homer treats them as elements of romance, Hesiod treats them as facts to be catalogued. Where is the literature of religion, the literature which treated the gods as gods ? It must have existed. The nation which had a shrine at every turn of its mountain paths, a religious ceremony for every act of daily life, spirits in every wood and river and spring, and heroes for every great deed or stirring idea, real or imagined ; which sacrificed the de- fence of Thermopylae rather than cut short a festival ; whose most enlightened city at its most sceptical time allowed an army to be paralysed and lost because of an eclipse of the moon, and went crazy because the time - honoured indecencies of a number of statues were removed without authority — that nation is not adequately represented by a purely secular literature. As a matter of fact, we can see that the religious writings were both early and multitudinous. The Vedic hymns offer an analogy. Hymns like them are implied by the fact that the tides of the Homeric gods, exaep'yo'i 'AttoXKcov, jSowiri'i irorvia ' Hprj,