In the higher stages of Polytheism, Man is regarded as fallen. He felt his alienation from his Father. Religion looks back longingly to the Golden Age, when Gods dwelt familiar with men. It seeks to restore the links broken out of the divine chain. Hence its sacrifices, and above all its mysteries,[1] both of which were often abused, and made substitutes for holiness, and not symbols thereof.
When War is a normal state, and Slavery is common, the condition of one half the human race is soon told. Woman is a tool or a toy. Her story is hitherto the dark side of the world. If a distinction be made between public morality, private morality, and domestic morality, it may safely be said that Polytheism did much for the outward regulation of the two first, but little for the last. However, since there were Gods that watched over the affairs of the household, a limit was theoretically set to domestic immorality, spite of the temptations which both slavery and public opinion spread in the way. When there were Gods, whose special vocation was to guard the craftsmen of a certain trade, protect travellers and defenceless men; when there were general, never-dying avengers of wrong, who stopped at no goal but justice,—a bound was fixed, in some measure, to private oppression. Man, however, was not honoured as Man. Even in Plato's ideal State, the strong tyrannized over the weak; human selfishness wore a bloody robe; Patriotism was greater than Philanthropy. The popular view of sin and holiness was low. It was absurd for Mercury to conduct men to hell for adultery and lies. Heal thyself, the Shade might say. All Pagan antiquity offers nothing akin to our lives of pious men.[2] It is true, as St Augustine has well said, “that matter which is now called the Christian religion, was in existence among the
- ↑ Cicero, De Legg. II. See on this subject of the Mysteries in general, Lobeck, Aglaophamus, sive de Theologiæ mysticæ Causis, &c., Pars III., Ch. iii. iv. The mysteries seem sometimes to have offered beautiful symbols to aid man in returning to union with the Gods. Warburton, in spite of his erroneous views, has collected much useful information on this subject: Divine Legation, Book II. § iv. But he sometimes sees out of him what existed only in himself.
- ↑ But see in Plutarch the singular story of Thespesius, his miraculous conversion, &c. De sera Numinis Vindicta, Opp. II. Ch. xxvii. p. 563, et seq., ed. Xylander.
Schriften, Vol. III. p. 374. He has perhaps done justice to both sides of this difficult subject.
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