Читать книгу Five Stages of Greek Religion онлайн

6 страница из 50

The elements in Christianity which derive from what Jews called "the Gôyim" or "nations" beyond the pale, seem to be far deeper and more numerous than those which come unchanged from Judaism. Even the Sabbath had to be changed, and the birthday of Jesus conformed to that of the Sun. Judaism contributed a strong, though not quite successful, resistance to polytheism, and a purification of sexual morality. It provided perhaps a general antiseptic, which was often needed by the passionate gropings of Hellenistic religion, in the stage which I call the Failure of Nerve.

G. M.

September 1951.

ssss1

In revising the Four Stages of Greek Religion I have found myself obliged to change its name. I felt there was a gap in the story. The high-water mark of Greek religious thought seems to me to have come just between the Olympian Religion and the Failure of Nerve; and the decline—if that is the right word—which is observable in the later ages of antiquity is a decline not from Olympianism but from the great spiritual and intellectual effort of the fourth century b.c., which culminated in the Metaphysics and the De Anima and the foundation of the Stoa and the Garden. Consequently I have added a new chapter at this point and raised the number of Stages to five.