Appendix: On the Sole Government of God (disputed)
Convicted by Their Own Poets
This is a short address to Greek readers. It argues, out of their own poets and playwrights, that there is one God only, and that he alone is to be worshipped.
At the first, human nature received understanding and safety joined in one — enough to make out the truth and to know the worship owed to the one Lord of all. But envy worked its way in, whispering how great a thing man is, and turned people aside to the making of idols. That superstitious habit went on for a long stretch of time, and it has been handed down to most people as though it were natural and true.
It is the part of a man who loves people — or rather of a man who loves God — to remind those who have let it slip of what they ought to know. The truth is able all by itself to display, in the things held under the vault of heaven, the order set there by the one who made them. But forgetfulness has taken hold of men’s minds, and, while God has been patient, it has gone recklessly so far as to hand over to mortals the name that belongs to the one true God alone. From a few the infection of that sin spread to many, who were blinded by common usage to any knowledge of what lasts and does not change.The men of earlier generations who set up rites, private and public, in honor of whoever was more powerful than themselves made their descendants forget the faith held everywhere. But I, as I have just said, will bring a God-loving mind, and will use the speech of a man who loves people, and set the matter before those who can think — as everyone ought to be able to who has the privilege of watching the universe governed — so that they may worship, without wavering, the one who knows all things. And I shall do it not by any display of words, but throughout by proof drawn from the old poetry of Greek literature, and from writings that everybody has at hand. For out of these the famous men who handed idol-worship down to the crowds as law will be taught, and convicted of gross ignorance, by their own poets and their own books.
The Poets on the One God
First, then, Aeschylus, setting out the plan of his work, spoke this way about the one God:
“Set the holy God far off from mortals,
and never think that he, like you,
is dressed in robes of flesh; the great God is
altogether unknown to a worm like you.
He takes many likenesses: at times
he seems a devouring fire that burns
and is never fed; now like water; then again
he wraps himself in folds of blackest dark.
Even the beasts of the earth reflect
his sacred image; while the wind, the clouds, the rain,
the roll of thunder and the lightning flash
show men their great and sovereign Lord.
Before him the sea and the rocks, and every spring,
and all the flood waters, bend in reverence;
and as they gaze on his terrible face,
the mountains and the earth, with the deepest depths
of ocean and the highest peaks of the hills,
tremble — for he is Lord Almighty.
And this is the glory of God Most High.”
But he was not the only man let in on the knowledge of God. Sophocles too describes the nature of the one Maker of all things, the one God:
“There is one God — in truth there is but one —
who made the heavens and the wide earth beneath,
the glancing waves of the sea, and the winds.
But many of us mortals go wrong in heart,
and set up, for comfort in our troubles,
images of the gods in stone and bronze,
or figures carved out of gold or ivory.
And when we have provided for these things our own hands made
both sacrifice and splendid ceremony,
we think that by this we are doing something holy.”
Philemon, too, who published a good deal of explanation of ancient customs, shares in the knowledge of the truth. This is how he writes:
“Tell me, what are we to think God is?
One who sees all things, and is himself unseen.”
Even Orpheus, who brings in three hundred and sixty gods, will give evidence on my side. It comes from the tract called the Testaments, in which he seems to take back his mistake, writing this:
“I will speak to those who may lawfully hear.
All the rest of you, you profane — shut the doors!
And you, Musaeus, listen to me,
you who are the child of the light-bringing moon.
What I am telling you now is true indeed;
and if you have seen what I thought before,
do not let it rob you of the blessed life.
Turn instead the depths of your own heart
toward the place where light and knowledge live.
Take the divine word to guide your steps,
and, walking well on the straight and certain road,
look to the one and universal King —
one, self-generated, and the only one
from whom all things, and we ourselves, have sprung.
All things lie open to his piercing gaze,
while he himself is still invisible;
present in all his works, and still unseen,
he gives mortals evil out of good,
sending both chilling wars and tearful griefs;
and other than the great King there is none.
The clouds settle forever around his throne,
and mortal eyeballs, being merely mortal eyes,
are too weak to see Zeus, who reigns over all.
He sits established in the bronze heavens
upon his throne; and underneath his feet
he treads the earth, and stretches out his right hand
to all the ends of the sea; and around him
the mountain ranges tremble, and the streams,
and the depths of the blue and hoary sea.”
He speaks as though he had been an eyewitness of God’s greatness. And Pythagoras agrees with him when he writes:
“If anyone should be bold enough to say,
‘Look, I am God’ — besides the one
who is eternal and without limit —
then let him, from the throne he has seized,
put out his power and form another world
such as the one we live in, saying, ‘This is mine.’
And not only that: in this new domain
let him live forever. If he can do it,
then he is truly a god, and proclaimed one.”
The Poets on the Judgment
Then, further, about him — that he alone has the power to bring to judgment both the deeds done in a life and men’s ignorance of God — I can produce witnesses from your own ranks. First Sophocles, who says this:
“That time of times will come, it surely will,
when down from the golden upper air will fall
fire’s teeming treasure, and in burning flames
everything of earth and heaven will be consumed.
And then, when the whole creation is dissolved,
the sea’s last wave will die upon the shore,
the earth stand bare and stripped of trees, the air
burn, and carry no winged thing on its breast.
There are two roads to Hades, as we know:
by the one the righteous go, by the other the bad,
each on to its own end; and he
who had destroyed all things will save all things.”
And Philemon again:
“Do you think, Nicostratus, that the dead,
who enjoyed here whatever good a life often gives a man,
get past the notice of the divine,
as though they could be forgotten by him?
No — there is an eye of Justice watching everything.
For if the good man and the bad come to the same end,
then go on: rob, steal, plunder as you please,
do every evil that looks good to you.
But do not be deceived. Underneath
a throne is set, and a place of judgment,
which God, the Lord of all, will occupy.
His name is terrible, and I would not dare
to breathe it out in feeble human speech.”
And Euripides:
“He does not grudge us the lease of life he gives,
so that we who hold it may be judged fairly.
And if a mortal man thinks he can hide
his daily guilt from the keen eye of God,
that is an evil thought. For if he happens
to meet Justice while she is at leisure,
she claims him as her lawful prisoner.
But many of you rush headlong into
a double sin, and say there is no God.
There is, though — there is. So let the man
who is wicked and prospering see to it
that he buys back this precious time;
or else the punishment he has earned
is waiting for him afterward.”
And that God is not bought off by the drink offerings and incense of men who do wrong, but in righteousness deals out punishment to each one — Philemon will bear witness for me again:
“If anyone should dream, Pamphilus,
that by sacrificing bulls or goats — no, by Zeus,
or by anything else of that kind;
or by presenting gold or purple robes,
or images of ivory and precious stones —
if he thinks he can win God over this way,
he is wrong, and shows himself a fool.
Let him rather be useful and good,
committing no theft and no act of lust,
and no foul murder for the sake of money.
Let him covet no man’s wife or child,
his splendid house, his wide-spread property,
his slave girl or the slave born in his house,
his horses, or his cattle, or his oxen.
No — do not covet so much as a pin, Pamphilus,
for God is close beside you and sees whatever you do.
He is angry with the wicked man always,
but he takes pleasure in the righteous one,
letting him reap the fruit of his own labor
and eat the bread his sweat has won.
But being righteous, see that you pay your vows,
and bring your gifts to God, the giver.
Put your ornament not in outward show
but in an inward purity of heart.
Then, hearing the thunder, you will not be afraid,
nor will you run, master, at its voice,
for you know of no evil deed of your own,
and God is close beside you and sees whatever you do.”
Again, Plato says in the Timaeus:“But if anyone, on thinking it over, should actually set up a strict inquiry into the matter, he would not know the difference between human nature and divine. For God mixes many things up into one, and again is able to dissolve one into many things, since he is furnished with both knowledge and power; but no man is able, or ever will be able, to do any of this.”
The Poets Against Their Own Gods
But about those who suppose they are to share in the holy and perfect name — men whom some have received by an empty tradition as though they were gods — Menander says in The Charioteer:
“If there is a god who goes walking about
with an old woman, or who slips into houses
by stealth through the folding doors,
he will never please me. Only the one
who stays at home, a just and righteous God,
to give salvation to those who worship him.”
The same Menander says in The Priestess:
“There is no god, woman, who can save
one man by means of another. If a man really could,
with the clash of tinkling cymbals, charm a god
wherever he pleased, then certainly
the man who does it is much the greater god.
But these things, Rhode, are only the cunning schemes
that bold and shameless men of intrigue
invent to earn themselves a living,
and they hand the age a laughingstock.”
The same Menander again, stating his opinion about those who are accepted as gods — and rather proving that they are not — says:
“Yes, if I saw this, I would then want
my soul given back to me again.
For tell me where in the world, Getas,
it is possible to find righteous gods?”
And in The Deposit:
“There is such a thing as an unjust verdict, it seems,
even among the gods.”
And Euripides the tragic poet says in Orestes:
“Apollo, who by his own command brought about
the murder of my mother, does not know
what honesty and justice mean.
We serve the gods, whoever they may be.
But from the central region of the earth
you see Apollo plainly giving his answers
to mortals, and whatever he says we do.
I obeyed him when the woman who bore me fell,
killed by my hand. He is the wicked one.
Kill him, then — it was he who sinned, not I.
What could I have done? Do you not think the god
ought to free me from the blame I carry?”
The same poet in Hippolytus:
“But on these matters the gods do not judge rightly.”
And in Ion:
“But what interest have I in the daughter of Erechtheus?
That is nothing to a man like me.
Yet when I come with golden vessels
for the drink offerings and sprinkle the water,
I must warn Apollo of what he has done.
For when he takes girls by force, he betrays
the children secretly begotten of them,
and then neglects them while they are dying.
Do not you be like that. While you may,
always pursue the virtues; for the gods
will certainly punish wicked men.
How can it be right that you, who have laid down
the laws men are to live by, live unlawfully?
But since you are absent, I will speak freely:
you will have to give men satisfaction
for marriage forced on them — you, Poseidon,
and you, Zeus, who preside over heaven.
You have emptied your own temples,
while you pay injustice back.
And though you praise the self-controlled to the skies,
you have filled your own hands with wickedness.
It is no longer right to call men bad
if they only copy the evil deeds of the gods;
call their teachers bad instead.”
And in Archelaus:
“Often enough, my son, the gods bewilder mankind.”
And in Bellerophon:
“They are no gods, who do not do what is right.”
And again in the same play:
“The gods reign in heaven, certainly — so one says.
But it is false; and let the man who says it
not be so foolish as to lean on ancient tradition,
or to pay any regard to my words either.
Look at the matter with an unclouded eye,
in its clearest light. Absolute power, I say,
robs men of life and property;
it breaks sworn faith; it does not even spare
cities, but with a cruel hand
plunders and lays them waste without pity.
And the men who do this have more success
than those who live a gentle, reverent life.
I know of small cities that revere the gods
and bow in submission before the many spears
of larger ones that do not. And I think that
if a man lounges about idly, and will not
work with his hands for his food,
and yet prays to the gods, he will very soon learn
whether they will keep misfortune away from him.”
And Menander, in the piece called Diphilus:
“So then let us give great praise and honor
to him who is the Father and Lord of all,
the only maker and preserver of mankind,
who has stocked our earth with every good thing.”
The same poet in The Fishermen:
“For I judge that whatever nourishes my life
is God. But the one whose habit it is to meet
the needs of men — he needs no fresh supplies
from our hands; he is himself all in all.”
The same poet in The Brothers:
“God is always intelligence to those
who are righteous — so the wisest men have thought.”
And in The Flute-Girls:
“Good sense finds a temple in everything
to worship in; for what is the mind
but the voice of God placed inside us?”
And the tragic poet in Phrixus:
“But if the reverent man and the irreverent
get the same lot, how could we think it just,
if Zeus, the best of all, does not judge uprightly?”
In Philoctetes:
“You see how gain is thought honorable
even among the gods, and how the god is admired
whose shrine is loaded with the most yellow gold.
What is stopping you, then, since it is a good thing
to be like the gods, from taking gain the same way?”
In Hecuba:
“Zeus — whoever you may be,
of whom nothing is known but the word”;
and:
“Zeus, whether you are indeed
a great necessity, or the mind of man,
I worship you.”
Here, then, is the proof of virtue and of a mind that loves good sense: to return to the fellowship of that unity, to hold fast to good sense for salvation, and to choose the better things by the free will placed in man — and not to think that beings with human passions are lords of all, when they will turn out not to have even as much power as men have. For in Homer, Demodocus says he taught himself:“God breathed the songs into me” —
though he is a mortal. Asclepius and Apollo are taught how to heal by Chiron the centaur — a very novel thing, gods being taught by a man. And why should I speak of Dionysus, whom the poet calls mad, or of Heracles, whom he calls miserable? Why speak of Ares and Aphrodite, the leaders in adultery? Why use all of them to establish the proof I set out to make? For if a man copied these deeds that are called divine, and did it in ignorance, he would be counted among the impure, a stranger to life and to humanity; and if he does it knowingly, he will have a plausible excuse for escaping punishment, since he can show that copying godlike acts of daring is no sin.But if anyone does find fault with these deeds, he will have to take away the gods’ famous names, and not paper the deeds over with fine, plausible words. So we must accept the true and unchanging Name, proclaimed not by my words alone but by the words of the very men who introduced us to the first elements of learning — so that we may not, by living idly in this present life, render our account to the Judge as men who never knew the glory of heaven, and as ungrateful men besides.