ught, spread
over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted,
was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and
elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross
anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the
school, was a believer in

"_ One God_, of all beings divine and human the greatest,
Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."

And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of
the Deity.

"But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are,
And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure:
But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers,
Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen,
Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies
Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."[877]

Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of
the Deity in human form--

"For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,
Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,
Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....
He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy,
With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]

[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
431, 432.]

[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]

When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a
becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which
would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But
he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His
fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is
to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all
human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of
subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason
is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite
Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his
intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he
is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in
reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his
predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.

[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. Sec.