ity and inconsistency in the conduct of the Homeric
gods,--they punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are
guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always
practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political
crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od.
xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)."
Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the
protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant
guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections of society,
government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable picture of
primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under the
three-fold influence of moral feeling, mutual respect, and fear of the
divine displeasure; such, at least, are the motives to which Telemachus
makes his appeal when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of
Ithaca to the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."[206]

[Footnote 205: "There was always a double current of religious ideas in
Greece; one spiritualist, the other tainted with impure
legends."--Pressense.]

[Footnote 206: Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168;
Pressense, "Religion before Christ," p. 77.]

The influence of the religious dramas of AEschylus and Sophocles on the
Athenian mind must not be overlooked. No writer of pagan antiquity made
the voice of conscience speak with the same power and authority that
AEschylus did. "Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood
that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an avenger."
The old poet made himself the echo of what he called "the lyreless hymn
of the Furies," who, with him, represented severe Justice striking the
guilty when his hour comes, and giving warning beforehand by the terrors
which haunt him. His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling.
Reverence for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral order,
resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment of a
future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly predominant.

Whilst AEschylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-stricken side of
conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous side. No one has
ever spoken with nobler eloquence than he of moral obligation--of this
immortal, inflexible law, in which dwells a God that never grows old--

"Oh be the lot forever mine