ds their names, and assigned to
them their honors and their arts, and described their appearances. But he
then continues in a very different strain from the pious historian.(20)
"Homer," he says,(21) "and Hesiod ascribed to the gods whatever is
disgraceful and scandalous among men, yea, they declared that the gods had
committed nearly all unlawful acts, such as theft, adultery, and fraud."
"Men seem to have created their gods, and to have given to them their own
mind, voice, and figure. The Ethiopians made their gods black and
flat-nosed; the Thracians red-haired and blue-eyed." This was spoken about
500 B. C. Herakleitos, about 460 B. C., one of the boldest thinkers of
ancient Greece, declared that Homer deserved to be ejected from public
assemblies and flogged; and a story is told that Pythagoras (about 540 B.
C.) saw the soul of Homer in Hades, hanging on a tree and surrounded by
serpents, as a punishment for what he had said of the gods. And what can
be stronger than the condemnation passed on Homer by Plato? I shall read
an extract from the "Republic," from the excellent translation lately
published by Professor Jowett:--

"But what fault do you find with Homer and Hesiod, and the other great
story-tellers of mankind?"

"A fault which is most serious," I said: "the fault of telling a lie, and
a bad lie."

"But when is this fault committed?"

"Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and
heroes--like the drawing of a limner which has not the shadow of a likeness
to the truth."

" 'Yes,' he said, 'that sort of thing is certainly very blamable; but what
are the stories which you mean?' "

" 'First of all,' I said, 'there was that greatest of all lies in high
places, which the poet told about Uranos, and which was an immoral lie
too--I mean what Hesiod says that Uranos did, and what Kronos did to him.
The fact is that the doings of Kronos, and the sufferings which his son
inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought not to be lightly told
to young and simple persons; if possible, they had better be buried in
silence. But if there is an absolute necessity for their mention, a very
few might hear them in a mystery, and then let them sacrifice not a common
(Eleusinian) pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim; this would have
the effect of very greatly reducing the number of the hearers.' "

" 'Why, yes,' said he, 'these stories are certainly objectionable.' "

" 'Yes, Adeimantos,