d though he, as well as his master, Sokrates,
became obnoxious to the dominant party at Athens, this was due to
political far more than to theological motives. At all events, Plato, the
pupil, the friend, the apologist of Sokrates, was allowed to teach at
Athens to the end of his life, and few men commanded greater respect in
the best ranks of Greek society.

But, although mythology was not religion in our sense of the word, and
although the Iliad certainly never enjoyed among Greeks the authority
either of the Bible, or even of the Veda among the Brahmans, or the Zend
Avesta among the Parsis, yet I would not deny altogether that in a certain
sense the mythology of the Greeks belonged to their religion. We must only
be on our guard, here as everywhere else, against the misleading influence
of words. The word Religion has, like most words, had its history; it has
grown and changed with each century, and it cannot, therefore, have meant
with the Greeks and Brahmans what it means with us. Religions have
sometimes been divided into _national_ or _traditional_, as distinguished
from _individual_ or _statutable_ religion. The former are, like
languages, home-grown, autochthonic, without an historical beginning,
generally without any recognized founder, or even an authorized code; the
latter have been founded by historical persons, generally in antagonism to
traditional systems, and they always rest on the authority of a written
code. I do not consider this division as very useful(23) for a scientific
study of religion, because in many cases it is extremely difficult, and
sometimes impossible, to draw a sharp line of demarcation, and to
determine whether a given religion should be considered as the work of one
man, or as the combined work of those who came before him, who lived with
him, nay, even of those who came after him. For our present purpose,
however, for showing at once the salient difference between what the
Greeks and what we ourselves should mean by Religion, this division is
very serviceable. The Greek religion was clearly a national and
traditional religion, and, as such, it shared both the advantages and
disadvantages of this form of religious belief; the Christian religion is
an historical and, to a great extent, an individual religion, and it
possesses the advantage of an authorized code and of a settled system of
faith. Let it not be supposed, however, that between traditional and
individual religions the adva