e replied on his
trial, "You strange man, Meletus, are you seriously affirming that I
do not think Helios and Selene to be gods, as the rest of mankind
think?" [204] Pausanias, the historian, tells us that in Phocis there
was a chapel consecrated to Isis, which of all the places erected by
the Greeks to this Egyptian goddess was by far the most holy. It was
not lawful for any one to approach this sacred edifice but those
whom the goddess had invited by appearing to them for that purpose
in a dream. [205] By Isis, as we saw from Diodorus, the Greeks
understood the moon. Diana was also one of the Grecian moon-goddesses,
but Sir George C. Lewis thinks that this was not till a
comparatively late period. The religion of Greece was so mixed up,
or made up, with mythology, that for an interpretation of their
theogony we must resort to poetry and impersonation. Here again
we see the working of sexual anthropomorphism. _Ouranos_
espoused _Ge_, and their offspring was _Kronos_; which is but an
ancient mode of saying that chronology is the measurement on earth
of heavenly motion. Solar and lunar worship was but the recognition
in the primitive consciousness of the superior _worth-ship_ of these
celestial bodies. As Grote says: "To us these now appear puerile,
though pleasing fancies, but to our Homeric Greek they seemed
perfectly natural and plausible. In his view, the description of the
sun, as given in a modern astronomical treatise, would have
appeared not merely absurd, but repulsive and impious." [206] What
an amount of misunderstanding would be obviated if readers of the
Bible would bear this in mind when they meet with erroneous
conceptions in Hebrew cosmogony. Grote further says on the same
page of his magnificent history: "Personifying fiction was blended
by the Homeric Greeks with their conception of the physical
phenomena before them, not simply in the way of poetical
ornament, but as a genuine portion of their everyday belief." We
cannot better conclude our brief glance at ancient Greece than by
quoting that splendid comparison from the bard of Chios, which
Pope thought "the most beautiful night-piece that can be found in
poetry." Pope's own version is fine, but, as a translation, Lord
Derby's must be preferred:

"As when in heaven, around the glittering moon
The stars shine bright amid the breathless air;
And every crag and every jutting peak
Stands boldly forth, and every forest glade
Eve