DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0226
THE SHRINES OF ATTICA 203
the triumph of the Christian spirit than to the tra-
ditions, dogmas, mythology and symbolism of the
Christian church. We cannot retrace carefully the
pathways of history without seeing that Christianity
was a growth, a development, in which the spirit of
Greek philosophy was partially reincarnated, and the
different attributes of the Greek gods were re-united
in the tri-theistic scheme of scholastic theology. The
simple, spiritual monotheism of Jesus presented a
sublime contrast to the innumerable personifications
of paganism, and it seemed at first as if the supreme
contribution of Hebraism to religion, the idea of the
unity of God, was, in the tender ascription of the
Lord's Prayer, to remain the sole theistic formula of
Christianity. This might have been the case if
Christianity had been propagated in Jewish communi-
ties only, but when it came into contact with Greek
thought and tradition it encountered a fervent form
of the deifying tendency which at that stage had
passed from the personification of nature to the ideali-
zation of human beings. If it had lost its reverence
for the old gods, it had still vitality enough to make
new ones. This Greek tendency which insisted upon
the temporary deification of Barnabas and Paul, found
a more permanent satisfaction in the apotheosis of
Jesus. The exaltation of the Hebrew peasant to a
place in the godhead, though nominally a victory for
Christianity, was essentially a triumph of paganism,
assisted by Jewish material derived from the Messi-
anic idea. The victory assumed new proportions
when the virgin goddess, adding to her functions that
of "the Mother of God," became a fourth person, the
idealization of maternity and womanhood, in the
the triumph of the Christian spirit than to the tra-
ditions, dogmas, mythology and symbolism of the
Christian church. We cannot retrace carefully the
pathways of history without seeing that Christianity
was a growth, a development, in which the spirit of
Greek philosophy was partially reincarnated, and the
different attributes of the Greek gods were re-united
in the tri-theistic scheme of scholastic theology. The
simple, spiritual monotheism of Jesus presented a
sublime contrast to the innumerable personifications
of paganism, and it seemed at first as if the supreme
contribution of Hebraism to religion, the idea of the
unity of God, was, in the tender ascription of the
Lord's Prayer, to remain the sole theistic formula of
Christianity. This might have been the case if
Christianity had been propagated in Jewish communi-
ties only, but when it came into contact with Greek
thought and tradition it encountered a fervent form
of the deifying tendency which at that stage had
passed from the personification of nature to the ideali-
zation of human beings. If it had lost its reverence
for the old gods, it had still vitality enough to make
new ones. This Greek tendency which insisted upon
the temporary deification of Barnabas and Paul, found
a more permanent satisfaction in the apotheosis of
Jesus. The exaltation of the Hebrew peasant to a
place in the godhead, though nominally a victory for
Christianity, was essentially a triumph of paganism,
assisted by Jewish material derived from the Messi-
anic idea. The victory assumed new proportions
when the virgin goddess, adding to her functions that
of "the Mother of God," became a fourth person, the
idealization of maternity and womanhood, in the