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We note in passing that the allegorical interpretation of mythology,
said to have been first introduced as early as the sixth century before
Christ by Theagenes of Rhegium, was well established in the age of
Plato, and here, as in the Phaedrus, though for a different reason, was
rejected by him. That anachronisms whether of religion or law, when
men have reached another stage of civilization, should be got rid of by
fictions is in accordance with universal experience. Great is the art of
interpretation; and by a natural process, which when once discovered was
always going on, what could not be altered was explained away. And so
without any palpable inconsistency there existed side by side two forms
of religion, the tradition inherited or invented by the poets and
the customary worship of the temple; on the other hand, there was the
religion of the philosopher, who was dwelling in the heaven of ideas,
but did not therefore refuse to offer a cock to Aesculapius, or to
be seen saying his prayers at the rising of the sun. At length the
antagonism between the popular and philosophical religion, never so
great among the Greeks as in our own age, disappeared, and was only felt
like the difference between the religion of the educated and uneducated
among ourselves. The Zeus of Homer and Hesiod easily passed into
the 'royal mind' of Plato (Philebus); the giant Heracles became the
knight-errant and benefactor of mankind. These and still more wonderful
transformations were readily effected by the ingenuity of Stoics and
neo-Platonists in the two or three centuries before and after Christ.
The Greek and Roman religions were gradually permeated by the spirit of
philosophy; having lost their ancient meaning, they were resolved into
poetry and morality; and probably were never purer than at the time of
their decay, when their influence over the world was waning.