The Religious Thought of the Greeks

Εργον δ' οὐδὲν ὂνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ' ὂνειδος.

Work is no disgrace, but laziness is a disgrace.[55]

By constant toil alone, he says, can the many misfortunes of life be relieved; by it riches and honor are won; and the worker is beloved by the gods. The lazy man on the contrary has hunger for his portion and is detested by gods and men: “Gods and mortals are alike indignant with the man who lives without toiling; he is like in energy to the stingless drones, for they without toiling waste and devour the product of the honey-bees’ work. But do thou (Perses), love all seemly toil that thy barns may be filled with food in the proper seasons.”[56] For the poor man the poet, and apparently his contemporaries, had little compassion, since he regards poverty as proof of a lack of industry, of a failure to work unceasingly with a determined spirit, which he holds to be the only way in which man can acquire the comforts which give dignity to life. In his mind shame is the natural lot of the poor, but self-respect the proper possession of the successful worker. And toil has for him a divine sanction; it is a moral duty imposed on men by the gods. By it alone men attain not only material prosperity but virtue as well. “I perceive the good and will tell it thee, Perses, very foolish though thou art. Wickedness men attain easily and in great numbers, for level is the road to her and she dwells very near; but before Virtue the immortal gods have set the sweat of toil. Long and steep is the path to her and rough at the outset; but when one has reached the summit, thereafter it is easy, hard though it was before.”[57]

Smarting under the injustice done him by his unjust brother and the venal judges, Hesiod naturally praised justice (δίκη) in his work. He repeats the word again and again. In the name of outraged universal justice he protests against the particular wrong he has suffered, but in his handling of this theme he passes far beyond the matter between him and his brother, and treats justice in a universal and impressive manner. He thus exhorts Perses: “Perses, harken to justice, and make not insolence prosper. For insolence is baneful even to the humble; nor can the noble easily bear the burden of it, but he sinketh beneath its weight, meeting doom. Yet the road that leadeth in the opposite direction, toward justice, is better to travel. Justice prevaileth over insolence in the end; even the fool knoweth from experience.”[58] He presses home the truth that wrong harms the doer no less than him who suffers the wrong: “The man who worketh evil to another, worketh evil to himself, and evil counsel is most evil for him who counselled it.”[59] Again he teaches that even if retribution is slow in coming, Zeus accomplishes it in the end: “Finally Zeus imposes due requital for the wicked man’s unjust deeds.”[60] On the other hand Hesiod in a famous passage pictures with satisfaction the prosperity of the just: “But for those who render straight judgments to both strangers and citizens and never depart from justice, their city flourishes and their people prosper in it. Peace, which nurtures youth, dwells in the land and never does far-seeing Zeus bring fearful war upon the inhabitants. Never does famine or woe attend men who do justice, but in good cheer do they perform their due tasks. For them the earth yields abundant food, the oak on the mountains bears them acorns in its topmost branches, and its trunk is the honey-bees’ home; fleecy sheep are heavy with wool, wives bear children who are like their parents. The just flourish in prosperity continually; nor do they go away on ships, for the fruitful earth gives them its product.”[61]

The last sentence shows that trading in ships was less highly regarded than agriculture. The reason is to be found not alone in the comparatively undeveloped state of commerce, but also in the very nature of such commerce as the poet saw it, for he admits commerce into his plan rather unwillingly. He knows that the sea is treacherous and often wrecks ships and causes ruin; he holds that only men’s inordinate desires and folly tempt them to venture across the waters and to stake all on the chances of loss and death. More than this, he feels a moral defect in transmarine trading, even when profitable, for one may gain wealth by a single venture. Such is not his ideal; rather he would see material prosperity won by the long toil and frugality which make agriculture successful.

But to return to justice. Hesiod, as we have already seen, makes this the whole basis of man’s relation to his fellows; on just actions and labor depends all prosperity; injustice injures the doer no less than the object of the wrong, and in the end is sure of punishment. Indeed according to the poet justice is what distinguishes man from the lower animals: “Perses, put these words now in thy heart, and harken to justice, but forget violence utterly. For this the son of Cronos has established as a rule for men. Fishes and wild beasts and winged birds he ordained should devour one another, since there is no justice among them; but to man he has given justice, which is by far the best.”[62] The theme of justice in human relations is developed into injunctions to be kind to the stranger, the suppliant, and the orphan, to respect parents, to regard another’s bed, and to give hospitality to one’s friends. Yet it must be said that Hesiod’s social morality is strictly utilitarian, not altruistic; indeed there is something in his poem which reminds us of the maxim “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” as when he writes: “If thy friend is the first to do thee an unkindness either in word or deed, remember to return him twofold; but if he would bring thee again into friendship and consent to render thee justice, accept it.”[63] But we must remember that this was the almost universal teaching among the Greeks down to the end of the fifth century.

Justice, however, is more than a social virtue between men; it is the chief attribute of Zeus, personified as his daughter and constant attendant: “Justice is the daughter of Zeus, glorified and honored by the gods who hold Olympus; and whenever anyone does her wrong with perverse blame, straightway she sits by Zeus, son of Cronos, and she tells him the thoughts of unjust men, that the people may pay for the folly of the princes who by their wrongful purposes and crooked speeches turn judgments from the right course.”[64] In his work of defending justice Zeus is aided not only by his daughter, but by a host of watchful guardians, intermediaries who report mortals’ deeds: “Thrice ten thousand are the immortal servants of Zeus upon the rich earth, who watch mortal men. Clad in mist they fare to and fro on the earth watching deeds of justice and wrongful acts.”[65] Justice then never fails to bring sooner or later the due return to right and wrong actions; from her and the watchful messengers of Zeus there is no escape. The Homeric man had recognized that righteousness is better than evil and that the wicked are constantly threatened by punishment; but Hesiod in his Works and Days goes somewhat further than Homer, in that he makes justice a necessary attribute of the gods as well as of men.

Man’s dependence on the gods is naturally recognized in Hesiod as elsewhere by the obligations of sacrifice, libation, and prayer, for these are universal modes of religious expression. The poet betrays the unimaginative character of a peasant by the baldness with which he says that material prosperity is the whole purpose of religious observance as well as of justice: “According to thy ability offer sacrifice to the immortal gods with thy person pure and undefiled, and burn the goodly thigh-pieces; again propitiate them with libations and with sacrifices, both when thou liest down and when the sacred light comes, that they may have a heart and mind kindly disposed toward thee; that thus thou mayest buy the land of others and not another thine.”[66] Yet we must remember that this huckster’s mind, as Plato might have called it, was common enough in Greece, that it was the ordinary attitude of the official Roman religion throughout Rome’s history, and that it has not disappeared from men’s thought today.

In the Iliad and Odyssey evil, like the good, comes from the gods. The simple fact is unquestionably recognized. But Hesiod searches more deeply for the origin of evil which he pessimistically regards as omnipresent. The story of Prometheus and Pandora contains in part the poet’s answer to this eternal riddle. The myth was already ancient and familiar to all. Once men lived without effort and free from evils, but when led by crafty Prometheus they had endeavored to cheat Zeus of the better part of the sacrificed bullock, the god withheld fire from them. Yet the cunning Titan stole a spark of this divine fire and delivered it to mortals. This Zeus allowed men to keep; by its aid they created all industries, but only at the cost of constant toil and struggle. Prometheus he punished harshly. To work his vengeance on mortals he caused Hephaestus to create a woman on whom the gods bestowed all gifts so that she was named Pandora. She opened a jar containing every kind of evil, which straightway flew out among mankind. Only Ἐλπίς remained therein—a word hardly equivalent to our Hope, but rather meaning “anticipation of misfortune.” It then is the only plague to...