Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Religion Without Ethics
Lewis Richard Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, Vol. V (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909), pp. 238-239:
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As to the moral question, so natural to the modern mind, it is almost irrelevant here; and to understand the reality of much ancient religion we must free ourselves from some modern preconceptions. As the highest flight of religion rises above mere morality, so a religion may be most powerful in its appeal and yet remain directly non-moral. In the Bakchai of Euripides, the unconcerned reply of the prophet to Pentheusd, 'Dionysos does not constrain women to be chaste,' expresses truthfully the attitude of this religion to morality, so far as the public cults reflect it. Those of the traditional Hellenic divinities were mainly ethical; but Dionysos in his public functions left morality alone, offering no new ethical gospel...
d l. 314.
