Euripides,
Orestes 418 (tr. David Kovacs):
We are slaves to the gods, whatever "the gods" are.
δουλεύομεν θεοῖς, ὅ τι ποτ' εἰσὶν οἱ θεοί.
Matthew Wright,
Euripides: Orestes (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), pp. 65-66, with notes on p. 144:
Passages like this can be hard to interpret: what sort of
attitude to the gods is being expressed? In older scholarship one
often encounters the view that Euripides was an 'atheist'. This
view — like many views about Euripides that still persist in
some form or another — is partly derived from the inaccurate
ancient biographies of the poet: the Lives record that Euripides
was noted for his unorthodox theological views. In turn, the
biographers were probably relying on the 'evidence' of comedy:
Aristophanes often seems to have cracked jokes about the tragedian's supposed 'atheism' or impiety.27 But, leaving aside the
unanswerable question of what Euripides 'really’ believed, his
plays do not contain views which can be described as atheistic
(a label which would be anachronistic, since it really reflects a
Judaeo-Christian type of outlook).28
The plays always take the gods for granted — but that does
not mean that they never express a sceptical or critical attitude
towards them. It may be more helpful to regard Euripidean
(and other) tragedy as questioning and exploratory in outlook —
a spirit that well reflects the intellectual climate of its time and
the nature of Greek religion in general.29 For the Greeks, to
believe in and worship their gods did not mean that they
expected to understand the gods; and they certainly did not
expect that the gods would always treat them with love or
kindness. Worshipping the gods in fifth-century Greece (or, for
that matter, mythical Argos) certainly did not imply the unquestioning acceptance of any particular set of beliefs or
doctrines, nor did it preclude criticism of the divine powers.
Orestes' phrase 'whatever gods are' (418), like similar
phrases in Euripidean tragedy, has sometimes been seen as an
expression of disbelief,30 but it can be interpreted more literally
in its context as hopeless ignorance leading to frustration.
Orestes does not really doubt that the gods exist, but he does
not understand why they treat him as they do; and, in particular, he is confused and disappointed by Apollo's treatment of
him.
27. For example, Aristophanes, Women at the Thesmophoria 450-1;
Frogs 885-93, 936, etc.
28. Attempts to reconstruct the author's opinions and beliefs from
his works alone are now usually seen as doomed to failure (how can we
know what Euripides 'really' thought?). See Lefkowitz, '"Impiety" and
"Atheism" in Euripides' for an excellent discussion of the scholarship
on this issue.
29. Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, provides a
full and up-to-date discussion of this aspect of tragedy (which is only
sketched here).
30. See Willink's commentary ad loc. (cf. Bacchae 894, Heracles
1263-4, Helen 1137). On 'seeming expressions of disbelief' in Euripides,
see Stinton, 'Si Credere Dignum Est'.