  In this book eight lectures given before the Lowell Institute in Boston during the late autumn of 1914 are combined with material drawn from a course of lectures delivered the previous spring before the Western Colleges with which Harvard University maintains an annual exchange—Beloit, Carleton, Colorado, Grinnell, and Knox. The lecture form has been kept, even at the cost of occasional repetition. The purpose of these lectures is to present within a moderate compass an historical account of the progress of Greek religious thought through something over a thousand years. No attempt has been made to give a general treatment of Greek religion, or to deal with pre-Hellenic origins, with religious antiquities, or with mythology. The discussions are confined rather to the Greeks’ ideas about the nature of the gods, and to their concepts of the relations between gods and men and of men’s obligations toward the divine. The lectures therefore deal with the higher ranges of Greek thought and at times have much to do with philosophy and theology. Yet I have felt free to interpret my subject liberally, and, so far as space allowed, I have touched on whatever seemed to me most significant. Ethics has been included without hesitation, for the Greeks themselves, certainly from the fifth century b.c., regarded morals as closely connected with religion. A treatment of the Such a book as this can be nothing more than a sketch; in it the scholar will miss many topics which might well have been included. Of such omissions I am fully conscious; but limitations of subject and of space forced me to select those themes which seemed most significant in the development of the religious ideas of the ancient world. It is not possible for me to acknowledge all my obligations to others. I wish, however, to express here my gratitude to Professor C. P. Parker, who has shared his knowledge of Plato with me; to Professor J. H. Ropes, who has helped me on many points in my last two lectures, where I especially needed an expert’s aid; and to Professor C. N. Jackson, who has read the entire book in manuscript and by his learning and judgment has made me his constant debtor. The criticism which these friends have given me has been of the greatest assistance even when I could not accept their views; and none of them is responsible for my statements. The translations of Aeschylus are by A. S. Way, Macmillan, 1906-08; those of Euripides are from the same skilled hand, in the Loeb Classical Library, Heinemann, 1912; for Sophocles I have drawn on the version by Lewis Campbell, Kegan Paul, Trench and Company, 1883; and for Thucydides and Plato I have used the classic renderings of Jowett with slight modifications in one or two passages. In an appendix will be found selected bibliographies for each lecture. To these lists I have admitted, with one or two exceptions, only such books as I have found useful from actual experience; and few articles in periodicals have been named. Cambridge, Mass. CONTENTS
THE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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