Page:Columbia University Lectures on Literature (1911).djvu/40

26 Judaism and Islam made short work with these vestiges. The naive outlook upon the universe and its forces was gone; and with it went the power to discuss them even with playful seriousness. Nor must it be forgotten that in ancient Greece the stage was the pulpit from which the great lessons of life were preached to the multitude. The Jews had their prophets and teachers to do this work, Mohammedans their preachers and moralists. In this manner the need for a stage was not felt. In addition to this, the distinct dislike to represent the human figure in any form, though not itself strong enough to prevent artistic development in other directions, must have acted as a deterring restraint.

What has been said of the drama may, to a large extent, be said also of epic poetry. "During one period only of their history, and that almost at its birth, have the Semites devel- oped the tale of their supposed heroic times into an extended epic. The Babylonian story of the doings of the hero Gilga- mesh, representing as it does certain astro-cosmological ideas transferred from heaven to earth, takes us back into the twi- light of the gods; but it had no real life beyond the confines of that branch of the Semitic peoples in which it had its birth. A national or racial epic must deal with a "host of gods," or with such supernatural powers of human beings as bridge over the chasm that separates the human from the divine. But when the older "host of gods" became the "God of hosts," as it did for the writers of the Bible, the transcendence of the Deity beyond things mundane cut the very heart out of all such fanciful musings. Jehovah, as very spirit, must deal with his people in other ways. Heaven was filled with angels that did his bidding, and saintly men on earth received direct messages to mankind. Ethical monotheism could not deal playfully with the great problems of the world, and the beau- tiful had once more to stand aside before the moral. It is true that many of the events narrated in the epic of Gilgamesh have filtered down Semitic tradition and have found their way