Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/116

 98 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. were authoritative for the traditional religion of Greece. Only the overbold philosopher-moralist Xe- nophanes would denounce their tales of divine doings, or the clear-eyed idealist Plato refuse to admit those poets to his commonwealth, or one great ethical poet, Pindar, might adjure men to repeat only worthy tales of the gods. Usually the conservative spirit of Greek religious progress insisted upon the truth of the time- honored poets. That truth lay, however, not in the literal sense of their words, but in the meaning therein veiled; that is to say, these tales were alle- gories. Allegorical interpretations became current in the fifth century before Christ. In spite of Plato, Homeric stories of the gods were held by the learned to be representations of natural phenomena; books were written on the allegorical significance of Homer, " whose words would be impious were they not alle- gories." The religious conservatism of the Stoics caused that large and respected school to adopt the system. By the time of Augustus, the habit of find- ing an allegory everywhere had become so universal that learned men deemed that no great writer would write save in allegories.^ It was the same with the Jews. Philo of Alexan- dria^ was not the first to apply allegorical interpretation to the Pentateuch; but he is the great example of a Hellenized Jew, by tliis means, reading into the sacred writings all the best that he had drawn from philos- ophy. This universal eclectic is still a Jew ; he deems 1 See, for examples, Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888, pp. 50-66. 2 Born between 20 and 10 B.C. He took part in the embassy to Caligula, 40 a.d.