Principles of western civilisation

vir THE GREAT ANTINOMY: FIRST STAGE 247

intents and purposes strictly true. The contradiction, indeed, which immediately suggests itself to the mind as being capable of being supplied by that vast body of evidence seemingly pointing in another direction, which is furnished in that stage of development when the deities worshipped are regarded as the special patrons of the communityevidence of which the persecutions of Christianity itself under the Roman empire, or of the punishment of religious innovators like Socrates in the Greek civilisation, may be taken as examples—vanishes immediately on inquiry. For what we see is that nearly all such persecutions, preceding the rise of the Christian religion, prove on examination to have been really related to what are usually known as temporal or secular ends. There was absolutely no concern with what becomes afterwards known in controversy as the spiritual interest of the offender himself. The gravamen of the charges against the acts or opinions of the accused person lay strictly in the fact that such acts or opinions were held to be calculated to bring temporal evil or injury to the existing social organisation or its members.’

It may be distinguished that this was the point

1 For instance, in Plato’s dialogue Zuthyphron—in which Socrates is represented, after his indictment by Melitus for impiety in introducing new gods and corrupting the youth of Athens, as meeting Euthyphron before the trial takes place, and discussing with him the meaning involved in a charge of impiety—the general standpoint of the time in the charge against Socrates is well brought out. Socrates’ close questioning at last drives Euthyphron, who is represented as learned in the subject, to the statement: ‘‘ This, however, I tell you simply, that if any one knows how to speak and to do things grateful to the gods, by praying and sacrificing, these things are holy; and such things preserve both private homes and the general weal of cities; but the contraries to things acceptable to them are impious, which also subvert and ruin all things.” This was undoubtedly the characteristic position of the time involved in the charge against Socrates,