" The
prevalence of such Pantheism, at least among the learned and spiritual
of ancient Egypt, is, to a considerable extent, confirmed by other Greek
writers besides Plutarch. But the inscription noted by Plutarch gives
the sum and substance of what they tell us.
[Sidenote: Greek Pantheism]
[Sidenote: Evolved from Polytheism]
Before considering the classical and Neo-platonic Greek speculations
commonly regarded as Pantheistic, we may do well to recall to mind the
immense difference between the established habit of theological thought
in our day, and the vague, or at best, poetically vivid ideas of the
ancients. For the long tradition of nearly two thousand years, which has
made monotheism to us almost as fixed an assumption as that of our own
individuality, was entirely wanting in this case. Not that the idea of
one supreme God had never been suggested. But it was not the Hebrew or
Christian idea that was occasionally propounded; for in the ethnic mind
it was rarely, if ever, regarded as inconsistent with polytheism; and
consequently it verged on Pantheism. "Consequently," I say, because such
monotheism as existed had necessarily to explain the innumerable minor
deities as emanations from, or manifestations of the supreme God. And
though such conscious attempts at reconciliation of beliefs in many gods
and in one Supreme were confined to a small minority of meditative
priests and speculative philosophers, yet really, the combination was
implicit in the sort of polytheistic religion which possessed the
family affections and patriotic associations of the early Greek world.
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