Chapter 4 Volume 1 Ancient Philosophy Part 1 Pre-Socratic Philosophers Chapter 1 The Rise of Greek Civilization

In all history nothing is more astonishing or inexplicable than the sudden rise of Greek civilization.Much of what constitutes civilization has existed for thousands of years in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and from there spread to neighboring countries.But certain elements were always missing, until the Greeks provided them.The achievements of the Greeks in literature and art are well known, but their contributions in the field of pure knowledge are still more extraordinary.They invented mathematics, ① science, and philosophy; they were the first to write history books other than mere chronology; bound by petty.So amazing is everything that has happened that, until very recent times, people have been content to marvel and speak mysteriously of the Greek genius.Yet it is now possible, and indeed worthwhile, to understand the development of Greece in scientific terms.

Philosophy begins with Thales, who predicted a solar eclipse, so we are fortunate to be able to date him from this fact; according to astronomers, the eclipse occurred in 585 B.C.Philosophy and science were originally inseparable, so they were born together in the early sixth century BC.What had happened to Greece and its neighbors before this time?Any answer is bound to be speculative in part, but archeology has taught us much more in this century than our ancestors did. Writing was invented in Egypt around 4000 BC, and not too late in Babylon.The characters of both countries started from pictographic pictures.The pictures quickly became conventional, and the words were expressed in ideographic characters, as is still the case in China.Over the course of thousands of years, this complex system developed into alphabetic writing.

The development of early civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia was due to the presence of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates rivers, which made agriculture easy and productive.These civilizations were in many respects like those found by the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru, where there was a divine king with despot power; in Egypt he also possessed all the lands.There is a kind of polytheism here, and the king has a special intimate relationship with the supreme god of this polytheism.There are military aristocrats and there are priestly aristocrats.If the monarch is weak or the war is unfavorable, priests and nobles are often able to violate the royal power.The tillers of the land were serfs, who belonged to kings, nobles, or priests.

Egyptian theology was quite different from Babylonian theology.The Egyptians' main concern was death, and they believed that the souls of the dead went to the underworld, where Osiris judged them according to their life on earth.They thought that the soul would eventually return to the body; this gave birth to mummies and the magnificent architecture of tombs.The pyramid complex was built by the kings in the late 4000 BC and early 3000 BC.After this period, Egyptian civilization became increasingly rigid, and religious conservatism made progress impossible.Around 1800 BC, Egypt was conquered by Semitic peoples called the Hyksos, who ruled Egypt for about two centuries.They left no lasting traces in Egypt, but their presence here must have contributed to the spread of Egyptian civilization in Syria and Palestine.

Babylon's history is more militaristic than that of Egypt.The original ruling race was not the Semites, but the "Sumalian" people, whose origin we still don't know.They invented cuneiform, from whom the Semites of the conquerors received it.There was a time when many independent city-states fought against each other; but in the end Babylon ruled and established an empire.The gods of the other cities became subordinate gods, and the Babylonian god Marduk acquired the position that Zeus later occupied among the Greek gods.The same thing happened in Egypt, only much earlier.The religion of Egypt and Babylon, like other ancient religions, was originally a reproductive cult.The earth is feminine and the sun is masculine.Bulls are often considered to be the embodiment of male reproductive power, and bull gods are very common.In Babylon, the earth goddess Ishtar was supreme among the goddesses.The "Great Mother" is worshiped by various names throughout Western Asia.When the Greek colonists built temples for her in Asia Minor, they called her Artemis and accepted the original rites.This is the origin of "Diana of the Ephesians".Christianity transformed her into the Virgin Mary, but it was not until the Ephesus Synod that the title "Holy Mother" be added to our godmother.

As soon as a religion is united with an imperial government, political motives greatly alter the original aspect of religion.A god or a goddess would be associated with the country, not only to ensure a good harvest, but also to ensure victory in war.A rich priestly class dictated a rite and theology, and arranged in a pantheon some of the gods of the various constituent parts of the empire. Through his connection with the government, God also has a connection with morality.Legislators received their codes from the gods, so to break the law is blasphemy.The oldest legal code now known is that of Hamrabi, king of Babylon, around 2100 BC; the king claims that this code was delivered to him by Marduk.Throughout antiquity this connection between morality and religion grew closer and closer.Babylonian religion, unlike that of Egypt, was more concerned with prosperity in this world than happiness in the hereafter.Witchcraft, divination, and astrology, though not peculiar to Babylon, were nevertheless more developed here than elsewhere, and it was chiefly through Babylon that they acquired their place in later antiquity.From Babylonia also came down certain things of science: the division of the day into 24 hours, and the circle into 360 degrees; and the discovery of the cycles of eclipses.This allowed them to accurately predict lunar eclipses and, with some probability, solar eclipses.This Babylonian knowledge, as we shall see below, was acquired by Thales.

The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were agricultural civilizations, while the civilizations of the surrounding peoples were initially animal husbandry civilizations.With the development of commerce, which at first was almost entirely maritime, a new element arose.Until around 1000 BC, weapons were made of bronze, and some countries did not have the necessary metals on their own soil and had to trade or pirate to obtain them.Piracy was a temporary expediency, and commerce was considered more profitable where social and political conditions were fairly stable.In terms of commerce, Crete appears to be the pioneer.For about eleven centuries, so to speak, from 2500 BC to 1400 BC, an artistically advanced culture existed in Crete known as the Minoan culture.What remains of Cretan art gives an impression of joyful, almost decadent luxury, very different from the hideous gloom of Egyptian temples.

Little was known about this important civilization until the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans and others.It was a civilization of seafaring peoples, who maintained close contact with Egypt (with the exception of the time of the Hyksos).It is evident from Egyptian drawings that Cretan sailors carried on considerable commerce between Egypt and Crete, which reached its zenith about 1500 BC.The religion of Crete seems to have much in common with those of Syria and Asia Minor, but more with Egypt in its art, though Cretan art is very original and full of It has amazing vitality.The center of Cretan civilization is the so-called "Mino Palace" of Nossos, which has been circulated in the legends of classical Greece.The palaces of Crete were magnificent, but were destroyed about the end of the fourteenth century BC, probably by Greek invaders.The chronology of Cretan history is deduced from Egyptian artifacts found on Crete and from Cretan artifacts found in Egypt; our knowledge rests entirely on archaeological evidence.

The Cretans worshiped one goddess, perhaps several goddesses.The most unmistakable goddess is the Mistress of the Animals, a huntress, perhaps the origin of the classical Artemis.She, or another goddess, is also a mother; the only male deity other than the "Master of the Animals" is her youngest son.There is evidence to show that the Cretans believed in life after death, just like the belief in Egypt, they believed that after death, people would be rewarded and punished for their actions during life.But on the whole, from their art, the Cretans appear to have been a cheerful people, not much oppressed by gloomy superstitions.They love bullfights in which the female fighters perform astonishing feats as the male fighters.Bullfighting was a religious ceremony, and Sir Arthur Evans believed that bullfighters belonged to the highest nobility.The pictures handed down are very vivid and lifelike.

The Cretans have a rectilinear script, but no one has yet deciphered it.They are at peace at home, their cities are without walls; they are undoubtedly protected by the power of the sea. Before the destruction of the Minoan civilization, around 1600 BC, it spread to the Greek mainland, where it experienced a gradual stage of degeneration until 900 BC.This continental civilization is called the Mycenaean civilization; it was discovered by excavating the tombs of the emperors and the forts on the top of the mountains, which shows that they were more afraid of war than the people on Crete.Tombs and fortresses have always made a strong impression on the classical Greek imagination.The older works of art in the palace were, if not actually of, the hands of Cretan craftsmen, or were closely akin to Cretan craft.The Mycenaean civilization seen through a layer of hazy legends is exactly the civilization described in Homer's poems.

There is still a lot that is not clear about the Mycenaeans.Was their civilization the result of their conquest by the Cretans?Did they speak Greek, or were they an earlier indigenous race?It is impossible to have definitive answers to these questions, but on the whole they were probably Greek-speaking conquerors, and at least the nobility were fine-haired invaders from the north who brought the Greek language with them. .The Greeks entered Greece in three successive waves, first the Ionians, then the Achaeans, and finally the Dorians.The Ionians, though conquerors, seem to have adopted the civilization of Crete as fairly completely as the Romans later adopted the civilization of Greece.But the Ionians were overrun by their successors, the Achaeans, and were largely driven off.From the Sitite tablets unearthed by Bogaz-Koyi, we know that the Achaeans had a large and organized empire in the fourteenth century BC.Mycenaean civilization had been weakened by the Ionian and Achaean wars, and virtually destroyed by the last Greek invaders, the Dorians.The previous invaders mostly adopted the Minoan religion, but the Dorians preserved the original Indo-Europa religion of their ancestors.Yet the religion of Mycenaean times persisted, especially among the lower classes; and the religion of Classical Greece was a mixture of the two. While the above may be true, we must remember that we do not know whether the Mycenaeans were Greek or not.All we know is that their civilization was destroyed, and that at the end of it iron replaced bronze; and that for a time the supremacy of the seas passed into the hands of the Phoenicians. After the end of the late Mycenaean period, some invaders settled down and became farmers; others advanced, first into the Greek Islands and Asia Minor, then into Sicily and southern Italy, where they Founded cities and lived off sea trade.It was in these maritime cities that the Greeks first made their new contribution to civilization; Athenian supremacy came later, and when it did, it was likewise combined with sea power. Mainland Greece is mountainous and mostly barren.But it has many fertile valleys and is easily connected to the sea, while the convenient land communication between them is blocked by mountains.In these valleys, small, discrete regional societies grew up, all subsisting on agriculture, often surrounding a city near the sea.Under these circumstances it is natural that whenever the population of any regional society grows too large for domestic resources to be sufficient, those who cannot earn a living on land will take up seafaring.The city-states on the mainland established colonies, often in places where it was much easier to earn a living than at home.Thus in the earliest historical period the Greeks of Asia Minor, Sicily, and Italy were much wealthier than the Greeks of the Continent. The social system in different regions of Greece is also very different.In Sparta, a few aristocrats lived off the labor of serfs who oppressed another race; in the poorer agricultural areas, the population was dominated by peasants who worked their land with their families.But in areas where industry and commerce flourished, free citizens became rich by the use of slaves—men for mining, women for weaving.In Ionia these slaves were barbarians from all sides, and as a rule were first captured in war.The more wealth increased, the more isolated the women of status were, and later they had almost no place in the civilized life of Greece, with the exception of Sparta. The general development is the initial transition from monarchy to aristocracy, and then to the alternation of tyranny and democracy.Kings did not have absolute power like those of Egypt and Babylon, they were subject to the counsel of the Senate, and they did not go unpunished for transgressions of custom. "Tyranny" does not necessarily mean bad government, but merely the rule of a person whose power is not hereditary. "Democracy" means government by all citizens, excluding slaves and women.The earlier tyrants, like the Medicis, gained their power by virtue of being the wealthiest members of the plutocracy.The source of their wealth was often the possession of gold and silver mines, and they made a fortune from the new coinage system introduced from the kingdom of Lydia near Ionia.Coinage seems to have been invented shortly before 700 BC. One of the most important consequences for the Greeks of commerce or piracy—the two were difficult to distinguish at first—was that they learned the art of writing.Although writing existed in Egypt and Babylon for thousands of years, and the Minoan Cretans had a script (which no one can yet recognize), there is no conclusive evidence that the Greek People knew how to write before the tenth century BC.They learned the art of writing from the Phoenicians; the Phoenicians, like the other inhabitants of Syria, were influenced both by Egypt and Babylon, and before the rise of the Greek cities of Ionia, Italy, and Sicily. , They have always held the hegemony of maritime commerce.In the 14th century BC, the Syrians wrote to Ignaton (the heretical king of Egypt) still using Babylonian cuneiform script; but Siram of Tire (969-936 BC) already used the Phoenician alphabet Now, the Phoenician alphabet may have developed from the Egyptian script.At first the Egyptians used a purely pictorial writing; as these pictures became more and more popular, they gradually represented syllables (that is, the first syllable of the name of the thing represented by the figure), and finally according to "A is an archer who shoots frogs" ① Principles instead represent individual letters too.This last step was not performed by the Egyptians themselves, but by the Phoenicians, and this gave the alphabet all its advantages.The Greeks borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians, altered it to suit their own language, and added vowels instead of consonants as before, thus making an important creation.There is no doubt that the acquisition of this convenient method of writing greatly contributed to the rise of Greek civilization. The first famous birth of Greek civilization was Homer.Everything about Homer is speculation, but the best opinion seems to be that he was a series of poets rather than one poet.Perhaps the completion of the Iliad and the Odyssey took about 200 years, some say from 750-550 BC, ② while others believe that "Homer" was written almost at the end of the eighth century BC③ .Homer in its extant form was brought to Athens by Bisistritus, who ruled from 560 to 527 BC (interlude included).From his time onwards, the youth of Athens recited Homer, and it became the most important part of their education.But in some parts of Greece, notably in Sparta, Homer did not enjoy the same prestige until a later period. Homer's poems, like the court legends of the later Middle Ages, represent the views of a civilized aristocratic class, which regards all kinds of superstitions that are still popular among the people as inferior people's things and ignores them. past.But in a much later period, many of these superstitions came to light again.The conclusion drawn by modern writers based on anthropology is that Homer is by no means the author of the original work, but a deleter, an interpreter of ancient myths in the style of the eighteenth century, with an Enlightenment ideal of upper-class refinement.In Homer's poetry, the gods of the Olympiad, who represented religion, were not the only objects of worship of the Greeks, either then or in later generations.In the religion of the masses there were still darker and more savage elements, which, though repressed in the height of Greek wisdom, burst forth in moments of weakness or terror.So every decline proves that the religious superstitions which Homer rejected continued to survive, only half-revealed, throughout antiquity.This fact explains many things that would otherwise seem contradictory and surprising. Primitive religion everywhere is tribal, not individual.People hold certain ceremonies to promote the interests of the tribe through the magic of sympathy, especially to promote the reproduction of plants, animals and population.At the time of the winter solstice, one must pray that the sun will not lose its power; appropriate rituals should also be held during the spring and harvest seasons.These rites often inspire great collective passions in which the individual loses his sense of isolation and feels himself one with the whole race.All over the world, when religion evolves to a certain stage, the sacrificed animals and people must be slaughtered and eaten according to sacrificial rituals.In different regions, the period of this stage is also quite different.The custom of sacrificing a human being generally outlasted the custom of eating the victim; it did not die out even at the beginning of Greek history.Harvest rites, without this cruel spectacle, were common throughout Greece; especially the symbolism of the Eleusis mysticism was fundamentally agricultural. It must be admitted that religion in Homer's poetry is not very religious.The gods are fully human, unlike humans only in that they are immortal and endowed with superhuman powers.Morally, they have nothing to shout about, and it's hard to see how they could inspire much awe.In the verses which are considered late, the gods are dealt with with a sort of Voltairean irreverence.What can be found in Homer's poetry to be related to true religious feelings is not the Olympic gods, but the existence of "fate", "necessity" and "destiny" to which even Zeus is subject.Fate exerted a great influence on all Greek thought, and was perhaps one of the sources from which science derived belief in the laws of nature. Homer's gods were the gods of the conquering aristocracy, not the useful gods of fertility for those who actually worked the land.As Gilbert Moule said: "The gods of most nations claim to have created the world, but the Olympic gods do not. What they do is chiefly conquer the world. . . . when they have conquered After the Kingdom, what do they do? Do they care about politics? Do they promote agriculture? Do they engage in commerce and industry? Not at all. Why should they engage in any honest work? They seem to live a more comfortable life. They are conquest-loving chiefs, kings of pirates. They fight, they feast, they play, they merry; Their lame blacksmiths. They fear nothing but their king. They never lie except in love and war." Homer's terrestrial heroes are no less well behaved.The headed family was the House of Pelops, but it did not succeed in setting an example of a happy family life. "The founder of this dynasty, Tandalus the Asiatic, began his career with a direct attack on the gods; some say, by trying to trick them into cannibalism, by eating his own son Pelepus. After his miraculous resurrection, Pelops also attacked the gods. His famous chariot race with the king of Piza, Onomus, was due to the latter's royal husband Mirtler He won the victory with the help of Aus. Then he killed his allies whom he had allowed him to pay, and threw him into the sea. The curse then took the form which the Greeks called ate—if In fact it was not entirely irresistible, at least a strong criminal impulse--passed on to his sons Atreus and Testes. The good luck of the man, the famous golden fleece, was stolen. Atreus in turn managed to exile his brother, and summoned him back under pretext of conciliation, and feasted him on the flesh of his own child. The curse again By Atreus to his son Agamemnon. Agamemnon offended Artemis by killing a sacrificial deer; the wrath of the goddess, and was able to bring his fleet safely to Troy. Agamemnon was again killed by his unfaithful wife and her lover, Egestes, a son left by Thestis. , murdered. Orestes, son of Agamemnon, avenged his father by killing his mother and Ogestes." 1 Homer's poem, as a finished work, is a product of Ionia, a part of Greece's Asia Minor and its neighboring islands.By at least the sixth century BC, Homer's poetry had settled into its present form.It was also during this century that Greek science, philosophy, and mathematics began.During the same period, events of fundamental importance were taking place in other parts of the world.Confucius, Buddha, and Zoroaster, if they existed, probably belonged to this century as well. ②In the middle of the century, the Persian Empire was established by Cyrus; towards the end of the century, the Greek city of Ionia, which had been allowed a limited autonomy by the Persians, staged an unsuccessful rebellion, The mutiny was suppressed by Darius, and the best of its characters became fugitives.Several of the philosophers of this period were exiles, who wandered from city to city through the unenslaved parts of the Greek world, spreading a civilization hitherto largely confined to Ionia.They were well received as they traveled.Xenophanes was also an exile whose heyday was around the late sixth century BC. He said: "By the fire in winter we had a good meal and wine and chewed beans and lay soft bed, we shall have these words: 'What country are you? How old are you, old sir? How old were you when the Medes appeared?'" The rest of Greece, In the Battle of Salami and the Battle of Latia, it continued to maintain its independence.Thereafter, Ionia was also freed for a period. ① Greece is divided into many independent small countries, each country includes a city and its surrounding agricultural area.The level of civilization varied widely in the various parts of the Greek world, and only a few cities contributed to the totality of Greek achievement.With regard to Sparta, which I shall speak at length later, it was important only in a military sense, not culturally.Corinth was rich and prosperous, a great commercial center, but not many great people emerged. Secondly, there are purely rural areas, such as the popular Acadia, which the city people imagine as idyllic, but which is actually full of ancient barbaric horrors. The residents worship Pan, the god of shepherds. They have many kinds of harvest rituals, and they often perform rituals with a square pillar instead of an idol.The goat was a symbol of a good harvest, as the farmers were too poor to have cattle.When there was not enough food, the idol of Pan was beaten (something like this still happens in remote Chinese villages).There is an imagined werewolf race, perhaps related to the culture of human sacrifice and cannibalism.At that time it was thought that whoever ate the flesh of the sacrificed man would become a werewolf.There is a cave dedicated to Zeus Likaius (Zeus the wolf); in this cave, people have no shadow, and whoever enters will die within a year.All these superstitions still prevailed in classical times. ①Pan's original name was "Paon", which means breeder or shepherd; after the Persian wars in the fifth century BC, the Athenians also adopted the worship of Pan, so he acquired this more familiar name, And the meaning of this name translates to "full god"②. However, there were also many things in ancient Greece that we can feel are religions as we understand them.That is not associated with the Olympian gods, but with Dionysus or Bacchus, a god whom we most naturally imagine as somewhat of a disreputable god of drunkenness and drunkenness. .From his adoration arose a profound mysticism which has greatly influenced many philosophers, and which has even played a part in the formation of Christian theology; Anyone who wants to study the development of Greek thought must understand it. Dionysus, or Bacchus, was originally a Thracian god.The Thracians were far less civilized than the Greeks, who regarded the Thracians as barbarians.Just like all primitive farmers, they also had various harvest rituals and a god who protected the harvest.His name was Backus.It was never clear whether Bacchus was in human or bull form.When they discovered how to make ale, they considered intoxication sacred, and praised Bacchus.Later, when they learned about grapes and learned to drink wine, they imagined Bacchus better.His role in protecting the harvest then generally becomes more or less subordinate to his role in the grapes and in the divine madness which wine produces. Exactly when the worship of Bacchus came from Thrace to Greece is not known, but it seems to have been just before the beginning of the historical period.The cult of Bacchus met with the hostility of the orthodox, but it was nevertheless established.It contains many savage ingredients, such as tearing the beast into pieces and eating them all raw.It has a strangely feminist element to it.Proper housewives and young girls danced all night in groups on the barren hills, intoxicated partly by alcohol, but mostly by mystery.Husbands find this practice annoying, but dare not speak against religion.This beautiful and barbaric religious ceremony is written in Euriphidi's script. Bacchus' victory in Greece came as no surprise.Like all rapidly civilized societies, the Greeks, at least a portion of them, developed an admiration for primitive things, and a more instinctive and passionate love of life than was then morally sanctioned. lifestyle aspirations.To the man or woman who, by compulsion, is more civilized in conduct than in affection, reason is abominable, and morality a burden and a slavery.This leads to a reaction in thought, feeling, and action.It is the reaction in thought that is especially relevant to us here, but a few words about the reaction in feeling and deed. What distinguishes the civilized man from the savage is chiefly prudence, or, to use a slightly wider term, forethought.He is willing to suffer present pain for the sake of future happiness, even if this future happiness is quite remote.This habit began to gain importance with the rise of agriculture; no animal, no savage, would work in the spring in order to eat in winter, except in a few purely instinctive modes of action, e.g. Bees make honey, or squirrels bury chestnuts.In this case, there is no forethought; it is just an impulse to direct action, which, to a human observer, apparently later proved useful.True forethought occurs only when a man does something not because he is driven by impulse, but because his reason tells him that at some future time he will benefit from it .Hunting requires no forethought, for it is pleasant; but tilling the land is labor, not something to be done by spontaneous impulse. Civilization restrains impulse not only by forethought (that is a restraint imposed upon itself), but also by law, custom, and religion.This restraint it has inherited from barbarism, but it makes it less instinctive and more organized.Certain actions are considered criminal and punishable, while others, though not punishable by law, are considered evil and subject the perpetrator to the blame of society.The institution of private property brought about female subordination and often created a slave class.On the one hand, the purpose of society is imposed on the individual, and on the other hand, the individual has acquired the habit of seeing his whole life as a whole, and sacrifices his present more and more to his future. Obviously, this process can be carried too far, as in the case of misers.But even without being carried to such extremes, prudence can easily result in the loss of some of the best things in life.The admirer of Backus is the reaction against prudence.In a state of intoxication, both physical and mental, he regains the intensity of emotion which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of joy and beauty; come out.The performance of the Bacchus produced what is known as a "passionate state," a term that etymologically refers to the entry of the god into the worshiper, who believed himself to have become one with the god.Most of the greatest human achievements involve some element of intoxication, a certain sweeping of prudence with enthusiasm.Without this Bacchus, life would be uninteresting; with it, life would be dangerous.The conflict of prudence versus passion is a conflict throughout history.We should not take sides entirely in this conflict. In the realm of thought, sober civilization is largely synonymous with science.But science alone cannot satisfy man; man also needs passion, art, and religion.Science can set a limit to knowledge, but not to imagination.Among the Greek philosophers, as among later philosophers, there were some who were basically scientific, and others who were basically religious; most of the latter were directly or indirectly influenced by Bacchus' religion. influences.这特别适用于柏拉图，并且通过他而适用于后来终于体现为基督教神学的那些发展。 狄奥尼索斯的原始崇拜形式是野蛮的，在许多方面是令人反感的。它之影响了哲学家们并不是以这种形式，而是以奥尔弗斯为名的精神化了的形式，那是禁欲主义的，而且以精神的沉醉代替肉体的沉醉。奥尔弗斯是一个朦胧但有趣的人物，有人认为他实有其人，另外也有人认为他是一个神，或者是一个想象中的英雄。传说上认为他象巴库斯一样也来自色雷斯，但是他（或者说与他的名字相联系着的运动）似乎更可能是来自克里特。可以断定，奥尔弗斯教义包括了许多最初似乎是渊源于埃及的东西，而且埃及主要地是通过克里特而影响了希腊的。据说奥尔弗斯是一位改革者，他被巴库斯正统教义所鼓动起来的狂热的酒神侍女们（maenads）撕成碎片。在这一传说的古老形式中，他对音乐的嗜好并没有象后来那么重要。他基本上是一个祭司和哲学家。 无论奥尔弗斯本人（如果确有其人的话）的教义是什么，但奥尔弗斯教徒的教义是人所熟知的。他们相信灵魂的轮回；他们教导说，按照人在世上的生活方式，灵魂可以获得永恒的福祉或者遭受永恒的或暂时的痛苦。他们的目的是要达到“纯洁”，部分地依靠净化的教礼，部分地依靠避免某些种染污。他们中间最正统的教徒忌吃肉食，除非是在举行仪式的时候做为圣餐来吃。他们认为人部分地属于地，也部分地属于天；由于生活的纯洁，属于天的部分就增多，而属于地的部分便减少。最后，一个人可以与巴库斯合一，于是便称为“一个巴库斯”。曾有过一种很精致的神学，按照那种神学的说法，巴库斯曾经诞生过两次，一次是从他的母亲西弥丽诞生的，另一次是从他父亲宙斯的大腿里诞生的。 狄奥尼索斯①的神话有许多种形式。有一种说，狄奥尼索斯是宙斯和波息丰的儿子；他还是小孩子的时候就被巨人族撕碎，他们吃光了他的肉，只剩下来他的心。有人说，宙斯把这颗心给了西弥丽，另外有人说，宙斯吞掉了这颗心；无论哪一种说法，都形成了狄奥尼索斯第二次诞生的起源。巴库斯教徒把一只野兽撕开并生吃它的肉，这被认为是重演巨人族撕碎并吃掉狄奥尼索斯的故事，而这只野兽在某种意义上便是神的化身。巨人族是地所生的，但是吃了神之后，他们就获有一点神性。所以人是部分地属于地的，部分地属于神的，而巴库斯教礼就是要使人更完全地接近神性。 幼利披底让一个奥尔弗斯祭司的口中唱出的一段自白是有教育意义的：① 主啊，你是欧罗巴泰尔的苗裔，宙斯之子啊，在你的脚下是克里特千百座的城池，我从这个黯淡的神龛之前向你祈祷，雕栏玉砌装成的神龛，饰着查立布的剑和野牛的血。天衣无缝的柏木栋梁矻然不动。我的岁月在清流里消逝。我是伊地安宙夫②神的仆人，我得到了秘法心传；我随着查格鲁斯③中夜游荡，我已听惯了他的呼声如雷；成就了他的红与血的宴会，守护这伟大母亲山头上的火焰；我获得了自由，而被赐名为披甲祭司中的一名巴库斯。我全身已装束洁白，我已洗净了人间的罪恶与粪土我的嘴头从此禁绝了再去触及一切杀生害命的肉食。 奥尔弗斯教徒的书版已经在坟墓中被发现，那都是一些教诫，告诉死掉的灵魂如何在另一个世界里寻找出路，以及为了要证明自己配得上得救应该说些什么话。这些书版都是残阙不全的；其中最为完整的一份（即裴特利亚书版）如下： 你将在九泉之下地府的左边看到一泓泉水，泉水旁矗立着一株白色的柏树，这条泉水你可不要走近。但你在记忆湖边将看到另一条泉水寒水流涌，旁边站着卫士。你要说：“我是大地与星天的孩子；但我的氏族却仅属于天，这你也知道。看哪，我焦渴得要死了。请快给我记忆湖中流涌出来的寒泉冷冽”。他们自会给你饮那神圣的泉水从此你就将君临其他的英雄。 ... 另一个书版说道，“欢迎你，忍受了苦难的人。……你将由人变为神”。另外又有一个说道：“欢乐而有福的人，你将成为神，再也不会死亡”。 灵魂所不能喝的泉水就是列特，它会使人遗忘一切的；另一股泉水是聶摩沁，它会使人记忆一切。另一个世界的灵魂，如果想要得救，就不可遗忘，而相反地必须能有一种超乎自然的记忆力。 奥尔弗斯教徒是一个苦行的教派；酒对他们说来只是一种象征，正象后来基督教的圣餐一样。他们所追求的沉醉是“激情状态”的那种沉醉，是与神合而为一的那种沉醉。他们相信以这种方式可以获得以普通方法所不能得到的神秘知识。这种神秘的成份随着毕达哥拉斯一起进入到希腊哲学里面来，毕达哥拉斯就是奥尔弗斯教的一个改革者，正如奥尔弗斯是巴库斯教的一个改革者一样。奥尔弗斯的成份从毕达哥拉斯进入到柏拉图的哲学里面来，又从柏拉图进入了后来大部分多少带有宗教性的哲学里面来。 只要是奥尔弗斯教有影响的地方，就一定有着某种巴库斯的成份。其中之一便是女权主义的成份，毕达哥拉斯便有许多这种成份，而在柏拉图，这种成份竟达到了要求女子在政治上完全与男子平等的地步。毕达哥拉斯说“女性天然地更近于虔诚”。另一种巴库斯的成份是尊重激烈的感情。希腊悲剧是从狄奥尼索斯的祭祀之中产生的。幼利披底尤其尊重奥尔弗斯教的两个主要的神，即巴库斯与伊洛思。但他对于那种冷静地自以为是而且行为端正的人，却是毫无敬意的；在他的悲剧里，那种人往往不是被逼疯了，便是由于神愤怒他们的亵渎神明而沦于忧患。 关于希腊人，传统的看法是他们表现了一种可钦可敬的静穆，这种静穆使得他们能置身局外地来观赏热情，来观察热情所表现的一切美妙，而他们自己却不动感情，有如奥林匹克的神明一般。这是一种非常片面的看法。也许荷马、索福克里斯与亚里士多德是这样，但是对那些直接间接地接触了巴库斯和奥尔弗斯的影响的希腊人，情形就确乎不是这样的了。爱留希斯的神话构成了雅典国教的最神圣部分，在爱留希斯，有一首颂歌唱道： 你的酒杯高高举起，你欢乐欲狂万岁啊！你，巴库斯，潘恩。你来在爱留希斯万紫千红的山谷。 在幼利披底的里，酒神侍女的合唱显示了诗与野蛮的结合，那与静穆是截然相反的。她们庆贺支解野兽的欢乐，当场把它生吃了下去，并且欢唱着： 啊，欢乐啊，欢乐在高山顶上，竞舞得精疲力尽使人神醉魂消，只剩下来了神圣的鹿皮而其余一切都一扫精光，这种红水奔流的快乐，撕裂了的山羊鲜血淋漓，拿过野兽来狼吞虎噬的光荣，这时候山顶上已天光破晓，向着弗里吉亚、吕底亚的高山走去，那是布罗米欧在引着我们上路。 （布罗米欧是巴库斯的许多名字之一）。酒神侍女们在山坡上的舞蹈不仅是犷野的；它还是一种逃避，是从文明的负担和烦忧里逃向非人间的美丽世界和清风与星月的自由里面去。他们以另一种不很狂热的情调又唱道： 它们会再来，再度的来临吗？那些漫长、漫长的歌舞，彻夜歌舞直到微弱的星光消逝。我的歌喉将受清露的滋润，我的头发将受清风的沐浴？我们的白足将在迷朦的太空中闪着光辉？啊，绿原上奔驰着的麋鹿的脚在青草中是那样的孤独而可爱；被猎的动物逃出了陷阱和罗网，欢欣跳跃再也不感到恐怖。然而远方仍然有一个声音在呼唤有声音，有恐怖，更有一群猎狗搜寻得多凶猛，啊，奔驰得多狂猂沿着河流和峡谷不断向前——是欢乐呢还是恐惧？你疾如狂飚的足踵啊，你奔向着可爱的邃古无人的寂静的土地，那儿万籁俱寂，在那绿荫深处，林中的小生命生活得无忧无虑。 在拾人牙慧地说什么希腊人是“静穆的”之前，你不妨想想假如费拉德尔斐亚的妇女们也是这样的行径吧，哪怕就是在欧根·奥尼尔的剧本里。 奥尔弗斯的信徒并不比未经改造过的巴库斯崇拜者更为“静穆”。对于奥尔弗斯的信徒来说，现世的生活就是痛苦与无聊。我们被束缚在一个轮子上，它在永无休止的生死循环里转动着；我们的真正生活是属于天上的，但我们却又被束缚在地上。唯有靠生命的净化与否定以及一种苦行的生活，我们才能逃避这个轮子，而最后达到与神合一的天人感通。这绝不是那些能感到生命是轻松愉快的人的观点。它更有似于黑人的灵歌： 当我回到了老家，我要向神诉说我的一切的烦恼。 虽非所有的希腊人，但有一大部分希腊人是热情的、不幸的、处于与自我交战的状态，一方面被理智所驱遣，另一方面又被热情所驱遣，既有想象天堂的能力，又有创造地狱的那种顽强的自我肯定力。他们有“什么都不过分”的格言；但是事实上，他们什么都是过分的，——在纯粹思想上，在诗歌上，在宗教上，以及在犯罪上。当他们伟大的时候，正是热情与理智的这种结合使得他们伟大的。单只是热情或单只是理智，在任何未来的时代都不会使世界改变面貌，有如希腊人所做过的那样。他们在神话上的原始典型并不是奥林匹克的宙斯而是普罗米修斯，普罗米修斯从天上带来了火，却因此而遭受着永恒的苦难。 然而、如果把它当做全体希腊人的特征时，那末上文所说的就会和以“静穆”作为希腊人的特征的那种观点是同样的片面性了。事实上，在希腊有着两种倾向，一种是热情的、宗教的、神秘的、出世的，另一种是欢愉的、经验的、理性的，并且是对获得多种多样事实的知识感到兴趣的。希罗多德就代表后一种倾向；最早的伊奥尼亚的哲学家们也是如此；亚里士多德在一定的限度内也是如此。贝洛赫（前引书，第1卷，第1章，第434页）描写奥尔弗斯教说道：“但是希腊民族是非常充满青春活力的，它不能普遍接受任何一种否定现世并把现实的生命转到来世上面去的信仰。因此奥尔弗斯的教义始终局限于入教者的相当狭小的圈子之内，对于国教并没有任何一点影响，甚至于在象雅典那样已经在国家祭祀之中采用了神秘教的祭礼并且使之获得法律的保障的地区，也是没有一点影响的。整整过了一千年之后，这些观念——当然在一种截然不同的神学外衣之下——才在希腊世界获得了胜利”。 看起来，这似乎是过分的夸大，特别以对于饱和着奥尔弗斯教义的爱留希斯神秘教为然。大致可以说，具有宗教气质的人都倾向于奥尔弗斯教，而理性主义者则都鄙视它。我们可以把它的地位和十八世纪末十九世纪初英国的卫理教派相比。 我们多少知道点一个有教养的希腊人从他的父亲那里学到什么，但是在他的早年从他的母亲那里学到什么，我们就知道得很少了；在很大的程度上希腊女人是与男人们所享受的文明隔绝开来的。即使在其全盛时代，无论有教养的雅典人的明确的自觉的心理过程是怎样地理性主义，然而他们似乎从传统中、从幼年时代起就保存着一种更为原始的思想感情的方式，这种方式常常在严重的关头很容易占优势。因此，简单地分析希腊的面貌就会是不恰当的了。 宗教，尤其是非奥林匹克的宗教，对于希腊思想的影响，直到最近才被人们所充分地认识到。有一本革命性的书，哈里逊的《希腊宗教研究导言》，着重指出了普通希腊人宗教中的原始的成份与狄奥尼索斯的成份；康福德（E．M．Corneord）的《从宗教到哲学》一书，力图使研究希腊哲学的学者们注意到宗教对于哲学家的影响，但是这本书中的解释，或者这本书中的人类学，却有很多地方是不能完全作为信史接受的。我所知道的最公允的叙述要算是约翰·伯奈特的《早期希腊哲学》，尤其是第二章：《科学与宗教》。伯奈特说，科学与宗教的冲突产生于“公元前六世纪席卷了全希腊的宗教复兴”，同时，历史舞台也从伊奥尼亚转到了西方。他说，“大陆希腊宗教的发展与伊奥尼亚的方式是很不相同的。特别是对狄奥尼索斯的崇拜——那是从色雷斯传来的，荷马诗歌中仅不过是提到而已——包含着一种萌芽中的对于人与世界关系的全新的观察方式。把任何崇高的观点都归之于色雷斯人本身当然是错误的；但是毫无疑问，对希腊人来说，天人感通的现象提示他们说灵魂决不止于是自我的微弱的复本而已，而且唯有在'灵魂脱离肉体'的时候才能显示出来它的真正的性质。……”看起来，希腊宗教似乎是正将进入东方宗教所已达到的同样阶段；而且若不是由于科学的兴起，我们很难看出有什么东西能够阻止这种趋势。通常都说由于希腊人没有祭司阶级，所以使他们得免于东方式的宗教；然而这是倒果为因的说法。祭司阶级并不制造教条，虽然一旦有了教条之后，他们是要保存教条的；东方民族在他们发展的早期阶段，也没有上述意义的祭司阶级。挽救了希腊的并不是由于没有一个祭司阶级，而是由于有科学的学派存在。 “新的宗教——在某种意义上，它是新的，虽然在另一种意义上，它和人类是同样地古老——随着各个奥尔弗斯教团的建立而达到它发展的最高峰。就我们所能知道的而论，它们的发源地是亚底加；但是它们传播得异常迅速，尤其是在意大利南部和西西里。首先它们都是属于崇拜狄奥尼索斯的组织；但是它们具有两种特征，这两种特征是希腊人中的新东西。他们渴望着有一种启示作为宗教权威的根源，他们还组成了人为的社团。那些包含着他们的神学的诗篇据说是色雷斯的奥尔弗斯所作的，这位奥尔弗斯本人曾进入过地狱，因此他是一个稳妥的引导者，能够使脱离了躯壳的灵魂在另一个世界里渡过种种危险。” 伯奈特继续说，奥尔弗斯教派的信仰和大约同时在印度所流行的信仰，两者之间有着惊人的相似之点，虽然他认为它们不会有过任何的接触。然后他就说到“orgy”（狂欢）这个字的原义，奥尔弗斯教派用这个字来指“圣礼”，并且以此来净化信徒的灵魂使之得以避免生之巨轮。奥尔弗斯教徒与奥林匹克宗教的祭司不同，他们建立了我们所谓的教会，即宗教团体，不分种族或性别，人人可以参加；而且由于他们的影响，便出现了作为一种生活方式的哲学观念。