Note 40.1 — Chapter II · THE PREHISTORIC PERIOD

Such a religion as has been sketched might accord with a high social and political morality. On the other hand, it would not be likely to foster and consecrate certain mental moods, ennobled by Christian ethic, such as ‘fear of God,’ humility, faith. Never in the free periods of Greek history was ‘deisidaimonia’ (‘fear of divine powers’) regarded as a virtue, but rather as a vice or weakness. The Hellene was humble in his attitude to God only in the sense that he disliked overweening acts and speech of self-glorification; the phrase, δοῦλος τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘slave of God,’ common in early Christian documents, would be as repugnant to the Hellene as would be the ecstasy of self-abasement congenial to the Babylonian and the Christian religions. As for the Pauline use of the word πίστις, ‘faith,’ its value for religious morality would have been unintelligible for the earlier Greek.40.1