Note 18 — Chapter VII · GOSPEL-MAKING

On the first head, the answer is, as aforesaid, that throughout all ancient religion we find derogatory views of deity constantly entertained, at different stages of culture, without any clear consciousness of incongruity. Yahweh in the Old Testament “repents” that he made man; wrangles with Sarah; and is unable to overcome worshippers of other Gods who have “chariots of iron.” Always he is a “jealous” God; and at a later stage he is alleged to be consciously thwarted by the Israelites when they insist on having a king. These are all priest-made stories. Among the early Greeks, the Gods are still less godlike. In Homer, Athênê is almost the only deity who is treated with habitual reverence: the others are so constantly satirized, humanized, thwarted, or humiliated, that it is difficult to associate reverence, in our sense, with the portrayal at all. The statement of Arno Neumann that “it is impossible (here every historian will agree) for one who worships a hero to think and speak in such a way as to contradict or essentially modify his own worship”18 is an astonishingly uncritical pronouncement, which simply ignores the main mass of ancient religious literature.