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In the history of Christianity one cannot commend the efforts either of the Gnostics or the neo-Platonists, nor always justify the medieval missionaries in their methods. Nor can we accurately describe as successful the ingenuity of Vossius, the Dutch theologian, who, following the scheme of Euhemerus, discovered the Old Testament patriarchs in the disguise of the gods of Paganism.
To the Northern and Southern was now added an Eastern or Japanese Buddhism. Who was the wonder-worker that annexed the Land of the Gods to Buddhadom and re-read the Kojiki as a sutra, and all Japanese history and traditions as only a chapter of the incarnations of Buddha? The Philo and Euhemerus of Japan was the priest Kukai, who was born in the province of Sanuki, in the year 774.
Alexander the Great and his successors had adopted the Oriental policy by which the ruler was worshipped as a god, and were supported in this by a tendency which had already made itself felt occasionally among the Greeks in the East. Euhemerus only inverted matters—if the rulers were gods, it was an obvious inference that the gods were rulers. No wonder that his theory gained a large following.
It is a remarkable indication of the expressed and conscious antagonism between religion and the new philosophy that Ennius already translated into Latin those notoriously destructive writings of Epicharmus and Euhemerus.
We know of Euhemerus, who thought he read in the old mythologies not only the outlines of real history, but the hieroglyphics of legend and tradition, truth and revelation. Students of Church history are well aware that this principle of interpretation was followed only too generously by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Chrysostom and others of the Church Fathers.
More particularly it would give a clear sanction and authority to the impostures of Euhemerus the Messenian, who from mere imagination, and without the least appearance of truth to support it, has invented a new mythology of his own, asserting that "all those in general who are called and declared to be gods are none other than so many ancient generals and sea-captains and kings."
Among these were brief narrative poems relating to the legendary or contemporary history of his country; editions of the religious romance of Euhemerus, of the poems dealing with natural philosophy circulating in the name of Epicharmus, and of the gastronomies of Archestratus of Gela, a poet who treated of the higher cookery; as also a dialogue between Life and Death, fables of Aesop, a collection of moral maxims, parodies and epigrammatic trifles small matters, but indicative of the versatile powers as well as the neological didactic tendencies of the poet, who evidently allowed himself the freest range in this field, which the censorship did not reach.
Among these were brief narrative poems relating to the legendary or contemporary history of his country; editions of the religious romance of Euhemerus, of the poems dealing with natural philosophy circulating in the name of Epicharmus, and of the gastronomies of Archestratus of Gela, a poet who treated of the higher cookery; as also a dialogue between Life and Death, fables of Aesop, a collection of moral maxims, parodies and epigrammatic trifles small matters, but indicative of the versatile powers as well as the neological didactic tendencies of the poet, who evidently allowed himself the freest range in this field, which the censorship did not reach.
One of them, Euhemerus, invented the theory, which in part is false and in part accurate, that the gods are simply heroes, kings, great men deified after their death by the gratitude or terror of the populace. In fact, if the object of man is happiness, since life affords far fewer joys than sorrows, the philosophy of happiness is to get rid of life, and the sole wisdom lies in suicide.
He is no worse than the rest.... I wrote in accordance with some of the rules which thou lovest, O Théonoé, the life of the young god whom I served in my childhood, and for this they beat me like a Euhemerus and wonder what my motives can be, believing only in those things which enrich their trapezite tables.
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