Sophocles is the most devout of the Greek tragedians, and reverence for the gods is constantly enjoined in his tragedies.  One striking passage is where Antigone is asked if she had disobeyed the laws of the country, and replies, “Yes; for they were not the laws of God.  They did not proceed from Justice, who dwells with the Immortals.  Nor dared I, in obeying the laws of mortal man, disobey those of the undying gods.  For the gods live from eternity, and their beginning no man knows.  I know that I must die for this offence, and I die willingly.  I must have died at some time, and a premature death I account a gain, as finishing a life filled with sorrows."[236] This argument reminds us of the higher-law discussions of the antislavery conflict, and the religious defiance of the fugitive slave law by all honest men.

Euripides represents the reaction against the religious tragedy.  His is the anti-religious tragedy.  It is a sneering defiance of the religious sentiment, a direct teaching of pessimism.  Bunsen ("God in History”) goes at length into the proof of this statement, showing that in Euripides the theology of the poets encountered and submitted to the same sceptical reaction which followed in philosophy the divine teachings of Plato.[237] After this time Greek poetry ceased to be the organ of Greek religion.  It is true that we have subsequent outbreaks of devout song, as in the hymn of Cleauthes, the stoic, who followed Zeno as teacher in the Porch (B.C. 260).  Though this belongs rather to philosophy than to poetry, yet on account of its truly monotheistic and also devout quality, I add a translation here:[238]—­

    Greatest of the gods, God with many names, God ever-ruling and ruling all things! 
    Zeus, origin of nature, governing the universe by law,
    All hail!  For it is right for mortals to address thee;
    Since we are thy offspring, and we alone of all
    That live and creep on earth have the power of imitative speech. 
    Therefore will I praise thee, and hymn forever thy power. 
    Thee the wide heaven, which surrounds the earth, obeys;
    Following where thou wilt, willingly obeying thy law. 
    Thou holdest at thy service, in thy mighty hands,
    The two-edged, flaming, immortal thunderbolt,
    Before whose flash all nature trembles. 
    Thou rulest in the common reason, which goes through all,
    And appears mingled in all things, great or small,
    Which, filling all nature, is king of all existences. 
    Nor without thee, O Deity, does anything happen in the world,
    From the divine ethereal pole to the great ocean,
    Except only the evil preferred by the senseless wicked. 
    But thou also art able to bring to order that which is chaotic,
    Giving form to what is formless, and making the discordant friendly;
    So reducing all variety to unity, and even making good out of evil. 
    Thus, through all nature is one great law,
    Which only the wicked seek to disobey,—­
    Poor fools! who long for happiness,
    But will not see nor hear the divine commands.