The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty,
    That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
    Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
    Or chasms or wat’ry depths;—­all these have vanished. 
    They live no longer in the faith of Reason. 
    But still the heart doth need a language; still
    Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.”

    The Piccolomini, Act II.  Scene 4.

As a matter of fact we find the believers in the Greek religion more ready to receive Christianity than were the Jews.  All through Asia Minor and Greece Christian churches were planted by Paul; a fact which shows that the ground was somehow prepared for Christianity.  It was ready for the monotheism which Paul substituted for their multitude of gods, and for their idolatry and image-worship.  The statues had ceased to be symbols, and the minds of the Greeks rested in the image itself.  This idolatrous worship Paul condemned, and the people heard him willingly, as he called them up to a more spiritual worship.  We think, therefore, that the Greek religion was a real preparation for Christianity.  We have seen that it was itself in constant transition; the system of the poets passing into that of the artists, and that of the artists into that of the philosophers; so that the philosophic religion, in turn, was ready to change into a Christian monotheism.

It may be said, since philosophy had undermined the old religion and substituted for it more noble ideas, why did it not take the seat of the dethroned faith, and sufficiently supply its place?  If it taught a pure monotheism and profound ethics, if it threw ample and adequate light on the problem of God, duty, and immortality, what more was needed?  If ideas are all that we want, nothing more.  That Greek philosophy gave way before Christianity shows that it did not satisfy all the cravings of the soul; shows that man needs a religion as well as a religious philosophy, a faith as well as an intellectual system.  A religion is one thing, a speculation is a very different thing.  The old Greek religion, so long as it was a living faith, was enough.  When men really believed in the existence of Olympian Jove, Pallas-Athene, and Phoebus-Apollo, they had something above them to which to look up.  When this faith was disintegrated, no system of opinions, however pure and profound, could replace it.  Another faith was needed, but a faith not in conflict with the philosophy which had destroyed polytheism; and Christianity met the want, and therefore became the religion of the Greek-speaking world.