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My own interest in the goddesses and gods of the Greeks goes back to an early childhood part-spent in frequent wandering and day-dreaming among the sun-baked ruins of Pompeii and too much instruction in ancient lore. Because of a life spent with a variety of religious experiences - wherein both agnosticism and mysticism once played their parts - 1 felt moved to write Chapter I, entitled 'The Beliefs of the Greeks', which must not be misunderstood. It is not a proclamation of my own personal views - which are touched upon in the Epilogue - but an attempt to learn the facts about a religious climate that differs from ours.I am endeavoring, while I seek to understand the old beliefs, to keep my mind detached from those pieties of childhood which are engendered in the nursery and proclaimed in the Litany. But I in no way wish to derogate from the official and recognized faiths of the Western World, rather only to indicate - with such scientific impartiality as it may be possible to attain - the differences between ancient and modern modes of approach to the godhead; and also to point out that a Greek would have raised eyebrows of surprise at a variety of prevalent views, practices, and ways of religious life. Yet these require consideration in order to contrast them with ancient Greek views, practices, and ways of religious life, and in order to account for the weakness of a cultured, fancy-free pagan- ism unconstrained by and unobedient to sanctified persons or writings. It is not possible to understand ancient myth, cult, and faith until we have been made aware that these things were vulnerable not because they were, like some of their modern equivalents, absurd, but because they were too fragile and too fine.Content of the book:Charles SeltmanPublication Date:1960