Flavius Josephus, the first-century Romano-Jewish historian, grappled with this very question in his work, Against Apion. And his answer is surprisingly relevant, even today.
Josephus homes in on what he sees as a fundamental flaw in the pagan world's approach to the Divine. He argues that much of the confusion and, frankly, the scandals surrounding their deities stemmed from a basic lack of knowledge – and a lack of consistent teaching – about the true nature of God. The heathen legislators, as he calls them, didn’t fully grasp the essence of the Divine, and even what little they understood, they didn't share effectively with the people.
Can you imagine a society where even the leaders have only a hazy idea about God, and they don't prioritize sharing that understanding? Josephus points out that they didn't build their political systems around a central, consistent concept of the Divine. Instead, they treated religion almost as an afterthought. This opened the door for poets to invent gods with every human failing imaginable, and for orators to manipulate the masses into accepting foreign deities that suited their political agendas.
And then there were the artists. The painters and sculptors of Greece held immense power, each crafting their own version of the Divine. As Josephus notes, they could conjure up a god out of clay or create an image from a bare picture. The most celebrated artisans even had access to precious materials like ivory and gold for their creations.
But here's the kicker: as Josephus observes, this led to a kind of religious fickleness. Some temples flourished, adorned with elaborate rituals, while others were abandoned. The older gods, revered for generations, were overshadowed by newer, trendier deities. And these new gods? Some were quickly embraced, only to have their temples left desolate before long. It was a constant cycle of creation, worship, and abandonment, all driven by human whim.
The core of Josephus's argument is that opinions about God and the worship due to Him should be constant and unchanging. Imagine the contrast he's drawing with the Jewish tradition, where the concept of God, as revealed in the Torah, is meant to be a fixed point, a source of unwavering truth across generations.
Think about it. What happens when our understanding of the Divine becomes subject to the changing winds of popular opinion, artistic trends, and political maneuvering? Does it cheapen the sacred? Does it create confusion and ultimately, a spiritual void? Josephus certainly thought so, and his words offer a powerful critique of a world where the Divine is shaped more by human hands than by divine revelation.