THE GREATEST ILLUSION 



BY ADAM GOWANS WHYTE, 



Author of ''The Religion of the Open Mind" etc. 



"'TILL within recent years," said Sir Arthur Evans in his 

 ^ Presidential Address to the British Association, " it 

 seemed almost a point of honour for classical scholars to 

 regard Hellenic civilization, to which we look as the principal 

 source of our own civilization, as a Wonder Child, sprung 

 like Athena herself fully panoplied from the head of Zeus. 

 But a truer perspective has now been opened out ; and it has 

 been made abundantly clear that the rise of Hellenic civiliza- 

 tion was itself part of a wider economy, and can no longer 

 be regarded as an isolated phenomenon." 



Here, then, is a great illusion, once regarded by the 

 learned as a cornerstone of faith, laid to rest. I have no 

 doubt that the scholars were slow to confess it dead, and 

 that some of them are still prepared to argue, in spite of the 

 truer perspective provided by the Minoan Palace of Knossus 

 and other discoveries, that Hellenic civilization was indeed a 

 divine " sport." However, the tenacity with which such an 

 illusion is cherished cannot compare with the affection for a 

 similar illusion regarding Christianity. Sir Arthur's words 

 might be closely applied to the event which is regarded by 

 innumerable men and women as the principal source of all 

 civilization. The birth of Christ divides darkness from light. 

 It marks an era which brought something unique and trans- 

 cendent into the world. Whether by human agency or by 

 divine, there appeared on the corrupt soil of Paganism the 

 flower, immaculate and immortal, of the Christian ideal. 



This belief is natural to the orthodox Christian that is to 

 say, to any one of the numerous and contradictory sects that 

 claim to represent orthodox Christianity. But it persists 

 among people who have abandoned all the dogmas of Chris- 

 tianity and expressly repudiate any claim to be described as 

 Christians. For them there is no equivalent to the Minoan 

 Palace of Knossus. They look upon the Galilean as a moral 

 genius who first perceived and taught many things which 



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