consists in expressions of pious admiration at the extraordinary goodness of their God, especially for his redemption of the world which he had himself condemned. All these extravagant eulogies betray a latent impression that the Deity is, after all, a very arbitrary personage, and may be moved to more merciful conduct than he would otherwise pursue by large doses of flattery.
Still more clearly does the idea of a commercial relationship with the gods make its appearance in a poet who stands on a higher intellectual and moral level than the writers of the Hebrew Psalms, namely Aischylos. In the Seven against Thebes, Eteokles implores Zeus, the Earth, and the tutelar deities of the city to protect Thebes; and subjoins as a motive for compliance, "And I trust that what I say is our common interest; for a prosperous city honors the gods" (Aisch. Sept. c. Th. 76, 77—Dindorf). And there is a similar appeal to the divine selfishness further on in the same play, where the chorus inquires of the gods what better plain they can expect to obtain in exchange for this one, if they shall suffer it to pass into the enemy's hands (Aisch., Sept. c. Th. 304).
In the Choephoræ, Zeus is distinctly asked in the prayer of Agamemnon's children whence he can expect to obtain the sacrifice and honors which have been paid him by Orestes and Electra if he should suffer them to perish (Aisch., Choeph., 255). While in the Electra of Sophocles the converse motive of gratitude is appealed to: the god Apollon being desired to remember not what he may get, but what he already has got, from the piety of his supplicant (Soph. El., 1376—Schneidewin). And Jacob, who was a good hand at a bargain, makes his terms with Jehovah in a thoroughly business-like spirit. "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house: and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee." The adoption of Jehovah as Jacob's God being thus entirely dependent on the performance by that Deity of his share in the contract" (Gen. xxviii. 20-22).
Sometimes it is quaintly suggested that were the worshiper
