"I thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture precepts which require, not vicious actions, but actions which would have been vicious had it not been for such precepts; because they are sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon objections drawn from them. But to me there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their being offences--_i.e._ from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid purposes, and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic. And objections from this head are not objections against Revelation, but against the whole notion of Religion as a trial, and against the whole constitution of Nature." (Butler's Analogy, Part. ii. ch. 3.)
I do not here propose to examine the soundness of this argument (which has been acutely discussed in a good pamphlet by Miss Hennell--'Essay on the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's Analogy,' p. 15, John Chapman, 1859). It appeared satisfactory to an able reasoner like Butler: and believers at Athens would have found satisfaction in similar arguments, when the narratives in which they believed were pronounced by Sokrates mischievous and incredible, as imputing to the Gods unworthy acts. For example--Zeus and Athêne instigate Pandarus to break the sworn truce between the Greeks and Trojans: Zeus sends Oneirus, or the Dream-God, to deceive Agamemnon (Plat. Rep. ii. pp. 379-383). Here are acts (the orthodox reasoner would say) which would be immoral if it were not for the special command: but Agamemnon and the Greeks had no right to life or property, much less to any other comforts or advantages, except what arose from the gift of the Gods. Now the Gods, on this particular occasion, thought fit to revoke the right which they had granted, making known such revocation to Pandarus; who, accordingly, in that particular case, committed no injustice in trying to kill Menelaus, and in actually wounding him. The Gods did not give any general command "to cultivate the spirit and act upon the principles" of perjury and faithlessness: they merely licensed the special act of Pandarus--_hic et nunc_--by making known to him that they had revoked the right of the Greeks to have faith observed with them, at that particular moment. When any man argues--"Pandarus was instigated by Zeus to break faith: therefore faithlessness is innocent and authorised: therefore _I_ may break faith"--this is "a perversion by wicked and designing men for a horrid purpose, and can mislead only the weak and enthusiastic".