ural, and bewildering influence which man can not successfully
resist; but yet so in harmony with the sinner's inclination, that he can
not divest himself of all responsibility. "Homer has no word answering
in comprehensiveness or depth of meaning to the word _sin_, as it is
used in the Bible..... The noun _amartia_ which is appropriated to
express this idea in the Greek of the New Testament, does not occur in
the Homeric poems..... The word which is most frequently employed to
express wrong-doing of every kind is _ate_, with its corresponding
verb..... The radical signification of the word seems to be a
befooling--a depriving one of his senses and his reason, as by
unseasonable sleep, and excess of wine, joined with the influence of
evil companions, and the power of destiny, or the deity. Hence, the
Greek imagination, which impersonated every great power, very naturally
conceived of Ate as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal cause
of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who, though the daughter of
Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth,
cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of
men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their
senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast
the blame on Ate, and so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the gods."[933]

[Footnote 933: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," pp. 174, 175.]

"Oft hath this matter been by Greeks discussed,
And I their frequent censure have incurred:
Yet was not I the cause; but Jove, and Fate,
And gloomy Erinnys, who combined to throw
A strong delusion o'er my mind, that day
I robb'd Achilles of his lawful prize.
What could I do? a Goddess all o'erruled,
Daughter of Jove, dread Ate, baleful power
Misleading all; with light step she moves,
Not on the earth, but o'er the heads of men.
With blighting touch, and many hath caused to err."[934]

And yet, though Agamemnon here attempts to shuffle off the guilt of his
transgression upon Ate, Jove, and Fate, yet at other times he confesses
his folly and wrong, and makes no attempt to cast the responsibility on
the gods.[935] Though misled by a "baleful power," he was not compelled.
Though tempted by an evil goddess, he yet followed his own sinful
passions, and therefore he owns himself responsible.

To satisfy the demands of divine justice, to sh