Above all, the monotheistic idea, even if associated with the name of Zeus, tended to become an abstract conception with little relation to the national god of Hellas, whom Phidias embodied in his Olympian statue.
[Footnote 4: _Or_.2.

8.] [Footnote 5: viii.p.353.It does not matter whether the passage is quoted by Strabo himself or by an interpolator.] The philosophic or theological conception of a monotheistic deity does not, in fact, seem to lend itself at any time to impressive artistic representation.

We may observe the same thing in Christian art, in which representations of God the Father are not very common nor, as a rule, very expressive of the most vivid religious ideals; while Christ, usually not as God, but as man or child, and the Virgin Mary are the constant themes of the most devout religious art, not to speak of the numerous saints who correspond more or less to the gods of a polytheistic system.

Philosophical thought was antagonistic to anthropomorphism, which, as we have seen, was the most characteristic feature of popular religion in Greece, and which was essential to Greek religious art.

As soon as the human form is a mere symbol, no longer regarded as the express image of the god and the embodiment of his individuality, it loses touch with reality.