[219] But the life of symbols ^ais limited. THE LIFE OF SYMBOLS IS LIMITED! The relation of man to the ultimate undergoes changes. Contents of ultimate concern vanish, or are replaced by other contents. A divine figure---take all the Greek gods: they cease to create reply, reaction, activity, and continuity. They are living powers no longer, in the way in which they had become symbols in Greek religion.^b They still have a REALITY, and this reality shows that it is in all FOLLOWING religion, including our religion today. Apollo^c and Dionysius^d are still present, but they are no longer present as independent symbols; they have lost their power to create reaction, action, and community. Symbols^e which for a certain period, on a certain place, for a certain group express truth of faith^f, now only remind us [as] historians of the faith of the past. One of the ways in which this often happens is that they are used poetically^g. The Greek gods were still alive in the Homeric period, but Homer^h also represents the transition from their adequacyⁱ to a period in which they no longer became religious symbols^j, but poetic symbols.^k And their life as POETIC symbols has gone on ever since: when you come into a theater in New York and look at the ceiling or curtain, you usually find, in most cases, the whole [pantheon of] Olympus represented there. But none of these gods or figures has power over you in the religious sense, although if it is well painted you may STILL feel them---as the people of the Renaissance did---as great poetic symbols. But this is quite a change---their truth is no longer the religious truth but an artistic truth, if it is at all, which is not the case with ALL curtains in ALL theaters today! [little laughter]. Now they have lost their truth. And there is a very interesting question, because in Protestant