Since the end of the Cold War, conflicts around the world increasingly reflect a religious challenge to liberal political rationalism. The abiding political importance of religion is a central fact of our time, and yet it is surprising, not only given the hypothesis that the end of the Cold War would usher in an “end of history,” but also and more importantly, given the confidence of the Enlightenment founders of liberalism that, in Tocqueville's words, “Religious zeal … will be extinguished as freedom and enlightenment increase.”Footnote ¹ In the light of the tendency of modern political rationalism to underestimate the power of religion, it seems reasonable to consider the premodern, classical analysis of religious antirationalism and political rationalism. As the present essay hopes to show, that analysis is set forth with great clarity and power, not in a work of political science narrowly speaking, but in a great literary work, Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.

Oedipus at Colonus seeks to demonstrate that religious antirationalism—as exemplified by Oedipus—is self-contradictory and self-destructive. But the play also argues that religious passion is rooted in such enduring elements of human nature as mortality, hope, and anger and is, therefore, a permanent feature of political life. Accordingly, Sophocles advocates a moderate political rationalism, one that is mindful of the dangers but also of the abiding power and even the utility of religious passion. Such a political rationalism, embodied by the enlightened statesmanship of Theseus, constitutes a middle way between an immoderate political rationalism that dismisses the power of religion—exemplified by Oedipus the Tyrant—and a piety which rejects reason—exemplified by Oedipus at Colonus.Footnote ²

All's Well That Ends Well?

Sophocles' Oedipus the Tyrant seems to be a perfect tragedy because it inspires effectively both pity and fear (see Aristotle Poetics 1452a32–33, 1453a5–22, 1455a16–18). The story moves us to pity, since Oedipus falls suddenly from the greatest prosperity to the greatest misery and shame and ultimately commits the very patricide and incest he has striven so mightily to avoid. But, more important, the story also inspires fear for our precarious condition as human beings. For if so great a man can fall so far and can be led to commit such horrible crimes, what hope can we have to lead happy or decent lives?

Yet, Sophocles' story of Oedipus does not end with the terrifying Oedipus the Tyrant but rather with the hopeful Oedipus at Colonus. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is the most accursed of men, shunned by all, a helpless, blind vagabond, accompanied only by his almost equally helpless daughter.Footnote ³ Yet, by the end, we see him protected and honored by Athens, triumphant over his enemies, and apparently rewarded by the gods with everlasting wellbeing after death. Sophocles' tale of the quintessentially tragic Oedipus, then, has a miraculously happy ending. The stunning reversal of fortune that Oedipus undergoes in Oedipus the Tyrant is itself reversed in Oedipus at Colonus. Footnote ⁴ Indeed, Sophocles' tale of Oedipus apparently ends by affirming that the gods—led by “Zeus, all-ruling of gods, all-seeing,” with whom “Justice” sits—protect the just, no matter how weak, and lift up the righteous, no matter how far they have fallen. In this way, the play would seem to vindicate our hopes for divine justice and happiness.Footnote ⁵

The Virtue of Blindness and the Rejection of Reason

But what causes the gods to deem the man they had previously condemned now worthy of such rewards? The first explanation that suggests itself is that the gods take pity on “this wretched phantom of a man, Oedipus” (109–10). The Oedipus we see as the play opens has fallen as low as it is possible for a man to fall. He is unimaginably weak, without a city or home, unable to protect himself, and ignorant of where he is.Footnote ⁶ The weakness of Oedipus is epitomized by his blindness. The play reminds us over and over of the pathetic weakness of a man who must live in perpetual darkness, unable to walk or sit by himself or defend himself and his loved ones (1–32, 144–202, 299–300, 493–502, 800–886, 1096–1109). If Oedipus were not blind, he would still be shunned, but he would be able to take care of himself as he did after he fled Corinth in his youth.Footnote ⁷ His blindness renders him most clearly helpless and pitiable. His blindness undercuts the indignation that the audience might feel if we saw the man famous for having committed patricide and incest hale and hearty before us. The chorus, Theseus, Polyneices, and even Creon express pity for Oedipus (254–55, 551–59, 1254–66, 740–52). Perhaps the gods take pity on him as well, as one who has suffered enough—more than enough—for his crimes.

Yet pity alone would not suffice to explain the gods' change of heart. Insofar as the gods reward Oedipus, they must believe that he positively deserves a reward, indeed, the great reward of everlasting wellbeing. More important, insofar as Oedipus's suffering is caused by his blindness, it is a suffering that he inflicted on himself (see 551–54, 866–67, 1197–1200). Even though he did not choose to commit incest and patricide, he did choose to blind himself and thereby chose the life of a helpless man. If the gods do finally reward Oedipus, they must at least to some extent reward him for blinding himself. But why should the gods reward a man for blinding himself?

To address this question, we must first ask another: Is the blindness of Oedipus simply a sign of weakness? The inability to see is, on the simplest level, a terrible weakness. Oedipus does not know where he is, where he walks, where he sits. Yet when Oedipus had sight, when he was the strong and wise ruler of Thebes, he was utterly ignorant of his native land, his parents, his crimes, and, therefore, in crucial respects, of himself. He had eyes but he could not see. And Teiresias, the blind prophet of Apollo, did somehow know these crucial facts about Oedipus. As Teiresias puts it in Oedipus the Tyrant, “You have sight but you do not see in what evil you are, nor where you dwell, nor with whom you share your home” (413–44). One might conclude that Oedipus was ignorant simply because he lacked the information that would have enabled him to figure out for himself, rationally, either how to avoid committing the crimes of incest and patricide or that he had committed them. But Teiresias suggests that Oedipus's ignorance has a deeper cause. When Teiresias tells him, “I say that it has escaped your notice that you are consorting with your dearest ones most shamefully, nor do you see where you are evil,” Oedipus declares that Teiresias has no access to the “strength of truth” “since you are blind in your ears, your mind, and your eyes.” But Teiresias responds, “[Y]ou are wretched, making these reproaches which soon all will make to you” (366–73). Teiresias suggests here that it is Oedipus who is blind in his “mind,” that it is he who is blind—albeit metaphorically blind—in his whole understanding of the “truth,” of the true world, and, therefore, that he is much more profoundly blind than Teiresias, who is merely blind to the world that the senses reveal.

Teiresias points to the cause of Oedipus's blindness in an exchange over his success in solving the riddle of the Sphinx. Earlier, Oedipus ridiculed Teiresias's claim to possess knowledge from the gods: “For, come, tell me, where were you a clear soothsayer? How, when the chanting dog was here, did you not utter something for these townsmen here, to release them? Indeed, the riddle was not for the first man who came along, that he should solve it, but a divination was needed, which you were not able to bring to light, either from birds or from something known from the gods. But I came, the one who knows nothing, Oedipus, and put a stop to her, hitting the mark with my judgment, without having learned from birds” (390-88). By emphasizing that Teiresias, the soothsayer of Apollo and the representative of divine wisdom, failed to solve the riddle of the Sphinx and that he, Oedipus, solved it through reason alone, Oedipus suggests that humans may not need divine guidance since unassisted human reason is sufficient to safeguard them from such monsters as the Sphinx. Indeed, Oedipus evidently ruled successfully for some fifteen years without ever consulting oracles or soothsayers. But Teiresias suggests that it is precisely Oedipus's confident belief in the sufficiency of human reason to guide our lives that has blinded his mind.

Teiresias suggests here that Oedipus's confidence in reason, a confidence based on the mere “luck” that enabled him to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, has destroyed him because it has blinded him to the inner truth about the world, the fact that the world is ruled by gods whose assistance is indispensable to us. The capacity to see the visible world is, then, at least potentially blinding because it tempts us to believe that we can understand the world and fend for ourselves by the natural light of reason alone, without the help of a higher power. Sight tempts us to the sin of rationalism. Conversely, to be blind, as Teiresias is, is illuminating, for it teaches us our all-too-human helplessness and our need for divine assistance, and, therefore, reveals to our minds the folly of rationalism and the truth of piety.

The blindness of Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus, then, is not merely or primarily a sign of his weakness but of his wisdom. For the blind Oedipus sees what the seeing tyrant had failed to see: the truth of the gods and his need for the gods. The heretofore proudly enlightened ruler is now emphatically pious. He affirms the justice of the gods (1380–82), declares his singular devotion to Apollo and Zeus (605–28, 642, 791–93), and makes no mention whatsoever of his triumph over the Sphinx (539–41). Oedipus now repeatedly addresses and invokes the gods because, in his darkness, he contemplates the gods and gives himself entirely to their guidance (44–45, 49–50, 83–110, 275–91, 421–44, 1010–13, 1124–25, 1370–96). As he tells his daughters at the end of his last scene in the play, “This way, thus, this way, go. For this way he brings me, Hermes the Escort and the goddess of the underworld” (1547–48). Oedipus, who had boasted of his triumph over the Sphinx through reason alone, now blindly lets the gods lead him into Hades.

Oedipus at Colonus resembles no one in Sophocles' Theban plays more than Teiresias.Footnote ⁸ Like Teiresias, he is superlatively pious, speaks in riddles, and curses his enemies without restraint.Footnote ⁹ Most important, like Teiresias, he is blind and his blindness seemingly enables him to grasp a deeper dimension to the world, inaccessible to the senses or to the inquisitive mind, but visible to the trusting and pious heart. Like Teiresias, Oedipus understands that the blind man is the pious man par excellence, since he is the man who can see past the outer appearance of the natural world and grasp its inner, divine truth.Footnote ¹⁰ It would seem, then, that, as a result of discovering that he has killed his father and slept with his mother, Oedipus has abandoned his rationalism and taken Teiresias as his model. Indeed, Oedipus's piety may surpass even that of Teiresias: unlike Teiresias, Oedipus blinds himself. He chooses to be blind. He consciously rejects the guidance of the senses and reason. Oedipus's blinding symbolizes his attempt to reject rationalism altogether. By destroying his eyes, he attempts to destroy his mind and surrender himself entirely to the gods.

It would seem, then, that the gods reward Oedipus with the greatest of rewards, not because they pity his blindness, but because they recognize its virtue. They reward Oedipus precisely for his pious rejection of rationalism. On the surface Oedipus at Colonus, together with the Oedipus the Tyrant, presents Sophocles' celebration of piety over reason. The plays seem to teach that, while Oedipus's attempt to lead his life according to reason ends in disaster, his rejection of reason and his blind faith constitute the path to redemption and salvation.Footnote ¹¹

Oedipus's Recourse to Reason to Defend His Hopes

Yet, closer reflection on the Oedipus at Colonus points us beyond this pious and antirationalist reading of the play. It is not clear from the play either that Oedipus is rewarded by the gods or that he succeeds in completely rejecting reason. In contrast to Ajax (1–133), for example, we never see the gods on stage in this play. We do hear thunder, and Oedipus claims that it is Zeus who is thundering to summon him to Hades. But Antigone and Theseus are at least initially skeptical, and Theseus suggests that the thunder may simply be a natural occurrence (1503–4; see 1460–61, 1472–76, 1500–17). Oedipus apparently persuades them that the thunder is divine by reporting to them that the Delphic oracle once told him that his life would end when he heard thunder (1510–17). But in addition to the vagueness of the report—thunder is a common phenomenon—in Oedipus's earlier version of that oracle, he recounted that the signs indicating the end of his life would be “either an earthquake or some thunder or lightning from Zeus” (95). Perhaps it is for this reason that Antigone, who is familiar with Oedipus's earlier version, is not persuaded that the thunder she hears is a sign from the gods that Oedipus must now die (1459, 1474).

Moreover, while a messenger reports after Oedipus' death that he was summoned by a god and that his body was taken to Hades either by a god or by the earth itself, neither Theseus nor Antigone nor Ismene confirms the claim that a god called to Oedipus (1620–30, 1646–65). Furthermore, while the messenger admits that he was not present at Oedipus's death, Theseus, who alone was present, does not confirm that Oedipus's body vanished but is instead ambiguous regarding that death, suggesting, on the one hand, that Oedipus has died with “the grace of the underworld,” but, on the other hand, that he has a grave, albeit a secret one, and therefore that his death was natural, not miraculous (1751–67).Footnote ¹² To be sure, Oedipus is rewarded in the play with refuge, protection from Creon, and honor. But it is Theseus and the Athenians, not the gods, who bestow these benefits. It is, therefore, not clear from Sophocles' account that Oedipus is rewarded by the gods.Footnote ¹³

One might conclude from the obscurity of the play concerning the gods that Sophocles means to show that, precisely since the world and the gods are mysterious, humans must eschew all efforts to live by the light of reason and must rely purely on faith, on such “blind faith” as Oedipus displays, that the gods will care for them if they are pious.Footnote ¹⁴ Yet, notwithstanding his apparently wholesale rejection of reason in favor of a blind piety, Oedipus has considerable recourse to at least ostensibly rational arguments in the course of the play. Indeed, much of the play focuses on arguments Oedipus sets forth to attempt to defend his hope that the gods will reward him. Those apologetics are provoked by the almost universal view, at the opening of the play, that Oedipus is hated by the gods. For even though he is praised, especially by the chorus at the end, in the course of the play Oedipus is sharply criticized by Creon, the chorus, Theseus, and Antigone (848–55, 944–46, 226–36, 582–92, 1175–203).Footnote ¹⁵ Now, one might suppose that, insofar as Oedipus has completely surrendered himself to the gods and cherishes a pure faith that the gods favor him, he would not be troubled by such criticism. Yet Oedipus repeatedly resorts to arguments to persuade the initially hostile Athenians that he deserves their support because he enjoys the support of the gods (see 258–309, 445–548, 568–667, 722–1015).

The fact that Oedipus makes such efforts to win the Athenians' assistance suggests that he does not simply count on the gods to give him the protection from his enemies that he needs. More important, the fact that he makes such arguments to demonstrate that he deserves, not punishments, but rewards from the gods, suggests that Oedipus is seeking to persuade himself as well as the Athenians that he will be so rewarded. We see, then, that, however far Oedipus seems to have gone in renouncing reason by blinding himself and by embracing piety, he still must make use of his reason. He cannot blindly place his hope in the gods. He cannot simply assert to the Athenians or to himself that the gods support him. His hope must be defended by reasons, by an argument that convinces others and himself, that he deserves divine rewards.

The case of Oedipus suggests that, precisely if we human beings hope that the gods will reward us, we cannot simply reject reason but must have recourse to it, in the form of apologetics of some kind or another, to defend our pious hopes against our own doubts. Given our nature and our condition, it can never be self-evident to us what the will of the gods is. We must always wonder whether they are well-disposed, ill-disposed, or indifferent, and consequently, we must always harbor doubts that they will reward us. And such doubts impel us to try to show to our satisfaction, and hence to our minds, that we may be reasonably confident that the gods will reward us.

Oedipus's Argument That He Deserves Divine Favor

Oedipus's attempt to persuade the chorus of Athenian elders that he deserves divine rewards is remarkably successful. The elders go on to declare that Oedipus “is deserving of pity” (461); to urge Theseus to grant him refuge (629–30); to accuse Creon of acting unjustly against Oedipus both now, in attempting to seize him, and before, in exiling him (824–25); to defend Oedipus in his dispute with Polyneices (1346–47, 1397–98); and finally to pray that the gods reward him (1565–67). Given this success, it is tempting to conclude that, at least according to Sophocles, Oedipus's confidence in the gods' favor is reasonable. But is the chorus right to be persuaded that the man who committed incest and patricide deserves the divine reward of everlasting wellbeing?

When the Athenian elders first discover who Oedipus is, they react with horror and assume that the gods share their reaction (Oedipus at Colonus, 232–36). They take it for granted that the crimes of Oedipus render him abhorrent to gods and men. This conviction is shared by Oedipus's countrymen, the Thebans, his brother-in-law Creon, and even his own sons, who drove him into exile “never to return again, since I am a father-killer” (600–601; see 437–44, 599–600, 765–71, 1354–61). It is true that Ismene reports that, according to recent oracles, Oedipus's physical presence near Thebes will confer on that city a mysterious, divine strength (385–94). This report suggests that the gods, who for so long seemed to torment Oedipus, may now favor him (394). Yet, even after that oracle has been revealed, the Thebans refuse to allow Oedipus to dwell or be buried within their land since his shedding of “kindred blood does not allow” it (407). Furthermore, when Creon comes to take Oedipus away, if necessary by force, he assumes that the Athenians will be glad to be rid of one who has committed such atrocious crimes (944–49). Indeed, after discovering his crimes, Oedipus himself thought he deserved punishment: hence he blinded himself and repeatedly declared that he should be exiled or executed.Footnote ¹⁶ Initially, then, virtually all—with the notable exception of Theseus —agree that Oedipus's crimes deserve to be punished.Footnote ¹⁷

As the play unfolds, however, we quickly learn that Oedipus has become convinced that the gods are in truth his champions. When the Athenian elders demand that he leave lest the gods punish them for harboring such a criminal, Oedipus boldly declares that the gods will punish them for expelling him!

Oedipus's confidence here that the gods will reward those who help him and punish those who harm him is astounding. It would seem that his crimes would render him hateful to the gods. Furthermore, as Oedipus and his daughters observe, it would seem that the gods have cruelly mistreated him by concealing from him the identity of his parents and by leading him to encounter and kill his father and then to Thebes, to wed his mother, notwithstanding his efforts to avoid doing so (962, 964–65, 252–54, 394). How, then, can Oedipus be confident that the gods are now on his side?

The basis of Oedipus's confidence that the gods favor him is his argument that he deserves their favor. Oedipus is sure that the gods will reward him, not primarily because he trusts in oracles, but rather because he is convinced that Justice, who, he believes, sits with Zeus, demands that he be rewarded (1380–82). It is Oedipus's faith in the justice of the gods and his argument that justice demands that he be rewarded that, together, form the basis of his confidence in the gods' favor.

There are three distinct parts of Oedipus's overall argument that he deserves the favor of the gods. Most clearly, Oedipus argues that he does not deserve to be blamed for patricide and incest because he committed these crimes unknowingly and hence involuntarily. Furthermore, he argues that he does not deserve to be punished for killing his father because he was driven to do so by self-love and his desire for self-preservation in particular, a desire to which all human beings, given their nature, must yield. Finally, he argues that he deserves divine favor because he has been the victim of terrible crimes deliberately committed by evil men and justice demands that those criminals be punished most harshly after death, in Tartarus, and that he, their innocent victim, be rewarded, in Hades.

Each part of Oedipus's argument is evident in his first speech to the chorus.

Oedipus argues that, since he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents and hence did not knowingly commit incest and patricide, he cannot justly be held responsible for these crimes. This is an argument which Oedipus repeats a number of times (521–23, 525–26, 548, 974–77; see 238–40). Indeed, because the crimes he committed were committed in ignorance, and hence involuntarily, Oedipus does not speak of them as crimes in this play but rather as, at most, errors or mistakes (437–44; but see 966–68). Since he cannot be justly held responsible for such involuntary actions, Oedipus suggests, he will not be punished by the gods, ruled as they are by Zeus, with whom sits “Justice” (see 1085–86, 1382).

Oedipus, however, does not limit himself to making the argument, specific to his own case, that, given his ignorance of his parents, he cannot be justly blamed for committing patricide and incest. It is not altogether clear why he believes this argument is in need of a supplement. Perhaps Oedipus worries that it would still leave him vulnerable to the charge, made by Creon and even by Antigone, that it was his “evil spiritedness” (1197–98) that led him to kill Laius, that he was too quick to indulge in his ruinous anger (854–55), and hence that he was guilty, at least, of murder (see 849–55, 1187–200).Footnote ¹⁸ Accordingly, Oedipus also makes the much more far-reaching argument that he cannot be justly held responsible for committing patricide or murder because he was driven to do so by his need to defend himself, that is, by his love of life and of himself, a love he shares with all human beings.

By raising the question, “And yet how am I evil in my nature, I who, having suffered, retaliated, so that even if I had acted wittingly, not even in that case would I have become evil?” (270–72) Oedipus boldly suggests that it would not have been evil for him to have killed his father wittingly if it were necessary to do so to preserve his own life (see 546). Later he asks Creon, “If someone immediately, here, standing beside you, were attempting to kill you, the just one, would you inquire if the one trying to slay you were your father, or would you make him pay right away? I think, if indeed you love to live, you would make the guilty one pay the price and you would not look around for what is just” (992–96). The love of life is so powerful that it simply overrides all moral considerations, Oedipus suggests, including the prohibition on patricide.

This would seem to be a singularly shocking argument, especially given the tremendous importance the ancient Greeks placed on reverence for one's parents.Footnote ¹⁹ According to the Greeks, the debt we owe to those who begot and bore us is so absolute, indeed so akin to the debt we owe to our divine creators, that our duty to them must override all of our desires, including our desire for life (Laws, 930e3–932d8). Accordingly, Plato's Athenian Stranger suggests those who kill their parents, even in self-defense, deserve to suffer “many deaths” and hence terrible punishments in Hades (869b6–7; see 880e7–882a1; Exodus 21:15, 17). Nevertheless, Oedipus denies that even this fundamental moral duty can override the love of oneself. He suggests that, given our nature, any human being must be excused even for having knowingly committed so terrible a crime as killing his father, if he was led to so by the desire to preserve himself. “For what noble (εσθλоς) man is not dear to himself?” (Oedipus at Colonus, 309). Oedipus suggests here that no man is so noble that he can overcome his self-love and sacrifice or transcend his self-interest. Therefore, human beings who are driven by the apparently compelling love of oneself cannot be justly held responsible for their actions. Accordingly, when Oedipus declares that neither incest nor patricide was “chosen by myself” (523) he may mean, not only that he did not consciously choose to sleep with his mother and kill his father since he did not know who they were, but also that, so compelling is the desire for self-preservation in the human heart, he simply had no choice but to kill his father once he believed his own life was threatened.

One may take Oedipus's argument here one step further. Oedipus never explicitly uses his argument concerning self-preservation and self-love to excuse the crime of incest, but only argues that he does not deserve to be punished since he did not know who his mother was (see 266–74, 525–26, 978–87) . However, it might be possible to argue that Oedipus was led to commit incest out of a desire, not for self-preservation, but to rule Thebes successfully, and hence out of self-love broadly understood. For even though Oedipus was offered rule over Thebes as a reward for having vanquished the Sphinx, as a young foreigner his rule might well have seemed illegitimate unless he had also married the widowed queen. It was presumably out of fear that his rule would be crippled by doubts about its legitimacy that the Thebans “bound” Oedipus to accept the “gift” of a wedding with Jocasta (525–26, 539–41). The thesis, then, that human beings, given their nature, are compelled to act, not only in order to preserve their lives, but in order to secure what they believe to be their self-interest broadly understood, would seem to lead to the conclusion that Oedipus would not deserve to be punished for committing either incest or patricide, even if he had known the identity of his parents. And Oedipus himself does hint at such a broad interpretation of his thesis. “For what noble man is not dear to himself?” (309).Footnote ²⁰

Oedipus's arguments that he cannot justly be blamed for his crimes both because he committed them unwittingly and, therefore, involuntarily, and, above all, because he committed patricide out of self-defense and, therefore, involuntarily lead to the conclusion that he does not deserve to be punished. For it would be manifestly unjust to blame him for committing crimes he could not know he was committing and could not avoid committing. But Oedipus's arguments do not lead to the conclusion that he deserves divine rewards. For why should he merit reward for simply following the evidently irresistible human impulse to defend one's life and pursue one's self-interest? Indeed, Oedipus' thesis here implies that, since human beings are compelled by their nature to follow what they believe to be in their self-interest, they cannot ever deserve to be punished or rewarded for their actions.

Evidently because he senses this implication of his thesis, Oedipus also sets forth an argument that he positively deserves to be rewarded by the gods. This argument is based on his contention that, not only has he not been responsible for great injustice, but he has been a victim of great injustice. Oedipus goes so far as to claim that “my deeds are more what I have suffered than what I have done” (266–67). Throughout the play, Oedipus draws attention to the evils he has suffered (521–23, 537, 595, 872–73, 891–92, 896). Yet, as Theseus points out, others, too, have suffered evils. Theseus himself, for example, has endured as much as any man the hardships of being a stranger in a strange land (560–66). More broadly, the lot of all human beings is a hard one, vulnerable as we are to pain and sorrow (566–68). Why should Oedipus's suffering, however undeserved, lead him to believe that he deserves divine rewards?

In order to argue that he deserves such rewards, Oedipus tries to argue, not only that he has suffered terribly, but that he has been the victim of great injustice, deliberately perpetrated by willfully evil men. Since he has suffered such wrong, then, if there is any justice in this world, the gods must punish those who have wronged him and compensate him for what he has suffered.Footnote ²¹ But what exactly has he suffered? In the first place, Oedipus suffered deliberate injustice at the hands of his parents, who “were knowingly attempting to kill [me]” when they ordered him killed as a baby (274). Oedipus draws here an implicit contrast between his own crimes against his parents and their attempted crime against him. His parents deserve to be blamed for their (attempted) crime because, as he points out, they knew he was their child and, he implies, they were not driven to kill him by any necessity but simply acted maliciously and wickedly. Similarly, Oedipus is victimized by Creon, who seizes his daughters, attempts to seize him, and then “voluntarily” speaks ill of him and Jocasta in front of the Athenians (985–86). Here, too, Oedipus suggests that Creon deserves to be blamed because he is freely choosing to inflict pain on Oedipus, out of sheer malice (1000–1002, 761–83). Oedipus has also suffered exile from his own city. Finally, and most importantly, Oedipus has suffered at the hands of his own two sons, who deliberately and cruelly wronged their own father by driving him away from home, again, apparently, out of sheer malice (427–30, 440–44). Accordingly, when Theseus asks him what distinguishes his suffering from that of other humans, Oedipus succinctly replies, “I was driven away from my land by my own seed” (599–600). Indeed, he goes so far as to accuse his son Polyneices of being a “murderer” (1361) of his own father, a would-be patricide, since “you yourself drove out your own father here and made me a man without a city. … If I had not begotten these children to be my nurses, I would not exist, as far as you are concerned” (1356–57, 1365–66). By exiling their blind, helpless, father, his sons virtually condemned him to death, since it was a sheer accident that their sisters (and charitable strangers) kept their father alive. Therefore, Oedipus is not only innocent of patricide; he is himself a victim of willful and deliberate patricide. Oedipus himself is not evil, but his son Polyneices is a “most evil one,” indeed, “most evil of evil ones” (1354, 1384).

Oedipus, then, has been the victim of truly horrible and outrageous crimes. Therefore, the gods must compensate him for his suffering. Because of his belief in his innocence and in the outrageously unjust character of what he has suffered, Oedipus is confident that he is “sacred and pious” and will be rewarded by just gods who always care for “the pious one of mortals” (287, 278–81). As Aristotle remarks in the Rhetoric, “For anger inspires confidence, since it is not committing injustice but suffering injustice that makes us angry, and it is supposed that the divine helps those who have suffered injustice” (2.5.21–22).

Oedipus's confidence that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods, then, rests fundamentally on two arguments. On the one hand, he does not deserve to be punished for his crimes because he committed them unknowingly and hence involuntarily and because he committed patricide because of his compelling desire for self-preservation and hence involuntarily. On the other hand, he has been the innocent victim of willful, culpable, outrageous crimes committed freely and maliciously by his parents, his countrymen, and his sons. Yet these two arguments contradict one another. As Sophocles shows in the play, those who inflicted suffering on Oedipus did not do so maliciously but rather in order to defend themselves from harm, just as Oedipus killed his father in order to defend himself from harm. Oedipus himself alludes to the fact that Laius heard from an oracle that he would “die at the hands of his children” (969–73). But if the desire for self-preservation is so compelling that it excuses Oedipus's killing of his father in self-defense, does it not also excuse his father's attempt to kill him as a baby after he heard from an oracle that his child would grow up to kill him? Similarly, when Oedipus attempts to show that Creon is “evil,” he explains that Creon seeks to abduct him in order to save Thebes “from evils” (784–86). But if the desire to defend oneself from harm excuses Oedipus's killing of Laius, doesn't the desire to defend his city from harm excuse even Creon's brutal kidnapping of Oedipus and his daughters (see 387–409, 755–60, 848–52)? Moreover, doesn't the desire for self-preservation also excuse the decision of Creon, Oedipus's sons, and the Thebans to send Oedipus into exile after his patricide and incest were revealed? Would it not have been reasonable for them to believe, as Oedipus himself at one point believed and as the Athenians themselves initially believe, that the gods demanded that he be exiled for his crimes and that they would punish Thebes for refusing to exile him (see 407, 431–44, 599–601, 765–71, 849–52, 228–36, 254–57)? Indeed, if, as Oedipus insists, it was not evil for him to kill his father in order to defend himself, how can it be evil for Polyneices to send his father into exile in order to protect himself and his city from harm, especially if he thought that his sisters might care for him? And even if Oedipus argued that it was unreasonable for his son and the Thebans to believe that the gods would punish them for failing to exile him, would Oedipus still not have to concede that, insofar as the Thebans exiled him in order to protect themselves from harm, they must be excused since, however mistaken their concern, they were driven to act as they did by the same irresistible impulse of self-love that has driven him to act? “For what noble man is not dear to himself?” (309).

In order to show that he does not deserve to be punished for his crimes, Oedipus argues that we humans are compelled by our nature to follow what we perceive to be our self-interest, regardless of what justice says, and, therefore, cannot be held responsible for our actions. But in order to show that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods, Oedipus argues that he has been the innocent victim of men who have freely chosen to act unjustly, out of sheer malice, that they, therefore, deserve to be punished, and that he deserves to be compensated by the gods. Oedipus's confidence that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods rests, then, on a contradiction and hence is unreasonable. Invoking the thesis that the desire for self-preservation is compelling enough to excuse his own crimes, he refuses to recognize that it may excuse the crimes of others against him.Footnote ²²

Oedipus refuses to follow his argument to its deepest conclusion because to do so would require him to conclude that it is impossible for him, or for any human being, to deserve the divine reward of everlasting wellbeing. How can we human beings deserve such a reward if we are truly incapable of resisting or transcending our self-interest even in regard to the most sacred of laws, the laws which protect the family? Initially, Oedipus attempts to reject reason completely in the name of a blind faith that the gods will reward him with everlasting wellbeing. But the doubts of others and, most importantly, his own doubts, eventually impel him to seek reasons to justify his faith that the gods are not his enemies but his champions. In the end, however, even though Oedipus has recourse to argument to defend his hope for divine favor, he ultimately balks at fully accepting his own argument lest it undermine that hope. Oedipus follows reason insofar, but only insofar, as it can support his hope for immortality. Therefore, he is not a genuine rationalist, one who lives consistently according to reason.

The Pleasures of Anger and the Rejection of Reason

The clearest sign that Oedipus does not accept the thrust of his own argument regarding the power of self-love is his anger. According to his argument, for humans or gods to be angry with him for having killed his father is unreasonable because he was compelled to do so out of his love of life and his love for himself, and to be angry with someone for doing what he cannot help doing is unreasonable. Indeed, he goes so far as to claim, “I suppose the soul of my father, being alive, would not speak against me” (998–99). Rather than rage and curse, the slain Laius would understand and forgive his son. But in the course of the play, Oedipus is himself extremely angry, with the chorus (at first), his parents, Creon, Thebes, and above all, his own sons, for acting against him, for inflicting pain and suffering (though not death) upon him, in order to benefit themselves: “And did the most evil ones … place tyranny before longing for me?… But they have chosen, instead of him who begot them, to hold sway with the throne and the scepter and to be tyrant of the land” (418–19, 448–49; see 427–30). So bitter is Oedipus that, when Polyneices comes to ask for forgiveness, he responds by accusing his son of patricide:

Oedipus goes on to unleash what may be the angriest curse ever uttered by a father in all of Greek literature. He prays, not only for the death of both his sons, but that they may kill each other and hence become stained with the crime of fratricide, the crime of shedding “kindred blood,” as he himself has been stained with the crimes of incest and patricide. He concludes by damning them to an eternity of suffering in Tartarus (1383–92).Footnote ²³

Given the glaring contradiction between his argument that he is not to be blamed but forgiven for his actual patricide and his argument that his sons are to be pitilessly blamed and punished eternally for their virtual, tacit, attempted patricide, one might wonder how it is possible for Oedipus to fail to recognize this contradiction. If he were genuinely concerned with justice, as his righteous indignation might seem to suggest he is, would he not feel the force of this contradiction at the heart of his belief that he deserves divine rewards, and feel compelled to wrestle with it and reflect on it? What prevents him from recognizing it, and enables him not to see it, is his towering and willful anger, an anger which is ultimately more fundamental to him than a genuine concern for justice. Indeed, so willfully angry is Oedipus with those who have harmed him that he refuses even to consider why they might have harmed him and whether they may not have been led to do so by such considerations as led him to kill his father.Footnote ²⁴

But what is the cause of such willful anger? What might be the positive appeal of such anger? Anger would seem to be a painful experience, since it is occasioned by either suffering pain oneself or seeing a loved one suffer pain. Yet anger means more specifically suffering pain in a way that gives you hope. For anger is not stirred up by pain accompanied by the belief that the pain you suffer is justly inflicted or caused by blind necessity. Anger is rather provoked by a pain that you believe has been deliberately, maliciously, and unjustly inflicted upon you. And, as Aristotle points out in the passage cited above, that experience, that sense of righteous indignation, naturally gives rise to the heartening belief that justice demands that you be aided and the unjust be punished, and hence that there be gods who favor you as you deserve and punish your enemies as they deserve (Rhetoric, 2.5.21–22).

Within the play, Oedipus's confidence that the gods favor him is greatest when he is most angry at what he perceives to be injustice.Footnote ²⁵ It is only after the Athenian elders have demanded that he leave and have thereby, in his judgment, violated their promise to shelter him, that he denounces their impiety, affirms that he is “sacred and pious,” and declares that the gods will reward the pious but punish the impious (compare 203–27 with 258–91). It is only after Creon attempts to seize him that Oedipus confidently calls on the gods to punish Creon and his family (compare 761–847 with 863–70). But the height of Oedipus's confidence comes immediately after his interview with Polyneices. Just before that interview, Oedipus asks himself whether it is “righteous” for him to thank Theseus for rescuing his daughters by embracing and kissing him. Oedipus evidently fears that he may suffer from an indelible “stain” from his crimes, as Creon has argued, however involuntarily he may have committed those crimes according to his own argument (1130–38; see 944–49).Footnote ²⁶ But immediately after that interview, Oedipus confidently declares that the gods are now summoning him to eternal rewards in Hades (1457–61, 1472–76, 1505–12, 1536–52).

Oedipus evidently feels especially confident that the gods will reward him during the interview with Polyneices because he feels acutely the magnitude of the wrongs he has suffered. During this interview, Oedipus claims to have been the intended victim of the gravest of crimes—patricide—at the hands of his sons. Accordingly, his rage here is greater than it is at any moment in the play, even greater than it is when Creon seizes him and his daughters. For while Oedipus denounces Creon as “impious,” “shameless, and “most evil,” Oedipus not only denounces his son as “most evil of evil ones” but also denounces him as a would-be patricide, disowns him, and calls down on him the curse that he both commit and suffer fratricide and that he be punished by the gods after death (823, 863, 866, 960, 1354, 1383, 1360–66, 1369–96). Oedipus feels so confident after this interview that he will be rewarded after death because he believes that, given the outrageous wrongs he has suffered, justice demands not only that his sons be punished but that he be rewarded.

Oedipus's tremendous anger blinds him to the unreasonableness of his confidence that he deserves rewards from the gods.Footnote ²⁷ Indeed, Oedipus relishes and even embraces the feeling of anger precisely because it enables him to feel, regardless of the contradictory nature of his arguments, that justice demands that he be rewarded with everlasting wellbeing. Oedipus's anger, then, specifically protects and supports his hope for immortality. Now, the hope for immortality would seem to be natural to human beings, since it would seem to arise naturally from our awareness that we are mortal and our instinct that death is bad. But anger reflects our passionate rejection of our mortality. In the case of Oedipus, anger transforms his hope into a confidence that he will be rewarded with immortality for it inspires in him the pious conviction that he deserves to be so rewarded. Yet, as Oedipus's own argument concerning the compelling power of self-interest suggests and as the play as a whole suggests, reason teaches that we human beings are incapable of transcending our concern for ourselves and hence are incapable of deserving the reward of immortality. To follow reason means, then, to accept our mortal nature as a harsh truth of our condition, as a given of our world. But the experience of anger means the refusal to accept the world as it is. It means refusing to accept, as Oedipus refuses to accept, that human beings are necessarily self-interested and hence that his parents love life and his sons seek to defend themselves against harm as surely as he does. It means refusing to accept that we are incapable of deserving the divine reward of immortality. It means refusing to accept, as Oedipus refuses to accept, not only the self-interested nature of human beings, but their mortal nature as well. Oedipus's anger, then, inflames as well as strengthens his hope for immortality. More than his blindness, it is Oedipus's anger that reflects his pious rejection of reason. The case of Oedipus suggests that religious antirationalism is rooted in such essential features of our human nature as our awareness of our mortality, our hope for immortality, and, above all, our angry refusal to accept our mortality. In this way, the play suggests that religious antirationalism is an enduring feature of political life.

The Political Rationalism of Theseus

Yet even if we grant that Oedipus's anger is unreasonable, we might still wonder, is it not also a source of towering strength? Does it not inspire Oedipus to forge ahead, notwithstanding his seemingly hopeless condition at the beginning of the play? Moreover, the play does have a happy ending for Oedipus. Even if he is not clearly rewarded by the gods, he is certainly protected and honored by the Athenians. Is it not Oedipus's spiritedness, his tremendous capacity for indignation, his refusal to accept his plight, and his confidence in his righteousness, as well as his arguments, that account for his amazing success in winning over the Athenians and thwarting the Thebans? Might not the play suggest, then, that, insofar as Oedipus's spiritedness enables this helpless blind man to gain allies, triumph over his enemies, and win lasting honor, it is, if not reasonable, a source of great strength, beneficial to him, and, therefore, admirable?Footnote ²⁸

But, while Oedipus's perseverance in the midst of terrible hardships is indeed admirable, the play presents sharp criticisms of his spiritedness for causing, in large measure, those very hardships. As Creon declares, “you indulged your anger, which always ruins you” (855; see also 592, 1175–80). And, in a surprising echo of Creon's charge, Antigone denounces her father's spirited refusal to meet with his son:

It was, Antigone gently reminds her father, his “evil spiritedness” that led him to kill Laius and to drive Jocasta to her death. It was, as Oedipus himself admits, his rage that led him to blind himself, and thereby doomed him to the helpless condition we find him in at the beginning of the play (431–44, 765–71). It was his anger that doomed his daughters to be his nurses, rather than to be cared for by him.Footnote ²⁹

Furthermore, it is not sufficient to say that Oedipus's spiritedness leads to the happy outcome of Oedipus at Colonus. For a crucial role in that outcome is played by Theseus, who grants Oedipus and his daughters sanctuary, defends them against Creon, and bestows the Athenians' honor on him. But Theseus, too, is a critic of Oedipus's spiritedness. When Oedipus decries his sons for trying to force him to return to Thebes, Theseus responds, “Fool! Spiritedness is not advantageous among evils” (592). Theseus criticizes Oedipus specifically here for quarreling unnecessarily with his sons even though he desperately needs their help. More broadly, Theseus suggests that, inasmuch as the human condition is one that is always beset by evils, to indulge in such anger is always foolish (592, 598; consider 658–60).

Theseus is himself remarkably free of anger.Footnote ³⁰ For example, Theseus stresses in his opening remarks to Oedipus that he, too, has suffered the hardships of the life of an exile (562–66). Yet, unlike Oedipus, Theseus expresses no anger whatsoever regarding his sufferings, but rather stresses the unavoidable character of such suffering and even how he profited from it by receiving an “education.” Furthermore, Theseus never expresses the moral indignation over Oedipus's patricide and incest the chorus initially feels and Creon expects him to feel (compare 551–68 with 220–36, 254–57, 510–46, 939–50). Even without hearing Oedipus's argument, he evidently accepts that those crimes were involuntary.Footnote ³¹ But Theseus also never expresses anger at Creon and Oedipus's sons, in contrast with Oedipus himself, as well as the chorus (461–62, 1211–48, 1346–47, 1397–98, 1448–55). This is especially clear in his confrontation with Creon. Creon enters Athens with Theban soldiers, violently seizes Oedipus and his daughters, even though they have been granted refuge by the Athenian king, and brazenly insults the Athenians. The Athenian elders are understandably outraged (831, 842). Theseus would seem to have every reason to be angry with Creon in the name of Athenian patriotism, as the chorus is. When Theseus appears on the scene, he remarks to the chorus that he would treat Creon harshly, if he were angry. “As for this one [Creon], if I dealt with him with the anger he deserves, I would not let him go unwounded by my hand” (904–6). Yet when Theseus turns to confront Creon directly, he criticizes him most emphatically in the name of Thebes! “But you bring shame on a city that does not deserve it, on your own city” (929–30). Theseus grasps that Creon is a Theban patriot, a man devoted to his city and desperately trying to protect it from harm (387–409, 755–60, 784–86, 848–52). Consequently, he appeals to his Theban patriotism to persuade him and to shame him.Footnote ³² And he is at least somewhat effective, inasmuch as Creon seems less angry and self-confident after Theseus has spoken (consider 939–59, 1018, 1036, but also 1037).

The causes of Theseus's freedom from spiritedness are his understanding that humans are naturally self-interested and his capacity to view the world from the perspective of the self-interest of others. Theseus does not expect Creon to put Athens first, as the chorus expects Creon to put Athens first and as Oedipus expects Creon and Thebes, as well as his own sons and daughters, to put his interests first. Theseus expects human beings to be self-interested, accepts that they are necessarily so, and, therefore, does not blame them for being so. Instead he tries to understand what their interests might be in order to appeal to them. Indeed, in his sympathetic understanding of other humans, in his capacity to place himself in the position of others and to view the world from their viewpoint, Theseus reminds us of no one more than the poet Sophocles himself, who must see the world through his characters' eyes in order to give them voice and bring them to life.Footnote ³³ Theseus's understanding and acceptance of the compelling power of self-love highlight his fundamentally rational outlook. In contrast to the spirited Oedipus, Theseus does not ever claim to be less self-interested than, and hence morally superior to, others. He does not ever claim to deserve any rewards from the gods, much less the reward of everlasting wellbeing. Accordingly, however respectful Theseus may be of the piety of his subjects, he never evinces a pious hope for immortality. Just as Theseus is free of Oedipus's anger at the self-interested nature of human beings, so is he free of Oedipus's anger at our mortal nature.

The question naturally arises, what might Theseus's own self-interest be? On the surface, the Athenian king's offer of refuge and protection to Oedipus against Thebes would seem to be a simply noble and selfless act.Footnote ³⁴ For the Athens we see in this play is, compared to her neighbors, a political and military midget. The play takes place at the dawn of Athenian history, when Theseus united such villages as Colonus into the city of Athens and established himself as king.Footnote ³⁵ Athens is of so little consequence at this time that Oedipus, who grew up in the royal household of Corinth and ruled over Thebes for some fifteen years, does not even know whether neighboring Athens is ruled by a king and has never heard of Theseus (66–69; see 947–49). Athens is so militarily weak that when Polyneices is ousted from his throne and seeks aid to return to Thebes at the head of an army, he goes to far off Argos rather than nearby Athens and does not even bother to invite Athens to join him (371–81). The most vivid sign of Athens' political and military weakness in the play is the contempt with which Creon treats the Athenians (835–43, 857–63, 877–83; see 897–903). Moreover, when Theseus arrives and bloodlessly rescues Oedipus and his daughters from Creon's men, the chorus speaks of this seemingly minor police action as a glorious military victory (see 1044–73). Athens here is militarily dwarfed by Argos and especially by Thebes. Theseus's defiance of Thebes would seem, then, to be risky. When Creon threatens retaliation, his threat must be taken seriously. Accordingly, it seems fitting that Oedipus bless Theseus for standing up to Thebes (1042–43).

Yet Theseus's willingness to defend Oedipus is not as imprudent as it first appears. Thebes does not retaliate against Athens because it is devastated, first, by the war between Oedipus's two sons and, then, by the strife between Creon and Antigone. Furthermore, Theseus evidently knows that there is tension between Oedipus and his sons (588) and strife between Polyneices and Eteocles, even before Oedipus arrives. He does not, for example, ever ask Oedipus why Polyneices is dressed in Argive garb. Theseus also presumably knows that there is a vast Argive army, headed for Thebes, camped outside his city (1301–25). So Theseus may well surmise that, given such strife, Thebes will not punish Athens for protecting Oedipus. Moreover, by protecting Oedipus and his daughters against his sons and Creon, Theseus encourages division within the Theban royal family at a time when Thebes is threatened by foreign invasion. And by agreeing to let Antigone and Ismene return to Thebes at the end of the play, Theseus sets the stage for the further, and foreseeable, struggle within Thebes that we witness in Antigone. Theseus's treatment of Oedipus and his family serves Athens' interest by fomenting strife within Thebes and thereby weakening Athens' powerful neighbor.

But most importantly, Theseus benefits himself and his city by winning the protection of the gods in return for granting Oedipus sanctuary.Footnote ³⁶ Oedipus repeatedly promises the Athenians that they will profit from his presence in their city (68–72, 285–88, 448–60, 576–82, 607–28, 1518–55, 1586–1667). More specifically, Oedipus promises that, if Theseus gives him refuge, protection, and burial, when the Thebans attack Athens in the future, “At that time, my cold corpse, sleeping and covered, will drink their warm blood, if Zeus is still Zeus and Zeus's son Phoebus is sure”(621–23). Oedipus goes on to claim that he will defend Athens against Thebes for the rest of time as one empowered by Zeus and Apollo to become a protective deity, as long as he is honored by the Athenians (1518–55).

The chorus of Athenian elders is deeply impressed by this claim, for these elders are emphatically pious. They praise their city as one blessed by the gods and pray to the gods to continue to favor and protect Athens (e.g., 668–721, 1044–98). Indeed, even though Athens is a young, militarily and politically weak city in this play, it is already renowned as a superlatively pious city. Oedipus invokes this reputation when he appeals for refuge from the Athenians (258–63). The reputation of Athens for a pious hospitality toward suppliants explains not only why Oedipus and Antigone have sought refuge there but also why Ismene, Creon, and Polyneices all assume that Oedipus is to be found in Athens.

Oedipus's promise that his presence will confer divine protection on Athens plays a decisive role in overcoming the chorus's initial hostility to him. Even though they initially demand that Oedipus leave their land after learning his identity, after he claims that through him the gods will protect Athens, the elders respond: “You are deserving of pity, Oedipus, you yourself and these children. And since you add to this argument that you yourself will be the savior of this land, I want to recommend expedient things to you” (461–64). After Oedipus repeats this claim to Theseus, the chorus endorses it (630–31). The chorus evidently hopes that the gods will protect its beloved city and Oedipus appeals to these pious hopes.

Yet as we have seen, that Theseus shares the pious hopes of the Athenian elders is not at all clear. In the first place, he is skeptical when Oedipus claims that he is being summoned to Hades by thunder sent from Zeus. Furthermore, and more importantly, in contrast with Oedipus and the chorus, Theseus is free of righteous indignation at the self-interest of others and of the pious hopes that accompany such indignation. Finally, Theseus stands out within the galaxy of Sophoclean kings and tyrants as a statesman whose rule is independent of religious authority and based on his wits alone. King Laius and Queen Jocasta are so deferential to soothsayers and oracles that they agree to kill their only child and remain childless (Oedipus the Tyrant, 711–22, 1173–76). Creon, Polyneices, and Eteocles repeatedly consult and heed those who claim to speak for the gods (555–57, 1422–31, 1438–45, 1515–20; Antigone, 991–95; Oedipus at Colonus, 385–420, 1291–1300). And, notwithstanding his own apparent rationalism as ruler, Oedipus himself piously consults the oracle and soothsayer of Apollo at moments of crisis (Oedipus the Tyrant, 68–77, 284–89, 787–97). But, in contrast to all of those rulers, Theseus is never said to consult either oracles or soothsayers. Indeed, there is no one in Athens whom Theseus permits to wield the independent authority that Teiresias evidently wields in Thebes under the reigns of Laius, Oedipus, Polyneices, Eteocles, and Creon. And in contrast to all of those rulers, each of whom suffers a disastrous fate, Theseus's rule is an unqualified success. We see him at the end of this play beloved by his subjects, blessed by Oedipus and his daughters, and victorious over his adversaries. Theseus is a statesman guided by compassion and reason, not spiritedness or piety. Through his example, the only example in the Theban plays of a successful statesman, Sophocles teaches the superiority of political rationalism over religious politics.

Yet Theseus is not an enemy of piety, as the Oedipus of Oedipus the Tyrant at times is (390–98, 946–85) and as Creon in Antigone momentarily becomes (1033–59). Theseus publicly prays to Poseidon and is publicly respectful of the piety of Oedipus and the chorus (Oedipus at Colonus, 887–89, 1179–80, 1209–10, 1760–67). While Theseus does not rely on the gods for assistance, he understands the importance of pious hopes for his people and of pious fears for his enemies. Accordingly, he understands that, even if it is not true that protecting Oedipus can gain for Athens divine protection, protecting him can benefit Athens by enhancing her reputation for piety. Oedipus certainly does enhance that reputation. After Theseus saves him from Creon, Oedipus declares: “[I]t escapes your notice that if some land knows how to revere gods with honors, this one excels in this” (1005–7). And after his daughters are rescued, Oedipus exclaims to Theseus and the Athenian elders: “For no one else of mortals, but you [singular], saved them. And may gods grant to you what I wish, to yourself and this land. Since I have found piety only among you [plural] of human beings as well as decency and honesty” (1123–27). Oedipus bolsters the beliefs of the Athenians in the sanctity of their city. He strengthens the pious confidence of the Athenians that their young city is not simply left by an indifferent world to fend for itself but is rather blessed by gods who will protect it. In this way, Oedipus truly benefits the Athenians. As Theseus evidently recognizes, such a pious patriotism, such a belief that one's nation is under God and favored by providence, is salutary and beneficial to any political community, even if that belief is not simply reasonable.

Theseus's political rationalism is a mean between the antirationalist and wrathful piety exemplified by Oedipus at Colonus and the arrogant political rationalism of Oedipus the Tyrant. His is a politic, cautious, and moderate rationalism, mindful of the power and utility of religion and, therefore, respectful of the religious passions and hopes of his subjects. Theseus bears witness to the possibility of a genuinely enlightened statesmanship, one that faces and accepts both human mortality and human piety.