Western Classical Thought and Culture

3. Homeric view of Gods (I)

Gods and the World

Homer makes the gods human.

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Even the giants, witches, and other creatures of myth and folktale in the Odyssey are rather human and familiar.

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Centaur

Centaur carrying off a nymph

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Chiron instructs young Achilles

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Cyclops: a race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of his forehead.

Odysseus and his men blinding the cyclops Polyphemus (Poseidon’s son)

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Compare with the gods in Egypt and Western Asia

The Egyptian god Anubis

The Egyptian god Horus represented as a falcon

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In these myths gods correspond very closely to natural

forces, and sometimes seem to be identified with them.

They are partly human, partly animal, often monstrous,

and they are propitiated by sacrifice and magic.

However, there is very little of it in Homer.

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Homer makes the gods human because he wants to

make them intelligible, and so to make events intelligible.

If we are dealing with a half-human, half-animal monster,

we hardly know what to expect of it.

Human beings, generally speaking, are easier to

understand.

Fairly rational agents with fairly stable aims are predictable

and reliable.

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Gods are not mechanisms to be manipulated by magic

or sacrifice.

Though they certainly care about sacrifices, they are not

rigidly or mechanically controlled by them.

Zeus decided to destroy the king of Argos for his cruel

treatment to his daughter and her son, even though the king

had been worshipping him.

The birth of Perseus: Danaë and the shower of gold.

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When Athena’s purpose is firmly fixed against Troy, she is not

swayed by sacrifice.

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Hector returned to the city and asked his

mother and sisters to offer sacrifices to the

goddess Athena, since she was actually the

patron goddess of Troy. There was a wooden

image of Athena, called the Palladium, which

supposedly protected Troy from being

captured. However, Athena ignored the Trojan

women's prayers and sacrifices, because of her

enmity towards Paris and Troy, since the day

of the Judgment of Paris. --Iliad.

Why Athena is against Troy?

The judgment of Paris

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Zeus decides how much of Achilles’s prayers he will grant.

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"King Zeus," he cried, “… I shall stay here where my assembly of ships are lying, but I shall send my comrade into battle at the head of many Myrmidons. Grant, O all-seeing Zeus, that victory may go with him; put your courage into his heart that Hektor may learn whether my squire is man enough to fight alone, or whether his might is only then so indomitable when I myself enter the turmoil of war. Afterwards, when he has chased the fight and the cry of battle from the ships, grant that he may return unharmed, with his armor and his comrades, fighters in close combat.“ -- Iliad

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Thus did he pray, and all-counseling Zeus

heard his prayer. Part of it he did indeed

grant him, but not the whole. He granted

that Patroklos should thrust back war and

battle from the ships, but refused to let

him come safely out of the fight. --Iliad

Natural forces, therefore, do not strike at random, but as a result of

the steady purposes and intentions of the gods.

In looking for regularity, laws, and order in natural processes,

Homer begins a search that dominates Greek philosophical and

scientific thinking.

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It is equally important, however, to notice the limits of

order and regularity in Homer’s conception of the world.

Though the gods are fairly constant, they are also fickle and

variable in the same way that human heroes are.

Moreover, their control over the natural order is not complete.

Homer never suggests that every earthquake or storm, for

instance, reflects some steady and intelligible long-term purpose

of the god Poseidon who is sometimes said to be responsible for

them.

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The Hebrew prophet Amos sees God’s hand in every natural disaster: “If disaster falls on a city, has not the Lord been at work?”

But Homer makes no such general assumption. Some things happen in the Homeric universe by chance, at random, for no particular reason.