The Gods of Homer

HE problem of Homeric gods is how to reconcile the cosmic gods and comic gods.' The great Olympians often behave in a manner which is both frivolous and, in widest sense, immoral;2 yet they are mighty powers which rule universe and largely control destiny of men. As such they inspire genuine religious feelings. Their irresponsible ways were condemned by Heraclitus and Xenophanes and have puzzled commentators ever since. In light of later religious feelings, gods of Homer present an insoluble paradox. Modern scholars have for most part not attempted to reconcile these incompatible aspects of gods. Many have taken them to represent different religious or irreligious phases of thought perhaps centuries apart; such differences are then used as but another instrument to dissect Homeric poems.3 Others have suggested that to Homer and his audience mythology had nothing to do with religion; sometimes they depict Homer, rather surprisingly, as both a sceptic and a religious reformer.4 Others again have found in epics two quite separate religions: that of characters and that of poet.6 Attempts have also been made to explain inconsistencies by convenient theory that Homer's mind was so primitive that glaringly incompatible ideas could dwell in it at same time. Not one of these theories is convincing. If Iliad is to be carved up, differences of belief are far too uncertain and too entangled to lead to a clean operation; nor is there any agreement among surgeons as to what is early and what late, or indeed when is early, when late. Homer was a poet, not a theologian, and passages that are not logically consistent may well be by same hand-even theologians are not always logical; but to regard mythology and religion as completely separate is against whole spirit of poems, they are in any case too closely enmeshed. Nor do I believe that Homer had a primitive mind. He may well be blind to implied contradictions which will become explicit in light of later thought, but that is quite another story. Finally, those who seek to differentiate religion of poet from that of characters overemphasize certain expressions and ignore a good deal; no such two religions would ever strike a reader who was not looking for them

Art · Atheism · Comics · Destiny (ISS module · Epistemology · Feeling · Indulgence · Literature · Mythology · Nothing · Poetry · Skepticism · Theology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Philosophy

• The Religion and Mythology of the Greeks

  Open Access•W K C Guthrie•History of the Middle East and…•1975

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• The Literary Tradition for the Migrations

  Open Access•N G L Hammond, Ν G L Hammond•History of the Middle East and…•1975

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• Greek Settlement in the Eastern Aegean and Asia Minor

  Open Access•J M Cook•History of the Middle East and…•1975

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• The Homeric Poems as History

  Open Access•G S Kirk•History of the Middle East and…•1975

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• Λυκ- and the Danger of Not Seeing the Truth

  Luca Vocaturo•Illinois Classical Studies•2023

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• The Roots of Divination in Archaic Poetry

  Amit Baratz•Classical Philology•2022

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• Greek Settlement in the Eastern Aegaean and Asia Minor

  Machteld J Mellink, J M Cook•Journal of the American Oriental…•1962

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• The Greatness of His Nature’

  Open Access•Edward M Bradley•Ramus•1976

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• Penelope Polutropos

  Hardy C Fredricksmeyer•The American Journal of Philology•1997

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