The Faults of the Immortals
The Greeks see their gods as stronger and powerful than any mortal man could be. The Greeks worship the deities because of this fact, and also because they fear what would happen to humankind if the gods didn’t give them support. But in many of the epics and other classical writings, or even in just the way they are worshipped, the deities themselves don’t seem very different from mortals. One of the only differences between the gods and mortals is the fact that the gods can’t die, but that doesn’t mean they can not be wounded. Many of the characteristics that the deities portray in the epics and classical Greek writings are very similar to that of a human, that they almost seem to have some sort of mortality, not in the fact that they can’t die but because they get angry or happy and hold other human emotions. The mortality of the deities is represented in their weakness, passions, and emotions. But to learn more about the deities, the way the Greeks believed the deities started, needs to be looked at to prove my point.
The mythology of the Greeks contains a variety of stories about the beginning of the gods. Homer says that the oldest god was named Okeanos, who was a river-god, and supposedly all things came from his river, and he is still in existence. “Ever since the time when everything originated from him he has continued to flow to the outermost edge of the earth, flowing back upon himself in a circle.”[1] This is the first part of the beginning of the gods. Sometimes the Titans are referred to as the first gods of mythology and from the Titans came the Olympian who are the most famous of the gods in mythology. Zeus, who is called Jupiter by the Romans, was the one who stood against the Titans and destroyed them. “Before the Olympian Gods were born, the Titans reigned, first-born of Heaven and Earth. Jupiter conquered them after they had devoured his son Dionysus Zagreus, and from their ashes he made mankind.”[2] Zeus then became the highest of the gods and he is the one that started the Olympian gods, who are famous among the Greeks and Romans alike. Zeus is a good god to look at to see the characteristics that the Greeks believed the deities had. He was not just above the rest of the gods because of what he accomplished with the Titans, but also because of the power he possessed. Because of the deities in Greek mythology it’s easy for a poet like Homer to portray the humanistic characteristics they hold. “The human Zeus of Homer scarcely commands admiration; he is shamelessly licentious, he bullies and even maltreats his wife; when his will is crossed, he is apt to behave like an uncontrolled thunderstorm; but there are beginnings of higher things, specially in the kindly aspect of Zeus as God of strangers, suppliants and even beggars.”[3] Homer and other poets gave the deities the same virtues and vices as the humans in many of the epics, and this makes the gods very similar to humans; the only difference is gods cannot die.
The virtues that are shown in the epics were the same virtues that the Greeks held to, such as justice, wisdom, and honor. For the Greeks justice was carried out in a way, that who ever did any wrong would get punished for it, “A product of this kind of justice is the ius talionis which was usual in early times and finds pregnant expression in the saying ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.”[4]As for wisdom, the Greeks believed that to gain wisdom you had to live a life full of both moral and intellectual virtues. “Let us suppose for a moment that the Greeks have convinced us that we cannot live a fully human life without acquiring both the moral virtues and the intellectual virtues.”[5] Both of these virtues, and honor and pride as well, are shown in the epics through both the mortals, and the deities. For the gods to have the same virtues as the humans in the epics gives them a humanistic mannerism. But not only did the deities have the same virtues in the epics as the mortals, but also the same emotions. “The gods of Homer’s Iliad take out their anger actively, as in the poet’s descriptions of the destructive fire unleashed by the thunderbolt of Zeus.”[6] These characteristics that the poets gave the deities are best shown in the Iliad, where the gods took either the Greeks side or sided with Troy
The Greeks saw their gods as, always, immortal and that is why many Greeks did not like how the poets wrote that the gods had the same traits and characteristics as humans. One of those Greeks was Plato. Those who didn’t agree with the poets believed that if a soul was immortal than its nature would be god-like, and by being god-like that soul would not have humanistic mannerisms. “If the soul is immortal, it must be in its essential nature like God; it must itself be a creature of the realm of Gods. When a Greek says “immortal” he says “God”: they are interchangeable ideas.”[9] But the idea of immortality wasn’t something new among the Greeks; in fact many cultures before the Greeks believed in Immortal deities, the Egyptians were one of them. Most of the worldviews around the time of the Greeks had their own deities they worshipped and gave offerings to. One of the things the Greeks and many other ancient cultures believed was since there were deities there was life after death, and because of this their lives then had a purpose on earth. This is still widely believed today. “But there is a more radical religious response to the claims that a future life gives our present life meaning and purpose, for implicit in such a belief is the notion that this purpose is God’s purpose for us.”[10] This is another view of what the Greeks believed that is shown in the human side of the epics and classics. Diomedes chose to follow Athena’s advice and take her gifts because he believed that what glory and honor he accomplished on earth would then help him in the afterlife. Another thing that is seen through the Iliad other than the differences between a mortal and an immortal is the bond that the deities had with mortals. The gods seem friendly to the humans they favored, and in the Iliad and many of the other epics it seems that each side has equal number of gods helping them. But for the humans of the epics, and even for the Greeks, the gods were not at all friendly and were meant to be worshipped. The Greeks worshipped their gods because they feared what would happen to humankind if the gods didn’t give them support. So this is why the worship of the gods was important to the Greek culture.
This part of the Greek culture, worship of their deities, the rituals and prayers were shown in the epics and myths. Like offering a sacrifice to the temple, praying before going to war, or even going to an oracle for advice from the gods. “The original motives of sacrifice arise from three natural desires of man-first, to establish communion or kinship with the god-secondly, to ensure his favour, and thirdly, to escape his wrath.”[11] Like most other ancient cultures, the giving of sacrifices and other rituals of Greek worship had very specific instructions for them to perform. Since there were many different reasons for making a sacrifice the detailed instructions varied to whether you were making a sacrifice to praise a god or to try and escape the god’s wrath. One of these forms of sacrificing was a praise sacrifice which is called a donative sacrifice. “Its object was two-fold: firstly, to obtain favours, and secondly, to give thanks for favours received.”[12] Another part of the Greeks worship to the gods that is seen in many of the epics and classics, are the prayers that the mortals use to ask for help from the gods. This is seen a lot in epics like the Iliad where Homer makes the prayers elegant and lengthy. Like when Hektor said a prayer to Zeus for his son “O Zeus and all immortals, may this child, my son, become like me a prince among Trojans.”[13]Another Greek ritual of worship that is mentioned in many epics and classics is the Oracle; an Oracle was a speaker of the gods. Oracles were meant to be there for the god to speak through them and give advice to Greeks who came asking for something. The Oracle is mentioned in plenty of the classical writings and because of them it’s easy to see that the Oracle at Delphi was in power the most; she was the Oracle of the god Apollo. But no one knows when she, because most Oracles were female, started. “Yet despite the official recognition of a highly alien faith Apollo still reigned supreme at Delphi during the sixth century B.C., the defied embodiment of an attitude of mind.”[14]
By looking at all the things mentioned, it is clear to see that the Greek’s held a very high view of their gods. Even though there were many Greek poets who wrote about the humanistic mannerisms of the gods. But for some, like Homer, even though they gave the gods the same virtues, weaknesses, and emotions of a human; they were still immortal. The gods also were still above the humans and this was portrayed well in many of the epics through the worship and rituals of the mortals. These were the same rituals that the Greeks practiced, and by reading the epics and classics we can see how Greek culture was lived out.
[1] C. Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1960), 15.
[2] Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions: In the Ancient World (New York: Harper & Row, Publisher, Inc., 1981), 40.
[3] Jane Ellen Harrison, Mythology (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1963), 140.
[4] Martin Persson Nilsson, Greek Piety (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), 35.
[5] Stringfellow Barr, The Three Worlds of Man (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1963), 58.
[6] Gregory Nagy, Homer: The Iliad (New York: Random House, Inc, 1974), xii.
[7] Homer Iliad, 5. 2-6.
[8] Ibid, 5. 41-5.
[9] Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult Of Souls And Belief In Immortality Among The Greeks (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul LTD, 1925), 253.
[10] Paul and Linda Badham, Death and Immortality in the Religions of the World (New York: Paragon House Publisher, 1987), 6.
[11] S. C. Kaines Smith, The Elements of Greek Worship (London
[12] Ibid, 94.
[13] Homer Iliad, 6. 80-82.
[14] John Pollard, Seers Shrines and Sirens (London: Hertford and Harlow, 1965), 37.
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