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"Eschatology" in Hellenic Theology
Jul. 28th, 2014 11:35 amI wrote this in reply to this piece: http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/the-lack-of-greek-eschatology/
These are important myths, and there is much to be said on the subject. (It’s also very apt timing, as we’re coming into the season of wp rnp.t and also will soon be celebrating the Feast of the Dionysian Kings.) I think that there are a number of reasons for the lack of the sort of eschatology in Hellenic polytheism that we find most notably in the Abrahamic monotheisms.
The first is very simply that, as we see with the Tetrad++, it is implicitly or pragmatically understood in polytheism that new myths and even new Gods can reveal themselves, and in this fashion give new shapes to the cosmos. The Abrahamic faiths, by contrast, have each successively declared themselves as final revelations, and therefore have to offer some account of how divine providence will play itself out in history to its very end. It is also probably true that the Abrahamic faiths place a somewhat higher value on linear, historical time than polytheistic faiths, which typically transpose historical events into cyclical form in order to express their ideality. It is noteworthy that in Hellenic philosophy we have two cyclical cosmogonies with eschatological characteristics, but which also have a strong epistemological function: Empedokles’ cosmic cycle of the waxing and waning of Philia and Neikos, and the Stoics’ cycle of ekpyrosis and cosmogenesis.
Some of the myths you cite are ones that frequently come to mind for me when I am thinking about Hellenic theology, because they seem to show us certain critical turning points that delineate the structure of the Hellenic cosmic organization (or diakosmêsis). Thus, instead of Zeus begetting Athena and also a “king of Gods and men”, we get an Athena "plus", who somehow incorporates this divine sovereignty into Herself, as befits the patron of the institutions of the polis as well as the mentor of heroes. I have long been struck by the significance of the fact that the temple of Athena, in cities that had Mycenaean citadels, generally stands on the site previously occupied by the royal palace.
The myth involving Thetis is closely related. Note, first, that on the evidence of Alkman’s fragmentary cosmogony, Thetis played a major cosmogonic role in certain alternative Hellenic theologies. Here again, instead of a further succession in the divine sovereignty, we have a devolution of divine power, in this case to heroes, because the Trojan War, as we can see from Philostratos, is the paradigmatic locus for hero production in Hellenic theology, as well as being the last great event in the main cycle of Hellenic mythic narrative. (In this respect it plays a role very similar to the mythic cycle concerning the transition between the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China.) The attempted coup against Zeus by Poseidon, Athena, and Hera, since it is foiled by Thetis, is probably linked in some fashion to this myth as well. It is significant that Athena is among the coup plotters. This would not make mundane narrative sense, given that Athena is generally portrayed as Zeus’ partisan, and therefore must have a deeper theological justification. It is perhaps a matter of the human institutions over which Athena presides potentially seeking too much power for themselves. To pursue this further, Hera seems to be strongly associated with concrete or temporal sovereignty, and Poseidon is associated with the psyche’s lawgiving function. Both of them, therefore, are active in the areas that would take on added importance if there were a general tipping of the scales further toward the human. The role of Titans in all of these myths also suggests, not a rolling back of Olympian sovereignty, because such would not really be thinkable, but rather a devolving of power further into the lower orders of beings, insofar as the more primordial principles also extend their causality further "down" than the ones succeeding them in the procession, to borrow a Platonic axiom here which seems, nevertheless, to be of general logical application.
With regard to Dionysos and Demeter, I think we see a further aspect of the same dynamic. Here, Zeus’s intention to foster a successor is thwarted. But just as in the other myths, the key is what we get instead: an initiatory path of salvation for mortals, which seems also to be the point of the myth of Demeter and Demophoön. Once again, rather than another iteration of divine sovereignty that maintains the same basic relationship between the Gods and mortals, we get something that transforms that relationship.
These are important myths, and there is much to be said on the subject. (It’s also very apt timing, as we’re coming into the season of wp rnp.t and also will soon be celebrating the Feast of the Dionysian Kings.) I think that there are a number of reasons for the lack of the sort of eschatology in Hellenic polytheism that we find most notably in the Abrahamic monotheisms.
The first is very simply that, as we see with the Tetrad++, it is implicitly or pragmatically understood in polytheism that new myths and even new Gods can reveal themselves, and in this fashion give new shapes to the cosmos. The Abrahamic faiths, by contrast, have each successively declared themselves as final revelations, and therefore have to offer some account of how divine providence will play itself out in history to its very end. It is also probably true that the Abrahamic faiths place a somewhat higher value on linear, historical time than polytheistic faiths, which typically transpose historical events into cyclical form in order to express their ideality. It is noteworthy that in Hellenic philosophy we have two cyclical cosmogonies with eschatological characteristics, but which also have a strong epistemological function: Empedokles’ cosmic cycle of the waxing and waning of Philia and Neikos, and the Stoics’ cycle of ekpyrosis and cosmogenesis.
Some of the myths you cite are ones that frequently come to mind for me when I am thinking about Hellenic theology, because they seem to show us certain critical turning points that delineate the structure of the Hellenic cosmic organization (or diakosmêsis). Thus, instead of Zeus begetting Athena and also a “king of Gods and men”, we get an Athena "plus", who somehow incorporates this divine sovereignty into Herself, as befits the patron of the institutions of the polis as well as the mentor of heroes. I have long been struck by the significance of the fact that the temple of Athena, in cities that had Mycenaean citadels, generally stands on the site previously occupied by the royal palace.
The myth involving Thetis is closely related. Note, first, that on the evidence of Alkman’s fragmentary cosmogony, Thetis played a major cosmogonic role in certain alternative Hellenic theologies. Here again, instead of a further succession in the divine sovereignty, we have a devolution of divine power, in this case to heroes, because the Trojan War, as we can see from Philostratos, is the paradigmatic locus for hero production in Hellenic theology, as well as being the last great event in the main cycle of Hellenic mythic narrative. (In this respect it plays a role very similar to the mythic cycle concerning the transition between the Shang and Zhou dynasties in China.) The attempted coup against Zeus by Poseidon, Athena, and Hera, since it is foiled by Thetis, is probably linked in some fashion to this myth as well. It is significant that Athena is among the coup plotters. This would not make mundane narrative sense, given that Athena is generally portrayed as Zeus’ partisan, and therefore must have a deeper theological justification. It is perhaps a matter of the human institutions over which Athena presides potentially seeking too much power for themselves. To pursue this further, Hera seems to be strongly associated with concrete or temporal sovereignty, and Poseidon is associated with the psyche’s lawgiving function. Both of them, therefore, are active in the areas that would take on added importance if there were a general tipping of the scales further toward the human. The role of Titans in all of these myths also suggests, not a rolling back of Olympian sovereignty, because such would not really be thinkable, but rather a devolving of power further into the lower orders of beings, insofar as the more primordial principles also extend their causality further "down" than the ones succeeding them in the procession, to borrow a Platonic axiom here which seems, nevertheless, to be of general logical application.
With regard to Dionysos and Demeter, I think we see a further aspect of the same dynamic. Here, Zeus’s intention to foster a successor is thwarted. But just as in the other myths, the key is what we get instead: an initiatory path of salvation for mortals, which seems also to be the point of the myth of Demeter and Demophoön. Once again, rather than another iteration of divine sovereignty that maintains the same basic relationship between the Gods and mortals, we get something that transforms that relationship.
