FROM HOMER TO CHRIST: WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD READ THE PAGAN CLASSICS (86,000 words) In this book, I shall explore how the faith and discernment of Christian readers can be strengthened and enhanced by a vigorous interaction with the central literary masterpieces of the ancient world.  Rather than attempt to encompass the full Greco-Roman legacy, I shall confine myself to the epic and dramatic poetry of Homer, Virgil, and the Greek Tragedians.  Thus, although elements of Greco-Roman philosophy, theology, history, politics, ethics, etc. will appear occasionally in this work, the focus will remain firmly on the epics and the tragedies.  The book will be broken into three parts: Part I will examine Homer’s two great epics; Part II will take up the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; Part III will consider the origin, plan, and contents of Virgil’s Roman epic, the Aeneid.  I will not be discussing the works of the supreme proto-Christian, Plato, not because he is not vital, but because he wrote non-fiction prose (rather than fictional poetry) and because, in any case, he demands an entire book to himself.  The modern Christian is as likely to dismiss the epics of Homer or the plays of Sophocles as sources of truth on account of their pagan origin as he is to dismiss them on account of their being fictional and poetic.  By keeping my focus firmly on epic and dramatic literature, I hope to explode (or at least shake) both of these ingrained modernist (post-Reformation, post-Enlightenment) prejudices.   In the chapters themselves, the poetry of Homer, Virgil, and the tragedians will be considered from two distinct but overlapping perspectives: as literary works possessing their own separate integrity within the context of the cultures and the poets that produced them; as “proto-Christian” works of almost prophetic power that point the way toward Christ and that glimmer with a faint but True Light.  That is not to say that all the works considered will point specifically to Jesus as the Dying and Rising God (most will point instead to a virtue or an ethos or a dilemma that finds its full flowering and expression in Christianity), but it is to say that I will treat each work as a source of (inspired) wisdom that Christians can learn and profit from as they might from, say, a devotional work like The Imitation of Christ or Pilgrim’s Progress.   Though capsule plot summaries will be included in each chapter, and though this book can be read profitably on its own, it is my hope that readers will study it alongside the actual works of Homer, Virgil, and the tragedians.  (To facilitate this study, I have included a bibliographical essay in which I point out some key resources that the non-specialist should find helpful.)  Indeed, it is my further hope that parents (especially homeschooling parents) will use this book as a companion and guide as they lead their children on a thrilling odyssey through the great and enduring masterpieces of the ancient world. INTRODUCTION: The Only Complete Truth In the introduction, I will offer a defense as to why Christians (especially evangelicals) should read closely and even prayerfully the pagan literature of the Greeks and Romans.  I will argue that Christianity is not the only truth, but the only complete truth, and that fragments of God’s Truth can therefore be found in pre-Christian literature that point forward to the coming (and full) revelation of Christ, the Bible, and the Church.  I will back up these claims not only by referencing medieval Christian humanists like Aquinas and Dante, but by looking closely at the biblical journey of the Magi, Paul’s speech at the Areopagus (Acts 17), and Jesus’ answer to a group of pagan Greek seekers (John 12).  I will then prepare the way for my own close analysis of Greco-Roman literature by guiding the reader through Cardinal Newman’s grand vision (laid out in The Idea of the University) of a Christian liberal-arts education that would garner wisdom both from the Bible and Sacred Tradition and from the literature of antiquity. PART I: HOMER Chapter 1:      Hesiod’s Theogeny: In the Beginning In the Theogeny (“birth of the gods”) of Hesiod (a contemporary of Homer), we find not only an invocation to the Muses (as we do in the Iliad and Odyssey), but a more fully worked out notion of the poet as one called by the gods to speak prophetically of the nature of both the heavens and the earth, both God and men.  We encounter, as well, the ancient Greek “version” of Genesis 1, a richly detailed account of how the various gods came into being, the relationship between these gods, and the cycles of divine vengeance and betrayal that culminate in the rule of Zeus and the Olympian gods.  Christians need to wrestle with Hesiod that they may both compare and contrast 1) the Greek notion of the poet-prophet with the biblical (David, Isaiah, John, etc.), 2) the pagan notion of creation out of chaos with the biblical creation ex nihilo, and 3) the divine drama of reconciliation as it is played out by the squabbling, amoral Greek divinities and the truly sovereign and truly good God of the Bible. Chapter 2:      Homer’s Iliad I: A History of Conflict The Iliad begins not with a battle between Greek and Trojan but between Greek and Greek.  In the war of words that erupts between Achilles (the great, but impulsive warrior) and Agamemnon (the able but ultimately weak commander-in-chief) in Book I, we not only encounter the age-old struggle between soldier and general, gifted employee and intimidated administrator, but see how wrath and indecisiveness, stubborn pride and low self-esteem can cause strife and destroy camaraderie.  Homer’s insight into human nature and conflict points the way to the Bible’s fuller insight into how human lust and pride pervert us from within and prevent us from maturing into the creatures we were created to be and from sharing in full fellowship.  That Homer’s tragic human struggle is played out against divine struggles that are finally comic only adds to the angst of his warriors: an angst that can only be finally healed by the good news of the Incarnation.   Chapter 3:      Homer’s Iliad II: Civilization v. Barbarism In Book VI, Homer offers us a sort of Iliad in miniature: a self-contained narrative that carries the reader from war to peace, division to reconciliation, barbarism to civilization, the breaking of oaths to the affirmation of oaths.  I shall explore the role played by the guest-host relationship in ancient Greek (and Hebrew) culture and how it offered a system for keeping order in a pre-law society.  The chapter will culminate with a close analysis of the farewell scene between Hektor and his wife, Andromache (one of the most famous in literature), a scene that embodies the universal, cross-cultural human need to find stability in the midst of chaos and meaning in the midst of existential despair.  Here we shall encounter both the heights and limits of man in his unregenerate state, and explore his God-given capacity for virtue.    Chapter 4:      Homer’s Iliad III: A New Ethic When Agamemnon steals away his war prize in Book I, Achilles pulls out of the war; in Book IX, Agamemnon relents and offers Achilles a rich reward if he will return to the battlefield: a reward that all his fellow soldiers (and everyone in Homer’s audience) expect Achilles to accept.  In this chapter, I shall explore both why Achilles should accept the reward and fight, and why he does not.  And, in showing why he does not, I will uncover how Homer, through the character of Achilles, points the way toward a radically new ethic: one that suggests that life has intrinsic value apart from one’s status or accomplishments.  Though Achilles (and perhaps Homer) eventually rejects this new ethic, it remains one of the greatest pagan “seeds” of an understanding of the individual that will be fully articulated by Christ and that will go on to provide a foundation stone for the edifice of Western civilization.       Chapter 5:      Homer’s Iliad IV: From Wrath to Reconciliation When Achilles’ refusal to reenter the war leads his friend Patroclus to don Achilles’ armor and fight in his place, and when this fateful decision leads to the death of Patroclus at the hands of Hektor, Achilles’ anger against Agamemnon is replaced by an unmitigated wrath against Hektor.  In this chapter, I shall trace Achilles’ transformation into a remorseless, finally inhuman killing machine who not only kills the defenseless, suppliant Hektor, but desecrates his body and refuses to allow it to be given a proper burial.  I shall then show how, out of the pit of despair into which Achilles has thrown himself, Homer is able to achieve an almost miraculous reconciliation between Achilles and the grieving father of Hektor (King Priam).  What does it mean to be human and mortal?  What is the proper way to grieve?  In the reconciliation to Achilles’ wrath we will find answers to these questions that point forward to the fuller revelation of Christ and the Bible.     Chapter 6:      Homer’s Odyssey I: Coming of Age Although Odysseus is the central hero of the Odyssey, he does not actually appear until Book V.  From Books I-IV, Homer casts the spotlight instead on Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, a young man of twenty who stands on the brink of manhood and the responsibilities that such maturation brings.  Indeed, Books I-IV form their own mini-epic, a tender, timeless, and intensely human coming-of-age story that explores how difficult it is for frail and imperfect mortals to live up to the lives and deeds of the heroes who have come before us.  As we all must do (whether we be pre-Christian, Christian, or post-Christian), Telemachus struggles with right and wrong, virtue and vice, choice and destiny.  His journey begins (like that of Moses) with a divine theophany and a spiritual call to fulfill an almost messianic role.  In this chapter, we shall follow Telemachus on his pilgrimage toward self-identity. Chapter 7:      Homer’s Odyssey II: Coming Home In contrast to the modern myth/prejudice that marriage in the ancient world was nothing more than a social arrangement, the marriage of Odysseus and Penelope stands as proof that the husbands and wives of Homer’s day were capable not only of a deep love relationship but of a kind of intimacy and unity that fully embodies the biblical definition of marriage as two people becoming one flesh.  In this chapter, we shall travel with Odysseus as he struggles to return home and be reunited with his wife, overcoming obstacles that threaten both his life and his resolve, both his physical body and his familial loyalty.  We shall see in particular what home and family mean to Odysseus, and how he defines himself by his relationship to his island home (Ithaca), to his wife, and to the son he does not know.   Chapter 8:      Homer’s Odyssey III: The Journeys of Odysseus The best known section of the Odyssey is surely Books 9-12, in which Homer recounts (through a first-person narrative placed in the mouth of Odysseus) the fantastic journeys of his hero: journeys that include his fight for survival in the cave of the Cyclops, his liaison with Circe the enchantress, and his descent into the underworld.  In this chapter, we shall not only recount these travels but attempt to read some of them (as did the Medieval Christians) in an allegorical way.  By so doing, we will discover in Odysseus’ adventures symbols and metaphors for the journey of the Christian soul as it seeks to leave behind that which is worldly and bestial and ascend to that which is spiritual and divine.   PART II: THE TRAGEDIANS Chapter 9:      Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound: The Birth of Tragedy This chapter will begin with a historical sketch of how tragedy was born and came to fruition in 5th c BC Athens after Greece’s miraculous defeat of the Persian Empire.  I will discuss the religious significance of drama to the Athenians and how it was tied to Dionysus and the ritual of the scapegoat.  I will then move on to consider one of the greatest scapegoat figures of myth and drama (Prometheus), not only as he is embodied in Aeschylus’ play, but as he continued to haunt the mind of poets.  I will consider in particular how the Greek Prometheus oddly fuses characteristics that Christians identify with both Christ (the redemptive sufferer) and Satan (the eternal rebel against divine authority). Chapter 10:     Aeschylus’ Oresteia: Pagan Poets And Hebrew Prophets In his great trilogy of plays (Oresteia: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides), Aeschylus borrows the cycles of divine vengeance from Hesiod (see Chapter 1) and incarnates them in the tragic fall of the House of Atreus.  In telling his tragic tale, Aeschylus draws together all of the most ancient taboos (cannibalism, the sacrifice of one’s daughter, the murder of one’s spouse, the slaying of a guest, matricide) and allows us to witness the consequences that occur when such taboos are broken.  And yet, in a turn that looks forward to the Christian victory born out of suffering, Aeschylus triumphantly moves his play toward a divine and human reconciliation that allows mercy to win out over eye-for-eye justice and that allows the characters (and the audience) to suffer into wisdom.  This chapter will focus on how Aeschylus conveys his message through a swirl of interconnecting symbols—a method similar to that of the Hebrew prophets. Chapter 11      Sophocles’ Oedipus: The Human Scapegoat Sophocles’ Oedipus is arguably the greatest and best-known play of all time.  In this chapter, we shall explore why a tragedy based on a repulsive situation (a man kills his father, then marries and bears children with his mother) should continue to speak to us across the ages.  The play, I shall show, is finally not about patricide and incest, but about 1) self-discovery and the courage to seek out the truth no matter the consequences, 2) the eternal struggle between human will and divine destiny, and 3) the in-built human need to seek expiation from guilt (all of which, of course, are central Christian concerns). Chapter 12:     Sophocles’ Antigone & Electra: Questions of Duty In Antigone, Sophocles pits the needs of the state against the needs of the individual, duty to the polis against duty to one’s family, a (masculine) reverence for law and order against a (feminine) reverence for piety.  We shall explore in this chapter Antigone’s decision to bury her fallen brother in defiance of a legal edict that forbids it: a decision that not only challenged the ethics and mores of Sophocles’ contemporaries, but that continues to challenge those of us who live on the other side of Good Friday and Easter.  I shall then carry this study of duty, law, and piety into a brief analysis of Sophocles’ Electra, a play about a young women torn between the duty she feels toward the memory of her murdered father and the obedience she must show to a mother she despises.   Chapter 13:     Sophocles’ Women of Trachis & Philoctetes: The Tragedy of Character Having considered Sophocles’ two great heroines, we shall, in this chapter, consider two of his great heroes: Heracles and Neoptolemus (the son of Achilles).  In the case of the former, we shall see how lust and wrath can destroy from within men who are impervious to attacks from without.  In the latter, we shall see how a much younger, “hero-in-training” is defined not only by his choices but by those he chooses to emulate as his heroes.  In both we shall explore the dangers of human pride and the inability of fallen man to eradicate completely the beast.    Chapter 14:     Euripides’ Electra And Medea: The Naïve and the Sentimental If the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles fit Schiller’s description of “naïve” literature, those of Euripides fit better what Schiller terms the “sentimental.”  With a surprisingly modern sensitivity and psychological insight, Euripides explores the repressed and bitter emotions that torment the daughter of the slain Agamemnon (Electra) and the internal suffering and rage that drive mad the jilted wife of Jason (Medea). Unlike the Electra plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides’ version of the tale presents us with heroes who are neither noble nor heroic; unlike Antigone’s opponent in Sophocles’ play, the male power figure in Medea is cold, arbitrary, and uncaring.  In these plays, we hear the voice of the victims and of the dispossessed, but they must act out their dramas apart from the mercy of Christ.  The pre-Christian Euripides calls out for remedies that his society does not yet possess. Chapter 15:     Euripides’ Hippolytus & Bacchae: Apollonian V. Dionysiac In the Hippolytus and Bacchae of Euripides, we are introduced to two young men who think themselves virtuous and impervious to temptation, but who are, in fact, both repressed and prudish.  Indeed, both men are quite literally torn apart because they are unable to deal both with human frailty and with the human need for emotional and non-rational release.  They are also unable to reconcile what Nietzsche termed the Apollonian and the Dionysiac.  Both plays are essential reading for Christians, not because they are Christian plays, but because they are “half-Christian” plays that call out for a fuller revelation of truth and mercy.  In the former, the lack of a firm touchstone of truth brings disaster; in the latter, the lack of a savior who knows both how to set free and to forgive makes a final reconciliation impossible. PART III: VIRGIL Chapter 16:     The Sacred History of Rome In Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of the Giant (Daniel 2), we learn that God works not only through Israel but through pagan nations that do not know him (even as he used King Cyrus of Persia to allow the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captivity).  Of all the pagan nations, the one whose history seems most miraculous, most watched over by the providence of Yahweh, is Rome.  In this chapter, I shall trace the “sacred” history of Rome from its mythical beginnings to the birth of Christ, both to demonstrate the mystery of God’s providence and to set the stage for the greatest “proto-Christian” poet, Virgil, who “read” Rome’s history in a way not dissimilar from the way many of the biblical writers “read” the history of Israel. Chapter 17:     The Making of a Roman Epic As the Father of Western Literature, Homer left his heirs a truly daunting legacy: How does one surpass, or even imitate, the grandeur and perfection of the Iliad and Odyssey.  For 700 years, the poets of Greece and Rome struggled to fulfill this task, most of them opting to abandon the epic to pursue other literary genres.  When Virgil, however, was commissioned by his emperor, Caesar Augustus, to write a Homeric-style epic to celebrate the values and glory of Rome, he couldn’t very well refuse.  Mustering all his creativity and extensive learning, Virgil carefully reviewed and reassessed all that had come before him in hopes of finding a method for transforming Homer’s stately Greek masterpiece into a Latin epic (The Aeneid) that would embody (aesthetically, historically, philosophically, and theologically) the twin legacies of Western Literature and the Roman experiment.  The method he finally adopted—the Virgilean solution—remains one of the greatest poetic triumphs of all time.  To understand that solution and that triumph is to go a long way toward understanding how medievals (like Dante and Aquinas) could carry on this aesthetic fusion, integrating into the fuller revelation of Christ the high achievement of Virgil.   Chapter 18:     Virgil’s Aeneid I: The Fall of Troy Virgil’s retelling of the tragic Fall of Troy is one of the most harrowing and moving narratives in all of literature.  And yet, even in his account of Troy’s Fall, Virgil is able to locate a spark of hope, a seed of future promise and redemption.  Indeed, Virgil works into his narrative an eschatological vision that bears a strikingly close relationship to biblical eschatology. Thus just as the Fall of Man, when viewed eschatologically (“felix culpa”) is seen as a good thing for it leads in the fullness of time first to the Incarnation and then to the New Jerusalem (First and Second Coming of Christ); so the Fall of Troy is an eschatologically hopeful event for it starts a historical process that leads to the founding of Rome (by Romulus) and culminates in the establishment of the mighty Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus.  In this chapter, parallels will also be drawn between Aeneas, the reluctant and unlikely hero chosen by the gods to lay the foundation for Rome, and St. Paul, the equally reluctant and unlikely hero chosen by God to bring his gospel to that very Rome founded by Aeneas.   Chapter 19:     Virgil’s Aeneid II: Aeneas and Dido In Book IV of his Aeneid, Virgil recounts the tragic love affair of Aeneas and Dido (the Queen of Carthage).  Aeneas, torn between his love for Dido and the duty given him by the gods chooses in the end to forsake private happiness and individual passion for the sake of the more abstract piety he owes to the future empire of Rome.  In dramatizing Aeneas’ choice (which leads to the suicide of Dido), Virgil both lays out and problematizes a dichotomy between civilization/chaos, reason/passion, law/nature, West/East male/female, Apollo/Dionysus that Christians struggle with to this day.  In a way that is relevant both to the Rome of his day and the Church of our own, Virgil impels us to ask the age-old question: Is it worth it?  What price glory?  What price power?  When should the individual be exalted over the state, and when must the individual be sacrificed for the sake of a higher cause. Chapter 20:     Virgil’s Aeneid III: To Hell and Back In imitation of Book XI of the Odyssey, Virgil has his hero (in Aeneid VI) descend into Hades and speak with the dead who dwell there.  However, whereas Homer’s version of the descent is relatively brief and somewhat static, Virgil’s is more expansive and more fully worked out both geographically and philosophically.  Indeed, Virgil imbues his meditation on the afterlife not only with a keen eye for detail and a rich understanding of eschatology, but with a meditation on divine and human justice.  In this chapter, I will follow Aeneas as he journeys through the halls of the dead, visiting both the punished sinners and the “saints” who dwell in the Elysian fields.  Virgil’s vision will, naturally, be compared and contrasted with that of the Bible. Chapter 21:     Virgil’s Aeneid IV: Just War? The last half of the Aeneid recounts Aeneas’ oft-frustrated attempts to conquer the indigenous peoples of Italy in order to establish the foundation of what will, in the fullness of time, become Rome.  For most of these six books, the consuming passions of fury and revenge are embodied by Aeneas’ enemies; however, in the final battle, Aeneas himself becomes consumed by these very passions.  In these difficult and disturbing books, Virgil explores issues that are relevant to the struggles amongst Christians past and present over the nature and purposes of war.  In working through these issues I will draw a parallel between the vision given to Aeneas in the underworld (that Rome’s calling will be to battle down the proud but spare the conquered) and the vision laid out in Mary’s Magnificat (in which she refers to the biblical God as one who crushes the proud but exalts the humble).  Can force be used for good?  Can the sword, once drawn, be resheathed?         CONCLUSION: The Myth Made Fact In the conclusion, I shall draw together the various strands of my book by making reference to C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien’s concept of Christ as the Myth made Fact: as the literal and historical fulfillment of a host of mythic, non-historical pagan demigods who die and rise again.  I shall emphasize in particular Lewis’s assertion that though Christ is much more than mythical figures like Hercules or Dionysus or Adonis, he is certainly not less: that is to say, Christ’s status as the historical Dying God does not rob him of his mythic splendor.  I shall conclude by considering (in the context of my book) how Lewis and Tolkien’s concept can be linked to the modern “neo-pagan” hunger for a “pre-Christian” literature and mythology that will restore a sense of the numinous and the sacred to our secular, materialistic, technological world: a hunger that can be seen in part in the ever-growing popularity of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Louis Markos, Professor in English Houston Baptist University Houston, TX  77074 281-649-3000, ext. 2279 lmarkos@hbu.edu http://fc.hbu.edu/~lmarkos

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