The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are the oldest works in Western literature. Written around 700 BC, they are transcripts of much older oral mythological storytelling of loosely historical Trojan War events, which may have taken place around 1200 BC.
The Iliad tells the story of 45 days in the ninth year of the siege of Troy, centred around the warrior hero Achilles. The Odyssey retrospectively recounts the Trojan War more broadly but mainly focuses on the 10-year voyage home to the kingdom of Ithaca of the hero Odysseus.
Agape: From Homer to Revelation
I wrote this as if I was a knowledgeable theologian, or poet, capable of doing it justice. I am neither. The Bible consists of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament, written over about 800 years, up until about 100 AD.
I had read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey multiple times over eight years until my book collection was lost in a fire. For a while, I had the idea that I was due for a change in reading focus and that some medieval works I had heard about would be interesting. Revelations Of Divine Love by Mother Julian (1343-1416), had come to my attention as the first known book written by a woman in English.
I began to read Revelations Of Divine Love years before reading Joseph Campbell’s, ‘The Hero With Thousand Faces’.
I soon began to see Mother Julian, with her gripping and vivid descriptions of her suffering, on her seeming death-bed, and her visions of God, Christ and Satan, as a hero much like Odysseus.
Tellingly God visits plague, fire and smoke upon Mother Julian during her visions, as the god Apollo visits fire, smoke and plague upon the Greek encampment at Troy.
The Old Testament was originally written in classical Hebrew, and a little in Aramaic, the first language of Jesus. The New Testament was written in Greek, at the time the predominant language of learning and trade in the lands of the Mediterranean region.
The word agape appears 106 times in the New Testament and is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word ‘hesed’ in the Old Testament. Agape in the Biblical context means the love, compassion and mercy God has for humanity (who I will refer to as mortals in the context of Homer), as well as the human love for God. I propose that agape is also the love and guardianship of mortals by the gods in Homer. This Homeric agape is, like that in the Old Testament, a precedent of agape in the New Testament.
Athena’s burning heart: The guardian love of the gods
Athena exhibits guardianship over Odysseus just as God the Father does over Jesus. She manipulates or facilitates events to ensure his return to his kingdom, as is his destiny.
Goddess Athena declares in the Odyssey, “…it is for wise Odysseus that my heart is on fire…”. (1:58, Anthony Verity’s translation)
Julian Jaynes says in his book The Origin Of Consciousness, “…words which in later Greek indicate aspects of conscious functioning have in the Iliad more concrete and bodily referents.’ (p257) So I propose that the burning heart of Athena is Divine Love.
Athena’s burning heart reminds me of the two disciples, and their encounter with the Risen Christ on the road to Emmaus (Gospel of Luke 24:32-30), “And they said to one another, Did not our hearts burn within us while he spoke to us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
The burning heart is the agape, Divine Love, of Athena for Odysseus, and of Christ for humanity. The gods assist mortals towards the realisation of their destiny out of love, perhaps even when seemingly malicious.
Achilles is half-mortal and half-god. As is demonstrated by the case of Achilles the distinction between gods and mortals exists on a continuum of being itself. Achilles’ conception by a mortal and a goddess is not an actual biological reproductive event, but a demonstration of this continuum. When a mortal is a son of a god, as many are said to be in the Iliad and Odyssey, it is a statement of guardianship and love. The Father and Son are of one substance, they exist on the continuum of being, rather than as generations in a line of descent.
The relationship between the goddess Calypso and Odysseus, with her unreturned love, in which she offers him immortality, demonstrates that mortal and immortal beings exist on a continuum.
Polytheism to monotheism: The evolution of agape
Greco-Judean syncretism was evident in the eastern Mediterranean from antiquity, with Greek society and its diaspora, and its Roman derivative, flipped in only a couple of centuries from pantheon to monotheism. The mighty Zeus, Athena and Apollo were usurped by the miraculous Jesus. But was there some continuity? Is Jesus Odysseus in some ways?
Greco-Judean syncretism was evident in the eastern Mediterranean from antiquity, with Greek society and its diaspora, and its Roman derivative, flipped in only a couple of centuries from pantheon to monotheism.
Compared to God, the Greek gods seem engrossed in unholy tensions, much like the mortals whose destiny they toy with. The Greek gods should be seen as Gods’ predecessors, in the evolution of religion, rather than inferiors, within the evolution of human consciousness. The sometimes constrained love, and guardianship, of the Greek pantheon is the precursor of the infinite love of the monotheistic God.
Athena exhibits guardianship of Odysseus, as does the Father over Jesus, working to ensure his ascent to his kingdom. Athena sets the story of the Odyssey in motion by instigating the search of Odysseus’ son Telemachus, for his father in the first four books of the Odyssey. Throughout the Iliad and Odyssey Athena is an essential guardian of Odysseus, providing crucial interventions during his dangerous journey.
Like the slaughter in the Iliad and the brutal suffering of Odysseus in the Odyssey, the New Testament depicts appalling violence in the form of the crucifixion.
The configurational equivalent of the crucifixion in the Odyssey is the prophecy of Teiresias. Odysseus’ Calvary is described by Tiresias, “…you must plant your well-shaped oar into the ground and make a splendid offering to lord Poseidon. Then you should return home and offer holy hecatombs to the immortal gods whose dwelling is in the high sky…”(11;129-34, AV) The oar is the crucifix. Christ’s offering is himself!
Christ’s Kingdom is in Heaven, and Odysseus’ kingdom is in Ithaca.
When Jesus ascends to his kingdom he sits on the throne of his “father” David, in fulfilment of the Old Testament promise to keep the descendants of David on the throne forever. Odysseus sits on the throne of his father Laertes, son of Arcesius, and son of Cephalus.
Cast together the pantheon of the Greek gods could be the mythological evolution towards the monotheistic god.
Odysseus’ wandering during his return from Troy, and his intense persecution by Poseidon, have configurational similarities with Christ’s travels during his ministry, followed by his persecution.
Tell me, Muse, of the story of a man who was loved by a goddess.
*Gordon Duncan is a writer from Melbourne with degrees from La Trobe University who has a keen interest in Greek literature and mythology and has travelled extensively to Greece.
