What If God Was One Of Us

In theory, the god or goddess of any part of a particular religion are meant to be immortal, omnipotent, and inherently good and moral. Those with any experience with the illustrious gods of Ancient Greek Mythology, however, know that these particular deities are from paradisical. They have the tendency to shift from benevolent to erratic at the drop of a pomegranate seed. Homer’s Iliad seems to be almost a critique of these gods. His words paint the Greek pantheon to be more bratty entitled, if extremely powerful, teenagers than immortal rulers of Olympus. They are irrational and petty; even foolish at times. This makes life for the mortals under their care, and in the case of the Trojan war, this irresponsibility leads to the senseless deaths of countless men.

Greek Myth was, in the time of Homer, very much a real part of their everyday lives. The entire culture was shaped by their beliefs in these larger than life gods of Olympus. From their dress to what and how they ate, to the way they raised their young, and of course, how they worshiped were all defined by their beliefs in the gods. Because of this, there are a number of arguments that could be used to try and disprove the claim that Homer purposefully making the gods appear imperfect. The most obvious being that the Greeks believed the stories were real, so Homer would not have tried to change the events. The second is that Homer did not originally create the legends in the Iliad, as they were oral traditions for years before Homer was ever born (There is a great deal of dispute as to when of if Homer was born, but the fact remains the same.) and so there would be no room for him to create his own tale. To answer the first, although the Greeks did believe in the Pantheon, they did not necessarily fully believe any of the ancient stories were completely true. The mythologies were meant as metaphorical teachings including very real heroes and Gods they worshiped.

As Paul Veyne phrased it in his book appropriately named “"Myth is truthful, but figuratively so. It is not historical truth mixed with lies; it is a high philosophical teaching that is entirely true, on the condition that, instead of taking it literally, one sees in it an allegory." As for the latter question, any reading of Greek mythology will find the stark differences between different tellings of the same myth. Helen, for example, has entirely different parentage. Zeus is generally named her father, but her mother changes from story. Furthermore, upon taking a deeper look at the actions of the gods, it seems very likely that Homer may have taken some liberties in order to criticize the gods of his time. First off, the gods are the reason the war began to start with. Aphrodite to be exact. In order to obtain a golden apple, she competes against Hera and Athena to be named the most beautiful. The odds are in her favor from the beginning, as she is afterall the goddess of sex and beauty. Minerva and Juno promise Paris wealth, land, fame, and strength, and the sort of thing. Venus, however, had other plans: And Paris bent a gently eye and quietly essayed to judge the beauty of each… But Aphrodite lifted up her deep-bosomed robe and bared her breast to the air and had no shame... And smilingly she thus spake to the herdsman: ‘Accept me and forget wars : take my beauty and leave the sceptre and the land of Asia. I know not the works of battle. What has Aphrodite to do with shields? By beauty much more do women excel... I will give thee a lovely bride, and, instead of kingship, enter thou the bed of Helene. Lakedaimon, after Troy, shall see thee a bridegroom.’ Not yet had she ceased speaking and he gave her the splendid apple, beauty's offering... And she, holding the apple in her hand, uttered her voice and spake in mockery of Hera and manly Athena : ‘Yield to me, accustomed as ye be to war, yield me the victory. Beauty have I loved and beauty follows me.’ (Oppian, Colluthus and Tryphiodorus. Mair.)

It is a selfish and thoughtless move for her to even enter this pride competition, and her offering is even worse. According to Homer, Helen of Sparta is a married woman. Her husband, is King of Sparta. This plan is so flawed there is no way Homer was not aware of it. Aphrodite is clearly being portrayed as impulsive and vain. She is clearly so absolutely devoted to being the fairest of them all that she is willing to start a war in the name of “love.” To return to the the two jealous loser’s of Zeus’s little game. Hera and Athena. It seems unlikely that in most situations the war and wisdom goddess Athena would fall for something so shallow as the ancient god equivalent of beauty pageant. This could very easily be Homer’s commentary on the imperferfection and poor morals of the Athena. In fact, many of the goddess of wisdom’s actions are less than wise. She is constantly manipulated by her father’s wife, Hera. The queen of the gods herself also reacts very immorally, but this is not out of the ordinary for the jealous, constantly wrathful goddess. Athena also makes the entirely of actually joining the battle as an Achaean warrior, which is entirely unfair for the surrounding mortals. What would be the purpose of writing Atheana out to be incredibly brash unless it was intentional criticism of the gods, making the connection of them not even being successful in their divine purpose. War god Ares and the sun god Apollo are also entrenched in the bloody battle at Troy. Both take the side of the Trojans. Ares is mentioned throughout the Iliad epic in reference to other warriors.

Although Ares does not appear to be an overwhelmingly popular god, he is frequently invoked on the battlefield. Yet, when the fearsome god does finally make his grand appearance on the side of the Trojans, he allows Athena to all the fighting. In this instance, the divine rolls of Athena and Ares seem almost flipped. Athena may also be a war goddess, but her place of interest generally lies in wise council. Ares on the other hand is better characterized by his brooding and fiery nature. It does not take long, though, for the angry god to get upset after Aphrodite gets hurt and flees, so he changes sides and gets in on the action. This would be very much in character for the god, except that he is not a skilled fighter. He barely keeps up with the mortal soldiers. Shortly after joining the Achaeans, he is minorly injured. Rather than bearing through it like any warrior would, Ares runs away to complain to Zeus like some milk drinking infant. Homer seems to be pointing out Ares’s weakness, showing that the fearsome god’s ego is far greater than his true skill.

Finally, Zeus, god of man and king of gods, is lazily scrolled down as a tool of the other gods. Hera, Thetis and others all manipulate him into doing their bidding without ever putting much thought into the consequences. In this Homer portrays him as more of a puppet of the gods than an eternal leader. It is without question that the gods of Olympus are flawed. Any reading of any work of ancient Greek or Roman work will find their stories riddled with rape, insest, and general strangeness, but Homer’s vision of the gods seems so out of character and typical performance that it could not have been completely unintentional. It begs the question, what was Homer thinking when he was writing? Did he mean to make the gods incurably human, and with morals that possibly surpassed most men in cruelty? We in the modern age cannot even confirm that Homer existed, so determining his purpose is relatively, and we can only speculate as to what was going through his head as he penned this work.