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Aspects of Religious Morality in Early Greek Epic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

David Gill S.J.
David Gill S.J.
Affiliation:
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167
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Extract

In Laws 8.835b–842a Plato puzzles over the question of how the lawgiver is to inculcate proper behavior in matters of sexual activity. The problem is made more difficult by the fact that he would like to define proper sexual activity much more narrowly than any Greek legislator before him ever had. He would limit it to acts between man and wife which are capable of resulting in conception (838e–39a). Every other sexual manifestation, homosexual or heterosexual, is to be forbidden.

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Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 73 , Issue 3-4 , October 1980 , pp. 373 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

1 My translation here and throughout. In the preparation of the manuscript I owe special thanks to Mrs. Lillian Reisman for truly heroic feats of patience and skill in typing and retyping.

2 Plato himself uses this type of argument elsewhere in the Laws. In 8.838e he equates the wasting of male seed in homosexual intercourse with “deliberate killing of the human race.” At 9.869d the man who kills his parent in anger is compared to a temple-robber. Plato's other two arguments, that from nature and that from the mutual implication of virtues, may also have their remote predecessors in Homer: the first in the doctrine of μοιᵔρα/αἴσα (one's proper portion); the later in the passages discussed below where the virtues of hospitality and δίκη (“fairness”) are seen as implying one another.

3 The observation that the Homeric gods have a double aspect, that they think and act both morally and amorally/immorally—or “heroically,” i.e., on the basis of the same values as the epic heroes—is a commonplace among those who have studied the question. For example, Calhoun, George M. (in Wace and Stubbings, Companion to Homer [London: MacMillan, 1962] 448–50)Google Scholar distinguishes between the gods “of mythology and popular tale” and the gods in their role as “rulers of the cosmos.” See also Nilsson, Martin P., A History of Greek Religion (2d ed.; New York: Norton, 1964) 152–57Google Scholar; Guthrie, W. K. C., The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston: Beacon, 1955)Google Scholar chap. 4; Lesky, Albin, History of Greek Literature (2d ed.; New York: Crowell, 1966) 68–70Google Scholar; Adkins, A. W. H., Merit and Responsibility (New York: Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar chaps. 4 and 7. Whatever the origin of this split moral personality in the gods, it seems not to have disturbed the makers of the epic tradition. The two sides of the gods coexist quite unproblematically in Homer. One example of how these seemingly contradictory divine attitudes live side by side I have discussed below in my treatment of the return of Odysseus. For the most part, however, I have simply bracketed the immoral/heroic aspect and concentrated on those areas where the gods act morally in the sense defined below.

On the questions of moral progress and projection of human morality onto the gods, the statement of Dodds, E. R. (The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley: University of California, 1951] 31–32)Google Scholar may serve as representative of what has been a widely held point of view:

“I need hardly say that religion and morals were not initially interdependent, in Greece or elsewhere; they had their separate roots. … But sooner or later in most cultures … man projects into the cosmos his own nascent demand for social justice; and when from the outer spaces the magnified echo of his own voice returns to him promising punishment for the guilty, he draws from it courage and reassurance.

“In the Greek epic this stage has not yet been reached, but we can observe increasing signs of its approach. The gods of the Iliad are primarily concerned with their own honour. … Here and there, however, we get a hint of something more. Offenses against parents … demand special treatment: the underworld powers … take up their case. … And once [Il. 16. 386] we are told that Zeus is angry with men who judge crooked judgments. But that I take to be a reflex of later conditions. … For I find no indication in the narrative of the Iliad that Zeus is concerned with justice as such.

“In the Odyssey his interests are distinctly wider: not only does he protect suppliants … but ‘all strangers and beggars are from Zeus’; in fact the Hesiodic avenger of the poor and oppressed begins to come in sight. The Zeus of the Odyssey is, moreover, becoming sensitive to moral criticism [1.32–43]. … The suitors by their own wicked acts incur destruction, while Odysseus, heedful of divine monitions, triumphs against the odds: divine justice is vindicated.

“The later stages of the moral education of Zeus may be studied in Hesiod, in Solon, in Aeschylus. …”

Others, notably Lloyd-Jones, Hugh (The Justice of Zeus [Berkeley: University of California; 1971])Google Scholar, have seen less development and more continuity. My own views will, I hope, become clear in the ensuing discussion.

4 Gagarin, M. (Classical Philology [1973] 81–94)Google Scholar has argued that in both Homer and Hesiod Zeus' concern for δίκη is a specialized concern for “legal process, peaceful arbitration” of disputes within society. It does not indicate in itself, not yet at any rate, that he is directly involved in punishing every crime of man against man. There may well be a good deal of divine justice and morality in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but one ought not to expect to find it under the catagory of δίκη: “The influence of δίκη extends only to the particular area of peaceful litigation, and since peaceful litigation of disputes is of little significance in Homeric Society, it is not surprising that δίκη is of little significance in the epics” (p. 87).

Not so in the Works and Days, however, where the peaceful settlement of a dispute is the principal issue. Yet even here the range of δίκη . is specific and limited. Gargarin's conclusion (p. 94) on WD is that it is “a poem about achieving prosperity under difficult circumstances. One important element in this process is δίκη, an effective peaceful system for settling disputes. The people must submit to δίκη, shun violence and keep to their sworn oaths; the kings must administer δίκη wisely and honestly. Straight δίκαι result in manifold benefits; crooked δίκαι lead to general decay. But the operation of δίκη extends no further. It does not mean morality or ‘justice’ in general, but ‘law, legal process.’ in emphasizing the importance of this legal process, Hesiod certainly makes an important contribution to the theory of a peacefully functioning society, and he prepares the way for later expansion of the meaning of δίκη. But he himself is no moral prophet or religious reformer.”

Havelock, Eric (The Greek Concept of Justice [Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1978] 350)Google Scholar agrees with Gagarin “that archaic usage of the term dikê referred in general to legal process, not moral values.” For Havelock the fact that Zeus is said to protect δίκη does not mean that it is a religious imperative or that it is “a response to religious feeling.” It is rather “an oral procedure” (p. 350). “The oral enclave of preserved speech … utilizes heroes and gods as part of the apparatus of memorization. The essence of their presence is that what they do or say is more likely to be remembered than if they were ordinary mortals” (p. 50).

See also Rodgers, V. A., “Some Thoughts on Dikê,” Classical Quarterly (1971) 289–301.Google Scholar

Dickie, M. W. (CP [1978] 91–101)Google Scholar argues that at least in some places in Homer δίκη has the broader meaning of “righteousness” or “justice.” Below, in my discussion of the theme of justice in the Odyssey, I have tried to reconcile some of these views and to suggest a way to go beyond them.

5 Most of the texts in Homer that relate to this code are mentioned in the discussion which follows. Hesiod (WD 180–201) summarizes it in the form of a catalogue of the vices of the Race of Iron. There will, he says, be no harmony between father and children, guest and host, companion and companion. Brother will be at odds with brother; and children will mistreat their aged parents, since they (the children) do not fear the gods. Might will be right; cities will be sacked. Oaths, goodness and δίκη will not be respected; instead, the man of violence and the doer of evil deeds will be honored; and Aidos and Nemesis will flee the earth. See also WD 320–41 (discussed in detail below) and G. M. Calhoun, Companion to Homer, 448–50.

The Erinyes, often in company with other underworld dieties, also uphold certain areas of the moral order. They avenge crimes within families: against the mother (Od. 2.134–35; Il. 9.565–72; 21.412); the father (Il. 9.453–61); the eldest son (Il. 15.203–4). They punish false oaths (Il. 19.259; cf. 3.278–80, punishing after death). They preserve the proper order of things (Il. 19.418, by making the horse Xanthos stop talking after Hera “had put a voice to him”). They (may) protect beggars (Od. 17.475–76). The Erinyes of Jocasta cause pain in Oedipus (Od. 11.279–80). Agamemnon attributes his rash behavior to Zeus, Moira, and Erinys the mist-walking (Il. 19.87); and Melampous has ἄτη (“infatuation”) inflicted upon him by the goddess Erinys (Od. 15.233–34). The daughters of Pandareos were carried away by the winds and given over to the hateful Erinyes (Od. 20.77–79).

Nilsson, along with Erwin Rohde and Jane Harrison, believed the Erinyes to have been in origin the avenging spirits of the dead, though in Homer they are connected with dead people in only one instance, the suicide Jocasta. In this view, their functions would have been extended with time to include the other areas mentioned above. Dodds and others (The Greeks and the Irrational, 7–8 and 21) prefer to connect them with μοιᵔρα: “More probably, I think, the moral function of the Erinyes as ministers of vengeance derives from this primitive task of enforcing a moira which was at first morally neutral, or rather, contained by implication both an ‘ought’ and a ‘must’ which early thought did not clearly distinguish … the complex moira-Erinys-ate had deep roots, and might well be older than the ascription of ate to the agency of Zeus.”

There is probably no way of knowing for certain about the original nature of the Erinyes. What is true and interesting, I think, is the fact that in their developed form they punished most of the same crimes which the Olympians did. They may represent a more primitive version of the same moral code. In any case, they illustrate again the types of offenses for which the Greeks looked to divine sanctions. For full discussion see Wüst, E., PWSup 8 (1956) 82–166.Google Scholar

6 “Moral” is a category which in modern discussions is applied to human behavior only with extreme reluctance. Any trace of fear, self-interest or other motive less noble than “duty” of “conscience” can, it seems, be sufficient grounds for disqualification. In discussing the early Greeks I suspect that, in general, the lower road is more likely to lead to a proper understanding. It seems clear to me that they had interior convictions about the rightness and wrongness of certain actions which they felt that they were in some measure free either to perform or to omit. It is equally clear that their standards for judging these matters and their language for discussing them were in many ways different from ours. In order to allow as much room as possible for these differences to express themselves I have defined “moral” as loosely as I could. To qualify as moral an action must be:

1) Free from external (physical) constraint:

a) from other human persons.

b) from divine persons.

2) Free from internal (psychological) restraint, at least to the extent that the agent has to take responsibility for his action. The emotions are sometimes spoken of in Greek sources as if they compelled people to do things; but in practice they do not excuse them from taking the consequences. In this sense there is a distinction between such actions and those which are physically compelled. A moral action, then, is one which the agent is not forced to do—an ought rather than a must— and which he feels that he must accept as his own, at least post factum.

3) The action must be serious. There is no excuse for not doing it. The Greeks had various ways of expressing this:

a) The gods command it and/or punish its omission in this life or the next.

b) Society demands it. Society's sanctions may be physical or psychological (shame, loss of reputation, etc.).

c) Gratitude, loyalty, personal advantage, family ties demand it.

The mere fact that people feel these ways about an action is an indication of its seriousness/”morality.” That is to say, the action comes under these categories because it is serious, and it is serious because it comes under the categories.

4) There is a mental process involved, a connection between this obligation and reason. It has an intelligible content. There are ways to talk rationally about why I ought to do X.

5) The rules are the same for everyone in similar circumstances.

7 Whether or not the rape story was invented specifically for the occasion is impossible to know. Lowell Edmunds has suggested to me that it may be older and independent in origin. Even so, the application of this particular story to the Trojan War is the main point here.

8 The World of Odysseus (2d ed.; New York: Penguin, 1979) 140.Google ScholarPubMed

9 History of Greek Literature, 69.

10 Justice of Zeus, chap. 1.

11 Ibid., 7.

12 This last point is disputed. I have discussed it below.

13 M. Gagarin had made this same point in the article quoted above in n. 3. See also Pearson, L., Popular Ethics in Ancient Greece (Stanford: Stanford University, 1962) 43–48.Google Scholar I do think, however, as I argue below apropos of Od. 14.80–92, that the case is somewhat different in the Odyssey.

14 In effect I agree with the conclusion of C. J. Herington in his review of Justice of Zeus (American Journal of Philology [1973] 397): “The feeling abides that, had to composer of the Iliad held the doctrine of the Justice of Zeus propounded by Lloyd-Jones, he would surely have built it more thoroughly and more visibly into the fabric of his poem.”

15 See too the arguments for δίκη in WD 270–74.

16 The imagery here is strikingly parallel to that of WD 213–24, where Dikê is said to outrun Hybris; and Horkos keeps pace with crooked δίκαι while offended Dikê visits the cities of men and brings them punishment. And in WD 248–64 the 30,000 guardian spirits are said to go about and guard δίκας, and the offended Dikê complains to her father Zeus and he punishes the whole people for the offenses of the kings. See too Od. 17.483–87 (discussed below) where the gods themselves go around disguised as beggars checking up on proper order in cities.

17 History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley: University of California, 1959) 297–315.Google ScholarPubMed

18 I would prefer to say “another religious morality” so as not to take a position on the question of early or late for Book 9. Hainsworth, J. B. (“Homer,” in Greece and Rome, New Surveys in the Classics, No. 3 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1969] 40)Google Scholar calls the speech of Phoenix a “gloss” on the attitude of Achilles. “Whatever Achilles may think he is doing, it is wrong and risks punishment. Phoenix shows how the Iliad is a tragedy.” See also Whitman, Cedric, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1958) 181–85.Google Scholar

19 To cite just one older example, D. B. Monro, in his introduction to Iliad 24, puts the case as follows (my emphasis):

It redresses a wrong to which the poet has so far shown himself indifferent, namely the savage and unjust treatment of Hector. And with the atonement offered to a noble enemy it raises our thoughts, for a time at least, above the fierce passions of the moment, and even above the strife of Greek and Trojan. The bereavement of Priam, the loss of Patroclus, the impending fate of Achilles himself, are seen in their profound tragic meaning, as examples of the infinite sadness of human things. Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt. In all this are we to recognize the hand of a “Homerid,” or is it here that Homer—in Shelley's words—truly begins to be himself?

The problem is really an ethical one. To a Greek of the age of Pericles, as to a modern reader, the whole conduct of Achilles towards his fallen enemy must have seemed barbarous and inexcusable. The atonement now made comes in lame and ineffectual fashion, like the Prayers of the ninth book, to repair the wrong that has been done. But of this view of the matter the twenty-second book shows no trace. The outrage to the body of Hector, and the refusal of funeral rites, are related without any apparent suspicion that they are a blot on the character of the hero. The moral superiority of Hector, as has been already observed (p. 384), does not seem to attract the sympathy of the poet. In the twenty-fourth a different spirit prevails. The gods are offended by the cruelty of Achilles, and oblige him to give up the body of Hector for burial. There is room, therefore, for the conjecture that the story of the “Ransoming of Hector” really represents a sensible advance upon the very elementary morality of the Homeric times, and reflects rather the feeling of an age in which mutilation of an enemy was no longer approved, and the duty of granting a truce of the slain was taking its place in Hellenic religion,— an age, moreover, in which the civic virtues of a Hector would be sure of sympathy.

20 The divine displeasure at extremes of violence against enemies is hinted at in Od. 1.261–63 where the use of poisoned arrows is presumed to anger the gods; and in Il. 5.761, where Ares is said to “know no δέμιστες."

21 Zeus is called both Xeinios (Od. 9.271) and Hiketesios (Od. 13.213). Most, though not all, of the texts in Homer come from the Odyssey where the theme of hospitality is fairly central. Cf. 7.164–65 [=7.180–811; 14.276–84, 388–89, 402–6; 15.72–74; 16.66–67, 422; 18.221–25; 19.134; 21.26–30. Also Il. 16.74–77; Theognis 143–44, and West's, M. L. note on WD 327 in his new edition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978).Google Scholar The gods themselves are bound to respect the suppliant (Od. 5.445–50).

M. I. Finley (World of Odysseus, 101) points out that behind the Cyclops episode in Odyssey 9 “there lay a distinct view of social evolution. In primitive times, the poet seems to be suggesting, man lived in a state of permanent struggle and war to the death against the outsider. Then the gods intervened, and … a new ideal was set before man … an obligation of hospitality.”

22 For texts, see n. 5 above.

23 The best recent demonstration of this point is that of E. Havelock, Concept of Justice, chaps. 9 and 10.

24 I refer to his statement in Merit and Responsibility, 62: “Though right triumphs in the main plots of both Iliad and Odyssey, it does not do so because it is right.… Odysseus is assisted by Athena because she is, for reasons never made clear by Homer, his patron-goddess.” I think that there is more to it than that (below), while at the same time I agree with Hainsworth (“Homer,” 40) that the making of moral points is not the central preoccupation of the composer(s) of the Odyssey.

25 History of Greek Literature, 69. Likewise Hainsworth (“Homer,” 40): “An obviously programmatic statement.”

26 In Od. 2.224–41 Mentor uses the same argument, the very words, to try to persuade the Ithacans to help Telemachus against the suitors. This does not make the argument any less a moral one when it is used on Zeus. In 2.224–41 the goodness of Odysseus is contrasted with the violence of the suitors, as the rule of δίκη is contrasted with that of ὕβρις in Hesiod.

The two points of view (moral and heroic) expressed in 1.44–79 and 5.7–12 seem to run parallel to one another throughout the Odyssey. On the one hand, it is a question of the gods helping their friend Odysseus against his enemies; on the other hand, what the suitors did to Odysseus was wrong in itself, a violation of δίκη and the gods punished them for it (see below). The two points of view are also embedded in individual texts. In Od. 3.130 (cf. 2.280) Zeus punishes the Argives for not being νοήμονες (intelligent) or δίκαιοι and because of the strife of the Atreidai: which was brought about by the wrath of Athena. And in 18.346–48 Athena allows the insolence of the suitors so as to stir up the anger of Odysseus. In 17.360–63 she inspires Odysseus to ask the suitors for food in order to find out which of them are ναίσιμοι (proper in behavior) and which θέμιστοι (lawless); but in 364 it turns out that it will make no difference since all will be punished anyhow.

27 The fact that Odysseus is compared to a father may constitute a further moral argument, as it seems to in the case of Priam in Iliad 24 (above).

28 See Havelock, Concept of Justice, chap. 9.

29 World of Odysseus, 140–41.

30 Havelock (Concept of Justice) has pointed this out and discussed it at length in his chaps. 8 and 10.

31 CP (1973) 81–94. See above, n. 3.

32 CP (1978) 91–101. See also Stanford, W. B. (Odyssey [1947]) in his note on the passage: “The use of dikē in 84 is noteworthy: it comes closest in Homer here to its later meaning of abstract ‘justice.’”Google Scholar

33 Havelock, Concept of Justice, 139.

34 Eumaeus has been reduced to the condition of a peasant, and it is in character for him to be interested in a larger application of δίκη than that of the nobles in Homer. He is also especially praised for his wisdom when he offers a (unique in Homer) special portion of a sacrifice/meal to the Nymphs and Hermes (Od. 14.434–36).

Eumaeus also has unaristocratic ideas about the content of ρετή. At the suggestion that he might kill his guest, he says ironically (Od. 14.402–5) that such an act would, indeed, mean ρετή and good fame for him! To be Γαθός and have a good reputation represent the chief values in what Adkins calls the heroic competitive value system. Eumaeus implies that he cannot claim them if he does not practice the “cooperative” virtue of guest-friendship. There is a connection, then, not only between δίκη and hospitality but also between hospitality and the heroic virtues.

Finally, Eumaeus implies further that he can have no claim upon the gods in prayer if he murders Odysseus (14.406). This is in contrast with what Nilsson points out was the normal view: “When man turns to the gods he bases his appeal not upon his present frame of mind and the moral worth of his actions, but upon his divine descent and connections with the gods, the favour they have formerly shown him, his offerings, gifts, and promises … the others are strangers or foes, in respect of whom moral considerations do not apply” (History of Greek Religion, 153–54).

35 CP (1973) 90.

36 CP (1978) 98.

37 The scholarly debate about the content of δίκη may reflect the uncertainty in the formula itself. Whereas the requirements (and the violations) of hospitality are spelled out in elaborate detail in the Odyssey, it is the demands of δίκη that are in question between Odysseus and the suitors. To connect hospitality with δίκη is, in a way, to make an argument. At the very least, it is a small step in the direction of saying that at least some outsiders come under the same moral rules as we do (see below).

38 See Stanford's note on the passage.

39 Popular Ethics in Ancient Greece, 44–45.

40 Finley, World of Odysseus, 140.

41 One is also reminded of the Oresteia, in which Aeschylus seems not quite to have been satisfied with the guilt that Agamemnon had already incurred through the sacrifice of Iphigeneia. He had to add the garment-walking scene and Cassandra. In explaining the fall of Troy he needs to pile the wealth and insolence of the city's past upon the sin of Paris. And Clytemnestra not only kills Agamemnon, she mutilates his corpse (Choephori 439). It is as if one moralizing explanation were not enough. You somehow needed more, and in the case of the author of the Odyssey one other available (religious) moral category was the traditional one of Zeus Xeinios.

42 Athena is said, in effect, to create a fault in the suitors in Od. 18.346–48 (=20.284–86). She refuses to restrain their insolence in order that Odysseus may become more angry at them and eventually punish them.

43 The other offenses mentioned in 327–34 are less well attested. See West's note on the passage.