Sermon
UU Meeting House, Provincetown, 23 May 1999
Intellectually
I am a Freethinker or a Secular Humanist. But in my heart I am a
Pagan, one who reveres the ideals and gods of ancient Greece.
I've
been in love with Greece all my life. As a small boy I was entranced
by the Greek myths, and read every book I could find on them. I
became keen on Astronomy, and learned the constellations, so I could
see my heroes up in the sky.
In
junior high school I read the Iliad, in a prose translation. I was
thrilled by the battle scenes — laughed over the antics of the
Olympian gods and wept over the death of Patroklos.
In
my freshman year at college I studied Ancient Philosophy under
Raphael Demos, a great Plato scholar and a great teacher. The reading
list was simple: all of Plato's dialogues, the major works of
Aristotle, and Lucretius' De Rerum Natura.
In my sophomore
year I took a course on The Classical Tradition in Western Art, which
in addition to architecture studied a lot of male nudes. On the side
I read John Addington Symonds' A Problem
in Greek Ethics,
which is still, more than a century after it was written, the best
treatment of male love in ancient Greece.
Oddly,
I felt as though I were coming home. The world of the Greeks 2500
years ago seemed far more natural and congenial to me than the United
States of the mid-20th century.
The
philosophical, political, scientific, legal, and artistic foundations
of Western Civilization were erected in Athens. We pay tribute to
Greek ideals: respect for the freedom of the individual, the pursuit
of physical and intellectual excellence, and so on.
But
Greek religion is not taken seriously. We have a cultural prejudice
against polytheism. Greek religion lacks those properties found in
Christianity and other religions that originated in Asia Minor. And
Greek religion contains humor, which seems inappropriate.
Some
think of Greek religion in terms of the Mystery cults, like the
Eleusinian. However, little is known about them. Millions of people
were initiated into the mysteries, but the specifics of the services
are unknown. They remain mysteries. It was said that after initiation
into the Eleusinian mysteries, one was no longer afraid of death.
A
different approach — that of Walter Otto in his splendid book,
The Homeric Gods — is to take the
Olympian deities
seriously. I do, and shall now introduce them, although I'm sure
they're here already. I'd expect the Olympians to be popular in
Provincetown, as they are eternally young and beautiful, and they
have charm. As I'm not sure of the exact order of precedence, I'll
describe them in alphabetical order.
APHRODITE
(aph ro dye' tee)
Daughter
of Zeus. Goddess of Love. She presides especially over seduction,
sexuality, and procreation.
Son
of Zeus. God of reason, moderation, light, healing, purification,
prophesy, music, poetry. When a man's time is up, the time allotted
him by the Fates, he is slain by Apollo, who deals death from far
away.
Son
of Zeus and Hera. God of War. He is disliked by some of the other
gods, but Aphrodite is keen on him.
Daughter
of Zeus. Goddess of the Hunt. Of chastity. Lady of Wild Beasts. The
goddess that roves by night. Protector of women in childbirth.
A counterpart of her brother Apollo, she slays women from far away
when their time is up.
Daughter
of Zeus. Goddess of War and of Wisdom. A serious goddess, her salient
attribute is good common sense. Although a virgin, she is friendly to
men, and a good goddess to have on your side.
Daughter
of Cronus and Rhea. Goddess of the harvest. Mother of Proserpina (pro
serp' in a), Queen of the Underworld
DIONYSUS
(dye o nye' sus)
God
of wine and intoxication, of ritual madness and ecstasy, of theater.
The
crippled son of Hera. God of fire, of blacksmiths and artisans.
Married to Aphrodite, but cuckolded by Ares.
Queen
of the gods. Daughter of Cronus; sister and wife of Zeus. Exemplar of
marriage and royalty.
Son
of Zeus. A god who is friendly, playful, and mysterious. Messenger of
the gods. God of commerce, music, medicine, eloquence. Protector of
travellers, scholars, shepherds, and thieves. When someone dies,
Hermes takes him by the hand and escorts him to the Underworld.
Brother
of Zeus. God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses.
The
most powerful Greek god. Known as “Father Zeus”, “The
Thunderer” and “All-seeing Zeus”. A god of justice.
A defender of kings, but also of strangers, suppliants, and beggars.
These
twelve comprise the Olympian family, the gods of Homer, who first
appear (in surviving literature) in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the
Homeric hymns — about 28 centuries ago. In years following —
in poetry, philosophy, drama, and art — each of them acquired
additional attributes and functions, but retained essentially the
same personality.
Greek
religion is natural and objective. It is consonant with the Greek
spirit: noble, clear, simple, strong, straightforward. It is opposed
to everything that is cheap, affected, muddled or weak.
In
Greek religion there is a remarkable absence of magic words, magic
gestures, empty rituals, exotic and showy priestly robes, or hypnotic
elements.
When
a Christian prays, he does so on bended knees, with head bowed and
eyes closed. The attitude is one of submission, as before an Oriental
despot.
In
contrast, when an ancient Greek prays, he does so with head upraised
to the sky and arms uplifted. The attitude is one of pride, joy and
alertness — at the same time, with reverence to the deity.
Greek
prayers get to the point. The Trojan women pray to Athena to help
them. Athena hears their prayer and refuses it.
Achilles
prays to Father Zeus that his friend and lover, Patroklos, may do
glorious deeds in battle and then return safely to camp. Zeus hears
the prayer; he grants the first half and refuses the second.
Greek
gods have a characteristic way of intervening in human affairs. In
the beginning of the Iliad, Achilles is in a rage. He has been
gravely offended, and his honor is at stake. Unless he can check his
anger he will kill Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the Greek
forces. At that moment Athena soars down from heaven, and seizes
Achilles by his golden hair. With eyes blazing Athena commands him to
check his temper, and promises him generous rewards
to make up for the insult. Achilles obeys, and thrusts his sword back
in its sheath. No one but Achilles has seen the goddess.
I'll
tell an episode from my own experience. Many years ago I visited
Sparta. On the outskirts of town, on a mountainside, is Mystra, an
ancient Byzantine city, remarkably preserved. By the end of the
afternoon I reached the topmost part of Mystra, and came to a narrow
path leading up the mountainside to a citadel on the top. No other
tourists went up the path, but I did. As I was getting near the top I
was seized by an attack of vertigo. I looked over the side and was
terrified to see that it was a sheer drop for several hundred yards.
Normally I'm not afraid of heights; in fact, I enjoy them. But then I
was helpless. Before leaving Sparta I had eaten a dessert full of
honey, and this apparently was causing an attack of hypoglycemia. My
legs wouldn't support me. I sat down, my back against the
mountainside, clutching a bush for support. I sat there for a long
time, not knowing what to do. Then I prayed to Hermes, protector of
travellers. Immediately the god manifested himself — in the
form of a couple of tourists, who came bounding up the path.
Middle-aged, plump and jolly, they
were certainly not afraid.
I explained my predicament. Since they were German they assumed that
I, having gone that far, would want to climb to the top, and they
offered to hold my hands. As soon as we started up, the man ahead of
me and the woman behind, the dizziness vanished. I stayed for a long
time in the citadel. The view was awesome. And when I went down
alone, my legs were steady.
So
you see, the old gods still answer prayers.
And
the Greek gods will live, as long as there exist: nature, humanity,
and people with a classical education.
How
do we worship them? The question really gets down to: How do we live?
John Addington Symonds suggests that we follow the Greeks by being
“natural”. In The Greek Poets he
writes:
Some
will always be found ... to whom Greece is a lost fatherland, and
who, passing through youth with homesickness for that irrecoverable
land upon them, may be
compared to visionaries, spending the nights in golden dreams and the
days in common duties. Has then the modern man no method for making
the Hellenic tradition vital instead of dream-like —
invigorating instead of enervating? There is indeed this one way only
— to be natural: we must imitate the Greeks, not by trying to
reproduce their modes of life and feeling, but by approximating to
their free and fearless attitude of mind. To do this in the midst of
our conventionalities and prejudices, our interminglement of unproved
hopes and unrefuted terrors, is no doubt hard. Yet if we fail of
this, we lose the best the Greeks can teach us.
Goethe
expresses the Hellenic ideal in a couplet:
Im
Ganzen, Guten, Schönen
Resolut
zu leben
(To
live with steady purpose in the Whole, the Good, the Beautiful.)
Our
universities, when they were closer to the classical ideal,
emphasized the “pursuit of excellence”, both physical and
intellectual.
Hellenism
is not for everybody. But for those who are sympathetic, I suggest
three things:
1.
Learn more about our classical heritage. A visit to the classical
collection of the Boston Museum. Reading the Iliad and Odyssey, the
dialogues of Plato, the great tragedies.
2.
Pursue excellence by making the best of ourselves.
3.
In the phrase of the Hellenist philosopher, Nietzsche: “Say YES
to life.”
We
will now have a moment of silent reflection
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