What the ancients thought

As we consider what the ancient's thought about their own myths , it is important to remember that the views are not uniform, many different voices are represented.  Greek readers/listeners were not passive in regards to their own mythic stories as they had their own ideas about them; and like us try to figure out just what myth was all about.

ANONYMOUS MANUSCRIPT COMMENTATOR

Among some people these things are not permitted on account of the display of indecency.

It seems that censorship is timeless!!  Some ancient commentators were scrupulous about what should/shouldn't be told.  Worried about about being scandalized.  True censorship was alive and well in regards to these mythic stories.

PLATO

Such utterances are both impious and false.  They are further more harmful to those who hear them.  For every man will be lenient with his own misdeeds, if he is convinced that such are, and were the actions of [the gods],,,

In Plato's view, myth constructs culture.  Myths are not just something that you listen to and get entertained by.  They are powerful; they actually shape the kind of person you are, and the kind of values you have.

[A thought that crossed my mind concerning something that Struck mentions here; in describing how the ancients, Plato in particular, thought about myth,,,MYTHS CONSTRUCT CULTURE.

In our first lecture, Struck alluded to myths as an abstraction from on high; compare that to biblical inspiration.  Could we also see a parallel here between myth and the Bible and the ability of both to influence culture?

Some Christian apologists quite firmly state that both the Greeks and Roman "stole" from Christianity (early Christians),,,but this may show that the ideas of divine inspiration and the ability ti influence culture long preceded Christianity.]

XENOPHANES (OF COLOPHON)

Mortals consider that the gods are born and that they have clothes and speech and bodies like their own.  The Ethiopians say that their gods are snob nosed and black.  The Thracians, that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair.  But if cattle and horses or lions had hands or were able to draw, horses would draw the forms of their gods like horses, cattle like cattle.

I think Struck sums it up well:

Unless we think that all the ancients walked around believing their own myths, Xenophanes shows a sophisticated skeptical view,,,Xenophanes points out that in these mythic stories that all the Greeks are doing is reflecting back in the gods what the Greeks see in themselves.

We make our mythic stories based on the cultural values that we hold.  And if we have ethnic differences (ie, Ethiopinians/Thracians) we would make our mythic stories according to a reflection of specific ethnic qualities that we have.  In other words CULTURE CONSTRUCTS MYTH.

[One could make a comparison to Genesis 1:27, "God created man in his own image,,,"  The writer of Genesis compares man's form to God's.

One thing to keep in mind with Xenophanes, he is not questioning the presences of the gods but rather the conception of the gods by the Greek writers.

I am also reminded of what Nicholas Wade present's in his book Faith Instinct where he explores the evolutionary origins of religious behavior and traces the cultural developments of religion from its origin up to the present day.]

METRODORUS OF CAMPSACUS

Neither Hera nor Athena nor Zeus, are the things which those who concentrate temples and walls to them consider them to be, but they are manifestations of nature and arrangements of the elements.  Agamemnon is air, Achilles is the sun, Helen is the earth and Paris the air, Hector is the moon.  But among the gods, Demeter is the liver, Dionysus is the spleen, and Apollo the bile

To Metrrodorus there is superficial action -gods interacting with humans, humans interacting with gods or gods interacting with gods-BUT what is really represented is deeper truths, symbolically carrying forward deep hidden wisdom.  In other words, ALLEGORY.

[As a pupil of Anaxagoras, Metrodorus subscribes to an allegorical interpretation of Homer -not only the gods but also the heroes represent primary elements and natural phenomena.]

As one to subscribe to the allegorical, or deep hidden truths of a myth, they (this school of thought) believed that the surface level must be a code for some deeper truths, and all kinds of meanings can be found in these mythic tales.

[The same could be said of biblical texts, rich in allegory.]

ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOTHRACE

Readers ought to take things told by the poets as more like legends, according to poetic license, and not bother themselves about what is outside the things told by the poet.

Quite simply Aristarchus is ANTI-ALLEGORICAL , a sober, more scholarly, literary approach to the mythic tales.  He is a skeptic who believes the poets like to tell exaggerated stories, with exaggerated representations of events.  His advice, don't go around looking for hidden wisdom.

EUHEMERUS

The gods, we are told, were terrestrial beings who gained immortal honor and fame because of their gift to humanity,,,Regarding these gods many and varied accounts have been handed down by the writers of history and mythology.

Euhemerus had the view that the myths were based of historical characters that got told and re-told over time until they were deified.  The characters become gods in this retelling, hence where the myths came from, and the characters we have.