Monthly Archives: January 2020

The Iliad

Books, Literature, 
Homer, The Iliad Penguin Classics (London: Penguin, 1987), lv + 460pp. ISBN:978-0-14-044444-5.

Finally I have taken down this epic of Western culture and literature, after its having sat waiting on my shelf for many years, and read it. What a tragic and yet noble story it is, full of human characters (and gods), some appearing fleetingly only to die, others who live on to tell the tale of what must surely be understood—in our day at least—as a tragic tale of wasted years and lives. The opening sentence of the story sets the context of the whole:

Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilleus, son of Peleus, the accursed anger which brought uncounted anguish on the Achaians and hurled down to Hades many mighty souls of heroes, making their bodies the prey to dogs and the birds’ feasting: and this was the working of Zeus’ will.

This is a tale of unrelenting human pride and anger which sets in train a great conflict. And yet, as the opening sentence signifies, even the will of mighty Achilleus is not determinative, for over against human will stands the unremitting and all-powerful will of Zeus.

What did I notice as I read this classic story?

First, it is a man’s world. Women feature in the story only as wives and mothers bound to the domestic sphere, although they may also appear as captives and as ‘prizes.’ Men act in public, in war and battle, and for glory. This action is often violent, and in the quest for supremacy, free rein is given for the expression of anger, revenge, etc.

Second, the definitive social ethos within which the narrative moves, is that of honour and shame. Honour is earned, especially in battle, but honour also exists by virtue of rank in a hierarchical society, and for the aged, so long as it is an honour accrued earlier in life.

Third, life ends in Hades or the grave. Thus the pursuit of one’s honour is entirely focussed on this world. All one’s hopes are here—for the accumulation of honour, a life well-lived, home and family, and so on.

Fourth, the gods are many, aloof, and yet also engaged in human affairs. They are somewhat capricious, and at war amongst themselves. They intervene in human affairs though human decision and agency is also significant though circumscribed. Nonetheless, fate rules human life even more than the gods. Each person’s fate is woven at birth, and so a sense of inevitability pervades life and undermines agency.

This is a portrayal of gods and humanity in which the former is made in the image of the latter, and for all its talk of honour, human life is brutal, fated, and tragic. How very different from the biblical-Hebraic vision of humanity made in the image of God and endowed with dignity, stewardship, responsibility, and hope!

The descriptive power of the book with its catalogue of recurring images, vivid metaphors, heroic characters, and endless adjectives remind one that it was likely written in order to be read aloud and performed. Even in the twenty-first century The Iliad remains a powerful story, and worth reading on account of its imagery, the rich characterisation and evocation of both the dignity and the depravity of humankind, the condensing of all of this life into four long days of drama, triumph, and anguish, and for its innate historical interest and civilizational impact. As Martin Hammond (translator) asserts in the introduction: “The Iliad is the first substantial work of European literature, and has fair claim to be the greatest.”

And now, sometime soon hopefully, the Odyssey and the Aeneid.

The Lost Letters of Pergamum

Books 
Longenecker, Bruce W., The Lost Letters of Pergamum (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003). 192pp. ISBN: 0-8010-2607-5.

For some reason I was drawn again to this little epistolary novel which the subtitle tells us it is a “story from the New Testament world.” It is an imaginary tale based on the tantalizing fragment of Revelation 2:13, “Antipas, my faithful witness . . . was put to death in your city [Pergamum]—where Satan lives.” Longenecker, Professor of Early Christianity at Baylor University, has constructed a plausible account of this Antipas (about whom we really know nothing at all), and along the way provides us with a living window into the life and culture of elite Roman noblemen, Roman slaves, Christians, and others in the late first-century context. It is a work of fiction grounded in many years of scholarly research into the world of the New Testament, and will benefit those who read it with greater insight into this world, and into the life and challenges of the first Christian communities.

I do not want to spoil the plot for those who might read the story, but let me say this: not only is it a good, easy-to-read, and well-written story; not only will you learn things about the New Testament world that perhaps previously were only really known to scholars; but you may find yourself challenged and inspired as well. The little story is also spiritually edifying.