The Curse of Apollo

In university anthropology classes religion is often described as an activity thought up by humans in order to frame certain social practices or perhaps to keep everyone from going crazy.

These classes tend to view the desires and intentions of dieties as extensions of human desires and intentions. I am relectant to believe everything has such a quick and easy explanation.

But let Freud have his say. He has a wealth of examples in the mythologies of the Greeks.

For example, the professor who taught my class on the Republic once noted that if an ancient Greek were to hear the message: "God loves you," He would take it as a warning or possibly a curse.

Greek love -which we may loosely refer to as that physical desire discussed in the Symposium, eros- is a very, very human love. Consider how the average man or woman would pursue someone if they had unrestrained power and you have a glimpse of the gods' eros.

In the Greek stories there were many who were "loved" by the gods, and one such person was that legendary prophetess, Cassandra.

Cassandra had the unfortunate fate of crossing into the eyes of Apollo. Apollo, the shining, favored son of Zeus loved Cassandra. Or perhaps we should say that -physically speaking- he loved Cassandra.

When Apollo learned that Cassandra did not share this same love for him he became angry. Indeed, what creature would fail to respond to the eros of a god?

So Apollo placed on Cassandra what was considered by the Greeks to be a tremendous curse. Cassandra was given the ability to foretell the future, but no one would ever believe her. In some versions of the Cassandra narrative the Trojans mistook her for a mad woman and locked up.

At this point some discussion on Greek culture would be well in order. To the Greeks a person's worth was largely in the eyes of their polis -or perhaps we could say the general public of their city-state.

Individuality was often considered a trait of the barbarians. For indeed the barbarians spoke a strange tongue ... to the Greeks it sounded like "Bar bar bar bar ..." And who would want to live with someone who could not communicate themselves to others?

Well, Cassandra certainly did not.

Cassandra's homeland, Illium, fell into the hands of the Achians. She was taken to Greece as the concubine of Agamemnon. It was revealed to Cassandra that his wife, Clytemnestra, would soon kill both Agamemnon as well as Cassandra.

Cassandra tried to warn Agamemnon, but her warnings fell upon deaf ears. Clytemnestra murdered Agamemnon and then Cassandra.

Here we see that the height of Greek tragedy is to be misunderstood. No one can appreciate the misunderstood person except for that person alone and perhaps the gods (who are usually hard to find and quiet). A misunderstood person is an alien to his peers -an outsider without honor.

And how did this compare to the method of the God of Israel?

Like Apollo, Jehovah wanted those he favored to be set apart. He gave his people ten ways they were to be set apart, and he gave them the sign of circumcision. Why would someone want to obey the ten commandments? Why would they want to be circumcized?

The gentiles had difficulty understanding the Israelites.

When Israel turned against God, he sent prophets to them who were even more set apart. They had unusual practices: sometimes tearing the clothes off their backs, rebuking kings, one poured water on a dead bull and expected it to catch on fire, one went naked for a time, and another sat for an extended time in dung.

In Ezekiel's case he was told by God to preach to a people who would never understand him.

And they were told that 'to be loved by the world was hatred toward God'.

Then God sent Jesus. Jesus was a man who lived a different life. The public had mixed views of the itinerate carpenter's son. Eventually they coopted the Romans into having him put to death.

But Jesus was different from everything in the Greek mythology.

From the begininng of his ministry he taught the people saying:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The word "blessed" is the Greek word "makarios" which can be translated as "happy". Jesus is saying the followers who were insulted, persecuted, and lied about because of the truth were truly the happy ones.

As for myself I have little difficulty believing the cult of Apollo had its origin in the human mind. But who could have conceived that to be insulted, persecuted, and falsely accused was a wonderful happiness? Someone with a very different view of the world.

The Greek gods often gave their followers spectacular misfortunes. One wonders if they would have been willing to live under the same curses they issued to the people.

Jesus, on the other hand, not only told the people they were blessed when they were insulted, persecuted, and falsely testified about -he lived out the blessing in his own life.

One of the greatest curses of Apollo's love was to be affected by the gods and misunderstood by the people. One of the greatest blessing of Christ's love is to be affected by God and misunderstood by the people.

What about you? Is there something different about you that God has done in your life? Do you consider it to be a blessing? Does it bring you happiness?

The Tyrant Within

Cicero sums up the life of Dionysius saying:

He became the tyrant of Syracuse at the age of twenty-five and remained in power for thirty-eight years. It was a superb and immensely wealthy city, and he held it down in slavery. It is true that he lived a temperate enough life, as we are told by reliable writers, and that he was an efficient and hardworking administrator. But his character was evil and malevolent: and for this reason it is impossible for anyone with a clear eye for the truth to avoid regarding him as a supremely unhappy man. For even at a time when he believed that nothing in the world was beyond his powers he failed to get what he wanted.

Cicero has an excellent eye for focusing on the mood of a person over their success and historical circumstances. Small wonder the Stoics were heavily studied by the reformers, particularly Calvin. It is as if they are calling out to us saying, "Yes your exterior life is like such and such ... but how is it going on the inside?"

I previously wrote on Cicero's observation that the tyrant's "stuff" did not make him happy. There is also something to be said for his double-mindedness. Like the earlier case, there is an shocking story to tell.

Here is the story:

As for his official appearances, he did not dare to appear on the public platform, but used to climb up a high tower whenever he wanted to address his subjects. He was very fond of playing ball-games, and the story goes that once, when he was about to take off his tunic for a game, he handed his sword to a youth whom he loved dearly. One of his friends said as a joke, 'Here at least is someone you're prepared to trust your life to!' And the young man smiled.

But Dionysius ordered both of them to be executed, the man who had made the remark because he had pointed out a way in which the king could be assassinated, and the youth because, by smiling, he had implied approval of what the other had said.

This action caused Dionysius greater sorrow than anything else that happened throughout his entire life: because he had ordered the death of a person whom he deeply loved. The story illustrates the contradictory nature of a tyrant's urges. You can only satisfy one at the expense of another.

Cicero draws out the great difficulty in finding a personal identity. If a person -looking to find a personal identity- follows their urges ... they end up being one person at one moment, a different person at another moment, and a different person in a different moment.

The path of our physical desires is not a straight path.

James mentions in his letter that the double-minded man is unstable in all he does. If a person asks for wisdom - and doubts God will grant it - he is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. Similarly it is James who cries out to us, 'Cleanse your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you double-minded!'

Such is the life of a person who is ruled by his desires and fails to rule his desires ... even if he rules a kingdom.

On Greek Immortality

Ah ... the ancient Greeks. Their accomplishments - their epic poetry, their skill in fighting, their intelligence in philosophy, their pathos in tragedy and wit in comedy continue to be remembered. And this was their ultimate desire: to be remembered.

Where did the Greeks find the reserves for such great talent and art? In their appearances. Here, the bravery of a soldier running into battle was nothing, but the appearance of bravery was everything. Here the grief one endured in suffering was nothing, and the pathos on the stage was everything. And everything was done to be seen and heard by the others.

But could such appearances provide consolation in one's final moments? To the Greeks the answer was "Yes" ... in being remembered. This was the nature of Greek Immortality.

In the Greek view of Hades, certain people received punishment (i.e. sysaphus), but before Plato people didn't see death as a place where people were personally judged for their actions. To the ancient Greeks, Hades was the domain of the jibbering shades ... where the dead talked endlessly about one's accomplishments. The best one could hope for was to be remembered by the living and talked about by the dead.

When Odysseus went to the underworld and found the warrior Achilles - remembered and praised by all - his conclusion on death was this: better to be an obscure farmer and die after a long life than to die at the celebration of the many. Such is the case with all esthetics: the approval of the crowd - and here the approval of world history - is a terrible reward when one does not approve one's own choices.

The Angst of Damocles

Cicero records for us an account between Dionysius and a contemporary, Damocles. The narrative is prefaced with the claim: "Dionysius himself pronounced judgment on whether he was happy or not."

The story goes that Damocles was visiting Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracus. Damocles begins talking about all the possessions and advantages of the tyrant's life ... "his wealth and power, the splendours of his despotic regime, the immensity of his resources ..." et cetera. Damocles concludes, "Never ... had there been a happier man."

Seizing the opportunity, Dionysius responds, "Very well, Damocles ... since my life strikes you as so attractive, would you care to have a taste of it yourself and see what my way of living is really like?" Damocles agrees with pleasure.

So Dionysius brings out a golden couch covered in rich embroidery, gold and silver, perfumes, and an elaborate feast. Then Cicero records:

Damocles thought himself a truly fortunate person. But in the midst of all this splendour, directly above the neck of the happy man, Dionysius arranged that a gleaming sword should be suspended from the ceiling, to which it was attached by a horsehair. And so Damocles had no eye for the lovely waiters, or for the artistic plate. Indeed, he did not even feel like reaching out his hand towards the food .... In the end he begged the tyrant to let him go, declaring that his desire to be happy had quite evaporated.

Cicero tells us that, "Dionysius was indicating clearly enough that happiness is out of the question if you are perpetually menaced by some terror."

This reminds me of an assertion made by Anticlimacus, that each person hides a certain inner angst. Certainly death waits for all of us. If we all dred something - if there is some terror we are all running from - then what is happiness and the accumulation of many physical, external things but a distraction from that terror?