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12.09.2011

Interesting note on Christianity and Greek myth

W. H. D. Rouse wrote a popular book on Greek Myths titled Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece. I would describe him as an 'old hand' type who was competent in portraying such a thing as Greek myth. I recommend his little volume (only a penny for a used copy on Amazon) for just getting a good rendition of all of Greek myth. But anyway, he had an interesting note in his one-page introduction regarding how Christianity relates to the Greek myths. Of course I'll preface this by saying the Apostle Paul in the 17th chapter of Acts tells the Greeks that he saw their monument to the 'Unknown God' which he told them was the real Creator of Heaven and Earth.

So anyway, he is describing the family of Olympians, the generations before them, and their progeny:

"And all these [Olympians, lesser deities, heroes] were themselves subject to something higher than themselves, which they called Necessity. It is this highest power of all that we call God, and the Greeks were feeling their way towards it, but they thought less about it than they did about the lower powers. These stories [the Greek myths in general] concern these lower powers and how they were mixed up with mankind."

I thought that was interesting because I'd never come across 'Necessity' as the highest power in Greek myth. I might disagree somewhat with Rouse when he says the Greeks were "...feeling their way towards it [God]..." I suppose they were in a way, but rather I'd say they were remembering collectively like reflections through broken shards of glass the truth they had with them in their heart and with them in their collective memory as they migrated, as all people did, from the handed down truth coming from the immediate descendents of Adam.

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