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Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II:
THEOPHILUS: Chapter V.—Opinions of Homer and Hesiod Concerning the Gods.

Early Church Fathers  Index     

Chapter V.—Opinions of Homer and Hesiod Concerning the Gods.

So that the opinion of your philosophers and authors is discordant; for while the former have propounded the foregoing opinions, the poet Homer is found explaining the origin not only of the world, but also of the gods, on quite another hypothesis. For he says somewhere: 553 —

“Father of Gods, Oceanus, and she
Who bare the gods, their mother Tethys, too,
From whom all rivers spring, and every sea.”

In saying which, however, he does not present God to us. For who does not know that the ocean is water? But if water, then not God. God indeed, if He is the creator of all things, as He certainly is, is the creator both of the water and of the seas. And Hesiod himself also declared the origin, not only of the gods, but also of the world itself. And though he said that the world was created, he showed no inclination to tell us by whom it was created. Besides, he said that Saturn, and his sons Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, were gods, though we find that they are later born than the world. And he also relates how Saturn was assailed in war by his own son Jupiter; for he says: 554 —

“His father Saturn he by might o’ercame,
And ’mong th’ immortals ruled with justice wise,
And honours fit distributed to each.”

Then he introduces in his poem the daughters of Jupiter, whom he names Muses, and as whose suppliant he appears, desiring to ascertain from them how all things were made; for he says: 555 —

“Daughters of Jove, all hail! Grant me your aid
That I in numbers sweet and well-arrayed,
Of the immortal gods may sing the birth;
Who of the starry heav’ns were born, and earth;
Who, springing from the murky night at first,
Were by the briny ocean reared and nursed.
Tell, too, who form unto the earth first gave,
And rivers, and the boundless sea whose wave
Unwearied sinks, then rears its crest on high;
And how was spread yon glittering canopy
Of glistening stars that stud the wide-spread heaven.
Whence sprang the gods by whom all good is given?
Tell from their hands what varied gifts there came,
Riches to some, to others wealth, or fame;
How they have dwelt from the remotest time
In many-nooked Olympus’ sunny clime.
These things, ye Muses, say, who ever dwell
Among Olympian shades—since ye can tell:
From the beginning there thy feet have strayed;
Then tell us which of all things first was made.”
p. 96

But how could the Muses, who are younger than the world, know these things? Or how could they relate to Hesiod [what was happening], when their father was not yet born?

Footnotes

95:553

Il., xiv. 201.

95:554

Hesiod, Theog., 74.

95:555

Theog., 104.

Next: Chapter VI.—Hesiod on the Origin of the World.

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