Beware the Leopard

May 26th, 2016

We Live in Beeblebroxian Denial

Herodotus’ Histories is not a book. It’s a maze. You enter through the front page, and you never get out.

The Columbia University Lit. Hum. syllabus says to start with pages 1-140. I believe I’m on about 120, and I have really been trying. It is slow work, unless you skim it and let the confusing things lie.

The print is tiny, the margins are small, and I keep running into things I have to look up. For instance, there was an ancient nation that used swipes for irrigation. That’s not even in the dictionary. It’s a counterweighted crane operated by a miserable, but very buff, peasant.

One interesting thing about Herodotus is that he draws connections between Egypt and Greece. I suppose every educated person has heard that the Greeks stole their culture and technology from the Egyptians, but most of us haven’t troubled ourselves to dig into the matter. Apparently, the Greek “gods” were worshiped in Egypt at the time of Herodotus (fifth century B.C.), and if Herodotus is to be believed, many of them were old Egyptian “gods” with new names.

Isis, for example is sort of like Hera, the wife of Zeus. She is also conflated with Aphrodite to some extent. This is the same failed angel or whatever that was worshiped alongside of Yahweh by the ancient Jews. They called her “the queen of heaven,” and they put little Isis/Ashtoreth/Hera/whatever altars in their places of worship.

Zeus is apparently our old acquaintance Baal (or Bel), which means he’s really the devil. The Egyptians called him Amun and Amun-Ra. There was an Egyptian city called Ammon, and Zeus had himself an oracle there. People went to give him offerings and have their fortunes told.

Zeus is an interesting character, because he is the supreme god (I will give up the annoying quotation marks) of the Greeks, and he is strong enough to fight all the others at once, but he is the grandson of the first supreme male god. He had a beginning. His grandfather was Ouranos (Uranus to you and me; Greek for “sky”), and his son was Kronos (Greek for “time”). Gaia, the earth, was the wife of Ouranos and the father of Zeus. She got angry at Ouranos for some reason I forget, and Kronos sided with her and castrated Ouranos. The organs and drops of his blood landed in the sea and became various peoples, Aphrodite, and/or assorted giants, depending on whom you ask.

Kronos fell out with Gaia, and Zeus overcame him and replaced him.

It’s all very interesting, because in reality, the battle between Satan and God is about reproduction. It’s genocidal. Each one is working to exterminate the seed of the other. Satan’s greatest desire is to emasculate God and replace him, and to replace God’s children with his own.

Herodotus is full of accurate pagan prophecies. Modern scholars discount these, saying the prophecies were made up after the events they addressed. Who is to say, though? False religions have real power; talk to a Haitian some day if you don’t believe it.

Herodotus writes a lot about Croesus, the ancient king who is known for his wealth. Supposedly Croesus sent messengers to a bunch of oracles, and he told the messengers to go to the oracles on a certain day and ask what he was doing. On that day, says Herodotus, Croesus put turtle meat and lamb together and cooked them in a bronze pot. The oracle of Delphi spoke of turtle meat and lamb cooking in a bronze pot. After that, Croesus was a major fan of the Oracle of Delphi, and he donated all sorts of treasure.

Are any of the stories true? I don’t know, but I suppose some of them are. The fact that a religious person serves a false deity doesn’t mean his practices don’t work.

Back when I was an armorbearer at Trinity Church, I worked alongside a very reserved, serious Haitian man. He told me about an event he had been to in Haiti. A woman who was a servant in a house presided over it. She was a priestess.

They built a bonfire, and the woman started dancing around it. As things progressed, people became more and more emotional, and she got more excited. She danced closer and closer to the flames. At the end, according to my friend, she was dancing in the fire, unharmed.

This was a guy who talked very little, never gossiped, and never tried to impress anyone. I have no reason to doubt what he said, and I can’t pass judgment on the tales Herodotus passed on. Herodotus made lots of mistakes, and he handed down a lot of gossip. That is true. On the other hand, he went out of his way to distinguish rumors from facts.

My guess is that many of the prophecy stories are true; particularly the ones about Cyrus. His rise was predicted by Jeremiah. He truly did depose his grandfather, as predicted by a heathen. He truly did defeat Croesus and become emperor.

One of the unfortunate things about technology is that we use it to convince ourselves the supernatural doesn’t exist, and that we don’t need God. We can’t seem to measure the supernatural with instruments. When we try to document it, it slips out of our hands. Our earthly power keeps increasing. We cure more and more diseases. We find better ways to protect ourselves from nature. We have decided that we are gods, or if not gods, close enough to gods to justify reliance on ourselves.

We think we’re stronger than we are, so we have stopped looking for help. That’s sad, because the supernatural realm is where all the power and answers are. And our beliefs don’t change God’s order. When you die and find yourself dealing with supernatural beings, you won’t be able to escape judgment by saying you’re an atheist.

I’m glad I’m reading these crusty old books. As I’ve said, I have a couple of huge books about the early church, and knowing a little bit about the world from which the church emerged will surely help me understand them.

I’m also glad I’m not reading on the Columbia University schedule. They give people seven days to cover all the readings in Herodotus. There is no way to do it justice in that time while keeping up with other courses. But that’s how college is. It’s like a bus full of Japanese tourists at the Eiffel Tower. Have you seen what they do? Everyone assembles outside the bus. One person runs forward and takes a picture of the group. He rejoins the group. Then another person does the same thing. When everyone has taken a picture, they get back in the bus and leave.

I always feel lucky to live in a time when we have things like air conditioning, fairly good medical knowledge, and power tools. But when I look at Herodotus, I see him referring to “ancient” people, and he lived 2400 years ago. His “modern” is our “primitive.” That means we are primitive, too. We just can’t see it. I always think it would kill me to go back and live in an age of lesser technology, but I suppose the age I live in is also pretty bad. We can cure a toothache or burn off a wart, but the world is still full of hardship and agony.

I feel like Arthur Dent, who lived in a world surrounded by astounding space ships he couldn’t see, yet thought his own crappy digital watch was pretty cool.

Now I’m bummed. I think I’ll fix a steak.

Comments are closed.