The Gods
The many gods of the Greeks were both the vivid characters of Homer's poems and a puzzle that philosophers spent centuries trying to rationalize or replace.
'The gods' (theoi) covers the whole Greek conception of divinity — from the quarreling, all-too-human Olympians of Homer and Hesiod (c. 8th c. BCE) to the very different gods of the philosophers. Xenophanes mocked gods made in human shape, Plato insisted the gods must be perfectly good, and Aristotle and the Epicureans reimagined them as serene and remote — all while popular worship carried on unchanged. This tension between traditional myth and philosophical theology runs through nearly all of Greek thought, and later framed monotheistic critiques of paganism.
How it traveled
- IliadIos · -700explains
- OdysseyIos · -700explains
- TheogonyAscra · -650explains
- Works and DaysAscra · -650explains
- AgamemnonAthens · -458explains
- HistoriesThurii (Magna Graecia) · -425explains
- RepublicAthens · -375explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- LawsAthens · -348explains
- In C. VerremFormiae · -70explains
- de Natura DeorumFormiae · -43explains
- Ab urbe conditaPadua · -27explains
- AeneidRome · -19explains
- MetamorphosesTomis (Constanța) · 8explains
- GeographyAmaseia · 24explains
- De Iside et OsirideChaeronea · 120explains
- Quaestiones RomanaeChaeronea · 120explains
- De Defectu OraculorumChaeronea · 120explains
- Quaestiones ConvivalesChaeronea · 120explains
- Description of Greece— · 180explains
- Dialogi deorumSamosata · 180explains
- Juppiter TragoedusSamosata · 180explains
- De SacrificiisSamosata · 180explains
- DeipnosophistaeNaucratis · 230explains
- Vitae philosophorum— · 240explains
- Historical LibrarySyracuse (Sicily)explains
- Library—explains
- Historia RomanaRomeexplains
- Jewish Antiquities—explains
- Praeparatio Evangelica—explains
- BirdsAthensexplains
- Hymn 2 to Demeter—explains
- Ad Nationes Libri Duo—explains
- OdesRomeexplains
- CloudsAthensexplains
- Vita Barlaam et Joasaph—challenges
- De BellisConstantinople (Istanbul)explains
- Legatio sive Supplicatio pro Christianis—explains
- Hymn 5 to Aphrodite—explains
- De MysteriisApameaexplains
Key passages(20)
Avodah Zarah · Anonymous (Stammaim, redactors of the Bavli) · 450 CE
וְשֶׁבְּמָדוֹר הַתַּחְתּוֹן מִי שְׁרֵי? וְהָתַנְיָא: ״אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם״ — לְרַבּוֹת חַמָּה וּלְבָנָה כּוֹכָבִים וּמַזָּלוֹת, ״מִמַּעַל״ — לְרַבּוֹת מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת!
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Avodah Zarah · Anonymous (Stammaim, redactors of the Bavli) · 450 CE
מַתְנִי׳ שָׁאֲלוּ אֶת הַזְּקֵנִים בְּרוֹמִי: אִם אֵין רְצוֹנוֹ בַּעֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, לָמָה אֵינוֹ מְבַטְּלָהּ? אָמְרוּ לָהֶן: אִילּוּ לְדָבָר שֶׁאֵין צוֹרֶךְ לָעוֹלָם בּוֹ הָיוּ עוֹבְדִין — הָיָה מְבַטְּ
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Avodah Zarah · Anonymous (Stammaim, redactors of the Bavli) · 450 CE
גְּמָ׳ תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: שָׁאֲלוּ פִלוֹסוֹפִין אֶת הַזְּקֵנִים בְּרוֹמִי: אִם אֱלֹהֵיכֶם אֵין רְצוֹנוֹ בַּעֲבוֹדָה זָרָה, מִפְּנֵי מָה אֵינוֹ מְבַטְּלָהּ? אָמְרוּ לָהֶם: אִילּוּ לְדָבָר שֶׁאֵין הָעוֹלָ
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Vita Barlaam et Joasaph · John of Damascus, Saint
Contra Orationem Symmachia · Prudentius
Homiliae [Sp.] · Clemens Romanus (Clement of Rome)
Historia Ecclesiastica · Evagrius, Scholasticus
MENIPPUS As for the gods, why speak of them at all, seeing that to some a number was god, while others swore by geese and dogs and plane-trees? Moreover, some banished all the rest of the gods and ass
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Clin. Surely it seems easy, Stranger, to assert with truth that gods exist? Ath. How so? Clin. First, there is the evidence of the earth, the sun, the stars, and all the universe, and the beautiful or
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Ath. What then? What shall we say? What must we do? Are we to make our defence as it were before a court of impious men, where someone had accused us of doing something dreadful by assuming in our leg
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