Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: The World of the Polis

Titel: The World of the Polis

Stichwort: Homer: Ätiologie der Unordnung; Götter als Urheber des Bösen? (4 Thesen)

Kurzinhalt: ... acts of wanton indulgence, due to eros and cholos, as well as of ambition "beyond the share" (hyper moron) (Od. 1.35), which break the right order ...

Textausschnitt: 175b On the basis of the preceding analysis we can venture to formulate the relation between the two epics. The Iliad, so it seems, is much richer in its exploration of the mysteries of action than the second epic. It is hardly permissible to consider the Odyssey an advance beyond the Iliad with regard to theology or religious sentiments. At most one can say that in the prologue in heaven Homer states in explicit terms the problem that occupied him all through the Iliad, i.e., the aetiology of evil. The term aetiology, hitherto used undefined, does require, and can now receive, some precision. We are using the term because it is Homer's word in dealing with his problem. The question is whether the gods are aitioi or not aitioi with regard to the evil that befalls man. The meaning of aitios (Il. 3.164) ranges, in the Homeric contexts, from "guilty" or "blameworthy" to "responsible for" or "being the cause of." When Homer speaks of men who ascribe evil to the gods, he uses the word aitioontai (Od. 1.32), with a corresponding range of meaning from "they accuse" or "blame" the gods to "they make them responsible," or see in them the "source" or "cause" of evil. The primary concern of Homer is not a vindication of the gods but the interpretation that men put on their own misconduct. The tendency of his aetiological interest can, therefore, be circumscribed by the following theses: (Fs)

1. Man is in the habit of making the gods responsible for his misdeeds, as well as for the evil consequences engendered by his misconduct. (Fs)
2. Theoretically, this habit implies the assertion that the gods are the cause of the evil that men do and suffer. This assertion is wrong. It is man, not the gods, who is responsible for evil. (Fs)
3. Practically, this habit is dangerous to social order. Misdeeds will be committed more easily if responsibility can be shifted to the gods. (Fs)
4. Historically, a civilizational order is in decline and will perish if this habit finds general social acceptance. (Fs)

177a In the present context, however, the resemblance is less important than the great difference, which is due to the fact that Homer wrote before, while Plato wrote after, the discovery of the psyche. The Homeric achievement is remarkable as a struggle for the understanding of the psyche with the rather crude symbols that we have studied. Homer astutely observed that the disorder of a society was a disorder in the soul of its component members, and especially in the soul of the ruling class. The symptoms of the disease were magnificently described by the great poet; but the true genius of the great thinker revealed itself in the creation of a tentative psychology without the aid of an adequate conceptual apparatus. Without having a term for it, he envisaged man as having a psyche with an internal organization through a center of passions and a second center of ordering and judging knowledge. He understood the tension between the two centers, as well as the tricks that passion plays on better knowledge. And he strove valiantly for the insight that ordering action is action in conformance with transcendent, divine order, while disruptive action is a fall from the divine order into the specifically human disorder. We can discern the dim outlines of the Platonic anthropology, and even of the Platonic postulate that God rather than the disorderly velleities of man should be the measure of human action. (Fs)