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The wnderer paganism vs. christianity
The wnderer paganism vs. christianity
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Golden Ass
Apuleius' Golden Ass, the only surviving novel of the Roman Empire, is a tale of a Greek nobleman devoting his life to the goddess Isis following his transformation to an ass and back. Although a work of fiction, the novel reveals a great deal about religion in Apuleius' society. This information, however, must be viewed with a critical eye. He incorporates stories from Greco-Roman mythology not to affirm their validity, but to reveal their commonness to society. Apuleius insults other religions that are not of the Pantheon with severe viciousness, while the general public may have been more open to them. In the end, he praises Isis and Osiris as the supreme gods while giving first hand account of their righteousness. Overall, Apuleius' view of religion cannot be trusted.
From the very start we see Apuleius using references to Roman myths as similes to everyday occurrences. When Fotis, the slave, enters his bedroom to make love to him, he remarks that "she stood, transformed into a living statue: the Love-goddess rising from the sea. The flushed hand with which she pretended to screen her mount of Venus showed that she was well aware of the resemblance; certainly it was not held there from modesty." He describes a slave girl trying to seduce him as Venus rising out of the sea. Some of this description may be a hyperbole for Lucius' love of Fotis. However, Apuleius goes beyond this by linking Fotis directly to Venus. Thus, the most beautiful goddess in the Pantheon is easily seen in a slave girl. Similarly, Thelyphron, when telling the story how members of a household attacked him, describes himself as feeling "like Adonis mauled by the wild boar, or Orpheus torn in pieces by the Thracian women." This...
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...ddess. To prove his point, Apuleius first discounts all other worships. Throughout the novel he describes things that happen to individuals in terms of the traditional Greco-Roman myths. He subtly chips away at the traditional Roman gods, avoiding a direct attack on the Pantheon because the vast majority of his audience believed in it. If he attacked them directly, he would surely not be considered credible. With the other religions, however, Apuleius reserves nothing. He declares religions of Asia Minor to be fraudulent and calls monotheistic religions "blasphemous." After questioning the other religions, Apuleius goes on to praise the worship of Isis. As a result, we the contemporary reader cannot infer too much about Roman religion from The Golden Ass.
Works Cited
Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Trans. Robert Graves. Noonday Press, 1998. ISBN 0-374-50532-2.
Clearly, there is a distinction between the world of the Roman gods and the world that everyday people live in. Man, according to Ovid, has experienced a gold, sil...
The speech by Pausanius in Plato’s Symposium divides the goddess Aphrodite into two beings, each responsible for a different aspect of love. To prove the existence of her double life he cites her creation. There are two versions of the birth of Aphrodite, one coming from Hesiod’s work, Theogony, where she is borne out of Uranus’ castrated genitals as they splash into the sea; the other is from Homer’s work, the Illiad, where she is said to be the daughter of Zeus and Dione. (Notes on Plato’s Symposium 180e) From these two vastly different creations she takes on two vastly different forms. Pausanius describes one of her forms as “Celestial” love. This type of love springs out of the Aphrodite created from Uranus’ genitals. This form is “wholly male” (Symposium 180c) which inspires men to be a...
Euripides’ plays Hippolytus, The Bacchae and Iphigenia at Aulis all revolve around the journey of key characters that fail to show respect to various deities within the Greek Pantheon. This disrespect, in all three plays, is met out with retaliation from the gods themselves, thus effecting those that disrespected them as well as their families. To convey these tales Euripides implements many themes, one such theme being divine retaliation. Euripides’ use of the theme of divine retaliation provides a stark illustration of the Greek Pantheon striving to prove their superiority relentlessly and gives insight into their merciless use of mortals as pawns to achieve this.
Grant, M. (1962). Myths of the Greeks and Romans (1st ed.). Cleveland: World Pub. Co.
This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.
In The Golden Ass, Lucius draws a strong parallel between the stepmother’s story and that of Meroe, the evil, old witch who kills Socrates when he tries to escape her lustful affections. The stepmother is metaphorically likened to a witch because doing so comments on the danger of a weak-natured woman who holds a position of power. Although no magical evils, such as the spells that Meroe casts upon Socrates, manifest themselves in the story of the stepmother, the emphasis on the unnatural transformation in her disposition and the perverse and sinful nature of her wanton affections symbolize her witchlike nature. The similarity between the two stories helps to fortify the connection between witches and women in a position of power, which ultimately condemns the latter while simultaneously upholding male legacy.
The society in which classical myths took place, the Greco-Roman society was a very patriarchal one. By taking a careful gander at female characters in Greco-Roman mythology one can see that the roles women played differ greatly from the roles they play today. The light that is cast upon females in classical myths shows us the views that society had about women at the time. In classical mythology women almost always play a certain type of character, that is to say the usual type of role that was always traditionally played by women in the past, the role of the domestic housewife who is in need of a man’s protection, women in myth also tended to have some unpleasant character traits such as vanity, a tendency to be deceitful, and a volatile personality. If one compares the type of roles that ladies played in the myths with the ones they play in today’s society the differences become glaringly obvious whilst the similarities seem to dwindle down. Clearly, and certainly fortunately, society’s views on women today have greatly changed.
The Golden Ass and King Arthur are both fictional stories, which describe the culture and religions during the Roman Empire. The cultural tolerance of religions is part of what allowed the empire to flourish. The symbiotic relationship noted in the words of Marcus Aurelius as he is writing about the Gods may partially explain why this tolerance existed:
The first part of this paper will explore the mystery-religions, the reasons behind their popularity, and the Hellenistic world in which they grew that began with Alexander the Great. Next, their characteristics and connections first with Judaism and later with Christianity will be more deeply discussed. In the second part it will be shown that the mystery-religions helped to clear the pathway for the Christianization of the Greco-Roman world by men such as Paul the Apostle. Finally, the Emperor Constantine’s role in this story will be mentioned, during whose reign the mystery-religions declined and Christianity became the major religion of Europe and the near east. The paper will conclude with a brief speculation about the significance of these ideas to modern Christianity.
The depiction of the Greek and roman myths are given unique insights from different authors. The Hymn to Demeter and Ovid's Metamorphosis provide and insight to Demeter's love for her daughter, Persephone, and explores its affect on the surrounding environments. The theme of separation and isolation is present in both of these myths, however, in Ovid's Metamorphosis, he symbolizes the environment in important events, has characters playing different roles, and empowers female deities.
Even though Zeus is the god of morality, law and order, he shows very little restraint for his carnal instincts. This weakness for his pure carnal needs is evidently shown in the myths about his extramarital affairs with mortals, nymphs and even other goddesses. One of his extramarital ...
Grant, Michael, and John Hazel. "Athena." Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam, 1973. Print.
“Gods can be evil sometimes.” In the play “Oedipus the King”, Sophocles defamed the gods’ reputation, and lowered their status by making them look harmful and evil. It is known that all gods should be perfect and infallible, and should represent justice and equity, but with Oedipus, the gods decided to destroy him and his family for no reason. It might be hard to believe that gods can have humanistic traits, but in fact they do. The gods, especially Apollo, are considered evil by the reader because they destroyed an innocent man’s life and his family. They destroyed Oedipus by controlling his fate, granting people the power of prophecy, telling Oedipus about his fate through the oracle of Apollo, and finally afflicting the people of Thebes with a dreadful plague. Fundamentally, by utilizing fate, prophecies, the oracle of Apollo, and the plague, the gods played a significant role in the destruction of Oedipus and his family.
Ancient Roman mythology consisted of a combination of rituals, beliefs, and observances of supernatural occurrences. They were based heavily on the idea of Greek mythology. As legend has it, the gods resembled human figures but they were bigger stronger and much more beautiful than that of the ancient roman gods. Even though the Roman gods were not depicted to be as beautiful they still were thought of with high admiration by roman citizens. The roman’s paid homage to the gods, in doing so they expected protection, fertility, prosperity, and good health in return for their allegiance.
Ruprecht, Louis A., Jr. "Athenagoras the Christian, Pausanius the Travel Guide, and a Mysterious Corinthian Girl." Harvard Theological Review 85 (1992): 35-49.