maryhelena wrote:DCHindley wrote:GakuseiDon wrote:DCHindley, thanks for your comments. But I'm not sure how they interact with the OP topic, i.e. whether the Gospels fall into the category of "Euhemerized" stories about a god. What is your view on that?
It just seemed to be necessary to define terms. In short, "euhemerism" is a modern construct that can mean BOTH the historicizing of a mythical figure AS WELL AS building of myth around a historical person, depending on who you consult.
David, can you provide an academic article, or book, that supports your definition of "euhemerism". i.e. that "euhemerism" is a modern construct that can mean......the historicizing of a mythical figure".
It doesn't matter one tiny bit how Wiki idiot editors or Merriam-Webster's trained editors define it as, as these definitions are modern constructions that use Euhemerus' story to "prove" their theories of the development of myth from history or history from myth. Euhemerus did not say that Zeus was born on the island in his story, only had a frictional character in a story of fiction say he saw it on a fictional island, as part of a plot device.
(Hersman, Anne Bates) Studies in Greek Allegorical Interpretation (PhD diss, U of Chicago, 1906)
https://ia700307.us.archive.org/11/item ... ucmf_2.pdf
[7] In their moral and mental development the Greeks came to a point when their traditional religion and history no longer satisfied them. They must either renounce or modify their beliefs. Xenophanes boldly pronounced Homer and Hesiod immoral and unworthy of belief. Pindar rejected particular stories that offended his ideas of the gods. Others still maintained the truth of the myths, but conceived some hidden meaning intended by the original makers. They seem sometimes to have thought that the meaning was not intentionally obscured, but had been later misunderstood(4); ...
7n4) This was the teaching of Euhemerus; and Plutarch considered it possible in some cases, see below p. 26, 35 foil.; although he rejected Euhemerism.
[15] ... Euhemerus is hardly an allegorist, yet he had the same purpose as Democritus and Prodicus had and the same spirit as any atheistic allegorist. He claimed to have found in his travels records of great and good kings and leaders of men, who came to be regarded as superhuman. They had the names of Greek divinities. Hence arose religion.(60)
The chief followers of Euhemerus were Palaephatus, and Polybius, and especially Diodorus. Occasional Euhemerisms are found in authors who are not at all Euhemerists. The scholium on Apollonius Rhodius Argonautica II. 1248, gives several allegoristic and Euhemeristic explanations of the Prometheus myth which are assigned to Agroetas, Theophrastus and Herodorus. Hecataeus also made Cerberus a poisonous snake, and Geryon a king. ...
15n60) Eusebius Praep. Evang. II. 2 § 55 foll. Sextus Math. 9, 17, 34, 51. Plut. de Is. 359 D to, 360 D. See Euhemeri Reliquae, collected by Geyza Nemethy. Cicero ascribed this doctrine to the Stoics, see below p. 21. Wellman Aegyptisches Hermes 31, p. 232, says that Euhemerus, who was a friend of Cassander, developed his historical theory to make the apotheosis of the kings who followed Alexander more acceptable to Greek understanding. According to Gruppe, however, Euhemerus was a delicate humorist, misunderstood by both adherents and opponents, who took as serious myth-making his playful irony upon the Diadochi. ([Gruppe, Gr. Culte u. Mythen] I 16 foll; a history of Euhemerism.) There does not seem to be enough ancient testimony on the subject to support either view. Euhemerus seems to have given the promulgators of religious doctrine the same purpose that Critias assigned to them, namely, to obtain the obedience of the masses (cf. above p. 13.) For Sextus Math. 9. 17 says that according to Euhemerus the powerful men of ancient times, in order that they might increase fear and obedience, persuaded their subjects to worship them as gods. Of course the parallel ends with the purpose. Saintsbury seems to misuse Euhemerism when in Hist, of Crit. I. 187 he calls Tzetzes's physical allegorizing "a cheap pseudo-scientific Euhemerism."
[21] ... The Stoics accepted all the unliteral explanations of the popular religion that had found favor with their predecessors; how much of this eclecticism, however, was in use among the older Stoics, it is, of course, impossible to determine ; but Persaeus said that men of signal benefit to their race had come to be called gods, thus showing himself a follower of Euhemerus.
A kind of Romantic notion of Euhemerism, in which his story is taken as his endorsement of the idea that gods are great men who were legendized, comes from:
(Spence, Lewis) An Introduction to Mythology (1921)
https://ia700500.us.archive.org/7/items ... 110976.pdf
[42] EUHEMERUS
The system of Euhemerus (fourth century B.C.), who lived under King Cassander of Macedonia, deserves more than passing mention. Like Ephorus, he considered that myth is history in disguise. The gods were men, and mists of time and later phantasy had so magnified and distorted their figures as to make them appear divine. In short, they were great men deified by later generations. The dead are magnified into gods in many countries, so Euhemerus' theory possesses a good deal of truth, but every god was not once a man, nor have all gods been evolved from the worship of the dead. The truth is that the myths of many gods have passed through a phase and have been coloured by an environment in which ancestor-worship has prevailed. Graves of gods are shown in many lands, and probably portions of legends relating to real men have been attracted into the myths of certain gods. Euhemerus' system of interpretation is known as 'euhemerism,' and was adopted by Vossius, the Abbe Banier, Huet Bishop of Avranches, Clavier, Sainte-Croix, Rochette, Hoffman, and to some extent by Herbert Spencer. Ennius popularized his [43] system in ancient Rome. Leclerc, one of Euhemerus' later disciples, actually proposed the theory that Greek mythology consisted of the diaries of old merchantmen and seamen!
Some Stoics and Platonists, such as Plutarch, endeavoured to render myths more intelligible by explaining them ' pragmatically,' and this system too saw in the gods of Greece kings or merely men. Another system, the 'Psychic,' believed myth to be explanatory of the various stages through which the soul must pass. Other Stoics, again, saw in myths reference to natural phenomena. Thus the first school, the 'Pragmatic,' would see in the figure of Pallas Athene a transfigured mortal queen; the second, the 'Psychic,' would explain her as the 'understanding,' and the third, the 'Stoic,' as the thicker air between moon and earth.
Driven to the wall by Christianity, the remaining believers in Greek myth attempted to justify it by the allegorical system of interpretation. The early Christian fathers like St Augustine (A.D. 354-430) applauded the system of Euhemerus, in which they beheld the abhorred mythology abandoned by one himself a pagan. Porphyry (A.D. 233-304), however, considered that there might be a moral meaning in myth, and others thought it possible that it concealed a germ of religious truth.
I just prefer not to get all soft and romantic when I evaluate the impact of this or that writer on the interpretation of history or myth, that is all.
A source which unambiguously states that Euhemerism is a modern construct, see
William Harris, Prof. Em. Middlebury College, EUHEMERISM: The Greek Myths
http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris ... eface.html
The germ of the idea behind the present study goes back to Euhemerus, a writer on mythology who flourished about 300 B.C. at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedonia. Very little is known about his life, even the place of his birth is disputed, the date of his death is unknown, and there are no personal particulars to give us a better idea of the man. He is known chiefly as the author of a book called The Sacred History, which purports to be based on inscriptional material found on the island of Panchaea while traveling around the coast of Arabia Felix. These inscriptions have never been taken to be any more real than the imaginary island of Panchaea, but the Sacred History also outlines the theory for which Euhemerus' name is famous. Euhemeros seems to have picked up some parts of his theory of interpretation from eastern sources which he heard of on his travels, but some parts of his theory may come from Greek sources, or even from his own imagination.
This study proceeds with an analysis of the Greek myths partly analogous to Euhemeros' outline. His scant material has been collected by Nemethy (Euhemeri Reliquiae, Budapest 1889), as a source of what later became the Euhemeristic school of interpretation of the Greek myths.
Hiho
DCH
