The Discourse to the Greeks

DO NOT SUPPOSE: you Greeks, that my departure from your customs is unreasonable and thoughtless, for I found nothing in them that is holy or pleasing to God. The writings of your poets are records of madness and excess. Anyone who studies under your most renowned teacher faces more challenges than anyone else. First, they say Agamemnon, supporting his brother’s excessive lust, madness, and unchecked desires, willingly sacrificed even his daughter and troubled all of Greece to retrieve Helen, who had been taken by the leprous shepherd. During the war, when they captured prisoners, Agamemnon himself was captivated by Chryseis and started a feud with the son of Thetis over Briseis. And Pelides, your hero who crossed the river, defeated Troy, and conquered Hector, became the slave of Polyxena and was conquered by a dead Amazon; putting aside his god-made armor, donning a wedding gown, he became a sacrifice of love in the temple of Apollo. And the Ithacan Ulysses treated a vice as a virtue. His sailing past the Sirens proved his lack of worthy prudence, for he couldn’t trust his prudence to stop his ears. Ajax, son of Telamon, who bore the seven-layered ox-hide shield, went mad after losing the armor contest to Ulysses. I have no wish to learn such things or desire such virtue that I should believe the myths of Homer. The entire story, both the beginning and end of the Iliad and the Odyssey, revolves around a woman.

BUT SINCE: next to Homer, Hesiod wrote his Works and Days, who will believe his absurd theogony? For they say that Chronos, the son of Ouranos, in the beginning killed his father and took over his rule; and that, being seized with a panic lest he should himself suffer in the same way, he preferred devouring his children; but that, by the craft of the Curetes, Jupiter was taken away and kept in secret, and afterwards bound his father with chains, and divided the empire; Jupiter receiving, as the story goes, the air, and Neptune the sea, and Pluto the portion of Hades.

But Pluto kidnapped Proserpine; and Ceres sought her child wandering through the deserts. And this myth was celebrated in the Eleusinian fire. Again, Neptune ravished Melanippe when she was drawing water, besides abusing many Nereids, whose names, if we were to list them, would take a multitude of words. And as for Jupiter, he was a varied adulterer, with Antiope as a satyr, with Danaë as gold, and with Europa as a bull; with Leda, moreover, he assumed wings. For the love of Semele proved both his unchastity and the jealousy of Semele.

And they say that he carried off the Phrygian Ganymede to be his cup-bearer. These, then, are the exploits of the sons of Saturn. And your illustrious son of Latona [Apollo], who claimed to be a soothsayer, proved himself a liar. He pursued Daphne, but did not gain possession of her; and to Hyacinthus, who loved him, he did not foretell his death. And I say nothing of the masculine character of Minerva, nor of the feminine nature of Bacchus, nor of the promiscuous nature of Venus.

Read to Jupiter, you Greeks, the law against parricides, and the penalty of adultery, and the shame of pæderasty. Teach Minerva and Diana the works of women, and Bacchus the works of men. What proper behavior is there in a woman arming herself, or in a man decorating himself with cymbals and garlands and female attire, and accompanied by a group of bacchanalian women?

HERCULES: renowned for his three nights and celebrated by poets for his successful labors, was the son of Jupiter. He defeated the lion and destroyed the many-headed hydra, killed the fierce and powerful boar, and managed to slay the swift man-eating birds. He brought up from Hades the three-headed dog, thoroughly cleansed the huge Augean building of its dung, and killed the bulls and the stag whose nostrils breathed fire. He plucked the golden fruit from the tree and killed the poisonous serpent.

For reasons that are not lawful to speak, he killed Achelous and the guest-slaying Busiris. He crossed the mountains to get water that, according to the story, could speak. Despite being capable of such great and numerous deeds, how childishly he was delighted to be stunned by the cymbals of the satyrs, overcome by the love of woman, and struck on the hips by the laughing Lyda! In the end, unable to remove the tunic of Nessus, he kindled his own funeral pyre and died.

Let Vulcan abandon his envy and not be jealous if he is disliked for being old and club-footed, while Mars is loved for being young and handsome.

Therefore, Greeks, since your gods are found guilty of intemperance and your heroes are shown to be effeminate, as the histories on which your dramas are based declare—such as the curse of Atreus, the bed of Thyestes, and the corruption in the house of Pelops, as well as Danaus killing out of hatred and making Ægyptus childless in his rage, and the Furies spreading the Thyestean banquet.

Procne still flies around lamenting to this day, and her sister from Athens cries out with her tongue cut out. Why is there even a need to speak of the torment of Œdipus, the murder of Laius, the marriage to his mother, and the mutual slaughter of those who were both his brothers and his sons?

I HAVE COME TO HATE YOUR PUBLIC GATHERINGS: They are filled with excessive feasting, seductive music that incites lustful actions, pointless and extravagant anointings, and adornment with garlands. You drive away shame with such a mass of evils, filling your minds with them and being swept away by excess, engaging commonly in wicked and senseless fornication. Moreover, why are you, as a Greek, angry at your son when he imitates Jupiter, rebels against you, and wrongs you by taking your wife? Why do you consider him an enemy while worshipping one like him? Why do you criticize your wife for living unchastely, yet honor Venus with shrines? If others had recounted these things, they might have seemed merely slanderous accusations rather than truth. But now, your own poets sing of these things, and your histories loudly proclaim them.

THEREFORE: you Greeks, come and partake of incomparable wisdom, and be instructed by the Divine Word, and acquaint yourselves with the immortal King; and do not regard those men as heroes who slaughter entire nations. For our own Ruler, the Divine Word, who even now constantly aids us, does not desire physical strength and beauty, nor the proud spirit of earthly nobility, but a pure soul, fortified by holiness, and the commands of our King—holy actions—because through the Word, power fills the soul.

O trumpet of peace to the soul at war! O weapon that drives away terrible passions! O instruction that quenches the innate fire of the soul! The Word influences not by making poets, nor equipping philosophers or skilled orators, but by its teaching, it makes mortals immortal, turns mortals into gods, and transports them from the earth to the realms above Olympus. Come, be taught; become as I am, for I, too, was as you are. These have conquered me—the divinity of the instruction and the power of the Word: for just as a skilled serpent-charmer lures the terrible reptile from its den and causes it to flee, so the Word drives the fearful passions of our sensual nature from the depths of the soul; first driving forth lust, through which every ill arises—hatreds, strife, envy, rivalries, anger, and the like.

Once lust is banished, the soul becomes calm and serene. And being freed from the ills in which it was deeply submerged, it returns to Him who made it. For it is fitting that it be restored to the state from which it departed, the state where every soul once was or is.