Hortatory Address to the Greeks

NOT ONLY PLATO: but Homer also, having received similar enlightenment in Egypt, said that Tityus was punished in the same way. For Ulysses speaks to Alcinous when he recounts his visions in the land of the dead: “There Tityus, large and long, bound in chains, spreads across nine acres of infernal ground; Two ravenous vultures, furious for their food, scream over the fiend and feast on his blood, endlessly tearing at the liver in his chest. The immortal liver grows back and provides an eternal feast.”

IT IS CLEAR THAT IT IS NOT THE SOUL: but the body, which has a liver. Similarly, Homer described both Sisyphus and Tantalus as suffering punishment with the body. Diodorus, a highly respected historian, clearly shows us that Homer had been in Egypt and incorporated much of what he learned there into his own work. He stated that while in Egypt, Homer learned that Helen received a drug from Theon’s wife, Polydamna, which eased all sorrow and melancholy and caused forgetfulness of all troubles, and brought it to Sparta.

Homer recounted that Helen used this drug to end Menelaus's lamentation caused by Telemachus's presence. He also referred to Venus as "golden" based on what he saw in Egypt, where there was a temple called "the temple of golden Venus" and a plain named "the plain of golden Venus." Why do I mention this? To show that the poet incorporated much from the divine writings of the prophets into his work. First, he included what Moses had described as the beginning of the world's creation.

Moses wrote, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," then the sun, the moon, and the stars. Having learned this in Egypt and being greatly impressed with what Moses wrote in the Genesis of the world, Homer fictionalized that Vulcan fashioned on Achilles' shield a representation of the world's creation. He wrote: "There he described the earth, the heaven, the sea, the sun that never rests, and the full-orbed moon; there also, all the stars which, like a radiant crown, encircle the skies."

HE ALSO ARRANGED FOR THE GARDEN OF ALCINOUS TO RESEMBLE PARADISE: and through this resemblance, he depicted it as ever-blooming and full of all fruits. He wrote:

"Tall thriving trees acknowledged the fruitful soil; the reddening apple ripens here to gold. Here the blue fig overflows with luscious juice, and the full pomegranate glows a deeper red; the branch here bends beneath the weighty pear, and verdant olives flourish all year round. The balmy spirit of the western breeze eternally breathes on fruits, ensuring they do not fail; each dropping pear is followed by another, apples succeed apples, figs follow figs. The same mild season causes the blooms to blossom, the buds to harden, and the fruits to grow. Here arranged vines appear in equal ranks, with all the united labors of the year. Some run to unload the fertile branches, some dry the darkening clusters in the sun, others join to tread the liquid harvest. The presses groan, foaming with floods of wine. Here are the vines in early flower discovered, here grapes discolored on the sunny side, and there dyed in autumn’s richest purple."

Do not these words clearly mirror what the first prophet Moses said about Paradise? And if someone wants to learn about the construction of the tower by which people of that time thought they could reach heaven, they will find a reasonably accurate allegorical imitation of this in what the poet attributed to Otus and Ephialtes. For he wrote about them as follows: "Proud of their strength, and more than mortal size, the gods they challenge, and aim for the skies. Olympus tottering under Ossa stood; on Ossa, Pelion nods with all its wood."

THE SAME IS TRUE REGARDING THE ENEMY OF MANKIND WHO WAS CAST OUT OF HEAVEN: whom the Sacred Scriptures call the Devil, a name he earned from his first act of devilry against man. If anyone carefully considers this, they would find that the poet, although never explicitly mentioning the name "the devil," gives him a name based on his most wicked action. For the poet, calling him Ate, says that he was thrown from heaven by their god, as if he had a clear recollection of the words Isaiah the prophet spoke about him. He wrote this in his poem: “And, seizing by her glossy locks the goddess Ate, in his anger he swore that never to the starry skies again, and the Olympian heights, would he allow the universal mischief to return. Then, whirling her around, he cast her down to earth. She, mingling with all works of men, caused many a pang to Jove.”