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Hortatory Address to the Greeks
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Chapter 30: Homer's Understanding of Human Origin.
HE WAS CLEARLY MISTAKEN IN THE SAME WAY ABOUT THE EARTH: heaven, and man. He believed that there were “ideas” of these. When Moses wrote, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” and then added, “And the earth was invisible and unfashioned,” he thought this referred to a pre-existing earth described by, “The earth was,” because Moses said, “And the earth was invisible and unfashioned.” He believed that the earth, referred to in “God created the heaven and the earth,” was the earth we experience through our senses, and that God made it according to a pre-existing form.
Similarly, he thought the created heaven, which he called the firmament, was what our senses perceive, whereas the heaven the mind perceives is what the prophet referred to as, “The heaven of heavens is the Lord’s, but the earth He has given to the children of men.” The same applies to man: Moses first mentions the name man, and then, after many other creations, refers to the formation of man, saying, “And God made man, taking dust from the earth.” He believed that the first man named existed before the man who was made, and that the one formed from the earth was later made according to a pre-existing form.
Homer, who had learned from the ancient and divine history that says, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” also describes the lifeless body of Hector as dumb clay. Condemning Achilles for dragging Hector's corpse, he writes: “On the dumb clay he cast indignity, blinded with rage.”
AND AGAIN: somewhere else, he introduces Menelaus, addressing those who were not accepting Hector’s challenge to single combat with fitting eagerness, saying, “To earth and water may you all return.”
TRANSFORMING THEM IN HIS VIOLENT RAGE BACK TO THEIR ORIGINAL AND PRISTINE FORM FROM EARTH: Homer and Plato, having learned these things in Egypt from the ancient histories, wrote them in their own words.