Monday, April 22, 2013

Lord of, well, tons of stuff

If there is one God among the Hellenic pantheon that can be said to be like the Hindu “God", or the all encompassing “God" of the Jews and Moslems, it is Zeus.

If there is a title or epithet available, odds are Zeus has been referred to by it at one time or another. Underworld? Yup. Heaven? Yup. Wisdom? Yup. Healer? Yup. Odds are he has the title.

But we should remember too that if you try hard enough, you can ascribe many seemingly odd titles and epithets to almost any of the Olympian gods, so to the ancient Hellenes it was not at all odd that a deity would have so many titles, some of which might contradict each other.

It is important to remember that the titles of the gods are signed to the gods as a result of perceived action, and Zeus, being perhaps the most widely worshipped of the Greek gods, would, over a period of two thousand years, have accumulated a huge variety of them.

So, s I sit here and think about Zeus, and how he fits into our religion, the answer is he fits in everywhere.

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