-Thucydides

I think the difference is that Greek heroism is solitary, whereas the kind of heroism we aspire to is always binary–I am exalted in God and He in me. Or, one might say, the difference is that fame for the Greeks was the plaudits of the many and a repute that went down into history. For us fame is the plaudits of the One and a repute in eternity. ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant,’ etc.

You ask how Homeric fame is to be found while cultivating humility and quiet labor. The answer, I think, is one of the Dominical paradoxes–he who would be famous eternally must be willing to sacrifice that desire. Then he (or she) will achieve it.

By that I mean that the Christianity of the apostasy took the God of Plato and Plotinus (the “One” or the “Good”) and made that equivalent to the Hebrew God. This fundamental decision in large measure followed the gnostic heresy despite a careful rejection of anything that couldn’t be reconciled in some fashion to the scriptures. (Which the gnostics were far less inclined to do) I think that many of the resultant doctrines led to many of the problems that Mormons perceive in Christianity.

In a way they made God into what was “dead,” leading down the genealogical line most of us are familiar with in Nietzsche. Inexorably this led to the modernist perspective on God found in Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel and to it being very hard to accept this kind of God.

By taking us through a War of the Gods over the creation of godlike mankind Milton returns to the great megamyth: men are somehow gods. This conflict was the Mesopatamion myth and of course the Greek myth and the apocraphal Hebrew and Christian myths.

Generally speaking, you have isolated what I called in my dissertation the three salvations that must be together for any of them to be fully capable of eliciting eternal joy : Individual Salvation (Greek: A glorious history, run the race, finished the course, have the crown), Kinship Salvation (Hebrew: A glorious posterity, a blessing of procreating the self with another and endless seeds), and Friendship Salvation (Christian: A glorious admiration and recreation of abundance among what Jesus called his friends.) Marriage is so central to the three salvations because it combines individual stories to become Our Story of Glory. It combines genes to procereate children and to socialize into kinship relations. It is the (when it really works) also a haven for all the joy of friendship.

The reason J. Smith and his doctrines are so rich is that they understand all these salvations need each other for a fullness of joy. The temple worship places these in perspective. We have yet to receive the fullness of revelation respecting Heavenly Parents, but when we do (Section 140 of the D&C?) another great and important truth will show the fullness of the gospel. The Catholics and many other religious traditions developed strong feminine divinities (yes, Mary is a goddess if there ever was one . . . might as well say it out loud and pray to her) to fill the obvious hole in the story. So J. Smith was cut off a bit early in 1844, but the church is pregnant by him and has begun to deliver full story by placing Heavenly Parents at the top of The Declaration to World on the Family a few years ago.

Yes, the poet’s story is that which moves the heart, and makes our pasts seem valuable. When we get our voices back in the next life, we will all sing our stories like Homer. Or read them out of books of remembrance that delight us with their power. (I will be hiding under a mountain when mine is read, but some will be glorious tales.)

But the legacy of Greece that survived Alexander was Socratic or Platonic, not Achillean. If you want to see a somewhat *Platonic* form of heroism look at Virgil’s figure of Aeneas. More importantly, Plato had a good point about both Greek gods and their heroes! If being godlike means being powerful but also capricious, destructive, and having an arrogant disregard for the most basic moral norms of society (like those governing burial of the dead), then I don’t care how godlike Achilles is, that’s not the kind of god I want to be. I tend to agree with the way Milton portrays the Greek gods, and their heroes, in Paradies Lost–that they are a lot more like devils or demons than gods. BTW, there is one somewhat Christian or Mormon part of the Iliad, but it’s not Achilles or any other of the ‘godlike heroes’, I’d say it’s the death of Sarpedon, Zeus’s son, and Zeus’s reaction to it.

Another problem is that in the Homeric view of the afterlife, the dead are shades or shadows, and, well, the afterlife stinks except for the *very* few (like Heracles) who are made gods when they die. Heroes are godlike in mortality, miserable and half-alive after death. Mormons hope to be the reverse–sinning but repentant and humble servants in this life, godlike or on the way to it in the next.

Both Mormons and traditional Christians hold humility (very un-Greek, however you slice it) as a virtue. But I also think that a certain kind of Christian heroism is not exclusive to Mormonism. And yet we don’t have to go to Homer for comparisions of people who lived for a certain kind of ‘glory’. The way Paul talks about his own missionary work is very often heroic, and in the Catholic tradition the superhuman virtue of the saints operates in tension with Christian humility. But in these cases it’s a uniquely *Christian* heroism that is much more like Joseph Smith, as when Paul understands his “thorn in the flesh” as a messanger of Satan, but something that is important for him “lest [he] be exalted above measure”.

One possibility is that the three concepts may be linked, especially if we consider the “as God is, man may become” statements. How best to have innumerable posterity? Become a God. Similarly, in the plan of salvation death is really kind of irrelevant, and the ultimate Homeric glory would be to be praised _forever_ — again, become a God. However, I don’t think this fully unifies the ideas — there is just too much discussion on glory and praise of men.

In particular, it seems to me that this theme comes up in hymns (where it is probably a natural fit anyway). Particularly Mormon hymns that emphasize earthly glory include the obvious “Praise to the Man” with the Earth lauding his fame, and millions knowing him. Also, I have always been fascinated by the earthly-glory aspect of “Jesus, Once of Humble Birth” which seems dominant. Of all of Jesus’s attributes, his earthly glory seems one of the less significant. (In fact, that entire hymn seems to have the tone of a religious, class-reunion comeuppance story, of the “You didn’t date me when you had the chance to, and now I’m a millionaire” type. I think comeuppance is probably Homeric, as that term is being used here).

Having said that though the question of the Greek and Hebrew in one reminds me of similar questions (and books) about Derrida. Of course the parallels are quite different. But this desire to see one as the unification of two (apparently) opposed traditions is strong. One wonders if this isn’t some Hegelian remnant in history that wants to reconcile the thesis and anti-thesis. And, in a way, I suppose that lines up with Joseph’s own thought.

Regarding Kaimi’s comment on Jesus. While his mortality might from one perspective be the “less significant,” from a human perspective I think it the most significant. Indeed I think it was traditional Christianity’s feeling very uncomfortable with the humanity of God that led to many tendencies. (i.e. many human qualities are denied of Christ)

“Our venture in revolution and outlawry
Has justified itself in freedom’s story
Right down to now in glory upon glory.”

I suppose it is just something I’ve been considering given this attempt in philosophy the past few years to discuss thinkers in terms of the Hebrew and Greek mind.

The problem with this view is, of course, that Nephi isn’t exactly positive towards the Hebrew way of speaking and thinking, considering it at best unnecessarily complex. Likewise when Greek is connected to either science or apostasy it involves far more than a metaphor and often a distortion.

I recognize not everyone does this and that sometimes the taxonomy can be helpful. (It’s certainly been helpful for me at times) But I guess I’ve just become aware of the dangers when I see the metaphors and taxonomy put to uses they ought not.