Parallel Myths (5 page)
Authors: J.F. Bierlein
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“Achilles’ heel” comes from the Homeric epic. The gods had advised Achilles’ mother that he would be impervious to injury if bathed in a sacred pool. His entire body was invulnerable to spears and arrows, except for his heel, which is the spot where his mother held him as she dipped him in the water. Needless to say, only a wound to the heel could kill him. Achilles’ tendon is likewise named for him.
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An interesting insight into anthropomorphism is given by the German-born American theologian Paul Tillich in volume I of his
Systematic Theology:
The gods are subpersonal and suprapersonal at one and the same time. Animal-gods are not deified brutes; they are expressions of man’s ultimate concern symbolized in various forms of animal vitality. This animal vitality stands for a transhuman, divine-demonic vitality. The stars as gods are not deified astral bodies; they are expressions of man’s ultimate concern symbolized in the order of the stars and in their creative and destructive power. The subhuman-superhuman character of the mythological gods is a protest against the reduction of divine power to human measure. In the moment when this protest loses its effectiveness, the gods become glorified men rather than gods…. Therefore religion imagines divine personalities whose qualities disrupt and transcend their personal form in every respect. They are subpersonal or transpersonal personalities, a paradoxical combination which mirrors the tension between the concrete and the ultimate in man’s ultimate concern and in every type of the idea of God.
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Ha loshen ha kodesh: Hebrew, “the holy tongue.” Yiddish, the German-derived “secular” language of the Central and Eastern European Jews, is
mama loshen
, or “the mother tongue.”
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From Robert Graves,
The White Goddess
.
In India, the same pattern holds true and appears to be influenced by ancient Babylonia:
Hindi
MANGALVAAR
—Mangal, the planet Mars.
BUDHVAAR
—Budh, the planet Neptune.
BRIHISPATIVAAR
—Brihispati, the planet Jupiter, the priest of the gods (devas).
SHUKRAVAAR
—Shukra, the planet Venus
(Sanskrit:
Shukravaasarah).
SHANIVAAR
—Shani, the planet Saturn
(Sanskrit:
Shanivaasarah).
Sanskrit
INDUVAASARAH
—Indra, the sky god.
GURUHVAASARAH
—Guruh, the planet Jupiter.
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A.D., Anno Domini—Latin: “The Year of the Lord;”
B.C.
—“Before Christ.”
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In India, “Brahman” is the eternal, absolute; “Brahma” is the form “Brahman” takes as Creator.
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Or perhaps they never accepted it, their own national myths (i.e., Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek) being stronger.
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German: “Vocation Tragedy.”
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The Ennobucht is an estuary on the Baltic Sea in northern Germany.
The word
pantheon
comes from the Greek
pan
, meaning “all,” and
theon
, meaning “gods.” A pantheon is thus a collection of gods, the cast of characters of the myths.
Greek myth has many minor gods and goddesses, but the chief gods were the Olympian twelve, said to live at the summit of Mount Olympus in Greece, and the two gods of earth. The Latin (Roman) names of these gods are given in parentheses.
The Olympian Twelve
Zeus (Jupiter, Jove)
His name means “bright sky” in archaic Greek. He is the thunderbolt-wielding King of the Gods who overcame the Titans, an earlier race of giants, to establish his authority over the universe. His name is akin to the Latin
deus
, meaning “god” and the Sanskrit (Indian)
Dyaus
, the name of an early Indian sky-god.
Zeus cast lots with his two brothers over the domains. His brother Poseidon won mastery of the sea, and the other brother, Hades, became
lord of the Underworld. Zeus is master of both the skies and the land surface of the earth.
Hera (Juno)
The wife and twin sister of Zeus, she is frequently angered by her husband’s adultery, but at no time does she leave him. However, she has no fear of him and often scolds him.
Her name means “protectress” in Greek, and she is worshiped as the patroness of brides on their wedding night, of mothers in childbirth, and of nurses. She can renew her virginity periodically by bathing in a sacred spring. Wives appeal to her for revenge against their erring husbands.
Aphrodite (Venus)
Her name means “born of foam,” as she is said to have risen naked from the foam of the sea, a fully mature woman, riding on a scallop shell.
She is the goddess of beauty and sexual desire. She is analogous to the Middle Eastern fertility goddesses Ishtar, Ashtaroth, and Astarte.
Her son is Eros (Cupid), the god of love, whose irresistible arrows cause mortals to fall hopelessly in love.
Zeus gave Aphrodite in marriage to Hephaestus, the crippled god of the forge, but she bore children fathered through an adulterous union with Ares (Mars), the god of war.
Her Latin name, Venus, is the root of
venereal disease
.
Hermes (Mercury)
His name means “pillar” or “phallus.”
The son of Zeus by a nymph named Maia, he is the god of the crossroads and of commerce, a patron of travel and thieves, and is the messenger of the gods. He is pictured as having winged feet, and is a clever trickster.
Apollo
His name, which is the same in Latin, means either “apple man” or “destroyer.” The son of Zeus by Leto, Apollo is a sun-god, driving the chariot of the sun across the heavens. He is the patron of both athletic contests and the arts. He speaks through the oracle at Delphi, called “the Pythoness.” His twin sister is Artemis.
Apollo supplanted an earlier Greek sun-god, Helios (Sol), who was a personification of the heavenly body. One of his names is Phoebus, meaning “the shining one.”
Artemis (Diana)
Twin sister of Apollo, a moon goddess, patroness of small children and hunters, she is a perpetual virgin. Among her names is Phoebe, the feminine version of Phoebus. Sacred to the people of Ephesus, she is prominently mentioned in the account of Saint Paul’s mission to the Ephesians in the biblical Book of Acts.
Ares (Mars)
His name means “warrior.” He is the bloodthirsty, hard-drinking, dishonest, and temperamental god of war, thoroughly unpopular among the other Olympian gods. His sister is Eris, meaning “discord.” He is said to be a brother of Zeus and Hera.
Hestia (Vesta)
Her name means “hearth,” and she is the patroness of the home and hearth. She is as gentle and kind as Ares is cruel. She never causes strife and is said to have invented the arts of home building.
Poseidon (Neptune)
Robert Graves claims that Poseidon’s name is a derivative of
potidan
, or “he who gives to drink.” Poseidon is the god of the sea, brother of Hades and Zeus.
Hades (Pluto)
His name means “blind.” A brother of Zeus, he is the lord of the Underworld, the home of the dead. His Latin name, Pluto, means “rich” in Greek, reflecting that all the wealth of the mines under the earth is his. He is also therefore the god of wealth. His wife is Persephone or Kore, Proserpina in Latin.
Athena (Minerva)
According to Graves, her name comes from the Sumerian
anatha
, or “queen of heaven.” Another of her names, Pallas, means “maiden” in Greek. She was said to have been born in a curious way: Zeus was suffering from a terrible headache and Athena emerged from his head, fully grown, wearing a suit of armor.
The patroness of the city of Athens, she is the goddess of wisdom and the inventor of the flute, the trumpet, the plow, the rake, the ox yoke, the horse bridle, the chariot, and the ship. She created numbers and mathematics, as well as cooking, weaving, and spinning. She is also the goddess of justice, and is the only Olympian to have ever defeated Ares in battle. She is a perpetual virgin, and the owl, still considered “wise,” is her symbol.
Hephaestus (Vulcan)
His name may be a contraction of
hemero-phaestos
, or “he who shines by day.” He is the son of Zeus and the husband of Aphrodite.
Depicted as ugly, he is the lame god of the forge, inventor of metalworking, and patron of smiths. He is the force behind the
volcano
, which comes from his Latin name, Vulcan. Today, the process of making rubber durable, stable, and strong by heat treating is called “vulcanization.”
The Two Earth Gods
Demeter (Ceres)
Her name means “barley mother.” She is the goddess of agriculture and may well be a survival of an ancient mother goddess. The word
cereal
comes from her Latin name, Ceres, as does the modern Spanish word
cerveza
, meaning “beer.” It is she who makes the seeds grow.
Dionysus (Bacchus)
His name means “lame deity.” He is the god of the vine, grapes, and wine, as well as the god of theater. His temple at Eleusis was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Drunken revelries are still called “Bacchanalia,” recalling an ancient Roman celebration in his honor. Dionysus is a root of the common man’s name Dennis or Denis.
The inclusion of Demeter and Dionysus in any list of important deities tells us much about the Greek way of life.
Bread and wine were staples of the Greek and Roman diets. In the myths, one reads of someone becoming drunk by drinking “unmixed” wine, as wine was customarily cut with water to reduce its potency for ordinary household use, as is still common in France and Spain today.
A Modern Pantheon?
… though the West is nominally Christian, we have come to be governed, in practice, by the unholy triumdivate
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of Pluto god of wealth, Apollo god of science, and Mercury god of thieves. To make matters worse, dissension and jealousy rage openly between these three, with Mercury and Pluto blackguarding each other, while Apollo wields the atomic bomb as if it were a thun derbolt;
for since the Age of Reason was heralded by his eighteenth-century philosophers, he has seated himself on the vacant throne of Zeus (temporarily indisposed) as Triumdival Regent.—Robert Graves,
The White Goddess
Odin (in German, Wotan)
Odin is the one-eyed ruler of the gods. He has one eye after bartering the other for a drink at Mimir’s well of wisdom. Two ravens fly around the world gathering information for him. He is portrayed as wise and generally just.
Frey
The German and Scandinavian god of agriculture, trade, and peace. The modern German words
frei
and
Freiheit
—and their English counterparts,
free
and
freedom
—are related to his name.
Freya, Freja
The sister of Frey, a goddess of beauty and love.
Frigga
A German and Old English version of Freya or Freja, who may have been a separate goddess at one time. The Norse Frigga is the wife of Odin, a separate deity from Freya.
Tyr, Tiw
The god of war. He was more popular among the Germans and Anglo-Saxons, as he seldom appears in Scandinavian mythology.
Loki (in German, Loge)
A trickster, the source of deception and harm to the gods.
Hel
Odin’s sister, who oversees the Underworld, where the dead dwell. She is the source of the German word
Hölle
and its English counterpart,
hell
.
The great absolute and eternal God is Brahman, called the Divine Self. However, Hinduism may take monotheistic forms, in that Brahman is ultimately considered by most Hindus as God, or even the “great force” behind God and the gods, and polytheistic, in that Brahman is manifested through many avatars, or incarnations, that are worshipped by the masses.
The Trimurti (“threefold statue”), or “trinity,” of the Hindu godhead consists of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. All three of these are but mere incarnations of Brahman, the Eternal and Absolute, and all are male deities who have female counterparts, or “shaktis.” The shakti of Shiva is Mahadevi (The Great Goddess), who is also called Jagan-Mata (“Mother of the World”). The Great Goddess is worshiped as the Supreme Being by certain sects in India. The shakti of Brahma is Sarasvati, while that of Vishnu is Lakshmi. All of these shaktis are worshiped by their own small sects.
The two great Hindu epics are
The Ramayana
and
The Mahabharata
, the latter made famous by a modern dramatization by Peter Brook. In both epics, Vishnu has taken human form to preserve mankind, as Rama in the first one, and as Krishna in
The Mahabharata
.
There are other Hindu deities:
Brihaspati, the planet Jupiter, priest of the gods.
Indra, the sky-god.
Varuna, a Sanskrit name closely related to the Greek Uranus, and the chief of the early Hindu pantheon; also called “Father Heaven.”
Kubera, a god of wealth.
Rudra, the storm-god, also an avatar of Shiva that destroys the world.
Pushan, the guardian of the flocks.
the three sons of Shiva and his shakti, Parvati (or Mahadevi):
Ganesha, the very popular elephant-headed god of wisdom (in India, when a statue of Ganesha is turned upside down, it means that a shop has gone bankrupt).
Skanda (or Kumara), a god of war.
Kamadeva, a god of love, and his wife, Rati (“sexual desire”); Kamadeva literally means “love god,” and the ancient Indian sex manual,
The Kamasutra
, means “love chapters.”
