The Pagan Religion, poets and philosophy (in Italian
The Pagan religious thoughts about Hesiod’s Theogony - General index
Issues christians (and Plato) have in reading Hesiod
Pagan Religion and Hesiod’s Theogony
While reading the images of Theogony we face many issues. The first and more important is the timelessness of the actions of the GODS. The GODS act outside of a definite time. Even though when generating they cause a temporal sequence to appear, actually this action happens outside time. When does GAIA generate CRONUS? CRONUS is being continuously generated by GAIA’s activity. She continuously generates CRONUS and continuously gives CRONUS the scythe to allow him impose himself. Cronus is a subject in himself, but Cronus’ body is the body of every changing and transforming subject in the universe. Cronus is time, is changing, is a subject turning into another subject transforming itself in changing. When was the Titan Cronus born? In the same moment when the change, the transformation, the time experienced by transforming subjects began in the universe. Cronus is born again with every subject that changes from the moment it is born and leads the subjects to use their will, their Gaia’s scythe, to expand themselves into the world. When was APHRODITE born? In every moment APHRODITE rises from the water through every single Being in the universe who feels desire. He who feels desire, expresses Aphrodite, nourishes her, and by nourishing her he nourishes himself with the rising emotion. When does Prometheus steal the fire of knowledge from the GODS to give it to Human Beings? Was it yesterday, is it today? In every moment a Prometheus steals the fire of knowledge to take possession of it and share his discoveries with Human Beings.
Everyone can recognize a limited number of deities for a limited number of action in which we can distinguish the deities while constructing themselves. We can discern the Deities when led by our interests and aims, but those actions are often the raison d'être of the deity or the way the deity’s body expresses. I can perceive the Earth as a Being only in relation with my life. I can’t catch the Earth-Being for herself and for all the determinations she expresses. But the fact that a Human Being conceives the Earth-Being as related to his/her life, makes the Human Being a GOD him/herself who recognizes another GOD and takes part in a divine relation, a relation that is a GOD itself: the Earth-Being as a conscious and intelligent Being is the objectivity in which the Nature as a Being developes herself. The Human Being perceives the Earth as “mother” because from her persistence the Beings of the Nature are born. Allowing the generation, and being such a mother, the Earth-Being shows an aspect of the relation with the Nature-Being. HERA, the Nature-Being, continuously expresses herself in this relation with RHEA, the Earth-Being who is her mother, and in this relation Hera and Rhea walk together, changing themselves into the infinite of changes.
Another important aspect to keep in mind in analyzing the Theogony consists in understanding that, in the Religion of Myth, in Pagan Religion, when dealing with men and Gods we deal with mortals and immortals. In short, EVERYONE IS BORN, but not everyone dies. The Gods are born, they have a beginning like men and men, like every other natural being, can become immortals.
In Theogony we find the idea of an “eternal present time” in which the Gods act. When do the Gods act? Here, now! The “eternal present time” is simply the continue activity of the GODS while the unconscious, whose substance is GAIA, turns into consciousnesses led by NEED first and then AIM expressed through their own need to expand themselves. Through their will to exist.
Another issue is the physical representation of Gods. The Gods are usually represented in the form given by each single culture. These Gods, when generating, make love, have physical intercourses. They have passions, desires, projects and try to reach more or less defined goals. The sexual intercourse represents the act that generates new Gods and this is hard to understand for the christians, being so detached from his own sexuality.
This is the reason why the analysis of Hesiod’s Theogony can’t proceed along a time sequence, but shows images of things out of time, always present and always happening. The poet reads these images as epic tales and the Apprentice Sorcerer sees them as the life adaptation processes, in the whole objectivity in which the Consciousness takes form, grows and changes. They represent the construction and destruction of opportunities through which the matter, made by Vital Fource which has been given the name of Gaia, develops an awareness of its own and constructs the best possible conditions so that this development of consciousness can continue, bringing the matter from unawareness to awareness. The construction of the best possible conditions is made by using the will of Self-Consciousnesses that emerged from Gaia. The challenges they state to life, the need of adaptation the apply, all these construct the best possible conditions so that other Beings can grow, changing unconscious matter in conscious matter. The construction of the best possible conditions in which the GODS can generate is made by using the will of the already existing GODS and of the changes they make.
There is always somewhere a primordial soup to emerge from. This primordial soup bubbles with forces and tensions which are expression of all the TITAN GODS who compose it. In that primordial soup all paths take place, along which the Self Consciousnesses shape themselves, whatever their nature may be, beginning the road to their absolute, their TERMINIUS! It was a primordial soup that from which GAIA and STARRY URANUS put the bases so that the Stars took Consciousness of Themselves and began their path in the infinite of changes; the great HERA is a primordial soup herself, in which the Beings of Nature elbow their way through, constructing their path in the infinite of changes, their TERMINIUS! A primordial soup made of TITANS from which Self-Consciousnesses emerge to become TITANS themselves!
Even though I began working at the Theogony thinking of it as of a linear path from dark EREBUS to ZEUS’s triumph, it’s not actually like this. Dark EREBUS and wide TARTARUS persist while TYPHON faces ZEUS to dethrone him and at the same time PROMETHEUS deceives ZEUS about the quality of what is burnt in sacrifice, APHRODITE rises from water, RHEA gives CHRONUS a stone and EROS shows himself.
Everything happens at the same time. All the GODS are present: each of them has gifts and breed. ZEUS opens the doors of Olympus to everyone, so that nobody is kept out. The Olympus is around us and so are the GODS. Their work shows itself in an infinite present in which we show our own action. There will be a time in which TYPHON will slash ZEUS, but not now. Not in this present time. This present time expresses the GODS by which TYPHON is imprisoned under a volcano. In this present time, APHRODITE rises from waters. This present time manifests CHRONUS’s offsprings. This present time manifests these paths of development of these GODS’ Self Consciousness and Awareness.
Even though I try to follow a sequence in the interpretation of Theogony, this won’t be possible all the time because in visions the time as a measure of changes, as we objectively conceive it, doesn’t exist (but changes exist).
Note made on the 03rd April 2000 – rewriting begun on the 18th September 2014
Note: Quotes from Hesiod’s Theogony in this English version of my work are from Hesiod, the Homeric hymns and homerica translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White in 1914. Though, where I thought it could be more adherent, I made some corrections to this very old translation, like writing Gaia and Uranus instead of Earth and Heaven
Marghera 18th September 2014
Go to index of all pages Commentary to Hesiod's Theogony La Stirpe dei Titani
Published first on 27th December 1999 – revised starting on 17th September 2014
Marghera (Venice) 17th September 2014
Tradução para o português A dificuldade que o homem educado no cristianismo encontra na Teogonia de Hesíodo
This page in Italian Le difficoltà della cultura attuale nell'interpretare la Teogonia di Esiodo
Go to the general index of the topics covered by Claudio Simeoni
Presentation of the book "La stirpe dei Titani" (The lineage of the Titans) by Claudio Simeoni
