... on Two Very Different Parts of "Greek Mythology"

Miscellaneous Myths: Hippolytus
Overly Sarcastic Productions | 4.I.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA_OXdcTNr8

Suppose that:

a) this happened (after all Theseus is in the series of Athenian kings between Cecrops and Codrus)
b) Christianity is true, so Artemis, Aphrodite and Poseidon can't per se be Artemis, Aphrodite and Poseidon ...

What happened?

Theseus had a deal with the devil whom he took for his "father" appearing as Poseidon. The devil sent another demon to plague his second wife with incestuous lust. He counted on the outcome, and warning Theseus to reconsider was a token gesture.

Meanwhile, was Hippolytus also fooled by a demon, or was Artemis sth else, perhaps even a fake explanation for sth else?

Was Hippolytus, for instance, practising some "goy Judaism"?

Either way, when another Hippolytus who was a Christian bishop was sentenced to death, his persecutor recalled this reference and made sure St. Hippolytus was killed in a near identic manner to this older Hippolytus.

NB, when I speak of "goy Judaism", since this was BC, it did obviously not involve any denial of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reading Euripides' work was one of the marking moments of my studies in Greek at University : often marking moments were outside studies, but this (as well as Oedipus Rex & Oedipus Coloneus) actually made me see things in a new way.

It may have helped that my Latin docent (a Catholic priest, ok, Novus Ordo / Vatican II Sect priest) when commenting on Aeneid VI compared the Cumean Sibyl to modern mediums in Voodoo and things.

Mythology was no more a nice play in fairy-tales with added fancy names. Not Greek mythology at any rate.

Obviously, since Tuor meeting Ulmo at Nevrast is loosely based on Theseus meeting Poseidon at Troizen years before this happens, I suddenly find my sympathy with Tolkien's mythological inspirations a bit waning at this exact point.

Dialogue

Alex Middleton

Good for you! I’m gonna keep my Greek mythology and my Christian mythology separate if it’s all the same with you :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Alex Middleton If you consider Christianity a "mythology" you obviously keep it separate.

Reality cannot be separate from any thing, not even fake realities of mythology.

I am no inquisitor and the Church has not explicitated how each false religion connects to the reality of Christianity.

St. Francis Xavier considered Buddha a fable, because no man lives 9000 years or in different incarnations. I consider "the last incarnation" = Siddharta Gautama = real person.

Not because I believe Buddhism.

Many Church Fathers who spoke out about such matters had similar opinions about heros of Greek heroic legend. To mine, not to St Francis Xaver's about Buddha.

Miscellaneous Myths: The Theogony (Greek Creation Myth)
Overly Sarcastic Productions | 30.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9RGT0ICHpY

You are really sure Hesiod didn't have supernatural help from the Nine Muses?

I mean, beautiful women who sang hymns to divers gods ending with Cronus of the crooked thoughts (Kronon ankylometen) could be demons or witches beguiling him.

Parallels do come to mind, like Numa Pompilius receiving instructions on divination or Mohammed and Joseph Smith getting revelations from fake angels.

Either way, it's a nice touch of irony, when the real "theogony" as in birth of the one True God in Bethlehem happened, shepherds were involved too (and much more respected than Hesiod was by the Muses).

Were you aware that where Greek myth has three generations from first to present high god (Ouranos, Kronos, Zeus) - Hittite myth has I recall only two. Teshub would be on the Kronos side in relation to Ouranos or on the Zeus side in relation to Kronos.

Makes me wonder whether Mycenean Achaeans really had Zeus as high god or more like Kronos = Teshub.

And whether part of what Hesiod did was making the religious outlook somewhat less disgusting.

I mean after Kronos castrated his father, and swallowed his children, what sane man would want him as a deity to worship more than others?

Or to worship at all, but it seems Greeks wouldn't ditch him ... but I am theorising and reconstructing.

Now, Greeks and Romans did meet people whom they considered as in fact having .... Kronos as high god.

Carthaginian worship of Moloch.

"Nice touch" to have Gaia use words like modern Neo-Malthusianism. Ultimately that is devil worship, just like worshipping Kronos was.