Greek Religion Homer and Hesiod 30 marker on Justice
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Greek Religion
Institution
OCR
Exemplar essay to the question: 'A Greek reading Homer or Hesiod could hope for his gods to be fair arbiters of justice.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? Use primary as well as secondary sources to support your argument. (You may use evidence from the Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymn...
'A Greek reading Homer or Hesiod could hope for his gods to be fair arbiters of
justice.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? Use primary as well as
secondary sources to support your argument. (You may use evidence from the Iliad,
Odyssey, Homeric Hymns, Theogony, and Works & Days.)
In my opinion a Greek reading Homer or Hesiod may have hope for a fair and just
treatment but in reality, the Greek would feel secure in this hopefulness because it
can’t be backed up by the writings of Homer and Hesiod. This is shown by the unjust
consequences for all of mortals because of one character and the unjustness of the
characters escaping justifiable punishments. On the other hand, they may believe
that they will have because of fate they can will not have hope because fate has
already written their lives.
I feel as though it depends on how the Greeks see’s justice and whether they see it
from a divine perspective or a personal perspective Within the Greek society a god
was above the human understanding and almost a transcendent figure above
mortals so it would be hard for a mortal to understand and justify some of the
actions of the gods when they may have profound effects on them. This tells us that
although a god may see their actions as just a mortal with their own perspectives and
needs of the gods may find it hard to justify them. For example, throughout the
Homeric Hymns we saw a unbelievable effect of the gods stubbornness on mortals.
This is because while Demeter was trying to save her, she caused famine and
droughts across the globe which in turn caused thousands of deaths and Zeus was
extremely stubborn in not intervening and the only time he started to intervene was
when mortals stopped sacrificing to him. The scholar kirk says, ‘all sorts of not very
heroic qualities are allowed to enter the lives of gods.’. Which shows how the gods
are extremely selfish and can’t be seen as fair arbiter of justice because how can
starving thousands of people just to save one person be just. Additionally, in Hesiod’s
works and Days we see the life of all humans made hard because of Prometheus
tricking Zeus when he stole fir by hiding it in a fennel stalk and gave it to humans
which allowed humans fire and more independence. On the other hand, as it says in
the text, ‘there is no way to evade the purpose of Zeus’ and Prometheus’s failed
attempt to outwit Zeus failed which shows that Greeks may still hold a level of
hopefulness for a fair trail at justice. Overall, within these texts the anthropomorphic
nature of the gods believing that they their own justice should be held above others
shows how a Greek reader would not have hope for the gods as fair arbiters of
justice.
In many ways a Greek who believes in fate can see that that there is justice because
justice is apart of fate and everyone who dies or is wronged is just a victim to fate.
One perspective is that the will of the gods is fate and divine justice is carried out
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