Similarities Between Odyssey And Hesiod

Two great writers of the ancient world, Homer and Hesiod, wrote works that defined reasoning, cultural norms, and religious beliefs. Two of these works Homer’s Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days feature different approaches with interaction between the gods and men. They also seem to have a different view on the morality of the gods that differentiates from their own personal morality. Xenophanes, one of the first ancient philosophers, disagrees with Homer and Hesiod, pertaining to the way they view the gods. Common sensual treatment of other people was not how the gods seemed to treat each other. Xenophanes emphasized that it did not make sense to be looking up imagined beings that were not living lives by the same moral code that the average person was living themselves. Xenophanes is right about Homer and Hesiod being wrong about the gods because if the people saw the gods as being able to be immoral for the people to then be moral life would not make sense.

In the Odyssey, Homer’s main storyline consists of Odysseus’s grueling journey home, but there is also another plot which

consists of the Greek gods interacting with each other and solving different disputes. One of these scenes in the story is with Ares and Aphrodite. The god of war and the goddess of love were quite fond of each other so much so that they had an affair behind her husband Hephaestus’s back. The first was in secret the second time they got caught by the Sungod and he paralyzed them and told the other gods where to find them. When the immortal gods arrived to the mansion of Hephaestus Homer’s Odyssey reads, “The immortals, givers of all good things, stood at the gates, and uncontrollable laughter burst form the happy gods when they saw the gods of fire’s subtle, cunning work, One would glance at his neighbor, laughing out, “ A bad day for adultery! Slow outstrips the Swift The Go” (Homer 201-202). The gods seem humored by the adultery and they do not seem to be a little surprised or offended. There are other stories about the gods committing adultery and doing other, what would seem to be, immoral actions and majority of the time they do not have to pay the consequences average person would if they did something like adultery. Are these the kind of beings one would want to look up to for living happily and morally? Xenophanes says no.
Hesiod claims that Zues’s wisdom is unfathomable and he says, “The eye Zeus, seeing all and understanding all, beholds these things too, it so he will, and fails not to mark what sort of justice is this that the city keeps within it.

Now. Therefore, may neither I myself be righteous among men’ nor my son—for then it is a bad thing to be righteous—if indeed the unrighteous shall have the greater right. But I think that all-wise Zeus will not yet bring that to pass” (Hesiod 5). Hesiod says here that Zues is infallible and in most aspects of life Hesiod said that one must gain Zues’s favor. If Zues is most powerful of all the gods, and Homer shows how the gods are outside of a set moral norm of what humans did in every day, one could start to question, what is the purpose of gaining favor from supposedly immortal beings who do not have a moral standard? Xenophanes believes this to be

absurd.
Xenophanes refutes the claims of the gods by Homer and Hesiod and he goes far to say that there is only one god one spirit that influences men for what is right. This monotheistic belief would be difficult for Homer and Hesiod to grasp. Xenophanes believes man should not have to try to gain favor of beings that are immoral in there ways he says, “Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods everything that men find shameful and reprehensible—stealing, adultery, and deceiving one another”. I feel that Xenophanes has a valid point. What is the purpose of gaining favor with gods that for one do not even exist and two gods that do not even provide a good moral example? It seems counterproductive to being a person who abides by moral principles. Even if there was god Xenophanes claims he would not even look and think like humans do.
Xenophanes said, “But mortals think that the gods are born, wear their own clothes, hear voices and bodies”. Xenophanes believed that there was not many gods, but one god who was beyond human understanding a being that could not fully grasped. This god must more spiritual then physical and contradict all human understanding. The god would not have a need to go against the norms of human morality nor have need for explanation the god would desire the good of all rather than despise all and desire gifts in order to be happy with man. If Homer and Hesiod were to read Xenophanes they would not be able necessarily understand what he means, but we can tell by examining the three different thinkers that Xenophanes was focused on what was moral and Homer and Hesiod were focused on depicting the gods so as to be more pleasing to them.