ETERNAL HELLENISM (1): THE COSMIC STORY
During the summer months we intend to produce a three part series on the 5,000 year old culture of Greece. The first part is on what we coined "the Cosmic Story", a medium not simply relating a narrative, but a means to convey reality, wisdom and morality. It is rooted in the ancient myths about the gods and heroes and present to this day in songs, prose and poetry and yes, in the liturgy. Part two will deal with the architecture of the city of Athens and how it was able to grow into metropolis of over three million people in a relatively short period of time (link). The final piece in the series is about the history of the music style called rebetiko, sometimes called the Greek version of blues.
Father Ezra (YouTube Channel) in one of his lectures explained the difference between Western and Eastern Orthodox thinking in the following terms concerning a tree and a garden. Western man will chop down the tree, analyze the wood, the branches and the year rings and come up with a specification and a classification of the tree.
Eastern Orthodox man will tell the story how his grandfather planted the tree, how he got married in its shade, his kids played around with the leaves and nuts and how he is sitting there now, underneath the tree in his old age enjoying a glass of ouzo.
After long deliberation I think this observation is remarkable in its accuracy. When you pay attention, what you might define as "the Cosmic Story" is everywhere in Greek culture.
In small songs (the micro cosmos is no less a cosmos than the macro cosmos), in the big songs, in poetry, in the liturgy, in the psalms, in history from ancient times to Hellenism and from the Byzantime Empire to the present day, epic and cosmic stories are literally everywhere.
It started of course with the Iliad and Odyssey, the creation stories and the epic myths about the gods and the heroes of the Bronze Age. In Christian times the entire body of Orthodox faith became a very deep source that changed the nature of reality itself.
It has come to us through this legacy primarily, but also in the history of the theater. That origin is perhaps less well known to the public at large. The BBC a few years ago (when it was still watchable from time to time) did a very good documentary series on the subject. It is still online. Watch!
Sep. 17, 2024 Cardo Maximus: BBC Ancient Greece, The Greatest Show on Earth. Full playlist. Note: If Europeans have an unthinkable pronunciation of Greek, blame Erasmus (link).
These theater pieces are dealing with major concepts like good governance, justice, issues of war and peace, human nature and hubris. rich and poor, democracy, free will, fate and morality.
In fact it is the story itself that is the tool that helps show to the observer the path to acting morally. That is still its purpose today. These stories are not just carriers of memes or morality plays; they also show reality and wisdom. In fact, they are a source of everything a man needs to know how to live wisely.
In part 2 of the BBC documentary we learn that Plato rejected theater and plays as "imitation, not truth", whereas his student Aristotle accepted it as a vehicle for "catharsis". In other words, tools for the digestion of information leading to truth.
The Greeks with Aristotle embracing an ontological method to acquire truth is philosophically spot on, as it relates to Being, the primary axiom. History shows how it spread. In the first part of "How To Beat the Meaning Crisis" (link) we wrote:
"The Aristotelian school tends to emphasize synthesis, experience and ontology, leading to an entirely different world view and way of life. The synthesis leads to the integration of heaven AND earth, body AND soul instead of to the opposing dualism championed by Plato.
"Aristotle was Alexander the Great's tutor. Aristotle's ideas spread with Alexander's march through Eurasia all the way to India! After Alexander's death in 323BC at the age of 32 the Empire was carved up in parts by his successors.
"The Seleucid Empire (link) was by far the largest, but the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty (link) was probably the most influential philosophically and culturally. To get an idea about Alexander's Empire, read here how it touched the religion of the Hellenistic Jews and why it matters (link).
"How influential Hellenism has been, is further illustrated by the rising number of Christians in Syria and Lebanon claiming Greek heritage today, after over 1.300 years of separation (source)! A similar situation is happening in southern Italy. "
June 18, 2019 Nektaria Karantzi: The Seikilos Epitaph, the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation. The untypically hedonistic lyrics read: "While you live shine, have no grief at all, life exists only for a short while
and time demands his due."
With the onset of Christianity in the first century AD an entirely knew paradigm presented itself in which Greece sat first row, being one of first nations to benefit from the evangelism of St. Paul and the Apostles.
Christianity changed the morality of 'might makes right' and the creation myth for a start. The entire world view on creation and the nature of God and man took a different turn. The sacrifice of the Christ on the cross and his resurrection after three days changed the nature of the metaphysical world itself by conquering death and liberating man from Hades.
In our many posts on Orthodoxy (link) we often discuss these matters and where they are different from Western Christian denominations.
In the Middle Ages a series of other stories emerged from the Eastern Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople involving Emperors, Generals and other heroes. But for the most part the stories were Christian inspired.
On the songs and music emerging from Asia Minor between the loss of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Turks and the re-emergence of Greece as a modern nation state we will revert in the third instalment of this series.
A typical example of a Cosmic Story is the modern poem "Axion Esti" by Odysseus Elytis first published in 1959, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The academy citation singled out the poem as "one of the 20th century's literature's most concentrated and richly faceted poems. In his evocation of eternal Greece (...) and his conclusion of human life, Elytis is (...) a deeply personal lyric poet who speaks for humanity at large."
"Axion Esti" was later set to music by the composer Mikis Theodorakis (playlist). It never fails to overpower with strong emotions that seem to bubble up from the heart on an intuitive level, which is a mystery in and of itself. Check for lyrics and translations (link).
External reading
Greek Reporter: Lost Euripides Plays: Archaeologists Make Groundbreaking Find in Egypt
Greek Reporter: Lost Euripides Plays: Archaeologists Make Groundbreaking Find in Egypt
ETERNAL HELLENISM:
1. The Cosmic Story
2. The Architecture of Modern Athens (link)
3. Rebetika Music (link)
- More on Greece, music videos -
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