Appearances of the gods

To me it seems very apparent that if a god or goddess appears to a person, whether it is in mythology, Greek tragedies or within the Homeric Epics for example, the characters these divinities are showing themselves to are either central protagonists to the story or are particularly worthy of the gods and goddesses actually showing themselves. As we know the gods and goddesses depicted in antiquity have their favourite humans or mortals. And we also know that it worked the other way round, but mortals had to respect all the gods and goddesses or there would be serious consequences, as we have witnessed in Euripides’ ‘Hippolytus’. Another example attached to that Greek tragedy is when Artemis appears at the end of the play, to unravel everything which has happened, and uncovers how it was all Aphrodite’s fault; therefore this is seen as an important and worthy situation. L. B. Zaidman and P. S. Pantel express in their book ‘Religion in the Ancient Greek City’ (1992: p215) that, ‘the special characteristic of all religious representation is to endow the divinity being figured with a presence without obscuring the fact that it is not actually there. The cultic image must at the same time be thoroughly material – it can be touched, moved, manipulated – and yet leave no doubt that it stands for something which is not actually present’. 

In Homer’s Iliad, we see Pallas Athene sent by Hera intervening between the argument between Agamemnon and Achilles as she must restrain Achilles from killing Agamemnon, so that the Greek army can win the war, this is obviously seen as an important situation for the goddesses to get involved in and therefore makes Achilles worthy of Pallas Athene appearing to him. This is confirmed by Achilles saying ‘goddess, a man must respect what you and Hera say, however angry he may be’, which ends up in him only verbally abusing Agamemnon instead swearing that the Greeks will come to regret Agamemnon’s behaviour when Hector and his army are slaughtering them.   

Another example from the Iliad by Homer is when Aphrodite comes down to visit Helen. Helen is angry with Aphrodite from saving Paris from the fight, which is also another good example of the gods appearing and intervening with human lives. But here Aphrodite is trying to persuade Helen to go and see Paris, but Helen sarcastically tells Aphrodite to take her place instead and hopes one day that she becomes his wife, or slave. This indicates Helen’s deep sense of bitterness at what has happened. 

There are also occasions when the gods and goddesses appear to humans, but they are in disguise. A classic mythological example of this is the rape of Europa, when Zeus had come to her disguised as a bull. We have heard countless stories of Zeus being infatuated by love, or overpowered by Aphrodite, and this is another example, he has shown a considerable interest in Europe; proving that she is worthy of his attention and time, therefore disguised himself as a bull and cunningly carried her away.  

On the other hand, there is another way we can look at the appearances of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses. We can observe their habits and the way they do things to modern day religions, such as Christianity. To my knowledge there is no particular story within the old or new testaments of the Bible which suggest God himself to ever actually come down personally to the individuals he is wanting to acknowledge and spread the good word. We mainly know of his messenger, who is also his son, Jesus. Or we see him appearing in dreams, like when he appeared to Joseph to encourage him to marry and look after Mary when she had been told she was going to bear his child. This in itself is another example as Mary was visited by the angle Gabriel, not by God himself. Whereas we get the impression that if it was truly important he should have dealt with the situation himself, like the ancient Greek gods and goddesses have done in their stories and myths.