 Mon Jan 14, 2008 13:30 pm Obscure passage (whether or not God made man in His own image, it is certain...) |
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Hi, can you help me with this passage
| Quote: | As Xenophanes recognized as long ago as the sixth century before Christ, whether or not God made man in His own image, it is certain that man makes gods in his. The gods of Greek mythology first appear in the writings of Homer and Hesiod, and, from the character and actions of these picturesque and, for the most part, friendly beings, we get some idea of the men who made them and brought them to Greece.
But ritual is more fundamental than mythology, and the study of Greek ritual during recent years has shown that, beneath the belief or skepticism with which the Olympians were regarded, lay an older magic, with traditional rites for the promotion of fertility by the celebration of the annual cycle of life and death, and the propitiation of unfriendly ghosts, gods or demons. Some such survivals were doubtless widespread, and, prolonged into classical times, probably made the substance of Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries. Against this dark and dangerous background arose Olympic mythology on the one hand and early philosophy and science on the other.
In classical times the need of a creed higher than the Olympian was felt, and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Plato finally evolved from the pleasant but crude polytheism the idea of a single, supreme and righteous Zeus. But the decay of Olympus led to a revival of old and the invasion of new magic cults among the people, while some philosophers were looking to a vision of the uniformity of nature under divine and universal law.
From Sir William Cecil Dampier, A Shorter History of Science, ©1957, Meridian Books. |
1) What does 'image' mean ? What does the sentence " .... make man in his own image ..." mean ? Why can "his" begin with an uppercase letter (H) ?
2)What does the sentence "ritual is more fundamental than mythology" refer to ? What does "magic" mean ? What are "traditional rites," "promotion of fertility," and "survivals".
3)Do you get the gist of the first two paragraphs ? I'm blank about them. Can you explain it for me ?
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sympathy
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Joined: 08 Dec 2007
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