Course XXVII - Teaching 15: Greek Gods

The true worship with gods, images and ceremonies begins in ancient Greece during the period called Mycenaean period. But Greek idols just reach the acme during the Hellenic era.
The Hellenic era is composed of Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian dynasties. By these three forces together, Greece thrives on religion, poetry, sculpture and music, since the Hellenic worship is a consequence of fine arts, and fine arts are not a consequence of worship as in other religions.
Any power, any momentum, any act of bravery joins to arts and creates a god.
One can see this in the birth of popular mythology. Kronos and ancient Titans are a civilization in its cradle, a culture in its beginning, since Zeus, the great god, emerges from this uneducated and strong people. He is already a god that is symbol of strength, order, victory and steady law for progress and magnificence of the Greek.
In the Olympus, site of his reign, he assembles divinities of any kind: of air, sea, earth and hell. He is the Absolute One that contains by iron fist and unyielding will every human and divine power, according with the Hellenic dream: to be the only people that would control and dominate everybody by persuasion, strength and all arts.
As you can see, the empire of Greece did not die in the world.
Zeus divides his heavenly kingdom with his brothers Poseidon and Ares. Hera, wife and sister of the God, is symbol of potential power and manifestation; a multitude of sons and daughters assist these severe gods in their reign.
Pallas Athena is goddess of power and war; she watches over Athens and scholars, since she is born of an inspired thought of Zeus.
Phoebus, god of the Solar light, symbol of the Sun’s vital energy, adorned with beauty and grace, holding an arrow and a lyre, hurts eager people for learning and bewitches them by means of poetry, music and fine arts.
Artemis is the sister of the Sun, symbol of a clear night, of the Moon, countryside and hunters: she protects and regulates physiological life of women.
Hermes, symbol of Christ, symbol of the son of God, is revered as messenger of gods; he protects youth, the future promise of the people, and eventually saves souls and guides them toward the mansion of peace.
Hephaestus is the God of fire; none, except him, is able to work metals, symbol of mystical fire and of the life-giving current of beings, and image of the Indian Kundalini; Aphrodite, goddess of beauty, love and generation, would be unable to give life to men without the assistance and great power of Hephaestus. He is the only legitimate husband, in spite of other lovers of Aphrodite, because generation power is one in its fundamental aspect.
Ares is god of violent war, and hated by the rest of gods. Hestia is a goddess patron of home, like a guardian angel or like the meek Joseph among Catholics.
Poseidon, image of instinctive matter, is sovereign of waters and sea, and of storms and earthquakes; he hold a trident, symbol of power of the elementals or of that of the lower triangle: instinctive mind, original energy and rough matter.
Demeter, sister of Zeus, is mother of earth; she is like the spirit of earth that gives life to Nature, makes trees flower, fertilizes crops and gives abundant grapes. But Dyonisus or Bacchus is god of wine, symbol of bacchanalia, oblivion and astral pleasure.
Those above mentioned are not the only gods in the Hellenic Olympus, because after them there are a lot of minor gods, namely, the three Parcae, symbol of goddesses of karma; the nine Muses; and the three Charites, symbol of grace and beauty.
The Greeks also deified heroes, but the true worship strove to find the Only God behind every aspect of each divinity.
Xenophanes, a great philosopher, deplored the concept of the common people about worshipping the external symbol of gods and forgetting the Only God, with no body or form, who is pure essence.
Poetry greatly helped by enriching nuptial, funereal and epic songs.
As early as before Homer’s Odyssey, there is memory of great poets such as Linus, Hymenaeus, Museus, Orpheus and Amphion.
As we said earlier, arts of any type created worship and co-operated with it.