Holy Homer

by Robert Mixa

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is not Homer's Odyssey, and I confess I found this disappointing. I don't say so as a purist bristling at every deviation from the text — adaptation is its own art. But if the film misses some of the richest currents running through the epic, that may not be entirely a loss, if it gets people talking about the text again and curious enough to look closer. What they'll find, if they do, is a largely forgotten commentary tradition in which the Church Fathers held Homer in such regard that some of them called him, simply, 'Holy Homer.' The patrologist Hugo Rahner devotes a whole section of his book Greek Myths and Christian Mystery to this very title, and to a Christian humanism that took Homer seriously enough to find genuine spiritual meaning in his verse.

All the ancient Greeks praised Homer. Even Plato, who, despite being critical of Homer's theology, praised him as the "educator of Hellas". The great German historian Werner Jaeger argued that Aristotle relied on Homer too, basing his ethics on the models he found in his epics. 

Christians have always appreciated Homer too, notwithstanding our criticisms of the poet’s theology and the flaws of heroes like Odysseus. As mentioned above, the book Greek Myths and Christian Mystery by church historian and patrologist Hugo Rahner, the elder brother of Karl Rahner, perfectly captures early Christian reverence for Homer.  Rahner shows how the early Church Fathers received, reinterpreted, and "corrected" Homer, finding much in his epics as foreshadowing what would find its fulfillment in Christ. This reading was especially the case with Clement of Alexandria’s idea of the logos spermatikos, which supposes that God scattered genuine fragments of the truth throughout pagan culture in advance of the fuller revelation in Christ. Clement criticized those Christians hostile to engaging pagan culture as those who "block up their ears with uncultured ignorance" rather than engaging "the rhythm and song of pagan Greece". Like Clement, some Church Fathers even interpreted Homer as a spiritual guide, reverencing him with the title "Holy Homer". 

While Homer was not writing scripture or philosophy, there is much in epic texts that merit being studied as a multifaceted education, that is, in politics, philosophy, and spirituality.  

The Frankfurt School scholars Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer saw what the ancients’ saw - namely, the texts are about the formation and ordering of desire, so important in the life of arete and its role in shaping the West. Odysseus is a clever man who uses his cunning intelligence for fraud rather than the truth. Like Adam he is at once symbolic of something more. He is a particular that opens to a universal. And just as his journey home is not only at the mercy of the gods but also within divine hands, so is humanity's in general. Christianity makes us see this point in a very particular (better) way, but Homer’s pre-Christian vision remains valuable, and has understandably continued to influence the culture of the West for centuries. 

The Greek language is one important influence, of course. In the Odyssey, we first meet Odysseus with the enchantress Calypso, her name meaning "hidden". She is a beautiful goddess who promises Odysseus immortality and pleasure. But Odysseus is wailing every night to get home back to Penelope, and when given the choice between her and his mortal wife, he chooses Penelope. His heart is set on home, and nothing Calypso does can thwart that memory, not even the hidden life of pleasure that she promises. 

Homecoming is at the heart of the epic. And homecoming for the Greeks has many spiritual resonances. It is not just about the longing for a mundane home but also, as Plato would see it, about the spiritual homecoming to the Good. Plato calls this goal helios "Good beyond Being", and Thomas Aquinas would later call it the "Beatific Vision." We desire to ascend homeward once we are freed by a divine act like Odysseus experiences coming out of Calypso's cave. Odysseus' homecoming has entered the Western consciousness so profoundly that it is arguably the strongest theme in all of Western literature. Exile and return is a recurring theme not only throughout the Bible, and it is central to the greatest specimens of Christian literature, including Dante's Divine Comedy, where homecoming ascends fully to the theological plane. 

The Odyssey has also offered a wealth of material that has mapped well onto Christian moral and spiritual concerns, especially its images of temptation and self-mastery. 

The Sirens and Odysseus being tied to the mast are the clearest examples here. After the ordeal with the witch Circe and his journey to the underworld, Odysseus grows in wisdom. He does not give into foolishness and yield to the siren song. More aware of his natural weakness, Odysseus ties himself to the mast (which the Church Fathers interpreted as a foreshadowing of the Cross) and commands his men to block their ears with wax. The siren's promise to make Odysseus a wiser man, for they " know it all!" Rahner notes, later symbolism of the sirens almost exclusively focuses on lust, but early on and more faithful to the text, the sirens, who with their song of higher knowledge lures their victim away from their true home, were associated with the Gnostics who also sing a seductive, rhetorically beautiful, and precise song of higher knowledge that lures Christians to spiritual death. Thus, the sirens became associated with heresy, often promising clear knowledge beyond all mystery. 

Odysseus being bound to the mast symbolized for the Church fathers the necessity of some ecclesial leaders (captains of the ship) listening to the tempting song of heresy and pagan philosophy in order to lash themselves more strongly to the Cross. Wise Christians must engage dangerous ideas so as to command the rest of the faithful and navigate the Church away from shipwreck and to safe harbor. Later interpreters like Adorno and Horkheimer see this hierarchy as class division and domination, allowing only the ruling intellectual class to hear the song while blocking others. But Catholics continue to understand this phenomenon as the healthy functioning of the body of Christ. Shepherds must protect the flock. 

Lastly, I want to focus briefly on why Hugo Rahner wrote his book with a whole section devoted to "Holy Homer" and connect it to our project at the Spe Salvi Institute.

Rahner was a great believer in retrieving the Christian Humanism of early Church Fathers. Greek Myths and Christian Mystery is an inspired book, greatly admired by our patron, Pope Benedict XVI, who thought of Hugo as the better of the Rahner brothers. The book's introduction and epilogue are worth reading for anyone who, like us, believes the re-discovery of Christian humanism is essential for the well-being of  today's Church, and today’s world. Such a humanism reverences pagan literature and heeds Basil of Caesarea's Address to Young Men on How They Might Derive Benefit from Greek Literature. We must be like bees who do not reject a flower because parts of it are unusable, but rather  extract the nectar and leave the rest. In the same spirit, Rahner writes, 

"...Let Homer guide us—Homer as the Christian interprets him. Let him lead us to 'that other kingdom' where we can gain the knowledge that the lovely world of the humanities, which can also be one of the true homes of our spirit can only be won and loved if we first dare to make the voyage to the gates of eternity, and boldly sail our ship part the tempting sirens." 

Rahner praises the Odyssey as a myth 'pregnant with meaning.' It would be a pity to strike a smug, snobbish pose towards Homer instead of engaging his real depth — and end up telling a modern Odyssey that is Homer in name only. Better, then, to go to the source. Read the Odyssey itself, and read it alongside guides like Rahner's, and discover why the Church Fathers thought a pagan poet worth calling holy. If Nolan's film cannot get us there, perhaps that is itself no small gift — if it sends us back to Homer, and to the two thousand years of readers who found in him something worth keeping.