Jesus and the fulfilment of Greek mythology

 

In the earliest recorded proclamations of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, the likes of Peter and Stephen show how Jesus fulfils Jewish hopes and expectations. But as Gentiles start to profess faith in Jesus, there is a need also to demonstrate ways in which Jesus fulfils their own mythologies or meaning-making stories.

When Paul and his companions arrive in Philippi, they encounter a young slave girl who possesses/is possessed by the spirit of Python, by which she utters oracles. She informs all who gather to hear her that these men are slaves of the Most High God who brings them news of a way of salvation (that Way being Jesus). Paul commands the spirit to release the girl and depart. Realising that their means of making an income from the girl is now lost, her owners have Paul and Silas brought before the magistrates, who have them beaten and thrown into the innermost cell of the city prison. That night, an earthquake jail-brakes them, causing the gaoler to intend to fall on his sword. But Paul prevents him from doing so, as none of the prisoners have escaped. In severance, the gaoler asks them what he must do to be saved from destruction into divine protection, and professes Jesus as Lord, bringing Paul and Silas into his home, washing their wounds, being himself baptised along with his household, and hosting a feast in honour of his guests.

According to one version of the story, Zeus, the king of the Olympian gods and serial adulterer, fathered the twins Artemis and Apollo by the goddess Leto. Zeus’ (older sister and) principal wife, Hera, was angered by her husband’s infidelity, and sent the giant serpent Python, who guarded the centre of the world (obviously in Greece) to pursue and kill the pregnant Leto. Leto evaded capture, Python only catching up with her when her twins were four days old. Carrying them in HR arms as she ran, she told her son to shoot at her attacker (both twins were acclaimed archers, apparently from birth) and Apollo’s arrow killed Python. Apollo then took the shrine of the Oracle at Delphi, previously guarded by Python, for his own shrine.

In vanquishing the Python who possessed the slave girl, Paul is, in effect, claiming that Jesus — the Way of salvation — fulfils the role of Apollo, that is, the aspirations invested in Apollo.

For such audacity — mortal heroes claiming equality with an Olympian god — Paul and Silas are judged and sentenced to Tartarus, the furthest point of the underworld from the earth, that is, the innermost cell of the jail. Tartarus had originally been the prison in which the Titans held the three one-eyed monsters and three one-hundred-armed monsters captive. But Zeus had freed them, enlisting their help in overthrowing the Titans (Zeus’ father Chronos had swallowed his older sisters and brothers). Now Tartarus was the prison for mortal kings who had defied the Olympian gods. Only two mortals — the demi-gods Heracles (a son of Zeus) and Theseus (a son of Poseidon) — had ever returned from the realm of the underworld to the earth above (Theseus, held captive, had been rescued by Heracles, who met him at the edge of Tartarus while undertaking one of his twelve labours).

The gaoler functions as both Cerberus, the three-headed hound that guards the realm of the dead (a canine goaler) and also Hades, god of the underworld, who brings Paul and Silas up out of the pit of Tartarus to feast with him in Elysium, that part of the underworld reserved for heroes.

In effect, in this short account of Paul’s time in Philippi, Jesus is demonstrated as being victorious over the giant creatures Python and Cerberus, the heroes Heracles and Theseus, and the gods Apollo, Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon. Indeed, in time, the followers of Jesus would outnumber the followers of the gods, and his story would become the story in which fears were brought to peace and desires fulfilled.

We humans seek salvation — being delivered from dissonance into wholeness, from danger into safety — through the stories we tell. While the Greek and other ancient mythologies no longer have cultic worshippers, they still have a hold on our imagination. There are, some say, only so many stories, retold over and over in different clothes, in different cultures. We have our own cultural stories, our own epic heroes (celebrities). Luke, the first historian of the church, sought to show how Jesus fulfilled the stories of both Jews and Greeks. In our day, Jesus fulfils the stories — the hopes and fears, the aspirations — we tell, seeking our own security in an uncertain world. Jesus is still Lord (not the servant of Christian Nationalists).