Studies in Early Greek Theology

This volume gathers twenty-five essays by Jenny Strauss Clay on how the archaic Greeks conceptualized the divine and humanity's place in the post-Promethean world. Together with her monographs, these essays have over the past decades shaped our understanding of early Greek theology as it finds expression above all in archaic hexameter poetry. Part I is concerned with cosmogony, theogony, and cosmography. Its chapters ask how the mortal bard comes by the authority to narrate the early stages of the cosmos and to describe regions - such as Tartaros - that lie beyond ordinary human experience. Taken together, they trace a set of reflections that interrogate the traditional source of poetic authority, the Muses. A related epistemological question concerns how such knowledge, once acquired, can be communicated at all. Part II turns to the world of the gods. Particular attention is paid to the concept of religion in these texts and to the organization of the cosmos under Zeus, the role of justice, and the distribution of honors among the gods. Part III explores the relationship between gods and mortals in archaic poetry, taking up the epistemological divide between them, hero cult, and the so-called 'heroic code'. Taken as a whole, the volume presents a philosophical theology that engages crucial moments of archaic reflection on the cosmos, the divine, the place of mortals in the world, the authority of knowledge, and the correctness of language.