Introduction. Theodoret and the Fifth Century Earth and sea are freed from their ancient ignorance; the error of idols is no longer to be seen; the darkness of ignorance has been dispersed, and the light of knowledge fills with its rays the whole inhabited world. Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians recognize the divinity of the crucified and venerate the sign of the cross. The Trinity is… Read more
Chapter 1. The Notion of Therapeia in Theodoret: The Apologetic Use and Role of Greek Medicine and Philosophy against the Greeks As demonstrated both in particular comments scattered throughout his corpus of writings and more generally in the Therapeutikê, [1] Theodoret displays a thorough knowledge of Greek medicine. [2] While the use of insights from Greek medicine… Read more
Chapter 2. God, Gods, Angels, Heroes, and Demons: Parallel Notions of the Intermediaries In Dialexeis III, VII, and X, Theodoret sets out to contrast Christianity with Greek religious attitudes concerning the gods, angels, daemons, and the associated phenomena of divination, oracles, and sacrifices. Although these concepts are treated in separate dialexeis, each with a distinct thematic emphasis, their interrelatedness is hard to ignore. This accords well with… Read more
Chapter 2. Men and Worms: Permanence and Organic Decay Time leaves indelible traces. All organic material, like a ship’s timber, eventually rots. The Greek verb used to describe this process, σήπεσθαι, occurs twice in the context of the decay of mortal flesh. Like the ship wood, heroes’ bodies mark time through their own internal cycles of growth and deterioration. Not all bodies are equal, however. The… Read more
Chapter 3. Permanence and Non-Organic Structures: Walls in the Iliad In the last chapter, we investigated the theme of the decomposition of human remains and the special preservation of the bodies of certain figures. The corpses of Sarpedon, Patroklos, and Hektor are all in danger of suffering unseemly decay or worse; yet, the process of decomposition, though ultimately inevitable, is held in reserve until each hero can… Read more
Chapter 4. Memorials, Tombs, and the γέρας θανόντων: The (Im)Permanence of Mortuary Architecture in the Iliad What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? … say a “grave-maker”: the house that he makes lasts till doomsday. —Shakespeare Hamlet V, i.41–59 Physical objects play an important role in determining the narrative temporality of… Read more
Chapter 5. The Impermanence of the Permanent: The Death of the Gods? Philology, like philosophy, begins in wonder. Surprise should be taken seriously, for it has an important hermeneutic function: it signals a lack of correspondence between our horizon of expectations and some new object and thus suggests that, if we have not radically misunderstood that object, then our prior expectations must be significantly revised. Read more
Epilogue: Homeric Durability; Concluding Remarks Throughout this study, we have considered time and temporality—the experience of time, sometimes called “lived time” within the field of phenomenological psychology [1] —in the Iliad, specifically in terms of how the epic represents the “durability” of various bodies and objects. Homer continually represents bodies and objects in the process of decay. The Achaeans’ ships and the… Read more
Appendix: The Semantic Field of ‘Decay’ in Homeric Epic Homer makes use of six separate verbal roots to describe the process of decay as the physical bodies of plants, animals, and humans undergo the degenerative effects of time. These verbs are: φθίω/φθίνω/φθίνυθω ‘to wither, waste away, die’; σήπω ‘to rot, decay’; πύθω ‘to cause to rot, rot, putrefy’; σκέλλω ‘to dry up’; κάρφω ‘to cause to shrivel… Read more
Works Cited Adams, D. Q. 1987. “ Ἥρως and Ἥρα: Of Men and Heroes in Greek and Indo-European.” Glotta 65:171–178. Adams, M. J. 1977. “Style in Southeast Asian Materials Processing: Some Implications for Ritual and Art.” In Material Culture: Studies, Organization, and Dynamics of Technology, ed. M. H. Lechtman and R. Merrill, 21–52. St. Paul. Adkins, A. W. H. Read more
