FRIENDS: Long ago, Aphrodite intervened to save a favorite!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 2024

Last Saturday, "our lord and savior" did: It's an ancient, extremely human way of understanding the universe. 

In the western world's first poem of war, this understanding is given voice in the poem's first dozen lines:

Rage—Goddess. sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls.
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.
What god drove them to fight with such a fury?
Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto. Incensed at the king 
he swept a fatal plague through the army—men were dying
and all because Agamemnon spurned Apollo's priest...

In those, the poem's opening lines, we see the basic shape of this familiar portrait:

The gods on Olympus are intervening in the affairs of the mortals below. Apollo, the son of Zeus and Leto, incensed by Agamemnon's behavior, has sent a plague through the Achaeans' camp. 

Men are dying in the plague this god has sent, and all because Agamemnon has spurned Apollo's priest. 

Eventually, this will help explain the rage of Achilles, which will cost the Achaeans countless losses in the wider siege of Troy. In the shorter term, many men were dying from the plague which Apollo had sent—but inevitably, "the will of Zeus was moving toward its end."

As any reader of the Iliad will see, the poem reports that there were many gods on the slopes of Olympus. Today, experts largely believe that these gods never existed. 

That said:

Within the poem, the various gods interact with the humans in endless ways. Then as now, the various gods may intercede to save the lives of their favorites, as in this early example:

Paris is the feckless Trojan prince who has stolen Helen's affections and brought her back to Troy. In Book 3, after ten years of war, he agrees to engage in individual combat with the Achaean prince Menelaus, Helen's previous husband. 

As for Helen, she will be consigned to marriage with whoever wins the duel. So went the sexual politics of that earlier day.

Trojans and Achaeans alike pray that this duel will bring an end to this endless siege of Troy. But just as Paris seems doomed to defeat, one of the immortal goddesses swoops in and offers protection:

Lunging at Paris, he grabbed his horsehair crest,
swung him round, started to drag him into Argive lines
and now the braided chin strap holding his helmet tight
was gouging his soft throat—Paris was choking, strangling. 

Now he'd have hauled him off and won undying glory
but Aphrodite, Zeus's daughter quick to the mark,
snapped the rawhide strap, cut from a bludgeoned ox,
and the helmet came off empty in Menelaus' fist.
Whirling it round the fighter sent it flying
into his Argives scrambling fast to retrieve it—
back at his man he sprang, enraged with brazen spear,
mad for the kill but Aphrodite snatched Paris away,
easy work for a god, wrapped him in swirls of mist
and set him down in his bedroom filled with scent.
Then off she went herself to summon Helen...

Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, intervenes to save her favorite. She whisks him away to his scented bedroom, where he's soon engaged in the pleasures of love with Helen, radiance of woman.

In this ancient poem, the gods are constantly interceding in the affairs of the humans. This seems to be the way the generations who composed and listened to this poem understood the cosmos.

It was also true that royal status, among the humans, was directly conferred by the will of the gods. For example, among the various Achaean kings, why was Agamemnon "lord of men," despite his endless meltdowns? 

It's because he held the royal scepter! In this passage, generations of Greeks learned the chronology which lay behind the royal status of Agamemnon (Atrides):

King Agamemnon
rose to his feet, raising high in hand the scepter
Hephaestus made with all his strength and skill.
Hephaestus gave it to Cronus' son, Father Zeus
and Zeus gave it to Hermes, the giant-killing Guide
and Hermes gave it to Pelops. that fine charioteer,
Pelops gave it to Atreus, marshal of fighting men,
who died and passed it on to Thyestes rich in flocks
and he in turn bestowed it on Agamemnon, to bear on high
as he ruled his many islands and lorded mainland Argos.
Now, leaning his weight upon that kingly scepter
Atrides declared his will to all Achaea's armies...

The scepter had been fashioned by Hephaestus, one of the gods. Hephaestus had passed it on to Zeus, and eventually it was passed to Agamemnon, affording him the ultimate royal status. 

Through this chronology, Agamemnon was understood to be the ruler authorized by the will of the gods. 

These are ancient, extremely human ways of picturing the structure of the universe. The gods intercede in our behaviors here on Earth. Meanwhile, our human monarchs enjoy the divine right of kings.

This picture stretches back through the annals of time. This understanding seems to be deeply bred in the bone.  That brings us to a front-page report in today's New York Times. 

The report was prepared by Bender et al. Below, we'll offer one complaint about their report.

That said, their report starts like this, front-page headline included:

After Saturday, Trump’s Devotees See ‘God’s Protection’

For Donald J. Trump’s most devoted supporters, the bullet that nicked his ear and came within inches of ending his life was only further proof that a higher power is looking out for him.

“I don’t see this as luck,” said the Rev. Nathaniel Thomas, a Republican National Convention delegate and a pastor from the Washington, D.C., area. “I see this as God’s protection.”

After he spent decades pursuing riches, fame and power, Mr. Trump’s life has been far from pious. Yet he has drawn a committed core of followers—many in Milwaukee this week for his nominating convention—who view him as handpicked by God for a second term in the White House.

These supporters are less likely to explicitly compare him to Jesus and instead view him as the latest example of a morally flawed Old Testament hero, like Cyrus or David, who was ordained by the heavens to lead profound missions of good versus evil. Their passion for Mr. Trump...appears to be reaching new heights after the assassination attempt on Saturday.

Stating the obvious, people are free to believe such things. At this point, it seems to be clear that many people do.

For those who don't believe such things, there's no way to prove that these beliefs are untrue. 

Within the modern context, religious faith is a part of this belief—and religious faith and religious belief are widespread among us humans all across the globe.

Religious belief is quite widespread, and it always have been. Stating the obvious, there's nothing "wrong" with religious belief, until such time as there may be, or until such time as there is.

We ourselves don't hold religious beliefs, but many people do. Religious belief lay at the heart of Dr. King's historic ministry. Religious belief has always been a large part of the human world.

As Bender et al. report, a new type of religious conviction seems to have emerged from last Saturday's assassination attempt. As they continue, the Times reporters start calling the roll of this legion of believers:

“God protected President Trump,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who had been one of Mr. Trump’s top running mate contenders, posted on social media after the shooting.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Mr. Trump’s survival was “miraculous,” a sign of God’s work that he compared to George Washington staying alive during the Revolutionary War. Franklin Graham, the evangelical leader, said on Fox News that “God’s hand of protection” was on Mr. Trump.

Stephen K. Bannon, who was Mr. Trump’s chief strategist in the White House, said that Mr. Trump was protected by “the armor of God.” Mr. Bannon is serving a four-month prison sentence after being found guilty of being in contempt of Congress and reacted to the shooting in an interview with The National Pulse, a conservative outlet.

Those armor-of-God themes were threaded through a prayer vigil on Sunday in Milwaukee organized by Turning Point Action, a conservative activist group.

“God protected President Trump,” Senator Rubio has said. Speaker Johnson agrees, as does Franklin Graham.

God shielded Candidate Trump from Saturday's apparent attempt! There's little doubt that this belief has been given wide voice in the aftermath of that near-miss. 

This belief has even been voiced on Fox, we're told in today's report—voiced there by the Rev. Graham. That represents our one complaint about today's report. 

In fact, this belief has been widely and aggressively voiced on the Fox News Channel—voiced there in remarkably sectarian fashion by an array of Red America's favorite reporters and friends.

In particular, we refer to the three co-hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend. As we've noted in the past several days, they were joined last Sunday morning by two co-hosts from the weekday Fox & Friends program.

That made five friends in all! As it turned out, those additional two co-hosts were perhaps "on loan from God." But they were very much on loan from the regular weekday program,

Tomorrow, we're going to show you some of what was said on Sunday morning's program. For the record, there's nothing "wrong" with what these friends said, unless you think there is.

Opinions will differ about the journalistic correctness of what the five friends said and did. But of one thing, there can be little doubt:

The climate is changing, but so is the world, when major stars of our nation's most-watched "news channel" present the news in the way this quintet did.

There's nothing wrong with religious belief, unless you think there is. That said, we think the conduct in question represents a type of journalistic departure that it ought to be recorded.

As usual, the New York Times ran and hid from that task in this morning's report. Its reporters didn't report the journalistic behavior we'll report tomorrow.

Long ago and far away, Aphrodite saved the life of a favorite. Last weekend, "our lord and savior did," according to these Fox friends.

Tomorrow: Opinions will differ about the wisdom of reporting the news in this manner