Euripides treats the legend of Heracles differently than other dramatists, focusing on his disgrace and misery. The play quickly turns to the assassination of Creon by Lycus, who usurps the kingship of Thebes, where Heracles’ family lives. Lycus seeks to destroy all of Creon’s heirs, including Heracles’ three sons. Heracles’ father, Amphitryon, and wife, Megara, keep the children in Zeus’ temple as long as possible.
In the temple, Amphytrion curses Zeus for allowing his grandchildren, Heracles’ sons, to be murdered by Lycus. The chorus then recites the twelve mighty deeds Heracles has wrought, including: killing a lion, a race of centaurs, and a hind; taming Diomede’s man-eating horses; executing Cycnus and the dragon that guarded the golden apples; supporting the heavens on his shoulders; stealing the girdle of the Amazon queen; slaying the Hydra and a three-bodied shepherd monster; and entering the underworld alive. Meanwhile, Megara believes that Heracles has died trying to carry out the twelve tasks demanded of him by Eurystheus, his old enemy, so she prays for Heracles’ ghost to come and scare Lycus away. As she is praying, Heracles himself returns, having finished his twelve tasks, the last one being to descend into Hades alive and return again to the world of the living. He explains that he was delayed because he stayed longer in Hades in order to free his friend, Theseus.
Heracles, along with his wife and father, set a trap for Lycus. When Lycus comes to murder Heracles’ sons, he is caught by surprise and killed by Heracles. But as soon as he has freed Thebes of the usurper, Hera sends Iris and Madness to punish Heracles for killing his grandfather in the course of completing his twelve tasks. While purifying himself to make an offering to Zeus, Heracles goes mad, and foaming at the mouth he hallucinates, thinking he is attacking his old enemy Eurystheus and his sons while in actuality he kills his three sons and his wife. He is knocked unconscious by Athena’s messenger before he can kill his father. The people of Thebes tie Heracles up so he can’t do any more harm.
When Heracles awakens, he thinks he is back in Hades when he sees all the carnage. When he realizes that he was the one who killed his wife and sons, he vows to commit suicide. However, Theseus comes to console him and talks him out of killing himself. He invites Heracles to return with him to Athens and he does.
I was reminded how often we, like Heracles’ father, complain to God for allowing evil to befall us without waiting patiently for his salvation. The Greeks also had a profound sense of retribution for evil actions, even when those actions were not intended. Heracles was punished by Hera for killing a relative, just like Orestes was put on trial for killing his mother and Oedipus was cursed for unwittingly killing his father and marrying his mother. Hubris and evil are punished by the gods, and Heracles was no exception.
Heracles also had to suffer the wrath of Hera because his mother conceived him by mating with Zeus. Many Greek heros had to suffer the jealousy and revenge of the gods. Fortunately, in Christ, there is no condemnation since the wrath of God has been propitiated by Christ’s death on the cross. While God will still discipline us for acts of hubris and sin, He does not seek revenge, but pardons us when we repent.
Heracles’ love for his friend Theseus drove him to put himself in danger in order to rescue him from the underworld. Because he risked his own life to save Theseus from Hades, Theseus was there to console him and keep him from committing suicide. So Heracles’ good deed was instrumental in the preservation of his own life. We should do good to all men, especially to those who are our brothers in Christ, not to get a reward, but realizing that by helping others we are also helping ourselves.
The Greeks also believed that the greater a man was the greater his sorrow would be. Greek tragedy abounds with examples of men, like Heracles, who do mighty deeds and exhibit superhuman character and then suffer incredible pain and loss. Those who desire to live godly lives in Christ will also be persecuted and suffer as Christ did.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Love Believes All Things
"Love Believes All Things." 1 Corinthians 13:7
Soren Kierkegaard, in his book, Works on Love, reveals the bankruptcy of those who are overly critical, skeptical and suspicious of others. A loving person and a mistrusting person may have the exact same knowledge about an individual but they will draw different conclusions from what they know. A loving person will always interpret the individual in the best positive light, giving him the benefit of the doubt. A mistrusting person, however, will interpret the individual in the worst possible light, refusing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The mistrusting person feels that believing the individual would be foolish and gullible. By believing the individual, the mistrusting person fears he will be deceived and taken advantage of. Therefore, to avoid being deceived, the mistrusting person always takes the position of skepticism and criticism, viewing all actions of the individual with suspicion.
However, there are many ways of being deceived. If you always mistrust others and view them with suspicion, you cheat yourself out of love. You may never be deceived and taken advantage of by others, but you will also never experience intimacy and love. Therefore, you may never be cheated by another person but you will have cheated yourself out of the most important thing in life—love.
If you love someone else and give them the benefit of the doubt, you may be deceived and cheated. But you will only be deceived and cheated in finite things, things that are temporal and less important. However, if you love and trust others, you will have grasped the most important fundamental truth of life.
Kierkegaard also took a hard swing at his critics when he called them “associate professors [whose] task in life is to judge the great men. [They display a] curious mixture of arrogance and wretchedness—arrogance because they feel called upon to pass judgment, wretchedness because they do not feel their lives are even remotely related to those of the great.”
Read C. Stephen Evans’ article, “Kierkegaard Among the Biographers” in Books & Culture, July/August 2007, pages 12-13.
Soren Kierkegaard, in his book, Works on Love, reveals the bankruptcy of those who are overly critical, skeptical and suspicious of others. A loving person and a mistrusting person may have the exact same knowledge about an individual but they will draw different conclusions from what they know. A loving person will always interpret the individual in the best positive light, giving him the benefit of the doubt. A mistrusting person, however, will interpret the individual in the worst possible light, refusing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The mistrusting person feels that believing the individual would be foolish and gullible. By believing the individual, the mistrusting person fears he will be deceived and taken advantage of. Therefore, to avoid being deceived, the mistrusting person always takes the position of skepticism and criticism, viewing all actions of the individual with suspicion.
However, there are many ways of being deceived. If you always mistrust others and view them with suspicion, you cheat yourself out of love. You may never be deceived and taken advantage of by others, but you will also never experience intimacy and love. Therefore, you may never be cheated by another person but you will have cheated yourself out of the most important thing in life—love.
If you love someone else and give them the benefit of the doubt, you may be deceived and cheated. But you will only be deceived and cheated in finite things, things that are temporal and less important. However, if you love and trust others, you will have grasped the most important fundamental truth of life.
Kierkegaard also took a hard swing at his critics when he called them “associate professors [whose] task in life is to judge the great men. [They display a] curious mixture of arrogance and wretchedness—arrogance because they feel called upon to pass judgment, wretchedness because they do not feel their lives are even remotely related to those of the great.”
Read C. Stephen Evans’ article, “Kierkegaard Among the Biographers” in Books & Culture, July/August 2007, pages 12-13.
The Four Intelligences or Capacities of Our Nature
Our Third Birth-Gift: The Four Intelligences or Capacities of Our Nature
Four parts of our nature: Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit
Four Capacities of our nature: Physical Intelligence (PQ), Mental Intelligence (IQ), Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) (50)
Mental Intelligence: the ability to analyze, reason, think abstractly, use language, visualize, and comprehend. (50)
Physical Intelligence: the ability of the body to balance and harmonize all of its functions without conscious effort. (50-51)
Emotional Intelligence: self-knowledge, self-awareness, social sensitivity, empathy and communication. A sense of timing for social appropriateness, courage to acknowledge weaknesses and needs, and the respect of differences. (51-53)
“For star performance in all jobs, in every field, emotional competence is twice as important as purely cognitive abilities. For success at the highest levels, in leadership positions, emotional competence accounts for virtually the entire advantage…. Given that emotional competencies make up two-thirds or more o the ingredients of a standout performance, the data suggests that finding people who have these abilities, or nurturing them in existing employees, adds tremendous value to an organization’s bottom line. How much? In simple jobs like machine operators or clerks, those in the top one percent with emotional competency were three times more productive (by value). For jobs of medium complexity, like sales clerks, or mechanics, a single top emotional competent person was twelve times more productive (by value).” Daniel Goleman (52)
“A person may be a ten on a ten-point IQ scale but emotionally score only a two, and not know how to relate well with others. They may compensate for this deficiency by over-relying on their intellect and borrowing strength from their formal position. But in so doing, they often exacerbate their own weaknesses and, in their interactions, the weaknesses of others as well. Then they try to intellectually rationalize their behavior.” (52)
Spiritual Intelligence: our drive for meaning, source of guidance, discernment of principles and connection with the infinite. (53-54)
Semantics and the Superior Nature of Spiritual Intelligence (54-57)
See Howard Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind for an excellent discussion of the concept of separate, yet overlapping intelligences.
See also Robert Cooper and Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence.
Some separate visual, verbal, analytical, artistic, logical, creative, economic and other intelligences.
“He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” Anwar Sadat (56)
Four parts of our nature: Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit
Four Capacities of our nature: Physical Intelligence (PQ), Mental Intelligence (IQ), Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) (50)
Mental Intelligence: the ability to analyze, reason, think abstractly, use language, visualize, and comprehend. (50)
Physical Intelligence: the ability of the body to balance and harmonize all of its functions without conscious effort. (50-51)
Emotional Intelligence: self-knowledge, self-awareness, social sensitivity, empathy and communication. A sense of timing for social appropriateness, courage to acknowledge weaknesses and needs, and the respect of differences. (51-53)
“For star performance in all jobs, in every field, emotional competence is twice as important as purely cognitive abilities. For success at the highest levels, in leadership positions, emotional competence accounts for virtually the entire advantage…. Given that emotional competencies make up two-thirds or more o the ingredients of a standout performance, the data suggests that finding people who have these abilities, or nurturing them in existing employees, adds tremendous value to an organization’s bottom line. How much? In simple jobs like machine operators or clerks, those in the top one percent with emotional competency were three times more productive (by value). For jobs of medium complexity, like sales clerks, or mechanics, a single top emotional competent person was twelve times more productive (by value).” Daniel Goleman (52)
“A person may be a ten on a ten-point IQ scale but emotionally score only a two, and not know how to relate well with others. They may compensate for this deficiency by over-relying on their intellect and borrowing strength from their formal position. But in so doing, they often exacerbate their own weaknesses and, in their interactions, the weaknesses of others as well. Then they try to intellectually rationalize their behavior.” (52)
Spiritual Intelligence: our drive for meaning, source of guidance, discernment of principles and connection with the infinite. (53-54)
Semantics and the Superior Nature of Spiritual Intelligence (54-57)
See Howard Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind for an excellent discussion of the concept of separate, yet overlapping intelligences.
See also Robert Cooper and Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence.
Some separate visual, verbal, analytical, artistic, logical, creative, economic and other intelligences.
“He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” Anwar Sadat (56)
From: The 8th Habit, by Stephen Covey
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