Chapter 15 - Homer and the Precarity of Tradition: Can Jesus Be Achilles?

Summary

Beginning with a striking passage in which the Sibylline narrator asserts her intellectual ownership of Homer’s work, I point out its Theogonic framing, before surveying other thematic and stylistic invocations of Hesiod across the Sibylline corpus. I argue that Hesiod, without being named, is given programmatic importance as a Classicizing alternative to Homeric authority and wisdom. I then distinguish three strategies of Sibylline transformation of Biblical material in Homeric colouring into apocalyptic visions: amplification of scenes of destruction, cosmic revision of individual action, and the countering of heroic epic values with monotheistic principles. In each of these, ideas of ‘the Hesiodic’ generated by its ancient reception provide a cipher for the critique of the Homeric cosmos implied by Sibylline rewriting of Jewish and Christian scriptures in the direction of universal history. I conclude by offering comparanda for future studies.