The Hymn to Zeus

"Most glorious of Immortals, mighty God,
Invoked by many a name, O sovereign King
Of Universal Nature, piloting
This world in harmony with Law, -- all hail!

"You it is right that mortals should invoke,
For we are Your offspring, and alone of all
Created things that live and move on earth
Receive from You the image of the One.

"Therefore I praise You, and shall sing of Your power
Unceasingly. You the wide world obeys,
As onward ever in its course it rolls
Wherever You guide, and rejoices still
Beneath Your sway: so strong a minister
Is held by Your unconquerable hands--
That two-edged thunderbolt of living fire
That never fails.

"Under its dreadful blow
All Nature reels; therewith You direct
The Universal Reason which, co-mixed
With all the greater and the lesser lights,
Moves through the Universe.

"How great You are,
The Lord supreme for ever and ever!
No work is wrought apart from You, O God,
Or in the world, or in the heaven above,
Or on the deep, save only what is done
By sinners in their folly.

"No, You can
Make the rough smooth, bring wondrous order forth
From chaos; in Your sight the unlovely
Seems beautiful; for so You have fitted things
Together, good and evil, that there reigns
One everlasting Reason in them all.

"The wicked do not heed this, but suffer it
To slip, to their undoing; these are they
Who, yearning ever to secure the good,
Mark not nor hear the law of God, by wise
Obedience unto which they might attain
A nobler life, with Reason harmonized.

"But now, unbid, they pass on diverse paths
Each his own way, yet knowing not the truth, --
Some in unlovely striving for renown,
Some bent on lawless gains, some on pleasure,
Working their own undoing, self-deceived.

"O You most bounteous God who sits enthroned
In clouds, the Lord of lightning, save mankind
From grievous ignorance!

"Oh, scatter it
Far from their souls, and grant them to achieve
True knowledge, on whose might You do rely
To govern all the world in righteousness;

"That so, being honored, we may requite You
With honor, chanting without pause Your deeds,
As all men should: since greater gain never
Befalls on man or god than evermore
Duly to praise the Universal Law."

--Cleanthes of Assos,  Hymn to Zeus (tr Blakeney)

 In my youth, I struggled with religion because of what I perceived as the emptiness of all those endless words of prayer. When I was older, I struggled with religion because of what I perceived as the corruption of precisely all those people who said they were religious.

The Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoic school, helps me to resolve both of those problems.

If I look at the Hymn simply as empty "God-Talk", I will receive no benefit from it. But if I pay attention to the the content, to the meaning of the words, I will discover something much more. This isn't just a blabbering of blind praise. It is an explanation of why I should trust in Providence.

Don't get caught up just now in the specifics of how you understand God or the Divine, or even whether you believe in a God at all. Look past the immediate impressions to the order of reason. The Universe is subject to constant change, and every effect must have a cause. Something cannot come from nothing. If all things are subject to causality, and all causality is a form of order and purpose, the Universe itself is ruled by order and purpose.

The multitude of all changing things is not fractured and chaotic, but joined together in unity. Call this God, the Absolute, Providence, or Zeus. I once taught a class on the Philosophy of Religion where it helped all the presumption and ensuing conflict to temporarily call it Bob.

Once I can recognize that the Universe has meaning and purpose, all things drawn together by a guiding principle, I need not look at life as random, chaotic, or even unfair. If all things work together for the whole, all things are, in whatever way, part of the good. Even the things we perceive as being evil are also things out of which can, and will, come good.

Even when human beings, given reason and will in the order of Nature, choose to turn away from the truth, Providence, which orders all things, also uses such vice and ignorance as a means to greater perfection. I may not understand how my virtue or my vice will serve all things, but all these things must truly have their place in the harmony of the whole.

The Hymn to Zeus helped me to learn that an understanding of Providence should not be confused with empty psuedo-religious posturing, and that those who engage only in such posturing are, however ignorant and miserable, unwittingly serving Providence in their own way.

Written on 12/15/2010

Image: Enthroned Zeus, Reverse of  silver tetradrachm, reign of Alexander the Great