Religion In The Odyssey

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Religion is an ever changing factor in society and one that tells scholars a lot about the society in which it existed. The society and popular religion’s understanding of the afterlife is usually a clear representation of what people valued while still alive. The afterlife is an aspect of religion that has stayed with humans from its conception into the modern age. It is a very human need to understand death; where mankind go’s at the end and what awaits them there. An example of these ever-changing beliefs and understanding can be seen with the contrast of the ways the ancient world represented hell and how vastly different it is seen in the 21st century. The Greek hell is not well defined in The Odyssey but there is enough imagery there …show more content…
When Odysseus speaks with his mother she only becomes conscious again after drinking the blood of the sacrificed sheep. While Odysseus laments the death of his mother and that he cannot embrace her. She tells him that the ritual fire burns away the sinew, muscle and bone of the body causing the incorporeal nature of her spirit in Hades. All the dead of Hades are incorporeal except for a few who were either blessed, favored, or cursed by the gods. This representation suggests that the Greeks did not look at death and the underworld as a place of eternal peace or suffering of the soul, like modern Judeo-Christian thoughts on Hell but more as a final resting place of the soul, a kind of thoughtless oblivion or limbo. The Roman view of hell as described in the Aeneid is quite different from the Greek and an even greater contrast to the modern Judeo-Christian view. The Greek and Romans underworld did share the belief that those not given a proper burial could not enter the underworld. Even so, according to the Aeneid after one hundred years the soul would be permitted to enter. It would seem that Romans had a kind of limited purgatory for those not properly buried, unlike the …show more content…
The largest difference between the three outlooks on hell is that in the ancient the underworld was a universal place all mortals would go after death. However, in the modern world Hell is far worse of the two options presented to mortals. It is believed that only the wicked will be sentenced to Hell. Further, the Greek’s looked at Hades as a place lacking pain or pleasure merely a final oblivion. In contrast, Hell is viewed as a place of great suffering meant to torture the wicked for eternity. Also, The Aeneid and The Odyssey illustrate the ancient world’s belief that the most great and powerful will be rewarded in the underworld. This does not hold true in society’s modern beliefs. Hell is seen as a place where all will be equally punished without exception. These great contrasts in belief are due to the fact that the modern world views the afterlife directly in relation to how it views God. Modern religion considers God to be an absolute moral power, therefore Hell and Heaven are seen through a strictly moral
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