Euhemeros

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Euhemeros ( Greek  Εὐήμερος ὁ Μεσσήνιος Euhḗmeros von Messana , Latinized Euhemerus ; * in the 4th century BC in Messana in Sicily or Chios , Tegea or Messene in the Peloponnese ; † in the 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek Philosopher , writer and mythographer .

Life

There is hardly any reliable information about the life of the euhemeros. According to his own statement, he was a confidante ( Philos ) of the Macedonian king Kassander , who lived from 317 to 297 BC. Ruled and since 305 BC BC bore the title of king. Building on this, research has attempted to reconstruct the life data and even details of the biography of the euhemeros - ultimately, however, it is even uncertain whether his claim is even true. Therefore, the creative period can only roughly be based on other indications to the time around 300 BC. Set.

plant

Euhemeros is the author of a work entitled Holy Scripture ( Greek  Ἱερὰ Ἀναγραφή , Hierà Anagraphḗ ), from which excerpts from Diodorus Siculus and quotations from a Latin translation by Quintus Ennius have been received. It is a philosophical-utopian travel novel about the journey undertaken on behalf of Kassander to the fictional island of Panchaia in the eastern sea, of whose ideal state he gives a realistic-looking description, which also matches Plato's description of Atlantis and Xenophon's education of Cyrus ( Kyrupädie ) is compared. In the Temple of Zeus capital of Panchaia he wants to have the work found the title-giving "holy" inscription on a stele, as the fundamental law of the state of Panchaia the deeds of the first kings of this state, namely the later gods Uranus , Cronus and Zeus chronicled and they proved to be deeds of human rulers who, because of their outstanding merits and cultural innovations, were worshiped as gods by those born afterwards or, like Zeus, allowed themselves to be worshiped as gods during his lifetime.

reception

This humanization of the gods was presumably not intended as a rationalistic criticism of the myth , but rather was intended to make the ruler's cult of its royal patron plausible and to give political rulers in general an incentive to endeavor to promote their fame, which was beneficial for the community. Responded with fierce criticism by contemporaries such as Callimachus , the Book of Euhemeros did not exert a great influence on the ancient Greek allegory of the Olympian gods. However, his approach was expanded into a generally rationalistic interpretation of myths by Palaiphatos in his work Incredible Stories . Thanks to Ennius and Cicero, it unfolded its effect among the Romans and especially then in the apologetics of the Christian church fathers , who found the pagan legends of the gods as exaggerated fables reduced to a realistic and historical core.

The approach, later called "euhemerism", of tracing the emergence of ideas of God to mythical exaggeration of historical figures, was still occasionally transferred to the north Germanic gods by Snorri Sturluson in the Middle Ages . He has found numerous followers in modern times since the Enlightenment's criticism of religion . The Abbé Antoine Banier (1673–1741) provided this interpretation in his three-volume work La mythologie et les fables expliquées par l'histoire (1738–1740, English translation 1739–1740, Italian translation 1754–1764, German translation by Johann Adolf Schlegel 1754–1766) was very popular. Representatives of the euhemerist interpretation of myths were the classical philologist Étienne Clavier (1762-1817), the historian Sainte-Croix (1746-1809), the archaeologist Desiré-Raoul Rochette (1789-1854) and the philosopher Herbert Spencer , or more recently the writer Robert von Tendril Graves . The approach of modern biblical research and biblical criticism since Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752–1827), Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus (1761–1851) and the founder of the life of Jesus research David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) to trace biblical miracle stories back to natural processes , one has sometimes referred to as euhemeristic by analogiam .

expenditure

  • Geyza Némethy: Euhemeri reliquiae. Kjadja a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, Budapest 1889 (= Értekezések a nyelu-és széptudományok köréböl, AI, 14, 11)
  • Giovanna Vallauri: Evemero di Messene: testimonianze e frammenti. Università di Torino, Turin 1956 (= Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, vol. 8, fasc. 3)
  • Marcus Winiarczyk: Euhemeri Messenii reliquiae. Teubner Verlag, Stuttgart 1991 (= Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana), ISBN 3-8154-1957-3

literature

Overview representations in manuals

  • M. Fusillo: Euhemeros . In: Der Neue Pauly , Vol. 4, Stuttgart / Weimar 1998, Col. 235–236
  • Richard Goulet: Évhémère de Messine (ou de Messène). In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 3, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-271-05748-5 , pp. 403-411
  • F. Jacoby: Euemeros von Messene , in: Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopädie der klassertumswwissenschaft, Vol. XI, Stuttgart 1907, Sp. 952-972
  • Klaus Thraede : Euhemerism . In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Vol. 6, 1966, Col. 877-890.

Overall presentations and investigations

  • Carsten Colpe : Utopia and Atheism in the Euhemeros Tradition. In: Manfred Wacht (Ed.): Panchaia. Festschrift for Klaus Thraede (= yearbook for antiquity and Christianity . Supplementary volume 22). Aschendorff, Münster 1995, pp. 32-44, ISBN 3-402-08106-7 .
  • Jan Dochhorn: On the history of the origins of religion in Euhemeros - with an outlook on Philo von Byblos. In: Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 4, 2001, pp. 289–301.
  • Benjamin Garstad: Deification in Euhemerus of Messene: Charisma or Contrivance? In: Dietrich Boschung , Jürgen Hammerstaedt (Hrsg.): The charisma of the ruler . Fink, Paderborn 2015, pp. 151–172.
  • Niklas Holzberg: Utopias and fantastic travel: Euhemerus, Iambulus , in: G. Schmeling (Hrsg.): The novel in the ancient world. Leiden 1996, pp. 621-628
  • Roland J. Müller: Reflections on the “Hiera Anagraphe” of Euhemeros von Messene. In: Hermes 121, 1993, pp. 276-300.
  • Nickolas P. Roubekas: An Ancient Theory of Religion: Euhemerism from Antiquity to the Present . New York 2017.
  • Marek Winiarczyk: Euhemeros von Messene: Life, Work and Aftermath (= contributions to antiquity . Vol. 157). Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-598-77706-X .
  • Marek Winiarczyk: Social and economic order in the "Hiera Anagraphe" of Euhemeros von Messene , in: Wiener Studien 115, 2002, pp. 127–144.
  • Marek Winiarczyk: The Hellenistic Utopias (= contributions to antiquity . Volume 293). De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-026381-7 , pp. 117-180.
  • Marianne Zumschlinge: Euhemeros - state-theoretical and state utopian motifs. Diss. Bonn 1976.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marek Winiarczyk: The Hellenistic utopias. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-026381-7 , pp. 117-122.
  2. ↑ Tusc. 1.27 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Euhemeros
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek philosopher, writer and myth author
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Messana in Sicily (or Chios , Tegea or Messene in the Peloponnese )
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century BC Chr.