Louis Markos. IVP Academic. 2007. 257 reading pages

When I heard that filmmaker Christopher Nolan was going to bring the ancient Homeric epic The Odyssey to the cinemas, I decided it was time to re-read it again. The Odyssey is an epic poem that tells of the journeys of Odysseus, an ancient Greek king who took part in the Trojan War and then had a long and fantastical journey home, only to find that in his absence his home had been occupied by suiters vying for his wife’s hand in marriage.  The first time I read this was in the late 2000s when I had decided to train as a high school teacher in classics and history.

I also decided to re-read another book that I had read around that time: Louis Markos’ From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics. This book explores the characters, themes, and symbols from a range of Greek and Roman stories and proposes ways in which these might plausibly be pointing ahead to the coming of Christ.

This might be a surprising proposition. After all, these works were all written long before the birth of Jesus, and none emerged within contexts with any meaningful access to the knowledge of God.

Markos is not unaware of this, and locates his work within a long-standing debate among theologians.

Ever since Tertullian wrote his famous dictum, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (c. 200 AD), Christian thinkers have disagreed about the value that pagan writers might bring to Christian faith. Christianity teaches that reality is known by revelation—that is, God making himself known. The Bible shows us a God who has made himself known through his Creation, and more particularly through his dealings with the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and especially through the coming of Jesus Christ.

But this leaves a question: is God known at all, even dimly, through other sources?

This is the question Markos raises in the introduction of his book. His conviction is that at times pagan writers such as “Plato and Homer leap past their human limitations and catch a glimpse of the true glory of the triune God” (p. 13). The bulk of his introduction argues his case. Not all readers will be persuaded—he himself admits some of his arguments are a bit of a stretch—but he does raise some interesting points.

Bible readers might be familiar with the two approaches the Apostle Paul takes to the knowledge of God held by pagans. One comes from Romans 1:18–23, where he indicts them for twisting the knowledge of God to craft and worship idols. The other comes from Acts 17:22–31 where Paul preaches to the Athenians and endorses their pagan poets as having been onto something about God that the Greeks should pay attention to (see verse 28).

Markos leans heavily into this second approach in his book.

He writes “If Moses and Hesiod (a poet who wrote a Greek creation story) tapped something of the divine mind, then we must seek to tap their minds . . . Of course we do not and should not read Hesiod the same way we read Moses. The revelation given to Moses was far clearer than that given to Moses. Unlike Moses, who spoke with God face to face, Hesiod saw the divine face dimly through a dirty mirror” (pp. 30–31).

Regardless of where one lands on the question of divine revelation in pagan sources, lovers of classical Greece and Rome will enjoy reading about the mythological stories and how they might point toward and find fulfilment in Jesus Christ.

Markos limits his exhibition to the poetry of Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, and three Greek tragedians. The important thought of the philosopher Plato is omitted since it is deserving of a whole book on their own—a book he later wrote as From Plato to Christ: How Platonic Thought Shaped Christian Faith (2021).

Each chapter examines a portion of Roman or Greek poetry, seeking to describe the work on its own terms and as a product of its own time. Following that, Markos aims to present each as “proto-Christian works of almost prophetic power that points the way to Christ and glimmer with a faint but true light” (p. 23).

The remainder of this summary will focus on the three chapters on Homer’s Odyssey.

This chapter explores the maturation of the second main character: Odysseus’ son, Telemachus. In the story Telemachus had been born shortly before Odysseus’ twenty-year absence, and is now a young man learning and struggling to assert his authority in his family home. The palace of the absent King Odysseus has been occupied by a horde (not “hoard”, RNZ!) of suitors hoping to marry the supposedly widowed queen Penelope. Markos identifies narrative markers that show young Telemachus beginning to take on his father’s mantle, learning to make bold and necessary choices.

The “fulfilment” theme that Markos points this toward is that of committing to and internalizing the values that will uphold civilization. He concludes: “Civilization is not a given: it rests on the choices that each of us makes” (p. 88). Just as Telemachus had to uphold the ancient customs of hospitality (xenia), likewise Christians must commit to and internalize the Law and ways of God if America is to remain a great democracy. Markos cites or alludes to Joshua 24:15; Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3. This fulfilment theme is not so much one pointing to Jesus but to Christian civilization via the necessity of virtue to maintain it.

Here Markos identifies a collection of significant points about Odysseus’ yearning for and reclamation of his home and family. Many of these align with biblical ideas. The marriage of Odysseus and Penelope is presented as “one of the highest visions of marriage outside of the Bible” in the ancient world (although no mention is made of Odysseus’ infidelity with Calypso, nor Circe). Odysseus’ transformation into a tired old beggar is likened to Jesus: both suffer humiliation and disguise en route to becoming king. A point of difference is noted in that the gods of Greece helped those who were already strong and successful, while the God of Israel instead tends to humble the strong and exalt the weak.

Much is made of the slaughter at the palace: faithful and unfaithful servants are allotted reward and punishment accordingly, and the wicked suitors face a day of judgement for persisting in what they know is wrong. Odysseus restores peace and justice like a “messiah-king” (p. 98). These themes find numerous biblical echoes, not least in the parallel to the book of Revelation in which both books conclude not with battle and slaughter but with “the marriage of the faithful bride and the bridegroom-redeemer” (p. 98).

The Odyssey is most popularly known for its fantastical elements. The sirens, the lotus-eaters, Circe the sorceress, Scylla and Charybdis, and of course Polyphemus the cyclops are widely known stories even among those who have never heard of Homer’s poem. Markos provides as usual his helpful commentary of the main features, and then moves on to highlight two themes that point to Christian faith.

Firstly, Markos describes the allegorical usage put to these stories by Christians from the Middle Ages. Deeper spiritual meanings are drawn from the tales of Odysseus “that could inspire Christians in their spiritual pilgrimage” (p. 106). For example, the trap set by Circe is allegorised as the temptations of the physical world.

The second is an overlooked feature of Homer’s depiction of the Olympian gods. Although they are typically remembered for their very-human misdemeanors, Markos points to the care and concern that they do on occasion show to their favored mortals. They strive to protect them and are anguished by their loss. This pathos sets them apart from the passionless deity (the “unmoved mover) which was later popularized by Plato and Aristotle. The deities as described by Homer give a glimpse of the one true God who laments his people’s hardheartedness and who knows their griefs.

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Having re-read the book, I found that I enjoyed it mainly for its ability to guide me through some of the more significant themes of these classical authors. Its second stated aim—showing how they find fulfilment in Christ—was less satisfying. Sometimes I felt he was on to something, other times the connection felt tenuous or simply a coincidental parallel brought about by experiences common to humanity. Christian readers can make their own assessments of his proposals.

Nevertheless, Markos’ work does have value for explicitly Christian purposes. His treatment of pagan classics shows mission-minded Christians how they might connect a society’s values and aspirations to the faith of Jesus Christ. He respects the culture’s stories enough to explain them on their own terms, but tries to show how they find ultimate resolution in the gospel. His approach is one modelled on Paul’s sermon in Athens in Acts 1722–31. It also reminded me of the late Timothy Keller’s “Christian High Theory” that aimed to engage missionally with culture.

From Achilles to Christ can be brought from Amazon and other book retailers. Markos has also written a more recent and larger book on the same theme: The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes (2021).