Feature
Ancient Crossroads
Intimations of Jesus Christ in the Greek Tragedies
Christians believe that the unique birth, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are not only historical events that occurred during the first century a.d. but also the miraculous fulfillment of the prophetic utterances of such Old Testament figures as Moses, David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. Indeed, for those who have eyes to see, most of the key tenets of Christian doctrine can be found, in embryonic form, in the books of the Old Testament. As God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Christ, so also did he use the Law and the Prophets to prepare the hearts of his people for the coming of their long-awaited Messiah.
Is it not possible, however, that the Jews were not the only people whom God prepared? Might he not have spoken to the pagan nations as well? True, he did not give direct revelation to the Babylonians or Persians or Greeks or Romans, but might he not have whispered to their hearts in a different, less direct way? Though fallen, we were all made in God’s image. If it is true that God has set eternity in the hearts of men (Eccl. 3:11), then all men, Jew and Gentile alike, have the inborn desire and ability to yearn after the one true God. The supreme biblical example of this is the Magi, gentile pagans who followed their limited astrological wisdom and found, to their great joy, that God used that wisdom to lead them to the Christ child.
During the Golden Age of Athens (fifth century b.c.), there arose three great tragedians—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—whose dramatic masterpieces offered profound insights into the workings of fate and providence, and showed the helplessness of man to find his way in the absence of divine standards and touchstones. Though they are not Christian works, these timeless tragedies wrestle with issues of vital importance to Christians. In this essay, I will consider three such plays: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, Sophocles’ Oedipus, and Euripides’ Hippolytus.
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound: The Scapegoat in Chains
In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan who stole the gift of fire from Zeus and gave it to man. According to Aeschylus, however, Prometheus endowed mankind not only with fire but with all the gifts that have allowed us to rise above the beasts and aspire to higher things. Aeschylus’ Prometheus is no mere fly-by-night benefactor who signs a large humanitarian-aid check and then returns to his guarded mansion. He is fully invested in man’s growth and development and is willing to pay any price to protect the fledgling human race from the envy and malice of Zeus.
As part of his pledge to protect the world from Zeus, Prometheus has refused to divulge a secret that he alone knows: the identity of the goddess who will bear to Zeus a son that will overthrow him. In an attempt to force Prometheus to cease aiding mankind, to submit to his authority, and to divulge the name of the goddess, Zeus chains the Titan to a high rock in the Caucasus Mountains and sends a ferocious eagle to continually devour his liver; each night, the liver regenerates, so with each new dawn, the eagle returns to feast again.
In Prometheus Bound, we meet the Titan at the beginning of his punishment, though we are told that he will continue to suffer this agony for many generations to come. Still, Prometheus remains undaunted. He will neither divulge the name nor bend his knee to the tyrannous Zeus. He will remain a foe of tyranny and a friend of man no matter the pain.
And yet, the play makes clear, a time will come when Zeus and Prometheus will be reconciled. Prometheus Bound, like all the plays from the Golden Age, was originally presented as part of a trilogy. Plays two and three of the cycle are lost, but clues in the surviving play suggest that, by the end of the trilogy, Zeus will have released (unconditionally) the chained Titan, who will respond by acknowledging Zeus’s authority and revealing the name of the goddess. Zeus’s decision to unilaterally free Prometheus will prove to all that he has changed into a just ruler, and Prometheus, recognizing this, will extend to him the right hand of fellowship.
Though lacking the wisdom of the Scriptures, Aeschylus saw that reconciliation would not come about through the abandonment of law, order, and force, but through something in which Christians may see a glimmer of the Atonement: Zeus’s just wrath is turned aside by the sufferings of a divine—yet somehow also human—scapegoat. And Zeus’s wrath, Aeschylus makes clear, is just; Prometheus, for all his heroism, is a rebel against the divine monarch.
Prometheus can, of course, also be seen as a rebel from the Christian point of view: like the serpent in the Garden, he tempted mankind with a type of knowledge—the fire of creativity—that Zeus had withheld and declared forbidden. Still, the focus of the play is not on Prometheus’ crime—the Greeks lacked the concept of Original Sin—but on his role as a scapegoat.
Louis Markos , Professor in English and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University, holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities. His 19 books include Lewis Agonistes; Restoring Beauty: The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the Writings of C. S. Lewis; On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis; and From A to Z to Narnia with C. S. Lewis.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
Lewis, Chesterton, et al. Against the Frauds, Experts & Revisionists by Vigen Guroian
33.1—January/February 2020
on the Consequences of One Birth Before Roe v. Wade by Craig Kellogg Galer
32.4—July/August 2019
Today's Culture Wars Are Both Ancient & Modern by Allan C. Carlson
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
