Sure, which is why I alluded to the Christian notion being quasi-Roman. It inherits a lot of Roman ideas (many taken from other places), specifically the Roman notion that The World Sucks. (Notice how every Roman philosophy of importance is based on this premise, even Epicureanism.) In any case, it's not very Homeric.
--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Chris, you're forgetting the entire Axial Age theory,
> which argues that
> the transition from a world of "noble ones" to an
> ethicization of the
> afterlife (where there were good and evil gods, and good
> and evil outcomes
> to life that depended on our deeds) happened sort-of
> simultaneously in
> several places circa 800 - 200 BCE. And so each of those
> "pantheons" had
> evil gods. For example, in Zoastrianism, gods are split
> into daevas and
> the ahuras, the first evil and the second ethical. And
> they each had
> chief gods, Ahriman being the head of the evil pack.
>
> There are several other examples. The whole point of the
> Axial Age theory
> is that Christianity didn't invent this, it inherited
> it.
>
> Michael
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