The Oresteia
Examined.
P.
Ben [March 2017]
_______
[The following thoughts are meant only to draw a comparison
between the Greek cultural idea and the revelation provided by the power of the
Holy Spirit as given in the Holy Scriptures.]
In the drama, ‘Oresteia’, the
tribal vindication of manslaughter is discussed amid the fantastical myths of
its times. The family feud of Atreus that has added
scores of victims to its infamous list of murders, seeks to find an answer (as
Aeschylus puts it) to the endless exchange of vengeance between two parties. The
husband is killed by the wife, as an act of vengeance for having her daughter
sacrificed to the gods by her husband. She is assisted in her kill, by the
husband’s cousin, who has committed the murder for the sake of avenging the
death of his brothers by the husband’s father. The husband’s son, Orestes seeks
to avenge the death of his father (Agamemnon) by killing his mother
(Clytemnestra). This form of retributive justice that was based on blood
relationships and honor does not end even after the death of Clytemnestra.
Since there was no mortal to pursue a violent retribution upon Orestes for the
cause of Clytemnestra’s death, the creatures called as ‘Furies’ pursue to kill
Orestes, in order to secure tribal justice for upholding the principles of
social function. Orestes runs to the shrine of Apollo at
This story of Oresteia is
characteristic of the corrupt literature of the world, where to avoid the case
of irreconcilable logic, gods are made and fables formed. But, at closer
inspection, we find a measure of stolen ideas though expressedly depraved to
the nadir of pollution. Stolen, in the sense of a petulant effort to balance a
similar edge as provided under the Jewish law, pertaining in specific to the
Cities of Refuge, as being the general case with the gentile world at large,
where the basic machinations of civilized patterns have been fulcrumed on the core principles of Jewish reality. In the
Law, the intended crime is distinguished from non-premeditated murder, and as
such the latter was reserved for the service of the asylum but not the former.
The cities of refuge on either side of Jordan, was accessible only for
accidental perpetrators, who after they had been tried innocent are given the
permission to reside in the city of refuge till the death of the High Priest,
on the consequence of whose death, he is let free.
The Greek idea of a transformative process where the
judicial right to avenge has become the field rights of a third party as unlike
what it had been once an individual obligation, is despicable. It reflected an
evolving society where morals become more usefully exercised in due time, as if
the people progressed in time when it came to justice, and freedoms. The Jewish
law, on the other hand, formed no sense of transformative process as espoused
in the drama of Aeschylus, but instead provided a prophetic foreknowledge of
dispensations. This prophetic thought is not as a misery of misfortune lying at
the horizon of humanity’s future, but a majestic encounter of dispensational
changes where the sovereignty of God exercises the salvation of the souls of
men from the very damnation that the law required them to suffer. In one sense,
the individual right to avenge is recognized, as long as it is non-premeditated
and the killer is not reached the city of refuge. This is not seen as a
primitive feature of tribal justice but instead a prophetic sign, that the
judgment of God on the nation of
It is true, that in the sense of revelation as given in the
epistle of Romans, that the judicial power is entrusted by God to a third party
arbitration which is the government. If this is so, then the kinsmen avenger of
death under the law for a non-premeditated murder foreshadowed the providence
of God, which is beyond the machinery of civilian enterprise of the rule of
law. In other words, the Jewish law provided a remarkable space for providence
to act on one hand, and the government to act on the other. But as one may
argue that this does complicate the whole abstraction, since then it shows
providence itself is limited beyond a certain space and as if it would be wrong
for it to act in the area of governmental function. But, the notion under the
law is not to bring out such a conflicting idea but to prophetically impress
the mind of the discerner, that providence needed to be understood as a power
in itself and not merely as a synonym for the government*. Whereas in the
Hellenistic version^, it is the expression of providence (or as Aeschylus puts
it in a depraved sense of godhead, when he calls it as the ‘will of Zeus’),
that drives the events toward the establishment of an arbitrator court.
*The government is inclusive of arbitration power.
^The Greek version of idea as a cultural process, I mean and
not in any literal sense.
Firstly, there is a wrong perspective of things in the Greek
version. The institutions of civility are founded by man though led by powers
unknown to him. This is totally false. The institutions of government spring
from the power that is ordained of God as the epistle to the Romans so clearly
presents. It is not that Noah was led by events to embark upon an idea of
judicial power but instead it was the direct revelation of God to him, that
man’s blood which has been shed needed to be avenged by judicial power.
Secondly, the Greek version of historical progress is
heavily dependent on the labor of man. It is through suffering, that the
purposes of want are reconciled with the potentialities of end gains. This is
not true, as progress seen from the perspective of man’s sweat is closely
associated with the self and the flesh. This is Cainism
and opposed to the idea of grace, where as in the case of the cities of refuge,
the High Priest (grace) is brought to consideration in the overall context of
the situation. In other words, it is grace that forms the principal focus of
the holy revelation.
Thirdly, the ‘will of Zeus’ as expressed in guiding the
various incidents towards the merit of enlightenment, which is that, it’s the
judicial power that can remedy the endless exchange of revengeful deaths, is
foolish. Not only because Zeus is a false god, but the idea of providence is so
corrupted that it is shown as explicitly presenting the perspective that
providence brings suffering to man (even costing many deaths), in order to
enlighten him. This is the exaltation of knowledge at the cost of compromising
the sanctity of life. Whereas in the case of the Jewish law, the sanctity of
life is to be safeguarded from death and this is shown to be the force of
providential government in saving the righteous and destroying the wicked.
However, in the Greek idea, the righteous and the wicked are not distinguished
with respect to providential rule.
Fourthly, the cities of refuge provide a prophetical
perspective of the coming dispensations. The literature of the world inclusive
of the Greeks lacks this; as such there is no revelation from God apart from
the Bible.