The Challenge of Homer School, Pagan Poets and Early Christianity

The first Christians faced two hermeneutical challenges of fundamental importance. Firstly, that of interpreting the Old Testament and secondly, how to cope with the Greek legacy embedded in Homer. The latter is not explicitly raised in the New Testament but since the art of interpreting any text presupposes reading skills, conveyed through liberal studies, the Homeric challenge must have been of immense importance. Homer was the gateway to education, to the skills of reading and writing. These skills were necessary for the nascent Church, knowledge of Homer's writings was a sign of Greekness, of 'at-home-ness' in the society. Therefore education was suffused with the mythology, immorality and idolatry of Greek writings, presenting an obvious challenge to a developing Christian outlook. In this new work Karl Olav Sandnes examines how Christians responded to this challenge. Sandnes asserts that this response varied from complete rejection of Homer and all pagan literature - considering it the work of the Devil - to critical involvement with this literature.