Potter again: “Not all gods stayed at home. In the centuries after Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia, eastern peoples appear to have been drawn west in greater numbers, possibly because new centers of power such as Alexandria and Pergamon made the Aegean lands far more important than they had been in the past.”
They brought gods wth them gods like “Zeus Hadad” who “was originally from northern Syria and was understood not as a local manifestation of the Greek god, but rather as the supreme god to whom the closest approximation was Zeus.”
There was lots of Zeuses: “In some areas we find dedications to Zeus the Highest, ‘Dios Hypistos’; in others worship of Theos Hypistos – Highest God – and in others, more simply, Highest, Hypsistos. At Stratoniceia in Caria, for instance, there are dedications to Zeus the Highest and another divinity whose name is rendered variously as ‘the Divine,’ or ‘The Divine Messenger,’ ‘the Divine Heavenly Messenger,’ ‘the Divine Good’ or even ‘the Divine Royal.’” Elsewhere, there are dedications to “Zeus the Highest and the Hearer,” anlaogous to Jewish designations of their God as “Highest.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
