Ancient Greek "Sitcoms"

 A few years ago, my dear friend Bob Kaplowitz purchased a copy of Augustine's City of God for me as a gift. (You can read it for free here, or listen to it for free here.) I'm only ambling my way through it a couple pages every now and then, but I find it to be very refreshing reading.

The few pages I read tonight had to do with the plays that were performed by Greeks and Romans in ancient times. Check out this passage from book two, chapter ten:

"The Greeks, therefore, seeing the character of the gods they served, thought that the poets should certainly not refrain from showing up human vices on the stage, either because they desired to be like their gods in this, or because they were afraid that, if they required for themselves a more unblemished reputation than they asserted for the gods, they might provoke them to anger."

I find fascinating that Augustine immediately assumes the temptation for the viewer to want to be like the characters portrayed on the stage. In the case of the Greeks, the characters on the stage were gods. These were the same gods that the viewers went and worshipped at the temple on holy days. This wasn't seen as strange, but was instead just a normal part of life.

We don't believe in "gods" in the way that the Greeks did, and yet our television shows perform the same function. The characters are often idealized caricatures of what we want to be like. We take our cues from television, whether it's clothing, language, or religion. Television tells us how to look, act, and think.

And do we obey? Sure we do.