Illiad, Sagas, Mahabharata

[Tennessean]

Is it ok to read these? Is it ok to read books, watch movies, or play games that dip into them at all? I just read we aren't supposed to read other religious texts, so do I need to delete them or confess to having read and enjoying them? I assumed it was ok to read them, because they are not bibles, but they have guided many religions and souls on their way to hell. How puritanical do I need to be? Honestly. I don't own a protestant bible, so I guess I shouldn't own these either?

[awkward customer]

Should Tolkein have read the Sagas - Icelandic and Norse - which provided much of the background material for his writings?

[Stubborn]

We aren't supposed to read other religious texts, we're not supposed to read anything contrary to our holy religion.

[Tennessean]

We aren't supposed to read other religious texts, we're not supposed to read anything contrary to our holy religion.

That goes for everything created by people whose work was shaped by those texts? Do Plato and Aristotle get a free pass?

Should Tolkein have read the Sagas - Icelandic and Norse - which provided much of the background material for his writings?

I don't know. Tolkien was just a dude.

[drummerboy]

Well the Icelandic Sagas were copied and passed down by Catholic monks, does that provide an answer?

[Tennessean]

So stubborn's full of shit?

[Stubborn]

So stubborn's full of shit?

That's beside the point. I have zero clue who Illiad, Sagas, Mahabharata are, but based on the OP's "but they have guided many religions and souls on their way to hell" it's pretty obvious they are not Catholic, so unless you want to be among those "on their way to hell," stay the hell away from them.

I know of people who lost the faith by reading the documents of V2. They started out reading them to find out what was wrong with them, and ended up getting sucked in and lost their faith. That's how it works. That's why we don't read anything contrary to our holy religion lest we too get sucked in and lose our faith.

 

 

[Francisco Javier]

I find them to be full of stories of natural virtue and very useful for understanding what the pagan man values (prior to the pagan post-modern who recites the humanistic platitudes given to him by Christian cultural inertia)

I've not once been drawn to paganism from reading how Athena helped Odysseus...

[Tennessean]

So stubborn's full of shit?

That's beside the point. I have zero clue who Illiad, Sagas, Mahabharata are, but based on the OP's "but they have guided many religions and souls on their way to hell" it's pretty obvious they are not Catholic, so unless you want to be among those "on their way to hell," stay the hell away from them.

I know of people who lost the faith by reading the documents of V2. They started out reading them to find out what was wrong with them, and ended up getting sucked in and lost their faith. That's how it works. That's why we don't read anything contrary to our holy religion lest we too get sucked in and lose our faith.

 

 

...you've never heard of the Iliad?

[Stubborn]

No, never. Never heard of Sagas or Mahabharata either until this thread. I still have no idea what they are and based on the OP have no desire to find out.

[Antoninus]

We aren't supposed to read other religious texts, we're not supposed to read anything contrary to our holy religion.

The Iliad and the Norse sagas aren't religious texts. They are a mixture of history and myth. They may feature false gods, but they were never used as any type of scripture by either the pagan Greeks or pagan Norse. They aren't like the Koran or Book of Mormon which are held as authoritative sources of religious teachings by Muslims and Mormons respectively.  As for the Mahabharata, I have never heard of it before, so I can't give any opinion on it.

[GMC]

I don't know if any Pope said anything about it. I know that Tertullian was against pagan Greek culture, but I also know that it was Christian copyist monks who preserved it, and that the Iliad and the Odyssey were part of the cultural Canon of Christian Europe.

The others you mention are the Norse and Hindu versions of this. I suppose the same can be applied as to the pagan Greek culture.

But there is a difference: these works were preserved when paganism had been eliminated and society was Christian. However, now paganism has returned and society is no longer Christian, so maybe now things are different and that doesn't work for us, I don't know

The Christian version of this type of literature is the epic songs. For example: "The Mio Cid" or "The Roland Song".  When in doubt, you can read these kinds of books.

[Fuerza]

These are mostly not religious texts. While they feature pagan mythology, they are really just stories for entertainment and teaching of natural virtues, and were never used for the promotion of pagan teachings. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid in particular are staples of a classical Catholic education. Aside from being used for centuries to teach Greek and Latin, they also serve as a main part of the source material for Dante's Divine Comedy (The Inferno is directly based on book 6 of the Aeneid, and elements of Greek mythology feature heavily in the work). Were they actually forbidden, we never would have had the greatest example of Catholic epic poetry ever written. This is not even to mention the impact that Aristotle had on Aquinas, and the fact that the Lord of the Rings is largely based on a "Catholicized" version of Norse mythology.

Mahabharata, on the other hand, is a sacred text for Hinduism, even though it does contain an epic which is also studied for secular purposes. I would be more careful with that one.

[drummerboy]

If it's sinful to read the Iliad and other works of the Greco-Roman world, then we must by implication throw out the Divine Comedy, one of the timeless masterpieces of Catholic literature and the Age of Faith.  Now I for one am not so high-minded and puritanical to place myself as judge over someone like Dante and his work.

[Tennessean]

These are mostly not religious texts. While they feature pagan mythology, they are really just stories for entertainment and teaching of natural virtues, and were never used for the promotion of pagan teachings. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid in particular are staples of a classical Catholic education. Aside from being used for centuries to teach Greek and Latin, they also serve as a main part of the source material for Dante's Divine Comedy (The Inferno is directly based on book 6 of the Aeneid, and elements of Greek mythology feature heavily in the work). Were they actually forbidden, we never would have had the greatest example of Catholic epic poetry ever written. This is not even to mention the impact that Aristotle had on Aquinas, and the fact that the Lord of the Rings is largely based on a "Catholicized" version of Norse mythology.

Mahabharata, on the other hand, is a sacred text for Hinduism, even though it does contain an epic which is also studied for secular purposes. I would be more careful with that one.

How would I be careful reading other epics from now on? Or how were the saxon monks close to the pagan times careful copying pagan legends? From reading some, like The Kings of Denmark, I got the impression they were recasting the old stories for a Christian audience. They didn't do that with Homer.