That the gods are simultaneously represented as characteristically (if not quite
exclusively) just and also as characteristically unjust might reasonably be taken
to be a contradiction. There are a number of ways of trying (or failing) to
reconcile this body of ideas with the assumption of a pattern of just reward
and retribution. Reversals of fortune can be supposed to be themselves just, the
result of an individual’s overreaching (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.6.44–6).
Another possibility is to make a distinction between different classes of divinity.
(For, as the author of the AristotelianMagna Moraliaputs it, if we assign the
dispensation of good and evil to god, ‘‘we shall be making him a bad judge or
else unjust,’’ 1207a6–17.) Isocrates, for example, distinguishes the Olympians
(exemplarily benign, if not just: ‘‘those who bless us with good things’’) and
daimones(‘‘those who are agents of calamities and punishments’’: Isocrates,
Philippus117). For some, the unevenness of justice is simply the way of the
world: ‘‘we may both expect blessings and pray for them, but we must reflect
that all things are conditioned by mortality’’ (Demosthenes 20.160–1). This can
also be expressed in terms of the character of the gods: that the gods have the
capacity to do bad things (though it is not their fundamental character, Aristotle,
Topics125a34–b3); that they can take their eye off the ball (Isocrates,Panathe-
naicus186); or, most commonly, that they are resentful of human fortune
(Theognis 657–66, Herodotus 1.32.1; contrast Aristotle,Metaphysics982b29–
983a4). For others, the injustice of the gods – the possibility of undeserved
misfortune or that ‘‘sinners and the just man are held in the same esteem’’ – is a
problem or a cause of complaint (e.g., Theognis 373–400, cf. 585–90, 731–52).
In general, however, the availability of different explanations for misfortune (at
its simplest, retribution or sheer misfortune) and the absence of any dogmatic
certainty as to whether ill fortune comes from the gods, fate, chance ordaimones–
far from constituting a problem – provides the necessary flexibility whereby the
belief in the possibility of divine retribution can be maintained (see further
Versnel 1990:1–38). Misfortunes can silently be filed, as it were, depending on
the circumstances.
This kind of approach can be replicated in other areas of Greek religious experi-
ence. As we will see further below, Greek confidence in the efficacy of oracles and
other forms of divination in securing guidance for action (and insight into the future)
from the gods depends similarly on a number of let-out clauses (see especially
Harrison 2000:122–57; Parker 1985; and Chapter 9 of this volume): the misrepre-
sentation, selection or misinterpretation of a prophecy need not affect the institution
fundamentally. Likewise there are a number of potential ‘‘let-out clauses’’ for Greek
confidence in the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice: ritual impurity; the nature of the
accompanying prayer (i.e., what was asked for); or the proviso, which significantly
blurs the distinction between ritual observance and everyday actions, that a man’s life
(his consistent propitiation of the god, through good times and bad, his just and
sober living) must be taken in the round (e.g., Xenophon, Hipparchicus9.8–9;
Cyropaedia8.1.23; cf. 1.6.3–4; Isocrates,Areopagiticus29–30; see further Harrison
forthcoming: ch. 2; Pulleyn 1997). The range of other such propositions to which
Greek literature attests is such that any attempt at a list would be futile. One idea that
requires particular emphasis, however, insofar as it arguably underpins much of Greek
religious thought , is the principle of the unknowability of the gods, one which (as has
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