Book Review: From Achilles to Christ

Markos, Louis. From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics. Downers Grove, ILL: IVP Academic, 2007. Paperback, 264 pages. $24.00

(Review copy courtesy of IVP Academic.)
Purchase: IVP Academic | CBD | Amazon

ISBNs: 0830825932 / 978-0830825936

Book Excerpts:
Introduction: The Only Complete Truth »
1. Hesiod’s Theogeny: In the Beginning »

Subjects: Christianity & Literature, Greek Classics, Education

Louis Markos is professor of English at the Houston Baptist University where he teaches Classical and English literature. He is also the C. S. Lewis scholar and the author of the much-acclaimed Lewis Agonistes: How C. S. Lewis Can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Postmodern World.

In From Achilles to Christ, “Markos [seeks to] demonstrate how the character, themes, and symbols within…[pagan myths] both foreshadow and find their fulfillment in the story of Jesus Christ—the ‘myth made fact’” (back cover credits). This is a very strong recommendation by the publisher indeed. It remains to be seen if the publisher has overstated its case.

This English professor shows his depth and breadth of knowledge of the biblical, mythical, historical, and early Christian literature throughout the book. He demonstrates these insights right from the beginning. Early on he opens with a barbed hook, a famous quote, which is known by any serious student of Church history, the antiquities, or the classics. Markos poses anew Tertullian’s age-old question: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” He amplifies this basic question with a more broadly based thesis that frames his discussions for the entire volume. Basically he calls the reader to ponder the following:

Can the basic tenets and chief embodiments of both Christianity and humanisms be combined in a way that pays homage both to the glory of God and the dignity of man, the truths of Christ and the wisdom of the ancients? (p. 9)

Markos combines his understandings of Christianity with that of humanism and employs this synthesis as an apologetic tool. “Athens” has very much to do with “Jerusalem” in Markos’s From Achilles to Christ.

Markos puts forth three convincing arguments that well demonstrate his apologetic tone. First, he declares that most evangelical Christians claim that the Bible is the ultimate truth. He then questions this maxim, but somewhat softly, and declares that Christ alone is the ultimate source of “true” truth. The Bible sets forth “the most perfect and reliable embodiment of that truth which resides in Christ alone” (p. 10). Second, he seeks to demonstrate that “we have been programmed by our Creator with a desire to seek and yearn after the God who is truth” because “Paul teaches in Acts 17:26-28, that we are all made in his image” (p. 10). The main issue for this synthesized defense for Markos is his third argument: Truth is not limited to Scripture or sacred tradition because the Bible tells us all we need to know for salvation through Jesus Christ. But it does not attempt to tell us of all knowledge and wisdom (p. 10). This third point, this synthesis, this apology, is where the entire narrative of From Achilles to Christ unfolds.

Markos also employs St. Thomas Aquinas as proof that Christianity has not always believed the Tertullian maxim. He states: “For Aquinas, Aristotle was more that just an authority to be acknowledged; he was a source of human truth and even (to a lesser degree) divine revelation” (p. 11, italics added). Markos is very clear, even provocative, that there is “truth” to be found wherever one seeks for it. He follows the Arthur F. Holmes adage that “all truth is God’s truth!” even though the truth might be discovered in the sacred writings of Israel’s ancient neighbors or the Greek and Roman mythological corpus.

Markos encourages the inquirer after truth, even and especially the evangelical Christian not to run from these ancient sources. He wants the inquirer at the very least to consider them for additional (truth) insights. He then employs, from the biblical text, the apostle Paul who quoted two pagan poets, Aratus and Epimenides. “Both the phrases ‘for we are also his offspring’ and ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17: 26-28) are quoted by Paul from the works of two pagan poets” (p. 17).

Markos goes on to cite three further biblical examples as “bridges of understanding” to argue that “all truth is God’s truth.” In other words, there is a definitive connection between the “wisdom literature of the world” and that of the biblical witness. First, he uses the Magi, who were not Jewish in their understanding of who might “be born the King of the Jews.” Markos’s contention is that the so-called “Wise Men” were really Zoroastrians. These sought truth outside of the covenant of Israel. Second, he cites Paul’s argument from Romans 2:14-15. Here is Paul’s famous impugning of the Gentiles for their self understandings that they “know the Law” internally although they do not have it in codified form. Third, Markos argues from Paul’s use of the Greek understanding of the “unknown god,” also in Acts 17.

Markos considers the works of Homer, Virgil, and the tragedians for his extrapolated demonstrations. Markos …

[C]onsidered [them] from two distinct but overlapping perspectives; (1) as literary works possessing their own separate integrity within the context of the cultures and the poets that produced them; (2) as proto-Christian works of almost prophetic power that point the way to Christ and glimmer with a faint but true light. (p. 23)

Space does not permit summaries of the many “bridges of truth” between the “Sacred and the Secular” that Marcos has built. But of all of the types of arguments I have heard made for or against the “Athens/Jerusalem” connection, this is one of the best. This is a stellar work. I would recommend it highly. I would think that it could be a companion reader for any History of Doctrine, Historical Theology, Apologetics, Philosophy of Religion, or similar class at the seminary. Or it could be used in a Classics class or upper lever Literature class at a university.

Roger D. Duke, D.Min. is Assistant Professor of Religion and Communication at Baptist College of Health Sciences (Memphis). He has been an ordained Southern Baptist minister since 1982 and has had an extensive itinerant and interim church ministry. Dr. Duke holds the Associate of Divinity in Pastoral Ministries from Mid America Baptist Seminary (Memphis, TN); the B.Sc. (cum laude) in Humanities from Crichton College (Memphis, TN); the Master of Divinity from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY); the Master of Arts in Religion in the History of Christian Thought from Harding University (Churches of Christ) Graduate School of Religion (Memphis, TN); and the Doctor of Ministry in Christian Thought, Ethics, and Rhetoric from The University of the South’s School of Theology (Sewanee, TN). He also attended the University of Memphis where he did Ph.D. work in Classical Rhetoric and Communication Theory.

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