Eve and Pandora

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When the early Fathers were formulating Christian doctrine, they drew on

three sources outside the Book of Genesis: the writings of , the

non-scriptural Jewish writings - such as the Secret Book of Enoch, the

Apocalypse of Moses and the Books of Adam and Eve - and the Greek myth

of Pandora. Although it was pagan and so, properly, irrelevant, the

parallels between Pandora and Eve proved irresistible.

It is strange that a Greek myth, written down close to the time

when the myth of Eve appeared, should carry the same inflection. Hesiod,

in his _Works and Days_ and _Theogony_, written about 700 BCE, tells the

story of how Pandora was created by Zeus as a punishment for the human

race, because Prometheus had brought them the gift of fire, which he had

stolen from the gods:

" 'But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they

may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.' So

said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous

Hephaestos make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the

voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-

shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athena to teach her

needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to

shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the

limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in

her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature ... And he called this woman

Pandora because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a sorrow

to men who eat bread. "

Hermes then takes this 'snare' to Epimethus, whose name means

'hindsight', as a gift from Zeus, and Epimethus accepts her, forgetting

the warning of his brother Prometheus, whose name means 'foresight'.

Before this, the human race had no toil, sickness or death, but with the

opening of Pandora's mysterious jar or urn, 'pithos', all this was

unleashed upon the world:

'But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and

scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men.

Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of

the great jar, and did not fly out at the door ... But the rest,

countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and

the sea is full.'

Pandora, like Eve, was blamed for human mortality and all the

troubles that afflict humanity, though Pandora is not the 'Mother of All

Living' but only the Mother of 'the race of women and the female kind'.

Zeus, like YHWH, inflicted punishment on the human race through woman.

As with the story of Eve, it is not difficult to detect the same

inversion as the patriarchal gods established their supremacy in a

former goddess culture. A similar inversion is found in the image of the

original goddess behind the image of Pandora, where Pandora's name of

'all gifts' (in Greek 'pan' means 'all', ''dora' means 'gifts') is

transparent to the older meaning of 'She who gives all things'. on

comments that Zeus 'takes over even the creation of the Earth-Mother who

was from the beginning'. This is confirmed by Hesiod's description of

the silvery robe and embroidered veil with which Athena clothed Pandora

and the exquisite crown that Hephaestos made for her:

'And the goddess bright-eyed Athena girded and clothed her with silvery

raiment, and down from her head she spread with her hands a broidered

veil, a wonder to see; and she, Pallas Athena put about her head lovely

garlands, flowers of new-grown herbs. Also she put upon her head a crown

of gold which the very famous Limping God made himself and worked with

his own hands as a favour to Zeus his father. On it was much curious

work, wonderful to see; for of the many creatures which the land and sea

rear up, he put upon it wondrous things, like living beings with voices:

and great beauty shone out from it.'

The beauty of this creation was none the less to be a deception

to humankind. Hephaestos, having fashioned Pandora from earth and

adorned her, brought her before the gods:

'When he had made the beautiful evil to be the price for the blessing

(of fire), he brought her out ... to the place where the other gods and

men were. And wonder took hold of the deathless gods and mortal men whan

they saw that which was sheer guile, not to be withstood by men.'

The Christian Fathers Origen and Tertullian both refer to the

myth of Pandora, and Tertullian's association of it with Eve deserves

mention:

'If ever there was a certain Pandora, whom Hesiod cites as the first

woman, hers was the first head to be crowned by the graces with a

diadem; for she received gifts from all and was hence called 'Pandora';

to us, however, Moses ... describes the first woman, Eve, as being more

conveniently encircled with leaves about the middle than with flowers

about the temple.'

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http://www.kingseyes.demon.co.uk/greatgoddess.htm