EVFEMER (Euhemeros)

Evfemer; Euhemeros or Euemeros, from Messina, Sicily (more likely) or the Peloponnesian, IV / III. BC. e., Greek writer. Author works sacred inscription (Hiera anagraphe). It is a fictitious account of the journey across the Indian Ocean, which is E. must have committed on the orders of the Macedonian king Kassandra. During the journey, he allegedly discovered a group of islands, the most detail, he described one of them - Panheyyu; in a story about the ruling where the social structure (caste system, . important role of the priests, . collective farm), . perhaps, . was guided by the way of Ptolemaic Egypt,
.

In the temple of Zeus Trifiliyskogo E. had to find an inscription on a gold column, describing the acts of the first kings Panheyi: Uranus, Cronos and Zeus. Their achievements were so great that one of them during his lifetime were rendering divine honors, while others (Zeus) was punished for the death of their revered as gods. Product E. We know in the retelling of Diodorus and the Latin translation of Ennia, fragments of which survived mainly in Lactantius. The question of whether to treat E. gods of celestial bodies, is debatable, but it is important for understanding E. In its literary form of the product adhered to the favorite in the IV century BC. e. political utopias and novels about travel, for example, the description of Atlantis in the Critias Plato, the retreat of Merope in Teopompa and O Hyperboreans Hecataeus of Abdera. E. under the influence of ancient Greek representations (the deification of heroes, . such as Hercules and the Dioscuri, . Journeys gods, . the role of the gods as the inventors and founders of cults, . crypts of the gods), . rationalistic interpretation of the myths, . political situation of his time (the conquest and the status of Alexander of Macedon), . possibly, . also influenced by the Sophists,
. Even in antiquity the product of E. commented, but its author believed a geographer, historian and philosopher.

Eratosthenes, Polybius and Strabo have branded him as a liar. Diodorus, and some Christian writers have recognized it as a historian, doksografy saw him as a philosopher-atheist. E. appeared in the catalog of atheists, compiled at the end of II in the. BC. e. presumably Kleytomahom of Carthage. This directory used: Cicero (through Philo of Larissa) and Sextus Empiricus. Point of view, attributed to E. Atheism and the intention to destroy faith in the Olympian gods rationalistic explanation of myths and the assertion that the gods were once human beings, derives from a misunderstanding or biased interpretation of the works of E. Objectives, . who pursued, . were primarily political, . but today it is difficult to assert, . Did he make a cult of the rulers of a fairer and simplify the adoption of its Greek, . or wanted to give an example of the Hellenistic rulers, . as, . acting virtuously towards subjects, . You can worthy of divine honors,
. To a lesser extent, understandable attempt discretion in the product E. satire on the contemporary cult of the Lord.

Work that has had more influence on the Romans (in translation Ennia, who used Varro, Cicero and the Latin Fathers of the Church), than the Greeks. Rationalistic interpretation of myths, often called evfemerizmom named E., appeared before him. We find it even in Hecataeus of Miletus and other Ionian logograph, and IV. BC. e. - For example, in a work about the history, unworthy of trust (Peri apiston) peripatetic Palefata. In religious-historical method, though named evfemerizmom, but not created by E. On the religion-theory, we can talk more with the Stoics, but their evfemerizm not indicative of their dependence on IE, but rather points to a general E. sources.