Prometheus, Part 2: Bringing the Limited Gift of Reason to Humankind

When Prometheus tricked Zeus, the god wrought punishment on the very people Prometheus hoped to help.

Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on (Roman-era relief, 3rd century). Public Domain

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed Prometheus, who created and loved humankind, as a liminal being. He was the son of a Titan, neither a god nor a human being. He tried to do the best for his creation by cheating Zeus through deception. The reaction of Zeus, king of the gods, was swift and furious: He forbade man to have access to fire. Following this prohibition, Prometheus stole fire from the forge of Hephaistos, the god of technology, and, from the goddess Athena, he took the wisdom necessary to use it.

Prometheus watches Athena endow his creation with reason. Painting by Christian Griepenkerl, 1877. Public Domain

Due to Prometheus’s actions, humankind would not only survive, but had the ability to shape the physical world in an intentional way that no animal could. Humans could govern themselves, build cities, and ultimately create whole civilizations according to their own auspices and perspectives without reference to the ruling gods.

Rebellion Spawns Civilization

However, implicit in Prometheus’s acts is the notion that civilization itself is not bestowed as a blessing or favor from the divine, but arises from an act of rebellion.

This idea is not exclusive to the Greek myths. The Hebrew book in Genesis says much the same thing. Genesis 4 says: “Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch. And Cain built a city, and named the city Enoch after the name of his son.”

Cain and Abel. Plaster cast after bronze (1425–1438) by Jacopo Della Quercia (1374–1438), Bologna, Italy. National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh. Neuroforever/CC BY-SA 4.0

Moreover, it is through Cain’s descendant, Tubal-Cain, that we have the first “forger of all implements of bronze and iron.” Since Cain was a murderer, who committed fratricide and was outcast by God, we can conclude that building cities and civilizations were not part of the original plan for mankind in the Garden of Eden.

Revelation 21 explains that God’s ultimate plan was that “New Jerusalem” would come down from heaven. In other words, it would be a city that came from God, not made by human hands.

What was the ultimate city that was made by human hands but was unacceptable to God? After the first city, Enoch, the Bible speaks of the notorious Babel. In order to prevent people’s further impiety and overreach, or what the Greeks would call hubris, the world’s one language was fragmented into many languages. Humans could no longer talk with each other and confusion reigned.

From the Greek perspective, confusion is that lack of order that Zeus’s supremacy established. In both the Greek and Hebrew legends, rebellion is no light matter, but the undermining of the cosmos itself, and so, it must be punished.

The Punishments

After Prometheus’s rebellion on behalf of humankind, what does Zeus do by way of punishment? First, he punishes Prometheus, who has committed the crime; then he punishes humankind, who has benefited from the crime.

Zeus punished humankind via the contrapasso methodology that Dante made so famous in his “Divine Comedy.” A contrapasso punishment is one that fits the crime—is appropriate for it, is “measure for measure.” This is to be expected in a well-ordered cosmos: balance and proportionality, in other words. In Biblical terms, this is “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exodus 21).

Zeus offered Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, the most wonderful woman—Pandora—as a bride. Prometheus had warned his brother not to accept any gift from Zeus under any circumstances. Sadly, the name Epimetheus means “afterthought,” and he failed to heed his brother’s warning.

The word “Pandora” means “all-gifted.” Zeus had instructed all the gods to make a woman of astounding beauty: They all imbued her with some of their divine characteristics, including Aphrodite, so that Pandora became irresistible.

Unlike Eve, who was given as a helpmate for Adam, Pandora was given to Epimetheus as a wedding gift, but one which was really a divinely sanctioned curse against humankind. The contrapasso lies in the fact that Prometheus tricked Zeus by concealing worthless bones in a rich, juicy fat; here Zeus tricks Epimetheus (and so Prometheus, and so humankind) via the seemingly adorable beauty of Pandora. Beneath Pandora’s veneer, she is worthless or, more exactly, seriously flawed.

"Pandora," 2011, by Patricia Watwood. Oil on linen, 30 by 26 inches. Courtesy of Patricia Watwood

The trickster, Prometheus, then, is tricked. Put another way, Prometheus gave humans what he was not authorized to give, whereas Zeus gave humans what they were not wise enough to refuse. By introducing Pandora—woman—to mankind through marriage, her effects are universal: her presence introduces labor, suffering, disease, and ultimately, the irreversibility of human mortality—death.

Essentially, although far bleaker than the Garden of Eden story (because God sees mankind as “very good” and blesses them, whereas Zeus does not), the myth promulgates the idea that through a woman (and so women, generally) men fell into death.

Giulio Bonasone's 16th-century engraving of Epimetheus opening the fatal jar. Public Domain

The opening of the jar (or Pandora’s box), containing all the evils of the world, does leave hope remaining, despite the future of decay and demise.

So much for the protection of Prometheus then; he failed to protect the humans he loved so much. Shortly, he himself endured an even more terrible punishment.

A Limited Type of Thinking

Prometheus’s rebellion has another aspect of the crime against Zeus and his cosmic order. Prometheus’s name means “forethought,” that is, it is related to thinking. Prometheus, if you will, is a symbolic representation of our eternal capacity to think.

Epimetheus thinks, too, but much more poorly. Being charged with creating the animals of the world, he assigned all of them with special qualities which enabled them to survive: for some it’s speed, others can fly, and so on. But when he got to mankind, there were no qualities left to enable humans to survive among the wild animals. Epimetheus could not see beyond the surface of things. Regarding Pandora, he reacted emotionally and, only afterwards, realized that he made a mistake.

Thinking, however, is only one form of knowledge. Iain McGilchrist in his book, “The Master and His Emissary,” talks about thinking in terms of ascertaining truth, of which there are four means: science, reason, intuition, and imagination. Clearly, Prometheus (and to a lesser extent, Epimetheus) exhibits thinking of the science and/or reason type, since technology depends on science, and the trickery he attempts to perpetrate on Zeus is precisely of the rationale sort—a plan or heist.

But where in Prometheus’s “fore-thinking” is the intuition and imagination? In terms of McGilchrist’s ideas, neglecting intuition and imagination is the crime of the left hemisphere of the brain hijacking the right side. The right side of the brain (intuition and imagination) should be the master of the left side, the emissary. When the emissary takes over, science and reason dominate.

Here’s the kicker: This is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden. Eve, first, then Adam, played the role of Epimetheus: eating the fruit was a matter of surface knowledge (it seemed good to eat), emotion (the desire to be wise) and, sadly, damn the consequence until afterwards (afterthought).

The Prometheus myth, then, mirrors, at least in part, the Book of Genesis. The Bible suggests the Fall happened once in one particular way; the story of Prometheus suggests it was happening in ancient Greece, too. Indeed, it would appear that some aboriginal mistake was committed by humanity from the beginning. As comparative religion scholar Karen Armstrong defines myth: “A myth, it will be recalled, is an event that—in some sense—happened once, but which also happens all the time.”

In our final part of this series, we’ll look at what Zeus’s punishment of Prometheus was, what it tells us about the cosmos, and also about its future.

The biblical quotes are from the New American Standard Bible 1995.

To see the first article in this series, visit “Prometheus, Part 1: What We Can Learn From the Liminal Hero.”

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