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The first major period of renaissance, the Greek Classical Period, began with a development in language by the Greek poet Homer. One can only conjecture what prompted Homer to launch the kind of deep and far reaching linguistic development that he started, the kind of development that would lead to such profound advances in civilization that a new era in human culture began. The Greek Classical Period, literally, began with Homer. The cultural development, which unfolded in this period are widely regarded as the cradle of modern civilization.
Homer, himself, may not have aimed quite that high. His goal may have been much more immediate. His people were primitive mountain tribes with a correspondingly small vocabulary. Their culture was richly interwoven with mysticisms and irrational customs. Apparently, he saw a problem in this backwardness. How could such a people hold their own against the ever increasing threat from the great empires to the east? How could these tribes develop the required strength and resources to defend themselves against such vicious foes as the Assyrian Empire, or the great massive forces of the Persian Empire unfolding behind it? At their traditional state, steeped in mythology, they were barely able to separate reality from the myths. Indeed, modern society is once again falling into this trap, ideologically and financially.
For the Greeks, Homer changed all that. He created a linguistic sphere in which people could think and begin to recognize the deeper implications of their beliefs, and their actions based on these beliefs. The comprehension of complex ideas is impossible without a complex language with which to express them, even to oneself.
Homer was a poet, and the convention of the time was epic poetry, intended to be sung or recited to a large audience. This was the platform on which he reached the minds of the people.
His two most famous works were epic poems: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Both works are based on tragic plots that grip the audience in the setting of an epic tale. A researcher writes about these two works: "...the story is told in a language which is simple and direct, yet full of natural eloquence and nobility."*(from Encyclopedia Britannica - 1972) In this arena Homer was in a class of his own. But, soon, a whole procession of geniuses emerged in different fields; people like Solon, the renowned law-giver and pioneer of the idea of constitutional law; Socrates and Plato, who need no introduction; and Eratosthenes who calculated the circumference of the earth with a 50 mile accuracy, more then 2,000 before anyone ever saw the earth as a sphere, when nearly all of humanity believed the earth to be flat.
Literature, art, science, philosophy, education, engineering, statecraft, and sports, all flourished in this unfolding civilization. The Greek Classical Civilization became the leading edge of mankind's determination to embrace the infinite.
It is suggested that the emergence of Christ Jesus occurred at the highest extent of the Greeks influence on philosophical, scientific, and practical matters. In this case the Plutonic scientific and spiritual influence, coming together with the monotheistic religion of the Israelites, caused a revolutionary shift in spiritual perception; a kind of quantum jump that occurred when these two highly advanced cultures were rolled together into a melting pot. One of these cultures had a long tradition in 'religion,' based on universal monotheism, that had sprung up in the midst of the old Babylonian melting pot which, as we have been told, had also been exposed to Egyptian culture. The other was Plato's rigorous tradition in the exploration of fundamental principles.
Plato's process for the discovery of truth must have contributed immensely to a culture that was centered on the unfolding idea of infinite worth and potential imbedded in the nature of man, as an underlying truth. The Christian Bible reports a related incident at Jesus' trial, by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, in which Jesus explained, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."*(John 18:37)
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