Zevist Parenting: Raising the Children of the Gods

The Sacred Work of the Parent

The Temple of Zeus holds children to be the most important beings, because they are the generation of the future. Their education, the instilling of proper ethical norms in them, their care and love, and their training to become socially and spiritually valuable beings are among the most important tasks of mankind (Children Ethics). Parenting is a sacred work. It has a method, and it has an aim.

The aim comes from the relationship between the Gods and human beings. Zevism names that relationship Theoteknia: the bond of parent and child, of kinship, love, guidance and the inherited potential for the child to grow into the likeness of the parent. In the words of the Temple: "He is a child who inherits from love, who grows by nature, and whose destiny is to become what his parent is." The child asks questions, makes mistakes and learns from them, and in the end becomes strong in themselves.

The Zevist parent raises a child in the image of that bond. The Gods raise human beings toward strength, wisdom and freedom; the parent raises the child the same way. The first image of the Divine Parent a child ever sees is the human parent. A parent who answers, guides, corrects with knowledge and rejoices in the child's growth plants Theoteknia in the soul before the child has words for it. A parent who rules by terror plants the habits the Temple names as the marks of the Eilotil: flinching, guilt, fear and the sense of not belonging.

Aristotle saw the same structure from the human side. The love of children for their parents, he wrote, has the same form as the love of human beings for the Gods.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VIII.12, 1162a4-7

ἔστι δ’ ἡ μὲν πρὸς γονεῖς φιλία τέκνοις, καὶ ἀνθρώποις πρὸς θεούς, ὡς πρὸς ἀγαθὸν καὶ ὑπερέχον· εὖ γὰρ πεποιήκασι τὰ μέγιστα· τοῦ γὰρ εἶναι καὶ τραφῆναι αἴτιοι, καὶ γενομένοις τοῦ παιδευθῆναι·

"The affection of children for their parents, like that of men for the gods, is the affection for what is good, and superior to oneself; for their parents have bestowed on them the greatest benefits in being the cause of their existence and rearing, and later of their education." (tr. H. Rackham)

The parent gives existence, rearing and education: the same 3 gifts the Gods give the human race. The end of the work is the end of Zevism itself: ὁμοίωσις θεῷ, the becoming like the Gods, the path to the Godhead. Parenting prepares a soul that can walk it. Through education a human being rises from an Andrapod to a human being (Education and Learning); through the lifelong labor of formation, the human being walks toward the state of Theophoros (Paideia).

Three Forces That Form a Child

The most systematic ancient treatise on raising children, On the Education of Children, transmitted at the head of Plutarch's Moralia, reduces the whole work to 3 forces that must run together: nature, reason and habit.¹

Plutarch (or his circle), On the Education of Children 4, 2A-B

ὡς εἰς τὴν παντελῆ δικαιοπραγίαν τρία δεῖ συνδραμεῖν, φύσιν καὶ λόγον καὶ ἔθος … καθ’ ὃ δ’ ἂν λειφθῇ τούτων, κατὰ τοῦτ’ ἀνάγκη χωλὴν γίγνεσθαι τὴν ἀρετήν.

"For perfect right conduct three things must run together: nature, reason and habit … and in whatever part any of these is wanting, in that part virtue must be crippled." (lit.)

The same treatise gives a famous image: the soil, the farmer and the seed.

Plutarch (or his circle), On the Education of Children 4, 2A-B

ὥσπερ δ’ ἐπὶ τῆς γεωργίας πρῶτον μὲν ἀγαθὴν ὑπάρξαι δεῖ τὴν γῆν, εἶτα δὲ τὸν φυτουργὸν ἐπιστήμονα, εἶτα τὰ σπέρματα σπουδαῖα, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον γῇ μὲν ἔοικεν ἡ φύσις, γεωργῷ δ’ ὁ παιδεύων, σπέρματι δ’ αἱ τῶν λόγων ὑποθῆκαι καὶ τὰ παραγγέλματα.

"As in farming, first the soil must be good, then the planter skilled, then the seeds sound, in the same way nature is like the soil, the one who educates like the farmer, and the counsels and precepts of reason like the seed." (lit.)

The 3 forces weigh differently at each age. In the first years habit and feeling rule: the child can't yet follow a reason, but the child is shaped by everything done to them and around them. From the age of 4 learning rises. From 9 reason begins to test itself. From 13 the young person begins to take the chisel into their own hand. Aristotle put the weight of the early years in one sentence.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.1, 1103b23-25

οὐ μικρὸν οὖν διαφέρει τὸ οὕτως ἢ οὕτως εὐθὺς ἐκ νέων ἐθίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ πάμπολυ, μᾶλλον δὲ τὸ πᾶν.

"It is therefore not of small moment whether we are trained from childhood in one set of habits or another; on the contrary it is of very great, or rather of supreme, importance." (tr. H. Rackham)

The Five Stages

The Ancients divided life into ages, each with its own virtue. A famous summary of the idea stood at Delphi and was carried by Clearchus to Ai Khanoum, on the Oxus, where it was cut in stone.²

The Delphic maxims of the ages of life, inscribed at Ai Khanoum

παῖς ὢν κόσμιος γίνου, ἡβῶν ἐγκρατής, μέσος δίκαιος, πρεσβύτης εὔβουλος, τελευτῶν ἄλυπος.

"As a child, be orderly; as a youth, master of yourself; in middle age, just; in old age, of good counsel; at the end, without grief."

Zevist parenting divides the years from birth to 18 into 5 stages. Each has its Greek name, its law and its rite or marker.

The emphasis of each stage is fixed. The inner emotional foundations must be set from birth to 2: everything later stands on them. From 4 to 9 the intellect begins. From 9 to 13 the intellect is tested and freedom begins. From 13 to 18 the young person trains as an adult. The years from 2 to 4 join the first stage to the third: the will that awakens there must be shaped, never broken, so that it can carry the intellect that follows.

The ages are guides, never cages. Children move through the stages at their own pace; the order doesn't change. The same order appears in the Ancients and in modern science alike. Solon counted life in sevens; Plato set apart the first 3 years and then the years from 3 to 6; Aristotle set apart the first 5 years, the years from 5 to 7, from 7 to puberty and from puberty to 21.^{3, 4, 5} Modern developmental psychology finds the same turning points: trust in infancy, autonomy in the toddler, initiative and industry in childhood, identity in adolescence (The Frameworks).

The Rites Along the Way

The Temple marks the road from birth to adulthood with its rites. Each is described in full on its own page.

• The Amphidromia, from the 5th day to the 3rd year. The parents give the newborn a secret spiritual name, the Ren, known only to them and to the Gods, spoken once and sealed until the child turns 18 (The Amphidromia). The rite takes its name from the ancient Athenian custom of carrying the newborn running around the household hearth on the 5th day.⁶
• The Infant Baptism. The parents, or a Priest or Priestess, purify the child with water, anoint the child with olive oil and present the child before the flame of Zeus, receiving the child into the family of the Gods. Feasting follows (The Zevist Baptism).
• The household's worship, through all of childhood. The candle, the prayer, the festivals and the stories of the Gods form the child's ordinary life (Our Rites & Holidays).
• The Ephebeia, at 18. The young person is recognized as an adult before the Gods; the Ren is revealed privately before the ceremony; the young adult swears the oath, is crowned with laurel and pours the first libation by their own hand (The Ephebeia).
• The Initiation and the adult Baptism, by free choice. The young adult may dedicate their soul to Zeus and the Gods, at the Ephebeia or later, and may take a Spiritual Name at the adult Baptism (Initiate Your Soul).

A Zevist life carries 3 names: the Ren given at the Amphidromia, the worldly name (Onoma Kosmikon) carried in daily life, and the Spiritual Name (Onoma Pneumatikon) chosen by the adult, who may take up the Ren itself as that name. The rites of childhood protect; the rites of adulthood are chosen. The Ephebeia states the principle: Zeus does not force Himself on anyone.

The Parent Is the First Lesson

No method replaces the example of the parent. Plato's Athenian Stranger tells the lawgiver to leave children reverence rather than gold, and to command the old to feel shame before the young.⁷

Plato, Laws V, 729b-c

παισὶν δὲ αἰδῶ χρὴ πολλήν, οὐ χρυσὸν καταλείπειν … παιδεία γὰρ νέων διαφέρουσά ἐστιν ἅμα καὶ αὐτῶν οὐ τὸ νουθετεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἅπερ ἂν ἄλλον νουθετῶν εἴποι τις, φαίνεσθαι ταῦτα αὐτὸν δρῶντα διὰ βίου.

"To his children it behoves a man to bequeath modesty, not money, in abundance … The most effective way of training the young (as well as the older people themselves) is not by admonition, but by plainly practising throughout one's own life the admonitions which one gives to others." (tr. R. G. Bury)

Juvenal put the same law into a single line.⁸

Juvenal, Satires 14.47-49

maxima debetur puero reverentia, si quid
turpe paras, nec tu pueri contempseris annos,
sed peccaturo obstet tibi filius infans.

"The greatest reverence is owed to a child. If you are preparing some shameful deed, do not despise your boy's years: let your infant son stand in the way of the sin you intend." (lit.)

Plutarch closes his treatise with the same command: above all, fathers must make themselves a manifest example to their children, so that the children, looking at their fathers' lives as at a mirror, are turned away from disgraceful deeds and words.⁹ Seneca gives the reason: the road through precepts is long; the road through examples is short and effective.¹⁰

The Zevist parent therefore works on themselves first: on their own meditation, their own speech, their own temper and their own ethics (Life Ethics). The child copies the parent's anger long before the parent's advice, and the parent's courage long before any lesson on courage.

What Zevism Takes From the Ancients and What It Leaves

The Ancients are the source, and the source holds priority. Zevism takes from them the early formation of the soul, learning through play, music and gymnastics as the twin halves of education, the weight of example, gentleness without softness, the honor of the Gods and of parents, the daily examination of the self, and the rites that mark the passage from child to adult.

Zevism leaves what its own ethics forbid. Some ancient cities allowed the exposure of unwanted infants; the Temple holds crimes against children to be an abomination and a sin against the Eternal Gods (Children Ethics). Some ancient schoolmasters beat their pupils; Quintilian and the author of On the Education of Children had already condemned the practice as fit only for slaves.^{11, 12} The Spartan agoge trained endurance through cruelty; Zevism keeps the endurance and leaves the cruelty. The child of the Gods is formed, never broken.

A Prayer of the Zevist Parent

Prayer of the Zevist Parent

Zeus, Father of Gods and men, King of the Gods,
You raise Your children toward Your likeness, never toward servitude.
Teach me to raise this child as You raise us:
with a strong hand and a warm heart.
Let truth be in my mouth and Ma'at in my measure.
Let my house be a hearth of safety, a school of wisdom and a training ground of courage.
Make me an example this child will follow.
Let this child grow in body, in mind and in soul,
and in time stand on their own feet before the Gods: free, strong and good.

In the Name of Zeus, King of the Gods.
Under the Law of Ma'at and in the light of Satya (सत्य).
So it is declared. So it is done.

Ἡ Ἀρχαία Ἑλληνικὴ Προσευχή

Ζεῦ, Πάτερ Θεῶν τε καὶ ἀνθρώπων, Βασιλεῦ τῶν Θεῶν,
σὺ τρέφεις τὰ σὰ τέκνα εἰς τὴν πρὸς σὲ ὁμοίωσιν καὶ οὐκ εἰς δουλείαν.
Δίδαξόν με τρέφειν τόδε τὸ τέκνον ὡς σὺ τρέφεις ἡμᾶς,
χειρὶ ἰσχυρᾷ καὶ καρδίᾳ θερμῇ.
Ἔστω ἀλήθεια ἐν τῷ στόματί μου καὶ ἡ Ma'at ἐν τῷ μέτρῳ μου.
Ἔστω ὁ οἶκός μου ἑστία ἀσφαλείας, διδασκαλεῖον σοφίας καὶ γυμνάσιον ἀνδρείας.
Ποίησόν με παράδειγμα ᾧ ἕψεται τόδε τὸ τέκνον.
Αὐξανέσθω τόδε τὸ τέκνον σώματι καὶ νῷ καὶ ψυχῇ,
καὶ ἐν καιρῷ στήτω ἐπὶ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ποδῶν ἐνώπιον τῶν Θεῶν, ἐλεύθερον, ἰσχυρὸν καὶ ἀγαθόν.

Ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Διός, Βασιλέως τῶν Θεῶν.
Ὑπὸ τὸν Νόμον τῆς Ma'at καὶ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ τῆς Satya (सत्य).
Οὕτως ἐκηρύχθη. Οὕτως ἐγένετο.

Transliteration

Zeu, Pater theon te kai anthropon, Basileu ton Theon,
sy trepheis ta sa tekna eis ten pros se homoiosin kai ouk eis douleian.
Didaxon me trephein tode to teknon hos sy trepheis hemas,
kheiri iskhyra kai kardia therme.
Esto aletheia en to stomati mou kai he Ma'at en to metro mou.
Esto ho oikos mou hestia asphaleias, didaskaleion sophias kai gymnasion andreias.
Poieson me paradeigma ho hepsetai tode to teknon.
Auxanestho tode to teknon somati kai no kai psykhe,
kai en kairo steto epi ton heautou podon enopion ton Theon, eleutheron, iskhyron kai agathon.

En onomati tou Dios, Basileos ton Theon.
Hypo ton Nomon tes Ma'at kai en to photi tes Satya (सत्य).
Houtos ekerykthe. Houtos egeneto.

Those present respond: Praised be Zeus, the God of Gods, the Unconquered and Greatest, Father of Gods and Men, King of the Immortals!