An Ancient Story in a Christian Key

Dear St Andrew’s,

I recently saw Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey. I greatly enjoyed it and would warmly recommend it—although, at almost three hours, you may want to choose your cinema seat carefully!

The film has been both a critical and commercial success. Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus, it has already earned more than $1.1 billion worldwide, becoming Nolan’s highest-grossing film.

The story is based on Homer’s epic poem, composed nearly 3,000 years ago. I have been waiting to see it brought properly to the screen ever since I read the poem as a Classics undergraduate forty years ago.

The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his ten-year journey home following the ten-year Trojan War. His voyage takes him past shipwrecks, monsters, witches and angry gods. Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, Penelope is surrounded by suitors who have taken over her household, consumed her wealth and pressured her to declare Odysseus dead and marry one of them.

At its heart, the story is about homecoming: can Odysseus survive the journey, return to Penelope and Telemachus, and reclaim his kingdom?

Nolan powerfully recreates many of Homer’s narrative “greatest hits”. But he has not simply transferred the poem to the screen. He has also made some significant changes—and here comes the spoiler alert.

The most interesting changes are not to the plot but to its moral world.

Homer’s Odysseus is a hero because of his courage, endurance and, above all, his cunning. The wooden horse by which the Greeks enter and destroy Troy is his crowning achievement. He does not return from the war burdened by guilt over what he has done. He returns with his honour enhanced by victory.

Nolan’s Odysseus is different. He is haunted by Troy – not only by the suffering of his own men but by the atrocities committed against the Trojans. What Homer celebrates as cleverness and conquest, Nolan recasts as guilt and moral failure. His Odysseus eventually concludes that he must confront and atone for what he has done, even exiling himself for his past sins.

This is a long way from Homer’s honour-and-shame world.

Nolan makes another revealing change through what the film repeatedly calls “Zeus’ Law”: treat others as you would want to be treated, especially the poor and powerless.

There is a genuine connection here with Homer. Hospitality (xenia) is one of the poem’s central themes. Strangers and beggars were believed to be under the protection of Zeus. Throughout the poem, people reveal their character by whether they welcome or mistreat the vulnerable stranger who appears at their door.

There are striking biblical parallels. Hebrews tells Christians, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” (13:2) Jesus says that in welcoming the hungry, thirsty and stranger, we welcome him. (Matthew 25:37-40)

But Nolan has subtly transformed Homer’s code of hospitality into something broader: the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Odysseus’s failure is no longer merely that he has violated a sacred custom protected by Zeus. He has failed to recognise the humanity of others – even his enemies – and must confront his own guilt.

As our own church family ancient historian John Dickson observes that Nolan did not set out to make a “Christian movie”. But he seems to have recognised that Homer’s moral universe would not resonate as deeply with modern audiences without being transposed into a different key. Dickson calls the result “an ancient Greek poem sung in a Judeo-Christian key”.

I think that captures it perfectly.

Nolan has closed the moral gap between Homer’s world and ours, presumably to make his characters more sympathetic and the story more satisfying to a modern audience. Yet, in doing so, he has also shown us just how large that gap is.

We sometimes imagine that the ethics of the modern West are simply the inheritance of ancient Greece and Rome. Yet our moral instincts have been profoundly shaped by the Bible: by the equal dignity of human beings, concern for the poor and powerless, love for our neighbour and even our enemy, confession of wrongdoing, and the need for forgiveness and atonement.

Even in an increasingly secular society, we expect Odysseus to regret cruelty rather than glory in conquest. We want him to recognise the humanity of his enemies, acknowledge his guilt and seek redemption rather than merely recover his honour.

Nolan’s Odyssey is a thoroughly entertaining film. But it is also a fascinating exercise in moral translation. It reveals both the similarities and, especially, the differences between the ethics of Homer’s world and the Judeo-Christian moral imagination.

That might make for an interesting discussion over a beer or glass of wine after you have seen it with your friends: Why did Nolan make these changes? And where did the moral instincts that made them seem necessary come from?

Blessings,

James