ABSTRACT
In ancient Greece, the main myth accounting for suffering permits a variety of answers to the question of its origin. The culture-hero, Prometheus, attempted to trick 'the mind of Zeus', the chief god of the Olympian pantheon, into taking the inferior portion of a sacrificed ox; Zeus duly took it, but planned his revenge.1 Because Zeus is all-knowing, but not all-powerful, there is no 'theodicy problem' in the ancient pagan world. After Prometheus had stolen fire from the gods to give to the mortal men whose helper he traditionally was, Zeus caused the creation of the first woman, Pandora. Moulded by all the gods into the deceptive form of a marriageable virgin containing 'the mind of a bitch', she was sent to earth, where she opened the jar containing all the evils the world now knows: diseases, pain, grief, old age. Who is here responsible for suffering? Pandora? Zeus, who sent her? Prometheus, whose actions caused her to be made? Or all the gods, since each contributed to her creation?
