ABSTRACT
Classical philosophy began with a rational reevaluation of mytho logical materials and, obviously, dealt with the problem of the relation ship between knowledge and mythic narration.3 The Sophists interpreted myth as allegory, while Plato favored a philosophical and symbolic ap proach to popular mythology. Alexei Losev, a modem scholar of Plato and one of the most important specialists of the mythology of antiquity and of the theoretical problems of the interpretation of myth, argues that “the doctrine of the universal being becomes in Plato the dialectical and transcendental basis of all mythology.”4 Aristotle, especially in his Poet ics, saw myth as fable. Later, allegorical interpretations of myth came to the fore. The Stoics saw in Greek deities the personification of the func tions attributed to the gods, and the Epicureans argued that myths, which they saw as based on natural ‘facts’, had been used by the ruling and priestly classes for their own ends. The neo-Platonists evaluated myth in terms of logical categories. Euhemerus argued that mythical protagonists were nothing more than historical characters who had be come imbued with a divine aura. Medieval Christian scholars explained the Old and New Testaments figuratively and allegorically.
