Laudator Temporis Acti

Hugh Trevor-Roper, letter to James Howard-Johnston (April 15, 1961; my additions in brackets):

How little of religion there is in Homer! I have cast my mind over Iliad and Odyssey, over all 48 books of them, and (although no doubt I have forgotten much) I can only remember three clergymen; and even they are not noticeably devout. First, of course, there is the first person who enters the stage in the Iliad, the Revd Chryses, vicar of the parish of Chryse, who starts all the trouble by mobilising his patron and persuading him to intervene in his own domestic troubles (which have nothing whatever to do with religion); thus confirming the wise observation of our present Prime Minister's old Nanny, as quoted by him at a Cabinet meeting, that 'whenever there is a spot of trouble in the world, if only you will look deep enough, you will always find a clergyman at the bottom of it'. Then there is our old friend whose name I have forgotten [Maron, in Odyssey 9.97 ff.], the epicurean incumbent of Ismaros, who is only remembered because of his particularly choice cellar, and his refusal to part with the key of it except to his safely teetotal housekeeper. And finally, I recall some rather primitive lower, unbeneficed clergy—I expect it was a theological college, like Cuddesdon—at Dodona, who are only mentioned because of their unhygienic habits of sleeping on the ground and not washing their feet: ἀνιπτόποδες χαμαιεῦναι [Iliad 16.235]. Perhaps I shall remember others later, but on the whole I think we can take these three as typical representatives of the Homeric Established Church: and a very typical Established Church too.