Divine Liars: Gods and Their Falsehoods in the Homeric Hymns

This paper examines examples of lies performed by gods in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, and demonstrates how these false assertions illustrate each god’s power and essential nature. This analysis uses speech act theory and theories of lying to demonstrate that not all lies are speech acts that have deception as the primary objective. Rather, both Hermes and Aphrodite have goals beyond deception when they make false assertions. The lies uttered by Hermes and Aphrodite demonstrate how divine lies in the Homeric Hymns exert a perlocutionary force beyond deception and highlight the praiseworthy aspects of each god.