Beyond Troy

The passing of the heroic age cannot, within a Christian reading, mean that supernatural agency disappeared. Daniel's prince of Greece belongs to a later setting of nations and conflict. The biblical record keeps the spiritual dimension of history open.

This prevents us from treating Troy as a final boundary between a supernatural ancient world and a purely human one. The Greek literary movement away from frequent divine ancestry is one thing; the continued action of spiritual beings is another.

Daniel does not explain the relation between its prince and the figures of Greek worship. It establishes that Greece can enter a biblical account of heavenly conflict without that conflict taking the form of heroic generation.

The distinction allows the heroic age to end in its own narrative terms while the larger history continues. It is an important limit on any theory that makes changing literary emphasis a complete change in what exists.