Ancient Greek religion

“ But the modern world is not intensely enough convinced of the reality of Sin and Judgement, Hell and Heaven, to accept this answer as an authoritative guide in life, and has not clearly thought out any other. The ancient Greek spent a great part of his philosophical activity in trying, without propounding supernatural rewards and punishments, or at least without laying stress on them, to think out what the Good of man really was. ”

“ It all conspires to show that, while the modern Greek is sincerely and devoutly a Christian, his transition into his new faith from the religion of his remotest ancestors has been accompanied by a very considerable retention of old usages and old nomenclature, and by the persistence of ineradicable traces of the idealistic residuum that remained after the more gross portions of the ancient mythology had refined away and had left to the worshiper abstract godlike attributes, rather than the gods and goddesses his forefathers had created in man’s unworthy image. ”

“ The stories about the Gods, often of the type natural to savage folklore, did not constitute ancient religion; and they were the less able to choke the growth of a higher ethical-religious spirit in that they were not enshrined in sacred books that could speak with authority to the people. Yet we have not infrequent proofs in Greek literature, notably in Plato’s Euthyphron, that they might exercise at times an immoral influence on men’s conduct. Meantime the educational movement in the sixth and fifth centuries had awakened men’s minds to the importance of the moral question in literature. ”

“ Literary.—Our real knowledge of any ancient religion depends obviously on the copiousness and variety of our records. And it is likely to be more luminous, if the society in question expressed its religious life not only in surviving literature, but also in surviving art. Of both these kinds the student of Greek religion has an unusually rich material. ”

“ When the Rosetta stone proclaims the Ptolemy as ‘the living image of God,’ the average Greek might smile in secret, but the native Egyptian would instinctively assent to this assumption of divinity by the heir of the ancient Pharaohs. ”

“ Of course there are plenty of people of sanguine temperament and industrious fancy who find no difficulty in producing for our benefit the most admirable solutions of the problem. Others in varying degrees of good faith press the emotions of Christian piety into the service of explaining ancient faith in gods. Thus injustice is done to both forms of religion and an understanding of the essentials of Greek belief in its true and independent reality is made completely impossible. ”

“ In a description of Greek life it is impossible entirely to pass over the many customs connected with the worship of the gods, and their importance in the life of individuals. Greek religion did not appoint any fixed ceremonies to be observed every day, as the Jewish or Mahometan religions do ”

“ THE SOURCES AND THE EVIDENCE The foundation of a serious and scientific study of Greek religion, as distinct from the mere mythology of Hellas, may almost be said to have been an achievement of the last generation of scholars. And it is only through recent research that the Hellenic spirit, so creative and imperial in the domains of literature, art and science, can be recognised as manifesting itself not unworthily in the sphere of religion. ”

“ Yet such a view is only a partial one; in it the eye is fixed on the sharp, bright edge of high Hellenic culture but loses sight of the sombre world across which it strikes. Greek religion, where we can observe it most distinctly, is at once a magnificent ritualistic system, and a cycle of poetical conceptions. Religions, as they grow by natural laws out of man's life, are modified by whatever modifies his life. ”

“ Many persons who are quite prepared to admit the importance to the world of Greek poetry, Greek art, and Greek philosophy, may still feel it rather a paradox to be told that Greek religion specially repays our study at the present day. Greek religion, associated with a romantic, trivial, and not very edifying mythology, has generally seemed one of the weakest spots in the armour of those giants of the old world. ”

“ Old Greek religion was a worship of the beautiful—the ideal in nature and human life, and the gods were ideal expressions of human thought, portraying the divine in man. Religion influenced the old Greek in every way and on every side he was reminded of the gods by temples, altars, statues, sacred trees, etc. But with all his religion, strange to say, the Greek did not connect it closely with his moral life, for his religion was expressed in his attitude toward the gods, while his morality was determined by the laws of the land and the customs of society. ”

“ Yet it is a mistake to suppose that Greek religion had its origin in a worship of natural objects and forces; undoubtedly the worship of natural phenomena and of inanimate objects, of ancestors, and possibly of animals, all contributed to the religious sum total, but it is impossible to trace to-day all the factors which made up religion in historical times. We can only say that the Greeks worshiped a multitude of spiritual beings who filled all nature and were to be found in every field of activity. Man, therefore, was always in social relation to the gods. ”

“ A complete history of Greek religion ought, without doubt, to include at least the rise of Christianity and the growth of the Orthodox Church, but, of course, the present series of studies does not aim at completeness. We will take the Christian theology for granted as we took the classical Greek philosophy, and will finish with a brief glance at the Pagan reaction of the fourth century, when the old religion, already full of allegory, mysticism, asceticism, and Oriental influences, raised itself for a last indignant stand against the all-prevailing deniers of the gods. ”

“ No attempt has been made to give a general treatment of Greek religion, or to deal with pre-Hellenic origins, with religious antiquities, or with mythology. The discussions are confined rather to the Greeks’ ideas about the nature of the gods, and to their concepts of the relations between gods and men and of men’s obligations toward the divine. The lectures therefore deal with the higher ranges of Greek thought and at times have much to do with philosophy and theology. ”

“ Any worshipper can suspend the scientific part of his mind while worshipping. But a religious belief that is morally contemptible is in serious danger, because when the religious emotions surge up the moral emotions are not far away. And the clash cannot be hidden.
This collapse of the traditional religion of Greece might not have mattered so much if the form of Greek social life had remained. If a good Greek had his Polis, he had an adequate substitute in most respects for any mythological gods. ”

“ This did not mean, however, that men had lost their religious longing. Far from it. For there is abundant proof that under the stimulus of Greek philosophy and mysticism, questionings as to the nature of man, his relation to divinity, and his immortality became more earnest. To these questions the Greco-Roman religion offered no answer.
The oriental gods, however, were of a very different sort from those of Greece and Rome: they required a spiritual devotion on the part of their devotees and they made strong appeals to the religious emotions. ”

“ The religion of the Greek, too, taught that the body was the beautiful and godlike temple of his soul; and the truth that human beings have something in common with a higher power than their own gave him a great respect for humanity, and, in truth, he felt that if he could escape death he should be content and almost, if not quite, a god. For we must remember that the gods of the Greek were not all-wise, all-powerful, and all-good, as we believe our God to be. ”

“ For in spite of its secular freedom, which is its salient achievement, Greek literature in its highest and most popular forms, as well as in its narrower and more special, is deeply infused or preoccupied with religion and religious myth. In fact, it reflects the vivifying penetration of religion into all parts of Greek activity and mental life. ”

“ It wrapped religion in Sophrosynê.
Again, it worked for concord and fellow-feeling throughout the Greek communities. It is, after all, a good deal to say, that in Greek history we find almost no warring of sects, no mutual tortures or even blasphemies. With many ragged edges, with many weaknesses, it built up something like a united Hellenic religion to stand against the 'beastly devices of the heathen'. And after all, if we are inclined on the purely religious side to judge the Olympian system harshly, we must not forget its sheer beauty. Truth, no doubt, is greater than beauty. ”

“ It is impossible, then, that this beautiful idolatry, against which the philosophers might occasionally protest,103.3 could have weakened the popular faith in the native deities. Introduced suddenly into Rome it helped to destroy the old Roman animistic religion. But the religious instinct and history of Greece was wholly different from that of Rome. Greek polytheism would probably have perished or been transformed by alien systems of cult far sooner than it was, if Greek art had not fortified and ennobled it, rooting it deeply in the æsthetic-religious emotions and perceptions of the people. ”

“ The wilder people have wilder gods, which, however, in Athens, or Corinth, or Lacedaemon, changing ever with the worshippers in whom they live and move and have their being, borrow something of the lordliness and distinction of human nature there. Greek religion too has its mendicants, its purifications, its antinomian mysticism, its garments offered to the gods, its statues worn with kissing, its exaggerated superstitions for the vulgar only, its worship of sorrow, its addolorata, its mournful mysteries. ”

“ Yet as Greek religion was always in the service of the state, and the priest a state-official, society was the reverse of theocratic. Secular advance, moral progress and the march of science, could never long be thwarted by religious tradition; on the contrary, speculative thought and artistic creation were considered as attributes of divinity. We may say that the religion of Hellas penetrated the whole life of the people, but rather as a servant than as a master. ”

“ Fifth-century religion contrasted with the Homeric.—If we take Athens as the typical religious community of the fifth century and compare the {93} structure and forms of her state-polytheism with those of the old Homeric world, we find the personalities of the prehistoric pantheon still worshipped and cherished; no prehistoric cult of that epic world has as yet fallen into desuetude; nor had the most civilised city of Hellas discarded the immemorial rites of the simple peasant religion, the worship of rivers and streams, nor some of the most naïve practices of animism. ”

“ The general effect of the iconic art upon Greek religion has been briefly indicated above; and long before this century the religious bias of the race was committed to idolatry;98.2 the people craved an image that they could love and cherish, though here and there they might retain the uncouth fetich, the block of wood or rudely hewn stone, because of the immemorial magic which it had acquired through ages of shy half-savage veneration. ”

“ Philosophy, in more intellectual times, condemned this rude conception of divine things; but men’s ideas, like their offerings, belong to the state of society in which they live, and the Greeks of the heroic ages unquestionably attributed to their gods the qualities most in esteem among themselves.
Next to religion the most prominent feeling in the mind of the early Greeks was filial piety. [142] Nowhere among men were parents held in higher honour. The reverence paid to them partook largely of the religious sentiment. ”

“ See the labors of the most accomplished of the orators of Pagan antiquity. It was not enough for an ancient Greek to have natural gifts; he must train himself by the severest culture, mastering all knowledge, and learning how he could best adapt himself to those he designed to move. So when the gospel was left to do its own work on people's hearts, after supernatural influence is supposed to have been withdrawn, the Christian preachers, especially in the Grecian cities, found it expedient to avail themselves of that culture which the Greeks ever valued, even in degenerate times. ”

“ Finally a study of all the facts and probabilities may convince a careful student that the origin of Greek polytheism as a whole from simpler forms cannot be found in this earliest period. In the second millennium, which is the starting-point for Hellenic history proper, we cannot discern the ‘making of a God’ (unless we mean the building-up of his more complex character) , nor do we start with a godless period. We may well believe that in the history of mankind theism was evolved from animism or polydaimonism ”

“ Now as the Greek world in the long period of its independence was never organised as a single State, the attempt to give a summary and general account of its religion is confronted with the perplexity arising from the often incalculable diversity of {8} religious forms and ideas in the different centres of its social life, which was in the highest degree centrifugal. ”