Tackling Greek Religion
As a student studying Greek religion I have had to rethink about how I have been brought up with religion around me which has been essentially monotheistic. Greek religion on the other hand is the complete opposite mainly because it is a polytheistic religion. For this reason I have always asked the question how could the Greeks worship so many gods but then being open minded I have to remember religions like Buddhism and Hinduism that too worship many gods.
In order to fully take in how the Greek religions worked it is important to establish what the most important features of their religion were. For example for the Christian faith the church and the Bible are vital parts of the religion. For Muslims it the five pillars of Islam that are most important to them including the journey to Hajj in Mecca. For the Greeks there were many ways they could practise their religion; within cults, at sanctuaries, home altars, at a temple and through festivals in the cities which were celebrated by everyone whether you were rich or poor, citizens or slave, man or child. Robert Garland argues that the Greek world is a 'negative catecism' in comparison to a modern montheistic religion and there is nobody to instruct citizens how worship the gods. Compared to Christianityin which you are able to attend church weekly and they have the Holy Bible to help them learn more about their religion.
There are many features of Greek religion sanctuaries were important as it was within these places that usually hosed a temple with an altar where sacrifices to the gods could take place. There were numerous sanctuaries dedicated to the gods for example Zeus’s sanctuary at Olympia, Apollo sanctuary at Delphi and the most well sanctuary the Acropolis dedicated to Athena. This sanctuary was Panhellenic which meant anyone could come and worship there, but not all santuaries were panhellenic.The term haigon is applied to temples or sanctuaries etc. It denoted a degree of ritual purity.[1] However our term of purity is different from the Greeks who would put a person in exile if they were believed to be polluted eg Oedipus was banished from Thebes after the prophecy of that he would kill his father and marry his mother came true.
Another vital aspect of how the Greeks worshipped is through cult and ritual; according to Zaidman and Pantel, the ritual aspect could represent a ‘performance’ that many Greek people could participate in. Thus the cults give a clearer example of how these performances could take place which I will look at in a later blog. Cult religions too were important as there were many just within Athens where we know the biggest cult religion there was the Athena Polias and even Dionysus a later god of the Greeks had a cult. This was a secret cult and not a lot is known about what happened within the cult but we do know there were initiations and they it was primarily women who joined this cult.
The Greeks compared to Christianity had no sacred text, but the origins of the gods and how they came to rule the universe predominantly comes from a few sources one central writers was Hesiod who wrote the ‘Theogony’ a key source introduces the important of sacrifice tot he gods It can be argued that Greek religion is based on worship and giving sacrifice to the gods by the Greeks for protection from pollution and disease they could threaten the city defences while the gods protect them as thanks for giving worship unto them. This two way dependency is what keeps the Greek worshipping the gods and heroes who help keep safe the place in which they live.
Overall as I develop my blog I will look at how important religion was to the Greeks and the look at the ways they interact with the gods through their religious practises, with at times a particular focus on the god Dionysus who according to Richard Seaford ‘tends to manifest himself among humankind and so in various forms[2].’
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