How to tackle Greek religion.

This week in class we looked at how to tackle Greek religion as a topic. Certain aspects of Greek society are bound to be unclear and therefore scholars have to ‘speculate’ you could say, about how society worked. This is always very well informed and academic, yet things like this can’t be a surety as these events took place so far back into our history. This is what makes Greek religion such a thought-provoking topic because even with primary evidence, it is hard to truly understand how the Greeks acted toward and responded to their religious practises. Firstly to even begin to understand their religion it is key to understand how it played a role in society and politics. Parker discusses various examples of religious matters being discussed by the assembly and states, “…what we are seeing is the role of specialists in initiating and influencing action in the religious sphere. But though specialists may advise, the assembly decides.” (Page 47) By specialists, Parker is discussing religious figures, such as priests. In addition to this point, he notes that although a seer will read on omen, it is in fact the General of the military that decides what action must be taken. Parker is therefore suggesting that although these ‘specialists’ have clearly defined roles within society- their role is very much separated from the actual decision process. The ancient Greeks didn’t have a hierarchical church system and so any religious matters were therefore dealt with in the citizen assembly. The very same body that governed the state. So even though Parker draws a distinction between religious figures and the power they have (or don’t have) in the assembly, he also begins to show that this was because religion wasn’t at all separate from the state, it was one body that governed both. It was completely intertwined as one.

Other than these priests, Parker discusses the other groups that had influence on this assembly. These were as follows:

• ·      Interest groups
• ·      Other religious figures (such as seers)
• ·      And “most importantly” (p.47) politicians

Here Parker begins to show this point by discussing Lycurgus, a successful Politician, “When in the 330s the merchants of Citium in Cyprus sough permission to buy land to establish a shrine of their Aphrodite…” (p.47) Lycurgus reinforced the cause in the assembly. His name also appears on other religious matters. Here we see that politicians could affect the outcome of religious matters, which seems odd for our society. Yet, due to the nature of Greek religion- it would surely be impossible for an influential politician to elude the happenings of the gods. This poses the question that if politics had such a major influence on religion. Could religion have the same effect on politics? This is something that we will discuss a little later in our journey through Greek religion!

At this point I would like to reiterate a point made in my first blog posting. The idea of not looking at this topic with ‘Christianised and modern’ goggles so to speak. The cultural differences between “us” and “them” are arguably very extreme. By “us” I mean someone who is brought up in a Christian country  (despite the fact that I don’t actually consider myself a Christian). Our God is known as being good. He is the epitome of perfection and kindness. This can’t be said for the Greek deities. These gods have human flaws and attributes with feelings that influence their decisions. In Hesiod’s Theogony we hear of Ouranos’ children, “…the wily, youngest and most terrible of his children, and he hated his lusty father.” (137-8) Here we see that Cronos hated his father. We also hear that Kottos, Briareos and Gyges were “…exceedingly arrogant children.” (149). These deities differ so much from our own God and can scarcely be compared (especially in the eyes of a true Christian surely). Zaidman discusses in chapter one the importance of this ‘cultural estrangement’. The Greeks embedded one religion into all aspects of life, whereas we have many types and levels of religion (Anglican, Catholic etc.) and above all we are secularised, our religion is separate from our state. The Greeks took religion in a much different manner- there weren’t set ‘rules’ as it exists in Christianity. There was no hierarchical church system. There was no ‘sin’ as such. To put it simply, there was no blockade between normal life and religion. It was simply how they lived their lives. This therefore generates the question; was there religion in the Greek world? And in my opinion the answer is no. Not in the way we see religion nowadays. We are undertaking a type of anachronism by placing our religious ideas into Greek society.

In class Susan Deacy provided an interesting contrast to the idea of “us” and “them”. It challenges this concept and offers an argument to counteract this theory. In the Forbes book there is a chapter called Finding Religion in Unexpected Places. Forbes talks about how a type of religion is abundant in our popular culture, which is arguably a good description of how religion worked in Greek society. It may not be a religion that we have come to expect due to our ideas of what religion is; yet it is still there. It discusses how religious figures, subjects and stories are rife throughout our books, songs and television. We are completely immersed in it without being aware. This is an interesting concept yet the one that caught my attention the most was the idea that parts of popular culture are actually becoming a religion of sorts. A strange idea yes. 

Think of someone you know that loves football, an extremely popular sport in England. I certainly know many people that love the ‘beautiful game’. These people buy football shirts and they learn the football chants that support their team. They simply worship these teams. They organise their time (and therefore lives) so that they can watch the big game, often with a gathering of friends. To me this sounds a lot like a religious practise. In a Christian sense they are learning hymns, wearing something to show their faith (like a cross) and attending congregations. Forbes describes the Super-bowl in the USA has having all the “trappings of religious festival” (p.2) and he isn’t wrong. Of course sport isn’t literally a religion, yet it shows aspects of one. Our popular culture is perhaps a good analogy of Greek religion and how it fits into society… not as religion, but simply as part of life.

Hopefully these rambling make sense; it is definitely food for thought! Now I have a deeper understanding of how to tackle Greek ‘religion’ and next week I’m going to be looking closely at polytheism, the belief in multiple deities.