* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• The Olympians
• Most accounts also list Aphrodite, goddess of love, among the Olympians although she is of an older generation.
• She is often seen accompanied by her son, Eros (or lust), whom we call Cupid today.
• The rest of the Olympians were children of Zeus.
• Zeus married his sister, Hera, who bore him Ares (the god of war) and Hephaistos (god of the forge).
• Zeus also slept with Leto, who bore him two children, Apollo and Artemis.
• The domains of these two gods are slightly harder to pin down.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Olympians
• Artemis was goddess of the hunt and of wild places, but also a goddess of virginity and of transitions (childbirth, weddings, rites of passage and the like.)
• Apollo is even trickier to define.
• He was god of the lyre, of art, of shepherds, of archery, of medicine and of disease.
• Apollo's most important role was as a god of prophesy, who delivered cryptic oracles from his shrine at Delphi.
• Zeus' other daughter, Athena, was born of less conventional means.
• Zeus ate the Goddess Mentis (literally, a mind). This gave him a terrible headache.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Olympians
• Desperate for relief, he asked Hephaistos to crack his head open with a hammer.
• From the head of Zeus, sprung Athena. • Like her siblings, Athena wears many hats.
• First and foremost, she is the patron goddess of wisdom.
• She is also the goddess of crafts, of cities and the goddess of heroes.
• Another son of Zeus was Hermes, who delights in mischief.
• Hermes was the god of trickery, of travelers, of crossroads, of thieves, of athletes and of inventors.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Olympians
• Hermes was the messenger of the gods and also played the important role of escorting the souls of the dead from the Earth above to the underworld below.
• Zeus' final son, Dionysus, is one of the strangest deities of the Greek pantheon.
• At his most basic, Dionysus is the god of wine, of the theatre and of dancing.
• In this sense, Dionysus is the god of having a good time.
• Yet there is more to Dionysus than just getting wasted and partying.
• Dionysus is the god of everything animal in man.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Olympians
• Compare this to Apollo, who provides a counterpoint by representing everything civilized in man.
• Syncretism
• Dionysus was probably a borrowed god, taken from the Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris.
• Like the Egyptians, the Greeks practiced syncretism, combining similar gods into one.
• When they met a foreign god, they combined him with the closest match in their own pantheon.
• They also practice syncretism with their own gods, so that Demeter, Rhea and Gaia are often interchangeable in Greek Myth.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Those are the main gods of the Greeks.
• The Demigods
• Yet, the Greeks did not limit their worship to gods. They also worshipped heroes, who were almost inevitably demigods - the children of a mortal and an immortal.
• Each Greek hero exemplifies a virtue, which the Greeks called arete.
• This arete allows them to overcome some trial, or pathos, and prove themselves.
• Most of these heroes come from the Iliad and the Odyssey. Others have myths all their own.
• Noble Theseus volunteered to be a sacrifice to the Minotaur, only to kill the monster and free Athens from oppressive Minoan rule.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Demigods
• Clever Perseus slew Medusa by showing her, her own reflection.
• Talented Orpheus traveled to the underworld to recover his lost love.
• Beautiful Jason retrieved the Golden Fleece by wooing the sorceress Medea to his cause.
• Yet, perhaps the most famous of these heroes is mighty Heracles.
• His story bears closer inspection.
• As a demigod, Heracles hopes for immortality.
• Yet, as an illegitimate child of Zeus, he is hated by Zeus' wife, Hera.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• The Demigods
• Hera makes Heracles go through a series of incredible trials to prove himself worthy to join the company of the gods.
• After passing through these tests, Heracles is rewarded.
• Instead of going to the underworld to suffer with everyone else, Heracles gets to go to a nice, wonderful place where his every desire will be met.
• Thus, historically speaking, Heracles is the first person to go to heaven.
• It was not until much later that mere mortals, without any divine pedigree, could hope to go anywhere but the bleak underworld.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Mortals and Their Gods
• This attitude toward the average man is typical of Greek gods.
• The gods care about their children and can be incredibly touchy about their particular domains, but for the most part, the Gods couldn't care less about human beings.
• Compare this to the Christian god, who knows and loves every one of us.
• To an ancient Greek, the thought of a god taking personal interest in you is more terrifying than comforting.
• The Greek gods, especially the Olympians, can be very cruel to humans; raping them, killing them and turning them into animals.
• Dionysus even arranged for a man to be ripped to shreds by his own mother. * The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Mortals and Their Gods
• This hostile indifference characterizes most of Greek religion.
• Gods only help their own children out of love.
• The rest of us must bargain with the gods, offering gifts in exchange for their aid.
• This can best been seen in the final story of this presentation, that of Prometheus.
• Under the rule of Chronos, humanity had enjoyed a golden age.
• Though they knew nothing of farming, they fed off the earth's bounty, which was freely given - much like in the Garden of Eden.
* The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Mortals and Their Gods
• With the rise of the Olympians, life became much harder for mortals.
• The earth no longer produced fruit without labor.
• Human beings were about to starve when Prometheus came to their rescue.
• Prometheus was a friend to mortals, and so he taught them to farm, to store food and all the other crafts of civilization.
• Men rejoiced in their mastery of the world.
• The Olympians saw that man was getting too big for his britches and took fire away.
• Enraged, the Olympians thought to wipe out humanity. * The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Mortals and Their Gods
• Without fire, man was doomed. So, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it back to man.
• Prometheus offered them an alternative. 'You let man use fire to cook his food, and man will give you a portion of the food he cooks.'
• The gods found this acceptable, but Prometheus cared more for men than for the Olympians, so he tricked them.
• He had the men wrap bones in fat and hide all the meat in the stomach of a bull.
• When the gods were asked to choose their portion, they choose the large fatty portion, thinking this the better cut and left man the stomach full of meat.
• Bound by their agreement, the Gods could no longer wipe man off the face of the earth and had to be satisfied with sacrifices of bone and fat.
• This made the gods even angrier. * The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Mortals and Their Gods
• To punish man, they created woman (the Greeks had a less than admirable view of women).
• To punish Prometheus, they bind him to a stone at the edge of the world and set an eagle to tear out his liver every day.
• Thus Prometheus is the first example of a Christ, a figure who dies for the sins of man.
• Yet Prometheus is also the first Lucifer.
• In fact, the name Lucifer means bringer of light.
• He defies the will of Zeus to give humanity a secret knowledge.
• For his transgression, he is doomed to eternal punishment. * The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• Role in Christianity
• Greek myth (and later Greek philosophy) would play a huge role in the formation of Christianity as early Christians attempted to appeal to a larger audience and to distinguish their religion from Judaism.
• Greek religious festivals became holy days, Greek heroes turned into Christian saints and Greek virtues found places of honor alongside their Christian counterparts.
• Even Christian rituals are distinctly Greek.
• The Greeks were drinking wine to commemorate Dionysus - the son of a god who died and returned from the grave - long before Jesus was ever born.
• Thus, we have seen a rough outline of Greek myth and religion.
• Greek religion was decentralized and unique to specific locations, yet all based on a common pantheon of anthropomorphic gods. * The Dark Age of Greece (1150-800 B.C.)
• Greek Religion and Myth
• These gods were all too human and could be terribly cruel.
• The Greeks dealt with their gods by offering them gifts and trying not to do anything that might anger them.