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Home , Hellenistic religion

UNIT NINE NOTES: Greek & Hellenistic

Ancient Greece

Cities began on the islands of the eastern Mediterranean (e.g., Crete) and the Greek peninsula almost four thousand years ago. There were agricultural deities (primarily dying & rising gods) and an emphasis on funerals. The rest of this unit focuses on this geographical area and covers the religions that developed here or came into this region as a result of conquest (e.g., , the Romans) and includes the (from the conquests of Alexander around 300 B.C.E. to the first few centuries of the common era. The focus is on what happened in the Axial Age (starting around 600 B.C.E.) but Christianity is covered in a later unit.

Divination The small city-states of were in a constant state of instability due to fear of conquest. Greeks sought answers from seers (men and women who claimed the ability to foresee the future, e.g., Tiresias, Cassandra) and from special shrines known as (e.g., Delphi). These divination sites used a variety of techniques (e.g., augury, dreams, animal ) to predict the future. When Alexander conquered Babylon, the Greek soldiers brought back a new technique for foretelling the future: .

Olympian Pantheon About a thousand years B.C.E. the Hellenes invaded Greece and brought with them a patriarchal pantheon. is a complicated narrative to blend the older, largely theriomorphic deities, with the newer anthropomorphic deities of the Hellenes. The main figures of the Olympian pantheon are human-like, not only in form, but in frailty. , who hurls the thunderbolt, and had a number of escapades with human females. His wife, the , became vindictive. Roman deities had different names, but were the same (e.g., Jupiter, Juno).

Mystery Religions

Starting in the Axial Age and continuing until the full adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the , the Greeks and Romans expressed interest in religions that promised eternal life and offered secret to secure one’s place in the hereafter. The Pythagoreans (founded by the famous mathematician) were ascetic vegetarians who had a doctrine and viewed mathematics as the secret language of the gods. The Orphics were ascetic vegetarians who had a reincarnation doctrine and viewed music as the language of the gods. The also talked about secret rituals for getting the , and featured a mother-daughter pair of (e.g., & Kore). The Dionysians appealed mostly to women and involved drunkenness and eating the flesh of a live animal to celebrate the vitality of the deity.

As the soldiers of Alexander and Rome returned to and Rome, new deities became popular. was a mother earth goddess from Asia Minor, known as mistress of the animals, and demanding castration of her male priests. The Romans brought back from , and she became popular with barren wives: Isis answered prayers for fertility. Popular among the Roman soldiers was Mithra, a male god from Persia. There were rituals of drinking the blood of a slain bull, and of purification for entering heaven.

Philosophers The first Greek philosophers began around the 6c B.C.E. Thales thought that everything was made of water, but also had an animistic streak, noting that everything was full of the gods. Heraclitus saw fire as the source of everything. Reality is in a state of constant flux: “everything changes except change.” Only the divine logos stands outside of this changing world. Opposed to this emphasis on change, Parmenides was a monist who denied that any change could take place in reality. His follower, Zeno, gave a series of logical proofs for this, known as Zeno’s Paradoxes. Empedocles finally identified the four elements out of which all is made: earth, fire, water and air. Some of the philosophers of ancient Greece were known as self-serving arguers, especially the Sophists.

Probably the most memorable and ethical of all of the Greek philosophers was Socrates, whose method of questioning led to his execution. His student, , was a dualist (forms & matter) who outlined the perfect social order run by philosophers. Plato accepted the doctrine of transmigration. The mystical tendencies in Plato were developed centuries later by Plotinus, while Augustine rejected reincarnation and made Plato the foundation of early Christian theology. Plato’s most famous student, , argued for the importance of empirical observation (the foundation of science), moderation in our actions, the importance of living within a virtuous society.

Another ongoing debate in Greek and Hellenistic era philosophy was between the extremes of hedonism (pleasure is the greatest good) and asceticism (pleasures are an evil temptation). However, even the most ardent hedonists (e.g., the Cyrenaics & the Epicureans) recognized that pleasures of the mind were superior to pleasures of the body and that without prudence, unwise pursuit of pleasure leads to pain. The ascetic Cynics viewed people as evil. One of these hermits was Diogenes, who lived in a barrel, carried a lantern (in search for an honest man) and found companionship only with dogs. The ascetic Stoics emphasized self-control, the harmony of natural law, and the brotherhood of all men.

Syncretism The key word to describe Greek and Hellenistic religion is : a blend of the above traditions. We cannot classify each person in ancient Greece as solely a worshipper of the deities of the Olympian Pantheon. That was the face of public religion for Greeks and Romans (and the Romans added Caesar to their divinities). But people would also be part of a mystery religion and read and discuss the philosophers. The greatest challenge to Christianity when it moved into this world was to convince these gentiles that they could only worship God through Christ.

Drills & Games

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