Ancient Greek religion (concepts)

The Greek religion of the Antiquité is mainly known for us starting from three types of sources, of a literary nature, epigraphic and archaeological. It rests on a whole of rites and practices of the Greek Antiquité. It should not be confused with the Greek Mythologie. This one described the myths specific to the ancient world Greek, which are not inevitably related to the religious feeling but can be of literary gasoline, while that one is interested in the rites and the practices of Greek Antiquity. It is necessary to pose like starting point the following report: the Religion is not the business of a private belief; it is before very public and relates to the community, from where its important implications with the life Politique. In fact, it is not confined with certain spheres of the daily life but can relate to all its aspects. In kind, the Greeks of Antiquity did not establish really a difference between the field religious and the Profane: each moment of the life can be rate/rhythm by a more or less formal Rite, a prayer, a religious practice. It is as for this reason as the Greek Art is of religious nature.

Faith, piety and impiété

As much the Greek Mythe S is famous, as much its religion seems much less known. One of the reasons of this paradox holds so that an main issue is still not elucidated: it is not easy, in the absence of direct testimonys - majority of the sources being arts persons - to come to a conclusion about the real nature of the Foi and the religious feeling of the Greek people. In a sense, it is impossible to affirm simply that the Greeks believed in their myths and granted a real credit to their practices. Two facts are however ensured by the texts:

their contents was accepted by the Greeks of the time;
the Piété (and not the Faith) was real.

The Greek religion thus does not seem to have required a major adhesion in a Dogme, which does not exist besides, but the simple respect of the Rite S.

The Greek terms to retain are the following: εὐ̓ σέϐεια eusébeia piety and ἀσέϐεια asébeia impiété . Without dogma, the concept of piety is difficult to perceive. That of impiété, on the other hand, is less. One includes/understands it like an absence of respect with regard to the rites of a city, considered as an punishable offense of a judgment in front of the courts. Thus, to suppose that the sectateurs of a new religion or a new god for the city wish to practice their worship, those must require of it the authorization, which will be subjected to the vote. At the conclusion of this vote, integration, or not, of the god or worship will be done. For this reason “impiété” of Socrate ( circa 469-399 before our era) led it to the capital punishment, pronounced by the city of Athens. This one, indeed, had been judged impious to have introduced into its city a worship without respecting the religious and civic rites of integration. It is seen, impiété Greek has only little to see with the absence of belief or faith. In the same way, one considered impious excesses of “piety”, like the superstition.

One can thus define Greek piety as the reverse of impiété: it is the respect of a happy medium, the knowledge of limits not to be crossed with the divine laws; it is a question above all of respecting the traditions of the ancestors and of granting to the God X their due (offerings, prayers), even if it means to achieve the rites without knowing the major significance of it. Piety is before very civic (it as should be indicated as the load of priest, except in rare cases, is civil and that there does not exist clergy): each city is protected by a guardian divinity. He to miss respect, it is to risk which it ceases ensuring this protection, danger which would concern all the citizens. One can thus explain the gravity of the inflicted penalty with Socrate: by introducing new worships illegally, it was likely to upset the gods of the city and to weaken their protection.

Crowned

Crowned as such does not exist in the Greek religion. Three close concepts, however, are to be known, that it is advisable not to confuse.

ἱερός/ hierós

This term returns to the things which allow the implementation of the requirements the realization of the rite. They are the forms accidental or circonstantielles, and not essential, of crowned. Thus, a place can become crowned the time of a ceremony (the place of a sacrifice), in the same way an object of the daily life (the knife to cut the throat of the sacrificial victim) or a man (the officiant). Indeed, the priest (or ἱερεύς/ hiereús ) are not a man apart from the civil society: the clergy does not seem strictly speaking like a social caste but better an administrative office of the Greek company. Often, the priest is not indeed that a drawn civil servant with the fate or elected official for one year, the priesthood seeming a load of State, primarily transitory (that of the priest of Éleusis being most famous). During his mandate, the priest is invested of his functions only at the time of the liturgical acts, and not apart from these moments. There does not exist besides Clergé Greek arranged hierarchically and organized like autonomous institution, the priesthood seeming a primarily public function, even political.

This primarily occasional aspect of the ἱερός/ hierós assistance then with the comprehension of the plural substantive τὰ ἱερά/ your hierá which can return as well according to the context to the “acts of the worship”, with the “places of the worship” or with the “liturgical objects”, or overall “with the things devoted to the worship”.

ἅγιος/ hágios

This term could be translated by the holy adjective . It characterizes what is definitively far away from the daily life and the common world by its purity. He is opposed in that to the ἱερός hierós . It is notable that it is the term which one uses in modern Greek to indicate the Saint S Christians. A place can be definitively ἅγιος hágios , it is then the τέμενος témenos , term derived from the verb τέμνω, témnô , “cross”, and meaning literally “cut off”. The téménos is indeed a zone, a place, a variable place of size which one separated from the human field, being allocated thus definitively to the gods. Often, a place becomes téménos after a théophanie , appearance or divine demonstration, being able to be realized by a natural phenomenon like the lightning, an unspecified wonder, or any event or simple phenomenon to which one allots virtuous features by pure interpretation. The space of the téménos , because it should not be soiled, is rigorously delimited, often coarsely by stones or the installation of terminals. One can enter there only one state of purity and the respect of the interdicts, variables from one place to another; a sanctuary seems consequently systematically téménos . Originally, the téménos (it is there its first direction at Homère) indicated also a portion of ground reserved to the hero or to the monarch in order to ensure him of the incomes; it acts, all things considered, of the medieval stronghold.

ὅσιος/ hósios

This last term connotes the idea of permission. Is ὅσιος/ hósios what is prescribed or permitted by the divine Loi. A being become impure because of a stain, therefore excluded from the rites and prohibited of entry in a téménos , becomes again hósios after being itself washed of this stain. In the plural and substantivized, the expression τὰ ὅσια tà hósia (“the things hósios ”) indicates “the divine laws”, in opposition to τὰ δίκαια tà díkaia , “the human laws”.

The pure one and the impure one

The purity, in the Greek religion, is not moral but material. Its importance is capital because one cannot take part in the rites and penetrate in a téménos , sanctuary or not, that in a state of purity. In this respect, the Islam is very close to the Greek religion. Pur says καθαρός katharós , which means just as easily clean ; it is included/understood why, in certain rites, the washing of hands is prescribed. The concepts of purity and impurity depend entirely on the context: such object considered pure can be impure in another context.

It is the case of the Sang; this one is intrinsically neither pure nor impure, all depend on the rite considered: the blood of the sacrificed victim is pure, that of a death fallen to ground impure. It is for this last reason that any meurtier, that it is mortal or not, must be “washed” of his stain after the combat, even if this one were honest or in the interest of the Cité. Same manner, the death of a close relation (even nonbloody) or the childbirth is sources of stain, which prevent from ensuring the load of priest, to take part in certain ceremonies and to penetrate in a téménos .

One finds traces of this ambiguous report/ratio to blood in mythology:

Oreste, after avenged in blood murder for its father Agamemnon (what one considered being his duty), must expier its stain while being pursued by the Érinyes. It is only after one payment by Athéna then a search imposed by Apollon (consisting in bringing back of Tauride in Athens a statue of Athéna) that this one is washed blood of its victims and finds the rest of Furies;
the island of Délos, then wandering (like many mythological islands), was the only ground to accommodate Léto, mother of Apollo and Artémis, so that it is confined there. Héra, indeed, once again misled by her husband, Zeus, father of the twins of Léto, had prohibited any ground from accepting its “rival”. Become the cradle of the two gods, one granted to Délos the immobility and the island became crowned. To make it free from any stain, one issued that it was interdict to be born to with it or to die there; one went even until exhuming the corpses buried on the island in order to guarantee the purity of it before (to consult for more details the article Apollon);
Apollon himself had, after having killed the Python monster, to purify of its murder. It is however by this violent act that the god founded one of the most pious cities of the Greek world.

This ambiguity between purity and impurity can involve a confusion between the two states, which a fortuitous paronymy can explain: stain can say ἄγος/ ágos (although the most frequent term is μίασμα míasma , passed in French in the form miasma ), word that the Old ones brought closer to ἅγιος hágios holy . The proven impurity can, in certain cases, to become a form of crowned. It is the case for Apollon, who governs the purity but also the certain shapes of stains, like the plague. In the same way, the blood of pig, considered impure whatever the context, is however used in the mysteries (worships esoteric) of Éleusis.

See too

Sources used for the knowledge of the Greek religion;
Aspects of the worship;
oracles;
ancient Greece.

External bond

the Museum living of Antiquity , left “Religion”, teaching site of the Academy of Versailles, very complete and which develops aspects which are only evoked here.

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