Outline-history of Greek religion

by Lewis Richard Farnell

We may believe, then, that this higher religious ethic had a certain elevating influence on the popular imagination. The question of immediate interest is whether we can trace any effects of this in actual worship. Did the new enlightenment, for instance, lead to the abolition or reform of cruel or impure or absurd forms of ritual?

Human sacrifice.—This question involves the consideration of the practice of human sacrifice, which had been certainly prevalent in prehistoric and early historic Greece, as in other Mediterranean communities. We have evidence that in the fifth and fourth centuries the practice was of rare occurrence in the Greek societies and was repugnant to the religious morality of all but the most backward. The feeling about the sacrifice of Iphigeneia manifested in the Agamemnon of Æschylus, the story about the Bœotian generals and the sacrifice of a maiden before the battle of Leuktra are sufficient proof.^[119.1] The Platonic dialogue of the Minos contrasts the Greeks with the barbarians in this matter,^[119.2] yet implies that the Arcadians in the cult of Zeus Lykaios and the men of Halos in that of Zeus Laphystios^[119.3] continued the cruel offerings that disgraced their Hellenism. Euripides attests that the human sacrifice once customary in the rites of Artemis, near Brauron, had been, before his day, transformed to a mere fiction,^[119.4] and at some time earlier than this the Athenians must have ceased to immolate human scapegoats, called φαρμακοί, in their Thargelia.^[119.5] The Rhodians eased their consciences and at the same time maintained their immemorial rite by choosing a malefactor who had been condemned to death as a human victim to Kronos.^[119.6] According to Porphyry the practice survived here and there under the Roman Empire until the time of Hadrian.^[120.1] And Plutarch^[120.2] declares that the yearly custom of exposing the two Locrian maidens to the chance of a cruel death on the shore of Ilium, in expiation of the sin of Aias the Less against Athena Ilias, had been abandoned not very long before his time.

But the better sentiment of Greece in respect of such rites had probably begun to work as early as the time of Homer, for certain legends concerning the abolition of this ritual and the substitution of the animal for the human life point back to the prehistoric period; and the merciful reform was ascribed to the High God himself in a Laconian legend that closely resembles the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.^[120.3] The humanitarian spirit, then, had asserted itself before the sixth century; but doubtless the higher teaching and thinking of this and the succeeding age quickened its influence.

Phallic ritual.—As regards that element in Greek ritual which the modern taste pronounces impure, there is little trace of any attempt at reform in any period of the polytheism. The element was indeed but slight. The forms of worship were, on the whole, decorous, often stately and beautiful; ancient legend reveals the anxious care of the early Hellenes to preserve their temples from any sexual defilement; where a ἱερὸς γάμος, or Holy Marriage, was enacted in any of the shrines, there is no need to suspect any licentiousness;^[120.4] no such feature is discernible in the Eleusinian or other Hellenic mysteries, although the Christian fathers are eager in their insinuations; the Hellenic^[121.1] cults of the Oriental Aphrodite were generally innocent of that ritual of temple-prostitution which was found in certain Anatolian cults and which scandalised the Greek as much as the Christian writers; the few impure titles attaching to this goddess may well have arisen in the later period of the decadent polytheism.^[121.2] In the early ages, it is clear, the wholesome and temperate influence of the Hellenic spirit had worked upon the forms of the polytheism. Nevertheless, in the ritual of a few divinities, Demeter, Hermes, Dionysos, and even of Artemis herself,^[121.3] sexual emblems were occasionally in vogue, dances of a more or less licentious character are mentioned, though these were very rare; while in the Thesmophoria and other services of Demeter, what was called αἰσχρολογία, indecent and scurrilous badinage, was indulged in by the women among themselves or more rarely with the men also. We note that such ritual is practically confined to vegetation-cults, and in some it is merely vegetation magic hardly attaching to the divinity, nor affecting his or her moral aspect. The phallic emblem and the procession called the φαλλαγωγία or φαλλοφορία were specially associated with Dionysos and Hermes; and Plutarch, a man of more than the average culture and refinement and strikingly susceptible to the spiritual influences of the more mystic religions, describes it as a harmless adjunct of the ancestral and cheerful ritual of the Bœotian peasant.^[122.1] Now it is worth noting that against this element in Greek ritual there is scarcely a word of protest in all the ethical and philosophic literature of Greece. The exception is only a fragmentary utterance of Herakleitos, in which he seems to rail against the phallic procession of Dionysos; but the exact sense of his words is not quite clear.^[122.2] The higher moral thought of Greece on this matter is probably more nearly represented in the utterance of Aristotle in the Politics,^[122.3] where he lays down austere rules for the training of the young: “No impure emblem or painting or any representation of impropriety is to be allowed by the archons, except in the cults of those divinities to whom the law attaches the ritual of scurrility (τωθασμός): in their case the law allows those of more advanced age to perform the divine service in behalf of themselves, their children and their wives.” Even in the last three centuries before Christ, when greater stress was continually being laid upon purity in cult, no protest is heard against these old-world forms, which have maintained themselves in many parts of Europe down to the present day in spite of the denunciations of Christianity. The seeming paradox is explained when we reflect that the idea of purity changes its content in the different generations; and secondly that the Hellenic, like all the other Mediterranean religions, except the Hebraic, regarded the physical procreative power as belonging to the divine character and as part of his cosmic creative force; therefore an emblem that was secularly impure might be made holy by cult and consecration. It is in this respect that the modern ideas of refinement differ most markedly from the classic.

Survival of other primitive ritual.—There is much besides in old Greek ritual that appears to us harmless but uncouth and irrational; strange and naïve things were done that primitive ideas of magic and animism inspired; and one may be surprised to find that the higher culture of the fifth and succeeding centuries is not known to have suppressed a single one of these. Still, in the time of Theophrastos, and indefinitely later, the Athenians were capable of the quaint old-world ritual of the Bouphonia, that strange medley of worship and magic and dramatic make-belief^[123.1]; still in the time of Demosthenes^[123.2] they were capable of bringing up to judgment in the law court an axe or any other inanimate thing that had caused the death of a man or of the sacred ox and solemnly condemning it to be thrown into the sea; the driving out of sin or famine, incarnate in a human being, was a ceremony in vogue at Massilia^[123.3] and probably also at Athens long after the beginning of our era. Nor did the higher anthropomorphism, powerful as its working was, entirely obliterate the worship or half-worship of animals in the later centuries.^[123.4] Even Zeus might still be conceived by the men of the fourth century as occasionally incarnate in the snake; and in a ritual law regulating the cult of Asclepios at Athens, composed shortly after 400 B.C., a sacrifice was ordered to certain sacred dogs; the pious votary would comply, however the act might awaken the laughter of a comic poet. Herakleitos protested against the absurdity of praying to idols; but no voice of the new enlightenment is heard against these far more irrational and backward ceremonies. The average public thought of the fifth century did not repudiate the use of magic; in fact, it is not till the fifth century that its efficacy is known to have been recognised by legislation.^[124.1] And Plato,^[124.2] speaking about it in his Laws, a work of his declining years and intellect, is not sure whether he believes or disbelieves in its power. There is nothing more conservative than ritual; and Greece produced no ardent Protestant reformer. Therefore, the average educated Athenian even of the fourth century would doubtless agree with the orator Lysias, that “it is prudent to maintain the same sacrifices as had been ordained by our ancestors who made our city great, if for no other reason, for the sake of the city’s luck.”^[124.3]

Strength of the traditional religion in the fifth century.—The question naturally occurs—were the mass of the citizens touched at all in their inward theory of things by the spirit of modernism which breathed from Ionia and inspired the sophists? The culture that was the stock-in-trade of the latter was only offered to those who could pay; and upon these the poorer Athenian looked askance. He heard of it at first with a dislike that might become dangerous. Fanaticism, as we are familiar with it in the pages of European and Semitic history, was happily alien to the Greek temperament. But the banishment of Anaxagoras and Protagoras, and the execution of Sokrates by the city that was to become the schoolmistress of Greece, might seem to savour somewhat of this temper of mind. These acts, indeed, were not inspired solely by religious feelings; but they are clear proofs that the polytheism was by no means moribund and could be dangerous in its own defence. Nothing is more erroneous than the view which is sometimes expressed, that the popular devotion to the old religion was abating and its divine personalities and forms losing life and value towards the close of the fifth century. In their dark days the Athenians bided truer to their old faith than did Rome in her time of terror. We do not find a prostrate Athens turning desperately for aid to alien Oriental cults. We hear indeed of the beginnings of Adonis-cult in the latter part of the Peloponnesian war, the first ripple of a wave of Orientalism that was to surge westward later. But this feminine excess was unauthorised, and Aristophanes hates it and mocks at it. And the shallow view mentioned above would be sufficiently refuted by his comedy of ‘the Clouds,’ in which he, the greatest literary genius of his time, poses as the champion of the reaction against modernism. It is refuted also by other incidents in Athenian history that fall within the last decades of this century; for the rage of the people at the mutilation of the Hermai, at the supposed insult to the Eleusinian mysteries, at the neglect of the dead after the battle of Arginousai, may be evidence of morbid religiosity, and is surely inconsistent with a general prevalence of scepticism. In these episodes the whole people reveal a passionate attachment to their holy mysteries, to their quaint phallic Herme-images on which the luck and the life of the State depended, to the duties of the loving tendance of the dead. Even their animistic beliefs concerning the common phenomena of the physical world had not yet been extirpated or purged by the physical philosophy of Ionia; for according to Plato it was still a dangerous paradox, which his Sokrates disclaims before the jury, to maintain with Anaxagoras that the Sun and the Moon were merely material bodies and not in themselves divine. Intellectually Nikias appears inferior to Homer’s Hektor. It was Athens that produced in the fourth century the ‘superstitious man’ of Theophrastos; but it is right to bear in mind that she also produced the man who could so genially and tolerantly expose that character.

Influence of comedy.—Those who believed that the faith in the polytheism was falling into rapid decay by 400 B.C. sometimes quote by way of evidence the astonishing licence of Attic comedy in dealing with the divine personalities; the notorious example is the ludicrous figure and part of Dionysos in the Frogs of Aristophanes. Yet the people who enjoyed the humour of the play were more devoted to Dionysos than to most of the other persons of their pantheon. If the ‘excellent fooling’ of Aristophanes is a proof of popular unbelief, what shall we say of that Attic terra-cotta of the sixth century that represents him half asleep and half drunk on the back of a mule and supported by an anxious Seilenos?^[126.1] The present writer has suggested that “this is some peasant’s dedication, who feared his god little but loved him much and treated him en bon camarade.” Epicharmos in Sicily had been beforehand with Aristophanes in venturing on the burlesque of divine actions, Hephaistos and Herakles specially lending themselves to ridiculous situations. Even in the epic period the same gay irreverence had occasionally appeared, as in the Homeric hymn to Hermes. These things do not necessarily arise from an anti-religious spirit, but they may be taken as indication of a certain vein in the Hellenic character, a light-heartedness and a reckless freedom in dealing on certain occasions with things divine that is markedly in contrast to the Oriental spirit. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that comedy at Athens and elsewhere did gradually exercise a weakening or a debasing influence on the popular faith. For the other poets of Attic comedy took greater liberties than even Aristophanes; Kratinos and Telekleides of the fifth century, Amphis of the fourth, did not shrink from introducing the High God himself on the stage in ridiculous and licentious situations. There probably was some reserve and no gross indecency in the presentation of these plots. And much is conceded to the spirit of the carnival, especially when a certain αἰσχρολογία was sanctified by custom and ritual. Nevertheless, the more earnest-minded of the Athenians may have agreed with Plato’s condemnation of such a handling of divine personages,^[127.1] and though the popular faith may have been robust enough to endure such shocks, one cannot but suspect that the people’s religious imagination suffered a debasement in moral tone. A few South-Italian vases of the fourth century, on which are scenes that appear to have been inspired by such comedies, are the worst examples of Hellenic vulgarity.

The history of Greek religion, then, must reckon with Attic comedy as among the possible causes of religious corruption and decay; but at the worst this is only one side of the picture, for the fragments of the comedies of Menander, as will be shown, contain many a striking expression of the higher religious spirit and advanced ethical sentiment.

Waning of the political value of Delphi.—There are certain external events in the history of Greek religion towards the close of the fifth century that must be noted in a general sketch of its career. One is the waning of the political influence of the Delphic oracle; its secular mission appeared to have been accomplished when the era of Greek colonial expansion had closed; at the first terror of the Persian invasion the great states anxiously resorted to Delphi for guidance, but the priesthood failed to rise to the Pan-Hellenic occasion and played a double game. During the Peloponnesian war it was obvious that they were ‘Laconising’; nor were they ever given again an opportunity of leading la haute politique of Hellas, and in the middle of the fourth century Demosthenes could speak contemptuously of ‘the shadow at Delphi,’ although the Amphictyonic League, as the only federal council of Hellas, still retained a nominal value sufficient to induce Philip to scheme for admission. Generally, in the fourth, third and second centuries, the oracle retained influence only in the spheres of religion and morality. Plato still regards the Delphic God as the natural director of the religious institutions of the State. And we have interesting examples in the later literature of consultation of the oracle by individuals whose minds were troubled by religious terrors and remorse. In fact, it came to serve the purposes of a private confessional, giving advice on questions of conscience; and its advice was generally sane and often enlightened and shows the priests as possessed with the progressive spirit of Greek ethical philosophy.^[129.1]

Spread of Asklepios-worship.—Another event of importance is the diffusion of the cult of Asklepios and the growing influence on the Hellenic mind of this once obscure hero or earth-daimon of the Thessalian Trikka. It was thence that sometime probably in the sixth century he had migrated to Epidauros, where his power expanded through his union with Apollo. His cult-settlement in Kos was connected with the Epidaurian; and already in the fifth century the Asclepieion of this favoured island had reared the great Hippokrates and was thus the cradle of the later medical science of Europe. Towards the close of this century Asklepios and his daughters came even from Epidauros to Athens, and according to a well-founded tradition the poet Sophocles was his first apostle; in the next generation we find the Athenian state regulating his worship, which was soon to conquer the whole Hellenic world. And in the survey of the Hellenistic age it must be reckoned with as one of the main religious forces of later Hellenism. We may note in passing a striking divergence between the European spirit of Hellenic religion and the Oriental spirit of Mesopotamia: the Babylonian God practises magic, the Hellenic Asklepios, though he worked miracles enough, came in a later day at least to foster science, and even his cases at Epidauros were not all merely of the Lourdes type.