greek religion scholarship Flashcards
Aston on Homer
Homer was “part of the glue… that bound their religion together… a really powerful source of cohesion”
Parker on the numerosity of gods
“gods overflowed like clothes from an overfilled drawer”
Hall on Euripides’ Bacchae
Euripides’ Bacchae is “the most frightening picture of the cruelty of godhead in Greek Tragedy”
Hall on the Gods
“the Ancient Greek gods were childish, vindictive, cruel and full of laughter at human suffering”
Scott on Gods
“there were gods in everything and everywhere”
Mikalson on Gods and Epithets
“essentially different deities offering quite different services, but the Athenians brought them all together under the name Athena”
Grigsby on gods and communication
“for the Greeks, the gods were always trying to communicate”
Grigsby on epithets
“conceptually, Zeus is on Olympus, but practically you have to treat them as different people”
Parker on gods and epithets
“a god with an epithet was not a different being, just one aspect seen in close up. And yet each part needed addressing as if separate”
Aston about Greeks and Gods (humour)
Greeks were “rarely entirely serious” about the gods, there was a “startling amount of mockery”
Aston on aniconic representations of the gods
Aniconic representations of the Gods were “representation of the mysterious and ineffable quality of the divine”
Parker on Hero Cult
“the tendency of the Greeks to appeal to a plurality of gods, to recruit a team, appears in this area of life [hero cults] more clearly than in any other”
Seaford on Hero Cult
Hero Cult is “a social transformation of an ordinary death ritual to draw in a whole community”
Seaford on the point of mystery cult
“the point of mystery cult was to subject the initiates to an experience of death”
Seaford on the emotions of mystery cult
There is “emotional transition at the heart of the ritual”
Seaford on the inclusivity of Eleusinian Mysteries
Eleusinian Mysteries were “open to humanity as a whole”
Seaford on the other virtues of Eleusinian Mysteries
“it was also a political and social and collective event”
Seaford on Mystery Cult and community
“the individual isolation is transformed into a sense of community”
Seaford on the significance of Mystery Cult
“might be described as the central experience in the life of the person who underwent it”
Clinton on the different interpretations of the Ninnion Tablet
Ninnion tablet has 2 Demeters, one yet to be reunited with Persephone and one who is celebrating
Zaidman and Pantel on Mystery Cult
“a process of internal transformation, founded on the emotional experience of a direct encounter with the divine”
Blasciewicz on the inscriptions at Epidauros
“moral and didactic side of these inscriptions”
Blasciewicz on the votive offerings and Asclepius
“he cherished the financial condition of his sanctuary, requiring sacrifice and fees”
Eidonow on pre-intent before visiting Dodona
“they visited the Oracle with a good idea of what they intended to do, and that comprised the substance of their question”
Eidonow on the virtues of either/or questions for Dodona (x2)
Either/or questions “provided the Oracle with a way to manage consultants’ expectations”
“the god, then, could not be refuted. If he advised action and the result was disastrous, questioners were left to reflect that the alternative would have been much worse”
Eidinow on what to ask the Oracle
“you want to ask the Oracle about something that is unclear”
Eidinow on how personal the Oracle is
“the Oracle is a very strong personal resource… outside of the usual civic constraints”
Eidinow on significant events and religion
“all the critical points in an individual’s life are marked as religious events”
McClure on religion and social order
“the religious order reflected and reinforced the social order”