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”
Eidinow on the lack of clear descriptions [?]
“no written dogma… consolidated Ancient Greek beliefs as an institutionalised religion”
Eidinow on religion and relationships
Greek Religion could be thought of as being “made up of relationships – relationships between mortals and between the divine”
Sourvinou-Inwood on the Polis
“the polis was the authority which sanctioned all cult activity within its boundaries and mediated it beyond them”
Eidinow on City Religion
“the religion of a city is a religion that is embedded in all aspects of society”
Sourvinou-Inwood on individual vs group worship
“the individual’s act of worship was not different in nature to that of the group”
Zaidman on religion and civic activity
“religion impregnated every civic activity”
Faraone on the role of the Kyrios
Kyrios role essentially replicates civic cult
Vlassopoulos on the spectrum of religion
Spectrum of religion ranges from “obscure to spectacular”, so it’s unhelpful to make distinctions
Burkert on purification
“purification is a social process”
Giordano-Zecharya on belief vs practice
“Athenian religion was a matter of practice, not belief, and the concept of ‘orthodoxy’… did not exist”
Giordano-Zecharya on orthodoxy in GR
“absence of orthodoxy or fixed doctrines in Greek Religion”
Parker on orthodoxy vs orthopraxy
More on the side of side of Orthopraxy
Eidinow on active women
“for women in general, Greek Religion is an area of life where they are more active”
McClure on the essentiality of women
“association with fertility made them indispensable performers of rites”
Eidinow in women’s autonomy
“religion offered women a certain level of autonomy”
Faraone on the importance of women in the home
Women’s religious importance in the home was greater than in the Polis
McClure on women at home vs in cult
Women in cult are the same as having domestic roles
Scott on information in Delphi
“the more people who came, the more information came with them – information which the priests and the oracles could use”
Scott on the result of information in Delphi
“Delphi’s answers were better-informed and more likely to make sense”
Scott on Delphi’s ambiguity
“the ambiguity of the response… forces us to know ourselves”
Scott on Delphi and communal worship
“one of the few places where Greeks could come together in common worship”
Scott on what Delphi told the Greeks
“Delphi told the ancient Greeks something about themselves”
Eidinow on possession by a god ( pythia)
“possession by a god was a perfectly acceptable, understood process”
Eidonow on neutrality of Delphi
“no one state gained control”
Garland on the purpose of the Parthenon
“it is not much more than a vanity box built to contain - ‘show off’ might be a better word – the 36ft high chryselaphantine statue of Athena”
Scott on Olympia’s architecture
“overwhelming architecture… is that of religious worship”
Scott on competition vs ritual
“competition was a sort of sideline” compared to religion
Burkert on priesthood
A priesthood “may involve expense but it brings great prestige”
Scott on the altar
“crucial heart of a sanctuary is the altar”
Aston on flesh/bone sacrifice
“man is of flesh and needs to eat flesh”
Aston on the killing of an animal
“killing an animal is an insufficient use of its value”
Aston on the sacrificial meal
Sacrificial meal is “crucial social bonding”
Garland on the sacrificial meal
The meal was shared between men and gods, creating a moment of intimacy
D’Angour on the Sophists
Sophists were “defying the more traditional norms of religious worship”
“very new voice in the Athenian intellectual movement of the 5th century”
D’Angour on Socrates (rhetoric)
“dangerous rhetoric [of a sophist] pinned onto Socrates”
D’Angour on Socrates (political)
It’s more likely that Socrates was a political victim than a religious one
Grigsby on impiety (socrates)
“an ambiguous term like asebeia might be used for political ends”
“religious differences might be seized upon to suggest dangerous, undemocratic political leanings”
Grigsby on Socrates’ charges
His charges were “ungraspable”, there was “always a certain amount of ambiguity”
Grigsby on Socrates (mocking)
It is extremely unlikely that Socrates mocked traditional observances in the same way as some of the Sophists
Grigsby on Socrates (annoying)
Socrates could “rub people up the wrong way” (may have negatively influenced the jury”
Parker on Socrates
Socrates would have been deeply irritating
Aston on Xenophanes
Xenophanes “approaches the oddity of anthropomorphic representation head-on”, because they are “beyond the reach of human imagination and depiction”
Aston on Socrates’ character in ‘Clouds’
In ‘Clouds’, Socrates is “a really weird figure… dangerously unorthodox”
Garland on death and miasma
“death was much more polluting than birth and with good reason, we might argue, since a dead body spreads disease unless swiftly disposed of”
Garland on women’s participation in cult
“participation in these cults offered a rare opportunity for female citizens to congregate outside the home”
