RITUALS AND PRIESTS Flashcards
CONTEXT ON PRIESTS
- rituals followed a very precise procedure… any deviance = ENGENDER RAGE FROM GODS
- priests and priestesses thus HAD to be practised for their services
- fulfilled the important role of invoking the goodwill of the gods on behalf of the entire community
- in theory anyone could become a priest/priestess in GREEK WORLD
- modern priest v different to Ancient Greek priest in tasks
- position and expertise of priest/priestess varied depending where they practised. Sometimes had to be seers, dream interpreters, doctors, butchers, accountants and much more.
- all depended on the deity in question and the local peculiarities of the deity’s cult in which they served
- despite not receiving any specific training had to have many skills
- kept individuality
PRIESTS AND PRIESTESSES
- MAIN TASK = performance of ritual sacrifice and other religious services
- CIVIC PRIEST always stood under the responsibility of the local authorities
- POLITICIANS did not need priests to perform religious activities but priests were dependent on a civic representative to perform a public sacrifice.
- Priests employed by city assisting magistrates
- If they were special oracular priests, interpreted a deity’s oracles when the city sought a god’s advice but did not have direct political significance.
- Athens - archon Basileus was in charge of all religious matters but individual priests and priestesses were employed for each deity
MODERN SCHOLARSHIP CHANIOTIS
Chaniotis says that Magistrates sometimes conducted religious activities without the assistance of priests, it was less common for a public priest to perform rituals without the presence of secular authorities. In other words, religious authority = HANDS OF STATE AND STATE ALONE. Nearly impossible to separate religious personnel from political personnel as jobs often included both POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS TASKS (aka, ARCHON BASILEUS)
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BE A PRIEST?
- Not a way of life
- Unpaid post/Part time occupation
- Couldn’t feed a family from salary but had MANY PRIVILEGES IN Ancient Greece
- E.g = front row seats In theatre of Dionysus at the slope of the Acropolis were reserved for particular priesthoods
- Priests were generally well regarded in society goal to aspire to as it brought prestige
- best meat
HOW TO BECOME A PRIEST?
1) Inheritance
2) Lot
3) Through Purchase
Hereditary priesthoods
- lifelong
- prominent in important civic cults - Athena Polias in Athens and Demeter and Kore at Eleusis
- most hereditary priesthoods in Greece 2 families which provided priests for Mysteries of Eleusis
- Eumolpidae provided priests called hierophants for the mysteries, Eumolpidae traced their family roots back to mythical times and the mythical king Eumolopos who was introduced to the mysteries by Demeter herself.
- KERYKES next to EUMOLPIDAE, traces their family roots back to KEYRX first priest of DEMETER AT ELEUSIS –> daduchos (torchbearer) as depicted on the Ninnion tablet. HEADBAND provide light in nocturnal part. Great honour
ROLE OF WOMEN IN RELIGIOUS RITUALS
- priestess of ATHENA POLIAS = most important female priesthood in ancient Greek
- provided by noble family of the ETEOBOUTADAE who traced roots back to mythical age
- role of this. priestess = enormous significance in the Athenian society and even if she was not directly involved at politics she appeared side by side with the most important political officials
- Athena Polias with archon Basileus on IONIC FRIEZE of PARTHENON where he hands the peplos to Athena.
- VERY IMPORTANT AS WOMEN WERE NORMALL EXCLUDED FROM THE MALE SPHERE OF POLITICS, PUBLIC PRIESTHOODS therefore with the exception to this rule.
- RELIGION was perhaps the only area in Ancient Greek society women were clearly visible and even more than this, where they had actual influence in society.
- As priests, women took part in the administration of the sacred, led processions that attracted people from all over Greek World e.g PANATHENAIA
- held women festivals - WOMAN AT THESMORPHIA –> important for well-being and society.
- Women also served as consultants sometimes in very important positions such as the Pythia at the DELPHIC ORACLE
- Overall, the situation in Greece differs: e.g quite significantly from Rome where women only rarely held priest officers - Vestal Virgins.
- Greek cities usually employed priestess for female deities and priests for male counterparts.
SACRIFICE BY PRIEST
- Sacrifice could be performed by anyone even housewives and slaves could perform sacrifices, particularly in smaller groups and within families.
- They could learn the process easily through imitation and involvement in rituals
- Since becoming a priest = sometimes more or less unforeseeable as, for example, when chosen by lot or did not require any purchase. It must have been possible for everyone to perform most rituals
- HOWEVER… for blood sacrifices –> skills in butchery needed
- Role of priests = SPECIAL, mediators between human and divine and necessary for larger rituals
OTHER PRIESTLY TASKS
- physical care of sanctuary
- buildings
- votive gifts
- finances
- most sanctuaries served as banks for state in times of crisis & also individuals taking out loans for private matters
- priests also supposed to collect funding for religious activities and prepare sacrificial animals worshippers brought to the shrine
BLOOD SACRIFICE
- standard type of Ancient Greek sacrifice
- centre of the community, serving a multitude of purposes –> supply of meat
- sheets, goats, pigs, cattle
- choice of animal depended on type of festival and scale and budget
- Thesmorphia and Eleusian Mysteries = piglets
- hecatomb –> most famous of all, slaughtering and consumption of originally 100 oxen was rare occasion, scale diminished over time and hecatomb = dozen oxen instead of 100.
- famous hecatomb of Ancient Greece = hecatomb at Olympia at the end of Olympic Games on the great altar of Zeus
- individual worshippers will have tended to bring smaller and hence cheaper animals and leave cattle for civic festivals
- we know very little about the act of SACRIFICE, even though it = central to Greek Religion. Depictions on reliefs and vases show the leading of the animal to altar but hardly ever actual killing or allocation of sacrificial meat after.
- held on altar, people gathered to watch outside temple
- most info. sacrifice = Homer’s Illiad and odyssey
Odysseus follows Circe’s instructions, digging a trench at the site prescribed and pouring libations of milk, honey, mellow wine, and pure water. He ceremoniously sprinkles barley and then sacrifices a ram and a ewe, the dark blood flowing into the trench to attract the dead. - BOOK 11
in one case it describes what happened to the animals killed by the suitors (Od. 1.112). From other contexts we know that they ate sacrificial meat. elsewhere (Od. 19.276), it refers to Helios’ cattle slaughtered by Odysseus’ comrades. the lengthy description of this act leaves no doubt that it was a sacrifice, however strange its form.
RECONSTRUCTING THE SACRIFICE STEP 1
- Preparation
- animal led to altar in a procession like Panathenaic procession
- each participant cleansed hands and took handful of barley grain from a basket
- next the sacrificial victim’s head was sprinkled with water to force a nod of agreement from animal, followed by cut of a strand of hair of victim by main sacrificer
- hair put on altar and fire lit
- prayer said desired outcome (health, victory)
RECONSTRUCTING THE SACRIFICE STEP 2
- Act of Killing
- In this step the main sacrificer cut the animal’s throat with a knife and larger victims were stunned by blow with an axe beforehand
- woman chanted ritual cry
- altar was bloodied by either holding the animal directly over the altar or catching a larger animal’s blood in a bowl and then pouring it over the altar
RECONSTRUCTING THE SACRIFICE STEP 3
3) Handling of the meat
- deity’s portions taken away - thigh bones burned on altar and while burning wine poured
- next entrails taken out and roasted on spits over fire shared among worshippers
- lastly remaining meat was cooked and distributed among participants
- taken home sometimes but communal meal on the spot was the norm, for which many sanctuaries offered dining rooms.
- during the sacrifice, the omens were often taken both from burning of the god’s portion and condition of entrails from HANDBOOK
- can look at depiction of the preparation of bulls for a sacrifice by the Nausicaa painter
MODERN SCHOLARSHIP PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF BLOOD SACRIFICE
Burket suggested an anthropological approach in which the shared aggression of the sacrificial killing actually led to the founding of a community and therewith civilisation.
Another more simple interpretation is that fundamentally the sacrifice was killing for eating especially feeding the people of a city which may otherwise have not much mea tint heir diet. - VERNANT AND DETIENNE
More recently, Fred Naiden stressed that the sacrifice served to maintain and stabilise the relationship between the mortals and the gods.
PURPOSE FOR BLOOD SACRIFICE
- clear answer = cumulative one:
–> Blood sacrifice served to unite a community, fed people, displayed strength and the relationship between animals and humans within the community, because hierarchy played an important role. However and most importantly, the religious dimension of the sacrifice must have been at its heart.
- First and foremost was the need to appease the gods and request their goodwill. Next of course was celebration of the gods but equally the humans and their achievements.
- Celebrating, for example, a victory at the end of a religious festival such as Olympic Games equally honoured gods as the victors
- Athenians equally celebrated Athena as they did themselves in Great Panathenaia in which blood sacrifices fed the crowd.
