Cult

Sibylline Books and The Mithras Cult

hackney@uoregon.edu

There were many advantages to having multiple different esoteric religions in the Roman Empire. Multiple religions gave a way for people to worship whomever they wanted, it gave them a way to make new specific religions to fit their needs. The Sibylline Books were works that the people of Rome went to when they had any questions, to consult in Senate affairs, in case of political strife, and when a great calamity had befallen them ( Warrior, 5.7). The prophesies were vague in that the same verses might be used for different situations at different time for advice. Another example of when the Romans consulted the Sibylline Books was when they had many deformities all at once and they needed to make sure that they were on the right path (Warrior, 7.18).

The cult of Mithras is as mysterious as it is wide spread. The cult of Mithras was practiced as far as Iran and was typically worshiped along with another god, different gods depending on the different traditions. The cult of Mithras has a mysterious and complicated 7 step initiation process for its members, one step for each of the known planets.  The cave of Mithras is a very important part of the cult, the cave represents the cosmos for the people. Most of the people who joined the cult were soldiers, tax officials, people who are well integrated into the state. Something unique is that all of the members of the cult are men, it was popular for middle ranking men in society. The groups of cult followers typically stayed small and would break up if their following became too large in one location.

Warrior’s selections on magic cover the ritual, binding spells, magical cures, sorcery and witchcraft, and astrology. The Romans seemed to have utilized these methods to explain why one man was more successful than another, for example in 12.4 a farmer had a vastly more abundant crop than his neighbors so they set a day for his trial. I think that magic gave people explanations to why things were not always the same for two people who were doing the same thing. It gave them a way to blame an prosecute someone who they thought were cheating at life. This magic also seemed to be a bit centered on women, maybe giving them a power source, or blaming them, for things that were happening that men did not like.

The Healer and Savior Asclepius.

jeromej

In the temple of Asclepius there is an ivory and gold statue that is half the size of the statue of Zeus in Athens. This statue of Asclepius depicts him sitting on a throne; in one hand he wields a staff, and the other he holds above the head of a serpent. Across from the temple is where the god’s suppliants sleep. Within the Tholos (Round House) there stood several slabs inscribed with the names of people Asclepius had healed and what he had healed them from. After entering the sanctuary, the suppliant would fall asleep and await a vision from the god. The general pattern of the healing was that the god would approach the infirmed in dream and then promise to heal the wound.  When day came, the suppliant would awake and find himself healed exactly as it had been seen in the vision. Sometimes snakes would carry out the healings for Asclepius, as seen in the selection from Aristophanes’ Wealth (Warrior 112). Disease and sickness were daily realities for everyone in the Hellenistic era, and even more so for those living in highly populated cities such as Athens and Rome. The Roman historian Livy observes that a plague running through Rome was a serious threat (Warrior 260). To have a god of healing present in the city would be of great benefit.

Aristides seems to have a very personal and direct relationship with Asclepius. He writes as though Asclepius speaks in an audible voice concerning his ailments and healings. In the story of how his tumor on his leg is healed, the doctors and other people have no communication with the god. Aristides is the only one who can hear the god’s divine guidance towards healing. Most often he refers to Asclepius as the God, but other times he uses the term “Savior” (Pg. 224 line 7) or even “Lord” (228 line 24).  This highly personal relationship operates very differently from the divine-human relationships of the Classical Age.  The first major difference is that in the case of Asclepius it is the god who initiates the interaction. Instead of Aristides going to a temple or festival, he is met by the god in his dreams wherever he may be. Additionally, Aristides is healed before any form of sacrifice is made, if one is even made at all. This contrasts to the Classical Age cults, where an offering had to be made on the human’s side if there was any hope of the gods acting benevolently.

Based on the readings, it seems to me that ancient medicine and religion were at odds with one another and didn’t mix well. This sentiment is best captured when Aristides tumor has been healed, and the doctors insist that the only way for the remaining skin to finish healing was by surgery.  Aristides states that the doctors “thought it right that I grant this, for now the God’s part had been done. He did not even allow them this… And he brought everything back together, so that after a few days had passed, no one was able to find on which thigh the tumor had been, but they were both unscarred in every respect” (Aristides 220 line 67-68). While some of his ailments would be cured by use of drugs or remedies, the cure was always attributed to the work of the god and never a result of ancient medicine.

Cult Worship of Isis

hackney@uoregon.edu

In the reading from Religions of Late Antiquity in Practice Isis is the supreme god in a way. She has control over the cosmos, life and death, and most importantly faith. She was worshipped outside of Egypt long before she became a prominent goddess of the Greeks and Romans. In the reading it says that Isis is Demeter in Greek, and that the mysteries of Demeter were an extension of the mysteries of Isis. Isis has three deities she is commonly associated with, Anubis Horus and Sarapis.  She is known as the goddess of a thousand names, each culture has a different name for the goddess, sometimes more than one. We know very little about her mysteries, we do know though that anyone could worship her in daily rituals. They did not have to be initiated into the mysteries.

The writers praise Isis as basically the goddess who has some sort of rule over everything. They praise her as a goddess of all the people and one who hold justice in very high esteem. She is known to calm or agitate the sea, as well as being the rays of the sun. In Egypt, she was responsible for searching for, putting back together, embalming, and reincarnating Osiris, then magically conceiving and giving birth to Horus. Horus would then be reborn and embodied by each new pharaoh.

Isis is worshipped for setting up sanctuaries for the gods and putting an end to tyrants. Her interactions with humanity are that she makes seafaring possible, she watches over people and to her “everything is possible”. I think she was so popular because Isis could claim having a hand in every aspect of someone’s daily life. She was credited for drawing man an women together, making sure children loved their parents, and taught people to honor the gods. So technically she could be praised for all the religious notions that all the Greek people have, and thus should be worshipped. Also since she had control over the seas and safety of seafarers she was the perfect goddess to pray to for safe passage in travels.

Cult worship of Isis

lgc@uoregon.edu

In the secondary readings from Gail Corrington Streete, the incredibly popular goddess Isis and her mystery cult were discussed. Obviously, there are several different versions of the story of Isis depending on which surviving materials are examined. Some of the common themes present Isis as the sister and wife of King Osiris, the mother of Horus, and Isis would eventually be considered the ultimate ruler of the cosmos. Most importantly Isis was considered a divine being who conquered death and fate. There are a few elements of the goddess Isis and her cult that are markedly different from that of the Greek religious traditions we have examined thus far. Foremost, the priests and devotees that worshipped her actively sought to proselytize and spread the cult. Secondly, this proselytizing was often aimed at the poor and powerless in societies. Lastly, and most importantly, unlike the many Greek gods with specific tasks and areas of control, Isis was responsible for any and all happenings in the cosmos. Writers in the Isis Aretalogy and the Isis Hymn reflect this notion, giving a long list of responsibilities that otherwise would have been diffused amongst dozens of individual Greek gods.  In the Aretalogy, for example, Isis controls warfare (Athena), thunderbolts (Zeus), calming and agitating the sea (Poseidon), and discovered fruit for mortals (Demeter). Isis is also responsible for inventing written language, seafaring, civilization, agriculture, marriage, ending murder, and creating justice systems that oversee human interaction. Unlike the divine-human interactions that have been observed in the Classical Age that are characterized by charis, Isis often gave commandments to her devotees in dreams and promised a better life and afterlife. Mikalson has an insight regarding the popularity of Isis that states, “Unlike a Greek god or goddess, Isis alone now could, for her devotees, fulfill virtually of their religious needs.” (pg. 189) In this way, the all-encompassing cult worship of Isis in the Mediterranean world helped paved the way for the concepts of monotheism that would take shape in the Christian community.

Gods and Heroes

oglesby@uoregon.edu

The greeks categorized the divine world by god, epithet and location. By this I mean each individual god had many sides to them which are described by their epithet. The example that Mikalson gives in his book on page 33 is that of Poseidon Soter of Sunium and Poseidon Hippios. The former would deal with matters of the sea while to latter is responsible for horses, “One would pray in vain to Poseidon Soter to save his horse or to Poseidon Hippios to save his life at sea.” (Mikalson 33). The epithet describes something about that particular god’s function and characteristics. The locale of a god is where that god holds influence over. It would be foolish for people in one city or area to pray to the god of a different place as that is not their patron deity.

Homer and Hesiod are given the credit for formalizing the basic features of gods and heroes. Herodotus in his Histories says, “For I believe that Hesiod and Homer, who were 400 years before my time, and no more than that, made for the Greeks the genealogies of the gods, giving them their appropriate titles, assigning them their honors and skills, and describing their appearance.” (Warrior 2.1)

The picture of the Gods that I get from Warrior’s book is that they have a distinctly human element to them. That is not to say that they aren’t supernatural or otherworldly, but rather in Hesiod and Homer they seem to have human concerns. In Hesiod, for example, Rhea has to plot with her parents so she can have her child (Warrior 2.6, 470). In Homer’s The Iliad the gods plot against each other and seemingly admit mistakes, “How naive and senseless we are to set our hearts against Zeus!” (Warrior 2.18, 105) The gods are definitely not man, but they have an element of humanity in their interactions with each other and with humans.

The relationship that these myths have with practiced greek religion is that they myths explain things about the world and explain why certain gods have power over certain places or things. Mikalson says on page 54 that the truth of the myth is not the important part, but rather the message that is contained in the myth. He quotes G.S. Kirk as saying that they are “on the one hand good stories, on the other hand bearers of important messages about life in general and life-within-society in particular.” (Mikalson 54)

The myth that I am explaining is that of Athena, Poseidon, and Athens. In the myth all the gods decide to go down to Earth and claim the cities that they would become the patron god of. Athena and Poseidon get into a race to see who can claim Athens the fastest. Ultimately the story ends with Cecrops, the Athenian king at the time, deciding that Athena was the victor. After the race Athena planted and olive tree and Poseidon hit the Acropolis with his trident. This myth seems to serve several purposes in Greek and Athenian religious practice and thought. First it provides the Athenian citizen with a physical connection to the divine. As Mikalson states on page 56, “The Athenian would have before him a most impressive and beautiful representation of the story he had learned from childhood of how Athena became the eponymous patron of his city.” Secondly I think that it grounds Athens as being a city of great importance. Athens was a powerful and wealthy city but this story seems to show that it also was desirable to the gods themselves. The powerful Athena and Poseidon were involved enough with wanting the city as their own that they would race to claim it. In addition to this the judge of a race between immortals was just a man, the king of the city. The ancient Athenian king in that moment held some sort of power over two of the gods. 

The Role of Cult, Myth, and Art in Ancient Greek Religion

thatcher@uoregon.edu

Cult, myth, and art were religious tools used in Sunium to worship the god Poseidon. Ritualistic aspects of worship are prominent and can be seen by some of the standards set in Greek religion. Being “polluted” ritually is an example of the cult, ritualistic aspects of Greek religion (Mikalson, 8). If one had been in the house of someone giving birth they could not go inside the temenos . Little things like that show how Greeks were very ritualistic in the way they lived and worshiped. While ritual provides a vague rule system in which to worship the gods, myth and literature were the stories about the gods. Myths usually were very regional things for the most part with specific groups of people believing in the gods in a wide range of capacities. While myths are mostly thought of as poetic literature they could be any type of divine belief associated with reality. The gods of the Greeks did not have a set “code for human behavior” which allowed for many interpretations and diverse belief among the ancient Greek people. I would argue that ritual is more prominent just because there are more consistencies and less diverse beliefs when it comes to them. An example being that all altars faced east or that altar to gods in the sky had to be outside. Myths on the other hand are up for interpretation and had a more diverse range of beliefs associated with it.

The way art enhances cult worship is due to the wonderful nature of art and the meaning behind its creation. Just like the reading when there were statues built after the war with the Persians serving the purpose of thanking the gods but also reminding the people of them and their power. If everyone thanks the gods for a win in battle then future generations will follow in their belief. Art was a way for the gods presence to be felt in the reality of every day life. When most people had huts to live in, it becomes a big deal that there is a giant bronze statue of a god just down the road. Art allows for the gods to be more prominent and real so that their influence can always be felt.

So far I would say the “religiosity” of the Greeks is somewhat flawed but worked in the times that they lived in. Greeks couldn’t come up with one set of particular rules in which everyone believed because the systems to distribute those rules were not around then. Living in antiquity the Greeks focused more on daily life and what to do not to anger the gods. This comes from a completely different direction of normal religious life in which there is a “loving” God. Gods to the Greeks just needed the honor and respect of the people so that they did not have to punish them like they did Odysseus. This is partly why ritual and cult practices are so prominent because there is no set of religious beliefs with the belief system based around not offending the gods. This allows for the outward practice of faith and “religion” more so than the inner practice most people are familiar with today.

Cult, Art, and Ritual of Greek Religions

hackney@uoregon.edu

There were many ways that the Greeks worshipped their gods. Perhaps the best well known is that of sacrifice but they also gave the gods material things, statues and sculptures made of gold. These were another way to honor the gods, to use as a gift so that they may favorably look upon a request being given. There would be sculptures given to the gods to try to gain favor in upcoming wars or to give thanks for the victory in past war. These different ways that the Greeks used art strengthens their cult worship, it gave them a way to gain favor with the gods by more then just the sacrifices. The panhellenic statues and gifts also strengthened  a larger group of people’s favor with the gods and affected a wider group of people.

There were many rituals carried out by the cults that defined and shaped the ways that the Greeks practiced their worship. For example there were rituals to purify people who had been polluted, this meant that anyone who had been polluted by birth or death was not able to partake in any of the rituals or even enter the temples and sanctuaries until they had been purified. The ritual for purifying was also only to make a person physically clean, being morally clean was not an issue. If worshipping a female goddess then the leader of the sanctuary would be a priestess, if the god was a male then the leader would be a priest. The priests and priestesses also had more rituals and rules to follow then the average worshippers at a temple. The rituals carried out by the people played a more predominate role than that of myth and literature. Myth and literature also played noteworthy roles in the sanctuaries, namely that of  deities that were a creation of the literary tradition or folklore, they did not receive sacrifices, prayer or dedications. These deities were still worshipped and some later transitioned into religious figures, Eirene and Agathe Tyche for example. While both influenced the lives of the Greeks, it seems as though the rituals that they had to carry out influenced their lives more on a daily basis.

All the dimensions of worship and celebration converge at Sunium to form a large and important temple to the Greeks. The flow into each other, the cult uses art and myths to enhance their religious experiences and temples. It would be unusual to have a sanctuary without all these aspects of worship represented. After this chapter my overall impression with the Greeks is that they spent more time on making sure that the gods were happy with them by giving items and sacrificing to the gods than they did on being morally sound. Their “religiosity” was based solely on material things and material gain than it was on them being good people. It seems to me that this wasn’t so much a religion as it was a way to get farther in their world and a way to look good in the eyes of society.