roman religion

Foreign Judaism in Ancient Rome

thatcher@uoregon.edu

It seems that the Romans were mostly supportive of Judaism until around the first century. Just like other foreign cults, such as the ones from Egypt or Greece, Romans allowed this religion to practice due to its ancient origins. Emperor Claudius even says, “Do not dishonor any of the traditional practices connected with the worship of their God” (Warrior, 14.8). This shows how Romans were protective in their early relationship with Rome because of the Jews ancient roots. The Jews views clashed with much of Roman worship but they were allowed to be different in most cases. Many times in Warrior Judaism is associated with Egyptian religion as well showing where Judaism was placed in the pantheon of foreign cults and religions. Rives even says that Judaism was perceived as “divine” in some ways due to its understanding of truth (193). The Jews were allowed many rights during the Roman Empire but I think the thing that changed that was the coming of Jesus. Jesus changed religion and created a tension.

This tension was not only with Romans but with Judaism as well. As the strength of Christianity grew so did Roman elites fear of all other foreign religions. Tiberius was one of the first emperors to start discriminating against the Jews eventually leading to a tax just for being Jewish (Warrior, 14.19). Tacitus reveals a lot in his excerpt from Warrior about the feeling towards foreign religions in the Roman Empire. Tacitus shows both his knowledge and ignorance of Judaism. He cites Moses and The Sabbath but questions where they come from and why Jews are so “weird and abominable”. He argues that Jews only do these things, such as circumcision, to be different than other peoples. Tacitus makes two connections to Judaism and Egyptian religion both in their sacrificing and burial rituals. While writing about Moses’ laws he says, “In theses everything that we regard as sacred is held to be profane. On the other hand they permit things that for us are taboo” (Warrior, 14.21).

Magic, Cult, and Oracles in Ancient Rome

thatcher@uoregon.edu

The Sibylline texts were very important to the aristocracy of Rome. They leaned on these texts for all sorts of different advice. The people who read the texts were initiated and lived in the temple of Jupiter during their tenure, which is for life. These texts helped the Romans decide what to do in time of uncertainty in the empire. One particular instance was that weird hybrid animals and hermaphrodites were being born so they consulted the oracles. The oracles responded by telling them to give a sacrifice to Juno Queen to Zeus (Warrior, 7.18). Another instance is when there was a plague to oracles to Rome to bring a Greek god and they installed a temple to him. The writings say that the “pestilence subsided with amazing speed” so apparently this worked (Warrior 8.10).

Magic seemed to play a role in the majority of everyday peoples lives because of the many writings and inscriptions with magical attributes. It seemed all types of various incantations, potions, and spells were used by everyday people trying to change their lives. Sometimes being so specific as to curse specific body parts and even finical success on another person (Warrior, 12.12). Cato also describes magic to heal a dislocation that is fairly simple and could be done by anyone theoretically (Warrior, 12.6). The only explanation I have to the widespread interest in magical religion is that they had to have believed that these things really did affect their day to day lives. An interesting magic instance that happened was described by Pliny the Elder who describes someone magically transporting his whole farm into the courthouse (Warrior, 12.4). This is interesting because it seems to have no greater significance other than this act of magic happened.

The Cult of Mithras was an exclusively male only cult that possibly has its roots in the ancient near east. The cult was a sanctuary for all those initiated where they could move from place to place and be invited in because they were apart of the secret cult. The only primary text we have is from a Christian writer and it has to do with the initiation rituals. Being blindfolded in a cave and giving yourself over to Mithras is about all we get from the texts (Warrior, 9.13-16). It is interesting that they describe themselves as being “male brides to Venus” so they are describing the relationship as one close to marriage (Warrior, 9.15). Members also have a hierarchy and can rank up understanding maybe more and more about the cosmos as it seems their titles were that of luminaries.

Hierarchy in Roman Religion

lgc@uoregon.edu

As Rives discusses in his chapter on Religion and Community, an individual’s religious status often largely reflected their status in their society in general. For example, an individual who happened to own a successful shop in town would also likely operate as a key actor in the cities religious affairs. This is likely caused by the fact that, like the Greeks, early Roman religion attributed the success of individuals as well as the empire at large to a correct and pious relationship with the gods. This relationship was viewed by the Romans as a sort of two way street, in that they worshiped correctly and as a result were shown favor by the gods. Which in turn caused them to give proper thanks to the gods, ensuring a continuation of this favor. This relationship is captured well in On the Nature of the Gods, written by Cicero who states, “We give thanks to the gods when we achieve political office or some benefit to our family estate, or if we happen upon some good or avoid some misfortune, and we do not think that our own reputation has been enhanced. Did anyone ever give thanks to the gods because he was a good man? No, he did so because he is rich, honored and secure. Jupiter is called ‘Best and Greatest’ not because he makes men just, moderate and wise, but because he makes them healthy, secure, wealthy and prosperous.” (Warrior, 1.30, pg. 11) In this passage Cicero makes it clear that whether the success is felt by the individual or society at large, it is due to good favor with the gods. As such, it would have seemed silly to have anyone besides the most prosperous members of society be in charge of religious worship. While there were some voluntary associations that were lead by women, slaves, and freedmen, these were largely fringe associations or those that weren’t necessarily of great import. The collegiums that were vital to the success of the entire empire were ran by the socio-economic elite, and as Rives discussed, “Wealth was thus a formal requirement for holding public office, and an important part of serving as a magistrate or public priest was using that wealth on behalf of the populace.”(Rives, pg. 115)

These social hierarchies were echoed in the household, as the father of the household was in charge of caring for the household cult as well as honoring his dead ancestors. These household cults were organized into hierarchical relationships of master and slave, husband and wife, and father and child. Even if a father and husband made a modest living, he still had access to more of his societies resources than his wife, children, or slaves did. Just like it was the job of the top of the socio-economic tree to care for the empire-wide cults, it was the job of the leader of the household to care for the traditional cults of the household.

Approaches to Graeco-Roman Divinity

jeromej

Rives does an excellent job of fully introducing the complexities of the Roman divine in just a few short opening pages.  Like we discussed in class, when most people think of the Roman divine they think of the iconic Pantheon of gods: Zeus the God of lightning, his wife Hera, the god of the sea Poseidon, and so on. Rives quickly points out that the number of deities known to the Greaco-Roman world greatly exceeds the original 12-15.  Not only are there several lesser deities, but there can be multiple versions of the same god throughout the lands (15). In addition, the divine did not have to fall under the category of a character with distinct personality.  Many considered the physical sea, sun, moon, and other aspects of nature to be equally divine as the gods.  The divine can also encompass abstract ideas, such as Fortune and Persuasion, or Fear and Panic (17). Furthermore, Rives points to the widely varied uses of the terms daimones, heros , numen, and genius in the Graeco-Roman framework of the divine, and how those terms illustrate the close proximity of the superhuman and human spheres (19).

Though at first the Graeco-Roman concept of the divine seems to be pure Chaos, Rives cautions the modern reader from thinking that there was no order or unity in the Roman religions. The varied approaches to Roman religions allowed for a great deal of flexibility.  Rives states that “people invoked the idea of the divine in very different contexts for very different purposes” (21).  This is seen in the “tripartite theology,” which divides the different ways of approaching the gods and the divine into three spheres: the mythical, the physical, and the civil.  As illustrated by Varro’s writing, these spheres of approach did not always agree with each other. However, consistency was not all important; even though a view from the sphere of myth might be “wrong” from the civic point of view, the mythic view still has its merits within its own sphere.

Rives elaborates this point in his description of the four main spheres of Graeco-Roman approaches to the divine: cult, myth, art, and philosophy.  Each one operates independently, yet at the same time they intersect at numerous points. For example, all four spheres acknowledge in some way the general mythic framework of the divine world.  Myth and art share a very close relationship in this acknowledgment, as art usually takes inspiration straight from the poetic tales.  Cultic practices often involve statues from myths or hymns that reference mythic stories. However, these aspects are not central to the Roman cultic observance.  Similarly, while philosophy has some ties to the other spheres it often tries to subvert and reinterpret myth, art and cult. Each sphere operates independently, yet they all interact and agree varyingly on many beliefs and ideas.

The Nature of the Divine and Approaches to Roman Religion

oglesby@uoregon.edu

Ben Oglesby 

Rives’ explanation of the category divine in the roman context shows just how broad a concept the idea of the divine was in that time and place. From inside the idea of divinity he unpacked a huge amount of spiritual diversity in both belief and practice. What is most different from the monotheistic faiths seemed to be the large number of things that have a divine element, from the gods all the way down to the numen/genius/etc of everyday people and things. What Rives says about Roman religious practices intersects with our initial discussion of Roman belief in a significant, but semi superficial way as we lacked the depth of knowledge that he has. It seems that we did manage to cover all three parts of the tripartite Roman faith in our initial discussion as we covered the cultic practices, the myths surrounding the pantheon, and briefly we mentioned philosophy and its relation to Roman faith. We definitely need to fine tune our initial ideas, but it seems like we were not too off base as a group. We should talk more about the diversity of divine beings as I don’t think the idea of daimons or spirits came up in our discussion. 

Welcome to Greco-Roman Religions!

dreis@uoregon.edu

Welcome to the website for the students of REL 399: Greco-Roman Religions at the University of Oregon (Fall 2014). The site is maintained by Dr. David M. Reis. Click the play button to listen to music from ancient Rome as you scroll through the images.

 

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