Greek Popular Religion

by Martin P. Nilsson. 1940

Foreword | Acknowledgements | Illustrations

The Countryside

Lines of research in the study of Greek religion; importance of popular religion; agriculture and stockbreeding the foundations of Greek life in early times; Zeus, the weather god; weather magic; human sacrifices to Zeus Lykaios and to Zeus Laphystios; prayers for rain; stone heaps and their god, Hermes; stone heaps as tombs--Hermes Psychopompos; the herms; pastoral gods--Pan; the rivers and their gods--represented in the form of a bull or a horse; Poseidon, the god of water and earthquakes; centaurs; seilenoi and satyrs; nymphs; Artemis, the foremost of the nymphs; the Nereids in modern Greek belief; the sacral landscape; the heroes; sometimes the heroes appear as ghosts; cult of the heroes bound to their tombs and relics; transference of the relics; heroes helpful in everything, but especially in war; similarity of hero cult to the cult of the saints; the great gods less prominent in the rustic cults; the great gods disappeared, while rustic beliefs survived

Rural Customs and Festivals

Greece originally, and still in part, a country of peasants, who cling to old customs; Greek mode of living; significance of agriculture in the festivals; a natural calendar; Demeter, the Corn Mother, and her festivals; festival of autumn sowing--the Thesmophoria; festivals of harvest--the Thalysia and the Kalamaia; the preharvest festival--the Thargelia--and the pharmakos; first fruits and their significance; the bucoliasts; the panspermia and the kernos; cultivation of the olive; the gardening festival--the Haloa; the flower festival--the Anthesteria--the blessing of the new wine, and the Athenian All Souls' Day; vintage festivals; Dionysus and the wine; the phallus; the May bough--the eiresione; the boys carry swallows; other forms of the May branch--the thyrsus and the crown; tenacity of rural customs

The Religion of Eleusis

Eleusinian religion, the highest form of Greek popular religion; scanty knowledge of the mystery rites; unreliability of the accounts by Christian authors; modern interpretations referring to sexual symbols; our knowledge of the deities and of the myths; Mycenaean origin of the Eleusinian cult; two triads--Demeter, Kore, and Triptolemos and "the God" (Plouton), "the Goddess" (Persephone), and Eubouleus; representations in art; Homeric Hymn to Demeter; legend of Eubouleus and the sacrifice of the pig; aetiological character of the Homeric Hymn referring to the preliminary rites; rape of Kore refers to storing of corn in subterranean silos at time of threshing; Plouton, the god of wealth (the store of corn); fetching of corn at autumn sowing is the ascent of Kore; Plouton as god of the underworld--burial jars; Greek Corn Maiden and pre-Greek queen of the underworld; second ascent of Kore in the sprouting of the new crop; reuniting of Mother and Maid in the autumn sowing is kernel of the mysteries; the ear of corn; Triptolemos, the hero of agriculture and of civilized life; the Eleusinian ideas of peace and piety; happiness in the underworld a repetition of the mystery celebration; sprouting of the new crop a symbol of the eternity of life in successive generations; monuments showing that individual edification came to the fore in the fourth century B.C.; accretion of Dionysiac elements

The House and the Family

Fear of the wilderness; the Greek house (megaron) and its courtyard; Zeus Herkeios, Zeus Kataibates, and Zeus Ktesios; the Dioscuri in the house cult; Zeus Meilichios and Zeus Soter; Zeus, "the father" (pater familias), the protector of the house; the snake guardian of the house; the hearth and its sanctity; rites at the hearth; sanctity of the meal; animal sacrifice; Hestia; the public hearth; intermingling of sacred and profane in daily life; hearth sacred in itself; Zeus, as the protector of suppliants and foreigners, upholds the unwritten laws; averters of evil and witchcraft--Heracles, Apollo Agyieus, Hecate; social aspect of ancient Greek religion; no professional priests; cults the property of certain families; democratization of the family cult

The Cities; the Panegyreis

Urbanization of Greek life--industry and commerce; the rule of the tyrants; Athenian state religion; religion secularized and the great gods elevated; the handicrafts; the potters' gods; Athena and her de-creasing popularity among the common people; Hephaistos; man's need for gods near to him; importation of foreign gods; Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft; specters; the Great Mother, Ammon, the Cabiri, Bendis, Kotyto, and Sabazios; the rise of the cult of Asclepius; the trials for atheism; the turning away from ancestral gods; popularity of mystic and orgiastic cults; religion of the women; cult of Adonis; the panegyreis; the great games, the amphictyonies, and the truces; the fairs; modern Greek panegyreis; the importance of the panegyreis for the social and "international" life of the ancient Greeks

Legalism and Superstition; Hell

Religious movements of the early age; mystic and ecstatic forms of religion; union with the god Dionysus; legalism the striving to fulfill the divine commandments; miracle men; Hesiod's rules for the religious life and the conduct of man; the Pythagorean maxims; The Days; regulation of the calendar; legalism accepted by Delphi in cult only; the Seven Sages and Apolline piety; justice, the equalization of rights; hybris and nemesis; baskania; the gods in the abstract; superstition and the significance of the word deisidaimonia; Theophrastus' characterization of the deisidaimon; Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft; Hippocrates' tract on the holy disease; ghost stories; Plato on sorcery; imprecatory tablets of the fourth century B.C.; general conception of the nether world; punishment in the underworld, starting from the Orphic idea that he who has not been purified will "lie in the mud"; demand for moral purity added; mythological and other sinners; idea of punishment in the other life promoted by idea of retributive justice; hell in Aristophanes; spread of the fear of punishment in the other life

Seers and Oracles

The religious situation in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.; belief shaken but not abandoned; religious hysteria and the trials for atheism; Greek religion bound up with political life; advice of oracles sought by the state and by individuals; art of foretelling the future a part of Greek religion; questions concerning daily life put to the oracles; role of the seers in war; popularity of the seers; the oracle mongers and their influence on public opinion; collections of oracles; political importance of the oracles; Sibylline Books; Thucydides' account of oracles; role of the oracles in the preparation of the expedition to Sicily; oracles in Aristophanes; some seers were influential politicians; seers the defenders of the old religion; Diopeithes, the instigator of the trials for atheism; clash between seers' interpretation of phenomena and that of the natural philosophers; the Sophists confused with the natural philosophers in popular opinion; clash between belief and disbelief took place not in theoretical discussion but in practical life

Illustrations

Illustrations 1-3
Illustrations 4-7
Illustrations 8-10
Illustrations 11-12
Illustrations 13-14
Illustrations 15-16
Illustrations 17-18
Illustrations 19-20
Illustrations 21-23
Illustrations 24-25
Illustrations 26-28
Illustrations 29-33
Illustrations 34-36
Illustrations 37-39

FOREWORD

Late in the last century the American committee for Lectures on the History of Religions came into existence. It was established to cooperate with colleges and seminaries over the United States in providing courses of lectures to be delivered at various centers and to publish the lectures. All the lectures, except those of Professor Paul Pelliot on "Religions in Central Asia" in 1923 and those of Professor A. V. Williams Jackson on "The Religion of Persia" in 1907-8, were published as the "American Lectures on the History of Religions." They formed an important series of volumes, the titles of which are:

T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism (1896)

Daniel G. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples (1897)

T. K. Cheyne, Jewish Religious Life after the Exile (1898)

Karl Budde, Religion of Israel to the Exile (1899)

Georg Steindorff, The Religion of the Ancient Egyptians (1905)

George W. Knox, The Development of Religion in Japan (1907)

Maurice Bloomfield, The Religion of the Veda (1908)

Morris Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria (1911)

J. J. M. de Groot, Religion in China (1912)

Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (1912)

C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism (1916)

J. E. Carpenter, Phases of Early Christianity (1916)

The Committee was organized as a response to what was felt to be a general need. Professor C. H. Toy was the first chairman, and after him Professor Richard Gottheil, seconded by Professor Morris Jastrow, served in this capacity for many years.

In 1936 the members of the Committee turned over the funds and responsibilities to the American Council of Learned Societies, which appointed a Committee consisting of Dean Shirley Jackson Case and Professors C. H. Kraeling, James A. Montgomery, Herbert W. Schneider, and the writer. This is a revolving Committee: Dean Case, after his retirement from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, was succeeded by Dean E. C. Colwell; and at the expiration of Professor Schneider's term in July, 1940, Professor Arthur Jeffery took his place. The Committee enjoys the most helpful cooperation of the Institute of International Education in planning the journeys of its lecturers.

The Committee is fortunate in the first lecturer, Professor Martin P. Nilsson, who needs no introduction to the world of scholars. Starting as he did with the training of a philologist, proceeding to work as archaeologist and historian, and bringing to all that he handles an inborn understanding of folkways, he has made a series of fundamental contributions to our knowledge of ancient religion and primitive customs. In the extensive literature relating to ancient Greece, there is no work which serves the purposes of this volume.

The Committee wishes to express its thanks to Brown, California, Chicago, Cincinnati, Colorado, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Stanford universities, to Kenyon, Mount Holyoke, Swarthmore, and Wellesley colleges, and to Meadville Theological School for generous participation in the scheme; to the Archaeological Institute of America for the third lecture, "The Religion of Eleusis," which was delivered under the auspices of the Norton Lectureship and which, treating as it does the highest form of Greek popular religion, fits into and enriches this volume; and to the Columbia University Press for undertaking the publication of the series and for much editorial help-fulness.

To Mr. Emerson Buchanan, of the Columbia University Library, the Committee owes an especial debt for his careful revision of the entire manuscript. Professor Wendell T. Bush and Mrs. Marguerite Block, Curator of the Bush Collection of Religion and Culture, Columbia University, provided many of the illustrations.

If the new series serves sound learning in this field as its predecessor has done, the Committee will have great cause for happiness.

ARTHUR DARBY NOCK
For the Committee

Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
September, 1940

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgment Is Hereby Made To: Alinari, Kaufmann, and the British Museum for the use of photographs; A. & C. Black, Ltd., for the figure from Dugas, Greek Pottery; F. Bruckmann, A.-G., for the figures from Brunn and Bruckmann, Denkmäler griechischer and römischer Sculptur, from Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, and from the Festschrift für James Loeb zum sechzigsten Geburtstag gewidmet; Cambridge University Press for the figures from Cook, Zeus, and from Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion; Gryphius-Verlag for the figure from Watzinger, Griechische Vasen in Tübingen; Libreria dello Stato for the figure from Rizzio, Monumenti della pittura antica scoperti in Italia; The Macmillan Company for the figures from Cook, Zeus, and from Dugas, Greek Pottery; Oxford University Press for the figures from Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, and from Tod and Wace, A Catalogue of the Sparta Museum; Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger for the figure from Bieber, Die Denkmäler zum Theaterwesen im Altertum; Verlag der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften for the figure from Hiller von Gaertringen and Lattermann, Arkadische Forschungen; B. G. Teubner for the figure from Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen and römischen Mythologie; and the editors and directors of the Annual of the British School at Athens, Ephemeris archaiologike, Illustrated London News, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen archaologischen Institutes in Wien, and Mitteilungen des Deutschen archäologischen Instituts for the use of other figures reproduced in this volume.