Greek Philosophy, September 2002

The Character of Greek Religion Sept. 2001

There were two tiers/strata of Greek society - and there were two tiers/strata of Greek religion. The character of each religion accurately reflects the societal structure of each tier of Greek society.

The first tier was the aristocratic warrior hunter class. Their religion was the Olympian religion. This is the pantheistic religion of gods and goddesses with which we are most familiar when we discuss "Greek religion". It is a sterile temple oriented religion mainly concerned with buying the favor of the gods through money tribute or animal sacrifice. The Olympian gods are sky gods anthropomorphic in nature - but impetuous and prone to jealousy in temperament - hence the value in buying them off. From the sky comes live giving light and rain - these gods are the causal forces of the universe. Zeus IS the lightning...etc.

For the follower, there is only appeasing the gods. There is no redemption, no afterlife, no code of morality. Any code of morality is given by the thinkers of the time. Later as humanism becomes stronger these thinkers will begin to question the behavior of the gods and the de-mythologizing of cosmology (the universe) will begin.

The soul is not very well differentiated. They called it the "psyche" which means "last breath". This psyche is not to be confused with modern psychology’s use of the same term. Their definition is different. The soul is merely a shadow essence which passes to the realm of Hades after death. There is no reincarnation so the only longevity of human value is to perform enough heroic acts to be remembered in song and poetic verse. There is no immortality for Olympian Greeks. Corporeal life is it so live well. The closest thing to sin in the Olympic religion is hubris - arrogance - overstepping your bounds. This pissed the gods off -and they were likely to cause trouble for you, or even take your life - but as mentioned before, they could be bought off with sacrifice and tribute.

In Olympian religion there is no commun ion with the gods unless they want it. There is no immortality or godhood for humans with the exception of half-breeds called "heroes". They are products of gods and humans. Hercules is an example of a hero.

So Olympian pantheon of gods is a pack of immature children prone to jealousy and rage with power and a father god riding herd over them.

The second tier of Greek society is the agrarian laborer class. Their religion is the Orphic/mystery religion. It is a religion of salvation, of a redeeming god (one god) who calls worshippers into communion with him and transforms them into one of his own (immortality is bestowed). This religion was born of disappointment in the difficulties and finitude of life. Because of this we see the followers look for an ecstatic transcendental experience a transformation. These religions are cult like in format usually dedicated to one particular god or goddess. Contrasted with the Greek Olympian religion where women were excluded from participation, the Orphic religions had equity in participation as well as deity. Some of them worshipped dimeter as mother goddess. Some of the worshipped dionysus, god of wine, and still others worshipped learning and wisdom (Pythagoreans). If one comes across names of gods in elements or in trees, it should be known that those are actually reflections of the character of one god.

The transformative experience is initiated by the use of wine or hallucinogenic potions (or in the case of pythagoras music and mathematics). Through this experience of ecstasy and catharsis sin is expunged, one enters into direct personal relationship with the god, and the process of transformation to immortality begins. The initiation into these cults was sometimes by means of blood ritual.

Oddly enough after the initial rite of passage followers often took vows of vegetarianism. We can only guess about what went on with these groups because they were secret societies.
We do know that they had a code of morality which was dogmatic in nature and that the Orphic dogm a is strongly linked to fecundity and the cycles of nature. Food bearing plants emerge, are absorbed back to the earth in death only to re-emerge in the spring.
Their view of the soul is thoroughly differentiated. The body traps the soul - upon death the soul transmigrates until it has achieved the grace to pass into godhood - immortality. There is a sense of karma - so as you have done - so shall you endure. Lead a good life...become a god in death.

In comparison, the Olympic religion is a religion of peop le who are on the top of the social scale. They are probably a bit complacent, they can’t transcend socially and there is no option for transcendence into immortality, "Since this is all there is", they would say, "let us strive for physical perfection and a good life." Whereas the Orphic religion is a religion of people who will never transcend their life from their life as workers and laborers into a life of Greek aristocracy, so the goal is to achieve it in the attainment of immortality in the afterlife, and through the experience of ecstasy and catharsis to establish and maintain a real dynamic relationship with god in a personal and intimate way.