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From Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend, by Professor H. Steuding, Translated from the German and Edited by Lionel D. Barnett. The Temple Primers, London: J. M. Dent; 1901; pp. 1-3.

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Beginnings of Greek Belief and Worship

I.  Ghosts.   § 1.  All natural religion arises from wonder at inexplicable phenomena, from the fear of evil and the striving for blessings which cannot be gained by one’s own power. Besides these there is illusion, that is, a belief in the presence of beings who are the unknown cause of our wonder, who can free us from terror and gratify our desires. Influenced by love of self, the man who stands on the lower levels of civilisation is most zealous in inquiring into the experiences which come to his notice in his own person and in his fellows. Sickness and death, as they break the daily course of life and form the main object of fear, claim his special attention. At the same time the phenomena of dreamland, which are sometimes raised to peculiar vividness by the nightmares accompanying them, and occasionally also those of drunkenness or convulsion, suggest the presence of powers which are not perceptible to the senses, and yet can influence him sometimes agreeably and sometimes disagreeably. These unknown beings he therefore regards as the prime cause of those phenomena which would else be inexplicable to him. Supported by the inborn wish of every man for continued personal life after death, there hence grows up a belief in the soul, and at the same time a kindred belief in goblins or ghosts, such as still meets us among races which have remained on the lowest grade of development, who have no other ideas of things beyond the perception of the senses than this belief.

§ 2.  It is probable that the Greeks once were at a like stage of thought, though it is unlikely that they were ever 2 exclusively dominated by these conceptions. The later customary rites of worship, which for the most part come down from very primitive times, and the poems of Homer, preserving as they do much that is vastly earlier than the age of their creation, together with the results of excavations, which in this connection are scanty, constitute the oldest sources of our knowledge of Greek religious life. The most important section in the religious history of this prehistoric time seems to have been coloured by the influence of the Tribal Wanderings and the epic poetry that grew up in connection with them. Hence we shall begin by describing in broad outline what can be inferred as to the religious conceptions of the age preceding these migrations.

As among most of the Indogermans, burial was the earliest form of disposing of the dead. The grave was accounted the dwelling of the deceased, who was imagined as continuing in bodily life. Food and drink, vessels and arms, were put with him; his favourite wife and the slaves whom he had needed in life for his wellbeing were also obliged at first to follow the house-master into death. Even in Homer, Achilleus at the burial of Patroklos slaughters twelve captured Trojan youths, doubtless to make thus their souls serve his friend in the world beyond. Later, sacrifices of beasts took the place of human offerings; but many symbolic rites still indicated that really the latter were supposed to be slaughtered.

§ 3.  Meat and drink naturally had to be renewed from time to time; hence the Cult of the Grave chiefly consists of repeated offerings of food, annually performed on the birthday of the deceased and at the general festivals of the dead. To the latter class belonged the Nekysia or Nemesia, celebrated afterwards by the Athenians in September, and the Chytroi, held by them at the end of February. The souls avenge neglect by sending sickness or death; hence they were called Keres, or ‘destructive ones.’ Men sought by all manner of protective rites to secure themselves from the influence of these dreaded powers, and to prevent their return into their former dwelling.

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Conceived at this stage of thought, the dead kept the form in which they had departed from life; to the ghost were ascribed all the properties of the corpse. By the offering of fresh blood, which they lack when once the heart has stopped, they may for a time be called back into life and answer questions — a conception which gave birth to the practice of raising the dead and asking oracles of them.

At the same time a belief existed that the soul leaves the decaying body and assumes animal form. In particular the snake, as it is remarkable for noiseless and rapid motion, and often dwells in the earth, was imagined to embody a soul; but the forms of bats, birds, and later of butterflies, were also assigned to the spirits of the departed.



Next :
Greek Religion from the Beginning of the Homeric Age :

II:  Nether-World Powers: Heroes.



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