GREEK RELIGION 



3683 



GREELEY 



Greek Religion. Greek religion 

 is not the same as Greek myth- 

 ology. The latter is an account of 

 the words and deeds of the super- 

 human beings called gods ; the 

 former is concerned with the nature 

 and functions of these beings, and 

 the worship and ritual by which 

 they were approached. 



There is no doubt that the reli- 

 gion of the Greeks, as it appears in 

 the Homeric poems, was preceded 

 by an earlier religion. It has been 

 established that an earlier civiliza- 

 tion, to which the name Aegean or 

 Minoan has been given, preceded 

 that of the Greeks. The Greeks 

 themselves are the result of the 

 blending of earlier inhabitants, nei- 

 ther Indo-European nor Semitic, 

 with invaders who descended from 

 central Europe, the last of these 

 being the Dorians. How far Greek 

 religion is an admixture of the be- 

 liefs of the original inhabitants 

 with those of the Indo-European 

 invaders ; whether the Greeks ever 

 worshipped stones, trees, plants, 

 and animals ; what part foreign in- 

 fluences, Asiatic and especially 

 Egyptian, played in the formation 

 of Greek religion as first known to 

 us, are still unsettled questions. 



Greek religion was originally nei- 

 ther monotheistic nor merely sym- 

 bolical of a mystic system brought 

 from the East. Nor was it purely 

 a nature-religion, as was argued 

 from the fact that comparative 

 philology had shown that many of 

 the old Vedic deities, who bore 

 similar names to those of the Greek 

 gods, were personifications of na- 

 ture. Similarity of name does not 

 necessarily imply a similar concep- 

 tion of the nature of the god. Thus, 

 one who in the Greek hierarchy 

 holds high, even the highest, rank 

 may be insignificant in another. 

 The Greater and Lesser Gods 



Greek religion was essentially 

 anthropomorphic. The gods were 

 conceived of as immortal, possess- 

 ing the forms of men, their vices 

 and virtues, but infinitely superior 

 in power and influence. They may 

 be divided into (1) the gods "of the 

 sky, whose home was on Mt. 

 Olympus, ruled by Zeus ; (2) the 

 gods of the seas and rivers, ruled by 

 Poseidon ; (3) the chthonian gods, 

 or gods of the underworld, ruled by 

 Hades. With these greater gods 

 were associated numerous inferior 

 deities. As the individual gods dif- 

 fered in power and wisdom, so they 

 enjoyed different degrees of venera- 

 tion in different states. New epi- 

 .thets from time to time indicated 

 altered and extended functions. 



The Greek believed himself to be 

 surrounded by gods, upon whom 

 he was himself dependent, and not 

 only he alone, but his family and 



the greater family, the state. At Religion, J. E. Harrison, 2nd ed. 

 the same time he professed nothing 1908; Lehrbuch der Religions- 

 in the nature of religious dosrma : geschichte, Chantepie de la Saus- 



saye, new ed. 1905, Eng. trans. 



Manual of the Science of Religion, 



B. S. Colyer Fergusson, 1891; A 



in the nature of religious dogma ; 

 there was nothing that could be 

 properly called a priesthood, spe- 

 cially gifted with a knowledge of Handbook of Gfeek Religion, A. 

 things divine. The Greek could Fairbanks, 1910; The Mycenaean 

 believe what he pleased, except Tree and Pillar Cult, A. J. Evans, 

 deny the existence of the gods 1901; Psyche, E. Rohde, 1894. 

 or attack the existing religion. 



Inexorable Fate 



An important element in Greek 

 religion was Moira (Fate), repre- 

 senting the physical and moral 

 laws that inexorably governed the 

 universe, to which even the gods 

 had to bow. Hence it was incum- 

 bent upon them to see that men 

 kept and did not violate these laws, 

 and they meted out rewards and 

 punishments accordingly. The re- 

 lation between men and gods, 

 whose favour was to be gained and 

 whose wrath appeased by various 

 rites and sacrifices, and whose 

 pleasure was learnt from the ora- 

 cles, was regarded as a sort of con- 

 tract. If the individual or state 

 required the aid of the gods, they 

 on their part had to give of their 

 best in return. 



That the Greeks believed in the 

 existence of the soul after death is 

 shown by propitiatory rites such as 



Greeley, HORACE (1811-T2). 

 American journalist. Born on a 

 New Hampshire farm, Feb. 3, 1811, 



he joined the __. 



staff of a coun- 1 

 try newspaper |>: 

 at the age of 15, f _ , 1 - 

 and in 1831 I 

 made his , way | 

 to New York 1 

 as a journey- | 

 man printer. 

 After a first 

 failure with a 



paper called *f^ i ^-~<^ 



The Morning 



Post (1833), he founded The New 

 Yorker in 1834, the literary ex- 

 cellence of which gained him an 

 immediate reputation. He started 

 The Tribune in 1841, and the large 

 circulation of this paper in the N. 

 and W. gave Greeley an opportunity 

 of preaching his political doctrines. 



The question of slavery early en- 



, 



were performed, e.g., at the festival gaged his attention, and by 1850 

 called Anthesteria, by offerings The Tribune was an unflinching 

 laid on the tomb which the shade 

 of the departed was supposed to 

 haunt, and by the honours paid to 

 distinguished persons or local di- 



vinities such as Hercules and the 



advocate of abolition. Delegate to 

 the fateful Republican national 

 convention of Chicago in 1860, 

 Greeley helped forward the nomin- 

 ation of Lincoln, and staunchly 



oekist or founder of a colony, who supported the president through 

 were dignified with the title of the war. He was one of the 



and 



heroes. 



Up to the time of the Pelopon- 

 nesian War, the general belief in 

 the gods remained unshaken among 

 the people. After that time, a 

 general moral, social, and political 

 decay set in. The people became 

 impregnated with the scepticism of 

 the philosophers and of dramatists 

 like Euripides. Unbelief and reli- 

 gious indifference took its place, 

 succeeded by superstition, which in 

 turn led to the 

 prevalence of yrc^-" 

 mystical sects [ 

 and rites like | 

 those of the Or- 

 phic and other | 2SuraL 

 mysteries, and to 

 the introduction 

 of foreign divini- 

 ties. See Hero ; 

 Mystery; Myth- 

 ology; Oracle; 

 Orphism. 



J. H. Freese 

 Bibliography. 

 Cults of the Greek 

 States, L. R. Far- 

 nell, 1896-1909 ; 

 Prolegomena to Horace Greeley. 



bailees of Jefferson- Davis, 

 thereby incurred the anger of a 

 large section of the northern 

 public. Vigorously opposing the 

 re-nomination of Grant in 1872, he 

 was himself nominated by the 

 Liberal Republicans, and carried 

 six southern states ; but the con- 

 sequent mental strain, coupled with 

 the loss of his wife, proved too much, 

 and he died suddenly, Nov. 29, 1872. 

 See Life, A. H. Sotheran, 1892. 



theStudy of Greek 



The house in Amherst, New Hamp- 



shire, in which he was born 



