CWC Primer Chapter 4: Ancient Religious World Views
By 4000 BC patterns of dense human settlement were occurring in large river basins throughout Eurasia and North Africa. Sedentism
was emerging in the Nile river basin, the Tigris-Euphrates, the Indus, the Yangtze,
and the Huang-gu. By the time that fully developed
civilizations emerged in each
of these places (ca. 3000 BC) the earliest records and the earliest
recorded hierarchies in nearly every
instance were religious. The development of sites
such as Göbekli Tepe
already by 9600 BC indicates that leadership cadres
acquired their elite status based to large degree their claim to religious authority. Since religious
ideology was
obviously fundamental to the formation
of these cultures, we need to address the reasons for this
as well as for the tendency
of religious authority to become transformed into political, social, and legal power. Modern readers of ancient texts of all kinds
-- the Old Testament, Demosthenes’ speeches, Plutarch's lives, the Rg Veda or the Egyptian
Book of the Dead -- need to be cognizant
of the inherent
organization and logic of ancient religious
world views. Otherwise, much of what they have to relate will seem unintelligible or illogical.
This chapter will present
a reduced, distilled
model for ancient polytheistic world views. Generalizations
are necessary yet inevitably unsatisfactory. The texture
of all religious world views is
complex and multifaceted, making it difficult to do justice in broad strokes.
Nonetheless, a template
must be furnished for the chapters to follow. We are going to examine first the cosmology
or world view of the polytheistic mindset. How did ancient societies
generally perceive the universe to be organized? We will then examine the inherent
logic to this
world view. The fact that this world view was consistent and coherent demonstrates that its
believers gave it considerable thought. Next we
will examine the ways in which inhabitants
of ancient societies communicated with their deities.
To ancient worshipers
the ability to communicate with deities
meant that they could to some degree control
these and through them the natural environment. Last we will consider ancient views
of afterlife, since the manner in which
ancient societies
revered their dead says
a great deal about what they
cherished in life. Hopefully
what will come from this discussion is
an
appreciation for the manner in which the ancient
religious world view not only fulfilled
the needs of past societies
but
also formed part of the essential fabric of their inhabitants' daily
lives. It is
difficult to appreciate how ancient peoples
went about organizing their societies,
their communities, or their lives
without understanding their spiritual attitudes.
At the outset the profound uniformity of ancient religious beliefs
needs to be confronted. Ancient peoples
tended to be highly superstitious. All around them natural
phenomena released destructive energy that they could not understand. All they knew is
that these forces
were greater than human kind. To a considerable degree ancient polytheistic world views focused on the causation and / or the deterrence
of destructive or frightening natural phenomena. An impulse to make sense of it all and to attribute
transcendent meaning to natural phenomena ultimately led to a great diversity
of belief systems and ritual
practices. All early human cultures subscribed to the belief in divine beings that more or less exerted control over natural
phenomena and human fortune. Lacking scientific understanding prehistoric peoples
presumed that any force more powerful than humankind
-- lightening, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. -- was
inherently divine or a direct manifestation of the divine. The assignment of names
and
personalities to these various manifestations enabled prehistoric peoples to identify and to classify
divinities and to devise means
with which to communicate with them. To some degree the process
resembled the tagging
of a crime scene. The more divinities
one
could identify, the greater the likelihood that one could communicate with that divinity and appease it. In addition to identifying forces of nature,
ancient polytheistic religions
were also concerned with the process of the life cycle, that is, the seemingly
perpetual cycle of Birth, Death, and Regeneration. Events such as
the birth of infants, the marriage
of newlyweds, and the interment
of loved ones represented rites
of passage for human kind. They were also symptomatic of the limits of human mortality
and tended to evoke the most pious, profound emotions. The love that existed between life partners,
the love of parents for their children
(and vice versa), the pain at losing a loved one, and the fear of death were all embodied by belief systems
concerned with the life cycle. In addition, much of ancient worship concerned animism, that is, the use of
magical power to gain control over one's food supply. Bound up in this
concept was the recognition that all organic life inherently had to consume life to exist. In essence, one is
what
one eats. When combined
with broader notions
of anthropomorphic divinities that existed and manifested themselves
on
the earth, the power to take life assumed profound significance. How did one know, when hunting down a deer in the forest, for example, that one was not in fact slaying the favorite
deer of the huntress
goddess Artemis? This is precisely what occurred
in the legend of Agamemnon, the King of Bronze Age Mycenae, who was forced to sacrifice
his daughter Iphigenia in recompense. To avoid the risk of divine retribution, ancient peoples intrinsically recognized the sacred character
of life by offering
to share the fruits of the hunt with the gods through sacrifice. Despite its
complementary tendencies toward the ecstatic and the macabre, sacrifice
implicitly recognized the sacredness of all life and the fine line that existed between corporeal existence and nothingness.
Polytheism means the belief in the existence of many gods. This was
true
of all ancient cultures. There were anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic deities in most ancient cosmologies. By projecting human experience onto the transcendent realm, humans
tended to perceive
their gods organized as families, with a father deity (usually
the sky god) exerting patriarchal control
over his consorts, siblings and offspring. Simultaneously, divine beings operated in a political dimension, with the supreme
god presiding as king and a retinue
of advisor gods (resembling a king’s council
of elders) offering advice. As king he could choose to accept
their counsel or not. Such gods were naturally depicted
in human form (anthropomorphism), although attributes
such as wings, multiple limbs, etc. were often added to emphasize power. Most cosmologies conformed to a familiar
pattern of a sky god father ruling his
often fractious family, whose members not only squabbled
among themselves, but interacted for better or for worse with the lives of humans.
As noted above, most ancient
societies displayed
a bewildering tendency to incorporate gods -- new gods, foreign
gods -- into their cosmologies as a means
to obtain the benefit of new and potentially untapped divine resources. When coming in contact with foreign cultures it was commonplace to search
for recognizable attributes of one’s own deities in the newly encountered deities
of
foreigners. This resulted in syncretism
-- the merging of religious
beliefs across cultures. Traveling abroad the Greeks
associated Phoenician Melkaart with Hercules (the hero of civilization), Near Eastern
Astarte with Aphrodite (the goddess of love), and Anatolian Cybele
with Rhea (the mother of the gods).
Where did all these gods come from? The earliest
recorded creation
stories exhibit a discernible cross-cultural pattern: the
gods who ruled the universe
were rarely perceived as the earliest
of the gods; rather, they represented a second
or third generation of divine
beings who had successfully wrested supreme power from their predecessors. This earlier
generation of gods
had
acquired power by suppressing an even earlier
group of primal forces
that arose from inchoate
matter, such as
primordial ether or watery abyss. Each generation of new gods grew
increasingly anthropomorphic. In Mesopotamia the Enuma Elish hymn relates
how
Tiamat and Apzu emerged from a watery mass to
spawn a new generation of gods. Apzu ultimately decided to destroy
these gods, but the god Enki or Ea killed him first and thus
assumed control of freshwater forever. Enraged by the death of Apzu, Tiamat sought to exterminate the younger gods. However,
a council of the gods appointed
Enlil (the god of air, later known as
Marduk to the Babylonians) to confront the chaotic sea goddess in battle. Enlil defeated Tiamat, divided her carcass in two, and used half of it to create the dome of the sky and the other half to create the surface of the earth. Thus, the sky (An or Anu) and the earth (Ki) became separated by atmosphere (Enlil), and the earth was perceived as
a large rectangular land mass floating on the body of Apzu or freshwater. Beyond the earth loomed the primeval
ocean of Nammu. According
to several world views, therefore, each generation of gods overthrew its predecessor and grew more human in form.
As the Mesopotamian tradition indicates, the ancient universe
was perceived as existing in three planes – the arc of the heaven
above, the flat land surface
of the earth in the middle, and the arc of the underworld below (typically associated with an underground freshwater sea). The deities
who
inhabited the heavens were the Sky Gods, or the Olympic deities. These deities
were typically associated with celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, stars,
etc., though Zeus, the father of the gods in
Mediterranean cosmology was mostly personified as the storm god. The sky gods
controlled the changes of day and night and the seasons;
they could also induce storms, floods, drought, snow, hail, and wind. These abilities
inevitably gave them power over human affairs. Their ability to peer down on humans from the heavens
also
enabled them to observe
and thus to witness
human behavior, both good and bad. Where the fulfillment of sacred oaths
were concerned, the Olympic
deities enjoyed the capacity to determine
equity, that is, the recognition that a mortal
could be prevented
from fulfilling a sacred vow by circumstances beyond his or her control. The sky gods tended to recognize
the untoward outcome of an obligation, not merely its
original terms. Generally, sky gods gave good things
to human kind and were beseeched
with promises and prayers.
As opposed to the Olympic deities of the heavens,
Earth Gods, also known as Chthonic deities, represented the dark, primordial forces
of the earth. In Mediterranean cultures these included
the widespread belief in the Mother Goddess– epitomized by deities such as Isis, Demeter
and Persephone, and Inanna (Ishtar).
The underworld was
also
perceived as
the realm of the male
god Hades or Pluto,
the underworld carnation
of Zeus. Hades
was
sometimes identified
as Zeus’
brother, sometimes identified as Zeus’ own mirror image, Zeus Chthonios. Since earth gods
dwelled below the surface of the earth where everything was
dark, they were perceived as
blind and spiteful, having to take their cue from messages emanating from the Sky Gods. As
a result they tended to follow the “letter
of the law.” If a mortal
failed to abide by a sacred agreement, for example, earth gods were obligated
to see to the
transgressor’s punishment with no regard for equity. Most
of all, Chthonic deities controlled the life cycle. Since
all living things ultimately arose from the earth at birth and returned
to the earth in death, the earth gods were presumed to direct this process. As
the king of the underworld, Hades received the spirits
of all deceased
humans and was described
by poets as “rich in souls.” Earth gods were generally feared, therefore. Since their control
of the life cycle
was absolute, human dealings
with them were unavoidable. The best one could hope was to placate the Chthonic deities
through sacrifice and veneration and thereby
delay the inevitability of one’s own demise or that of a loved one.
Numina, non-anthropomorphic deities, or spirit forces, were another divine element that had to be placated. In Greco-Roman society Hestia or Vesta,
the essence of fire, was goddess
of the hearth. In fact, human mastery of fire dated back some 350,000 years and represented the first natural
energy to come under human control.
The maintenance of the eternal flame of an ancient
community such as Rome was viewed as
a sacred responsibility, not to mention
a communal necessity.
The Romans appointed a high ranking college
of priestesses, the Vestal
Virgins, to watch over the
fire.
Other Roman numina included the Lares and the Penates, friendly spirit forces
who
warded over the doorsill, the pantry of the household, and the crossroads of farming
communities. Many of these spirit forces or energies
appear, in fact, to have been closely
linked to agricultural environments (molds and fungi that could damage crops, for example) and possibly originated there. Their presence at the surface plain of the earth seemed certain. Most Classical cultures populated their world with lesser spirit forces such as these: demons, angels, ghosts;
demigods and woodland
spirits like nymphs
and
satyrs, and powerful spirits
of the dead, whether in Greece or in China. The number and variety of such spirits
surpasses summary description, but the phenomenon needs to be emphasized in
order to demonstrate the degree
to which the „real’
world was perceived as inhabited by a variety of spirit forces.
In general one could define polytheistic deities of antiquity as
superhuman entities that displayed
both the best and worst attributes of human nature. Everything that humans
did
the gods seemingly
did to an extreme. Just as
humans became angry, the gods became violently angry;
if humans felt passion,
a god’s passion
was uncontrollable. Consider the example of Zeus
and
Hera, the former of which would disguise
himself in animal form to have sex with beautiful nymphs
and
maidens. He would then boast about his
conquests in the presence
of his jealous wife Hera, who would invariably wreak her vengeance on the unwitting
victim. It is difficult to conceive
of Zeus, the fornicating, inebriated, mercurially angry sky god as
the discriminating judge of all human actions
and
the guardian of sacred oaths. Nonetheless, ancient Greco-Roman societies
perceived of him in just such a manner.
Polytheistic world views, with multiple gods often in direct competition with each other, suitably
explained the apparently random character of natural
phenomena. Floods, earthquakes, famines
- even the outcomes of human disasters such as wars - were not random
instances of
meaningless chaos, but elements
of a cosmic order
that was subject, at least on one level, to the whims of gods
and
goddesses with essentially human motivations. At the mercy of such forces, humans
could at best try to cover their bets
by offering prayers
and
sacrifices and by performing proper
rituals to maintain
what the Romans referred to as the pax deorum, or the peace of the gods. Permeating most ancient cultures
was a notion that the balance of the universe was
constantly off kilter and required the direct attention
of human kind. This
concept, the need to maintain
the order and harmony of the universe, was known as Me in Sumer, Ma’at in Egypt, Karma in India, and the Mandate of Heaven in China.
It is common to view polytheism, the belief in many gods, as the opposite
of monotheism, the belief in
one god only, and equally commonplace for monotheists
to regard polytheism as
primitive. However, it may be more beneficial to view polytheism through
a kind of theological prism.
Polytheism offers the advantage of articulating the randomness of causality.
Put simply, “stuff happens.” Natural phenomena
were inherently violent, destructive, and unpredictable, but they were not intentional. Accordingly, they were neither moral nor immoral,
but amoral. When there is no rhyme or reason to why things
happen, there is only chaos, and as modern
chaos theory has demonstrated even chaos is
randomly predictable. Polytheistic traditions
that explain the seasons and natural
phenomena as
the work of gods thus furnish
religious rationale for what is
random without denying its implicit randomness. By contrast,
monotheistic systems
typically insist on a causality emanating from the will of a single god, a just god who controls
every aspect of reality.
Everything that happens
does so for a reason in accordance
with God’s will. Accordingly, monotheists
tend to see inherent
logic to the universe. Gradually identified universal truths, such as mathematical theorems and the predictable motion of the stars, demonstrated to ancient thinkers that the universe
contained irrefutable particles
of order. Where there was order, there had to be law or a set of guiding universal principles. Law, in turn, implied that there was a right way and a wrong way to do things,
just as order implied the existence of a reasoning
intellect responsible for the architecture of the universe.
However, monotheistic world views inevitably stumbled over the issue of theodicy, or
the belief in divine justice,
particularly when they attempted to reconcile a belief
in god’s will with the actual course
of events, where all too often “bad things happened
to good people.” However great the likelihood
that a monotheistic god attended
to divine justice, the problem exceeded human understanding.
Given these philosophical
conundrums, a third option was
atheism or agnosticism. To contemplate the possibility that the universe
lacked controlling deities
or
to assume, if they did exist,
that they ceased to concern
themselves with human activity ages ago was to commit the crime of hubris. Hubris was
a loaded term that entailed a range of meanings.
Principally it referred to human arrogance, the act of putting oneself
at the level of the gods, to deny their existence, or to say that they had no power over oneself. To engage in hubris was to invite divine retribution, and since the
gods were immortal
they did not need to punish mortals in any predictable manner. The gods
enjoyed a different
sense of time and place; simply
killing a transgressor would teach him nothing. For greater effect they might choose to punish the guilty party's loved ones, his descendants, for example, his
community, or his entire society
through the introduction of plague and pestilence. As
the Athenian lawgiver Solon noted in his poem, such is the vengeance
of Zeus…one man pays immediately, another
later; but to those who manage to escape punishment themselves…it relentlessly follows
and the innocent pay for
the crimes, either
in the form of their
children or the next generation thereafter (1.25-32). In essence,
the act of hubris put one’s entire society
at risk and was
therefore punishable by death. Accused in 399 BC of corrupting the youth and of denying the existence of the gods, Socrates
ultimately ran afoul
this logic and paid for it with his life. A sensible person feared the gods and scrupulously followed their prescriptions. Careful attention to the wishes
of the gods
ensured the maintenance of order (the Me,
the Ma’at, the pax deorum), the fecundity of nature,
and the maintenance of life. The fear of the unknown
was a fundamental tool used by religious authorities not only to control their societies but also to impose religious
conformity on their inhabitants.
Given the omnipotence of the gods, what was the purpose
of human kind? Given that the gods
were remote; how did one approach
them? Since they were mysterious; how could one understand them?
And since they were so obviously
powerful, how could one negotiate with them? The apparent gap between the transcendent and the mundane
was vast, and it is
not
surprising that most cultures
recognized a special
status for intermediary figures, priests, who claimed
to bridge the divide between humans
and
the divine. The duty of the priestly
class was to communicate with the divine on behalf of the community.
Most ancient cultures distilled the practice of communicating with divinities into three principal
parts: Ritual, Sacrifice,
and Divination. Ritual was the invocation of the
gods through magical prayers
and
chants. If properly invoked a god could be compelled against his
or her will to attend to human requests. Ritual consisted
of various forms of prayers, chants, oaths, and curses
(essentially black magic). The success
of a given ritual
gave it timeless legitimacy, not to be deviated
from. Ritual was
accordingly highly formulaic, entrusted with divine importance, and all but frozen in time. Ritual inherently imposed inalterable norms
on
worshipers. Ritual reinforced social solidarity and was
believed to be undermined when performed
poorly or not at all. In the Roman view, the pax deorum was jeopardized by such errors, and since the priests
were
politicians, ample care was
taken to appease not only the gods, but the restless populace as
well. Equally pragmatic was Confucius, whose dedication to li (the rites) is legendary. For him, ritual provided
a social lubricant
to ensure that all things
were arranged in their proper
place and that due respect
was shown for the traditions of the ancestors.
Egyptian and Brahman
priests were equally renowned for the intricacy
and elaborateness of their rituals. The ritualistic component to ancient religion
rendered it one of the most conservative attributes of any human culture,
accordingly.
Sacrifice was the gift or offering made to a god in exchange for which humans
could ask a favor. Sacrifice implied that humans potentially exerted power
over the gods. The ancient Sumerians asserted
that the gods
had molded humans out of clay, mixed with god’s blood, and in their own image in order
to feed and to serve them. The gods did not necessarily need to eat, in other words,
but they longed for the sensations
that arose from the pleasure of eating. In much the same manner the
gods desired the vicarious experience of all corporeal pleasures– eating, drinking, sexual relations, and sleep. These were the only genuine proofs of physical existence, and since mortality
was fleeting they possessed
value to humans
and
gods alike. The sharing
of corporeal pleasures thus gave humans leverage
over the gods. The logic of this is explained in the Gilgamesh Epic,
where Utnapushtim (the Sumerian
Noah) conducted his sacrifice following the flood, (lines 150-165). As the text notes, the gods smelled the sweet savor, the gods crowded like flies around the sacrifice.
Human dealings
with the gods were viewed very much in terms of contractual agreements. The Latin vow, do ut des (I
give to you so that you might give me in return), expressed this succinctly. Humans venerated the
gods by offering
them gifts on a daily basis. Since the purpose of mortal
existence was
to serve the gods, social hierarchies
regarded the construction and maintenance of religious
shrines (alters, temples, sanctuaries) as
a primary duty. Likewise, it was
customary for citizens
confronting life-threatening enterprises
such
as hazardous journeys,
military engagements, illness, old age, or childbirth, to beseech
the aid of the
gods through votive offerings. Successful fulfillment of a prayer would then result in another round of votives, typically in the form of altars, statues, shrines, captured
weaponry, or tithes
of profits.
The development of built environments
at
sanctuaries such as Delphi
and Olympia in Greece, where the erection
of thousands of small monuments
testified to the god’s repeated response to prayers, offered visual proof of the power of the god and his or her willingness
to come to the aid his
worshipers.
Sacrifice was divided into two types, blood and non- blood sacrifices. Although non blood sacrifices
such as the dedication of votive objects and libations into the ground were probably
more commonplace, blood sacrifices
of animals
such as chicken, sheep, goats,
cows, and bulls naturally
arrest our attention. The animals
to be sacrificed had to be perfect specimens with no blemishes.
They were frequently adorned with wreaths
and, at least in Greece and Rome, were believed to show no hesitation as
they were led to the altar. After the
sacrifice, the edible parts of the animal were usually
distributed to the participants
or to the public. The grand sacrifice
of the Greeks, the hecatomb (literally “one hundred
cattle”) was as
much
a barbecue as it was a religious
event. Occasionally, the entire animal
would be burned as
a special offering known as a holocaust
(that is, ‘burnt whole’).
Sacrifices, thus, represented social interaction at a number of levels. First and foremost
they functioned as a feast (adding protein to one’s diet) typically shared among a collective since by necessity
the victim needed to be consumed all at once. By cooking the inedible
portions over a fire to create a sooty smoke column visible in the heavens, they represented the sharing
of life with a deity, and hence a form of communion. In addition,
the macabre experience of witnessing the shedding
of blood convinced participants of the divine power of the sacrificial experience,
that is, the human capacity
to take life. And by focusing on the otherworldly aspect of the moment, frequently enhanced through
consumption of wine or other stimulants, sacrifice exposed the participants to an ecstatic experience shared in a collective. Humans
could rarely witness the taking
of life without
undergoing feelings
of unnatural, heightened sensations
of transcendence, thus, affirming the ecstatic
character of the experience. By its
spectacle and the awe that it inspired sacrifice tended to command center stage. Inevitably, the question
of human sacrifice arises. In archaic
Bronze Age civilizations
such as Ur (Sumer),
Old Kingdom Egypt,
or Shang Dynasty China, human sacrifice on a significant scale occurred
in the form of „retainer’ sacrifice, where individuals are killed and buried with the sovereign
to serve him in the next life. In later Classical era civilizations human sacrifice did occur on occasion, but it was
typically viewed as distasteful and as
a last resort to summon the attention of the gods.
Divination was the belief that the gods sent signs predicting the future and that these signs could be interpreted by skilled professionals. This is
typically what the priest or devotee
requested, and what the god returned, invoked or uninvoked.
Invoked signs implied that the gods could be summoned magically or even compelled to give answers
to human prayers and requests. Uninvoked signs
were natural phenomena
sent by the gods uninvited, such as storms with
damaging hail and lightening or births of unnaturally deformed animals. These indicated disruptions
to the pax deorum that required immediate attention. The chief purpose of invoking the gods through
ritual and sacrifice was
to summon the attention
of a deity momentarily in order to place before it a proposed
course of action. All official
“state sponsored” activities required due consultation of the gods. Divination took many forms: astrology (observing the sky for natural
phenomena), hepatoscopy (the examination of the livers of sacrificial victims), and even the trance-like utterances of inspired priests
and
priestesses. Typically it would occur in a precinct
referred to in Latin
as a templum, a ritually purified area for purposes of divination. In Rome before a public voting assembly
could be convened, the priestly
college of the augurs
would monitor a given quadrant
of the night sky for the “flight of the birds.” Depending on the omens
that were observed (positive vs. negative types
of birds) an assembly
either would or would not occur. Military
commanders typically consulted the shape of the livers
of sacrificial victims before committing their forces
to battle. With his
navy arrayed in battle formation,
a Roman admiral
had to await the outcome of the feeding of
sacred chickens, kept in a cage on the deck of his flagship. If they ate with gusto, that was a positive
sign and a naval battle would ensue. If they hesitated and looked to the heavens
this was a bad sign and the admiral
was religiously obligated to refrain from committing his warships
to a
divinely unsanctioned action. In one instance,
the Battle of Drepanum in 249 BC, the Roman admiral P. Claudius
Pulcher was
ready to engage the war fleet of his Carthaginian adversaries, but his
sacred chickens, kept in a cage on the deck of his flagship, refused to eat.
Becoming exasperated Pulcher seized the cage of
frightened birds and threw them into the sea
(and lost the battle). As this
example demonstrates, no public activity
could occur without due invocation of the gods
and nothing was
done without their consent. Religious
authority, in other words,
was directly translatable into legal, military, political, or judicial power. Neither kings nor subjects could escape the will of the gods.
It is important
to recognize that today’s worst superstitious phobias represented officially sanctioned policy in the past. Days were viewed as Fas or Nefas (divinely sanctioned or unsanctioned). Any untoward occurrence could be interpreted as
an
omen. Stepping on a crack in the sidewalk,
breaking mirrors, walking under ladders, avoiding the path of a black cat, all pale in comparison to the texture
of superstitious lore that was
sustained during antiquity. What equally needs
to be stressed is
the inseparable character
of religious and secular life in most ancient civilizations. On any given
day, sacrifices of
family cults would occur in each and every household, sacrifices
would occur in civic centers
before they could be opened for business,
and no army would commit to battle short of an appropriate
sign from the gods. Religious
activity assumed a regularized, permanent component to the fabric of everyday life. Its
activities were so commonplace that they passed without comment by ancient
writers and their audiences. Ancient writers in essence
took it for granted
that their readers
were fully cognizant of this fact, thus, offering little explanation.
The standard view of life after death was fairly grim: the souls of departed
humans traveled
to the underworld kingdom of Hades
where they existed for eternity
as shades. In Mesopotamia the Sumerians
believed that the dead – kings
and
slaves alike -- all went to a bleak place known as The Land of No Return. To reach this land the spirits of the dead had to be ferried across a fearsome
underground river (Apzu) by a boatman
who expected to be paid. Family
members buried their dead with offerings
of
food and drink to maintain them until they reached their destination, including personal
objects to be used in the underworld and tokens of precious metal to pay the boatman and other waiting demons
and
deities..
Despite the
starkness and finality of death, most ancient worshipers believed that like other spirit forces deceased humans
emitted an energy force that could be cultivated by the living through libations.
Libations of wine and oil poured into the earth were believed to infuse the remains
of the departed
with substances resembling blood to remind the spirits, however briefly, of the ineffable
qualities of life. By revering
the dead, therefore, one gained the potential
assistance of their spiritual energy, which like other energies
could be channeled toward negative
as well as
positive ends. Reverence
of the dead helped to
maintain the link between
the living and the deceased in the wider cycle of life. With the exception
of public officials
such
as kings, queens,
and other heads of state,
the preparation of last rites for the dead invariably remained a private matter, conducted among related members of families
then as now. However, since significantly large elements
within ancient urban communities lacked families
or the necessary
means to inter the dead, unrelated
individuals frequently joined in collectives
to insure the necessary requirements of interment.
The identification of a cult, as opposed to a religious
sect, rests with the closed character of its
membership and its
tendency to focus attention
on a particular
afterlife divinity. At least three types
of cults existed in the ancient world: ancestor cults, mystery cults, and hero cults.
From the perspective of social status,
ancestor cults were the most notable of the three. Extended
families of respectable, property holding citizens in ancient communities tended to claim and / or to recognize
descent from a common ancestor, usually a hero descended
from the gods. Land-holding families could point to the cemetery plots on their estates
as
proof of the duration
of their lineage. The collective energy of so many ancestors, when properly
revered, offered enormous
potential of assistance in the spirit world. Each family had its
own
unique cultic rituals
and
observances that were handed down from father to son as the head of each presiding
generation in the household. The chief duty of the eldest male in such a context
was to produce
a male heir who would maintain
the cult of the dead after he himself
had passed into the afterworld. Otherwise, the cult observances would come to a close, and he would be held responsible for having irreparably disrupted the continuum
connecting the living and the dead. In ancestor cults
the focus
was always on male lineage
because adult females
would marry into the households
of unrelated families, thus abandoning their own cults in favor of those of their husbands. Ancestor
cults tended to focus
on
the continuum of life, that is, the fact that all humans
descended from ancestors who had managed to avoid extinction and who were available to assist the living through proper maintenance of the family
cult and its
principle assets, the remains
of the ancestors
themselves. In many ancient
societies the presence of family burial
plots rendered land inalienable because of the associated religious taboo.
Proof of one’s descent
from heroic lineage
typically identified someone as an aristocrat. It did not hurt, of course, that aristocrats also claimed possession of the largest and most productive portions of a
community’s arable
land, and it was always a good question which came first, aristocratic descent or large landholdings. The very least an aristocrat could claim was
that his family had occupied a particular estate for as long as
the community itself
could remember. The very notion of aristocratic descent distinguishes itself from modern concepts of class identification because it was intrinsically based on non-economic criteria such as “blue bloodedness.” Since descent from the gods furnished the basis for nobility,
aristocratic elders
tended to stand as
the chief priests
of the gods in question. Even at times
when family cults were incorporated by state authorities into the emerging urban landscape, it was
usually conditioned on the requirement that the priests of the newly established state cult be selected
from members of the original cultic lineages. The distinction of divine descent carried with it a presumption that aristocrats
as humans
were more capable of communicating with the gods.
Why rely on someone
whose connection was remote? This notion
conferred on aristocrats
intrinsic leadership responsibilities. As we have seen, the religious authority of aristocratic leaders
was directly transferable into law.
Ancestor cults and descent
from the gods, thus, furnished
the basis for aristocratic control of state religion.
Participation in the public cults of a state or community typically required
aristocratic status.
The remainder of the community
assumed the more passive role of being allowed
to observe aristocrats as they conducted
the rites associated with preserving the safety of the collective. Lesser people could, of course, approach the
gods on their own, but it was tacitly understood that the
gods would listen to the prayers
of those who were more directly related to them (aristocrats) and could afford the most elaborate sacrifices
(the wealthy). Those seeking a more personal experience with the divine, particularly those who by force of circumstance (enslavement, migration, or flight)
had become separated from their places of origin, tended to turn to other forms
of cultic experience such as mystery
and hero cults.
Mystery cults focused on a more intimate personal experience with deity who according
to tradition died and was reborn. These included Dionysus, Isis
and
Osiris, Demeter and Persephone, and Attis
/ Adonis. Members
of
mystery cults did not necessarily deny the existence of other gods; rather, by entering into the cult they vowed to commit their energies to the veneration of a particular god above all others.
All mystery cults tended to exhibit the same attributes, including exclusivity (there was a clear distinction between members
of a cult and those without), rites of initiation
(to enter a cult all members
had
to undergo secret rites that revealed the true essence of the deity), ecstatic
experience (various
means - wine, macabre sacrifices, orgies - were used to heightened the consciousness of cult members and to convince them of the immortal power of the god),
communion with a deity (in this instance,
belief in a one-to-one relationship with the god as its devotee), democratic recruitment (membership was frequently status-blind with slaves
and
freedmen welcome to membership; women were frequently listed as
chief priestesses, though
some cults were gender specific), and the possibility of afterlife. Since the belief systems of mystery cults remained secret, the precise
nature of a member’s afterlife expectations remain hidden. At the very least it was
believed that the power of the venerated
deity would make the member’s experience of the afterlife somehow more tolerable
that otherwise. The widespread popularity of mystery
cults during the Roman Empire, including those of Dionysus,
Isis and Serapis,
Mithras, or the Magna Mater (Cybele), testify to the void they filled in the lives of people seeking a greater sense of meaning to their otherwise
mundane existence. As
opposed to the cold, detached
character of the official state religions,
these cults offered a more intimate and meaningful religious experience to its members. Members of cults
typically formed closed communities
usually with a central religious focus, and habitual meetings
enabled members to develop closer personal bonds. Together
they celebrated the pivotal rites of passage of the human experience, births (and birthdays), weddings, and funerals. Elderly members
could take comfort in the notion that their remains
would receive proper rites
after their departure.
In fact, the main purpose of most local cults
was to function as
burial associations. Members
had
to pay dues to insure their proper attention in the afterlife. The chief purpose of a cult ultimately appears to have been to enable those without family networks
(isolated slaves, freed persons, orphans, and widows) to forge surrogate
families to ensure their status in
the afterworld.
Hero cults are slightly different from mystery cults in that the object
of devotion was essentially a mortal
who performed such superhuman achievements
on
earth that he was awarded divine
status on his demise. The best example of this was
the hero-god Herakles (Hercules). Destined by Zeus
to be his
greatest progeny he was cheated of his rightful place in Olympic pantheon
by jealous Hera and was
required to complete
a series of superhuman labors in order to earn it.
Each of his labors in some way concerned
his conquest and overcoming of death. In the process he rid the world of primordial monsters, taught humans the science of agriculture, and showed them the proper
manner to worship his divine father Zeus. Dying tragically, Herakles
attained his rightful place in the heavens and demonstrated to everyday mortals
that it was
possible to defeat one’s allotted
fate and obtain a better outcome in life. One simply
had to believe in the power of Herakles and faithfully tithe a portion
of one’s earnings to
his
cult. The tradition of the tithe
and other aspects
of the cult point to the syncretic origin of this hero cult with the Phoenician cult of Melkaart of Tyre. In any event, Herakles became a patron deity to all those
embarking on life-threatening missions, including merchants, sailors, warriors, and women in childbirth. He offered the hope of overcoming
one’s allotted fate in
life
to all those who believed
that they stood
in
a disadvantaged state through
no fault of their own and desired more.
To attain the divine
status of a hero demanded superhuman accomplishments. The two most notable examples in this
regard were the above-mentioned King of Macedonia, Alexander the Great, (357-323 BC) and the Roman dictator, Julius
Caesar (101-44 BC). Alexander
conquered vast tracts of territory from Greece
all the way to India without ever losing a battle. Julius
Caesar conquered ancient Gaul and then defeated all his
rivals in a protracted civil war only to be assassinated by his remaining political rivals
on
the Ides of March. On the night of his funeral
a comet appeared
in the sky removing
any doubt among the devout that his soul had ascended into heaven. An altar was erected on the site of his cremation that was widely used by ordinary
Romans for oath-swearing ceremonies. It is worth noting that both heroes were high born, both claimed descent
from the gods, and both enjoyed optimum
positions and every possible advantage
with which to attempt superhuman accomplishments in the first place. Be that as it may, each was
believed to have attained
divine status, laying the foundation for the ruler cults of their successors
and reassuring the devout
of the genuine possibility of obtaining divine status in
the after world.
In our attempt to distill
the wide range of ancient
religious world views to
a manageable set, we have hastily
covered a lot of ground. Each of these world views will be discussed in greater
detail in the chapters that follow, alongside discussion of philosophical developments
that typically emerged in response
to world views as recursive institutions
of civilization took hold. In conclusion, we recommend that the student bear in mind the inherent organization and fundamental logic of ancient religious
systems as we proceed. Otherwise, much of what they have to relate about their civilizations
tends to get ignored. The importance of ancient religious
activity is arguably the single greatest
facet of ancient civilizations. Ancient religious
world views furnished foundational touchstones
to the structural boxes (structuration) from which
cultures ultimately arose. Religious beliefs
furnished the necessary ideologies to enable ruling classes to assert their
authority over their subject peoples. All intellectual disciplines including writing, architecture, science, and philosophy ultimately evolved from them. Given the centrality of religious
activity to ancient social life, this textbook devotes considerable attention to the matter and relies
on it as
a signpost for the values and aspirations
of the various
civilizations to be discussed.