Religion 101 (2 page)

Offspring of the God

Ariadne and Dionysus had many children, including:

• Oenopion
  
• Phanus
  
• Staphylus
  
• Thoas
  

Oenopion became the king of Chios. Phanus and Staphylus accompanied another Greek hero, Jason, on his quest for the Golden Fleece. Thoas became the king of Lemnos.

Madness Unleashed

Although the Dionysian rites were popular, not everyone accepted them. Some held that Dionysus wasn’t truly a god, a claim that stirred his wrath. Just as Hera had punished Dionysus with madness, he punished those who offended him in the same way. Then, he’d watch the afflicted mortal destroy himself.

Dionysus, though a good-time guy, had a short temper and a creative imagination. His punishments were cruel and brutal — and not just for the one being punished. Sometimes, innocent bystanders also got hurt.

The Madness of King Lycurgus

Lycurgus, king of Thrace, banned the cult of Dionysus in his kingdom. When he learned that Dionysus and his Maenads had arrived in Thrace, Lycurgus tried to have Dionysus imprisoned, but the god fled to the sea, where he was sheltered by the nymph Thetis. The king’s forces did manage to capture and imprison some of Dionysus’s followers.

In retaliation, Dionysus inflicted Lycurgus with madness. With the king unable to rule, the imprisoned followers were released. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

The mad Lycurgus mistook his son for a vine of ivy, a plant sacred to Dionysus. In a rage, the king hacked his own son to death. To make matters worse, Dionysus plagued Thrace with a drought and a famine. An oracle revealed that the drought would continue until Lycurgus was put to death. The starving Thracians captured their king and took him to Mount Pangaeus, where they threw him among wild horses, which dismembered and killed him. Dionysus lifted the drought, and the famine ended.

A God Imprisoned

In Thebes, the young king Pentheus banned Dionysian rites. In defiance of the king’s decree, Dionysus lured the city’s women (including Pentheus’s mother and aunts) to Mount Cithaeron, where they took part in a frenzied rite. Pentheus refused to recognize Dionysus’s divinity and had Dionysus imprisoned in a dungeon. But the dungeon couldn’t hold Dionysus; his chains fell off, and the doors opened wide to release him.

Next, Dionysus convinced the king to spy on the rites held on Mount Cithaeron, promising him spectacular sights and a chance to witness sexual acts. Pentheus hid himself in a tree as Dionysus had instructed. The women taking part in the rites saw Pentheus in the tree and mistook the king for a mountain lion. In a wild frenzy and led by Pentheus’s own mother, the women pulled him down and tore him to pieces.

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

The Mysterious Heart of Greek Religion

Among the most enduring of Greek myths was that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone.

Hades, god of the Underworld — the realm of the dead — noticed Persephone as she gathered flowers on a plain in Sicily. He was immediately overwhelmed by her beauty, and without bothering to court her he bore her off to his underground realm.

Upon discovering her daughter’s abduction, Demeter could not be consoled; she was beside herself with fury, pain, and grief. She abandoned Mount Olympus and her duties as a goddess. Without Demeter’s attention, the world was plagued by drought and famine. Plants withered and died, and no new crops would grow.

Demeter’s Travels

In her grief, Demeter wandered the countryside. Sometimes she encountered hospitality; other times she met with ridicule. For example, a woman named Misme received Demeter in her home and offered her a drink, as was the custom of hospitality. Thirsty, Demeter consumed her drink quickly, and the son of Misme made fun of her, saying she should drink from a tub, not a cup. Angry with his rudeness, Demeter threw the dregs of her drink on the boy, turning him into a lizard.

Religion 101 Question

The Roman name for Demeter was Ceres. Since she was the goddess of grain, what English word do you think comes from “Ceres”?

Cereal

In Eleusis, Demeter transformed herself into an old woman and stopped to rest beside a well. A daughter of King Celeus invited her to take refreshment in her father’s house. Demeter, pleased with the girl’s kindness, agreed and followed her home.

At the king’s house, Demeter was met with great hospitality from the king’s daughter and the queen. Although Demeter sat in silence and would not taste food or drink for a long time, eventually a servant, Iambe, made her laugh with her jokes.

Demeter became a servant in the house of Celeus along with Iambe. The queen trusted Demeter and asked her to nurse her infant son Demophon. In caring for this baby, Demeter found comfort only a child could give her and decided to give the boy the gift of immortality. To do this, Demeter fed him ambrosia (the sacred food of the gods) during the day and, at night, placed him in the fire to burn away his mortality. But the queen saw the child in the fire and screamed in horror and alarm. Angry at the interruption, Demeter snatched the child from the flames and threw him on the floor.

Demeter changed back into her true form and explained that she would have made the boy immortal, but now he’d be subject to death like other humans. Then, she ordered the royal house to build her a temple and taught them the proper religious rites to perform in her honor. These rites became known as the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Still a Mystery: Eleusinian Rites

The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most sacred ritual celebrations in ancient Greece. The people of Eleusis built a temple in Demeter’s honor, where the Eleusinian Mysteries were observed.

The cult was a secret cult, and so it was considered a mystery religion, in which only initiates could participate in rituals and were sworn to secrecy about what happened during those rituals. At Eleusis, stipulations existed about who could be initiated. For example, any person who had ever shed blood could not join the cult. Women and slaves, however, were allowed to participate, even though other sects excluded these groups.

Other Mystery Religions

Besides the Eleusinian Mysteries, ancient mystery religions included the Dionysian cults, the Orphic cults, the Cabiri cults, and the Roman Mithraic cults. These cults were popular and received government support. Starting around the fourth century
A.D.
, however, the spread of Christianity diminished interest in the ancient mystery religions.

The Eleusinian initiates took their pledge of secrecy seriously and were careful to honor it. In fact, they did such a good job of maintaining silence that today’s scholars do not know what happened in the Eleusinian rites, although there are many theories. There were two sets of rites: the Lesser Mysteries (which corresponded with the harvest) and the Greater Mysteries (which corresponded with the planting season and took ten days to complete). The Lesser Mysteries were probably held once a year, while the Greater Mysteries may only have been celebrated every five years.

Persephone’s Return

After wandering for a long time, Demeter consulted Zeus on the best way to retrieve her daughter. Because of the vast famine caused by her grief, the chief of the gods took pity on her and on the world’s people and forced Hades to return the stolen girl. However, the Fates had decreed that if anyone consumed food in the Underworld, he would be condemned to spend eternity there. Persephone had eaten six (some say four) pomegranate seeds and was thus condemned to spend that number of months each year with Hades. During her absence, her mother mourned for her, and the earth was cold and barren. When Persephone returned to the surface, Demeter celebrated, and the earth became warm and fertile with crops.

ISIS AND OSIRIS

God and Goddess Matched in Love and Death

One of the most important and powerful civilizations of the ancient world grew up along the banks of the Nile River in northern Africa. The Egyptians created a society that lasted for 3,000 years, and whose sun-bleached remains may be seen today by visitors to the Pyramids, the Sphinx, and the tombs of the great pharaohs.

The Egyptians worshiped a variety of gods, some of whom they borrowed from other civilizations with whom they came into contact through trade and conquest. A principal feature of their religion was a belief in the divinity of the ruler, the pharaoh. The pharaoh, it was said, was of divine descent and had come down from the sky to rule the people. The Egyptians also believed in the importance of the afterlife, and for this reason, when a pharaoh died his funerary rites were at least as important as any conducted while he was living.

The Egyptians were sun worshipers — not very surprising in a society whose livelihood depended so much on the weather to bring good crops and feed them. Like many ancient people, the Egyptians identified natural forces with particular gods. Among the most important of these gods was Osiris.

Son of Gods

Osiris was said to be the son of the god Geb and the goddess Nut. Geb was the god of the earth, while Nut ruled the sky, so Osiris was the unifying element who made human existence possible. Osiris, it was believed, controlled the flooding of the River Nile, which was the natural phenomenon that made Egyptian civilization vital.

Each year, the Nile floods, depositing a rich silt on the banks, which in turn is farmed by the Egyptians. It’s the regularity of this flooding that made it possible for the Egyptians to construct a strong, stable civilization.

Disaster in Mesopotamia

To the east, in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, another civilization sprang up, that of Mesopotamia. However, while the Tigris and Euphrates also flood, their flooding is irregular and unpredictable, making farming a much more chancy business than in Egypt. For this reason, the gods of Mesopotamia were far more dangerous and feared than those of the Egyptians, reflecting the unstable life of people in this part of the world.

The Greek writer Plutarch tells a version of the mythology of Osiris in which Osiris’s brother Set, jealous of him, seized Osiris and shut him in a box, sealed it with lead, and cast it into the Nile. It was rescued by Osiris’s wife Isis, who opened the box and brought her husband back to life. The two had a child, Horus, but Osiris later died again, and Isis concealed his body in the desert. There it was found by Set, who tore it into fourteen pieces and scattered them across Egypt. Isis gathered the pieces and buried them. The other gods, impressed by this devotion, resurrected Osiris once again and made him god of the Underworld.

God of the Underworld

As a god of the Afterlife, Osiris presided over a kingdom of those souls who had lived their lives well, in accord with the principles of
Ma’at
, the Egyptian notion of balance and order. All souls, upon death, were judged (a concept later adopted by Christianity) and either delivered to the kingdom of Osiris or subject to punishment for their sins.

The cult of Isis and Osiris lasted for a surprisingly long time — until at least the sixth century
A.D.
in some parts of Egypt and the Near East. The worship of these deities finally ended when the Roman emperor Justinian (482–565) ordered their temples pulled down and their statues sent to Rome for display.

Religion 101 Question

Osiris’s death and resurrection is seen by most anthropologists as clearly related to an annual event that occurred in Egypt. What do you think it was?

The death and rebirth of the land of Egypt each year through the floodwaters of the Nile. The murder and rebirth of the god was reenacted each year by Egyptian priests as a way of placating the gods and ensuring a good harvest.

THE EGYPTIAN CULT OF THE DEAD

The Journey of the Deceased Beyond the Grave

The Egyptians were fascinated by the concept of an afterlife and developed many rituals and practices that were designed to help the soul (
ka
) survive and thrive after death. Many of these spells were contained in the various versions of the
Book of the Dead
, first created about 1700
B.C.
and developed in at least four major versions during the next 2,000 years.

According to the
Book of the Dead
, there were a number of different parts of humans including some that survived death.

• The
  khat
  or physical body, which began to decay with death.
  
• The
  sahu
  or spiritual body, into which the
  khat
  is transformed through prayers of the living.
  
• The
  ka
  , usually translated as “soul.” This had an independent existence from the body and could move freely from place to place. It could eat food, and it was necessary to provide food and drink for it in the burial chamber. Prayers of the living could also transform food painted on the walls of the burial chamber into food that could be consumed by the
  ka.
  
• The part of humans that could enjoy an eternal existence was called the
  ba
  . The
  ba
  rests in the
  ka
  and is sustained by it. We might think of it as the spiritual heart of the
  ka.
  
• The
  khaibit
  or shadow. Like the
  ka
  , this could separate itself from the body but was generally in the vicinity of the
  ka
  .
  
• The
  khu
  , or covering of the body. In Egyptian funeral art, the
  khu
  is often depicted as a mummy.
  
• The
  ren
  or name of a man, which existed in the realm of Osiris.