PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Dictionary of the Bible — Volume 5
James Hastings · 1,128,046 words · 1137 reading sections
Section 181
primitive and original. Similarly, we may regard | the horror against a homicide partaking of the common cup as a thoroughly primitive idea; he must be purified before taking part in that sacred ceremony of civilized man, the drinking of the common cup. But the application of this to the rite of ‘the Cans’ is late, an…
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128 RELIGION OF GREECE RELIGION OF GREECE efficaciousness : the mere approaching them in the proper ritual and method enabled the worshipper to call them into action on his side, and he could as it were compel them to act by addressing them by the proper formule (which thus acquired a magic character); but some kind …
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In Asia Minor the succession to the priesthood was, in all probability, hereditary (according to some principle of inheritance not as yet deter- mined) in early times. Where the Greek element entered sufficiently strongly, this principle was usually altered ; some more democratic principle of succession was substituted…
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EXTRA VOL.—9 RELIGION OF GREECE 129 to be dealt with by the god; it was not enforced as a rule by legal action. VUI. INFLUENCE oN Society AND Lirn.—It is a necessary part of our task to observe the bearing of this religion and ritual on social life; but thig subject is too obscure to justify any general state- ments…
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The practice of marriage between such near re- lations as father and daughter, mother and son, brother and sister, is often described as common in Asia Minor. This disregard of the common restric- tions on marriage is mentioned usually as char- acteristic of tribes or persons, called Magusez, immigrant from Persia, and…
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The Great Goddess, the protecting and guarding mother of her people, had her attendant women. These were armed as warriors, and were called Amazons in Greek legend, where fantastic char- acteristics are assigned to them.{ But that a real foundation lies under those fanciful tales is certain. We can dimly desery in prim…
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Then the making of the grave and the erection of a tombstone was a dedication to the Deity ; and the epitaph on the grave was expressed often in the form of a prayer (and, of course, a vow accom- panying it) to the Deity with whom the dead pein was identified. Even when a person, during is lifetime, prepared his own g…
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(6) Brotherhoods and guilds. —If the ritual of the Mysteries was used as a sort of sacrament to consecrate or give the Divine sanction to marriage and the other important steps in the family life of man, so that the family was united and constituted and maintained by Divine law, the same seems to have been the case in …
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* of cuuBiwral xe) comuvrrei, where the two names are em- braced under the common article, and thus identified: see Ziebarth, Griech. Vereinswesen, pp. 52, 206. The subject is treated more fully in Histor. Com. on Corinthians, § xxxi. ff., in the Fapositor, Dec. 1900. + dzeiro xwundoyv is the expression of Strabo. t …
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We have laid little stress on the barbarous ele- ments in the Anatolian cultus, but have omitted them or passed them over lightly. Partly thisis due to the fact that in many cases they seem to result from degradation of the primitive religion, due to the influence of foreign conquerors and immigrants, and accompanied b…
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On the other hand, a special mode of burial was retained among the priests of the Phrygian land, evidently the old priestly usage. They were placed upright on a rock,|/ whereas in the rock-graves that * See the following footnote. _t On this point and on the whole subject, see a fuller discus- sion in Histor. Com. on …
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f our view is correct, it is obvious that in a better knowledge of the Anatolian worship lies the key to an extremely early stage of human development ; and that this religion has to be compared with the most primitive stages of the known ancient religions of the east Mediterranean lands. As a rule, even the most ancie…
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* Of Soph. dip. Tyr. 1497; Asch. Sept. 753 ; Burip. Phen. 18, etc.; also the old Attic legal formula tx’ &porw saidwy yvyciwy. See A, § VI(2), (3). 136 RELIGION OF GREECE RELIGION OF GREECE phoros founded and presided over social order, family life, the functions of women, and the birth of children ; marriage was th…
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Thus religion continued to be a sort of completion of public law. Where the latter was insufficient or inapplicable, or beyond the reach of the sufferer, the religious sanction was invoked in the form of a curse. Especially, international obligations were guarded by little more than the religious sanction. Any idea of …
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RELIGION OF GREECE 137 every worshipper at Olympia, was by the Hellenes given as a prize to the victor in a competition. The view, then, which we take is that the char- acter of Greek religion arose in the country, and sprang from the Greek genius, which took into itself, assimilated, and gave new life and character …
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But the idea of Hellenic unity became a political force, founded on a religious basis and strengthened in the literary development of the country. This unity was merely ideal, and never became a politi- cal reality : it was a power which exerted a certain influence on events: it was an end which some persons saw dimly …
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RELIGION OF GREECE a ee all feeling of pride in their common blood and nationality, tended to foster it throughout the country, but, of course, in unequal degree accord- ing to the unequal strength of these influences in different parts of the country. Hence the Hellenic type was not equally apparent everywhere, just…
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(7) Moralization of the Hellenic gods. —The most important element in the progress of Greek religion lay in the tendency to make its gods more and more into moral conceptions. In the case of the greater gods, the physical character that had once belonged to them almost entirely disappeared from the Hellenic mind. In th…
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t Herod. vii. 178, 189. tioned by Theognis (161 ff.), and frequently in later authors.* The words evdaiuwv, duvcdaiuwy probably imply such aview. They are not found in Homer ; and 6\fiodaluwy (2. ili. 182) is one of many sus- picious expressions in the passage where it occurs. Hvdalwwy is used by Hesiod (Op. 824). The…
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(10) State gods and gods within the State.—Even in the State itself only a few of the gods were wor- shipped by the whole people. These were the @eoi marpeot, yeveOruo, dpxnyéra, With whose worship the safety, honour, and existence of the State were bound up. They have to be distinguished from deol mdrp.ot, a term whic…
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142 RELIGION OF GREECE (14) The Hellenic conception of piety.—KicéBeu, ‘piety,’ consisted in giving the gods their due; righteousness is justice to the gods.* Mythologi- cally, the idea is expressed by Hesiod (Theog. 535) as a regular compact of mutual duties and rights (xplvecOac) made in Methone between Zeus and Pro…
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Art no longer formed, as it once did, a part of religion; but it influenced the popular theory of religion very materially. The Artemis of cultus was developed mainly by the artistic element into the huntress maiden; and this conception of the goddess, though not ruling in cultus, was certainly the common Hellenic idea…
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* See U. Kohler’s commentary on the famous Cean inscription, Athen. Mitthetl. i. 189; Plutarch, Solon, 21. devote him to the infernal gods, on the ground that her duty was only to bless (Plut. Ale. 22). The worship of the Chthonian deities was for the most part mystic ; and a very brief description of the character o…
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_Can we discover the original character of this divinity in the earliest days of the worship in Greece? A belief that still appears to prevail in ordinary classical scholarship is that he began his career as a sun-god, displacing earlier and less per- sonal solar powers, and became gradually human- ized and withdrawn f…
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To this early pastoral and agricultural period belongs the rite of human sacrifice which survived here and there in the worship of Apollo, and which was probably more frequent in the earlier period when it was common to all Aryan and to less pro- gressive races. In Cyprus those who touched the altar of Apollo were thro…
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Finally, Apollo was pre-eminently a god of the arts and the higher intellectual life, the leader of the Muses, the deity to whom the stateliest forms of music and song were consecrated. In pre- Homeric days the Pean was already his special hymn of praise. In its earliest period the Pythian festival was a musical, not a…
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The political career of the Oracle cannot be dealt with here. It may be enough to say that the oracles which have been preserved display no settled policy ; usually, but not always, the Oracle is on the side of constitutional government as against the tyrant, and was nearly always the devoted friend of Sparta, owing mu…
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The contradictions and inconsistencies which were inherent in the system were felt by the common people. Thus Euthyphron defends his action against his father by the analogy of Zeus’s treatment of his own father Kronos. The worship of the different gods in the State was loosely co- ordinated into a religion. In Athens …
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But in the literature Zeus became by degrees more completely the bearer of a moral rule, and the other gods the willing ministers of his provi- dence and will. As this idea was more thoroughly grasped, the opposition between Fate and God was in some degree reconciled; the order of nature (Hiuapuévn) became a moral and …
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The fundamental doctrine of Greek philosophy is always the unity of the world. Some conceive this unity under the form of God, others under the form of Nature. Heraclitus conceives this unity as the Divine Néyos, which constitutes the correla- tion and intelligibility of phenomena: and Anaxa- goras as vots or Reason. I…
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Socrates only expresses more definitely and in simpler terms the theory of the older poets: one God rules all for the best. He expresses no dis- belief in the other gods, and often uses the plural Geot ; but they are not an important element, and he never, so far as our accounts go, expressed any opinion about their re…
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*See, eg., the account given of early Tarsian history and topography by Athenodorus, the greatest philosopher and politician whom the city produced, quoted by Stephanus Byz. s.v. “Anchiale’; also pseudo-Plutarch, de Fluviis, ete. (Ex. positor, Dec. 1901, p. 412), In the second place, the fibre in the popular philosoph…
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(2) Susceptibility to foreign religious influence. —Some influence was exerted on the religion of the Greeks by almost every race with whom they came in contact. Even the despised and barbar- ous Thracians could make their Bendis and Kotys or Kotytto powerful and reverenced in cultured Athens. But it was mainly cults f…
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* See Foucart, Associations Religieuses, p. 98, and Appendix, No. 16; ef. 10 and 11. : ; : + This term must indicate the Phrygian rites with the sacred objects displayed to the worshippers in Phrygia. + Nic, Damase, 53, 152 RELIGION OF GREECE reception of the native Anatolian ritual into Miletus is connected with t…
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The question arises, whether, and how far, the building of the Métroén implied the introduction of the ritual of the Phrygian Mother-Goddess as part of the State religion. It was, of course, necessary that in her temple there should be a cultus of, and offerings to, the goddess: it was also obviously necessary that the…
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They had Some of them cured madness by Orpheotelestat, Their equip- Some of their customs are described by Apuleius, Met. viii. 25 ff. Among them was included a parody of the confession and expiation (see A, VII (6f.), above): one of the strolling band (who are described as Galli) in a loud voice confessed publicl…
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(6) Lhe worship of living men as deities.—The deification of living men was not in itself alien to the spirit of Hellenism, but, on the contrary, was quite in harmony with the Hellenic satisfaction * Compare, for example, Pausanias, ii. 34. 2 (at. Methana in Argolis), vill. 88. 4 (at the spring ‘Hagno on the Arcadian …
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In truth, the Hellenic religion in its most typical form could not permanently maintain its hold on human nature. It was the evanescent, rare, and delicate product of a peculiar period and of special conditions in human history. It was the belief of an aristocracy of talents and opportunities, filled for the moment wit…
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Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grece ancienne ; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, i. and ii. 1896 (sequel not ready in 1902); Foucart, Recherches sur Vorigine et la nature des Mysteres W@Eleusis, 1895, etc.; Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie4, 1887 ; A. Mommsen, Feste der Athener (new edition of Heortologie…
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the prophecy [Ex 158 and Dt 32f.] contained in the second and fifth books of Moses’ (§ 134). This question of the style of Holy Scripture is of great importance in its bearing upon the judg- ment we form regarding its perspicuity and its inspiration. From this point of view, the style of the Biblical writers has been …
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There are other four principal marks of the simple method followed by Hebrew writers in erouping their ideas and their sentences. — (a) There are such forms of expression as ‘ Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years (Gn 1"), words which mean, in all probability, ‘ Let them serve as signs for season…
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Another feature that strikes us in the structure of clauses in the OT presents itself in ‘I am the Lorp thy God which have brought,’ ete. (Ex 20?), Other examples of the same fashion are Dt 53> (‘all of ws’)®, Jg 134 (‘the man that speakest as 18 25% (‘and thou which hast’), Ps 712 (‘thou which hast’), Neh 97 (‘thou ar…
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A similar characteristic of the style of Scripture is its fondness for employing substantives Sor adjec- tives. There are numerous examples of this, even leaving out of account the instances in which the phenomenon disappears in the EV. Thus we find ‘ jewels of silver,’ etc. (Gn 24, Ex 32 etc.) ; ‘men, etc., of truth’ …
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Another characteristic feature of Biblical style may be regarded at one and the same time from the national and the religious point of view. We refer to the frequent use of blessings and cursings. The series of blessings opens with Gn 1”, and is continued in v.78 23 (blessing of the beasts, of man, and of the Sabbath) …
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ger.—In ‘Blessed be the LorpD God of Shem’ (Gn 9°°), the designation of the whole (‘Shemites’) is put for that of the principal constituent of the race, namely Israel (cf. 10%). The ‘general ex- _ pression ‘the river’ stands for the Euphrates, ecause for Western Asia this stream was ‘the great river’ (Gn 1518), ze. po…
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The following instances of interchange of pro- noun and substantive may also be traced to natural motives, and are thus readily intelligible: ‘God created man, etc., in the image of God created he him’ (Gn 17), The words ‘of God’ take the place of ‘his,’ because prominence is meant to be given to the concept ‘God.’ The…
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. -, except the LoRD of Hosts had left unto us avery small remnant’ (Is 18). It might also happen that a collective personality like the Ser- vant of the Lord (Is 418 etc.) found its herald in a prophet. In this way is explained the employ- ment of ‘I’ in the expressions ‘In the LorpD have I righteousness,’ ete. (Is 45…
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None of the above phenomena, as they are psychologically explicable, diminish the perspicuity of the style of Scripture, and there are a number of devices whereby its clearness is increased.— The first place amongst these is held by the Simile. What a bright light is thrown upon the number of Abraham’s descendants by …
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from guilt and sin. In a similar way ‘ fire’ could be an expression for ‘anger,’ as may be seen in the words ‘therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned’ (Is 24°), The ‘dew’ was quite natur- ally used as a symbol for a great many phenomena of a cheerful order, so that there is no difficulty in understanding the …
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2. The Biblical writers naturally desire to give their words the highest possible degree of em- phasis. Itis this aim that gives rise to not a few characteristic features of the style of Scripture, —(a) The employment of a prospective pronoun, as in ‘This is that night of the Lorp to be ob- served,’ ete. (Ex 12"); ‘I s…
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know’ (Job 38% AV ‘answer thou me’); ‘Gather my saints together unto me’ (Ps 50°). Nay, even sayings of Jesus are reported which exhibit the use of Irony. Amongst these we do not include xafev- dere TO Nourdy Kal dvamavecbe, AV and RV ‘Sleep on now and take your rest’ (Mt 26% || Mk 14%), for 7d Nourdy means ‘ later,’ ‘…
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5. The Biblical writers are by no means indiffer- ent to ewphony in their style. ~ (a) The very first words of the OT furnish evidence of this, the Heb. words béréshith bara (‘In the beginning created’) being an instance of the first means of securing euphony, namely Al- literation. Other instances of it are found in …
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. . in fastings often’ (v.?"), etc.—(y) A superior degree of Euphony is sought by beginning one sentence and closing another with the same expres- sion. This so-called Ploke is exemplified in ‘Ceased ... inIsrael . . . they ceased’ (Jg 5’); ‘Blessed shall be... she shall be blessed’ (v.74?) ; ‘He lieth . . . he lieth’ …
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2S 223, Ps 127 etc., Pr 30°, Is 5% 28% 294 329, La 217, Consequently, the choice of these two words suflices to bring Gn 4% into connexion with other portions of the OT where the same compara- tively rare terms occur (cf. Stilistik, pp. 277-283). To take other two illustrations of a similar kind, the dative ‘to them’ i…
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And I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.’ And such ‘elegies’ recur in v.74, Ezk 197-14 2617 (‘How art thou destroyed,’ etc.) 275% ° 288. 3278. 16. 198. See, further, art. POETRY, vol. iv. p. 5. 3. The structure of the other poetical parts of the OT (ef. ‘vy ‘my works,’ car’ é&. Ps 451) is n…
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168 STYLE OF SCRIPTURE STYLE OF SCRIPTURE any case, it may be added, the supposed interpolator of vv.*3 knew nothing of the metrical system which Duhm attributes to Jeremiah, else he would have accommodated the form of these verses to their surroundings. Hence the present writer is unable to accept Duhm’s view as to …
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5. The last feature we wish to notice as dis- coverable in the stylistic structure of the OT is the construction of strophes. Those scholars who at present are disposed to co-ordinate the pro- phecies and the poems of the OT, speak of strophes also in the Book of Isaiah, discovering them, for instance, in 2°" yvy.!!7 a…
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2. The differences in style between various books of Scripture have a special significance from the point of view of the history of religion. It is a weighty circumstance that Nathan’s prophecy, which is found in 28 7!4»-16, ig reproduced some- what differently in 1 Ch 17/4, and that the oracle of Is 22-4 has another f…
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(6) It is equally unmistakable that the visible dwelling-place of God, i.e. the Tabernacle and the Temple, was a symbol of His invisible dwelling- place. In point of fact, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies correspond respectively to the heavens and the highest heaven (own ‘py 1 K 827 etc.), while the forecourt was …
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SYMBOL, SYMBOLICAL ACTIONS SYMBOL, SYMBOLICAL ACTIONS 171 ee ee Hence in the Samaritan Pentateuch we find the reading °p'2 ‘in the days of’ substituted. But if this had been the original text, as is assumed in Kautzsch’s translation of the OT, and by Holzinger in the Kurzer Hdcom. (ad loc.), it is unintelligible how…
984 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical reference work (1898–1905); OCR text from Internet Archive. Historical scholarship and terminology reflect its era; OCR may contain errors. Verify quotations and current scholarly claims independently.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.