Some Notes from Walter Burkert, GREEK RELIGION
(Harvard, 1985).
D. B. Levine. 01/15/02
Religious Ritual is a collective institutional act,
and form of social communication,
vs.
Magic which is for the individual, the few, and
develops into a pseudo-science.
Animal Sacrifice
CHERNIPS: washing of hands
voluntary animal
procession
sacrificial basket with grains and knife
OULOCHYTAI: scatter of barley
prayer/invocation, wish, vow
APARCHESTHAI: to make a beginning. hair cut, thrown into fire:
SPHAGIA: slaughter
HAIMASSEIN: to stain with blood
sacrificial cry
butchering of animal (splanchna [internal organs ]cooked and eaten)
bones/food/meat pieces on altar
wine poured on fire
feast
Burkert: Sacrifice emphasizes the importance of Community: KOINONIA
APARCHAI. can be pieces of meat, ears of wheat, bread, figs, olives,
grapes, wine, milk: often in rural shrines.
VOTIVE OFFERINGS
vows: EUCHE (loud cry, prayer, vow)
Anathema: something set up. Pl: anathemata. first cuttings of hairs, toys, tools of
a trade.
Tithe: DEKATE, often of battle spoils. “The
Sacred Way at Delphi is lined with monuments to the victories with which
the Greeks destroyed themselves in the fifth and fourth centuries.”
(69)
LIBATION
SPONDE: a pouring of liuids. Verb: SPENDEIN. vessels: choe = jug. used
for the dead and CHTHONIC GODS. The earth ‘drinks’ the libations.
Sponde accompanies all wine drinking.
Invocation and Prayer are inseparable from libation. Libation accompanies
animal sacrifice often.
Oil: not a drink, but is used for spondai: often poured on special stones.
Water: Bathing water for the unmarried dead = posthumous bridal bath.
PRAYER
BLASPHEMIA = any wrong, evil, coarse, or complaining word is harmful.
EUPHEMIA: holy silence. the opposite of blasphemy
EUCHESTHAI: to pray, to boast, to let out a cry of triumph. draws attention
to the speaker.
ARA: a prayer/vow; but also means a curse. Thus a priest who knows how
to manipulate words of prayer is called ARETER. See Chryses the priest in
the first book of the ILIAD.
“It is a striking fact… that in Greek no ancient liturgical prayer
formulae are transmitted, no Veda, and no Arval Hymn.” (74)
Important to find the right name and appropriate epithets, as well as
to define the sphere of the god spatially by naming his favorite dwelling
place..
Outstretched arms: the gesture of entreaty.
“A cult image or sanctuary must always be given a friendly greeting
— a chaire — even if one is simply passing by without any special
reason, or else the gesture of kiss may be made by raising a hand to one’s
lips; a short, simple prayer may always be added. Socrates greets the rising
sun also in this way.” (75)
KATADESIS (Latin defixio): Lead leaves inscribed with curses on one’s
enemies and buried in subterranean gods’ shrines, or put in graves (curse
tablets).
PURIFICATION
KATHAIREIN: to purify. (maybe derived from Semitic word for cultic fumigation,
qtr.
Cleanliness is important to set limits. The outsider is unclean.
“Purification rituals are involved in all intercourse with the sacred
and in all forms of initiation; but they are also employed in crisis situations
of madness, illness, and guilt.. Insofar as is the case the ritual is placed
in the service of a clearly identifiable end, it assumes a magical character.”
(76)
Water, fumigation, fire, winnowing fan (liknon), sea onions (skilla).
blood of pigs.
HAGNOS = sacred. Applies to those qho shun contact
with blood and death, especially the virgin.
Its opposite is Mysos, Miasma (defilement).
Miasma can include dislocations of normal life:
sexual intercourse, birth, death, murder.
PHARMAKOS: the scape-goat, driven out from city to pruify it. Hipponax
(6th century BCE): ugly man chosen feasted on figs, barley broth, cheese,
and whipped out with fig branches and sea onions, struck seven times on
his membrum virile. (Late source says he was burned and his ashes scattered
in the sea — is that true?) Other examples.
OSTRAKISMOS is another example of the Pharmakos ritual.
SANCTUARY
TEMENOS: ‘place cut off’ from the regular world. located inside and outside
urban areas. Marked somehow to distinguish it from other territory.
ALSOS: sacred grove. (Altis at Olympia). Inside miasma-producing activities
are forbidden.
ALTAR
Bomos: place where the fire is kindled. essential to a sacred area.
Natural stones, or built with bricks and whitewashed, or cut stone blocks.
Position remains fixed.
TEMPLE AND CULT IMAGE
NAOS: dwelling place of the god. houses the cult image.
XOANON: carved wooden statuette.
table of offerings, incense stands, lamps.
ADYTON: a holy of holies, with restricted access. In some temples.
CHRYSELEPHANTINE: gold and ivory image.
AGALMATA glorious gifts of (sculpted) images of the gods.
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