Inner purity and pollution in Greek religion. Volume I, Early Greek religion / Andrej Petrovic and Ivana Petrovic.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Petrovic, Andrej, author.

Petrovic, Ivana, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Faith.

Religion.

History.

Greece--Religion--History--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xvi, 337 pages ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Early Greek religion

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

Was Ancient Greek religion really 'mere ritualism'? Early Christians denounced the pagans for the disorderly plurality of their cults, and reduced Greek religion to ritual and idolatry; Protestant theologians condemned the pagan 'religion of form' (with Catholicism as its historical heir). For a long time, scholars tended to conceptualize Greek religion as one in which belief did not matter, and religiosity had to do with observance of rituals and religious practices, rather than with worshippers' inner investment. But what does it mean when Greek texts time and again speak of purity of mind, soul, and thoughts? This book takes a radical new look at the Ancient. Greek notions of purity and pollution. Its main concern is the inner state of the individual worshipper as they approach the gods and interact with the divine realm in a ritual context. It is a book about Greek worshippers' inner attitudes towards the gods and rituals, and about what kind of inner attitude the Greek gods were envisaged to expect from their worshippers. In the wider sense, it is a book about the role of belief in ancient Greek religion. By exploring the Greek notions of inner purity and pollution from Hesiod to Plato, the significance of intrinsic, faith-based elements in Greek religious practices is revealed-thus providing the first history of the concepts of inner purity and pollution in early Greek religion. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I An Epic View

1 Hesiod on Moral Badness as Impurity 41

Part II Inner Purity and Pollution in Pre-Platonic Philosophical Tradition

2 Pythagoras on Purity of Soul and Sacrificial Ritual 55

3 Heraclitus on Purification: Inner Purity and Sacrifice after Pythagoras 67

4 Empedocles on Inner Pollution and Purity: Release from Suffering, Prayer, and Mental Exercise 78

Part III Inner Purity and Pollution in Sympotic Settings

5 Xenophanes on Good Thinking while Drinking 103

6 The Theognidea on Straight Minds and Moral Purity 115

Part IV Inner Purity and Pollution on the Central Stage: The Evidence of Drama

7 The Tragic Outlook on Ritual: Preliminaries 127

8 Aeschylus on Mental Pollution: The Oresteia and the Suppliants 132

9 Sophocles' Sophrosyne, Unsound Thinking, and Pollution 175

10 Euripides on the Extremes of Purity and Pollution: Hippolytus, Orestes, Electra, and the Bacchae 183

11 Aristophanes' 'Pure Mind' 241

Part V A Different Kind of Inner Purity

12 Inner Purity and Pollution in the Beyond: The Evidence of the Gold Leaves 249.

ISBN:

9780198768043

0198768044

OCLC:

962408653