The US elections are across the nook. Although it’s the oldest fashionable democracy, every greenback invoice piously proclaims “in God we belief”. A secular polity like ours, whereas it locations its belief within the RBI, is noteworthy for the non secular tilt every celebration makes, cautious to not offend the feelings of the gods or their many devotees. In historical Greece as effectively, the birthplace of democracy, with its quite a few cults and gods, faith was a strong drive.
Public occasions — the Panathenaea (devoted to Athena), the Olympic Video games (to Zeus), and the Theatre (of Dionysus) — had been held of their presence. Earlier than each battle, animals had been sacrificed for beneficial omens. Hellenic gods and heroes had been repeatedly “seen” actively preventing in opposition to barbarian invaders. The mountain above the sanctuary of Delphi had hurled rocks at advancing Persians.
Although gods had been concerned in nearly each drama, the Greek tragedians however flagged their function within the politics of town. These dramatists, a part of the mental elite of their occasions, displayed (and questioned) lots of the opinions and beliefs of the viewers. Politics and faith had been the leitmotif of many tragedies. They confirmed prophets and clergymen as necessary within the affairs of town, and in a position to overturn political fortunes. Oedipus, as an illustration, suspected that Creon and the prophet Tiresias had been conspiring to dethrone him. Although the worry proved baseless in that play, it was an affordable assumption to make.
In two well-known situations, the state was pitted instantly in opposition to non secular beliefs. In Antigone (a favorite with feminists), the King (Creon) refuses burial rites to the traitor Polynices (Antigone’s brother). Spiritual obligation drove her to disobey him; state coverage compelled him to sentence her. Feminine emotion confronted male rationality (the king and metropolis). Each misplaced (his son anticipating her loss of life, commits suicide; his mom stabs herself cursing her husband). The play ends with the refrain saying “the blows of destiny will train us knowledge… the gods should be reverenced”. Spiritual customized (represented by the burial) might outweigh the legislation.
The god Apollo drove Oedipus to his (fated) doom. His storyline begins with a killing (prompted by a goddess) that leads his household to extinction. In Aeschylus’s Oresteia, Apollo orders Orestes to kill his mom, but the god of formality and prophecy can’t purify him of the ensuing blood guilt. The infernal feminine deities that pursue Orestes are lastly tamed by a judicial course of and harnessed as a fearful drive that may maintain residents in test.
In The Bacchae, Euripides’ final work, the king, once more representing civic motive, makes an attempt to suppress Dionysus’ new cult (the god’s Indian connection is famous by students). His followers are additionally girls: Day confronts night time, and the king is decapitated by his personal mom who, deranged by the god, thinks him a lion they’ve torn aside. She enters town brandishing her son’s head. The brutal battle ends with the god shrugging off duty. He exiles the wretched Agave and her father, who complains: “Your reprisals are too extreme.” Dionysis responds: “I’m a god, and you’ve got insulted me.” The refrain ends with the homily, “many are the shapes of issues divine.”
All through Greek tragedy, the gods make heinous calls for. The fleet can’t sail for Troy till a human sacrifice (a virgin no much less) placates Artemis, inexplicably upset. In Hippolytus, Aphrodite, wagering she will corrupt Artemis’ virgin devotee, implants in Phaedra, his stepmother, an unholy lust for him. The youth is appalled by her advances. Fearing publicity, Phaedra kills herself however implicates him. His father has him killed. Artemis wins the guess however, being a goddess, can’t shed tears for him. As a substitute, she vows to get one in every of Aphrodite’s devotees sometime. “We’re playthings of the gods”, says the poet.
One motive for the destructive depiction of Apollo could also be as a result of his cult was rooted at Delphi, an oracle politically aligned with Sparta, the bete noir of Athens (surviving dramatic texts are all Athenian). Oracles could possibly be nasty, allotting ambiguous prophecies typically misinterpreted by those that consulted them. Delphi was additionally open to bribery (the Athenians as soon as bribed the Priestess to persuade the Spartans to overthrow the aristocrats who dominated Athens).
Politics even then consumed non secular sentiments. Your entire aristocratic clan of the Alcmaeonids was exiled, not for the homicide their ancestors dedicated, however for a violation of non secular sanctuary. Socrates was accused, condemned and executed on the cost of worshipping false gods. The tragedians had been effectively conscious of the ability of non secular sentiment. Whereas their performs are learn as aiming to include slightly than resist the irrational energy of the gods, they had been cautious of the political function faith might play. Spiritual battle might overturn, as Luther did, the established order. It ought to come as no shock that long-lasting empires (Roman, Persian, Ottoman) had been principally tolerant of various religions, so long as, paying taxes, their residents “gave to Caesar what was Caesar’s.”
The author taught Philosophy at St Stephen’s School, Delhi
