Question for Hellenic recons

[David19]

Last week, I read a bit of 'The Jesus Mysteries: Was the Original Christ a Pagan God?' by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Mysteries-Was-Original-Pagan/dp/0609807986), the author(s) are Gnostic Christians. Anyway, in the book, they mentioned that in the ancient world, especially in the Classical world (Greece, Rome, Egypt, etc), it was generally considered that there was one being who all the Gods were a part of, and that people were didn't care what form they worshipped this being in as they saw it as leading to the same place or something like that, I can't remember the full quote, as I don't have the book.

But, is this true, did the ancient Greeks believe in one God who manifested itself in different people (I thought they were more polytheistic and saw the Gods as individuals?).

I think I have read something similar before, like Neo-Platonists (or would that just Platonists?) believed in a Supreme Being.

Also, another thing it mentioned, was that the Christian Hell wasn't unique, and that Tartarus was also described as having "hell fire" or a lake or fire, etc, and that Tartarus was where the early Christians got the idea of Hell, but again, is this true, and also, does this mean Tartarus was populated by demonic beings (that's another thing, in Hellenic belief, were there anything that could be comparable to demonic beings, similar to the Christian or Zoroastrian type?).

Again, I'd appreciate any help you could give me, as I'm quite confused, and would really like to understand it.

BTW, sorry if this is a lot of questions, it's just I'm quite curious.

[Agaliha]

Interesting book, huh. I have it and the other two (got them from a book club, free).
I haven't read this one in detail, but I've read many sections.

I can't really answer your questions as I myself don't exactly know... that book wasn't written from a Hellenic Recon angle, but from a Gnostic Christian angle (I don't know if the authors are or not, but they seem to know a lot about it). There are some similarities in view, but also many differences. So I don't think the things mentioned in this book = the views of Hellenismos or related paths. It's not really a book to read, I think, if you want a Hellenic Recon angle and info even though it discusses Dionysus, mystery religions and other related things.
It's in a different context and view... with some possible points and views that they share.

But, is this true, did the ancient Greeks believe in one God who manifested itself in different people (I thought they were more polytheistic and saw the Gods as individuals?).

I thought they were refering to syncretism, but I might be wrong.
Do you remember any examples form the book?

In the book they mentioned "Osiris-Dionysus", Wiki says:


Ancient syncretism
The Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus had been equated as long ago as the 5th century BC by the historian Herodotus (see interpretatio graeca). By Late Antiquity, some Gnostic and Neoplatonist thinkers had expanded this syncretic equation to include Aion, Adonis, Attis, Mithras and other gods of the mystery religions. The composite term Osiris-Dionysus is found around the start of the first century BC, for example in Aegyptiaca by Hecateus of Abdera, and in works by Leon of Pella.

With the growth of Christianity, some pagan polemicists (notably Celsus) charged that the Gospels' narrative of Jesus's death and resurrection was in fact a bastardized reworking of the sufferings of Dionysus and other similar gods. Christian apologists like Justin Martyr charged in turn that the pagan mystery-cults were degenerate adaptations of vague Biblical prophecies about the Jewish Messiah - although neither Osiris nor Dionysus show many similarities to the actual prophecies. The Pagan and Christian practices are strikingly similar: bread and wine as the body and blood, resurrection on the third day, virgin birth to a father who is a god, etc. Christian apologists charged the devil of copying Jesus' life into the past. Jews like Philo of Alexandria also observed similarities and postulated that the pagan religions had borrowed from Jewish scriptures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris-Dionysus



Osiris-Dionysus
By the Hellenic era, Greek awareness of Osiris had grown, and attempts had been made to merge Greek philosophy, such as Platonism, and the cult of Osiris (especially the myth of his resurrection), resulting in a new mystery religion. Gradually, this became more popular, and was exported to other parts of the Greek sphere of influence. However, these mystery religions valued the change in wisdom, personality, and knowledge of fundamental truth, rather than the exact details of the acknowledged myths on which their teachings were superimposed. Thus in each region that it was exported to, the myth was changed to be about a similar local god, resulting in a series of gods, who had originally been quite distinct, but who were now syncretisms with Osiris. These gods became known as Osiris-Dionysus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris#Osiris-Dionysus


Not sure that helps.

From what I gather, the Christian hell wasn't unique.

Some info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades_in_Christianity#Hades_in_Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartarus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna

Related to the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_hypothesis

[Twinkle]

It sort of sounds like a mix of Neo-platanism with Christian Theology. It's not the first time it's been mixed together by Christians who see similarities between the two.

Emationism is the concept of one single Divine Source...from which everything emanates from and reflects it. The Gods are part of this source, as are trees, humans, everything.

In terms of the Greeks not caring who they worshipped...I don't know that that is necessarily true. Why some gods were syncretized...the average Greek in Egypt worshipping at the temple of Zeus-Ammon really didn't make the designation....they were worshipping Zeus. I think that the Ancient Greeks may have seen a different God, and felt that they were worshipping Zeus as Ammon, for example.

For the Ancient Greek...the most perfect personification of Zeus, was Zeus...so if they were in Egypt worshipping at a temple to Zeus-Ammon...it was still Zeus.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

[Agaliha]

Emationism is the concept of one single Divine Source...from which everything emanates from and reflects it. The Gods are part of this source, as are trees, humans, everything.


That's really cool. One of the reasons why being a hard polytheist didn't exactly fit me before was because I believed there was a source greater than the Gods, but they and everything were part of it. I thought that POV was only compatible with soft polytheism or something like henotheism. I was looking on your forum, Twinkle and saw a thread that talked about emationism and how it is compatible with hard polytheism, so my view of things changed. I wish I knew about emationism before :lol: So one can believe in a source (emationism) while still being hard polytheist, correct?

I don't know if that makes any sense.
Made sense to me.

[Twinkle]

You can absolutely be an Emanationist and a hard polytheist. Because the gods are separate and distinct...yet are reflective and emanate from it....it's still hard polytheism.

A forest emanates from the earth, but every tree in that forest is separate and distinct .

That's hard polytheism, in a nutshell.

[Agaliha]

You can absolutely be an Emanationist and a hard polytheist. Because the gods are separate and distinct...yet are reflective and emanate from it....it's still hard polytheism.
A forest emanates from the earth, but every tree in that forest is separate and distinct .
That's hard polytheism, in a nutshell.

:dancy:
Good to know! I had no idea before, and that's why I thought I could never be a hard polytheist.
I'm thinking these beliefs are closest to mine.

I used to be more soft polytheistic, but the more I thought about it...it didn't feel right. I can see connections between many pantheons, but I don't think they gods are interchangeable, I no longer see them only as archetypes, etc. I can see similarities, but I don't think those similarities mean they're the same. Aphrodite it not Venus or Freya. Zeus isn't Thor or Jupiter, etc.

Anyway, slightly OT...

[HedwigHarfang]

But, is this true, did the ancient Greeks believe in one God who manifested itself in different people (I thought they were more polytheistic and saw the Gods as individuals?).

I think I have read something similar before, like Neo-Platonists (or would that just Platonists?) believed in a Supreme Being.

Plato would have understood the Greek Gods to be more characters in myths and legends, and not "gods" in the sense we understand the monotheistic God to be. I suspect something somewhere has got lost in translation leading neo-pagans to worship the characters in mythology as deities in their own right in much the same way as the Hindu gods are worshipped but are all aspects of Brahma (sp?), who is analogous, again, to the monotheistic God. I am not sure how the Norse Gods were seen, since there is no philosophical literature extant in the same way as there is literature on Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, but I am sure that the Norse pagans told stories about Odin and Thor rather than worshipping them as supreme beings. Christianity actually probably appealed to the Greeks and Romans because they too had a concept of God as a single God; the gospels were written in Greek rather than Hebrew or Aramaic, so there must have been an easy understanding of the concepts involved for Greeks at the time of Jesus to have put down eye-witness accounts.

Also, another thing it mentioned, was that the Christian Hell wasn't unique, and that Tartarus was also described as having "hell fire" or a lake or fire, etc, and that Tartarus was where the early Christians got the idea of Hell, but again, is this true, and also, does this mean Tartarus was populated by demonic beings (that's another thing, in Hellenic belief, were there anything that could be comparable to demonic beings, similar to the Christian or Zoroastrian type?).

Or, to put it another way, the Christians got their idea of Hell from the Greeks? Jewish mythology and tradition didn't admit much of a Hell existing, we have the concept of Gehenna but Tartarus/Hades fulfils all the criteria of a cognate of a Chrsitian Hell, which, given what I've explained above that Christianity owes more to Graeco-Roman tradition than Judaism, is a clear example of the close links between Hellenic civilisation and European-American Christianity. I was booted from another forum for saying all cultures, pagan, Judaeo-Christian or neo-pagan, have the concept of Hell as a place for the punishment of sinners as an intrinsic part of their system of social control, but it looks as if I am vindicated by the pagans themselves. :) _whistle_

[David19]

It sort of sounds like a mix of Neo-platanism with Christian Theology. It's not the first time it's been mixed together by Christians who see similarities between the two.

Emationism is the concept of one single Divine Source...from which everything emanates from and reflects it. The Gods are part of this source, as are trees, humans, everything.

In terms of the Greeks not caring who they worshipped...I don't know that that is necessarily true. Why some gods were syncretized...the average Greek in Egypt worshipping at the temple of Zeus-Ammon really didn't make the designation....they were worshipping Zeus. I think that the Ancient Greeks may have seen a different God, and felt that they were worshipping Zeus as Ammon, for example.

For the Ancient Greek...the most perfect personification of Zeus, was Zeus...so if they were in Egypt worshipping at a temple to Zeus-Ammon...it was still Zeus.

I don't know if that makes any sense.

Thanks for the explanation, and it makes sense, so the Gods would still be individual beings in Emationism?.

Also, did Classical philosophers believe that other Gods came from that same point (like would they have believed YHWH, Ra, Aset, etc were all part of Emationism?).

Thanks again, and hope that last part made some sense.

[Agaliha]

Thanks for the explanation, and it makes sense, so the Gods would still be individual beings in Emationism?


Yup, as Twinkle said: ;)
You can absolutely be an Emanationist and a hard polytheist. Because the gods are separate and distinct...yet are reflective and emanate from it....it's still hard polytheism.
A forest emanates from the earth, but every tree in that forest is separate and distinct .
That's hard polytheism, in a nutshell.


Also, did Classical philosophers believe that other Gods came from that same point (like would they have believed YHWH, Ra, Aset, etc were all part of Emationism?).

I really don't know. Twinkle :huh:

I would think that it generally applies to their (Hellenic) pantheon and those outside of the patheon are syncretized. So Ra could be syncretized with Helios, but I don't know if the Greeks believe Ra and Helios came from the same source or a different one. If they came from the same source I'm not sure if syncretization would be necessary....I don't know.

[Twinkle]

Ya know...I don't know the answer to that question, actually. I know that the Greeks accepted some syncretization of some gods, and others they did not.

For example, Thoth was always Thoth...an Egyptian Deity. Some tried to syncretize him with Hermes, but this was not accepted. I do have a source somewhere in my files that backs this up.

I know that early on the philosophers were considered atheists by the general public because they did make the association of different gods being syncretized with "their own". Later on, these philosophers were recognized for their wisdom.

In terms of gods from other pantheons being part of The Source....honestly, this is how it makes the most sense to me. Whether the philosphers espoused it...I really don't know....but now you'll have me looking it up. :)

[Theres]

personally i have little interest in the Hellenistic Age (that is, the era after Alexander III), and the specific reason is syncretization.

i like to know the origins of things, especially gods, philosophies and the like. but this era was such a hodge-podge of beliefs that it becomes nearly impossible to sort out.
this isn't to say that Alexander wasn't a fascinating character, or that the syncreization of the Greek gods with those of the orient wasn't a good thing for the people of the time. and i can't lay it all on him either. the philosophers hold their share of the blame, and they began muddling everything up 200 years prior to Al.
i don't live back then and never will, so the mess left to us by all this blending is little more than a headache for me. this is why i stay pretty much in the archaic and early classic era, as this is where you will find the 'Greek' in ancient Greece.

as far as 'The Source' goes, my belief is that the Greeks just didn't think of it much. it wasn't knowable and therefore certainly couldn't be anthropomorphized, and there was no mythology connected to it. it seems that it was enough for them just to know that the gods and all that followed came from Somewhere.
similarly, i might ask you "what kind of car do you drive?", but it's unlikely anyone would ask "exactly where was your car built?".

[Twinkle]

This is pretty much where I'm at as well, Theres. While I acknowledge and understand Syncretism, my personal practice and worship of the gods is not syncretic.

[David19]

personally i have little interest in the Hellenistic Age (that is, the era after Alexander III), and the specific reason is syncretization.

i like to know the origins of things, especially gods, philosophies and the like. but this era was such a hodge-podge of beliefs that it becomes nearly impossible to sort out.
this isn't to say that Alexander wasn't a fascinating character, or that the syncreization of the Greek gods with those of the orient wasn't a good thing for the people of the time. and i can't lay it all on him either. the philosophers hold their share of the blame, and they began muddling everything up 200 years prior to Al.
i don't live back then and never will, so the mess left to us by all this blending is little more than a headache for me. this is why i stay pretty much in the archaic and early classic era, as this is where you will find the 'Greek' in ancient Greece.

as far as 'The Source' goes, my belief is that the Greeks just didn't think of it much. it wasn't knowable and therefore certainly couldn't be anthropomorphized, and there was no mythology connected to it. it seems that it was enough for them just to know that the gods and all that followed came from Somewhere.
similarly, i might ask you "what kind of car do you drive?", but it's unlikely anyone would ask "exactly where was your car built?".

Thanks, so most ancient Greeks just focused on the Gods and other supernatural beings (e.g. daimons, monsters, nymphs, etc) and didn't really think about the Source.

I heard Plato was a big subscriber to the idea of The Source (or The One), as that's what inspired Neo-Platonism, but were Plato's ideas big in ancient Greece (like did many ancient Greeks accept his beliefs or subscribe to them).

Thanks again (to all who replied).

[Theres]

Thanks, so most ancient Greeks just focused on the Gods and other supernatural beings (e.g. daimons, monsters, nymphs, etc) and didn't really think about the Source.
so it seems, but whether there were relevent writings that just didn't survive is hard to tell. still one would think that if it was something they dwelt on then there would be something extant.

I heard Plato was a big subscriber to the idea of The Source (or The One), as that's what inspired Neo-Platonism, but were Plato's ideas big in ancient Greece (like did many ancient Greeks accept his beliefs or subscribe to them).
Plato was an interesting cat, and nearly unique in his day i'm thinking.

he was very devoted to his teacher Socrates, and much of Plato's writing is in defense of him.
now Socrates was more or less an atheist, and yet the descended students of Plato's Academy would go on to formulate the NeoPlatonic school of thought, which in its most boiled down form is virtually monotheism.

it's all very confusing, and is yet another reason i stay firmly hidden in the shadow the Dark Ages (lol).

[HeartofMoon]

You can absolutely be an Emanationist and a hard polytheist. Because the gods are separate and distinct...yet are reflective and emanate from it....it's still hard polytheism.

A forest emanates from the earth, but every tree in that forest is separate and distinct .

That's hard polytheism, in a nutshell.

Hmm...that's an idea I've been trying to grasp on my own lately. I'm glad you gave me a word for it and more reading to do!

:) That's what's nice about this place. Things you're looking for pop up where you aren't looking for them.