/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7905524]

I've sifted through tons of greek literature, and I can't find anything that resembles prayer.

It seems that when they needed to communicate or nurture their wandering conscience, they would just say "Hey X, this sacrifice is for Y, to bring me luck for Z"

Did they have any prayers recorded and translated, though? I would appreciate any recommendations that contain some insight.

[Anonymous No.7905536]

Ancient Greek/Roman religion was pretty contractual and social, not private, devotional, or interior. Even a lot of medieval Catholicism, at the popular level, was more about policing the body of society and behaving outwardly and ritualistically piously to please God than having deep internal struggles about sincerity of one's faith and shit like that. Religion and the existence of gods was a social and civic fact of life, not a deep ascetic commitment.

Maybe look into mystery religions and household gods, rather than major public or regional cults. Obviously most of what we get in the historical record is about the latter, but I'm sure there is more devotional stuff hidden in private/family gods, and especially in the mystery cults that coalesced into the devotional religions of Late Antiquity. I don't know enough to say anything very useful unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.7905569]

>>7905536
So, it's an open source religion, essentially? If I were alive during the Hellenistic period, I could just have my own set of prayers that is shared among my own family, and this would have been suitable?

[Anonymous No.7905588]

>>7905569
You'd perform rituals, not say prayers.

though really a prayer is a kind of ritual - confined to the realm of speech.

[Anonymous No.7905598]

>>7905588
I have trouble accepting this for a few reasons, please tolerate my ignorance for a moment.

Greek plays and stories were written, but nobody every tried to organize any sort of prayer or "biblical" tome or treatise?

I understand that there were many sects/greek city states, but nothing survives?

Do any written rituals exist? Or ceremonial instruction?

[Anonymous No.7905608]

>>7905524
Greeks, and especially Romans, viewed religion more like a business. There was never really a deep devotion or internal drive to love the gods, but rather a supposedly commensalistic relationship in which sacrifice = stuff/luck

[Anonymous No.7905610]

>>7905524
The Argonautika by Apollonios Rhodios has a few moments when their is actual prayer. Just skimming through it briefly I found this passage.

"But Orpheus observed their divine magic, and stood and made them this prayer: 'O fair and beneficent spirits, be gracious, ladies, whether you're numbered among the goddesses of heaven or those of the nether realm, or are known as the sheep-herding desert nymphs: come, O nymphs, holy offspring of Ocean, make yourselves manifest to us, reveal to our longing eyes some spring gushing out of the rock, some sacred river bubbling up from the earth, O goddesses, with which we can slake our burning insatiable thirst. If we ever make our way back home in our voyaging to the land of Achaia, then foremost among all goddesses you'll have our grateful offerings-gifts past counting, libations, banquets."

page 188 of the Peter Green translation

There is also a moment in the book when Jason prays at a crossroads along with Medea in hopes of winning the help of Hecate.

[Anonymous No.7905625]

>>7905569
Sort of, in that it was super ritualistic and obligatory, but as long as you did that outward ritual display stuff, you could pretty much believe whatever you wanted privately.

The major public cults weren't about personal relationships, they were about "Zeus will fucking annihilate this city with flash fires indiscriminately if some guy in it is a blasphemer." It's why Christians and Jews had problems with the Roman authorities, because they refused to honor the rituals. No one cared whether they go home and believe in Christ or whatever, as long as they also give token acknowledgment to Demeter on Demeter Day so that she doesn't poison the fields and give everyone ass leprosy. Christians were weird among heterodox people because they didn't just do what other areligious/monotheistic philosophers did, i.e. tip your hat on the day you're supposed to tip your hat to all the statues of the hat god. They openly had to say "HAT GOD IS BULLSHIT, DOESN'T EVEN EXIST, I REFUSE TO TIP." A lot of officials were just plain annoyed with them, like
>can you just tip your stupid hat and go home so I don't have to kill you? I really don't want to kill you guys. It's just a fucking hat tip.

But there was also personal religion and it wasn't just made up individualistic shit. Ancestor worship for example was huge, and you'd have a shrine in the house. Same with minor personal gods closely associated with your family. There was genuine piety. There were mystery cults throughout antiquity that involved sincere piety and personal relationships with gods, though not always and not always necessarily, since many were just as ritualistic as the public cults, and simply focused on gaining secret knowledge by ritual contract.

[Anonymous No.7905636]

>>7905598
If such a organized tome or book ever existed it is probably lost to time. The closest thing we have is Hesiod's Theogony. You also have to remember there several versions of every story from greek mythology. While Homer has become the most famous retelling of the Trojan War, he only drew on very specific versions of the story. There are versions where Helen never went to Troy, where before Paris could take her she was whisked away to Egypt by Hera who was upset that Paris chose Aphrodite. This is this is the version of events Euripides drew on for his play Helen.

[Anonymous No.7905649]

>>7905598
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakos

if i were you i'd look in the references in this page and follow leads through there

[Anonymous No.7905656]

thanks to all the replies, checking into some things now. it's strange how your answers are more concise than one of my professors that teach the classics

>>7905649
thanks.

[Anonymous No.7905677]

>>7905656
do you go to bible school?

Look into Plutarch's On the Failure of Oracles. Also an academic paper on the same called When the Gods Ceased to Speak.

[Anonymous No.7905704]

>>7905677
What gave it away? I go to a pretty expensive Christian University.

[Anonymous No.7905932]

In Greek drama, the chorus seems to pray. I think I remember them praying to Athena in the Agamemnon.

[Anonymous No.7905937]

>>7905704
Wheaton?

[Noko No.7905998]

>>7905524
If you have read tons of literature, namely Greek, I would hope you to assume that they typically had no need to convey their internal feelings as they strictly held so many convoluted and one sided views on logic, I.e what can be seen, reasoned and soberly held in mind: a wall. its' structure. Prayer has nothing to do with this, so they left that to chance in vague rituals in hopes' of quelling their inherent human fear of the unknown. More than that, why would anyone be bothered to record their fears of said unknown, especially in such a stoic society. That's my opinion atleast.