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Pagan Divine Service in Late Antiquity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Martin P. Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
Affiliation:
Lund University, Sweden
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Extract

Sometimes it is said that it would not have mattered much whether Christianity had won or not, the result would have been much the same, for the spiritual background of the time was the same. I leave this opinion to be judged on its own merits and turn to a side of religion in which the difference between Paganism and Christianity is thought to be thoroughgoing, the cult. That is to say, the cult of the gods, for the similarities between the cult of the Saints and martyrs and that of the dead and heroes are striking and well known through the work of Lucius. Shrines were built for the Saints, votive offerings brought, and even animals slaughtered just as for the heroes, food was placed and drink poured out on their graves and banquets held on them just as on the graves of the pagan dead. This is mentioned in the epigrams attributed to Gregory of Nazianzen and was more frequent in the Western part of the Empire, but it must have been common in the East too, for the custom of holding meals in churchyards on the Psychosabbaton, the Saturday before Whitsunday, is widespread in the Greek Church to this day.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 1945 , pp. 63 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1945

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References

1 Lucius, E., Die Anfänge des Heiligenkults, 1904, esp. p. 288 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 E. Dyggve, A Sarcophagus Lid with a Tricliniarch in “From the Collections of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, III, 1942, p. 237, fig. 12 is an interesting photograph from Herzegovina of a meal on a grave.

3 Lent should be viewed from this aspect. It is abstinence from meat (Greek νηστεία, the etymology of ‘carnival’ from carne vale is probably right) and originally not a piece of asceticism but a token of sorrow, meat being reserved for feast-meals. The Lent of 40 days before Easter was already common before the Council at Nicaea in 327 A.D.

4 Clearchus from Methydrion (Theopomp. in Porphyr, de abst., II, 16).

5 Anthol. pal., VI, 337.

6 OGI, 332.

7 CIG, 3062; L. Robert, Études anatoliennes, p. 20 ff.

8 Paus., v, 13, 10; the theokoloi in the lists of cult-attendants from 36 B.C. to 265 A.D., Inschriften von Olympia, 59 ff.

9 Both with curious aetiological stories, Paus., vii, 23, 11 and ix, 34, 2.

10 Arnob., adv. nat. VII, 26.

11 Geopon., XI, 15.

12 I have collected some instances, Gött. gel. Anz., 1916, p. 49 ff., to which now much can be added.

13 Fragm. 174. 15 Kock (i p. 648).

14 Roussel, P., Le miracle de Zeus Panamaros, Bull. corr. hell., LV, 1931, p. 70 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Hermes, XX, 1885, p. 430 ff.

16 Inschr. von Pergamon, 374. See Ziebarth's article in the Realencycl.; Keil, J. in Österr. Jahreshefte, XI, 1908, p. 101Google Scholar ff.; Ch. Picard, Ephèse et Claros, p. 251 ff.

17 The inscription of Vibius Salutaris, Ephesos, II, No. 27, p. 127 ff., B 1. 146, and Österr. Jahresh., l.c., p. 107.

18 SIG3, 1111.

19 CIG, 3160.

20 Athen. Mitt., XXXV, 1910, No. 40, p. 457, and XXXVII, 1912, No. 16, p. 287.

21 Inscription of the dadouch Themistokles, J. Chr. Threpsiades in K. Kourouniotes, ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΙΑΚΑ, I, p. 223 ff.; Pollux, I, 35.

22 Edict of the proconsul Persicus, Ephesos, II, No. 21 and 22, p. 115 ff.

23 CIG, 2715 a; L. Robert, l.c., p. 516 ff.

24 Julian, Epist. ed Bidez et Cumont, No. 89 b, p. 301 D, and No. 109. Here we find even verbal inspiration; cf. the inscription of Damianus, Siebenter Bericht etc., Abhandl. der Akad. Berlin, 1911 Anhang, I, p. 64.

25 Arist., I, p. 513 Dindorf; a hymn to Asclepius preserved in a mutilated inscription is attributed to him, R. Herzog, Sitz. Ber. der Akad. Berlin, 1934, p. 753 ff.

26 CIG, 3199; 3148; Inschr. v. Pergamon, 374.

27 IG, II2, 1368 (SIG3, 1109), l. 115.

28 Aelian fragm. 98.

29 Arist., I, p. 453 Dindorf.

30 IG, II2, 4533.

31 IG, IV: 12, 132–134.

32 L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrétien, p. 467 ff.

33 IG, IV: 12, 742.

34 See the list in IG, IV: 12, p. 173 ff.: cf. IG, IV1, p. 186 f., etc.