Greek Folk Religion
Martin P. Nilsson
Number of quotes: 17
Book ID: 101 Page: 16
Section: 4B
Christianity easily swept away the great gods, but the minor daemons of popular belief offered a stubborn resistance. They were nearer the living rock.
Quote ID: 2542
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: 18
Section: 2A3
The hero was a dead man who walked about corporeally, a revenant such as popular belief tells of everywhere. But this aspect of the heroes lingered only in the background, for in Greece the heroes had cult and were generally helpful. Their cult was bound to their relics, which were buried in the tomb. This is the reason why their bones were sometimes dug up and transferred to another place. Cimon, for example, fetched the bones of Theseus from the island of Scyros to Athens, and the Lacedaemonians with some difficulty found the bones of Orestes beneath a smithy at Tegea and transferred them to Sparta when they wanted his help in the war against the Arcadians.
Quote ID: 2543
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 20
Section: 2A3
The similarity of the heroes to the saints of the Catholic Church is striking and has often been pointed out. The power of the saints, like that of the heroes, is bound to their relics, and just as the relics of the saints are transferred from one place to another, so were those of the heroes. Moreover, the oracle of Delphi prescribed that a hero cult should be devoted to a dead man if it appeared that a supernatural power was attached to his relics, and the pope canonizes a saint for similar reasons. The cult of the heroes corresponded to a popular need which was so strong that it continued to exist in Christian garb.
Quote ID: 2544
Time Periods: 23456
Book ID: 101 Page: 21
Section: 2B2
The cult of the heroes took on a Christian guise and survived in much the same forms, except that the martyrs and the saints succeeded the heroes.
Quote ID: 2545
Time Periods: 23456
Book ID: 101 Page: 30
Section: 2A3
This kind of offering is commonly called panspermia, although the Greeks also called it pankarpia. Both words signify a mixture of all kinds of fruit. Such offerings were also brought to the dead at the ancient Greek equivalent of All Souls’ Day, the Chytroi, on the third day of the Anthesteria. It is very interesting that this usage seems to have persisted probably from prehistoric down to modern times.........
The custom has been taken over by the Greek Church. The panspermia is offered to the dead on the modern All Souls’ Day, the Psychosabbaton, which is celebrated in the churchyards before Lent or before Whitsunday. It is offered as first fruits on various occasions, but especially at the harvest and at the gathering of the fruit. It is brought to the church, blessed by the priest, and eaten in part, at least, by the celebrants.
Quote ID: 2546
Time Periods: 23456
Book ID: 101 Page: 41
Section: 1A
Similar beliefs and customs occur everywhere in European folklore, and while the old gods and their cults were so completely ousted by a new religion that hardly a trace of them remains, the old rural customs and beliefs survived the change of religion through the Middle Ages to our own day.
Quote ID: 2548
Time Periods: 167
Book ID: 101 Page: 47
Section: 2B1
To each of these two pairs a here was added, and so we get two triads: Demeter, Kore, and Triptolemos; and “the God,” “the Goddess,” and Eubouleus.
Quote ID: 2549
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 73
Section: 4B
Whereas we say a prayer before and after the meal, the Greeks before the meal offererd a few bits of food on the hearth and after it poured out a few drops of unmixed wine on the floor. The libation was said to be made to Agathos Daimon, the Good Daemon, the guardian of the house, who appears in snake form.
Quote ID: 2550
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: 76
Section: 2E3
The sanctity of the hearth was great, and we rightly speak of a cult of the hearth because certain sacred acts were performed there. But there were no prayers, no images, and no gods, for Hestia herself was not a full-fledged personality but only a pale personification. The cult consisted in acts. The place was sacred in itself according to the ideas of the ancients. For us it is not so. Nowadays a place is made sacred by erecting a house of God on it. Sanctity is conferred upon the building by its consecration as a church. In antiquity sanctity was inherent in the place. The place was not made holy by building a house for god on it, but a house for a god was built on a certain place because the place was holy.
Quote ID: 2551
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 86
Section: 2E3
The sanctuaries described by Homer were simple rustic sanctuaries--an altar in a grove, on the trees of which votive offerings were suspended. Great temples were erected at the earliest in the seventh century B.C.Pastor John’s note: but...Judges - Dagon temple
Quote ID: 2553
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 86
Section: 4B
After the great victory over the Persians, Athens took the lead in commerce and culture. Its people were, of course, proud of its great achievements and of the empire which it had acquired. Patriotic and even chauvinistic feelings sprang up, and in this age they could find expression only in religion. The state and the gods were a unity. The gods had given victory, power, and glory to the Athenian state. The Athenians gloried in being the most pious of all peoples and in celebrating the most numerous and magnificent festivals in honor of the gods. They were able to do this because they could afford the costs......
In the long run this kind of religion was no boon to the great gods. Religion was to a certain degree secularized.
.....
The great gods became greater and more glorious, but religious feeling gave way to feelings of patriotism and to display in festivals and sacrifices.
Quote ID: 2554
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: 91
Section: 2B2
We return to the foreign gods who migrated into Greece. The Great Mother of Asia Minor came to Athens before the Persian Wars, and a temple, the Metroon, was built for her. Pindar celebrates her and mentions here orgiastic cult with its cymbals, castanets, and torches.
Quote ID: 2555
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 92
Section: 2B2
The Great Mother was thoroughly assimilated to the Greek Mother, Demeter, and her cult lost its orgiastic character.
Quote ID: 2556
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 101 Page: 111
Section: 5D
Very important is the tract on the holy disease, that is epilepsy.
Quote ID: 2558
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: 129
Section: 5D
The home of the Sibyl was not in Greece but in Asia Minor. Another collection ascribed to her was brought from the Greek colony of Cumae to Rome at about the same time. It is the famous Sibylline books.
Quote ID: 2559
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: 139
Section: 4B
In backward parts of the country, however, the old mode of life and the old popular religion persisted and have continued to persist down to our own day.
Quote ID: 2560
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 101 Page: xiii
Section: 4B
Nevertheless, the hard core of Greek religion is to be found in its observances: these took their shape among men whose focus was first the hearth and then the city state
Quote ID: 2541
Time Periods: ?
End of quotes