In Homer the Erinyes enforced the right of strangers and guarded the rights of the first born. Later they were especially the avengers of crime against the family.
Orphic theology, based on Hesiod and his successors, taught the essential unity of the gods and the presence of the divine nature in the human soul. The initiations were rites adopted from Crete and Phrygia. Eating the raw flesh of a bull symbolized the union of the worshipper's soul with the god of all life. Clay and pitch were used to absorb the taint of evil from the body. All contact with death was forbidden— hence the practice of absten tion from animal food. Beans were tabooed, woolen garments not worn. But all these of avoidance never developed into a real asceticism. In many places the practices con tinued until Greek religion yielded to Christi anity.
Pythagoras taught that the soul was the antithesis of the body, and that the soul re-' turned to the gods as the ultimate goal.
Temperance, purity, truth, were the expres sion of social demands, not the outgrowth of religion. But morality and religion came into close contact at many points, especially in the minds of scme great thinkers; but in the minds of the people they never blended.
The state directed and controlled religion.
Religion and the State.— Where the re ligious unit was larger than the political unit, a new unit was formed to carry on the inter state worship. There was no '
temple, the statue on the inside looks toward the altar on the outside. The participants in the sacrifice approach in festal attire. They wear wreaths on their heads. A brand is taken from the fire and dipped in water with which the company is sprinkled. Prayers are then offered with uplifted head and hands. Some times an ode specially composed for the occa sion is chanted. The victim is then led to the altar. If it does not struggle back, the sign is good. Barley-grains are scattered on its head, and then the throat cut so that the blood spurts into the flame, whereupon the company raise a jubliant cry. Then the animal is deftly skinned and carved, and the thigh-bones, covered with fat, are burned in the fire so that the savor mounts to Heaven. The rest of the meat be comes a feast for the participants. The sacri fice is accompanied by music from the flute, while prognostications are drawn from the way in which the fire and smoke ascend, and also from an examination of the entrails of the victim.
The state did not go out of its way to in quire into one's private beliefs; but one must not meddle with the beliefs of his neighbors by preaching atheism or new divinities, nor damage sacred property, nor behave in an un seemly way at religious ceremonies. The charges against Protagoras and Socrates were only a use of legal machinery to get rid of men whose conduct and influence had ren dered them unpopular and seemed to threaten the character of the community.
Apollo, rather than Zeus, was governor of Olympus. The only real discipline submitted to even momentarily by all the gods in Greece emanated from Delphi. As Dyer says
Gods of Greece)), ((Zeus was a king among gods, who reigned but governed not. His Premier was the Delphic god" The truth of this statement is reflected throughout the
of 2Eschylus and the
CEdipus of Sophooles. (For the religion of the tragic poets see 2ESCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES) . Apollo is the highest ideal of character in the Greek pantheon. The purer aspects of Greek ritual have a counterpart in the most holy Christian places. °It was no fanciful parallel which the Christian author of