جایگاه چکامه‌های هومر در نقل فرادهش دینی یونان باستان

Introduction

"Religion" is a word that first appeared in Cicero's handwriting (as it has been cited from Romans), and according to some scholars such as Moran, Church took this word and gave a new form to its Cicero's meaning (Moran, 2010:146). In the sixth book of The City of God, Augustin refers to three types of theology proposed by the Roman scholar of the first century BC: the first is the theology of "myths" or "fantasy" proposed by poets. The second religion is "nature," proposed by philosophers. Finally, the third one is the "civil" religion spread in the city's cultural system by the city and its religious authorities (Augustine, 1950: 314-315). Although the Greeks had no word that referred to religion meaning as of today means, understanding religious thoughts that exist in Greek epic literature, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, can significantly help understand the culture and civilization of that era. According to some scholars such as Havelock (1963), Nagy (1996), and Sandywell (2003), the reason for the popularity and the extensive use of Homer's view is that Homer's narratives were used as an inspiration source for artic and cultural expressing such as; drama, visual arts, sculpture, music and poetry, rhetoric, political strategy, praxis, architectural, cosmology and ancient philosophy, Socratic dialectics, Platonic metaphysics and so forth (Sandywell, 2003: 49; Havelock, 1963: 319; Nagy, 1996: 42-43). By considering the theories of scholars regarding the cultural use of Homer's poems, we can assert that in the dark era of Greece, around 700 BC, Homer describes a society that was severely degraded and impoverished. But in his poems, he is seeking the old era of Greece that had strong religious beliefs, military power, unity, and prosperity.

Methodology

This study intends to seek the place of religion in Homer’s epic poems by a descriptive-analytical approach.

Discussion & Results

In order to analyze the religion and the religious beliefs in Iliad and Odyssey, first, we investigate the religion among the early people of ancient Greek. We survey how the ancient Greek religion is merged with myth. Eventually, we will discuss the religious icons in Homer’s two poems.

Conclusion

The religion of the ancient Greeks was merged with the beliefs of Greek early people, which consisted of worshiping the ancestors, including the dead or heroes. A fireplace was used as their manifestation, and the family and establishment of basic rules were among its results. However, this religion is divided into other branches, and the most important ones are worshiping Zeus, Hera, and other Olympian Gods. This worship roots in the worshiping of natural elements. Worshiping the elements of nature began when Greeks found self-awareness of the place and the role of nature in their lives. This religion grew with the development of Greek societies and went beyond the families and families’ fireplace and took the form of a shrine with its own special rules and rituals, and special sacrifices were considered for them. These shrines were extended and turned into a temple. Then religion merged with myth. This stage talks about the Gods that are important for creating the world and governing it more than anything. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey can be considered the transition stage from oral myth to the written one. The era in which the myths that are the introductions of polytheism are organized. This happened by the poet's efforts and great fantasizing mind that hardly tried to find the appropriate answer to the question regarding religion, mortal and immortal social and ethics for the ancient Greeks. It is clear that Homer is not concerned the logical reasoning; since he is a poet that belongs to the era of myth-making and God-creating, a poet whose mind is wholly accustomed to myth and fantasy and enclosed in a world between purgatory and the world intends to describe the Gods and Heroes and tell the tales regarding their events and adventures in a way that be comprehensible for the people. According to some scholars, in Homer's poems in the discussion of "epic," we are not dealing with merely independent art but a productive cultural system, an oral encyclopedia containing moral criteria and social behavior that determined the social, political, and intellectual identity of classical Greek and Hellenistic civilization. Another statement is that although in the nineteenth century some ambiguities about Greek civilization were dispelled still the new evidence and proofs be give information to us as good as Homer does since the context of his poems is derived from the era he lived in. Elements such as the existence of Delphi temple in Homer's poems is been archaeologically proven. His attention to religious rituals such as sacrificing to the Gods to reduce the wrath of Gods or the answer to the prayers, rejection of human sacrifice by Gods due to desecration of temples, involvement of Gods in human affairs, the manifestation of gods in humans and animals; The existence of moral super-concepts such as Arche and the establishing moral rule that were essential to society, such as the rule of hospitality, suggest that Homer, as a prominent poet in ancient Greece, was not only well acquainted with the religion of ancient Greece but also as the greatest religious scholars and thinkers assert. However, there are more valuable sources today than the Iliad and the Odyssey for the study of Greek religion, it cannot be neglected that Homer's poems have been the best source of Greek religion for centuries in the West. A source that all have accepted, moreover, the gods that Homer created are a perfect example of moderation and proportion of thought.

Keywords

Religion, Ancient Greece, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey.

References

Havelock, E. A. (1963). Preface to Plato, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Moran, G. (2010). International Handbook of Inter-religious Education, Religious Education in United States Schools.

Nagy, G. (1996). Greek Mythology and Poetics, Cornell University Press.

Sandywell, B. (2003). The Beginnings of European Theorizing: Reflexivity in the Archaic Age, USA: Routledge.