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Lecture notes, cheat sheets
История религии. Ранние формы религии (конспект лекций)
Directory / Lecture notes, cheat sheets Table of contents (expand) Topic 2. Early forms of religion 2.1. Religion of Neanderthals and primitive peoples Religion is so organically present in the life of modern man that it seems that it accompanies humanity throughout the history of its existence and development. But this point of view is erroneous, since the archaeological data that have survived to this day allow us to fix the approximate time of the emergence of still primitive, but already religious rites. For the first time, the presence of such rites is found in Homo sapiens neandertalis (the Homo sapiens Neanderthal), which in everyday speech is often called simply a Neanderthal. This subspecies of humanity has become a dead end branch of development, and many researchers explain its disappearance about 40 thousand years ago precisely by the activities of the ancestors of modern man. Within the framework of the history of religion, the Neanderthal is the object of close study, since it is to him that archaeological data allow us to attribute the first manifestations of religious feelings known to us. How did the natural and social conditions in which the Neanderthal lived contributed to the emergence of religion? Neanderthals lived in small groups of 30-40 people, were engaged in gathering and hunting, led a nomadic lifestyle, but roamed over a fairly limited area in search of the most fertile fields and forest or forest-steppe lands rich in game. The famous caves in the south of France, in which rock art was first discovered, allow us to state with full certainty that these places were visited and supplemented with fresh drawings over many generations of people who clearly belonged to one or more kindred tribes. At the head of each such group was a leader who had very limited functions, most often related to hunting, so his role in the everyday life of the tribe was small. Periodically there were clashes with neighboring tribes, which led to death in a fight or injuries, which, in the difficult conditions of primitive life, turned into the same death, only more painful. Death accompanied the Neanderthal on the heels, and his life expectancy was short: most of the Neanderthal skulls that have survived to this day belong to 30-40-year-old people, and many ended their lives even earlier - death in childhood and adolescence was a common event. It can be difficult for historians to reconstruct the thinking of a person whose life is separated from the present day by several hundred years. What can be said about the thinking of the Neanderthal, whose existence turned out to be separated by such a large time barrier that it fell out of the historical memory of modern man for many millennia? We can judge the processes that took place in the head of a Neanderthal man from the few pieces of evidence that have survived to this day, and it must be borne in mind that such a reconstruction is in any case hypothetical. So, evidence of the existence of the rudiments of religion already in the era of the Neanderthals are: 1) the presence of a certain funeral rite. Perhaps the primary function of the funeral was a purely utilitarian concern for the hygiene of the habitat, but such care was not obligatory in the case of nomadic tribes, therefore, the surviving burials allow us to reliably state that the primitive man took care of the deceased. Of course, on the basis of archaeological data, it is not possible to restore the funeral rite, but the surviving traces suggest that the deceased was buried in a certain position (as a rule, facing east - towards the rising Sun), and the burial place was sprinkled with red ocher. A special attitude towards the dead was manifested in the fact that the primitive man believed in the preservation of a certain form of life after death, was afraid of harm from the dead members of the tribe, and sought to prevent this through rituals; 2) ritual rock paintings. Throughout the XNUMXth century Several similar caves have been discovered, the most famous of which is the Lascaux cave in southern France. Initially, the researchers suggested that the images of animals and people did not carry an additional semantic load, but were a prototype of the emergence of art. But numerous incisions and depressions in the drawings of animals made it possible to reconstruct the rite that was performed in such caves and has been preserved almost unchanged to this day among the natives of Australia. Immediately before the hunt, the men of the primitive tribe "played out" their subsequent actions, hitting the painted animals and thereby ensuring their luck in a real hunt. Obviously, primitive rites of initiation (initiation) took place in the same caves, which were supposed to introduce young men to adulthood. Only after performing such a ceremony could these young men be considered adults, their biological age had only an indirect relation to social age. Despite the fact that Neanderthals are not the direct ancestors of man, the similarity of the rudiments of their religious views with the rites and myths of the primitive tribes of Homo sapiens is undoubted. From these primitive forms grew the whole variety of religious manifestations that existed among primitive man and later turned out to be united within the framework of already established religions. In particular, some features of the original religious forms were preserved among the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa and the natives of Australia. However, religiosity in primitive societies was reduced not only to the rites and rituals performed, but also to the verbal accompaniment of these rituals - myths. For modern man, myth is still synonymous with something unrealizable and magical, which does not really exist. This point of view was first formulated by philosophers of the Enlightenment, who created a cult of science based on rationality, from the positions of which the surviving remnants of ancient Greek mythology, which came down mostly in the free retelling of ancient authors, were untrustworthy fables and fairy tales. The famous Russian philologist V.Ya. Propp (1895-1970), in his work "The Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale", examines the relationship between a fairy tale and a myth and comes to the conclusion that a fairy tale is only a myth that has lost its function, that is, it has ceased to serve as a verbal accompaniment to any ritual or to explain the established social order. In a primitive society, the myth does not lose its function; it is closely connected with religious ideas and rituals. In relation to the religions of the Ancient World, it is difficult to talk about the development of coherent theological (theological) teachings, since the main part of religious beliefs, especially common in the lower strata of the population, continued to exist in the form of myths. Myths were told by parents to their children and passed on from generation to generation. The farther the myths moved away from those ancestral rites that once gave rise to them, the more absurd and exaggerated details they gradually became saturated, turning from a form of religious feeling into an entertaining story. In the most brief but complete form, the specifics of primitive mythology are presented by the American researcher of primitive religion and mythology, Samuel Hook. He identifies the following types of myths: [21] 1) ritual myth - probably the most ancient form of myth, born from the verbal accompaniment of the ritual and designed to explain to the uninitiated the main points of the ongoing action. Initially, the ritual was accompanied by chants and spells, which made it possible to strengthen the influence of the actions performed, having a calling or commanding character. Gradually, individual evocations and magical formulas acquired the character of a coherent story, commenting on each step of the ongoing rite; 2) cult myth. It is a kind of ritual myth, but is associated with a more developed form of religious thinking, in which the telling of the myth does not accompany the ritual, but serves as a way of awakening religious feelings at the time of celebrating any holiday that has sacred significance. The cult myth preserves the history of a tribe or state formation, tying it to a particular religion or cult of a particular deity; 3) etiological myth (myth of origin) - a relatively late version of the myth, which is being developed in a society that has already lost direct connection with ritual practices and is trying to justify the existence of the ritual with the help of a pseudo-historical or religious explanation. For example, the Egyptian myth of Osiris and Isis marrying despite their blood relationship is an attempt to justify the existence of an ancient custom according to which the Egyptian pharaohs took their sisters as wives; 4) eschatological myth (the myth of the end of the world). The origin of this type of myths is usually associated with Judaism, but religious views about the end of the world are already contained in Babylonian myths. If a cyclical idea of the passage of time dominates in a primitive society (this is due to the close dependence of primitive man on nature, subject to the cyclical change of the seasons), then the eschatological myth is a manifestation of a somewhat different relationship to time - a linear one. Linear time, unlike cyclic time, does not close in a circle and has a clear start point and, of course, an end point, for which one should prepare in advance. It was this myth that formed the basis of Judaism, and later Christianity; 5) the myth of prestige. It serves as a common way for primitive societies to emphasize the superiority of one's clan, tribe, or city over others by ascribing divine intervention in the birth of a hero or the creation of a state. Thus, the inhabitants of Athens have always proudly emphasized that their city bears its name in honor of the goddess Athena, who was its founder and extended her divine protection to this city. 2.2. Religion of ancient Egypt The religion of Ancient Egypt is an extremely interesting phenomenon for researchers. The origins of its originality lie in the peculiarities of the ideological views of various peoples, from which the Egyptian ethnos has been formed over the centuries. The formation of archaic ancient Egyptian myths was greatly influenced by the ecological parameters of the existence of the Egyptian state: the floods of the Nile, which served as a source of fertility and prosperity, and periods of drought were reflected in the plot of the struggle of Set with Horus, the son of Osiris. The peculiarities of the formation of the ancient Egyptian state contributed to the fact that there was no unified system of religious beliefs in Egypt, and each nome (separate region) had its own beliefs and cosmogonic systems, the main of which were Heliopolis and Memphis. According to the Heliopolitan version, Chaos (Nun) - the Primordial Ocean, in which Atum suddenly appeared - the original deity - suddenly appeared as the source of origin. Tired of being alone, Atum swallowed his own seed and gave birth to a new deity - Shu (the god of air), spitting it out of his mouth. In the same way, he subsequently created Tefnut, the goddess of moisture and world order. Shui Tefnut became the parents of Geb (the god of the earth) and Nut (the goddess of the sky), with the emergence of which the originally united world was divided into two component halves. To stop the constant quarrels between Geb and Nut, the other gods separated the firmament of the earth from the firmament of heaven, establishing a clear hierarchy between the various levels of the universe. In the space formed between earth and sky, a place appeared for people, but periodically Geb and Nut nevertheless converged, resulting in the birth of four more gods - Osiris, Isis, Nephthys and Set, as well as the Nile, fertile soil, rain and others. natural phenomena, without which the normal life of people would be impossible. All of these deities (with the exception of Chaos, which is not personified) form the Great Heliopolitan Nine of Gods, which was considered the official pantheon of Egypt during the existence of the Old and Middle Kingdom. The Memphis version of cosmogonic beliefs has some differences from the Heliopolis. So, the creator of the world in it appears to be Ptah, which is a hill rising in the middle of the primordial Chaos, which, at its own request, first makes itself a god, and then conceives the creation of the world, which it does by pronouncing the name of the creature being created. This is how (through the pronunciation of the name) Atum was born, who becomes Ptah's assistant, taking on part of his duties - he creates the rest of the gods (also the Nine), and Ptah breathes soul into them with the help of the word. The most important element of the ancient Egyptian religion, which had a great influence on all cultures that in one way or another came into contact with Egypt, was the funeral cult. The Egyptian had to devote most of his life to preparing for the transition to another world, which was served by constantly studying the “Book of the Dead” - a kind of “guide” of the soul in the world of the dead - and building a tomb - a safe repository for his body. According to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, the soul after death passes through several gates, simultaneously avoiding various dangers - fiery ponds, hills, dangerous monsters. The result of this journey is that the soul of the deceased enters the judgment seat, which is carried out by the Great Nine of Gods. Appearing before them, the deceased must make a confession and list the entire list of sins that he did not commit in his earthly life (the full list consisted of 42 sins). The Egyptian also received knowledge of how to avoid dangers, what and to which of the deities to say after entering the posthumous court from the “Book of the Dead,” which is a set of sacred texts, the final version of which was formed during the era of the New Kingdom (XVI-XV centuries BC). AD). [22] Religious holidays were officially approved ceremonies and were the most important sphere of life of ancient Egyptian society. Any Egyptian considered it his duty to take part in a religious celebration embodying one or another mythological plot, as Herodotus observed accordingly. The historian, who belonged to a completely different cultural tradition, perceived with surprise and incomprehension the scenes of religious holidays, during which large crowds of ordinary Egyptians consumed huge volumes of meat, participated in collective beatings and orgies, likening themselves to the heroes of the corresponding myths. [23] However, the official festivities hid behind them another side of the ancient Egyptian religion, carefully guarded from outsiders - secret mysteries, to which only dedicated priests were allowed. By participating in theatrical performances embodying the myths of Horus and Isis, the death of Osiris, etc., the priests thereby performed an initiation rite that allowed them to gain intimate knowledge about the structure of the universe. Gradually, starting from the era of Persian rule and the Ptolemaic dynasty, elements of mystery cults began to open up to the mass public, gaining popularity in Asia Minor, Greece and Rome. 2.3. Religion of Ancient Mesopotamia The complexity of studying the religion of the Sumerians - the autochthonous (indigenous) population of Mesopotamia in the XNUMXth-XNUMXrd millennia BC. e. - lies in the fact that the myths and information about religious rituals that have survived to this day are difficult to clear from later Semitic layers. Reconstructed on the basis of surviving clay tablets and comparative ethnographic material, Sumerian myths fall into three main groups: myths about the creation of the world; about the creation of man; about the Flood. The myth of the creation of the world. A characteristic feature that makes Sumerian cosmological myths related to similar ideas of other Middle Eastern peoples is the absence of the concept of "non-existence". The world is never created from emptiness, its creation is always just an ordering of the primordial chaos. According to Sumerian myths, the universe was originally a mountain, in which the earth (the goddess Ki) and the sky (the god Anu) inseparably merged. The act of creation of the world can be considered the separation of heaven and earth and the formation between them of a layer consisting of air. The supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon was Enlil (although the surviving myths do not tell us the story of his origin), originally revered as a formidable lord of the winds, capable of driving thunderclouds and thereby exposing the country to the threat of flooding. Other deities who belonged to the top of the Sumerian pantheon - Anu and Ea - were considered Enlil's assistants. Anu personified the sky, and Ea, who was especially revered by the coastal communities of fishermen and depicted as a fish, was obviously the patron of the sea and the cultural activities of man. The myth of the creation of man. Man is created in order to serve the gods, the merit of his creation belongs to the god of wisdom Enki, to whom the other gods come with a complaint that there is no one to serve them and serve wine. Heeding the requests of the gods, Enki takes clay from a source of sweet water and sculpts a person from it, and he succeeds only on the seventh attempt - the previous creatures turn out to be too unsuitable for life. But even the man created as a result remains too weak and powerless compared to the mighty gods - this is probably how the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia realized themselves compared to the ruthless forces of nature (floods and hurricanes) that invaded their lives. The myth of the Flood. This myth is characteristic to one degree or another of almost all the peoples inhabiting the globe, but for the Sumerians it had a special meaning. Unlike the Egyptians, for whom the floods of the Nile, bringing fertile silt, were a source of prosperity and well-being, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia feared the floods of the Tigris and Euphrates, which eroded crops and doomed people to starvation. The essence of the myth is that the gods, fearing the strengthening of people, are plotting to do away with them with the help of a flood. But the god Enki decides to save one king named Siparra and reveals to him the secret of the future flood. The king manages to build an ark, thanks to which he escapes from inevitable death, and his descendants repopulate the land liberated from other people. Later, this myth almost in its original form entered the biblical text, becoming the story of the salvation of Noah and his sons. In late Babylonian mythology (III-I millennium BC), which has come down to our time in a better preserved form, the story of the Flood becomes part of the adventures of Gilgamesh, who can be considered the main hero and character of Babylonian myths, although he is already mentioned as a historical character in Sumerian texts. [24] It is in the myth of Gilgamesh that the theme of death and immortality is clearly manifested: Gilgamesh, whose best friend Enkidu dies, suddenly realizes the frailty of his existence and goes on a journey, trying to take possession of the elixir of immortality. Having overcome all the obstacles that came his way and reaching Utnapishtim - the only person who managed to cheat death and find eternal life, Gilgamesh receives from him the sought-after elixir, but he fails to gain immortality - the elixir is carried away by snakes, and the hero himself remains sitting on the shore of a reservoir, devoid of illusions about his existence. Among the Babylonians, one can attest to the presence of magical and divinatory rites. Clay tablets with texts of conspiracies related to both folk medicine and black magic, designed to harm a certain person, have survived to this day. In Babylon, there was also a special board of soothsayers (baru), who predicted the future by the flights of birds, by the shape of oil spots on the surface of the water, but most often by the entrails of ritually slaughtered animals. Subsequently, these divination methods were widespread throughout the Mediterranean, especially in Greece, Rome and North Africa. The religion of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia - the Sumerians and Babylonians - did not sink into oblivion along with these peoples and was adopted by their heirs. Many myths were borrowed by Judaism, and the idea of the Babylonians as the keepers of deep wisdom survived until Greek times: it was believed that the famous Greek philosopher Pythagoras brought secret knowledge about the structure of the universe from Babylon. 2.4. Religion of Ancient Iran (Mazdaism) Ancient Iranian tribes separated from the Indo-European roots in the 25nd millennium BC. e., therefore, in the later layers of the Iranian religion, remnants of religious views characteristic of all Indo-European tribes, for example, the cult of deceased ancestors, were preserved. At the same time, we can talk about the existence of a special Iranian religion - Mazdaism, the holy book of which is the Avesta - its composition dates back to the XNUMXth century. BC e. The prophet Zarathushtra is considered the legendary author of the Avesta in Mazdaism, which is why the entire religion is sometimes called Zoroastrianism. [XNUMX] However, regarding the Avesta, as well as regarding many other sacred books, we can say that it was developed over several centuries. If its oldest part (Yasnu), which is a collection of prayers and hymns, really dates back to the XNUMXth century. BC e., then other parts, which are comments and additions, were compiled until the XNUMXth century. The key idea of Mazdaism is a dualistic (dual) understanding of the world as a combination of black and white principles. The personification of the white principle and, accordingly, the main god of the Iranian pantheon was Ahuramazda (Ormuzd), who was opposed by the deity of darkness - Ahriman (his name is practically not mentioned in the sacred texts or is replaced by epithets). Both gods are initially equal, they participate in the process of creation of the world, but the scope of their activities is different: Ahuramazda creates goodness, beauty, benefit for man; Ahriman - evil, lies, disease and death. The coexistence of the two supreme gods cannot be called peaceful, there is a constant struggle between them, in which deities of a lower order participate: the Izeds - from the side of good and the devas - from the side of evil. Many researchers tried to unravel the reason for the emergence of such a sharp dualism, putting forward a variety of versions - from the peculiarities of the psyche of the ancient Persians to the influence of climatic and geographical factors. Today in Russian science there are two hypotheses that offer a solution to this problem. According to the first of them, which A. M. Zolotarev adhered to, dualism in the system of religious views is a reflection of the dualistic organization of primitive society, divided into various age and sex groups. [26] Another point of view expressed by S.A. Tokarev and the more widespread one, the appearance of two warring gods is considered a reflection in the archaic consciousness of the fact of the conquest of the agricultural population of the future Iran by the alien nomadic Aryans. [27] The superimposition of two mythological systems on top of each other led to the emergence of the idea of a confrontation between two principles. The cult component of Mazdaism was expressed very clearly: the priests had a monopoly on the performance of all religious rituals, which primarily included the rites of sacrifice, fire maintenance and funeral rites. Surviving sources do not report human sacrifices, but it is known that livestock was sacrificed. The number and size of the sacrifice depended on the wealth of the donor and on the importance of the issue being resolved. The rite of maintaining the fire served to keep the fire in the hearth, since, according to the Mazdaists, the well-being of the family and the well-being of all its members depended on this. If the fire in the family hearth still died out, then the family members had to undergo the rites of purification necessary to avoid the threat of death hanging over them. Death - the product of Ahriman - and everything connected with it, were considered unclean in Mazdaism, therefore it was necessary to avoid any contact with the corpse. In order not to defile any of the sacred elements (earth, fire or water) with a dead body, the Persians built special towers (dakmas), on the tops of which they placed the bodies of the dead, making them food for vultures. The essence of the ethical views of the Mazdaists is to follow the established norms, observe ritual purity and avoid the unclean, therefore, the most terrible sins that an adherent of this religion can commit are improper burial of a corpse (burning in fire), the use of carrion in the cooking process and unnatural sexual passion. The fate of Mazdaism abounded in numerous twists and turns: having managed to be the state religion during the reign of the Sassanid dynasty (III-VII centuries) and serving as a source of views for the emergence of the early Christian sect of the Manichaeans, it was for a long time expelled by supporters of Islam from their original places. At present, most of the followers of Mazdaism live in Western India, and only a few communities have managed to maintain their location on the territory of modern Iran. 2.5. Religion of ancient Greece The ancient Greek religion is noticeably different in its complexity from the ideas that the average reader has about it based on acquaintance with adapted versions of Greek myths. In its formation, the complex of religious ideas characteristic of the ancient Greeks went through several stages associated with a change in the social structure and the people themselves - the bearers of these ideas. Minoan era (III-II millennium BC). The Greeks separated from the Indo-European root and occupied the territory now belonging to them only in the XNUMXnd millennium BC. e., replacing another, more ancient and developed culture. The hieroglyphic writing that has survived from this era (which is commonly called Minoan) has not yet been fully deciphered, therefore, the religious ideas of the predecessors of the Greeks who lived in Crete and the Peloponnese can only be judged by the remnants preserved in the religion of the Greeks themselves. The gods of the inhabitants of Crete had a zoomorphic (animal-like) character: they were depicted in the form of animals and birds, which obviously resulted in the myth of the Minotaur - a creature that had a human body and a bull's head. Interestingly, most of the information that has come down to us refers to female deities, while male deities were either present in the Minoan religion in the background, or the rituals associated with them were shrouded in a veil of secrecy that did not allow unnecessary statements. Agricultural cults were also widespread - it was from local monasteries that the Greeks of a later era borrowed ideas about a dying and resurrecting deity, whose death and rebirth symbolized the restoration of nature after a period of drought. Mycenaean era (XV-XIII centuries BC). It was this religion that was preserved in the oldest of the Greek epic poems that have come down to us - Homer’s Iliad. Despite the political fragmentation, the Greeks during this period managed to maintain cultural unity, going back to common Indo-European roots, integrating individual elements of the religion of the local population into their existing religious ideas. The main deity of the Greeks during this period, as far as can be judged from surviving sources, was Poseidon, who performed not only the function of ruler of the seas, which the Greeks of the classical era attributed to him, but also disposed of the land. The surviving sources also mention Zeus, whose very name is of Indo-European origin (Zeus = deus, i.e. in the literal sense this is not a name, but an epithet meaning belonging to a deity), but he clearly plays a subordinate role. Another significant deity of the Mycenaean era is Athena, but not in the more familiar form of the goddess of wisdom, but as a patron goddess, extending her protection to individual aristocratic families or entire cities. [28] Regarding the cult component, it can be said that sacrifices in Mycenaean Greece were a common attribute of any religious festival, but they sacrificed not captives, but livestock (most often bulls), and the number of animals sacrificed could be very significant. Special priests and priestesses carried out sacrifices, although the Mycenaean Greeks did not build special temples dedicated to individual gods. Sanctuaries were usually altars in sacred places or oracles, in which the will of God was proclaimed through the mouths of high priests falling into a mystical trance. Classical era (IX-IV centuries BC). Invasion of Greece in the XNUMXth century BC e. Dorian tribes belonging to another branch of the Indo-European peoples, led to a cultural decline, which was called the "Dark Ages" in the research literature. The religion that resulted from another synthesis acquired a general Greek significance, taking shape in the form of an integral pantheon of gods headed by Zeus. All the gods revered in certain areas of Greece (Hera, Dionysus) or having a borrowed character (Apollo, Artemis) entered the divine pantheon as children or brothers of Zeus. The work of the ancient Greek poet Hesiod (VIII century BC) "Theology" ("The Origin of the Gods") presents a complete picture of the creation of the world. The world was not created from nothing, it turned out as a result of the ordering of the primordial Chaos and the emergence of several deities - Gaia (earth), Tartarus (the underworld) and Eros (life-giving force). Gaia, having given birth to Uranus (sky), enters into marriage with him and becomes the mother of the older generation of gods - titans, headed by Kron. Kron overthrows his father and, trying to avoid a similar fate, devours his children, whom the same Gaia gives birth to him. The Greeks of the Hellenistic era, trying to rationally comprehend this myth, correlated the name of the god Kron with the word hronos - time, arguing that in allegorical form their ancestors tried to express the following idea: time is ruthless in relation to its own children - people. Krona, according to the prediction, overthrows his own son Zeus from the throne and sends to Tartarus, who becomes the ruler of the land, giving other spheres to his brothers: Poseidon - the sea, Hades - the underworld. In classical Greece, Zeus acts as the supreme god, retaining the function of the god of thunder, the lord of thunder and storm, inherent in him even among the Indo-Europeans. The functions of some other gods change: Hera from a warrior goddess becomes the wife of Zeus and the patroness of the family hearth; Apollo and Artemis, who are of Asia Minor origin, become the children of Zeus and the patrons, respectively, of art and hunting. Another innovation of the classical era is the appearance of the cult of heroes, to which certain aristocratic families erected their origin, more precisely, such cults existed before, but now they are beginning to correlate with the divine pantheon. Heroes acquire the status of demigods, becoming the children of Zeus from ties with mortal women, and the greatest of them, no doubt, is Hercules, to whom the kings of Sparta, Macedonia and some other regions of Greece erected their family. A more frequent manifestation of this cult was the honors given to the winners of the Olympic Games in their hometowns: a statue was erected to the winning athlete at the expense of the townspeople and food was provided for life, and some of them after death became the patrons of their own city, acquiring a semi-divine status. The era of Hellenism, which began with the victorious conquest of Persia and Egypt by Alexander the Great, introduced its innovations into Greek religion: cults of alien deities - Isis, Amon-Ra, Adonis - were established in the original Greek territory. The signs of respect towards the king are colored with a religious feeling, in which one can also see the Eastern influence: the figure of the king is deified, which the Greeks of previous eras could hardly have imagined. In this modified form, ridiculed by writers (Lucian) and attacked by early Christian thinkers (Tertullian), Greek religion survived until the collapse of the Roman Empire, after which its traces are lost. 2.6. Religion of ancient Rome Despite the common Indo-European origin and the fact that the Romans themselves claimed the identity of their gods to Greek counterparts (Jupiter - Zeus, Juno - Hera, Mars - Ares), their religion had its own characteristics, generated by the specifics of the emergence of the Roman state and its development. Characteristic features of the Roman religion are: 1) the close relationship between religion and the state, manifested in all areas of religious practice. Many religious festivities, originally of a tribal or family nature, later acquired national significance and served as official state events. No less characteristic is the position of the priests, who were not singled out as a separate category of the population (as it was, for example, in classical Greece), but were civil servants. As such, augur priests, engaged in fortune-telling on the insides of animals, were necessarily attached to individual legions of the Roman army in order to choose the best time for battles and predict their result. Another consequence of this connection was the absence of the mysteries common in Greece: the Roman religion of the period of the republic was of a purely rational nature, excluding the possibility of manifestation of frenzy and frenzy. Despite the fact that the priests did not differ in their property rights from ordinary citizens, there were several priestly colleges, whose members were initially grouped around a separate clan, and then began to be elected. The most honorary of the priestly colleges were the pontiffs, augurs and vestals. The duties of the pontiffs included monitoring the observance of the calendar and the course of religious holidays. The augurs were the official soothsayers who gave advice to the officials of the Roman Republic. Vestals (priestesses of the goddess Vesta) were representatives of the most noble families who took a vow of chastity and devoted themselves to the goddess Vesta; 2) the mixed nature of the Roman religion itself. The pantheon of Roman gods was divided into four main groups: a) the primordial gods of the Romans (Jupiter, Juno, Lares - patron gods of the hearth); b) gods borrowed from the cults of other Italic tribes at the early stage of the existence of the Roman state, when the tribes subordinate to Rome added their gods to the state cult; The original religion of the Romans included the worship of lares - the deities of the house or individual family; they were a kind of guardian spirits, designed to watch over the family hearth and protect family members from possible dangers. Of the gods common to the Indo-Europeans (to whom the Romans themselves belonged), the existence of Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman pantheon, who played the role of the god of thunder, the patron of thunderstorms and male unions, is most clearly traced. A significant role in the formation of the Roman religion was played by the faith of the Etruscans, a tribe of obscure origin that lived in southern and central Italy even before the arrival of the Romans. Having settled in the territories cultivated by the Etruscans and subordinating the indigenous population to their dominance, the Romans fell under the cultural influence of a more highly developed people, which was not slow to affect the nature of their religion. So, initially the Roman idea of the afterlife as a realm of torment and suffering turned out to be mixed with the inherent Etruscan belief in the "Gardens of the Blessed", where those who earned this right with their lives go after death. Mars, who in the official Roman pantheon served as the god of war, was originally the supreme god of one of the Italic tribes, who received a narrow specialization only in the process of joining the union of tribes that ruled the Romans. It is interesting that sacrifices, although preserved in Roman society throughout the existence of the state, were of a much more modest nature: instead of heads of cattle, heads of garlic or dry fish were sacrificed. Ritual killing of animals was used only in divination, when specially trained priests studied the insides of a dead animal in order to get an answer to a pre-asked question. The fortune-telling system had an extensive character and was practiced in solving almost any issue of great political importance (campaign, construction of a new city, election of consuls, etc.). The most common methods of divination were auspices (predictions by the flight of birds) and haruspices (predictions by the appearance of the insides of dead animals), also borrowed by the Romans from the Etruscans. An important role in the religious life of Roman society was played by private cults, which, as a rule, united representatives of the same clan. The object of worship was the legendary ancestor of one kind or another (for example, Askaniy-Yul of the Yuliev clan), who often acquired divine features and moved to the state pantheon of gods: this happened with the god Faun, who was responsible for meadows and fields within the Roman pantheon, but originally a tribal god of the Fabius family. Later, the practice of worshiping a separate patron god spread to trade unions, each of which acquired its own deity. A characteristic feature of the Roman religion is scrupulousness in compiling a list of revered gods and a careful schedule of the functions performed by them. Each feature of the human character, each constantly performed action had its own patron god: it is known, for example, that in the Roman pantheon, three different gods were responsible for door leaves, locks and door hinges. Significant changes in Roman religion were associated with the penetration of alien influences into the closed world of the Roman community. The era of Hellenism introduced a large number of new gods of Greek origin into the religious ideas of the Romans and changed the very attitude of the representatives of Roman society to the ways of manifesting religious feelings. So, in the III century. in Rome, state temples dedicated to individual gods begin to be built, and their statues are erected. The subsequent surge of religious innovations was generated by the expansion of the Roman Empire far to the East, which led to the penetration of the cults of eastern deities - Isis (Asia Minor goddess) and Hermes Trismegistus (a deity of mixed Greek-Egyptian origin) into the territory of Rome. The wide distribution of these cults, which had a mysterial-ecstatic character, threatened the existence of the official Roman pantheon, but the final blow to the Roman religion was dealt by the emergence of Christianity. The desperate attempt of Emperor Julian (d. 363), nicknamed the Apostate by Christians, to restore the veneration of traditional Roman gods on the territory of the empire was superficial and was forgotten immediately after his death. 2.7. Religion of the peoples of Central America The information that has survived to this day about the religion of the American tribes is fragmentary and, moreover, comes from the pen of outsiders, often hostile observers. The most developed were the religious representations of three cultural centers: the Maya (Yucatan Peninsula), the Aztecs (Central Mexico) and the Incas (the western coast of South America). Mayan. At the head of the pantheon of deities, the total number of which was very numerous, was the god Itzamna, who, in all likelihood, was the tribal god of the upper class of Maya society. It was Itzamna who was the creator of the world and the creator of man. Another god, analogies to whose existence are found in the religion of the Aztecs, was Kukulkan - half-man, half-snake, the embodiment of wisdom, but at the same time cunning and resourcefulness. The world, according to the Mayan Indians, was created many times and each time destroyed by global floods sent by the gods to people for their faults and lack of due respect for the supreme deity. The creation of man was also not a single act; the final creation was preceded by several unsuccessful attempts. At first, Itzamna tried to create people from wood, but the wooden people accidentally burned out from the fire that the god wanted to give to his creatures. The next time he tried to mold clay people, he forgot to burn them, causing the clay people to be washed away by rain. Only the third attempt was successful - people created from cornmeal turned out to be viable enough to exist on earth. This myth is based on agricultural cults, because corn was the main food product on which the existence of the tribe depended. In addition to primitive fertility cults, the essence of which was to donate part of the harvest to the gods in the hope that they would take care of the next harvest, the Maya also had state cults. Archaeological excavations show that in the central cities of the Maya (Mayapan, Chichen Itza) there were numerous stepped temples, on the flat tops of which sacrifices were made, often human. Aztecs. The religious pantheon of the Aztecs had a complex character, which was probably due to the peculiarities of the folding of their state from several tribes, the supreme gods of which made up the triad of gods most revered by the Aztecs. At the head of this triad was Quetzalcoatl ("feathered Serpent"), who simultaneously performed the function of a cultural hero: it was believed that it was he who gave people writing and taught the skills of cultivating the land. Quetzalcoatl was depicted as an old man with a long white beard. It was this circumstance that made it much easier in the XNUMXth century. to the conquistadors the process of conquering the Aztec empire, since one of the most popular myths among the Indians was the myth that Quetzalcoatl did not die, but sailed on a wonderful boat at sea, promising to return someday and thank his subjects for waiting. The arrival from across the sea of white people, many of whom also wore beards, was originally perceived by the Aztecs as the fulfillment of an old promise made by Quetzalcoatl. Inferior to the previous one in strength, but superior in cruelty was another god - Tezcatlipoca - the embodiment of the sun in its scorching and scorching incarnation. This god demanded obligatory human sacrifices, which were performed in his honor during all religious holidays, and the number of people sacrificed could number in the hundreds. The third god of the Aztec pantheon, Huitzilopochtli, had agricultural origins, but paradoxically he also transformed into a “lover” of human sacrifice. In order to satisfy the needs of gluttonous deities and their numerous priests, the Aztec state had to wage brutal wars with neighboring tribes, not for the sake of conquering new lands or wealth, but solely for the sake of prisoners, who were sacrificed. S.A. Tokarev cites an interesting fact: an agreement was concluded between the Aztecs and neighboring tribes on the periodic resumption of war, so that there would be enough captives to participate in bloody ceremonies. [29] The Incas. Despite the fact that the Inca state was formidable and powerful, the Inca tribe itself was relatively small, and the main population of the state was the tribes conquered by the Incas. The head of state was also the high priest at the same time, so the state pantheon combined the deities of individual tribes subordinate to the Incas, and was a rather artificial formation, which was worshiped only during official ceremonies, managing in everyday life the gods of their own tribe. The most revered deities included Pachacamac and Pachamama (and their counterparts in tribal pantheons), associated with fertility cults and acting as the personification of natural factors that contribute to a good harvest - rain, sun, earth, etc. The Incas also had human sacrifices, but the number of captives sacrificed was small, and the very number of sacrifices was strictly regulated and associated only with particularly significant events, for example, the accession of a new ruler to the throne. << Back: Theories on the origin of religion (Origins of the study of religion. Mythological concept (M. Muller). Materialist concept (K. Marx, F. Engels). Animist concept (E.B. Tylor). Theory of pre-monotheism (E. Lang, W. Schmidt). Pre-animistic concept ( J. Fraser, R. Marett) Psychoanalytic concept (3. Freud, C. G. Jung) Sociological concept (E. Durkheim) Phenomenological concept (R. Otto, M. Eliade) Structuralism (C. Levi-Strauss , J. Dumezil)) >> Forward: Religions of the Ancient East (Religion of Ancient China (Taoism, Confucianism). Religion of Ancient Japan (Shintoism). Religion of Ancient India (Brahmanism, Hinduism)) Author: Anikin D.A.
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