Polytheism

Modern day religious views, Christianity for example differ majorly from ancient Greek Polytheistic views. Polytheism is a belief in numerous gods, which is exactly what the ancient Greeks had as they believed they had many different gods for different things, this is articulated by L. B. Zaidman and P. S. Pantel in their book ‘Religion in the Ancient Greek City’ (1992: p176) as she states that the ancient Greeks were certainly polytheists ‘since a polytheistic religion is characterised by the plurality of the divine powers that it recognises and of the cults that it observes’. In addition to this fact in reading R. Kirewan’s article ‘On the Origin of Polytheism, Idolatry, and Grecian Mythology’ (1810: p4), it states that ‘Mr. Hume, in an elaborate essay on the natural history of religion, labours to prove, ‘that polytheism or idolatry necessarily must have been the first and most ancient religion of mankind’’. In Christianity we have one God, but the ancient Greeks worshiped many gods and goddesses, in particular they had 12 main deities; Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hestia, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Hephaistos, Apollo, Artemis, Hades and Aphrodite. These were regarded as the most important deities, the Great Olympians.

Zaidman and Pantel also reflect that the gods and goddesses had their own ‘different types of supernatural power had their own dynamic, their own peculiar modes and spheres of operation and their inherent limitations’ (p177), meaning each one of these gods itself are very distinctive in what they look like and in their roles. What we must take into consideration, as the ancient Greeks had to also do within polytheism is that you could have your favourite deity, but you must continue to worship the other gods and goddesses and make sure your favourite deity didn’t exist in isolation, using Hippolytus here again as an example. Zaidman and Pantel also illustrate that ‘the Greeks worshipped more than one type of divine power, of which there were three principle categories: gods, daimones and heroes’ (p176) if we wanted to pursue the topic into more detail. It has been made clear that the Greek gods were obsessed with receiving honours and sacrifices. Nowadays in the Christian religion we do not overly donate gifts or make honourable sacrifices to our God, and it is apparent that it is possible to experience religion outside organised church events. But within the ancient Greek civilisation the gods and goddesses seem to be everywhere, in myths and legends, paintings, letters and depictions. The ancient Greek Gods and goddesses have to fit in to the network of divine beings; to me this means that they are know and respect their roles in antiquity, for example Poseidon is in charge of the sea. But they must remember that Zeus is the supreme ruler of the gods. In my understanding if the Great Olympians did not have Zeus ‘lord of the sky’ there would be no civil way of running the system. Without a leading character, individual gods would become too power happy and try taking over what is not rightfully theirs.

In contrast to Zeus being the master of all gods and goddesses we have proof that he can actually be over powered by other divine beings, we do not see this in regards to the Christian god. Aphrodite has a certain amount of control over Zeus, concerning his love for others. There are plenty of times in ancient Greek sources where Zeus has been over powered by his affection for another female, so this is startling evidence that Aphrodite in some ways has more power than the main man himself. Zaidman and Pantel describe that ‘Aphrodite’s function was to preside over the budding of sexual desire ... Aphrodite had to be handled with care’ (p71), this emphasises her power. So in my personal opinion, observing the Polytheistic religious ways in which the ancient Greek population worshiped the gods, even though Zeus was seen as the ‘father of gods and men’ I feel as though Aphrodite had more power, concerning the ways she could manipulate even someone as powerful as Zeus himself.