No consensus among the scholars
Extracts from chapter tweleve of "Primitive Materialism".
A branch of academia is in denial of the fact of human sacrifice.[1] Academics choose not to know the truth that is manifestly expressed in Greek myth. Kirk’s fifth chapter concludes that it has been said that Greek myths lack ‘horrible features’ – using the expression of H.J. Rose.[2] In a genuflection towards the truth, he adds that this is probably only apparent, and in their original form they probably did have them. This deflects awareness from the truth. It is as certain as anything may be in history that the Greeks themselves at some time practised ritual human sacrifice, and that their mythology is replete with horror. To add “probable” to this is not helpful. Kirk is not alone in this habit of denial, which amounts to polite expressions of the form, it never happened. Kirk associates A.B. Cook with the school of Frazer.
Cook wrote a five-volume study of Zeus, each is over one thousand pages long. The content of the first volume is summarised by Cook himself in his opening five lines of his second: “In the first volume of this work I endeavoured to show that Zeus, the Greek sky-god, was originally just the bright or day-light sky conceived as alive and operant; that already in Homeric times he had passed from the zoistic to the anthropomorphic stage.”[3] He equates Zeus with the animated sky. If Zeus = sky, then that is all he is, whether animate or not, a natural phenomenon, albeit conceived as a vital one. But to say Zeus is the animated sky is already to make him something more than sky. In the second book, his theme is Zeus = “weather-god in general”; he quotes Homer in “Zeus lightens”, “Zeus thunders” etc. or Attikes of Alexis, “Zeus quietly clouds over”; and a fragment of Meandros: “I watch Zeus / pelting with rain.” And so on. But none of these quotations prove that the Greeks used Zeus as a synonym for sky. In fact, they could not have, because they had myths of Zeus that made him into something more than the sky.
From the outset, Walter Burkert’s Greek Religion declares the intention of denying everything. He begins by suggesting that neither the Indo-Europeans nor the Dorians specifically ever existed. This is false, because of the linguistic fact of the Indo-European language group. The fact that their dialect takes over from Mycenaean, and the pattern of Greek dialects arising in the Archaic period attests to the migrations, and archaeology attests to the violence that accompanied them.[4] He argues that the worship of the Mother Goddess in Neolithic times in the Cyclades cannot be proven. He mentions the female figurines and the “widely accepted interpretation [that] saw them as representations of a Mother Goddess,” but immediately adds, “This goes far beyond the evidence.”[5] The selectivity of his evidence reveals his bias. He points, for instance, to Sesklo figures of “male figures seated on a throne” and states that “female figures stand or cower”. The evidence from Sesklo reveals an overwhelming abundance of female figurines, they are clearly fertility images of women, and very beautiful. This concerns only the Neolithic, but the denial runs through the whole work. Regarding the Minoan religion, he discusses the temple at Ayia Irini on Keos: “The most remarkable and unique discovery here,” he attests, “is the remains of about twenty terracotta statues, some life-sized; they are all women, their breasts bared and their hands resting lightly on their hips.” If the reader cares to examine these icons, the breasts are powerfully exaggerated. Burkert calls them “priestly dancing girls,” as if they had no possible connection with fertility at all. He distorts the interpretation and edits the data, whose real nature constantly intrudes.
[1] An academic counterpart to holocaust denial. A holocaust was the sacrifice of a whole animal to chthonic gods.
[2] H. J Rose wrote A Handbook of Greek Mythology (1929).
[3] A.B. Cook Zeus – A study in Ancient Religion, Vol II – Zeus God of the Dark Sky, Cambridge University Press, 1925, p.1. Zoism could be a synonym for “primitive materialism” – it refers to animal powers and influences, and the doctrine that the phenomena of life are due to a peculiar vital principle.
[4] He attributes the destruction of Mycenaean culture to the “Sea Peoples”, a confederation called the Sherden, or Shardana that attacked Egypt during the reign of Ramesses II, late C13. Scholars are not agreed on the identity of these Sea Peoples.
[5] Walter Burkert, Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Basil Blackwell, English translation, 1985, p. 12.
Cook wrote a five-volume study of Zeus, each is over one thousand pages long. The content of the first volume is summarised by Cook himself in his opening five lines of his second: “In the first volume of this work I endeavoured to show that Zeus, the Greek sky-god, was originally just the bright or day-light sky conceived as alive and operant; that already in Homeric times he had passed from the zoistic to the anthropomorphic stage.”[3] He equates Zeus with the animated sky. If Zeus = sky, then that is all he is, whether animate or not, a natural phenomenon, albeit conceived as a vital one. But to say Zeus is the animated sky is already to make him something more than sky. In the second book, his theme is Zeus = “weather-god in general”; he quotes Homer in “Zeus lightens”, “Zeus thunders” etc. or Attikes of Alexis, “Zeus quietly clouds over”; and a fragment of Meandros: “I watch Zeus / pelting with rain.” And so on. But none of these quotations prove that the Greeks used Zeus as a synonym for sky. In fact, they could not have, because they had myths of Zeus that made him into something more than the sky.
From the outset, Walter Burkert’s Greek Religion declares the intention of denying everything. He begins by suggesting that neither the Indo-Europeans nor the Dorians specifically ever existed. This is false, because of the linguistic fact of the Indo-European language group. The fact that their dialect takes over from Mycenaean, and the pattern of Greek dialects arising in the Archaic period attests to the migrations, and archaeology attests to the violence that accompanied them.[4] He argues that the worship of the Mother Goddess in Neolithic times in the Cyclades cannot be proven. He mentions the female figurines and the “widely accepted interpretation [that] saw them as representations of a Mother Goddess,” but immediately adds, “This goes far beyond the evidence.”[5] The selectivity of his evidence reveals his bias. He points, for instance, to Sesklo figures of “male figures seated on a throne” and states that “female figures stand or cower”. The evidence from Sesklo reveals an overwhelming abundance of female figurines, they are clearly fertility images of women, and very beautiful. This concerns only the Neolithic, but the denial runs through the whole work. Regarding the Minoan religion, he discusses the temple at Ayia Irini on Keos: “The most remarkable and unique discovery here,” he attests, “is the remains of about twenty terracotta statues, some life-sized; they are all women, their breasts bared and their hands resting lightly on their hips.” If the reader cares to examine these icons, the breasts are powerfully exaggerated. Burkert calls them “priestly dancing girls,” as if they had no possible connection with fertility at all. He distorts the interpretation and edits the data, whose real nature constantly intrudes.
[1] An academic counterpart to holocaust denial. A holocaust was the sacrifice of a whole animal to chthonic gods.
[2] H. J Rose wrote A Handbook of Greek Mythology (1929).
[3] A.B. Cook Zeus – A study in Ancient Religion, Vol II – Zeus God of the Dark Sky, Cambridge University Press, 1925, p.1. Zoism could be a synonym for “primitive materialism” – it refers to animal powers and influences, and the doctrine that the phenomena of life are due to a peculiar vital principle.
[4] He attributes the destruction of Mycenaean culture to the “Sea Peoples”, a confederation called the Sherden, or Shardana that attacked Egypt during the reign of Ramesses II, late C13. Scholars are not agreed on the identity of these Sea Peoples.
[5] Walter Burkert, Greek Religion. Translated by John Raffan. Basil Blackwell, English translation, 1985, p. 12.
Questions
1. The thesis that the Greeks originally did practice human sacrifice was advanced by Robert Graves, J. G. Frazer and Jane Ellen Harrison. Is the absence of objective treatment of this position an academic scandal?
2. Does in fact Walter Burkert contradict his denial of human sacrifice in his work on Greek Religion by citing in the region of sixty references, including archaelogical evidence, to that very practice?
3. Supposing that ritual human sacrifice is a fact as firmly attested in Greek history as it is possible to be, then what could be the motive of scholars such as Kirk and Burkert for denial of it as a fact?
2. Does in fact Walter Burkert contradict his denial of human sacrifice in his work on Greek Religion by citing in the region of sixty references, including archaelogical evidence, to that very practice?
3. Supposing that ritual human sacrifice is a fact as firmly attested in Greek history as it is possible to be, then what could be the motive of scholars such as Kirk and Burkert for denial of it as a fact?
Extract Two
Reversion to human sacrifice in exceptional cases is illustrated by the following extract from the work of Diodorus Siculus describing a crisis of confidence experienced by the Carthaginians during the second Punic War.
"They [the Carthaginians] also alleged that Cronus had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been supposititious.
When they had given thought to these things and saw their enemy encamped before their walls, they were filled with superstitious dread, for they believed that they had neglected the honours of the gods that had been established by their fathers.
In their zeal to make amends for their omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire."[1]
Hesiod’s Theogony represents the succession of the divine order in four generations. The generation belonging to the Titans, ruled by Cronos, was in turn supplanted by Zeus. The Greeks and Romans distinguished between two stages of religious consciousness by this myth. The first stage belonged to Cronos and the Titans, and the myth that Cronos swallowed all his children represents matriarchal agricultural religion in which human sacrifice was practiced. This was supplanted by the Olympian religion. Diodorus Siculus identifies the Carthaginian deity with Cronos, to whom child sacrifice is made. It was common knowledge among the Graeco-Romans that they originally practised human sacrifice, and that this was supplanted by the Olympian religion.
[1] Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book 20, chapter 14. There is an ambiguity in this extract: what does “sacrificed themselves voluntarily” mean? Does it indicate self-sacrifice by adults, or the voluntary offering up of children?
"They [the Carthaginians] also alleged that Cronus had turned against them inasmuch as in former times they had been accustomed to sacrifice to this god the noblest of their sons, but more recently, secretly buying and nurturing children, they had sent these to the sacrifice; and when an investigation was made, some of those who had been sacrificed were discovered to have been supposititious.
When they had given thought to these things and saw their enemy encamped before their walls, they were filled with superstitious dread, for they believed that they had neglected the honours of the gods that had been established by their fathers.
In their zeal to make amends for their omission, they selected two hundred of the noblest children and sacrificed them publicly; and others who were under suspicion sacrificed themselves voluntarily, in number not less than three hundred. There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus, extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire."[1]
Hesiod’s Theogony represents the succession of the divine order in four generations. The generation belonging to the Titans, ruled by Cronos, was in turn supplanted by Zeus. The Greeks and Romans distinguished between two stages of religious consciousness by this myth. The first stage belonged to Cronos and the Titans, and the myth that Cronos swallowed all his children represents matriarchal agricultural religion in which human sacrifice was practiced. This was supplanted by the Olympian religion. Diodorus Siculus identifies the Carthaginian deity with Cronos, to whom child sacrifice is made. It was common knowledge among the Graeco-Romans that they originally practised human sacrifice, and that this was supplanted by the Olympian religion.
[1] Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Book 20, chapter 14. There is an ambiguity in this extract: what does “sacrificed themselves voluntarily” mean? Does it indicate self-sacrifice by adults, or the voluntary offering up of children?
Questions
1. How good as evidence is the above quotation from Diodorus Siculus?
2. Is it correct to interpret the succession myth of Hesiod as a Greek recognition that the Olympian religion supplanted an eariler form of religion in which human sacrifice to Cronos was made?
2. Is it correct to interpret the succession myth of Hesiod as a Greek recognition that the Olympian religion supplanted an eariler form of religion in which human sacrifice to Cronos was made?