greek gods

The ancient Greeks worshipped an extraordinary number of gods over an extraordinarily long time. First there was Uranus and Gaea, then Cronus and Rhea and finally the fifteen Olympian gods who resided on Mount Olympus (headed by Zeus) and a pantheon of sea gods and minor divinities.

Zeus, the greatest of the Olympian gods, presided over the universe, ruling heaven and earth and was always depicted with an eagle. He personified the laws of nature, the laws of state and the father of gods and men. Represented as a man of noble and imposing being, he has a rich flowing beard, a thick mass of flowing hair and a large finely carved nose. In other words, similar to how we might represent the Abrahamic God.

The Greek gods resembled mortals in appearance, but far surpassed them in beauty, grandeur, strength and especially stature -- height being considered most important for both men and women. They also resembled mortals in their feelings, passions and habits. They intermarried, had children, ate and slept and were expressed revenge, deceit, and jealousy. They also united with mortals and the offspring of these unions were called heroes or demi-gods.

As expected, the clothing, weapons, armor, and chariots of the gods resembled those of the mortals who worshipped them.

However, their blood was different to that of mere mortals in that it never became diseased, and, when shed, it had the power to produce new life. Also, the gods were immortal -- they never died -- but they were susceptible to wounding and suffering.

A special trait of the gods was their ability to transport themselves in time and space, to render themselves invisible and assume the forms of men or animals. They could also transform mortals into whatever they liked either as a punishment for their misdeeds -- for daring to neglect worship or rites -- or as a means of protecting the individual from impending danger.

As with all ancient cultures and tribes, gods were created in order to explain the awful convulsions of nature -- the storms, the floods, the droughts, the earthquakes, etc -- but the Greeks surpassed all in the magnificent temples they erected to honor their gods, and the great solemnity they showed in the worship of them, as befitting the great wealth that their city states had amassed by the 8th century BC (when they emerged from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization about 1100 BC).

With the progress of their civilization, the Greek temples were built and adorned magnificently. So massively were they constructed that some of these temples still exist today. The city of Athens, especially, contains numerous remains of these ancient buildings. On the Acropolis still stands the temple of Athene-Polias, and that of Theseus (which is the most entire ancient edifice in the world). The island of Delos, also, has well-preserved ruins of the temples of Apollo and Artemis.

The most ancient Greek temples served a double purpose. They were not only temples of worship but monuments to honor the dead. For instance, the Acropolis at Athens received the ashes of Cecrops, founder of the city.

Until the time of Cecrops, the Greeks worshipped their gods without any statuary of them. The first attempts at sculpture were rude, but later sculptors showed genius in producing the highest ideals of their gods. They stood on pedestals in the center of the temple, surrounded by images of other gods, in the same way that later emperors would display statuary of themselves and their family.

Temples were frequently dedicated to more than one god and were always built according to the particular traits of their gods. Temples to Zeus, Ares, and Heracles built in the Doric style of architecture; the Ionic style was favored for Apollo, Artemis, and Dionysus; and the Corinthian style was favored for Hestia.

On the porch of every temple was a vessel of stone or brass containing holy water which was sprinkled on those entering, and most temples had a grove of trees planted around them in order to inspire worshippers with reverence. Every sacrifice to the gods was accompanied by salt and a libation -- usually of wine, but of blood when the infernal gods were being worshipped.

It is interesting that although holy water and libations of wine (or the blood of Christ) remains popular in modern religions, the Biblical injunction - 'Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God' - was given in order to firmly separate the true believers from the pagans.

A different order of priests attended to the different gods, and worshippers attended the different temples according to their needs -- to show gratitude for wealth, to beseach for success in an undertaking, or to ask for advice from an oracle -- in much the same way people do today.

The most famous oracle was at the temple of Apollo at Delphi and it was held in such high repute that people from far and wide came to visit and hear what its priestess, Pythia, had to say whilst in a trance from sulphurous vapours.

As with other ancient cultures, spring and autumn -- sowing seeds and harvesting --were important seasons for celebration and worship. In ancient Greece, the festival of Dionysia held in March in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine, lasted several days and attracted strangers from all parts of the world to Athens, particularly, where the city was gaily decorated, wine flowed freely and public shows, games and sports took place. The Lesser Dionysia festivals were celebrated in rural districts in the month of November, and were also characterized by drinking, feasting, and joviality of all kinds (similar to Oktoberfest in Munich).

In personifying all of the diverse powers of nature, the ancient Greeks were imaginative and poetical. They beheld a god in every tree, every stream and every sunbeam and the whole universe lived and breathed by divine grace.

Because of the Greek heroic tradition, it is highly likely that their gods were originally human beings whose lives had been so distinguished that after death they were turned into gods by the people among whom they lived (similar to the way the Christians made Jesus the son of God and canonise their saints).

Before writing came into being, all cultures had oral traditions -- stories and songs -- that were passed down through the generations, embellished and changed according to the times -- and while it is impossible to separate fact from the sort of fiction that accompany oral traditions, the very existence of demi-gods in Greek mythology -- human beings given the status of son or daughter of a god by virtue of their extraordinary gifts -- seems to bear out the belief that the original Greek gods were extraordinarly gifted human beings, too.