Religion and philosophy. Religion of ancient Greece
home In the era Great Colonization traditional greek religion did not meet the spiritual needs of its contemporaries also because it was difficult to find in it the answer to the question of what awaits a person in his future life and whether it exists at all. In their own way, representatives of two closely related religious and philosophical teachings - the Orphics and the Pythagoreans - tried to solve this painful question. Both those and others assessed earthly life
man as a continuous chain of suffering sent down to people by the gods for their sins. At the same time, both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of the soul, which, after going through a long series of reincarnations, inhabiting the bodies of other people and even animals, is able to cleanse itself of all earthly filth and achieve eternal bliss. The idea that the body is just a temporary “dungeon” or even a “grave” of the immortal soul, which had a huge influence on many later adherents of philosophical idealism and mysticism, starting from Plato and ending with the founders of the Christian faith, first arose precisely in the bosom of the Orphic. Pythagorean doctrine. Unlike the Orphics, who were closer to the broad masses of the people and based their teaching on only a slightly rethought and updated myth about the dying and resurrecting deity of living nature Dionysus-Zagreus, the Pythagoreans were a closed aristocratic sect, hostile to democracy. Their mystical teaching was of a much more refined nature, claiming to be sublimely intellectual. It is no coincidence that Pythagoras himself (the author of the famous theorem, which still bears his name), and his closest students and followers were passionate about mathematical calculations, while paying generous tribute to the mystical interpretation of numbers and their combinations.
What happened in Ionia in the 7th and 6th centuries BC that contributed to the emergence of such outstanding personalities? The population of mixed blood (Carian, Greek and Phoenician branches) was drawn into a long and difficult class struggle. Which blood from these three branches flows in their veins? To what extent? We don't know. But this blood is extremely active. This blood is highly political. This is the blood of inventors. (Public Blood: Thales is said to have proposed to this restless and disunited population of Ionia the formation of a new type of state, federal state, controlled federal council. The proposal is very reasonable and at the same time very new in the Greek world. They didn’t listen to him.)
This class struggle, which drenched the Ionian cities with blood, the same as that which took place in Attica during the time of Solon, is, and for a long time, driving force of all inventions in this land of creation.
For the first time in the history of mankind, Milesian thinkers tried to imagine the entire universe around them in the form of a harmoniously arranged, self-developing and self-regulating system. This cosmos, as the Ionian philosophers were inclined to believe, was not created by any of the gods or by any of the people and, in principle, should exist forever. The laws governing it are quite accessible to human understanding. There is nothing mystical or incomprehensible about them. Thus, a big step was taken on the path from the religious and mythological perception of the existing world order to its comprehension by means of the human mind. The first philosophers inevitably had to face the question of what should be considered the first principle, the first cause of all existing things. Thales (the oldest of the Milesian natural philosophers) and Anaximenes believed that the primary substance from which everything arises and into which everything ultimately turns should be one of the four basic elements. Thales preferred water, while Anaximenes preferred air. However, farthest along the path of abstract theoretical understanding natural phenomena Anaximander, by far the most profound of the ancient Greek philosophers, advanced. He declared the so-called “apeiron” to be the root cause and basis of all things - an eternal and infinite substance, qualitatively not reducible to any of the four elements and at the same time being in continuous movement, during which opposite principles are released from the apeiron: warm and cold, dry and wet, etc. Entering into interaction, these pairs of opposites give rise to all observable phenomena of nature, both living and dead. The picture of the world drawn by Anaximander was completely new and unusual for the era in which it arose. It contained a number of pronounced elements of a materialistic and dialectical nature, including the idea of a comprehensive, constantly changing its form of primary substance, quite close to modern ideas about matter, the idea of the struggle of opposites and their transition into each other as the main source of the entire diversity of world processes.
Greek natural philosophers understood well that the most reliable basis of all knowledge is experience, empirical research and observation. Essentially, they were not only the first philosophers, but also the first scientists, the founders of Greek and all European science. The eldest of them, Thales, was already called by the ancients “the first mathematician”, “the first astronomer”, “the first physicist”.
Let's try to trace how philosophy arises, using the example of Ancient Greece. The cult of the dead has existed here for a long time. The ancient Greeks, or those peoples who later became the ancient Greeks, had no doubt that the soul exists separately.
By soul they understood, of course, not what we now understand by this word. Greek word“psyche” is sometimes traced back to the word “psychos” - coolness, i.e. that coolness that is produced through our breath. This etymology will be used for his purposes by the Christian theologian Origen, who argued that our souls have grown cold in their love for God. (Remember that in Russian the words “soul”, “spirit”, “breathe” also have a common origin.) The Greeks tried to appease the souls of the dead and organized holidays in their honor, from which Greek drama subsequently arose. After all, if the soul belonged to a person who died a violent death, then it took revenge on people (such souls were called Erinyes, or, in Roman mythology, Furies). The Erinyes guarded the gates to Hades because they could not be bribed by anyone.
The peculiarity of the Greek religion was that by gods the Greeks understood the essence of a thing or phenomenon, in contrast to Roman mythology, where the god was the phenomenon itself. Let's say, the god of the sea Poseidon symbolized the essence sea elements, while the god Neptune was the sea itself with all its phenomena. Perhaps in this we will see the key to unraveling the phenomenon of Greek philosophy and understand why philosophy arose precisely in Ancient Greece, and in Ancient Rome philosophy has always existed only in the form of a purely eclectic perception of the ideas of Greek philosophers.
The Greek religion was not a single, integral phenomenon; there were several religions in it. Among the wide variety of Greek religions, it is useful to become familiar with three forms - the "religion of Zeus", the "religion of Demeter" and the "religion of Dionysus". Let us see how from these religions arise various directions Greek philosophy.
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More on the topic of Religions of Ancient Greece:
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As in, the development of religious views in Ancient Greece went through certain periods that correspond to the periods of development of ancient Greek culture. Usually the following are distinguished.
Creto-Mycenaean(III-II millennium BC). This period ended as a result of destruction on the island of Crete caused by volcanic eruptions and floods. On the coast, the cause of destruction was the invasion northern peoples- Dorians.
Homeric period(XI-VIII centuries BC). At this time the formation took place political system Ancient Greece - policy. The end of the period is characterized by the creation of the famous poems of Homer, in which the main principles of the religion of the ancient Greeks can already be traced.
Archaic period(VIII-VI centuries BC). Formation of the main features of ancient Greek culture and religion.
Classical period(V-IV centuries BC). The rise of ancient Greek culture.
Hellenistic period(IV-I centuries BC). Active mutual influence of ancient Greek culture and cultures of other peoples.
The main sources of information about ancient Greek are the works Homer's Iliad" And " Odyssey" And Gay-ode "Theogony". Based on these works, we can conclude that the ancient Greek gods were divided into three groups:
- heavenly or uranic (Zeus and all the Olympian gods);
- underground or chthonic (Hades, Demeter, Erinyes);
- earthly or ecumenical (Hestia, gods of the hearth).
In the original ideas, the dominant place was occupied by the sovereign goddess - the deity of fertility. Subsequently, she was transformed into the wife of the highest God - Geru. Then the male deity stands out - Zeus. His position is equal to that of a king among the aristocracy and ordinary subjects. Zeus and Hera form a divine couple, a model of family and sovereignty. Of the same generation as them - gods Poseidon and Demeter. The younger generation of Gods are the sons of Zeus - Apollo, Hephaestus And Ares; daughters - Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite. They are the executors of the will of Zeus and receive power over their part of the world order.
Zeus becomes the highest god in the fight against previous generations of gods: Uranus, Kronos, titans. These gods are defeated, but not destroyed. They are the personification of the elemental forces of nature. In addition to these gods, the Greek pantheon included local deities; thus, the pantheon of gods was very large. The gods were anthropomorphic in nature. They had the same character traits as humans, but differed in that they could transform into animals and were immortal.
The ancient Greeks had an idea about demons - lower supernatural forces. Demons were nymphs, satyrs, seleniums. In honor of demons, rituals and ceremonies were performed that were aimed at preventing demons from harming people. The ancient Greeks distinguished superstition And faith. Excessive demon worship (superstition) was frowned upon by society.
Among the ancient Greeks great place occupied ancestor cult. The Greeks believed that the dead could harm living people; and to prevent this from happening, they need to be appeased, i.e. make sacrifices. Failure to bury ashes (absence of burial) was considered especially unacceptable. There was an idea about the kingdom of the dead Aida. In Hades, dead people were divided into sinners and righteous people; sinners fell into Tartarus(similar to hell). The doctrine of posthumous existence was called orphism(named after the ancient Greek hero who visited the world of the dead).
The performance of rituals was of great importance; there were state cults. These cults were carried out periodically, as well as to commemorate particularly significant events (disasters, victories, etc.).
In the VI century. BC. a holiday was established - " Great Panathenaea" in honor of the goddess Athena. It was built for this holiday Acropolis. The ritual was performed once every four years in July-August and lasted five days. First there were night celebrations and demonstrations. Then sacrifices were made. It was believed that the gods ate the smell of meat, and people ate meat. Similar festivals were dedicated to other gods, for example "Great Dionithese" - in honor of God Dionysus. Poets and musicians composed hymns. In addition, there were mysteries - secret, hidden rituals. The uninitiated were forbidden to participate in the mysteries.
The priests of Ancient Greece did not enjoy such authority as in, they were not allocated to a special class; any citizen, for example the head of a family, could perform the ritual. A person was chosen at a community meeting to perform the rituals. In some churches, the service required special preparation, so they chose knowledgeable people. Sometimes they were called oracles, since it was believed that they were able to convey the will of the gods.
There were various religious communities in Ancient Greece. basis religious life was family. Families united in phratries, phratries united into phyla(primarily on professional grounds). There were also sects - secret organizations that gathered around the leader.
The ancient philosophy of Ancient Greece is a vast historical and cultural layer of teachings, philosophical schools, which together have had big influence on the spiritual, worldview development of scientific subsequent generations of scientists and philosophers. Together with ancient Roman philosophy, they constitute an invaluable cultural achievement, which is rightly considered to be the basis of modern European civilization.
The first prerequisites for the emergence of ancient Greek philosophy appeared in the 7th-6th centuries BC, but they acquired a more mature form by the second half of the 5th BC. During this period, physical and mental labor, as well as such occupations as agriculture and crafts, were separately distinguished. In addition, there is a cultural and economic flourishing called the city-state, which was a stronghold of the collective and individual life of citizens in absolutely all its manifestations.
Undoubtedly, the emergence, formation and development of philosophy in Ancient Greece was closely associated with the growth scientific knowledge and discoveries. From the divine knowledge of the world, man rushed to explain and study the occurring natural phenomena through the prism of the logical, rational. Despite the fact that philosophy in its original form still strongly intersected with everyday experience and wisdom, its main purpose was to obtain knowledge about the origin of the world and man himself, and most importantly, to determine man’s place in this vast world.
Stages of the formation of Greek philosophy
From different points of view, the history of the origin and development of philosophy in Ancient Greece is divided into three or four periods. The first two stages seem to be the most valuable.
The first period covers the time of the 7th – 5th centuries BC. In modern literature, this period is usually called pre-Socratic. The philosophy of the first stage was based on the teachings of Thales and his followers - Anaximander and Anaximenes. Thales put forward the first assumptions about the relativity of the structure of the world, and was the founder of mathematics and a number of other sciences. Anaximander tried to establish what primary matter is; Anaximenes believed that air is the source of the generation of all things. Representatives of the slave-owning aristocracy, entering into confrontation with such scientific movements, founded their own direction - philosophical idealism. Its first representative was Pythagoras.
Classical philosophy of Ancient Greece constitutes the second stage of the emergence of ancient Greek philosophy and includes the time between the 5th – 4th centuries BC. The most prominent philosophers of this period are Socrates, Aristotle and Plato. In Ancient Greece, the development and influence of materialistic philosophy intensified, in addition, journalism and political theories, which was a consequence of the brutal class struggle in ancient state. Plato presented ideas as the basis of existence, which were given a key place in the world of things, since it was ideas that could exist forever. Aristotle, in contrast to him, called matter the basis of all being, and at the basis of each phenomenon lay a specific cause. put forward the idea that it is quite possible to give a positive answer to the question of criteria of truth. Truth is born in a dispute - a theory that Socrates created and came to the conclusion that a person who defends his point of view in a dispute imperceptibly instills its meaning in his opponent.
The life and work of sophist philosophers gave impetus to the continuation and development of philosophical movements and schools. At the end of the period under review, such a trend as natural philosophy of ancient Greece. The main idea of natural philosophy of the ancient Greek world is the guideline for the interpretation of the studied concepts and phenomena about nature, contrasting them with the teachings about man.
During the era of the Great Colonization, traditional Greek religion did not meet the spiritual needs of its contemporaries also because it was difficult to find in it the answer to the question of what awaits a person in his future life and whether it exists at all. In their own way, representatives of two closely related religious and philosophical teachings - the Orphics and the Pythagoreans - tried to solve this painful question. Both those and others assessed human earthly life as a continuous chain of suffering sent down to people by the gods for their sins. At the same time, both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of the soul, which, after going through a long series of reincarnations, inhabiting the bodies of other people and even animals, is able to cleanse itself of all earthly filth and achieve eternal bliss. The idea that the body is just a temporary “dungeon” or even a “grave” of the immortal soul, which had a huge influence on many later adherents of philosophical idealism and mysticism, starting from Plato and ending with the founders of the Christian faith, first arose precisely in the bosom of the Orphic. Pythagorean doctrine. Unlike the Orphics, who were closer to the broad masses of the people and based their teaching on only a slightly rethought and updated myth about the dying and resurrecting deity of living nature Dionysus-Zagreus, the Pythagoreans were a closed aristocratic sect, hostile to democracy. Their mystical teaching was of a much more refined nature, claiming to be sublimely intellectual. It is no coincidence that Pythagoras himself (the author of the famous theorem, which still bears his name), and his closest students and followers were passionate about mathematical calculations, while paying generous tribute to the mystical interpretation of numbers and their combinations.
man as a continuous chain of suffering sent down to people by the gods for their sins. At the same time, both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of the soul, which, after going through a long series of reincarnations, inhabiting the bodies of other people and even animals, is able to cleanse itself of all earthly filth and achieve eternal bliss. The idea that the body is just a temporary “dungeon” or even a “grave” of the immortal soul, which had a huge influence on many later adherents of philosophical idealism and mysticism, starting from Plato and ending with the founders of the Christian faith, first arose precisely in the bosom of the Orphic. Pythagorean doctrine. Unlike the Orphics, who were closer to the broad masses of the people and based their teaching on only a slightly rethought and updated myth about the dying and resurrecting deity of living nature Dionysus-Zagreus, the Pythagoreans were a closed aristocratic sect, hostile to democracy. Their mystical teaching was of a much more refined nature, claiming to be sublimely intellectual. It is no coincidence that Pythagoras himself (the author of the famous theorem, which still bears his name), and his closest students and followers were passionate about mathematical calculations, while paying generous tribute to the mystical interpretation of numbers and their combinations.
What happened in Ionia in the 7th and 6th centuries BC that contributed to the emergence of such outstanding personalities? The population of mixed blood (Carian, Greek and Phoenician branches) was drawn into a long and difficult class struggle. Which blood from these three branches flows in their veins? To what extent? We don't know. But this blood is extremely active. This blood is highly political. This is the blood of inventors. (Public blood: Thales is said to have proposed to this restless and disunited population of Ionia to form a state of a new type, a federal state governed by a federal council. The proposal was very reasonable and at the same time very new in the Greek world. They did not listen to him.)
This class struggle, which drenched the Ionian cities with blood, the same as that which took place in Attica in the time of Solon, is, and for a long time, the driving force of all inventions in this land of creation.
For the first time in the history of mankind, Milesian thinkers tried to imagine the entire universe around them in the form of a harmoniously arranged, self-developing and self-regulating system. This cosmos, as the Ionian philosophers were inclined to believe, was not created by any of the gods or by any of the people and, in principle, should exist forever. The laws governing it are quite accessible to human understanding. There is nothing mystical or incomprehensible about them. Thus, a big step was taken on the path from the religious and mythological perception of the existing world order to its comprehension by means of the human mind. The first philosophers inevitably had to face the question of what should be considered the first principle, the first cause of all existing things. Thales (the oldest of the Milesian natural philosophers) and Anaximenes believed that the primary substance from which everything arises and into which everything ultimately turns should be one of the four basic elements. Thales preferred water, while Anaximenes preferred air. However, Anaximander, undoubtedly the most profound of the most ancient Greek philosophers, advanced further than anyone else along the path of abstract theoretical understanding of natural phenomena. He declared the so-called “apeiron” to be the root cause and basis of all things - an eternal and infinite substance, qualitatively not reducible to any of the four elements and at the same time being in continuous movement, during which opposite principles are released from the apeiron: warm and cold, dry and wet, etc. Entering into interaction, these pairs of opposites give rise to all observable phenomena of nature, both living and dead. The picture of the world drawn by Anaximander was completely new and unusual for the era in which it arose. It contained a number of pronounced elements of a materialistic and dialectical nature, including the idea of a comprehensive, constantly changing its form of primary substance, quite close to modern ideas about matter, the idea of the struggle of opposites and their transition into each other as the main source of the entire diversity of world processes.
Greek natural philosophers understood well that the most reliable basis of all knowledge is experience, empirical research and observation. Essentially, they were not only the first philosophers, but also the first scientists, the founders of Greek and all European science. The eldest of them, Thales, was already called by the ancients “the first mathematician”, “the first astronomer”, “the first physicist”.