Aidonian's blog

The names of the Hellenic Gods are found on Mycenean tablets, dating back to at least 1400 BC and earlier. Mainstream Greek religion appears to have developed out of Proto-Indo-European religion and although very little is known about the earliest periods there are suggestive hints that some local elements go back even further than the Bronze Age or Helladic period to the farmers of Neolithic Greece. There was also clearly cultural evolution from the Late Helladic Mycenaean religion of the Mycenaean civilization. Both the literary settings of some important myths and many important sanctuaries relate to locations that were important Helladic centers that had become otherwise unimportant by Greek times.

The Mycenaeans perhaps treated Poseidon, to them a god of earthquakes as well as the sea, as their chief deity, and forms of his name along with several other Olympians are recognizable in records in Linear B, while Apollo and Aphrodite are absent. Only about half of the Mycenaean pantheon seems to survive the Greek Dark Ages. The archaeological evidence for continuity in religion is far clearer for Crete and Cyprus than the Greek mainland.

Greek religious concepts may also have absorbed the beliefs and practices of earlier, nearby cultures, such as Minoan religion,and other influences came from the Near East, especially via Cyprus.Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, traced many Greek religious practices to Egypt.

The great Goddess hypothesis, that a Stone Age religion dominated by a female Great Goddess was displaced by a male-dominated Indo-European hierarchy, has been proposed for Greece as for Minoan Crete and other regions, but has not been in favor with specialists for some decades, though the question remains too poorly evidenced for a clear conclusion; at the least the evidence from Minoan art shows more goddesses than gods. The Twelve Olympians, with Zeus as sky father, certainly have a strong Indo-European flavor;by the time of the epic works of Homer all are well-established, except for Dionysus, but several of the Homeric Hymns, probably composed slightly later, are dedicated to him.

The 12 Olympian Gods most likely already had cults on the mainland. Most likely small cults here and there. I think there is more clear evidence of the history of ancient Kemetic cults dating back lang before the rise of Kemetic culture and their religion could have influenced Hellenic religion as well to some degree. This is normal. Religions influence other religions through encounters with other cultures. A good example of this, is the polytheistic Roman religion. Before encountering the Hellenic and Etruscan religions, the ancient Romans

It wasn’t until the 8th century BC where we see the Hellenic pantheon as we know of it today. This was when hymns of Homeros and his epics Iliad and Odyssey. Hesiodos also contributed to that by his epic poem the Theogony where he describes in detail the family tree of the Olympians and their myths. Although these works are well known and highly thought of, they aren’t sacred texts. Even the Homeric hymns aren’t sacred, but they are like the Orphic hymns used in religious practice. Hellenic polytheism is very different from monotheistic religions like Judaism,Christianity and Islam, in the sense there are no sacred texts, commandments except a moral code to live by in the sense of the Delphic maxims and truth be told, most of them are outdated in one way or another. The height of the religion was probably the Hellenistic and Roman period where the cults were spread through the mediterranean basin.

The decline started with the coming of Christianity in the region. The decline and destruction of the cults was anything but peaceful. I know many Christians would have you believed that this was natural, but it wasn’t. When the Roman emperor Constantin converted to Christianity, there were 150 different kind of Christian sects and it made up around 10% of the population of the Roman empire. With his conversion, polytheists were forced out of government and military and civilian leadership positions. Than people were forced to convert. Priests were murdered, adherents of polytheistic cults as well. Polytheists were most likely tolerant of Jews and Christians, but things changed when Christians started attacking temples and shrines. This created a rift where people were divided. A divide that the empire never recovered from.

I’m not saying all Christians were like that, but the fanatical ones were and sought confrontation with other religions out of a need to show how strong their faith was and out of a self serving need to convert as many people as possible. We see this even today. The persecution myth still is strong with many fanatical Christians today. During the Roman empire there were local persecutions, but not throughout the empire. Even today, especially in USA, you have people clingin to the idea that Christianity is under attack, being persecuted while it isn’t even close to that. Not in the west anyway. This feeling of being persecuted for your faith is a tricky one and dangerous, because it leads to people fall for false leaders seeking power by preying on this belief. I dirges.