The Meeting of the Three Temples: Co-celebrating with the Angels in Early Christian Liturgies

A new inspection of the ancient liturgical pattern of praying with the angels unveils that Jewish materials limited it to the priestly class and such legendary figures as Enoch, Abraham, Moses, or Elijah. The classical Christian anaphoras of the third and fourth centuries will extend this pattern to the entire congregation based on the early Christian generalization of the priestly status to all the members of the ecclesia. While shifting the focus of discussion to the concepts of “temple” and “priest,” the study finds that these Christian anaphoras include both the Jerusalem Temple feature of serving in front of God’s descended glory and the Second Temple apocalyptic idea of celebrating in the heavenly sanctuary. The earthly and heavenly temples, therefore, become one liturgical space which also intersects a third temple, that of the human being, within which God also descends, sanctifies it, and receives due worship.

Religion in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek religion was a polytheistic religion without a book, church, creed, or a professional priestly class. Due to the extraordinarily rich regional varieties in cult, fragmentary evidence and conjectural interpretations of it, conflicting mythological accounts, and the span of time treated, not a single absolute statement can be made about any aspect of Greek religion and exceptions exist for every general rule stated here. Since Ancient Greeks perceived all aspects of nature as either divine or divinely controlled, and all aspects of individual and social life were thought to be subject to supernatural influence, paying proper respect to the gods and heroes was understood to be a fundamental necessity of life. Since no aspect of individual or social life was separate from “religion,” scholars refer to Ancient Greek religion as “embedded.”1 The closest Ancient Greek comes to the English word “religion” are the noun thrēskeia (“acts of religious worship, ritual, service of gods”) and the verb thrēskeuō (“to perform religious observances”). Basic components of religious worship were the construction and upkeep of divine precincts, statues, altars, and temples, the observance of festivals, performance of sacrifices, bloodless offerings and libations, prayer, hymning, and observance of ritual abstinences and purifications. The closest Greek equivalents to “belief” were eusebeia (“reverent piety,” “respect”) and pistis (“trust in others” or “faith”).2 Both words could qualify a relationship between humans, as well as a relationship between humans and a supernatural entity. Since the Ancient Greeks did not have authoritative or divinely sent books of revelation, there was no script telling them what or whom to believe in and outlining the reasons why. The Greeks did not have professional priests who preserved, interpreted, and disseminated religious norms.3 However, Greek literature is brimming with gods, and the stories about the gods, which they (and we) call “myths,” were not only in all their texts, but everywhere around them: depicted on their pottery, painted on their walls, chiseled on the stones of their buildings.4 In the public space, there were countless divine statues, and the temples, altars, sacred groves, and divine precincts were everywhere around them. Ancient Greeks learned about the gods by hearing, watching, and doing: by seeing their parents perform a sacrifice, by observing them as they prayed, swore an oath, or performed libations, by participating in processions, singing and dancing in the chorus, eating the sacrificial meat in the sanctuaries, and by drinking wine, the gift of Dionysus. Ancient Greeks had no immediate need for theodicy, for the gods could be either benevolent, or angry, and their benevolence was perceived as a sign that the worship the community offered was appropriate, whereas natural catastrophes, crippling defeats in wars, or epidemics were interpreted as manifestations of divine anger, provoked by some human error or misstep.5 Ancestral gods and heroes and the traditional way of worshipping them formed the cornerstone of Greek religiosity.

The Brahmin, the Aryan, and the Powers of the Priestly Class: Puzzles in the Study of Indian Religion

The classical account of the Brahmin priestly class and its role in Indian religion has seen remarkable continuity during the past two centuries. Its core claims appear to remain unaffected, despite the major shifts that occurred in the theorizing of Indian culture and in the study of religion. In this article, we first examine the issue of the power and status of the Brahmin and show how it generates explanatory puzzles today. We then turn to 18th- and 19th-century sources to identify the cognitive conditions which sustained the classical account of the Brahmin priest and allowed for its transmission. Three clusters of concepts were crucial here: Christian-theological ideas concerning heathen priesthood and idolatry; racial notions of biological and cultural superiority and inferiority; and anthropological speculations about ‘primitive man’ and his ‘magical thinking’. While all three clusters were rejected by 20th- and 21st-century scholarship, the related claims about Brahmanical ritual power continue to be presented as facts. What accounts for this peculiar combination of continuities and discontinuities in the study of (ancient) Indian religion? We turn to some insights from the philosophy of science to sketch a route toward answering this question.

A Study On The Social Life Of The Ahom Priestly Class

The Ahoms were originally a group of Tai Shans. They brought a distinct culture to Assam peculiar to the Tai culture. Although the Ahoms had their own religious customs and rituals but they did not impose their religion to other tribes and distinctly amalgamated with the culture of the local people. In the time being the Ahoms accepted Hinduism and with the advent of the neo-vaisnavism they almost lost their culture. However the Mohan Deodhai and the Bailungs, the three priestly clans of the Ahoms did not accept Hinduism and maintained their own culture and habits to a great extent. The Ahoms possesses a distinct character regarding the social life. The Ahom priestly classes who were neglected for their denial of acceptance of Hinduism in later part of the Ahom rule, became secluded from the other part of the society. The Mohan, Deodhais and the Bailungs maintained their traditional beliefs and customs in the long period of the Ahom rule and they are still preserving their tradition. So, it is necessary to look at the condition of the Ahom priestly class that how and what extent they could maintain their own culture.

Changing Status of the Ahom Priestly Class

Human society is the result of a continuous transformation process. In this transformation process religion plays a significant role. In every society customs, beliefs, behaviour, traditions are mostly connected with the religion. So in every society religion and religious traditions became the identity of a society. In case of Assam every tribes had their own priestly class to do priesthood. Similarly the Ahoms had their own priestly class to do priesthood. In this article an attempt has been made to assess the condition of the Ahom priestly class i.e. the Mohan, the Deodhai and the Bailungs

Colonial State as ‘New Manu’? Explorations in Education Policies in Relation to Dalit and Low-Caste Education in the Nineteenth-Century India

The colonial state always asserted itself as a harbinger of ‘modernity’ and emphasised its role in India as a ‘civilising mission’. The 1811 Educational Minute of Governor General Minto, declared Hindus and Muslims of India as inherently corrupt and insisted on the British role as ‘civilising’. Conventionally the terms ‘modern’ and ‘civilising mission’ have been considered as offensive, and scholars have critiqued them as Eurocentric and racist. However, these terms have not been analysed at the implementation stage in India. The colonial government used these terms to actually strengthen the structures of the traditional hierarchy. When Minto declared that the education policy was to civilise Hindus and Muslims of India, it was through the ‘the dread of their religion in this world and the next’ and through strengthening and empowering the priestly class of Hindus and Muslims (Sharp, 1920, pp. 19–21). The colonial administration regarded this kind of education as the corner stone of its education policy. This article looks at the education policies of the colonial state towards lower castes in the nineteenth-century India and how these policies upheld and reinforced the caste system.

A complex of ritual objects from the elite female burial in Western Kazakhstan

The paper discusses in detail the items from the female burial of mound 6, Taksai-1 burial site, located in the West Kazakhstan Region, Terektinsky District, near the village Dolinnoe. A complex architectural gravestone structure, an accompanying rite of burial with the use of fire, the presence of rich clothing with various decorations, a complex of specific objects found in the pit, testify to the special status of the buried. All archaeological materials from the central pit of mound 6 performed a certain role in the life of the early nomads, composing a complex of ritual things for performing special rites. The functional significance of all the artifacts identified in the grave emphasizes the relation of the buried to the priestly class. In scientific literature there is no consensus about the existence of the priesthood as a profession in ancient times, but the early nomads revered the cult of a woman - the ancestor, and the priestesses were guides, keepers of the fire, the Sun, revered the goddess responsible for fertility. The burials of rich priestesses are distinguished by their special pomp of funeral ritual, the presence of gold jewelry and the individual composition of the inventory. All these characteristics are traced in mound 6 of Taksai-1 burial, it is a cult monument confirming the existence of a special priestly status in a social organization of the nomadic society.

Political philosophy, Indian

While Western political theory has been framed as the struggle between the state and the individual, Indian political philosophy has been more concerned with issues of self-liberation, morality and leadership. Until recently, with the advent of institutionalized or syndicated Hinduism, Indian society made a softer distinction between state and religion. Classical Indian political theory, as with Kauṭilya, centred on axioms on how to maintain and expand power. Kauṭilya argued that reason, the edicts of the king, and his own rules of governance, the Arthaśāstra, were as important for decision-making as the ancient religious treatises, which defined social structure and one’s duty to family, caste and God. With the exception of the Arthaśāstra, politics was expressed through the ability not so much to govern as to define social and moral responsibility, what one could or could not do and who could oversee these rules. Like all civilizations, India had periods of rule by accumulators of capital and traders, warriors and kings, and Brahmans and monks; there were also revolts by peasants. Still, philosophy was in the hands of the Brahmans, the priestly class. This philosophy was primarily not about artha (economic gain) or kāma (pleasure), but about dharma (virtue) and mokṣa (liberation from the material world). The attainment of salvation, of release from the bonds of karma, was far more important than the relationship between the individual and the sovereign, as was the case in Western political philosophy.

Impurity and Purification

Ritual purity was the self-proclaimed foundation of the authority of the Brahmin authors of Dharmaśāstra and the priestly class in general. Observance of purity rules was at the same time a social display of Brahmin exclusivity, a guarantee of meritorious priestly services for the clients, and an internal social-control mechanism. The chapter discusses the historical origins of this theme in the Dharmaśāstra literature and it gives an overview and examples of the fine-tuned vocabulary and systematic typology of these rules. To observe them demanded all-round control of the mental, verbal, bodily, domestic, and social life of a Brahmin but would also serve as a boundary marker protecting the social status and values of the priestly class. Finally, the chapter discusses some of the rich scholarly literature that emerged from the cross-disciplinary interest in this material during the structuralist turn in the humanities from the 1960s and onward.