Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity

513 Pages·2009·5.3 MB·English

by  Kimberley Christine Patton

Religion of the Gods
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Religion of the Gods
Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity
kimberley christine patton
1
2009
3
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Copyright © 2009 by Kimberley C. Patton
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Patton, Kimberley C. (Kimberley Christine), 1958–
Religion of the gods : ritual, paradox, and reflexivity / Kimberley
Christine Patton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-19-509106-9
1. Religion. 2. Religions. 3. Ritual. I. Title.
BL41.P38 2006
202'.11—dc22 2005018935
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
MOSES H. ROLFE
May 8, 1848
April 18, 1907
“He sleeps but wakes elsewhere
For God hath said Amen”
Grave epitaph
First Parish Burying Ground
Newbury, Massachusetts
1635
For Moses
Amín
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Die Welt steht auf mit euch
Jetzt wär es Zeit, daß Götter traten aus
bewohnten Dingen...
Und daß sie jede Wand in meinem Haus
umschlügen. Neue Seite. Nur der Wind,
den solches Blatt im Wenden würfe, reichte hin,
die Luft wie eine Scholle umzuschaufeln:
ein neues Atemfeld. Oh Götter, Götter!
Ihr Oftgekommenen, Schläfer in den Dingen,
die heiter aufstehn, die sich an den Brunnen,
die wir vermuten, Hals und Antlitz waschen
und die ihr Ausgeruhtsein leicht hinzutun
zu dem, was voll scheint, unserm vollen Leben.
Noch einmal sei es euer Morgen, Götter.
Wir wiederholen. Ihr allein seid Ursprung.
Die Welt steht auf mit euch, und Anfang glänzt
an allen Bruchstellen unseres Mißlingens...
Now would be the time for Gods to step forth
From inhabited things...
And knock down every wall
In my house. New page. Only the wind,
Flinging such a leaf into change,
Would suffice to blow up the air like soil;
A new breathing-field. Oh Gods! Gods!
You often-come, sleepers in things,
Who resurrect gaily, who at the well
Which we imagine bathe throat and face,
And who easily add their restedness
To that which seems full, our full lives.
Once more let it be your morning, Gods.
We repeat. You alone are the primal source.
With you the world arises, and a fresh start gleams
On all the fragments of our failures...
—Rainer Maria Rilke
Trans. Murray Stein, with corrections by author
Ich begreife im Leben der Götter (das doch wohl im Geistigen immer wieder
sich erneut und abspielt und recht hat) nichts so sehr als den Moment, da sie
sich entziehen; was wäre ein Gott ohne die Wolke, die ihn schont, was wäre
ein abgenutzter Gott?
I grasp nothing in the life of the Gods (which in the spirit most probably ever
renews itself and runs its course and has its truth) so much as the moment in
which they withdraw themselves: what would be a God without the cloud
which preserves him? What would be a worn-out God?
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to the Fürstin Marie
von Thurn und Taxis, September 23, 1911.
Trans. Murray Stein
Acknowledgments
This book has been a long time in birthing, and divine reflexivity,
“the religion of the gods,” might have been better illumined by oth-
ers. Nevertheless it is my hope that this might be an dρχa. To my ad-
visors and colleagues in ancient Greek religion, Albert Henrichs, and
in classical archaeology, David Gordon Mitten, my heartfelt thanks
for your help and heroic patience over the years. I offer special thanks
to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, without whose
sponsorship for my work as an associate I could not have researched
this topic in 1991. A Charlotte Newcombe Fellowship and a Whiting
Fellowship allowed the initial dissertation to be written at Harvard
University. Thanks belong to Cynthia Read, executive editor in reli-
gion at Oxford University Press, who has waited far longer for this
work than any editor deserves. I want to express my great gratitude, as
well, to copyeditor Margaret Case and production editor Jessica Ryan.
Thank you, Michael Anthony Fowler, fearless research assistant.
For access to vases, I deeply appreciate the assistance and pa-
tience of the curators of classical collections in Europe and the United
States: Katerina Romiopoulou and Betty Stasinopoulou at the Athens
National Museum; Friedrich Hamdorf at the Antikensammlungen in
Munich; in Berlin, at the Staatliche Museen, Ursula Kästner at the
Pergamon Museum and Gertrude Platz at the Schloss Charlotten-
burg; Alain Pasquier and Martine DeNoyelle at the Louvre; Judith
Swaddling at the British Museum and Donna Kurtz at the Beazley
Archives at Oxford; and in this country, John Herrmann at the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Joan Mertens at the New York Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art.
Without the work of Prof. Erika Simon at the University of
Würzburg, whose brave and provocative Opfernde Götteropened up