Notes

Preface

1. See S. L. Jaki, Lord Gifford and His Lectures: A Centenary Ret­rospect (Edinburgh, 1986). The term theologia naturalis goes back to Augustine, Civ. D. 6,5-8, discussing Varro’s “tripartite theology”; it was used in a positive sense by Marsilio Ficino, who tried to harmonize Platonism and Christianity, see B.

2. For “deconstruction” of “ontotheology” see Ruf 1989.

3. Similar forms may still be studied in folk religions of India, In­donesia, China, or Japan. The author keeps to his field of expertise, though he takes the risk now and then to throw glances elsewhere.

4. For a discussion of these problems see Versnel 1990.

1. Culture in a Landscape

1. Rappaport 1971, 23.

2. Cic., Nat. Deor. 2,5; cf. A. S. Pease, Mar ci Tulli Ciceronis De Natura Deorum Libri Tres (Cambridge, Mass., 1955) ad loc. Artemi- dor, 1,8,17: “No tribe is without religion (atheon)”; Strabo 3,4,16 men­tions one tribe which “according to some” was atheon, but that judg­ment was wrong; see J. M. Blasquez, Imdgen y Mito (Madrid, 1977) 451E

3. Williams 1981, 207, cf. 13: “culture as the signifying system through which necessarily... a social order is communicated, repro­duced, experienced, and explored.”

4. This term is used by Reynolds 1981, 13—18. Note that it was Plato who first pointed out the two ways of human procreation through which mortal individuals have their chance to partake in immortality: biological begetting and conscious teaching, or, in other words, the con­tinuity of life and of the cultural tradition, Symp. 206c-209e. He was elaborating on the antithesis physis-nomos (nature—custom) as pro­claimed by the sophists.

5. Geertz 1973, 35 f; cf. D. Freeman in Montagu 1980, 211: cul­ture is an “accumulation of chosen alternatives.” Historical studies pur­sue cultural relativism through the concept of “mentalities.” See V. Sel­lin, “Mentalität und Mentalitätsgeschichte,” Historische Zeitschrift 241 (1985) 555-598; G. E. R. Lloyd, Demystifying Mentalities (Cam­bridge, 1990).

6. B. Malinowski, Argonauts in the Western Pacific (1922); E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Oxford, 1937); id., Nuer Religion (Oxford, 1956); A. R. Radcliffe- Brown, The Andaman Islanders (Glencoe, Ill., 3rd ed. 1948³).

7. Geertz 1973, 35 ff; cf. Boon 1982. For criticism see Fleming 1988, 37-43.

8. See Dürkheim 1912.

9. See van Baal 1971; Leach 1976.

10. See Vernant 1974; 1991; Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1972- 1986; cf. Versnel 1990.

11. Cf. Taub 1984; Hewlett 1992.

12. Psalm 52 (53) 2.

13. Ps.-Liban. Characteres, epist. 1, ed. V. Weickert (Leipzig, 1910), 15,11; cf. Eurip. Heracl. 904 f: “Close to madness steers he who denies that the city must honor the gods.”

14. Van Baal 1971, 3. The term “empirical” is problematic. The existence of antipodes, for instance, could not be verified empirically in antiquity, yet this was not a religious notion but a scientific hypothesis.

15. Geertz 1973, 90.

16. See L. Richter and C. H. Ratschow, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart V (3rd ed., Tübingen, 1961) 968-984; W. L. King ER XII (1986) 282-292; K.-H. Kohl HrwG I 217-262; Historisches Wor­terbuch der Philosophie VIII (Basel, 1992), 632-713.

17. Saler 1993 pleads for the concept of “family resemblances,” that is, “more or less” rather than “yes or no,” and refers to “a pool of

Nnfac tn TpAi»i — C

elements that more or less tend to occur together in the best exemplars of the category,” 225; cf. 213.

18. Diels-Kranz 80 B 6. Likewise Ptolemy, in the preface to his Syn- taxis (1,1), says theology is characterized by “the absolute invisibility and incomprehensibility of its object.”

19.

20.1 Epistle of John 4,1, cf. Paul I Cor. 12,10 on “distinguishing spirits” and “interpretation” of glossolaly. Spiritism became a fashion in the 1920s and produced a host of “mediums” through whom the dead spoke; they disappeared with the decline of interest. Cf. E. R. Dodds, Missing Persons (Oxford, 1977) 98-111.

21. “No sacrifice works without prayer,” Plin. Nat. Hist. 28,10. Yet the role of language must not be overestimated: It is forbidden to trans­late the Quran from Arabian, hence that sacred text is unintelligible to Persian, Turkish, Indian, or Indonesian Moslems, but this does not im­peach its sacredness; the pre-Reformation church hardly found it nec­essary to translate the Latin Gospel.

22. Buddhism is atheistic in theory but comparable to other relig­ions in ritual practice.

23. Spiro, quoted in C. Renfrew, The Archaeology of Cult (London, 1985) 12. This formula insists on culture; the basic mechanism is supra- cultural.

24. For the concept of “social tool” see Sommer 1992, 85-88; 111 f; see at n. 95.

25. H. Popp, Die Einwirkung von Vorzeichen, Opfern und Festen auf die Kriegführung der Griechen im 5. und 4. Jh. v. Chr. (Ph.D. diss., Erlangen, 1957). I Maccabees 2,29-41;the Maccabees, though, decided to fight for survival even on the Sabbath.

26. Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, CIL I² 581, line 4.

27. See Psalm 1,1 warning people not to sit “among the scornful” (the word was misunderstood in the Septuagint and hence in the Vul­gate). Likewise, Apollonius of Tyana or St. Peter subjects a laughing boy to exorcism; Philostr. Vit.Apoll. 4,20; Actus Petri cum Simone 11, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha ed. Lipsius I p. 58 f. This does not ex­clude laughter, ribaldry, and comedy from having a place within a re­ligious system.

28. The evidence for human sacrifice is viewed more and more crit­ically today; for Phoenicians, see Chapter 2 at n.

there are phenomena of black magic or “voodoo death” which use re­ligious symbolism and achieve the absolutely realistic effect of killing.

29. See Ehalt 1985.

30. Lorenz 1963; his model case was the aggressive display of a pair of greylag geese. See also Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1984.

31. Burkert 1972, 1983.

32. See, among others, F. Μ. A. Montagu, Man and Aggression (New York, 1968); J. Rattner, Aggression und menschliche Natur (Frankfurt, 1970); A. Plack, ed., Der Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb (Munich, 1973); Sevilla Statement on Violence (Middletown, 1986) (cf. de Waal 1989,9).

33. Wilson 1975; cf. Wilson 1978; Lumsden and Wilson 1981.

34. Cf. Sahlins 1976; Caplan 1978; Gregory, Silvers, and Sutch 1978; Montagu 1980; Baldwin and Baldwin 1981; see “The Sociobiol­ogy Controversy,” Lumsden and Wilson 1983, 23-50. See also Reyn­olds 1981; Fischer 1988; Fleming 1988; Slobodkin 1992, 36-39.

35. W. Irons in Chagnon 1979, 258; Fleming 1988, 110-113,112 with reference to E. O. Wilson: “culture is shaped by biology.” For the concept of “inclusive fitness” see Hamilton 1964.

36. Dawkins 1976. For the evolution of cooperation, see Chapter 6.

37. Cf. Eigen 1987, 59 f.

38. On “fulguration” as a breakthrough to new dimensions see Lor­enz 1973, 48-50.

39. Cf. Reynolds 1981, 71 f.

40. Chagnon 1988.

41. For centuries Europeans enforced the law that thieves must be hanged, but did not succeed in reducing the human tendency towards stealing. The more modern trend in cultural studies is to stress discon­tinuities even in primitive civilizations.

42. Wilson 1978,175, cf. 169-193; he did not, however, investigate religious phenomena in any detail.

43. Cf. Plato Prot. 322a: “man alone among animals has made the belief in gods mandatory.”

44. Cf. Burkett 1979, 33 f; 88-94.

45. Gruppe 1921, 243.

46. The exact text is: “We are made more numerous as often as we are cropped by you; the seed is the blood of the Christians,” plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum,

Tert. Apol. 50,13. lustinus Dial. 110,4 has the metaphor of the vine which, being pruned, thrives all the more.

47. John 12,24.

48. See Hamilton 1964.

49. Cf. Hamilton 1964, 1: “no possibility [exists] of the evolution of any characters which are on average to the disadvantage of the in­dividuals possessing them.”

50. K. Marx, “Einleitung zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilo­sophie,” Deutsch-franzosische Jahrbücher 1844, Marx-Engels- Werke I 378, cf. K. Marx and E Engels, On Religion (New York, 1964); see Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophie VIII 687.

51. A close and direct interrelation between religion and drug use has repeatedly been advocated. In the case of the Vedic soma cult, the texts leave no doubt that soma must have been a kind of drug. But ever since the move of Indoaryan tribes into India, more than 3000 years ago, the drug has been replaced by absolutely innocuous plants—and still the form of religion has been kept alive; a ceremony of the kind described was filmed in 1964, see F. Staal, Agni (Berkeley, 1983). The ritual secures a marked advantage for the practitioners, the Brahmans, who hand it on through their families. Within the institution, their “fit­ness” has replaced the “opium effect.”

52. Cf. Burkert 1983, 26 f.

53. A Christian sect that presents the best conditions for raising many children may double within 20 years and increase by the factor 40 within a century, cf. R. W. Brednich, Mennonite Folklife and Folk­lore (Ottawa, 1977), on the Hutterers in Canada.

54. Rappaport 1984, 233.

55. See C. Malone, A. Bonamo, and T. Gonder, “The Death Cults of Prehistoric Malta,” Scientific American 269,6 (December 1993) 76­83, esp.

56. Or rather, less, if we accept that the danger of certain diseases, for example trichinosis, is modified by dietary rules.

57. See Chapter 7 at n. 50.

58. See below at nn. 111-114.

59. The basic work was Μ. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite (Paris, 1976-1984); cf. D. Μ. Halperin, J. J. Winkler, and F. E. Zeitlin, Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton, 1989).

60. Ditfurth 1976, 45.

61. Lumsden and Wilson 1983, 20.

62. Lorenz 1963, 259-264.

63. See below at nn. 116-122.

64. There is not much prospect that mankind’s “original” language could be reconstructed; cf. P. E. Ross, Spektrum der Wissenschaft 6 (1991) 92-101. The most successful reconstruction of a lost language, Indoeuropean, reaches back to perhaps 2000 years before the first doc­uments, that is, 5000/4000 b.c.—but human language must go back more than 40,000 years.

65. For speculations about a spontaneous rise of language, mainly influenced by Herodotus 2,2, the “Psammetichus experiment,” see A. Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel (Stuttgart, 1957-1963), esp. I (1957) 99-101.

66. Chimpanzees can be taught some fairly advanced form of lan­guage, mostly in the form of sign language; see Fouts-Budd 1979. Whether this is to be regarded as real language or something else, one should admit that their performance is much more human than ex­pected. In contrast to their human partners, however, chimpanzees are not very interested in using and passing on their “language.” See also Chapter 3 at n. 32.

67. Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1993; R. White, “Bildhaftes Den­ken in der Eiszeit,” Spektrum der Wissenschaft 3 (1994), 62-69.

68. See Dissanayake 1988.

69. See P. Mellars, “Archaeology and Modern Human Origins,” Proc. Brit. Acad. 82 (1992) 1-35; Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1993.

70. Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1993, 64.

71. This was the thesis of P. Lieberman, “On the Evolution of Hu­man Language,” Proc, of the 7th Int. Cong, of Phonetic Sciences (Lei­den 1972), 258-272; cf. J. N. Spuhler, “Biology, Speed and Language,” Annual Review of Anthropology 6 (1977) 509-561; G. S. Kruntz, “Sapienization and Speech,” Current Anthropology 21 (1980) 772­792; further discussions in Nature 338 (1989) 758-760; Spektrum der Wissenschaft 7 (1989), 34; Bickerton 1990, 176 f; Spektrum der Wis­senschaft 6 (1991), 100. Most think Lieberman has been refuted, which means that speech may be older than contemporary homo sapiens.

72. For the concept and function of ritual see Burkert 1979 and 1983. For an epicritic study of the concept of ritual, see Bell 1992.

73. See Slobodkin 1992, 35.

74. See also n. 112.

75. Levi-Strauss, Les Structures elementaires de la parente (Paris, 1949), associated the incest taboo with the exchange of women, with exchange as such, and even with binary logic.

76. See Bischof 1985.

77. Ibid.

78. The landscape metaphor was used by Burkert 1979, 58, with reference to the myth-and-ritual tradition: “dug those deep vales of hu­man tradition in which even today the streams of our experience will tend to flow,“ and earlier by Friedman 1974, 34: “Evolution has dug the major channels through which the river of experience runs”; in a negative sense it has been anticipated by Frazer GB I xxvi, who claimed that traditional religion was built “on the sands of superstition rather than on the rock of nature.”

79. Ditfurth 1976, 165-167.

80. T. Struhsaker, “Auditory Communication among Vervet Mon­keys (Cercopithecus aethiops)” in S. A. Altmann, ed., Social Commu­nication among Primates (Chicago, 1967). On chimpanzees’ reaction to leopards and snakes see Wilson 1978, 83; Lumsden and Wilson 1983,96. For cross-cultural “knowledge” about life and body, see Atran 1987; Johnson 1987.

81. See Chapter 7 at n. 1.

82. Hence nothing is established or hypothesized in this study at the level of either genes or structure of the brain. A venture in this direction is V. Turner, “Body, Brain, and Culture,” in his On the Edge of the Bush (Tucson, 1988), 249-273. The attempt of J. Jaynes, The Origin of Con­sciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (Boston, 1976), has failed to convince scientists.

83. The Latin translation, animal rationale, catches only part of this concept.

84. For the evolutionary theory of knowledge see Lorenz 1973; Vollmer 1994.

85. See Sommer 1992.

86. Sommer 1992, 80; he adds that the intruder normally takes part in the alarm and gives up aggression.

87. This too has an antecedent in ritual, defined as “action pre-done or re-done” by J. Harrison, Epilegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Cambridge, 1921), xliii.

88. See Burkert, “Elysion,” Glotta 39 (1961) 208-213; a mythical personality, Linos, arose from the ritual cry ailinon; there is a fairy or witch Befana in Italy—comparable to Santa Claus—who takes her name from the festival Epiphanias; further examples in Burkert, Mu­seum Helveticum 38 (1981) 203f.

89. What has made rhe phoenix so permanent is the memorable paradox of annihilation reversed, the circle of death and rebirth, adop­ted and reinforced by Christianity.

90. Cf. Burkert 1983, 76.

91. See G. R. Levy, The Gate of Horn (London, 1948), 22 f; pl. Π

b.

92. See W. Helck, Betrachtungen zur Grossen Gottin (Munich, 1971).

93. Luhmann 1977.

94. Lord Gifford found “natural theology” (see Preface at n.l) equivalent to “the knowledge of God, the Infinite, the All, the First and Only Cause, the One and the Sole Substance, the Sole Being, the Sole Reality, and the Sole Existence.”

95. The expression “good to think” is from Levi-Strauss.

96. In consequence, “god is dead” has been proclaimed as the found­ing proposition of modern semiology: Μ. Casalis, Semiotica 17 (1976) 35 f.

97. To formalize: a:b is made an equation, x:a = a:b, see Chapter 4 at n. 107. Primates tend to react to threat from a dominant partner by bullying an inferior in turn, a:b = b:y, Sommer 1992, 85.

98. a > b is made into the equation a —x = b —y. See Chapter 5.

99. See Lorenz 1973; Vollmer 1994.

100. Richard Gordon, “Reality, Evocation and Boundary in the Mys­teries of Mithras,” Journal of Mithraic Studies 3 (1980) 19-99, p. 22, with regard to the Mithras mysteries.

101. Cf. Cic. Nat. Deor. 2,5.

102. For such an attempt see Gordon n. 100.

103. Within language, resonances within the signifiant, namely rhythm, assonance, and rhyme, account for stability. Dawkins 1976 suggested that there may be self-replicating “memes” corresponding to self-replicating genes, that is, sentences or commands that engender themselves in the mind. This is hardly more than a metaphor; another metaphor would be the analogy to computer viruses. Their existence and function remain to be demonstrated.

104. L. L. Cavalli-Sforza et al., “Theory and Obeservation in Cul­tural Transmission,” Science 218 (1982) 19-27.

105. See Lorenz 1963, 23; cf. Lorenz 1978, 95 ff.

106. Cf. J. Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis (Munich, 1992).

107. Cf. Dürkheim 1912.

108. For a discussion of myth and ritual, see Burkert 1979, 56-58.

109. A striking example is Hebr. 12,4-11 on violent education (pai­deia) conducted by a father and by god.

110. Plat. Leg. 887de.

111. See J. E. LeDoux, “Das Gedächtnis für Angst,” Spektrum der Wissenschaft 8 (1994) 76-83.

112. See Lorenz 1963, 65-67. The greylag goose, Martina, got fright ened in the unaccustomed situation and instinctively ran towards the window and only then back to the stairs which she was supposed to climb; henceforth she made it a habit for a whole year to make the detour to the window. Once, in a hurry, “she deviated from her habitual path and chose the shortest way.” Yet “arrived at the fifth step” she showed signs of horror, “hesitated a moment, turned around, ran hur­riedly down the five steps and set forth resolutely, like someone on a very important mission, on her original path to the window and back. This time she mounted the steps according to her former custom” and exhibited all the signs of relief. A disquieting experience gives rise to a fixed behavior pattern, a well-established sort of ritual. Accidentally forgetting it causes grievous anxiety, while going back and repeating the ritual from the start brings back relief. It seems that every Roman pontifex would agree with Lorenz’ goose.

113. On the circumcision ritual see Chapter 2 at nn. 50, 51; Chapter 7 at n. 50; Bloch 1986; cf. Bischof 1985, 133 f; see also Dowden 1989,

36. In antiquity the suspicion was often voiced that secret cults practiced human sacrifice or even cannibalism; see A. Henrichs, “Pagan Ritual and the Alleged Crimes of the Early Christians,” in Kyriakon. Festschrift Johannes Quasten (Münster, 1970), 18-35; Chapter 7 n. 87.

114. HDA III 1141; E. v. Künßberg, “Rechtsbrauch und Kinderspiel. Untersuchungen zur deutschen Rechtskunde und Volkskunde,” Sit­zungsher (Heidelberg, 1920), 7.

115. On initiation at Samothrace, see Burkert, in N. Marinates, R. Hägg, Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches (London, 1993), 184 f; cf. Chapter 7 n. 87.

116. Stat. Theb. 3,661.

117. R. Borger, Die Inschriften Assarhaddons Konigs von Assyrien (Osnabrück, 1967), 9 §7, cf. §2 I, §11 etc.; Sargon II in E. Ebeling, Die akkadische Gebetsserie “Handerhebung” (Berlin, 1952), 98f. (Rs.3): “servant, fearing your [god Adad’s] divinity.” Cf. Lambert 1960, 104: “He who fears the gods is not slighted by anyone.”

118. S. Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (Hel­sinki, 1993), 155 nr. 188 (672 b.c.), cf. Lambert 1960,104, line 143 f. Isocrates Bus. 25 concurs, even if alluding to the atheistic text of Kritias TrGF 43 F 19: “Those who, in the beginning, wrought this fear (of the divine) in us, have caused us not to behave totally in the way of beasts towards each other.”

119. Prov. 1,7; Eccles. 12,13.

120. C. Austin, Nova Fragmenta Euripidea (Berlin, 1968), nr. 81,48 = TrGF Adesp. 356; cf. Theognis 1179: “Respect the gods and fear them.” For hair-raising shivers see at n. 62.

121. R. R. Ma rett, The Threshold of Religion (London, 1909, 4th ed. 1929), 13: “Of all English words awe is, I think, the one that ex­presses the fundamental religious feeling most neatly.” Cf. HrwG 1455­471 s.v. Angst. On anxiety and ritual, see also the discussion in Homans 1941; H. v. Stietencron, ed., Angst und Gewalt. Ihre Präsenz und ihre Bewältigung in den Religionen (Düsseldorf, 1979).

122. R. Otto, Das Heilige (Munich, 1917), transl. The Idea of the Holy (2nd ed. Oxford, 1950), chap. IV.

123. Cf. Ditfurth 1976, 269: sexuality ceases in times of famine. In certain species the importance of procreation overrides self-preserva­tion: procreate and die.

124. Alexander Marshack has found the symbols of killing among the first notations of paleolithic man; he links “time-factored death” to the “cognitive beginnings” of mankind. See Marshack 1972, esp. 235 ff. In a Babylonian myth, Sea, the primeval mother, has to be killed to allow for the creation of a stable world out of her body, Enuma elish IV-VI, ANET 67-69.

125. Cf. Burkert, “Eracle e gli altri eroi cultural! del Vicino Oriente,” in C. Bonnet and C. Jourdain-Annequin, eds., Heracles d’une rive ä Vautre de la Mediterranee (Brussels, 1992), 111-127.

126. Aesch. Hik. 479. Cf. Matth. 10,28, Luke 12,4 f.

127. Hiernoymus Chron., praefatio: timor enim dei hominum timo­rem expellit.

128. Cf. Burkert 1983; Bloch 1992.

129. See also the more general finding of E. Becker, The Denial of Death (New York, 1973), 3: “society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning.”

130. H. Huber in H. J. Braun and K. Henking, eds., Homo religiosus (Zürich, 1990), 158.

131. St. Paul, Rom. 9,26; II Cor. 3,3; 6,16 etc.; Mt. 16,16; 26,63 etc.; see Bultmann and von Rad in ThWbNT II (1935) 833-877.

132. John 14,19.

133. It can be reformulated in philosophy to postulate timelessness, the ultimate freedom from change. This is the “werttheoretische Fun­damentalsatz” in O. Weininger, Geschlecht und Charakter (Vienna, 1903; repr. Munich, 1980) 168 f: “Der Wert ist also das Zeitlose.”

134. In Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Noah, Deukalion, Manu. Cf. J. Rudhardt, “Le Mythe grec relatif ä 1’instauration du sacrifice,” in his Du mythe de la religion grecque et de la comprehension d’autrui (Geneva, 1981), 209-226; G. Caduff, Antike Sintflutsagen (Gottingen, 1986).

2. Escape and Offerings

1. Report of R. Frangillon, Zaire 1962.

2. Sen. Nat. Qu. 4,6 f; blood of a “blind-rat,” or menstrual blood

is used against hail according to Pint. Quaest. Cow. 700e; cf. the sac- 197 rifice of a black lamb in expectation of a tempest in Aristophanes, Ran. 847 f; sacrifice of white lambs in a storm to summon the Dioscures, Hom. Hymn. 33,8—11. Agamemnon has to slaughter Iphigeneia to stop the winds. A priestess of the winds is attested as early as Mycenaean Knossos, cf. Burkert 1985, 175. See Chapter 5 at n. 20.

3. Cf. E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge, 1965), 39-45; on Aristeides’ chronology, see A. Humbel, Ailios Aristeides, Klage über Eleusis (Vienna, 1994), 45-52.

4. Aristid. Or. 48, 26-28; Burkert 1981,123 f; H. S. Versnel, “Po­lycrates and His Ring: Two Neglected Aspects,” Studi Storico-Religiosi 1 (1977) 17-46; “Self-Sacrifice, Compensation and the Anonymous Gods,” in Le Sacrifice dans I’antiquite. Entretiens sur I’antiquite clas­sique 27 (Geneva, 1981), 135-185, esp. 163 ff.

5. On votive religion see Burkert 1987b, 12-14.

6. Paus. 8,34,1-3. At Selinus there is sacrifice first to the dirty (mia- roi), then to the clean (katharoi) Tritopatreis, Jameson 1993, 29 f; 61- 64.—According to Ptolemaios Chennos, the Nemean Lion bit off one of Heracles’ fingers, “and there is a tomb of the chopped-off finger,” Phot. Bibl. 147a37-b2.

7. Ed. A. Hilka, Historia septem sapientium II (Heidelberg, 1913). Cf. J. G. Frazer, Apollodorus, The Library II, Loeb C. L. 1921, 409­422; D. Page, The Homeric Odyssey (Oxford, 1955), 8 f.

8. Frazer 1898, IV 355-357; cf. id., GB IV 219; III 161; see also Levy 1948, 49; E. Μ. Loeb, “The Blood Sacrifice Complex,” Memoirs of the Anthropological Association 30, 1923; KHM nr.25; EdM IV 1143 s.v. Finger.

9. Frazer 1898, IV 356.

10. Levy 1948, 93.

11. GB IV 219.

12. Pindar dissented: “If property is being robbed, it is better to be dead than to be a coward,” Fr. 169a 16 f.—heroic values versus rational choice.

13. Aesch. Ag. 1008-1016, a simile for prudent sacrifice to avert catastrophe.

14. Dedet tempestatebus aide mereto\d\, Sarcophagus of L. Cor­nelius Scipio, CIL I 9; R. Wachter, Altlateinische Inschriften (Bern, 1987), 301-342.

15. One is reminded of the phrase in Mark 14,51 f: “and he left his linen cloth and escaped naked.”

16. See Chapter 1 n. 61.

17. Cf. K. Lorenz, in H. v. Ditfurth, ed., Aspekte der Angst (Stutt­gart, 1965), 40; Baudy 1980,101-118; on animal and daitnon see also R. Padel, In and Out of the Mind (Princeton, 1992), 138-147; cf. Dit­furth 1976, 168 on ghost appearances.

18. See Chapter 1 nn. 79-80.

19. See, in general, F. T. Elworthy, The Evil Eye (London, 1895); S. Seligmann, Der bose Blick und Verwandtes (Berlin, 1910); O. Koenig, Kultur und Verhaltensforschung (Munich, 1970), 183-260, esp. 194­200: “Die Ritualisierung des Auges in der Ornamentik”; Burkert 1979, 73; Baudy 1980, 133 f; A. Dundes, “Wet and Dry, the Evil Eye,” in V. J. Newall, ed., Folklore Studies in the XXth Century (Woodbridge, Suf­folk, 1980), 37-63. For Mesopotamia, see E. Ebeling, “Beschworungen gegen den Feind und den bosen Blick aus dem Zweistromlande,” Archiv orientalni 17 (1949) 172-211; Μ. L. Thomsen, “The Evil Eye in Mes­opotamia,” JNES 51 (1992) 19-32; for Islam, see ER V 383 f; for antiquity, see O. Jahn, “Über den Aberglauben des bosen Blicks bei den Alten,” Berichte der Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Phil.- hist. CI. 7 (1855) 28-110, cf. R. Schlesier, Kulte, Mythen und Gelehrte (Frankfurt, 1994) 33-64; Plut. Q. Conv. 5,7, 680c-683 b; a Roman mosaic: CCCA III pl. CVII nr. 210 (cf. Harrison 1922, 196 f.), cf. pl. CVI nr.207; on phallus see Diod. 4,6,4; Herter RE XIX 1734 f., cf. phallic guardians, Fehling 1974, 7-14; Burkert 1979, 39-41; for as­sociations of “eye” and “female” see G. Devereux, “The Self-Blinding of Oidipous in Sophokles: Oidipous Tyrannos,” JHS 93 (1973) 36-49; on Attic eye-cups see N. Kunisch, “Die Augen der Augenschalen,” AK 33 (1990) 20-27; in general, Faraone 1992,45-48; 58 f. Hunters treat the eyes of their quarry in special ways, Meuli 1975, 970 f; we shut the eyes of the dead.

20. Aristoph. Pax 279.

21. Satapatha Brahmana, see W. Doniger O’Flaherty, Hindu Myths (Harmondsworth, 1975), 32 f.

22. Lambert 1960,104 line 144.

23. Harrison 1922, esp. 8-10; see R. Schlesier in HrwG II 41-45. Otto Jahn coined the term “apotropaic.”

24. This injunction is common in Akkadian, Hittite, Greek, and Ro­man rituals, e.g, Castellino 1977,625; 674; 679; ANET 348 iv 3; Aesch. Cho. 96-99; Soph. OC 490; Ov. Fast. 6,164 (infra n.72).

25. Liv. 8,6,11: placuit averruncandae deum irae victimas caedi.

2b. I’lut. Q. Rom. 284c; cf. Wissowa 1912, 60; 420 f; at Mycenaean Pvlos, apparently in a situation of crisis, individuals were sent to the sanctuary (hieto)—-was it a case of human sacrifice? PY Tn 316, see A. Heubeck, Ans der Welt der frühgriechischen Lineartafeln (Gottingen, |%6), 100-103; S. Hiller, O. Panagl, Die frühgriechischen Texte aus mykenischer Zeit (Darmstadt, 1976), 309; Hughes 1991, 199-202.

27. A. Aarne, Die magische Flucht (Helsinki, 1930); cf. Campbell 1949, 196-207; KHM 79. The oldest poem of pursuit seems to be the Sumerian “Inanna and Enki”; in it Inanna conveys the divine decrees from Eridu to Druk; the bearer is pursued by messengers of Enki and confronted at seven stops; see Bottero-Kramer 1989, 230-256; but there is no magical act of throwing away.

28. Meuli 1975, 847; 868; 873; 878. Cf. Chapter 3 at n. 41.

29. Pomponius Mela 3,43; RE VI A 951.

30. Cf. the story about robbing gold from gold-digging ants in India, Hdt. 3,102-105; Megasthenes FGrHist 715 F 23.

31. See Burkert 1979, 41-43; Chapter 7 at nn. 37-40.

32. Apollod. 1,133.

33. Aristoph. Ach. 350 f., Eq. 1057, Av. 66, Ran. 479-493; cf. Ju­venal 14,199.

34. Annals of Sennacherib, battle of Halule: enemies in flight “let their dung go into their chariots,” Luckenbill 1927 §254, II 128.

35. Used by his enemies to ridicule Aratus of Sicyon, Plut. Arat. 29,7 f.

36. Lumsden and Wilson 1983, 96; De Waal 1982, 57 f; Goodall 1990, 63 f.

37. HD A III 1178-1180 s.v. grumus merdae. An example appears also in A. Lorenz, Wenn der Vater mit dem Sohne (Munich, 1978), 150­153.

38. PGM IV 1402. Cf. Hippocr. Morb. Sacr. 1, VI 360 f. Littre: excrements indicate Hekate Enodia.

39. Ael. Nat. An. 6,34, from Sostratos, cf. Schol. Nik. Ther. 565; Aesopus 118 Perry.

40. The terminology is Dawkins’; see Dawkins 1976, 49 ff.

41. Cf. Burkert 1979, 104 f; see also Chapter 7 at n.51. There are various modern constructs to explain the ritual: Assimilation to the “Mother,” Farnell 1896/1909 III 300 f; asceticism, A.D. Nock, ARW 23 (1925) 25-33 Nock 1972, 7-15; fecundation of Mother Earth, Cook 1914-19401 394-396; R. Pettazzoni, I Misteri (Bologna, 1924), 105 ff; H. Herter, Gnomon 17 (1941) 322 f. It is a “disease sent by a god,” according to Arrian FGrHist 156 F 80, an act of irrational frenzy in Catullus 63.

42. Erra 4,56: Dailey 1989, 305.

43. Hellanikos FGrHist4 F 178 (Atossa); Amm. Marc. 14,6,17 (Se­miramis); Claudian. In Eutrop. 1,339-345.

44. Luc. Dea Syr. 19-26, cf. M. Horig, Dea Syria (Neukirchen­Vluyn, 1979);ead., “Dea Syria-Atargatis,” ANRWII 17,3 (1984) 1536­1581.

45. Cf. T. Mitamura, Chinese Eunuchs (Tokio, 1970); see also Ber­tolucci’s film, The Last Emperor.

46. The local name of the goddess at Bambyke was Atargatis. Ky- bebos occurs as a name for Kybebe’s priests, Semonides Fr. 36 West. The name Kombabos has also been associated with Humbaba, the de­mon of the cedar forest in Gilgamesh mythology (see Chapter 3 n. 22).

47. Species callithrix jacchus, Bischof 1985, 316-319.

48. Luc. Dea Syr. 51.

49. Ex. 4,24-26. The word translated as “private parts” literally means “feet,” but this is generally assumed to be a euphemism; see Kautzsch 1922-1923,1 104, HAL 1106.

50. Cf. Noth 1962,49 f; Childs 1974, 95-101; Bloch 1992, 93: “to submit to the conquest of God... to co-operate with His apparently murderous intentions.” The Septuagint translation makes the mother’s exclamation a charm for clotting blood: “The blood of the circumcision of my little boy has stopped running.”

51. A. M. Hocart, Kingship (London, 1927), 136 gives a compa­rable report of circumcision at Fiji: “The operation is said to be per­formed as a sacrifice to the recently dead”; the term applied is also “used of a human victim buried with a chief, of a little finger cut off at his death, of funeral gifts, and finally of the people who stay in the house for a time after death” (that is, left there as if belonging to death). For more modern observations on circumcision see Bloch 1986.

52. Ch. Belger, BphW 12 (1896) 640; Hitzig-Bliimner 1895-1910, III 236 on Paus. 8,34,1-3.

53. RML V 317 f; cf. 324; H. Herter, De Priapo, Giessen 1932,193, with doubts as to the identification of these statuettes.

54. Arnob. 5,14.

55. John 11,50, cf. Mark 10,45 “to give his life as ransom, instead of many”; J. N. Bremmer, “The Atonement in the Interaction of Greeks, Jews, and Christians,” in J. N. Bremmer F. Garcia Martinez, ed., Sacred History and Sacred Texts in Early Judaism (Kampen, 1992), 75-93.

56. In a ritual context the formula appears in Sophocles. To appease the Eumenides at Kolonos by libation sacrifice, “one soul atoning for all will be enough,” Oedipus at Colonus 498 f.

57. Enuma elish 6,14 (ANET 68; Dailey 1989, 261).

58. Above, n. 13.

59. Cf. L. Rohrich, “Die Volksballade von ‘Herrn Peters Seefahrt’ und die Menschenopfer-Sagen in Märchen, Mythos, Dichtung,” in Fest­schrift F. von der Leyen (Munich, 1963), 177-212.

60. Verg. Aen. 5,815; 835-871.

61. Procilius in Varro Ling. Lat. 5,148 HRR I 313 (dehisse terram); Liv. 7,6,1-6 (vorago; donaque ac fruges super eum a multitudine vi­rorum ac mulierum congestas); Hülsen RE IV 1892 f; stipes thrown into the lake by Roman equites on the birthday of Augustus: Suet. Aug. 57.

62. Above, n. 2.

63. LSS 115,5-7 (§1).

64. G. Graber, Sagen und Märchen aus Kärnten (Graz, 1944), 85; W. Kohlhaas, Das war Württemberg (Stuttgart, 1978), 21; D. Sabean, “Das Bullenopfer,” Journal für Geschichte 1 (1985), 20-25.

65. HDAI 963.

66. See Burkert 1979, 59-77; J. Bremmer, “Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece,” HSCP 87 (1983) 299-320.

67. The basic text is OT Isaiah 53, applied to the passion of Jesus.

68. It has been dealt with in an original way in several books by Rene Girard (see Girard 1977 and 1982; Burkert 1987a), who makes it the basis of sacrifice, of the organization of a “unanimous” society and of human civilization as such. Instead of competition and “mimetic desire” as construed by Girard, I prefer to emphasize the situation of anxiety and the characteristic reaction to it of “abandoning.”

69. Lev. 16; Burkert 1979, 64; see Janowski and Wilhelm 1993.

70. O. Eissfeldt, Kleine Schriften III (Tübingen, 1966), 85-93; Jan­owski and Wilhelm 1993, 119 f.

71. Meissner 1920, 222; Furlani 1941, 285-305. For the concept of substitute (puhu) in Mesopotamian magic see AHw 877 f.

72. Ov. Fast. 6,131-168, esp. 158-167,cf. Burkert 1992a, 58 f; for a Hittite parallel see H. Kronasser, Die Sprache 7 (1961) 140-167; V. Haas, Orientalia 40 (1971) 410-430; H.S. Versnel, ZPE 58 (1985) 266-268.

73. Cf. also Verg. Aen. 5,483 f., sacrifice of a bull after killing an adversary in boxing, hanc tibi, Eryx, meliorem animam pro morte Dar­etis persolvo. Jahweh accepted a ram instead of Isaac, Gen. 22.

74. Μ. Leglay, Saturne africain, Paris 1966.

75. Lev. 18,21; II Reg. 23,10; cf. HAL 560.

76. Diod. 20,14,4-7. Cf. Plat. Minos 315bc; Demon FGrHist 327 F 18 (Sardinien); Theophrastus in Porph. abst. 2,27,2; Diod. 13,86 cf. 5,66,5; Dion. Hal. ant.1,38,2-3; Porph. abst. 2,56; Philon Bybl.

FGrHist 790 F 3b = Euscb. P.E. 4,16,11; there were legal counterac­tions by Dareios (lustin 19,1,10), Gelon (Theophrastus Fr. 586 Forten- baugh = Schol. Find. Pyth. 2,2; Pint. Reg. et imp. apophth. 175a, De Sera 552 a), finally Tiberius ( Icrt. Apol. 9,2). Cf. Hughes 1991, 115­130. “Tophets” in Carthage, Motye-Mozia, Sardinia, see L. E. Stager, Oriental Institute, Annual Report (1978-79) 56-59; A. Ciasca, “Sul ‘tofef di Mozia,” Sicilia Archeologica 14 (1971), 11-16; R. Pauli, 54r dinien (Cologne, 1978), 134-139. All of the evidence has been called into question by Sabbatino Moscati, who claims the children had died a natural death: S. Moscati, “Il sacrifico punico dei fanciulli: Realtà o invenzione?,” Quaderni dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 261 (Rome, 1987); S. Moscati and S. Ribichini, “Il sacrificio dei bambini: Un aggiornamento,” Quaderni dell’ Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 388 (Rome, 1991).

77. FGrHist 790 F 3b. Cf. Plutarch on human sacrifice in Rome, above, n. 26.

78. Above, n. 21.

79. Or. 48,44; 51,19-25; Burkert 1981, 122 f.

80. Hdt. 7,114; J. de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (2nd ed. Berlin, 1957), 421; Elisabeth Bathory, brought to court in 1611, Burkert 1981, 122.

81. Caesar, Gallic War 6,16.

82. Descent of Inanna 277; 284-288 (Bottero-Kramer 1989, 286 f).

83. Cass. Dio 59,8,3; Suet. Calig. 14,2; 27,2.

84. Aur. Victor Caes. 14,8; cf. Cass. Dio 69,11,3.

85. Cf. Bloch 1992. See also Faraone 1992, 47 on animal trophies as amulets, with the threatening message: “Look what we have done to these powerful animals and monsters.”

3. The Core of a Tale

1. Schapp (1884-1965) 1953; two other volumes have followed, Philosophie der Geschichten (Leer, 1959; 2nd ed. Frankfurt, 1981), and Wissen in Geschichten (2nd ed. Wiesbaden, 1976).

2. Tractatus logico-philosophicus 1.1: “Die Welt ist, was der Fall ist.”

3. Mainly due to F. G. Heyne; cf. Burkert 1980 and 1993; F. Graf, Greek Mythology. An Introduction (Baltimore, 1993), 9-34.

4. J. and W. Grimm, KHM 1812-1815; Deutsche Sagen (Berlin, 1816-1818); J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie I-III (4th ed. Berlin, 1876).

5. J. A. MacCullock and I. H. Gray, Mythology of All Races, 13 vol. (New York, 1922).

6. Suffice it to refer to Kirk 1970.

7. For myth as “tale applied” in its social function see Burkert 1979, cf. Burkert 1993.

8. Aarne-Thompson 1964; the first edition was A. Aarne, Ver­zeichnis der Märchentypen (Helsinki, 1911).

9. Cf. Burkert 1979, esp. 10-14 for a discussion of the structuralist approach.

10. V. Propp, Morfologija skaski [Morphology of the Tale} (Lenin­grad, 1928); translated as Morphology of the Folktale (Bloomington, 1958); see Propp 1968; see also the interesting elaborations of Dundes 1964; Jason 1984; Milne 1988.

11. A. J. Greimas, “Elements d’une grammaire narrative,” in Du sens (Paris, 1970), 157-183, takes Propp’s pattern as model of le recit, the tale tout court.

12. Dundes 1964; for Greimas cf. n. 11.

13. Isidor Levin EdM I 135: “So hat sich das Stilempfinden A[fanas’iev’]s bzw. des Bauern Zyrjanov ein Jahrhundert später in den USA, Frankreich und Deutschland bei Erzählforschern als ‘Tiefenstruk­tur’ jeder Erzählung, ja des ‘homo narrans’ überhaupt, geltend ge­macht.” A. N. Afanas’ev (1826-1871), Narodnye russkie skaski (Mos­cow, 1855-1863,2nd ed. 1873).

14. Propp’s functions 23-28 (the hero unrecognized in his own house, the test, recognition and punishment) suspiciously reproduce the Odyssey. Parallels to the Odyssey had been collected ever since W. Grimm, “Die Sage von Polyphem,” Abh. (Berlin, 1857), cf. Burkert 1979, 33; see Chapter 2 at n. 7.

15. E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus. A Study in the Tradition in Story, Custom, and Belief I-III (London, 1894-1896). See also at n. 85.

16. Cf. Burkert 1991.

17. Burkert 1979, 83-85; a newly discovered 7th century represen­tation: Ph. Brize, MDAl(Athen) 100 (1985) 53-90; Schefold 1993, 107-109; see also C. Jourdain-Annequin, Heracles aux portes du soir, Besangon 1989.

18. Od. 12,70.

19. Meuli 1975, 594-610 (originally Odyssee und Argonautika, (Ph.D. diss. Basel 1921), 2-24); the type is called Helfermärchen, Aarne-Thompson 1964, 180-182 nr. 513.

20. Cf. Chapter 2 at n. 27.

21. Cf. G. Crane, Calpyso: Backgrounds and Conventions of the Odyssey (Frankfurt, 1988).

22. D. O. Edzard, “Gilgames und Hiiwawa,” Zeitschrift für Assy- riologie 80 (1990) 165-203;81 (1991) 165-233;this text is more com­plete now than its reelaboration in the Gilgamesh epic, Tablet V.

23. Traditionally called Lugal-e: J. van Dijk, LUGAL UD ME- LAM-hi N1R-GAL, I (Leiden, 1983); Bottero-Kramer 1989, 339-377. The text still presents many difficult problems of interpretation.

24. Cf. W. Burkert, “Eracle e gli altri eroi cultural] del Vicino Or­iente,” in C. Bonnet and C. Jourdain-Annequin, eds., Heracles d’une rive ä l’autre de la Mediterranee (Brussels, 1992), 111-127.

25. Bottero-Kramer 1989, 276-300 (Sumerian versions). The Ak­kadian version (ANET 106-109; Dailey 1989, 154-162; Bottero-Kra­mer 1989, 318-330) is much abridged in comparison to the Sumerian version. Cf. W. Burkert, “Literarische Texte und funktionaler Mythos. Istar und Atrahasis,” in J. Assmann, W. Burkert, and E Stolz, Funkti­onen und Leistungen des Mythos (Freiburg, 1982), 63-82.

26. The Akkadian version has asinnu, a certain kind of priest.

27. Cf. Chapter 2 at n. 82.

28. Gilgamesh IX-XI; ANET 88-97; Dailey 1989, 95-120. The quest that fails in the end is a favorite pattern of movies. An original inversion of the quest tale has also been invented by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (London, 1954-55). The quest is not to get but to get rid of a powerful object.

29. Arist. Poet. 1450a38.

30. Burkert 1979, 15.

31. Burkert 1979, 16. Cf. Gans 1981, 98-107; 99: “the imperative is not a ‘defective’ form of the declarative but its ancestor.”

32. Sullivan et al. 1982, 410. I am grateful to Professor Fouts for having made this publication available to me. On the language of apes see also Bickerton 1990, 106-110; Chapter 1 at n. 66.

33. See Bickerton 1990, 122-126; here 116, about a genie who never learned to speak.

34. Critics might point out that this language of chimpanzees is not their own invention; they have been taught it by a superior species. We are not dealing with the invention of language, however, but with the use made of it once it is acquired.

35. “Functions” 12-14. Cf. Μ. Lüthi, Die Gabe im Märchen und in der Sage, (Ph.D. diss., Bern, 1943).

36. Hom. Od. 10, 277-307, a model case for Propp’s pattern: the loss (8) of comrades, the hero decides to go (9-10); leaving his home

base (11) he meets Hermes (12), who provides the pharmakon (14); he cts to the place required (15), and the loss is made up (19).

37. Hom. OJ. 13,221; 352.

38. Morris 1967, 202-206, has coined the term “grooming talk” for noninformative conversation as a form of social activity.

39. Vor the impact of hunting on human body building, behavior, family structure, use of weapons, and religious sacrifice, see Morris 1967; Lee and DeVore 1968; cf. Burkert 1983; 1987a.

40. K. Hoffmann, Der Injunktiv im Veda (Heidelberg, 1967). Its functions are to mention, to describe by evoking memory (“erwäh­nend,” “memorativ,” “erwähnende Beschreibung”). See also Μ. L. West. “Injunctive Usage in Greek,” Glotta 67 (1989) 135-138.

41. H. Μ. Chadwick and N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Litera­ture III (Cambridge, 1940), 192-226. Cf. K. Meuli, “Scythika,” in Meuli 1975, 817-879 (originally 1935). See also Burkert 1979, 88-94.

42. Phrixos: Pind. Pyth. 4,159; lason acts as a healer in the Phineus story, see the vase picture in Schefold 1993, 267 fig. 287.

43. Cf. n. 25.

44. On myth and ritual see Burkert 1983, 29-34; Burkert 1993. Myth and ritual continue to have different rules. The sense of the tale is dependent on the unity of structure, from beginning to end; you can­not leave a tale “without its head,” the ancients said (Plato Leg. 752a). In ritual action details can be isolated and repeated over and over again.

45. Tales of deceit-deception are put in a special category of tales by Dundes 1964. Stories about deception appeal to and presuppose intelligence. But even deception is not a prerogative of humans, cf. Som­mer 1992.

46. Aarne and Thompson 1964 nr. 425; Apul. Met. 4,28-6,24; J. Oe. Swahn, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche (Lund, 1955) (documen­tation of variants); the thesis of a purely literary filiation is presented by D. Fehling, “Amor und Psyche,” Abh. (Mainz, 1977) 9; see also R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium (Munich, 1962), 1-53; G. Binder and R. Merkelbach, eds., Amor und Psyche (Darmstadt, 1968) (Wege der Forschung); D. Fehling, “Die alten Literaturen als Quelle der neuz­eitlichen Märchen,” in Siegmund 1984, 79-92; J. Oe. Swahn, “Psy­chemythos und Psychemärchen,” ibid. 92-102.

47. See, as to KHM, H. Rolleke, Die älteste Märchensammlung der Brüder Grimm (Geneva, 1975), and in Siegmund 1984, 125-137.

48. R. Forster, Der Raub und die Rückkehr der Persephone in ihrer Bedeutung für die Mythologie, Litteratur- und Kunstgeschichte (Stutt­gart, 1874); Richardson 1974, 74-86; Burkert 1979, 138-140 (not

treated in Dowden 1989). The initiation context of the Kore myth has been stressed by Lincoln 1981, 71—90.

49. Burkert 1979, 6 f; Dowden 1989.

50. Dan 1977.

51. O. Rank, Der Mythos von der Geburt des Helden (Vienna,

1909). ’

52. Hes. Fr. 135; LIMC s.v.; cf. n. 15.

53. LIMC s.v. Auge.

54. Burkert 1983, 161-168; Dowden 1989, 117-146.

55. Dowden 1989, 182-191.

56. Burkert 1979, 6.

57. Popol Vuh. The Maya Book of the Daum of Life, trans. D. Tedlock (New York, 1985), 114-120; cf. Burkert 1979, 147 n. 19.

58. ANET 119: I try to give a more literal rendering. For entu = High Priestess (“changeling” ANET) see AHtu 220 s.v. entu. For the celibacy of entu, see Atrahasis III vii 6 f., p. 102 f. Lambert-Millard; Dailey 1989, 35. Note that the preserved forms of the text are hundreds of years later than the dates of the historical King Sargon.

59. See Binder 1964.

60. Moses in Ex. 2; Rhea Silvia: Liv. 1,4 cf. Ennius, Ann. 35-51 Vahlen = Fr. I xxix Skutsch.

61. KHM 12; for the French original “Persinette,” by Mlle, de la Force, 1698, see Μ. Lüthi, Volksmärchen und Volkssage (Bern, 1961, 3rd ed. 1975), 62-96,187-190.

62. KHM 53.

63. S. Hirsch, “Das Lied ‘Een ridder ende een meysken ionck,’” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 79 (1960) 155 ff.

64. Cf. L. Koenen, “Eine Hypothesis zur Auge des Euripides,” ZPE 4 (1969) 7-18,esp. 14-18 on the festival Plynteria. Cf. Nausikaa wash­ing clothes in anticipation of her marriage.

65. See Bischof 1985 pass.

66. A convenient collection of material is in GB X 22-100.

67. J. Harrison, Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens (London, 1890), xxvi-xxxvi, on arrhephoroi, cf. below n. 72. See A. Brelich, Paides e Parthenoi (Rome, 1969); Dowden 1989.

68. See H. Jeanmaire in Binder-Merkelbach 1968, 313-333; O. J. Brendel, “Der grosse Fries in der Villa dei Misteri,” J DAI 81 (1966) 206-260; Merkelbach (see n. 46) made Amor and Psyche the key text for mysteries as reflected in Greek romances, especially the Isis myster­ies; cf. Burkert 1987, 95 f.

69. A. van Gennep, Les Rites de passage (Paris, 1909).

70. S. L. La Fontaine, “Ritualization of Women’s Life Crises in Bug­isi),” in J. S. La Fontaine, ed., The Interpretation of Ritual (London, 1972), 159-186;see also the short report on Yaos (Africa) in Anthropos 30 (1935) 875; cf. Burkert 1979,16.

71. Today the operations of female circumcision are the most con­troversial.

72. On Arrhephoria W. Burkert, “Kekropidensage und Arrhe­phoria,” Hermes 94 (1966) 1-25; K. Jeppesen, AJA 83 (1979) 381­394; L. van Sichelen, “Nouvelles Orientations dans l’etude de l’arre- phorie antique,” ACl 56 (1987) 88-102 (no collective initiation); Brule 1987, 11-175 (initiation); divergent interpretation in N. Robertson, “The Riddle of the Arrhephoria at Athens,” HSCP 87 (1983) 241-288.

73. L. Kahil, “L’Artemis de Brauron: Rites et mystère,” AK 20 (1977) 86-98 cf. L. Kahil in W. G. Moon, ed., Ancient Greek Art and Iconography (Madison, 1983), 231-244; Brule 1987, 177-283; R. Hamilton, “Alkman and the Athenian Arkteia,” Hesperia 58 (1989) 449-472; Chr. Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls’ Transitions, Athens 1988; Dowden 1989, 25-33.

74. It is possible to place the Arcadian myth of Kallisto, which con­forms to the pattern, at Brauron, but this is not usually done. There is another myth of girls carried off at Brauron by Pelasgian pirates and rescued by Hymenaios, “marriage” personified, Schol.A II. 18,493; Eus- tath. 1157,20; Proklos, Chrestom. in Phot. bibl. 321 a 22. The normal cult myth of Brauron is about a bear killed by Athenian youths and expiation of this crime by offering the girls to Artemis. W. Sale, “The Temple Legends of the Arkteia,” RhM 118 (1975) 265-284. Offerings of garments of women who died at childbirth are in Eur. Iph.Taur. 1464-1467.

75. Eur. l.c.; cf. C. Wolff, “Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians: Aetiology, Ritual, and Myth,” Classical Antiquity 11 (1992) 307-334.

76. The Locrian maiden tribute was interpreted as a kind of vicar­ious sacrifice in antiquity, whereas moderns find the initiatory motifs in it; see Hughes 1991, 166-184.

77. Judges 11, 30-40.

78. Eur. Hippol. 1425-1430; U. v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Grie­chische Tragodien I¹⁰, (Berlin, 1926), 100-104 made this the origin of the Hippolytos myth.

79. See C. Koch RE VIIIA 1732-1753; cf. Chapter 2 at n. 26.

80. Myths tell that a virgin was impregnated right at the hearth: it was Ocresia, the mother of King Servius Tullius. Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, was a Vestal virgin, above n. 60. Certain Meso­potamian priestesses were forbidden to bear children, above n. 58.

81. For Greek “phallocracy,” see E. Kenis, The Reign of the Phallus (Berkeley, 1985).

82. See R. 1). Griffith,.//IS 189 (1989) 171-173; Krummen 1990, 168-204.

83. Ephoros EGrHist 70 I 149; see K. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (New York, 1978), 189 f; II. Patzer, Die griechische Knabenliehe (Wies­baden, 1982).

84. Akusilaos EGrHist 2 I 22; bronze relief from Olympia, 7th cent., Schefold 1993, 122; E. Läufer, Kaineus, Rom 1985, and LI MC V 884-891.

85. Μ. II. Jameson, “Perseus, the Hero of Mykenai,” in R. Hägg and G. C. Nordquist, eds., Celebrations of Death and Divinity in the Bronze Age Argolid (Stockholm, 1990), 213-222.

86. V. Propp, Istoriceskije korni volsehnoj skaski (Leningrad, 1946); Die historischen Wurzeln des Zauhermärchens (Munich, 1987).

87. Plato Gorg. 574b; Resp. 350e; Tht. 176b.

4. Hierarchy

1. E Schleiermacher, Der christliche Glaube nach den Grundsätzen der evangelischen Kirche (Berlin, 1821-22; new ed. Berlin 1984) §3/4.

2. His earlier, influential publication was entitled Über die Reli­gion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern (Berlin, 1799); English transl., On Religion. Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (New York, 1958).

3. H. Steible, Rimsin, mein Konig. Drei kultische Texte aus Ur mit der Schlußdoxologie ^dri-im-^dsin lugal-mu (Wiesbaden, 1975); M.-J. Seux, Epithetes royales akkadiennes et sumeriennes (Paris, 1967); id., “Le Roi et les dieux,” RIAss VI 166-172; cf. J. G. Griffiths, Atlantis and Egypt (Cardiff, 1991), 252-265.

4. Psalm 95,3.

5. John 20,28.

6. The second part of the name remains elusive; see E Gschnitzer, Serta philol. Aenipontana (1962), 13-18; Burkert 1985, 136.

7. Burkert 1985, 44.

8. On anax see B. Hemberg, “Anax, anassa und anakes als Got­ternamen,” Acta Univ. Uppsal. (1955), 10; J. T. Hooker, “The wanax in Linear B Tablets,” Kadmos 18 (1979) 100-111. For Paphos see 0. Masson, Inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques (Paris, 1961, rev. ed. 1983), nr.4; 6; 7; 10; 16; 17; 90; 91; Elements (1960) 135; for Perge, SEG 30, 1517; Head 1911,702.

9. Persephone and Cybele are often called despoina, cf. A. Hen­richs, HSCP 80 (1976) 253-286; sanctuary of Despoina at Lykosura, Paus. 8,37; despotes for Zeus and Poseidon: Pindar, Nem. 1,13, 01. 6,103 etc.; see also L. Robert, CRAI (1968) 583,5; RPh 33 (1959) 222. Eur. Hippol. 88 seems to presuppose a distinction between divine anax and human despotes. Zeus basileus Hom. by. Dem.35%, Theogn. 285, Solon 31 etc., cf. Schol. Aristoph. Nub. 2. Zeus the King can be under­stood mythologically as the king of the gods, Hes. Theog. 886, Erga 668, Kypria F 7,3 Davies. The Moon-God Men in Asia Minor is rou­tinely called Menotyrannos, see E. Lane, Corpus Monumentorum Re­ligionis Dei Menis, Leiden 1971-1978; Men basileus SEG 29,1288. See, in general, Pleket 1981.

10. Zeus “whose kratos is greatest” is the formula in Iliad and Od­yssey.

11. Aesch. Sept. 255, Hik. 815, Eum. 918; cf. W. Kiefner, Der re­ligiose Allbegriff des Aischylos (Hildesheim, 1965).

12. Eur. Hippol. 8.

13. But rex Gradive was used for Mars, Verg. Aen. 10,542.

14. Cic. Verr. II 4,128; Liv. 6,29,8; CIL VI 30935.

15. CIMRM 1017; rex luppiter 1419.

16. The Iranian provenience and etymology of the god Shadrapa/ Satrapes has finally been proved by the trilingual inscription of Xan­thos, which equates Aramaean hstrpty with Greek Apollo; see Fouilles de Xanthos VI: La stele trilingue du Letoon (Paris, 1979); Semitic ety­mologies had long been favored. See also KAI 77; ANRW II 17, 698. A God Satrapes at Elis is mentioned by Paus. 6,25,5 f.

17. By etymology, “lord” is the “warden of bread.”

18. This is central in the New Testament, ThWbNT V 981-1016; but Dy aus pitar (father of heaven) is Indoeuropean; El (god) is ab adam (father of men) in Ugaritic. In the royal ideology of Egypt and Meso­potamia, the ruling god is designated the father of the king.

19. See ER VII 303. The word root means “wholeness,” or “inte­gration”; Salman Rushdie, in his Satanic Verses, tendentiously translates it as “submission.”

20. For Akkadian (re’urn, AHW 977 f.) see RlAss VI162 f; prologue to the Laws of Hammurapi, ANET 164 f; Old Testament: Psalm 23; New Testament: John 10,2; 10,11. King Agamemnon is “shepherd of men” in Homer; gods are shepherds in Plato, Polit. 271de, 274e.

21. G. Simmel, Die Religion (2nd ed., Frankfurt, 1918) 57 f: “das Ausbleiben der Konkurrenz in der religiosen Erfahrung.”

22. See Frankfort 1948; cf. Gladigow 1981,13 f.

23. Freud 1912 found the origin of religion in posthumous worship of a father murdered by the hominid horde; on the relation of these ideas to Robertson Smith see Burkert 1983, 73 f.

24. For a general survey see Dunbar 1988; cf. Freedman 1979,27­43; Popp and DcVore 1979.

25. Freedman 1979, 36-39: 36, referring to M. R. A. Chance, C. Jolly, Social Groups of Monkeys, Apes, and Men (New York, 1970).

26. De Waal 1982; see also de Waal 1989.

27. Bandy 1980, 78 and in HrwG II (1990) 109-116.

28. The Sumerian Gudea has a “tree of life” in his temple “which touches heaven,” RIAss I 435; the Akkadian epic of Erra (1,150; Dailey 1989, 291) has a mesu tree, the roots of which reach down to the neth­erworld, the top of which rests in heaven. Nordic mythology has the ash tree Yggdrasil, O. Huth, “Weltberg und Weltbaum,” Germanien 12 (1940) 441-446; for Greek see Pherecydes A 11 DK, cf. West 1971, 55-60; H. S. Schibli, Pherekydes ofSyros (Oxford, 1990), 69-76.

29. Cult at high places and mountains is widespread; see W. E Al­bright, “The High Place in Ancient Palestine,” Vetus Testamentum Suppl. 4 (1957) 242-258; for Minoan Crete, Marinatos 1993, 115­122; for Hittites, V. Haas, Hethitische Berggotter und hurritische Stein- damonen (Mainz, 1982); Aphrodite, merging with the Phrygian god­dess, gets her sanctuary “at a lookout-place, visible all around,” Hom. hym. Aphr. 100.; see also Fehling 1974, 39-58. On the “world moun­tain,” see R. J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and in the Old Testament (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).

30. Greek Olympos is originally the mountain’s name, but assumes the meaning of heaven, see E. Oberhummer, J. Schmidt RE XVIII258­310.

31. Zeus adressed as highest in Hom. II. 8,31; Od. 1,45 etc.; for Akkadian elu and saqu, “high” with reference to gods, see AHw 205 f; 1179 f; Hebrew 0/ and esp. 0//n, HAL 780; 787 f; cf. ib. for equivalent expressions in Ugaritic and Aramaean; summe Juppiter Plaut. Amph. 780; summe deum... Apollo Verg. Aen. 11,785. A special cult of Zeus Hypsistos existed in Hellenistic times, often merging with Jewish wor­ship, see Cook 1913-1940, II 876-890; A. D. Nock, C. Roberts, and T. C. Skeat, “The Gild of Zeus Hypsistos,” HThR 29 (1936) 39-88 (partially reprinted in Nock 1972,414-443); A. T. Kraebel, “Hypsistos and the Synagogue at Sardis,” GRBS 10 (1969) 81-93. The concept of “highest” is taken up in philosophical religion, {Arist.J De mtmdo 397b24-28;400a5-21*. “This is attested by the whole of common life, which assigns to god the place above; and we all stretch our hands up to heaven when praying.” (15-18); cf. n. 61; 87.

Menander Fr.223,3 Kock; Menander is protesting against this principle.

33. On this concept. Freedman 1979, 36-39 (above at n. 25).

34. In a lighthearted way Morris 1967, 178-182, suggests that re­ligion rose from the apes’ hierarchic society; 180: a “fundamental bio­logical tendency... to submit ourselves to an all-powerful, dominant member of the group.”

35. See Chapter 1 at n. 93.

36. Ceremonial vase from Uruk, end of 4th millennium, Strommen- ger 1962, fig. 19-22; cf. F. Lammli, Vow Chaos zum Kosmos (Basel, 1962), 142-144.

3". David Prol. 38,14 Busse. See also P. Leveque, Dieux, homines, betes (Paris, 1985).

38. Col. 1,16 thronoi, kyriotetes, archai, exousiai, cf. 1. Petr. 3,22 angeloi, exousiai, dynameis.

39. Cf. P. Leveque, Aurea catena Homeri (Paris, 1959).

40. Seneca Quaest. Nat. 7,30,1: in omne argumentum modestiae fingimur.

41. Morris 1967, 179 takes this to be the essence of religion, “to perform repeated and prolonged submissive displays”; see 156-158 on “characteristic submissive displays.”

42. Above, Chapter 1 at n. 62.

43. Cf. Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1970, 199 f.

44. See Chapter 2 at n. 19.

45. On hiketeia see J. Gould, “Hiketeia,” JHS 93 (1973) 74-103; Burkert 1979, 43-47; G. Freyburger, “Supplication grecque et suppli­cation romaine,” Latomus 47 (1988) 501-525.1 am indebted to an unpublished study by Thomas Kappeler, “Hiketeumata.”

46. See the black obelisk, Strommenger 1962 fig. 208; J. Reade, Assyrian Sculpture (London, 1983), fig. 94 (from Assurbanipal’s pal­ace). For labanu appa see AHw 522.

47. The Greek word proskynesis is ambivalent, it can also mean “throwing kisses”; see J. Horst, Proskynein, Gutersloh 1932; A. Delatte, “Le Baiser, 1’agenouillement et le prosternement de 1’adoration (pros­kynesis) chez les Grecs,” Acad. roy. de Belgique, Bull, de la Classe des Lettres 5,37 (1951) 423-450; ThWbNT VI 759-761; E. Bickerman, “A propos d’un passage de Chares de Mytilene,” Parola del Passato 18 (1963) 241-255.

48. Caes. b.g. 1,27,2 (Helvetii: se ad pedes proicere, suppliciter, flentes); Liv.7,31,5 (Campanians: manus ad consules tendentes, pleni lacrimarum procubuerunt)·, 44,31.13 (Illyrians: lacrimae, genibus... accidens).

49. Streck 1916, II 74 f; 1 lorn. ()d. 14,273-279; in both cases it is a god who inspires the decision. Assnrbanipal put his prisoners in fet­ters, however, whereas Odysseus started a successful career in Egypt.

50. Cf. n. 43.

51. Two forms of behavior seem to mingle here, which is perplexing to interpreters; see W. Potsch er, “Die 1 likesie des letzten Ilias-Gesanges (Hom., /7. 24,477 ff.),” Würzburger Jahrbücher 1 8 (1992) 5-16.

52. Burkert 1979, 46 f; the same gesture appears in Egyptian rep­resentations: E. Swan Hall, The Pharaoh Smites His Enemies, Berlin 1986, fig. 9, cf. fig. 8 (the “Narmer Palette”); I owe these references to Thomas Kappeler.

53. ThWhNT VI 759-767 s.v. proskyneo, cf. n. 47; Hebrew hista- hawa, HAL 284, a term for prayer, but also describing behavior before a powerful person; Akkadian sukenu before king and god, AHw 1263; lahan appi see n. 46; cf. Schrank 1908, 58 f.

54. Gen. 17,2; 17.

55. F. T. van Strafen, “Did the Greeks Kneel before Their Gods?” BABesch 49 (1974) 159-189; Μ. I. Davies, “Ajax at the Bourne of Life,” in Eidolopoiia. Actes du Colloque sur les problemes de 1’image dans le monde mediterraneen classique (Rome, 1985), 83-117, esp. 90-96.

56. See Aesch. Sept. 95; Soph. Trach. 904; OC 1157.

57. For Assnrbanipal, see Streck 1916, 346 f; cf. AHw 431 s.v. ka- masu; Schrank 1908, 59-65.

58. Euseb. Hist. eccl. 5,5,1.

59. Christians take off their hats in church (hats make people taller), whereas Jews cover their heads at prayer.

60. The Sun God accepts Gilgamesh’s tears as a “becoming gift” in Gilgamesh und Huwawa, see D. O. Edzard Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 80 (1990) 184, line 34; for Assurbanipal, see Streck 1916, 40 f; 116 f; Josiah is blessed by God because he has wept before him, II Kings 22,19. Demonstrative weeping seems to be uncommon in Greek religion. But the Septuagint has “he wept” instead of Hebrew “he invoked” (god) at least twice, Jud. 15,18; 16,28.

61. In Sumerian, this is “lifting the hand,” su ila = nasu qat in Akkadian, AHw 762, ns’ jd in Hebrew, Psalm 28,2; the Homeric for­mula is cheiras anaschon; Latin manus tendens. Cf. [Arist.] De mundo 400al5-18,above n. 31.

62. In such a context, the strange Roman ritual of a procession to Fides with veiled hands (Wissowa, 1912, 133 f.) is more understand­able.

63. Luke 18,13.

64. Bottero-Kramer 1989, 276-295; cf. Chapter 2 at n. 82; 3 at n.

25.

65. See also Plato Leg. 715 e = OF 23; A. Dihle RAC III (1957) 735-778 s.v. Demut.

66. Psalm 111,10; Aech. Hik. 479. See Chapter 1 at n. 116-122.

67. See Chapter 2 at n. 72.

68. Menander Sam. 503, Theocr. 6,39 with Gow ad loc.; Lucian Apol. 6.

69. Menander Fr.754 = Porph. abst. 4,15; hence Plut. superstit. 168c. For the context of guilt and confession, see Chapter 5 at n. 85.

70. H. Zimmern, Babylonische Hymnen und Gebete in Auswahl (Leipzig, 1905) 27 nr.8.

71. For example, the priests of Baal, I Kings 18,28; cult of Ishtar at Uruk, Erra IV 57 f., Dailey 1989, 305; cult of Meter and Bellona, note 73.

72. A. Lebessi, BCH 115 (1991) 99-123; I doubt whether this can be interpreted as belonging to a context of initiation.

73. For galloi, see Burkert 1987, 36 with n.31; relief of an archi­gallus with his scourge, Cumont 1931 pl. 13; for Bellona, see R. Turcan, Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain (Paris, 1989) 48 f.

74. Parody in Luk. Asin. 37 f. / Apul. Met. 8,27-29.

75. Plut. qu. Gr. 304c.

76. Burkert 1983, 284 n. 46.

77. J. Boese, Mesopotamische Weihplatten (Berlin, 1971), 290 f. pl.XXXI,l, cf. ANEP 597; Μ. Miiller, Frühgeschichtlicher Fürst aus Iraq (Zürich, 1976).

78. The monkeys’ sign of submission, the presentation of the pos­terior, has been inverted by humans to become a sign of contempt against the weak, cf. Fehling 1974, 27-38; HD A IV 62 f; H. P. Duerr, Obszonität und Gewalt (Frankfurt, 1993), 148-152.

79. D. Arnaud, Emar. Recherches au Pays d’ Astata VI 4: Textes sumeriens et accadiens (Paris, 1987) 326-337, nr. 369.

80. K. Koch in P. Frei, and K. Koch, Reichsidee und Reichsorgani­sation im Perserreich (Freiburg, 1984), 79-90, 98-105. A different structure, through reversal, appears in Maya civilization. The Maya king was not allowed to touch the ground and was lifted up and carried by his subjects; but in iconography he is represented carrying man­kind—a human figure—on his own shoulders.

81. Isaiah 6; cf. Ezekiel 1,26. For the enthronement of Mesopota­mian kings, see RIAss VI 148; AHW 515 s.v. kussu.

82. See Marinatos 1993, 206.

83. V. K. Müller, Der Polos. Die griechische Gotterkrone (Berlin 1915); Hepat at Yazilikaya, E. Akurgal, Die Kunst der Hethiter (Mu­nich, 1961) pl.76/77; the Hittite rock sculpture, badly weatherworn, at Mt. Sipylus, the so-called Niobe, ib. pl. XXIII.

84. Callim. Hy. Apoll. 102 f.

85. Mark 11, 9 f. with parallels, following Psalm 118,25.

86. Luke 2,14; hosanna in excelsis Matth. 21,9; Th WbNT VIII604 f.

87. Aeschylus Fr. 70 TrG f; cf. n. 31.

88. See SAHG 1953; J. Assmann, Aegyptische Hymnen und Gebete (Zürich, 1975); Lebrun 1980; Μ. Lattke, Hymnus. Materialien zu einer Geschichte der antiken Hymnologie (Fribourg, 1991); L’inno tra rituale e letteratura nel mondo antico. Atti di un colloquio Napoli (Rome, 1991) (A.I.O.N. 13); W. Burkert and F. Stolz, eds., Hymnen der Alten Welt im Kulturvergleich (Freiburg, 1994).

89. See, e.g., the Hittite hymn to Ishtanu, Lebrun 1980, 93-111; the Akkadian hymn to Shamash, SAHG 240-247; Psalm 19, 6 f; Akh- en-Aton’s great hymn, Assmann (n. 88) 215-221.

90. See S. Sahin, Epigraphica anatolica 9 (1987) 61-72; SEG 37, 957-980; cf. SEG 33,1056.

91. Hymn to Ishtanu, Lebrun 1980, 102, lines 32-38. Cf. the Ro­man centurion who sees Jesus ruling the demons in strict parallel to his own command within the Roman army: “I am subject to my superiors,” as “soldiers [are] subject to me,” Luke 7,8; Matth. 8,9.

92. Psalm 19.

93. Cylinder inscription §74, Luckenbill 1927, II 66; on fear of god see Chapter 1 at nn. 116-122.

94. Polyb. 6,56,6-12. Cf. Burkert 1985, 247.

95. Arist. Met. 1074b3: The divine encompasses the whole of na­ture, “the rest is addition in the form of myth, in order to persuade the multitude and to be useful for laws and (private) interest.”

96. A model case is the Rosetta inscription of Ptolemy V, OGI 90,26 f: The king “conquered the city and annihilated all the godless inhabi­tants in it, as Hermes and Horos, son of Isis and Osiris, subdued the rebels in the same place before”; cf. E. Hornung, Geschichte als Fest (Darmstadt, 1966).

97. ANET 164 f; ANEP 246.

98. Weissbach 1911, 10 f. §5; cf. G. Ahn, Religiose Herrscherlegi­timation im achämenidischen Iran, Leiden 1992. On the Bardiya prob­lem see Frye 1984, 96-102; J. Μ. Balcer, Herodotus and Bisitun (Wies­baden, 1987).

99. R. Ghirshman, Iran, Farther und Sassaniden (Munich, 1962), 112 fig· 168; cf. 131 fig. 167; 167-8 fig. 211; 176 fig. 218; Frye 1984, 37,1-373.

100. Hom. 11. 1,279.

101. Hdt. 1,60; taken seriously e.g. by F. Kiechle, “Gotterdarstellung durch Menschen in der altmediterranen Religion,” Historia 19 (1970) 259-271; cf. W. Connor “Tribes, Festivals and Processions; Civic Cer­emonial and Political Manipulation in Archaic Greece,”/H5 107 (1987) 40-50; criticism in J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte I 2² (Strassburg, 1913) 288.

102. Cf. Christian Habicht, Gottmenschentum und griechische Städte (Munich 1970, 2nd ed.).

103. See J. R. Fears, Princeps a Diis Electus. The Divine Election of the Emperor as a Political Concept at Rome (Rome, 1977); idem, RAC XI (1981) 1103-1159 s.v. Gottesgnadentum; bibliography on empe­ror’s cult by P. Herz in ANRWII 16,2 (1978) 833-910.

104. Palermo, Martorana Church.

105. Ambros, epist. 17,1; J. Wytzes, Der letzte Kampf des Heiden­tums in Rom (Leiden, 1977), 214. Cf. Liban. or. 22,41, about a high official at the emperor’s court “who, just as the emperor follows the gods, is himself following the emperor.”

106. Formulation of Assurbanipal, Streck 1916, 300 f.

107. x:a = a:b, see Chapter 1 n. 97. Cf. Μ.-J. Seux, RlAss VI 168: “Le Roi d’Assyrie a done, par rapport au dieu national, la position qu’avait un gouverneur par rapport ä son roi.” It is less edifying to find that already in monkey societies an individual that feels threatened will threaten another of lower rank.

108. ANET 268.

109. II Samuel 7; the word used by David is Qäbäd=doulos.

110. Psalm 110, cf. Matth. 22,44.

111. The famous text is Thureau-Dangin 1921, 127-148; ANET 334.

112. Dan. 4.

113. Hor. carm. 3,6,5.

114. Solon in Diog.Laert. 1,60; Arist. Pol. 1277bl4. From a:b = b:a, there follows a = b.

115. Ps.-Phokylides Sent. 8. Cf. in the Avesta, Gatha 9f7 = Yasna 44,7: The obedience of a son towards his father ranks immediately after cosmic order. See also Chapter 1 at nn. 109-110.

116. Hebr. 13,17.

117. See Chapter 3 at n. 31.

118. Sommer 1992, 83-88.

119. [Arist.] De mundo 398a.

120. Cf. Burkert in E Stolz, ed., Religion zu Krieg und Frieden (Zür­ich, 1986), 67 ff.

121. For texts from the temple of Ishtar at Arbela, see ANET 449 f.

122. RE Suppl. Ill 101-114s.v. Angelos; ThWbNTI 72-86; J. Michl RAC V (1962) 53-258 s.v. “Engel.”

123. John 5,23; 6,44; 12,44; 14,24 etc.

124. John 1,33.

125. John 20,21; cf. 17,18.

126. A. Boehlig, Die Gnosis III (Zürich, 1980) 155 cf. 83; A. Adam, Texte zum Manichäismus (Berlin, 2nd ed. 1969) nr.3a.

127. Quran, Sura 33,40 etc.

128. Hes. Erga 253-255.

129. The crucial text is Plato, Symp. 202d-203a; Plato’s expression for communication between men and gods that occurs through demons is “encounter and speech,” homilia kai dialektos.

130. Aesch. Eum. 19 “Loxias is prophet of Zeus, the father.”

131. Jonah 1,1.

132. II Sam. 12.

133. Aristoph. Pax 1070 f.

134. Diod. 36,13; Plut. Marius 17,8-11; cf. Chapter 5 n. 41.

135. See also Chapter 1 at n. 86, on the “monster in the corner.”

136. See Chapter 1 at n. 100.

137. See Chapter 7.

138. Words of Maximilia, Epiphan. Panar. 48,13,1; Bishop Epiphan- ius criticizes this constraint; but St. Paul’s experience was quite com­parable: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (I Cor. 9,16).

139. Aesch. Ag. 1562.

5. Guilt and Causality

1. II. 1,62-64: mantin, hierea, oneiropolon; see on the proceedings Parker 1983, 207-234. Cf. Delbos-Jorion 1981.

2. Hdt. 9,93,4: At Apollonia “they asked the prophets (of the or­acles) about the cause of the present evil”; cf. 6,139,1: Pelasgians ask Delphi for “riddance (lysis) of the present evils.”

3. Persians declare that whoever gets leprosy must have committed some fault against the Sun; hence the culprit is driven from the town, and nobody enters into contact with him; the rational but brutal means to control infection is made acceptable by the declaration of nonobvious guilt, Hdt. 1,138,1.

4.1 Sam.

5. Kohenim and qosemim; on this term, with special reference to arrow-oracles, sec HAL 1041 f; biereis, manteis, epaoidoi in the Sep· tuagint, 1 Sam. 6.2.

6. 0o/?t7, HAL 814; the Septuagint hashedrai, “buttocks.” A votive offering of buttocks (glouthron) is in SEG 29 (1979) nr. 1174.

T. Dothan, The Philistines and Their Material Culture (New Haven, 1982); J. E Brug, A Literary and Archaeological Study of the rbilistmes (Oxford, 1985); L. E. Stager, Ashkelon Discovered (Wash­ington, 1991).

^V 8. ANET 394 ff; Lebrun 1980, 192-239, esp. 203-216, the sec­ond version; here 212,29 f; 32'; 38'.

9. Lebrun 1980, 211,12'; 213,8';13';19'.

10. Tages-Anzeiger, Zürich, Jan. 21, 1986.

11. Already Homer has it that “the gods made known” the deeds of Oedipus, Od. 11,274.

12. Cf. Burkert, Oedipus, Oracles, and Meaning. From Sophocles to Umberto Eco (Toronto, 1991).

13. Apollod. 2,130 f. The quarrel about the tripod is one of the earliest mythological motifs to appear in Greek art, see Schefold 1993, 47 fig. 20. Orestes too gets sick after killing his mother, and he recovers with the help of Apollo’s oracle. Cf. Burkert 1992a, 56 f.

14. Verg. Georg. 317-558, possibly going back to Eumelus, T 2 Davies; morbi causam 4,397; 532; cf. Varro r.r. 2,5,5-, the ritual of bu- gonia is described in Geoponica 15,2,22-29; cf. RE III 431-450 s.v. Biene.

15. See F. Graf, ZPE 92 (1992) 267-279, esp. 275-277.

16. Lanternari 1994, 262 f.

17. Livy 8,18.

18. Cf. Sullivan 1988; ER s.v. “Diseases and Cures,” “Healing.”

19. Livy 2,36, 390 b.c. (comments by Arnob.7,39-43): Titus Lati­nius is summoned by Jupiter in his dream to announce that the Roman games (ludi Romani) had been polluted by the spectacular punishment of a slave just before the games in the arena and must be repeated; because he does not heed the divine command, his son dies and he himself falls ill. He then delivers his message to the Senate and recovers at once. Cf. a story in Tages-Anzeiger, Zürich, Feb. 27, 1990: during the building of a highway in Indonesia, a worker was told in a dream that a buffalo must be sacrificed to the spirits of the dead dwelling in that region; he fell seriously ill and recovered only when the sacrifice had been made—along with the celebration of a Christian Mass.

20. Aesch. Ag. 188-217. Aeschylus does not tell which fault is im­puted to Agamemnon; the parallel accounts give various reasons.

21. Od. 4, 351-586; for the obvious suspicion of “missing” sacri­fices see also //. 5,177 f.

22. Jonah 1,7; cf. Chapter 2.

23. II. W. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus (Cambridge, 1967) 261 f. nr.7; 5EG 19,427.

24. Nikolaos PGrHist 90 F 45 cf. 15, probably from Xanthos.

25. A. Livingstone, State Archives of Assyria IV: Court Poetry (Hel­sinki, 1989), nr. 33, p. 77 (I do not indicate lacunae and restorations). One might compare Kroisos’ method of testing Greek oracles, Hdt. 1,46, or the suggestion to verify a dream oracle at Amphiaraos by in­quiring at Delphi, Hypereides 4,14 f; a Greek general too will “assem­ble” the seers at sacrifice and accept the verdict on which they agree, Eurip. Heracl. 340; 401-407.

26. Diod. 20,14 (zetesis §4). On Moloch sacrifices see Chapter 2 at n.76.

27. Thue. 1,128,1; cf.2,17, below, n. 47.

28. Herakleides Fr.46a Wehrli = Strab. 8 p. 384 cf. Diod. 15,48; Paus. 7,24,5-12; R. Baladie, Le Peloponnese de Strabon (Paris, 1980) 145-157.

29. Paus. 7,17,13 f.

30. A.R. 2,463-489.

31. Apollod. Bibl. 100-102; Pherekydes FGrHist 3 F 33 = Schol. Od. 11,287; Eust. p. 1685,33; Schol. Theokr. 3,43 cf. Od. 11,291-297; 15,231-238; Hes. Fr. 37.

32. Criticism of Freud’s diagnosis by Griinbaum 1984. A charac­teristic difference is that psychoanalysis rejects guilt in favor of trauma inflicted from outside.

33. Hdt. 9,93,4 cf. n. 2.

34. Eur. Fr. 912,9-13. Hdt. 6,91 has a story about the Aeginetans who were not able to “expiate by sacrifice” the “pollution incurred” (agos), “although they tried to do so.”

35. Plato Phdr. 244 de, cf. Burkert 1987b,19.

36. In Greek, this is the question for prop basis, a word much dis­cussed in relation to Thue. 1,23,6, but more clearly seen in its original function in Thue. 1,133; see H. R. Rawlings III, A Semantic Study of Prophasis to 400 b.c. (Wiesbaden, 1975); A. A. Nikitas, “Zur Bedeu­tung von Prophasis in der altgriechischen Literatur,” Abh. (Mainz, 1976) 4.

37. Dundes 1964 has a tale pattern of interdiction-infraction-con­sequence-attempted escape.

38. Livy 5,51,8.

39. Meyer 1962; E Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Trans­ited (Leiden, 1994) 289.

40. See above at n. 21.

41. See above, Chapter 4 at n. 69; 134; in general, Delbos-Jorion 1981. A catalogue of how a herdsman might violate taboos is given in Ov. fast. 4,747-762:sitting under a sacred tree, entering a sacred grove, etc.; da ueniam culpae 755. Syrians hold fish sacred, and if they eat fish they immediately fall ill, Menander Fr. 754. The typical Greek word for a religious fault committed is alitein (on which see H. Vos, Glotta 34 J1955] 287-295; E. Tichy, Glotta 55 [1977] 160-172). Cf. also the death of the Roman official in 102 b.c. who had insulted a priest of Magna Mater, Diod. 36,13; Plut. Marius 17,8-11.

42. Burkert 1985, 235 f; Krummen 1990, 108-116; Μ. Petterson, Cults of Apollo at Sparta (Stockholm, 1992) 57-72.

43. Burkert 1983, 136-143.

44. Plut. mus. 42, 1145 BC, referring to Pratinas TrGF 4 F 9; cf. L. Käppel, Paian. Geschichte einer Gattung (Berlin, 1992), 349-351.

45. Ceres: Dion.Hal. ant. 6,17; 6,94,3; Apollo: Liv. 4,25,3; 4,29,7.

46. Above, n. 14.

47. Thue. 2,17: He does not accept that the breaking of a taboo was the cause of the pestilence, but does not question divine wisdom and foreknowledge. See also S. B. Aleshire, The Athenian Asklepieion (Am­sterdam, 1989).

48. Hdt. 1,19-22; cf. the erection of a temple to Namtar, the god of pestilence, in Atrahasis I 401, Dailey 1989,19. For the principle “two for one” see Thue. 1,134,4; the inscription on a vase refers to vases set up in a sanctuary: “having broken one, two for Aphrodite.” G. A. Ko- shelenko et al., eds., Anticnye gosudarstva Severnogo Pricernomorja (Moscow, 1984) 142 nr.4.

49. Od. 12,345-347.

50. Luk. Syr.D. 19, cf. Chapter 2 at n. 44.

51. SEG 33, 736; IC II xxviii 2, Hermes Tallaios.

52. Below, n. 85.

53. Hdt. 1,167. The Romans derived caerimonia from Caere.

54. Hdt. 1,105 cf. Hippocr. aer. 22; see D. Margreth, Skythische Schamanen? Die Nachrichten über Enarees-Anarieis bei Herodot und Hippokrates (Ph.D. diss., Zürich, 1993).

55. Lanternari 1994, 256 f.

56. In Plato Resp. 364bc “beggars and seers” claim the “power” (dynamis) to “make good” (akeisthai).

57. Cf. the Hittite hymn to the Sun God, Lebrun 1980,104 f: “qu’il me dise mon peche.” See also van der Toorn 1985, 94-97: “in search of the secret sin.”

58. Daniel 2,12 f; 24; “magicians, exorcists, sorcerers, and Chai- daeans” 2,2.

59. See at n. 25.

60. Hdt. 4,68.

61. Hdt. 6,66; 6.75,3; 5,66,1; cf. 5,90,1.

62. Soph. OT 380-389.

63. Eur. Phrixos A, Apollod. Bibl. 1,80-82, Hyg. fab. 2, cf. C. Aus­tin, Nova Fragmenta Euripidea (Berlin, 1968) p. 101 f.

64. Cf. Burkert 1979, 88 f.

65. Divinatio oblativa and impetrativa, see Chapter 7 n. 7.

66. Psalm 124,7.

67. Hdt. 6,139,1, cf. above note 2.

68. Soph. El. 447.

69. Soph. OT 100 f. (lyein). Latin lucre, related to Greek lyein, has assumed the meaning “to expiate.”

70. K. Tsantsanoglou, G. M. Parassoglou, “Two Gold Lamellae from Thessaly,” Hellenika 38 (1987) 3-16; SEG 37,497; cf. Burkert 1987,19; E Graf, “Dionysian and Orphic Eschatology: New Texts and Old Questions,” in T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone, eds., Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, 1993) 239-258.

71. Above, n. 35.

72. First “Merseburger Zauberspruch,” cf. M. Wehrli, Geschichte der deutschen Literaturl (Stuttgart, 1980) 22-24.

73. See esp. the series Shurpu (Reiner 1958) tablets II-III; the term is pasaru, “to release,” AHw 842, in contrast with rakasu and kamu “to bind,” AHw 946; 433.

74. Akkadian incantation text in Ebeling 1931 nr. 30 A III 63, p. 132 f.

75. A. Audollent, Defixionum Tabellae (Paris, 1904); R. Wiinsch, Defixionum Tabellae Atticae, IG III 3 (Berlin, 1897); D. R. Jordan, “A Survey of Greek Defixiones Not Included in the Special Corpora,” GRBS26 (1985) 151-197; see also C. A. Faraone, “The Agonistic Con­text of Early Greek Binding Spells,” in C.-A. Faraone and D. Obbink, eds., Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York, 1991) 3-32; F. Graf, La Magie dans I’antiquite greco-romaine (Paris, 1994) 139-198.

76. Sophronius, Narratio miraculorum SS Cyri et loannis sapien­tium Anargyrorum, PG 87,3, 3541-3548 (see Audollent, n. 75, p. cxxii).

77. Liban. Or. 1,243-250; C. Bonner, “Witchcraft in the Lecture Room of Libanius,” TAPA 63 (1932) 34-44.

78. Hdt. 6,12,3.

79. See Chapter 4.

80. Pint. Superst. 168 d: “Often he rolls naked in the mud as he confesses his various faults and errors”; cf. Chapter 4 n. 69.

81. Arnob. 7,5 (this is said to be the hypothesis of his adversaries, the pagans). This comes close to the program described in Chapter 2.

82. AHu> 716.

83. Cf. the Pythagorean saying in Iambi. V.P. 85: “those who have come (into this life) to be punished must be punished.”

84. ANET 395; Lebrun 1980, 214,24-28;above, n. 8. In the Chris­tian tradition the parent-child relationship comes more to the fore than the lord-servant relation.

85. F. Steinleitner, Die Beicht im Zusammenhang mit der sakralen Rechtspflege in der Antike (Ph.D. diss., Munich, 1913); R. Pettazzoni, La confessione dei peccati, 3 vol. (Bologna, 1929-1936); H. Hommel, “Antike Bußformulare,” in Sebasmata I (Tübingen, 1983) 351-370; the growing corpus of inscriptions from Western Asia Minor has now been collected by Petzl 1994; see also G. Petzl, “Lukians ‘Podagra’ und die Beichtinschriften Kleinasiens,” Metis 6 (1991) 131-145. Examples from Mesopotamia are in Schrank 1908, 46 f; Μ. Jastrow, Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens II, Giessen 1912, 71 ff; S. Langdon, Baby­lonian Penitential Psalms (Paris, 1927); SAHG 18-19; from Egypt, in Roeder 1915, 58; H. I. Bell, Cults and Creeds in Greco-Roman Egypt (Liverpool, 1953), 13.

86. For example, A. I. Hallowell, Culture and Experience (New York, 1967), 266-276 (on Saulteaux Indians).

87. Aristoph. Peace 668 cf. Clouds 1478; Wasps 1001.

88. Pind. Pyth. 3,82 f.

89. See Guilt or Pollution and Rites of Purification. Proceedings of the Xlth International Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions II (Leiden, 1968); ER XII 91-100 s.v. purification; a standard work is Μ. Douglas, Purity and Danger (New York, 1966).

90. Parker 1983. Cf. also Pfister RE Suppl.VI (1935) 146-162s.v. Katharsis.

91. Μ. L. West in his review of Parker, CR 35 (1985) 92-94.

92. Epimenides FGrHist 457 T 1; 4; Burkert 1992a, 60; 62 f.

93. Plut. De Sera 560 ef (Italias corrected to Pbigalias by Mittelhaus RE XIX 2084); Fr. 126 Sandbach; Thue. 1,134,4. The mention of ghosts brings to mind the third model, demoniac wrath. The models are also mixed up in the rhetorical exercise of Antiphon 4,1,3: a victim of murder “leaves behind... the hostility of the avenging spirits,” and those who fail to administer justice “bring this hostility of the avenging spirits, a defilement (miasma) which ought not to be, into their own

houses.” See J. D. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (Chapel Hill, 1983), 50-52. ’

94. Nadig 1986, 223, cf. 220 f, 225-229,381 f.

95. Latte 1920/1.

96. Dodds 1951, 28-63 following R. Benedict, The Chrysanthe­mum and the Sword. Patterns of Japanese Culture (Boston, 1946), 222 ff. Note that for Latte the idea of impurity and the corresponding prac­tice of purification was primitive and hence very old, whereas Dodds associates the discovery of guilt with the interest in purification in the archaic, post-Homeric age. It has always been noticed that in the Iliad and the Odyssey there is very little about purification, and definitely no purification from murder; this second category makes its appearance in the Aithiopis, p. 47 lines 11-13 Davies.

97. See now Cairns 1993, 27-47.

98. See Chapter 2; esp. Girard 1972 and 1982.

99. Aristoph. Fr. dubium 940 Kassel-Austin; Menander Dysc. 114; Theokrit 5,119; Hsch. s.v. katharthenai: mastigothenai. Prov. 20,30: “A good beating purifies the mind” (the interpretation and translation, though, is controversial).

100. See Parker 1983, 378.

101. Cf. Eur. Ion 367: Ion, servant to Apollo’s sanctuary, says to Kreusa, who had been violated by the god: “He is ashamed of the act: do not condemn him.”

102. See also Kelsen 1982.

103. M. P. Nilsson, “Religion as Man’s Protest against the Meaning­lessness of Events,” Opuscula Selecta III (Lund, 1960), 391-464.

6. The Reciprocity of Giving

1. CEG 326; Jeffery 1990, 90 f; 94 nr.l; LIMC “Apollon” nr.40.

2. Od. 1,187 f; 311-318; doron 311, 316; axion... amoibes 318. See Scheid-Tissinier 1994, 165 f.

3. Mauss 1923-24 (Eng. tr. 1967); see also K. Planyi, Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economy (Garden City, 1968); Cheal 1988, who calls giving “a system of redundant transactions within a moral econ­omy, which makes possible the extended reproduction of social rela­tions” (19).

4. Satirically stressed by Martial 5,59,3: quisquis magna dedit, vol­uit sibi magna remitti, “whoever has presented great gifts wanted that great gifts be sent back to him.”

5. Gregory 1980; cf. Schieffelin 1980; Gouldner 1960; Sahlins 1970.

6. See Mauss 1967, 72f.

7. M. Finley, The World of Odysseus (New York, 1954; 2nd cd. 1978) 61-65 (qualifications in J. T. I looker, “Gifts in Homer,” BICS 36 [ 1989] 79-90); J. N. Coldstream in R. Hagg, cd., The Greek Renais­sance of the Eighth Century b.c. (Stockholm, 1983), 201-206; Scheid- Tissinier 1994. See also L. Gernet, “Droit et pre-droit en Grece an­aemic,” in Gernet 1968, 175-260; S. Humphreys, Anthropology and the Greeks (London, 1978); Herman 1987; Ulf 1990, 211 f.

8. See M. Weinfeld, “Initiation of Political Friendship in Ebla and Its Later Developments,” in H. Hauptmann and H. Waetzoldt, eds., Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft von Ebla (Heidelberg, 1988) 345-348.

9. Hom. II. 6,230-236: epameipsomen 230; the standard of axion is violated in this case, as gold is exchanged for bronze, 235-237. A grotesque account of a gift exchange among friends, including the wife of one of them, appears in Hdt. 6,62.

10. Prov. 18,16. On bribery, dorodokia in Greek (acceptance of gifts), see at n. 88.

11. C. F. A. Schaeffer, Le Palais royal d’UgaritVl (Paris, 1970) 9­

11, A 12-14, RS 17.148. Cf. Liverani 1990, esp. 211-217.

12. Bourdieu 1972, 227-243: “Le Capital symbolique.”

13. Aside from giving objects, there are also other forms of inter­action to express friendship, solidarity, and rank: play of eyes, bowing down, or caressing—common among apes too. For humans language has added further possibilities, such as “verbal stroking” (see Chapter 4 at nn. 86-91). We speak of giving and exchange even in this context and measure “units of caressing” (Streicheleinheiten).

14. On Homeric eedna see S. West, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey I (Oxford, 1988) 110 f.

15. “Give me part of your virginity” Ps.-Plato Anth.Pal. 5f79,2. See also M. I. Finley, “Marriage, Sale and Gift in the Homeric World,” Re­vue Internationale des droits de 1’anti quite III 2 (1955) 167-194, repr. in M. Finley, Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London, 1981), 232-245; J. P. Vernant, Mythe et societe en Grece ancienne (Paris, 1974; repr. 1981) 57-81.

16. The root of the word is pera-„ transaction.

17. Cf. Burkert 1994. See also Seaford 1994 on two forms of reci­procity, gift and revenge.

18. This is the “justice of Rhadamanthys” executed through trans­migration, Arist. EN 1132b25. P. Marongiu, G. Newman, in their book Vengeance: The Fight against Injustice (Totowa, N.J., 1987), under­stand reciprocity basically in this sense, “vengeance” taking the place of “obedience” out of an “elementary sense of injustice.”

19. See e.g. Ex. 21,23-27.

20. This is the expression of the penitent culprit at the cross, NT Luc. 23,41. In Akkadian the relevant expressions are gamalu, gimillu and riabu, “to retribute,” used both in friendly interactions and in the situation of revenge, AHw 275 f; 978 f.

21. Deut. 25,2 f; loseph. Ant.Iud. 4,8,21,238; NT II Cor. 11,24; Plat. Leg. 845a.

22. epieike’ amoiben, Od. 12,382.

23. Aristoph. Nub. 245 cf. 118.

24. See below at n. 124.

25. See de Waal 1989, 38 f; Burkert 1994, 12.

26. See S. A. J. White, “Gift Giving,” ER V 552-557; Linders and Nordquist 1987; F. T. van Straten, “Gifts for the Gods,” in Versnel 1981, 65-151. In Greek, anatithenai prevails, but didonai is not absent; for Latin, the normal votive formula is DDD, dedit donavit dedicavit. For “giving sacrifice” in Akkadian, see AHw 1525 s.v. zibu.

27. Corinth: CEG 359/60; with variation, aphorman for amoiban, “a pleasant fresh start” CEG 358; Smyrna: CEG 426. Cf. Lazzarini 1976 and 1989-90.

28. Hom. Od. 3,58 f; Hom. Hymn. Dem. 494.

29. Plato Euthyphro 14 ce. See also Leg. 716e: the god does not accept gifts from polluted givers.

30. Plato Symp. 202e.

31. Hippocr. Aer. 22, quoting Eur. Hippol. 8.

32. R. Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden, 1967), 142-149.

33. MY V 659,4; A. Morpurgo, Mycenaeae Graecitatis Lexicon (Rome, 1963), 324.

34. Persepolis inscription g, Weissbach 1911, 85.

35. Democr. B 175.

36. James 1,17. Cf. also theon eis anthropous dosis Plat. Phil.l6cd.

37. SVF II nr. 1081: The Charites (traditionally worshiped as god­desses) are the personification of “our first fruit offerings and returns (antapodoseis) for the gods’ good deeds.”

38. Sallustios 16,1; cf. below, n. 121.

39. Ex. 23,15; Psalm 96, 7 f; the Hebrew term for the gift accom­panying sacrifice is mmhah. See also Akkadian kurbanu and muhhuru.

40. Stele of Fekherye, A. Abou-Assaf, P. Bodreuil, A. R. Millard, La statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-arameenne (Paris, 1982) 17 (Assyrian version line 2 f.) cf. 24 (Aramaic version lines 2-4).

41. Plato Euthyphro, see above n. 29.

42. Hom. 11. 22,169-172 f; Od. 1,66 f.

43. Atrahasis II ii 14; 20, Lambert-Millard 1969, libasma ibis, ci. palley 1989, 21. For Kroisos’ reproach to Apollo in Herodotus, see infra n. /2.

44. See G. van der Leeuw, “Die Do ut des-Formel in der Opfertheo­_rie,” ARW 20 (1920/1) 241-253; Widengren 1969, 280-288; ER VI J97-214; Grottanelli 1989-90; for qualification, see Festugiere 1976, 418: “beaucoup plus complexe que la notion du contrat.”

45. Tittiriya-Samhita, Widengren 1969, 284; ER V 554.

46. See Chapter 1 n. 130.

47. Lambert 1960, 104; qiptu (loan, credit) 147 f.

48. Prov. 19,17: NT Math. 6,4 cf. 6.

49. Aesch. Lib. Bearers 792 f.

50. P. Thieme, “Studien zur indogermanischen Wortkunde und Re­ligionsgeschichte,” Berichte der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissen­schaften zu Leipzig, Phil.-Hist. Klasse 98,5 (1952) 62-76.

51. Anth.Pal. 6,152,3 f; 6,238,5 f.

52. CEG 227; 275.

53. CIL I²2, 1531 = CLE 4, donu dämmt... orant se voti crebro condemnes.

54. K. Ehlich in S. Dopp, Hg., Karnevaleske Phänomene in antiken und nachantiken Kulturen und Literaturen (Trier, 1993), 293 f.

55. Greek ploutos (riches) originally meant grain, to be stored in the subterranean treasury (thesauros); in the myth, Plutos is the son of De­meter the grain-goddess, and the god of the underworld is called Pluton.

56. See also Widengren 1969, 288.

57. Canopos Decree of Ptolemy III, 239-38 b.c., OGI 56, 8 f., 19 f.

58. Acts 20,35. The opposite asymmetry is stated by Thucydides 2,97,4 in reference to those Thracians who had the power “to take rather than to give.”

59. Cf. invitations without expectation of antapodosis: Luke 14,12; equal recompense for different labor: Matth. 20,1-16; the prodigal son and the dishonest stewart: Luke 15,11 ff; 16,1-9; giving away riches: Mark 10,21. “If you have money, do not lend at interest, but give [to him] from whom you will not get them [back]”—this is the version of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (95) which becomes “don’t turn from him who asks you to borrow” in Matthew (5,42), whereas Luke has “give to everyone who ask you, and don’t claim back from him who takes your belongings” (6,30). Didache 1,5, combining Luke 6,30 and Acts 20,36, even proclaims: “Woe to him who takes.” The fifth section of the Lord’s prayer, Mt. 6,12, usually translated as “forgive us the

wrong we have done,” has the word opheilemata which primarily means “debts” and can be understood: “as we renounce the debts owed to us”; the traditional interpretation is upheld by rabbinic material, see ThWbNTV 565. Jesus’ model is the behavior of children begging from their parents. Compensation (amoibe) is also denied in the ethics of Marcus Aurelius: “If you have done good, and somebody has had good done to him, what else do you desire?” (7,73).

60. Quran, Sura 9,111.

61. See Chapter 1 at n. 36. The following discussion is largely par­allel to the sociobiology debate (see Chapter 1 n. 34), but takes success rather in the sense of goods acquired than of multiplication of genes.

62. Dawkins 1976.

63. This goes back to Rapoport-Chamnah 1965; cf. R. Axelrod and W. D. Hamilton, “The Evolution of Cooperation,” Science 211/4489 (1981) 1390-1396; D. R. Hofstadter, Scientific American (May 1983) 14-20; Axelrod 1984-1988.

64. See Dawkins 1976,199 f. for the grudger’s strategy. But see the objections raised by Boyd-Lorberbaum 1987.

65. P. J. Hamilton Grierson, “The Silent Trade,” in D. Dalton, ed., Research in Economic Anthropology III (Greenwich, Conn. 1980) 1­74; A. Price, “On Silent Trade,” ibid. 75-96; R. Hennig, “Der stumme Handel als Urform des Aussenhandels,” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 11 (1917) 265-278; D. Veerkamp, “Stummer Handel. Seine Verbreitung, sein Wesen,” (Ph.D. diss., Gottingen, 1956); A. Giardino, “Le merci, il tempo, il silenzio. Ricerche su miti e valori sociali nel mondo greco e romano,” Studi Storici 27 (1986) 277-302; RIAss s.v. “Markt.”

66. Hdt. 4,196.

67. Pomp. Mela 3,60; Plin. n.h. 6,88; Amm. Marc. 23,6,68; most detailed Eustathius, In Dionys.Perieg. 752, who also refers to Herod­otus.

68. On a different quality of giving, do ut abeas, see at n. 134.

69. Diagoras (5th century) in Diog. Laert. 6,59, Cic. Nat.Deor. 3,89 = Diagoras Melius, Theodorus Cyrenaeus ed. M. Winiarczyk (Leipzig, 1981), T 36/37.

70. See Lambert 1960, 75.

71. Cassandra in Aesch. Ag. 1168 f.

72. Hdt. 1,90,2 cf. 4; on the stages of the historical tradition see Burkert, “Das Ende des Kroisos. Vorstufen einer Herodoteischen Ges- chichtserzahlung,”in Catalepton, Festschr. B.Wyss (Basel, 1985),4-15.

73. For the formulation in Atrahasis, see at n. 43.

74. Lysias 30,18.

75. II. 24,425 f.

76. Epictetus 2,23,5.

77. See above at nn. 54-55.

78. See e.g. I. Paulson in I. Paulson, A. Hultzkrantz, and K. Jettmar, Die Religionen Nordeurasiens und der amerikanischen Arktis (Stutt­gart, 1962), 67-100.

79. Lys. Or. 30, cf. Burkcrt 1985, 226.

80. Aristoph. Eccl. 779-783.

81. Tert. Apol. 13,6.

82. Aesch. Er. 161 TrGE

83. See the sarcastic argumentation in Hippocr. Aer. 22, II 80 L. It is clear that the rich should get rich recompense from the gods, because of their sacrifices; when it comes to the poor, both sides remain unsat­isfied.

84. Hes. Erga 336 f.: kad’ dynamin, cf. Xen. Mem. 1,3,3; 4,3,16.

85. Porph. abst. 2,15 = Theophrastus Fr. 584 A, line 145-153 For- tenbaugh; 2,16 = Theopompus FGrHist 115 F 344.

86. Servius Aen. 2,116, regarding Iphigeneia’s sacrifice: et sciendum in sacris simulata pro veris accipi.—E. Lane, ed., Corpus Monumen­torum Religonis Dei Menis I, Leiden 1971, nr. 50.—Herakles Melon: Pollux 1,30 f. For substitution sacrifice see Chapter 2.

87. Cf. Latte 1920-21,285 f. = 1968,25 f; I Sam. 15,22; Jesayah 1,11-17; cf. Prov. 21,27; 22,11.

88. Cf. W. Schuller, ed., Korruption im Altertum (Munich, 1982).

89. Hes. Fr. 361 (Quoted by Plato Resp. 390e; parody in Ovid Ars am. 3,653 f.); Plat. Resp. 364d, e.

90. II. 9,497.

91. Hom. Hymn. Dem. 367-369, cf. Richardson 1974, 270-275.

92. Esp. Plato Leg. 905d-907b.

93. Plato Tht. 176b. In later Platonism, sacrifice could be vindicated by a magical interpretation of it as a means of getting “attached to gods” (synaphthenai theois), Sallustios 16 cf. 14, 2 f.

94. Lebrun 1980, 92 ff., 121 ff; H. G. Güterbock in W. Rollig, ed., Altorientalische Literaturen (Wiesbaden, 1978) 227. Aesch. Lib. Bear­ers 255-257; cf. Seven 174-181,301-320: “which better site than this will you get” (304 f.).

95.1 owe the text to Wyatt MacGaffey, Haverford. Cf. Joel 2,14: Jahweh should leave “blessing enough for grain-offering and drink­offering.”

96. Atrahasis III iv 35, Lambert-Millar 1969, 58 f., Dailey 1989, 33; Gilgamesh XI 156 ff., Dailey 114.

97. H. G. Güterbock, Kumarhi (Istanbul, 1946) 21.

98. Lambert 1960,148 f.

99. Complete destruction of war booty occurs in Hebrew hrm, but also with the Celts, Caesar b.g. 6,17,3-5, cf. U. E. Hagberg in Linders and Nordquist 1987, 77-81.

100. Hdt. 7,54,3 reflects upon the question that came up when Xer­xes threw a golden bowl into the Hellespont. Was this a dedication to the Sun God (which would go the wrong way), or a gift to the Sea (which he had flogged before)?

101. Hdt. 3,41 f.

102. See Burkert in Herodote et les peuples non grecs. Entretiens sur 1’antiquiteclassiqueXXXV (Geneva, 1990) 18, comparing Hdt. 4,61,2.

103. Gen. 15,11.

104. See R. K. Yerkes, Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism (London, 1953); Burkert 1983.

105. On bolah in Israel, see A. Hultgard in Linders and Nordquist 1987, 83-91. On Moloch sacrifice, see Chapter 2 at n. 75-77.

106. Burkert 1992a, 20.

107. Cf. Burkert 1979, 41-43; for Mesopotamia, see RIAss VII 1­12 s.v. Libation; Ch. Watanabe, “A Problem in the Libation Scene of Ashurbanipal,” in Prince Takahito Mikasa, ed., Cult and Ritual in the Ancient Near East ( Wiesbaden, 1992) 91—104; Ugaritic and Hebrew nsk, HAL 664, cf. ThWbNT VII 529-537.

108. Mark 14,3-10 and parallels.

109. Meissner 1920/25, II 81-90; Oppenheim 1964, 106 f., 191 f; Ringgren 1973, 81—89; H. Altenmuller, s.v. Opfer, Opferumlauf, Lex­ikon der Aegyptologie IV (1982) 579-584; 596 f; W. Helck s.v. Tem­pelwirtschaft, ibid. VI (1986) 414-420.

110. Akkadian esru, AH tv 257; Hebrew Baser, e.g. at the sanctuary of Bethel, Gen. 28,22; Greek dekate, especially connected with Apollo; see H. W. Parke, “A Consecration to Apollo,” Hermathena 72 (1948) 82-114.

111. Detailed descriptions of the cult at the temple of Anu at Uruk are in Thureau and Dangin 1921, 61-118.

112. Dt. 14,22 f., ‘Law of the tithe.’

113. Latte 1960,215 f.

114. ER V 554; cf. 555 on China.

115. Aristoph. Pint. 594-597 with schol.

116. Mt. 10,5-15 cf. Mark 6,8-11, Luke 9,2-5.

117. ²Ï Ep. of John 7.

118. An expression equivalent to “setting up” is used in Akkadian, AHw 209 s.v. elu, cf. HAL 785 s.v. ^clh. But oriental temples needed food above all to feed their dependents.

119.1 Kings 7,13-50.

120. See n. 31.

121. Sallustios 16,1 (cf. above at n. 38) makes sacrifice an aparche of life, as hair sacrifice is an aparche of one’s body; cf. the concept of hostia animalis, Trebatius in Macrob. Sat. 3,5,1—4: in quo sola anima dec sacratur. But evidently life cannot be transferred, only destroyed. Israelites called blood “life” or “soul” (nephesh), Lev. 17,11; Dt. 12,23; this can be taken and poured out at the altar.

122. Hes. Theog. 535 cf. 556 f. Cf. Gladigow 1984. The element of trickery in sacrifice has been stressed by Μ. Horkheimer and Th. W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Frankfurt, 1981) 67-76. Cf. above at n. 86.

123. See especially Meuli 1946 and Burkert 1983.

124. See also Fouts and Budd 1979,370; Bygott 1979,454; De Waal 1989, 209.

125. See Baudy 1983; Gladigow 1984; cf. Lanternari 1976, 196.

126. Schieffelin 1980.

127. See at n. 13.

128. Ethiopians: 11. 1,423 f; Od. 1,22-26; Phaeacians: Od. 7,201­206.

129. That they usually “eat” the smoke is said in the unorthodox version of II. 8,550-552,preserved in Plat. Alk. II, 149de.

130. Lev. 17,2 f; cf. Meuli 1975, 938; Burkert 1992b, 173 f.

131. Burkert 1992b, 174. For the basic concept of animal sacrifice presupposed here, and for details see Meuli 1946; Burkert 1983.

132. Hdt. 1,105,1 doroisi te kai litesi; in other words, do ut abeas, see n. 134.

133. See Chapter 2 at n. 21.

134. Harrison 1922, 7; 1927,134-138.

135. Namtar the Plague God is pacified through cult in Atrahasis, Dailey 1989, 24. Febris (fever) has a temple at Rome, Vai. Max. 2,5,6; Cic. N.d. 3,63; Wissowa RE VI 2095 f.

136. Aesch. Seven 699-701.

137. Jameson et al. 1993, 45, inscription B line 12 f., cf. pp. 63-67.

138. Cf. e.g. Aesch. Pers. 219; 523: “gifts for Earth and for the dead.” Cf. A. Henrichs, “Namenlosigkeit und Euphemismus: Zur Ambivalenz der chthonischen Mächte im attischen Drama,” in H. Hofmann and A. Harder, eds., Fragmenta dramatica (Gottingen, 1991) 161-201.

139. See B. Janowski, “Erwägungen zur Vorgeschichte des israeli­tischen 5^ELAM1M-Opfers,” Ugarit-Forschungen 12 (1980) 231-259; Burkert 1983, 9,41.

140. See Chapter 2.

141. Petzl 1994, VII n. 2.

142. B 90 = Fr. XL Kahn. Cf. Seaford 1994, 220-232.

143. B 1, cf. Kirk, Raven, and Schofield 1983, 117-122.

144. Plato Pbd. 72 bc.

145. Plato Tim. 42e.

146. Lorenz 1973; Vollmer 1994.

7. The Validation of Signs

1. This is not the place to tackle the intricacies of the modern sci­ence of semiology. Eco 1976, 16 defined sign as “everything that, on the grounds of a previously established social convention, can be taken as something standing for something else,” which would exclude the biological signs, which obviously work without social convention. In the wake of poststructuralism, the very concept of sign is taken to be outdated, cf. Eco 1984.

2. Cf. Sommer 1992.

3. Matth. 16,3—a passage missing in basic manuscripts, hence usually considered a later interpolation; the canonical gospels refer to the fig tree as a sign for approaching summer, Mark 13,28, Matth. 24,32, Luke 21, 29.

4. Burkert 1985, 111-114.

5. The term for sign is ittu in Akkadian, ^sot in Hebrew. Greek had, besides semalsemeion, the word teirea especially for heavenly signs, whence the mythical seer got his name, Teiresias.

6. The most extensive study is still A. Bouche-Leclerq, Histoire de la divination dans Tantiquitel-TV (Paris, 1879-82); see also W. R. Hal­liday, Greek Divination (London, 1913); A. Caquot, Μ. Leibovici, La Divination (Paris, 1968); J. P. Vernant, ed., Divination et rationalite (Paris, 1974); R. Bloch, La Divination dans I’antiquite (Paris, 1984); “Actes du lie Colloque international du C.E.R.G.A. sur ‘Oracles et man­tique en Grece ancienne,’ ” Kernos 3 (1990); R. Bloch, La Divination (Paris, 1991); Μ. Sordi, ed., La profezia nel mondo antico (Milan, 1993). For Akkadian texts, see Borger 1967-75 III 95-99; for Hittites, A. Kammenhuber, Orakelpraxis, Träume und Vorzeichenschau bei den Hethitern (Heidelberg, 1977); for Etruscans, C. O. Thulin, Die etru­skische Disziplin (Goteborg, 1905-9); in general, U. Ritz, Das Bedeut­same in den Erscheinungen. Divinationspraktiken in traditionalen Ge­sellschaften (Frankfurt, 1988).

7. See Cicero, De divinatione 2,26 (genus artificiosum—naturale), cf. 1,11 f; 1,34, with the commentary of A. S. Pease, Μ. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione Libri Duo (1920-23, repr. Darmstadt, 1963). Servius

_h 190 distinguishes auguria oblativa (signs that present them- ^h|ves) and impctrativa (signs produced on purpose).

' s This expression is peculiar to the author, see Th WbNT VII 241- K7.

" 9. I kit. 8,137-139.

|(). I kit. 9,91.

11. Leaves of rhe oak of Dodona, Od. 14,328; 19,297; water oracle: I’aus. 7,21,13 ; for Akkadian river omens see F. Notscher in Orientalia 51/4 (1930) 121-146.

12. Romulus: Ennius Ann. I 78 ff, cf. RE I A 1091; Kalchas:

(Joni. //. 1,71 f; Akkadian: J. Hunger, “Babylonische Tieromina nebst griechisch-romischen Parallelen,” Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft 1909,3; one series has been edited and translated by E Notscher in Orientalia 5U54 (1930) 176-179.,

13. The story of Mosollamos, Ps.-Hekataios FGrHist 264 F 21 = Josephus C.Ap. 1,201-204.

14. Burkert 1992a, 46-53.

15. Herzfeld 1985, 247-258.

16. See H. Diels, Beiträge zur Zuckungsliteratur des Okzidents und Orients I/II; Abh. (Berlin, 1907-8, repr. Leipzig, 1970).

17. This was a formulation of Paracelsus, who wrote de signatura rerum, see Theophrast von Hohenheim, gen. Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke I 2 (Berlin, 1928), 397-400.

18. See Chapter 1 at n. 87.

19. For families of seers see Burkert 1992a, 43-46.

20. Cf. Lorenz 1973; Ditfurth 1976.

21. Ptol. Tetr. 1,2.

22. G. Glotz, L’ Ordalie dans la Grece primitive (Paris, 1904); HD A III 1016-1021; H. Nottarp, Gottesurteilsstudien (Munich, 1956).

23. On “war as an ordalie procedure” in the ancient Near East see Liverani 1990, 150-159; in Roman legend the most famous example was the battle of Horatii and Curiatii, Livy 1,24, cf. RE VIII 2322­2327.

24. Hammurapi’s Laivs §2; 132, ANET 166; 171; Middle Assyrian Laws A §25, ANET 182.

25. See A. Bürge, “Realität und Rationalität der Feuerprobe,” Zeit­schrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 100 (1983) 257-259. Walking on glowing coals, as ritually done in northern Greece (W. D. Furley, Studies in the Use of Fire in Ancient Greek Religion, New York, 1981) and imitated in modern limits-testing groups, is frightening but normally does not cause burns.

26. Yasna 43,4; G. Widengren, Die Religionen Irans (Stuttgart, 1965), 87 f; cf. Lact. Inst. 7,21,3-7.

27. Soph. Ant. 264 f. cf. Aristoph. Lys. 133-135.

28. See at n. 34.

29. Num. 5,11; 21 ff. cf. W. McKane Veins Testamentum 30 (1980) 474-492; lies. Theog. 782-806.

30. See P. Hoskisson, “The Nishum ‘Oath’ in Mari,” in G. D. Young, ed., Mari in Retrospect (Winona Lake, 1992), 203-210, esp. 206 f, on eating taboo as an oath ceremony; J. Bottero ASNSPisa III 11 (1981) 1005-1068. For Hittites, Ishara “hydropsy” is the goddess of oaths. Cf. Meissner 1920/25, II 290. On the Avestan Videvdat 4,54­55, see Μ. Boyce in Monumentum H.S. Nyberg I (Teheran/Liege, 1975), 69-76.

31. See E. Peterson, Frühkirche, Judentum und Gnosis (Freiburg, 1959), 334 f.

32. ER XV 302; see also G. Lorenz, in F. Hampl and I. Weiler, Kri­tische und vergleichende Studien zur alten Geschichte und Universal­geschichte, Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft 18 (Innsbruck, 1974), 235.

33. Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan, ed. K. Marold, rev. W. Schroder (Berlin, 1977), line 15518-15764, here line 15739 f, transl. with an introd, by A. T. Hatter (Harmondsworth, 1972) 248.

34. Fulcher of Chartres, PL 155, 843 f; Raymond d’Aguilers, PL 155, 641-643; 646 = Le de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. J. H. and L. L. Hill (1969) 120-124; 128 f; cf. Chr. Auffarth “ ‘Ritter’ und ‘Arme’ auf dem Ersten Kreuzzug,” Saeculum 40 (1989) 39-55 esp. 51.

35. See Chapter 1 at n. 93.

36. Μ. Douglas, Natural Symbols (New York, 1973, 3rd ed. 1978), insists that cosmological symbolism usually reflects social conditions.

37. See Burkert 1979, 41 f.

38. Gen. 28,10-22; Burkert 1979, 41 f.

39. See U. Seidl, Die babylonischen Kudurru-Reliefs (Fribourg, 1989).

40. Cf. Piccaluga 1974; Gladigow 1992 esp. 177-183.

41. Boeotian hipparchs and the tomb of Dirke, Plut. Gen. Socr. 578b, cf. Burkert 1983, 188.

42. Paus. 1,28,2.

43. On the function of art as “making special,” see Dissanayake 1988, esp. 92-101.

44. See Chapter 1 at nn. 91, 92.

45. See RAC s.v. Gotterbild.

46. See Chapter 1 at n. 67.

4 ". See C. P. Jones, “Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco­Roman.Antiquity," JRS 77 (1987) 139-155. On initiation marks for men see. tor example, C. Calame, Le Processus symbolique (Centro Intcrna/ionale di Semiotica e di Linguistica: Documents de travail et pre publications 128/9) (Urbino, 1983) 4 f; for women, Lincoln 1981, 34-4 T

48. See Chapter I at nn. 111-114.

49. Hdt. 1,"4.5; 3,8.

50. Gen. I",I 1 (the older version has the "sacrifice of halves” in­stead, see n. 89); cf. in general ER III 511-514; see also Chapter 1 at n. 113; 2 at nn. 50,5 1.

51. Erra 4,56, Dailey 1989, 305; cf. Chapter 2 at n. 41-44; Burkett |9"9 105, 120.

52. The dogma of sacraments as character indelebilis was developed by Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III quaest. 63, following Au­gustine, cf. L. J. Pongratz, Historisches Worterbuch der Philosophic I (1971) 984-986.

53. A Christian sect in Russia, the skopzii, made castration the real "seal” of the elect; see Ê. K. Grass, Die russischen Sekten II (Leipzig, 1914) 687 ff.

54. An old standard study is Hirzel 1902; see also E. Ziebarth RE V 2975-2083; ThWbNTV 458-467; RIAss II 305-315; ER XV 301­305; E. Benveniste, “L’Expression du serment dans la Grece ancienne,” RHR 134 (1947-48) 81-94; J. Plescia, The Oath and Perjury in An­cient Greece (Tallahassee, 1970); Burkert 1985, 250-254; N. Rollant, “Horkos et sa famille,” LAMA 5 (1979) 214-304; Faraone 1993.

55. The oath is just “legality to be legalized,” ius iurandum in Latin.

56. ER XV 301.

57. See especially Sommer 1992.

58. Ibid., 66-91, esp. 85.

59. See Dundes 1954.

60. Cyrus in Hdt. 1,153: business in the marketplace is “cheating by oaths.” “One must cheat children with dice, grownups with oaths,” Lysander said according to Diod. 10,9, or else King Philip according to Ael. Var.Hist. 7,12.

61. Od. 19,395 f.

62. Quos me sentio dicere, formula of devotion in Macrob. Sat. 3,9,10.

63. Cf. Chapter 1 at nn. 87-93.

64. This is a normal formula in Egypt, Bonnet 1952,164, and also in Mesopotamia, see RIAss Ï 307-315 on “oath of king” and “oath of city”; Meissner 1920-1925,11 290 f.

65. Od. 14,158 f; 17,155 f; 20,230 f; cf. 19,304.

66. ANET205; Burkert 1992a, 93 f.

67. II. 3,104; 277-279, cf. Burkert, “Homer’s Anthropomorphism: Narrative and Ritual,” in D. Buitron-Oliver, ed., New Perspectives in Early Greek Art (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1991) 81-91.

68. A puzzling but logical consequence is that a god will take an oath swearing “by himself”; this is a serious act of promise for Jahweh, Deut. 29,9 f., a joke for Callimachus, Fr. 114,5.

69. Above, nn. 67, 65.

70. R. Merkelbach, ZPE 9 (1972) 277-285.

71. Bonnet 1952, 164; Stone of Nofer-Abu, Roeder 1915, 58, cf. Chapter 5 n. 85.

72. Aristoph. Clouds 397.

73. AHw 600; RlAss II 314; Meissner 1920/25, II 290 f; cf. J. Ped­ersen, Der Eid bei den Semiten (Strassburg, 1914).

74. Hes. Erga 803 f.

75. Cf. Bell 1992, 98 (following Bourdieu): “Ritualization produces this ritualized body through the interaction of the body with a struc­tured and structuring environment.”

76. D. Wiseman, “Abban and Alalakh,” JCS 12 (1958) 129.

77. II. 3,299-301, see n. 67. See also Karavites 1992.

78. Treaty of Ashurnirari V and Mati’ilu, ANET 532.

79. N. Oettinger, Die militärischen Eide der Hethiter (Wiesbaden, 1976) 21.

80. Livy 1,24,8.

81. Paroemiographi Graeci I 225 f; Burkert 1985, 252 f.

82. Treaties from Sfire and the foundation oath of Kyrene, see Far­aone 1993; F. Letroublon, “Le Serment fondateur,” Metis 4 (1989) 101­115; Burkert 1992a, 67 f.

83. Shurpu 3,35, p. 20 Reiner: “oath sworn by slaughtering a sheep and touching its cut-off flesh”; cf. Weinfeld 1990, 187. Hdt. 6,68: De- maratos sacrificed an ox, gave his mother “from the entrails into her hand,” and beseeched her to speak the truth.

84. Persians and Greeks in Xen. Anab. 2,2,4.

85. Germanic custom, ER XV 304.

86. Even the attempt at perjury has this consequence, Hdt. 6,86.

87. Dem. 23,67 f. cf. Dinarch. 47; R. W. Wallace, The Areopagos Council to 307 b.c. (Baltimore, 1985) 123. A comparable practice is to “cut in halves” and walk through them to make a covenant, known from the Old Testament, Gen. 15,9; Jeremiah 34.18, and the Hittites, see E. Bickerman, “Couper une alliance,” Studies in Jewish and Chris­tian History I (Leiden, 1976) 1-32; Burkert 1983, 35 at n. 3. More

rational and more drastic is the practice to commit a common crime to ensure loyalty. Athenian oligarchs, plotting their conspiracy, “killed Hy­perboles, thus giving the guarantee of loyalty to each other” (Thue. 8,73,3); cf. Chapter 1 n. 115. The Catilinarians were accused of having had a cannibalistic feast before their attempt to make a revolution, suppressed by Cicero. Sallust, Catilina 22; cf. Chapter 1 n. 113.

88.11. 1,245.

89. Polyb. 3,25,7-9.

90. RlAss II 306 (the term is nasahu).

91. Hdt. 1,165,3; see also Diod. 9,10,3 (Epidamnos); Callim. Fr. 388,9.

92. Jes. 51,59-64.

93. D.L. 8,22, cf. Iambi. V.Pyth. 47; 144; 150; contradicted by Diod. 10,9,1.

94. Matth. 5,34-37.

95. For Tuppu mamiti and ilu mamiti see AHtv 599.

96. John Locke, Epistula de tolerantia/A Letter on Toleration, ed. J. W. Gough (Oxford, 1968), 135.