The Liquidation of Religious Traditions
As in all ancient societies, the code for religious practice was based on its antiquity from which it took its legitimization. However, these traditions, as is the oral tradition, were never as set as it may seem from studying isolated evidence.
Whether change is due to experimental approaches diluting earlier orthodox approaches or to modified political systems, cult religions are flexible enough to streamline cult practices according to actual needs. While both orthodoxy and civic traditions existed side by side, their genesis could often differ considerably from approaches taken by other ethnic religions. In Egypt, orthodoxy certainly came first and was accompanied by magical practice. When later the arrival of personal religious practice triggered the development of a ‘sacra publica’, the official interpretation of faith through theology was at no point endangered due to the fact that religious knowledge was of a restricted access (Burkert 1987). Priestly control was never as dominant as in ancient Egypt and the early liquidation of traditions led to a politically driven textualization through minutes and the documentation of member lists on one hand. More importantly, the lack of standardized rules released the systematization of Roman myths in the third century bc and written regulations of religious functions in the second century bc. It comes as no surprise that the need to back up the adherence to ancient traditions was instigated by the Senate and its members such as the aforementioned Marcus Terentius Varro. Actively remembering ancient religious traditions in Rome is therefore a later development, probably amplified by a subtle decay of abiding the laws of cult practice. Both in Egypt and in Rome, the process of creating standardized religious practice was based not on social memory but, as far as authorities were involved, on cultural memory. Lacking the presence of individual memory after a period of three generations is what made cultural memory important as a tool to shape the religious future of the cultures. Crucial in making this tool work were archives which authorities were able to base themselves on. Remembering, however, is not only about consulting libraries and books - images play an equally important role as they are as accessible to the lower classes as to the intellectual elite.
More on the topic The Liquidation of Religious Traditions:
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- Bommas M., Harrisson J., Roy Ph. (Eds.). Memory and Urban Religion in the Ancient World. Bloomsbury Academic,2012. — 312 p., 2012
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