English

Themis; a study of the social origins of Greek religion

xxxii, 559 p, [1] p. 22 cm · A Study in the Social Origins of Greek Religion -- less favorably received in general and (as the title suggests and Murray himself delicately hints) driven by a Durkheimian fervor that makes it hard going for anyone not similarly inclined to the école sociologique; here Greek religion, its ritual and myth, was more uncompromisingly presented as a social process than it has ever been, before or since. But for Murray the occasionally shaky arguments that supported some of the major planks in her theories - "the tribal initiations; the year-festivals with their projection, the Eniautos Daimon; God as the projected desire; and Themis as the tribal custom" - did little to undermine either their truth or their importance. In fact Themis stole a march on Prolegomena precisely because of its anthropological universality, precisely because it threw 'light on Greek religion not so much for its own sake, as for the sake of the religious adventures and aspirations of the human mind everywhere.' It was, in other words, a book that spoke about the Greeks and us

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