Greek Drama As Moral And Religious Debate

Greek tragedies were not timeless. They were cultural artifacts embedded in society and time in which they were created. They were understandable through cultural filters and also had resonance of other societies because they articulated rich, multi-layered polysemic meanings. Greek religion did not have a canonical body of beliefs, neither any divine revelation nor any divine scripture. It was a responsibility of polis to systematize religious problems. Dramas not only articulated theatrical performances but also ‘establish[ed] a system of cult, rituals, sanctuaries and a sacred calendar’. Other than this, the only guidance available was prophecy and some cities consulted ‘Apollo Oracle’. Greeks did not have a proper religious ‘code of conduct’. Inwood says that while the gods always spoke the truth, human fallibility could intervene and falsify the deity’s words, and so the Greeks could never be certain that a particular prophecy is true.

The reliability of the prophecy depended on human interpretation. The nature of Greek religion invited religious exploration. The tragedy was immensely important to explore and elaborate the religious discourses of the Athenian polis of the fifth century. Tragedy attempted to reconstruct filters molded through cultural assumptions and accepted in the Athenian audience. Endeavors to reconstruct ideas made it clear that the relationship between Athenian audience and tragedy was not static. Everyone in the audience already knew the plot of the story but many re-presentations of the same story made it clear that the relationship between the world of the audience and the world of tragedy was ‘shifting, dynamic, manipulated, during the performance of each tragedy’. Greek tragedy intertwined human problems with religion. Greeks lived in a world in which human beings directly interacted with gods. The interface of human and divine would often lead to complications. Greek tragedy deals with religious problematization and its explorations. Greeks believed that Zeus was all power but dramatists gave the idea that Zeus was not powerful and was evil. He was also promoting the idea that anything which is good for man was good and which is bad for man is bad.

So, Prometheus is pro human, and a good God. He can counter Zeus’ evil will. What is lawful is determined by an anthropomorphic approach. Man is the measure to define morality. Aeschylus dramatized religious as well as ethical concerns in his play ‘Prometheus Bound’. It was presented in the festival of Dionysus. Greeks used to offer sacrifices of human beings to please the gods. Religion was immensely involved in all areas of their lives. They thought themselves as slaves of fate and their cycle of life was dependent solely on gods. Prometheus Bound’s cast was largely divine. Its concern was not human conflicts but rather conflicts between divine powers. Prometheus went against the will of the mighty God Zeus and helped mankind. In the very beginning of the play, there was a conflict of ideas not only between Prometheus and Zeus but also between other Gods who were reluctant about the punishment of Prometheus. Hephaestus, the son of Zeus said that “against my will and yours, I must bind you” (Aeschylus 20). He was disapproving of his punishment and showed repugnance to his task. The opposition of Zeus’s decision was there between other gods as well.

They were reluctant to rebel against him because of his power with which he could inflict any kind of punishment on them. For instance, power says to Hephaestus that “can you disobey you father’s words? Do you not fear him anymore?” (Aeschylus 40). Gods were not united on the decision about their creation, human beings. Zeus being a mighty powerful God had authority to punish Prometheus but he was incapable to see what was coming down his way. Prometheus was blessed with the power to see future even of Zeus. Aeschylus was not debating a theological idea but made a contest between two powers to question the idea that if nothing was greater than Zeus, then Prometheus would have no hold over him. In the present situation, powers of Zeus were restricted to a certain level. Both of them were treated vaguely as coordinate powers, Zeus certainly the stronger one but not omnipotent. The incompetence of Zeus questions the nature of Greek God. Kitto demonstrates the idea that “Necessity [is] stronger even then Gods”. The power of circumstance is beyond the power of the gods. Greek drama simultaneously questions the morally inept decisions of Zeus. Zeus had forgotten Prometheus’s service in the construction of his kingdom.

Prometheus was a titan, a descendent of original gods. Titians were defeated in a battle against Zeus. Although Prometheus was a titan, he assisted Zeus in this conflict and helped him to gain kingship. Later he offended him by helping human beings to survive. Was it morally correct for a God to let his creation die pitilessly? Was it morally adequate for a god to ruthlessly give eternal punishment to another god who helped him creating his kingdom? The sympathetic attitude of gods and other characters of the play towards Prometheus contradicts with Greeks’ beliefs regarding the nature of gods. It contrasted with the idea of Zeus being the ultimate decision maker and benefactor of human kind. It made human beings question that god was proficient and dependable for taking decisions for human life. In another Greek tragedy Electra by Sophocles, religious problematization focused on the role of Apollo in instigating murder, especially matricide. Matricide was considered immoral in society. Inwood stated that for Greek audience Apollo was right, in-fact that Orestes followed his advice, in which it is clear that order will eventually be restored. In Electra, Apollo instructed Orestes to kill his mother to avenge his father to balance the justice of universe. For instance, Orestes said to Pedagogus that “When I went to the Pythian oracle, to learn how I might avenge my father … Phoebus gave me the response … that alone, and by stealth, without aid of arms or numbers, …” (Sophocles). Apollo told Orestes tactful techniques that he has to enter the place alone and unknowingly not with pomp and power. So he can easily work on his plan to kill both of them. Throughout the story, the audience found many instances which indicated that Apollo was persuading the murder which was characterized as unholy. When Orestes returns, Clytemnestra had a dream that throne was restored by the heir. Then immediately after the ritual performed by Clytemnestra, a messenger entered the scene with news of Orestes’ death. His arrival was symbolic of God’s response to Clytemnestra’s prayers. Kitto describes this as “the action is seen on two planes at once, human and divine”. This action on dual planes ended with matricide without any hint of future punishment and condemnation from God or the author. Action on dual planes connoted the idea that re-establishment of the proper order of things was a concern of God as well as of human beings. Orestes helped Gods to ‘balance the forces of justice’ by killing his mother. This was one way to presents the complex tragic situation but this was not the whole picture of Greek drama. The tragic perception as dramatists presented was based on double motivation, divine and human in which God will something but ‘mortals actions bring it about’.

As Inwood stated that reliability of prophecy depended on human interpretation, and prophecy was not presented as transcendental truth but as a forecast. Orestes was left alone with two conflicting choices. Either he would kill his mother and avenge his father, or he would try to understand the ‘force of circumstances’ under which his mother killed his father. So, Apollo was not solely responsible for matricide. God foreseen it but he was not enforced it. Orestes ultimately made his own choice. Either it was to avenge his father or to balance the forces of justice he could rationalize the moral leap in metricized. Artists crafted tragedy to link it with human experience. The appearance of Apollo on stage reminded audience their religious realities.

A reference would evoke the audience’s own consultation of the Delphic oracle so they would identify the Apollo of the tragedy with their own god, and not perceived him as a literary construct. Through this representation of Apollo’s oracle, Sophocles wanted the audience to question dependability and trustworthiness of the prophecies of gods. In any circumstances it was not acceptable for a God to persuade for metricized. He questions the Greeks idea of blind following of the religious prophecies. Euripides delivered the same story with a different psychological construction of the tragic characters. In his Electra, Apollo was neither the defender of some principle in society nor the embodiment of universal law. Therefore, the power of God no longer permeated the whole action. Orestes killed Aegisthus when he was being their courteous host, and Electra killed Clytemnestra when she was offering sacrifice to god for the birth of her grandchild. Euripides crafts a picture of two siblings killing their stepfather and biological mother with conscious awareness of the gravity of their crime. The corruption of two rites, Aegisthus’ sacrifice and the enticing of Clytemnestra inside the house on the pretext of her participation in a ritual, helped to color the two murders negatively. He questions Electra’s desire for vengeance that was stronger than her love for her brother and biological mother.

The themes of ‘‘vengeance’’ and ‘‘reaction to injustice and wrongdoing with further wrongdoing’’ are explored in many tragedies. Vengeance had consumed Electra’s ability of moral choice. Greek tragedy closely intertwined human experience with religion. In other words, tragedy presented a subject highly conducive to religious exploration, of a type that also raised wider questions pertaining to religion in general. They explored the idea that the world was cruel, dark and full of chaos. Tragedy presented two contradictory ideas to the protagonist and the audience and demanded to choose one. That choice made him/her to suffer cognitively. All characters suffered like normal human beings and tragedy allowed them to question their moral or religious choices.