Abstract
AbstractThe paper examines doctrinal and political reasons to explain why the Ancient Greek religion did not feature a distinct class of professional priests as suppliers of religious goods. Doctrinal reasons relate to worshiping a multitude of powerful anthropomorphic gods with flawed characters; absence of a founder of religion and of a scripture; lack of religious doctrine and of a code of moral behaviour and piety manifested as mass participation in rituals. These factors denied religious suppliers the opportunity to form a monopoly acting as an autonomous intermediary between humans and gods. Political reasons relate to the supremacy of the demos which watchfully guarded its decision-making powers and prevented other actors like a priestly interest group to challenge its authority.
Highlights
From a consumer economics perspective, religion confers utility to individuals in the form of worship, explanations of the origin of things, comfort against suffering, dispensation of sins and promise of salvation
In the tradition of using economic reasoning to explain the observed record of economic performance and institutions of Ancient Greece, the current study examines a distinct characteristic of the Greek religion, namely, the absence of clerical body, a priestly class as a closed group of specially trained and ordained members with corporate interests and in some religions with hierarchical ranks
Regarding the determinants of interest groups as an empirical matter, the literature has tested several hypotheses: a stable political environment offers opportunities for groups to organize; economic development by expanding existing activities and generating new ones adds new interest groups to the existing ones; democracy is conducive to interest group formation, since an open political system allows more participation; large-size countries feature large numbers of industries which in turn increases the number of groups; higher import competition stimulates demands for protection by domestic producers; larger shares of government spending attract more interest groups wishing to affect public policy and social diversity, linguistic ethnic and religious, creates more divisions and thence spawns more interest groups
Summary
From a consumer economics perspective, religion confers utility to individuals in the form of worship, explanations of the origin of things, comfort against suffering, dispensation of sins and promise of salvation. Building on research which applies the rational choice approach to religion (see Iyer, 2016 for a recent survey), the current study attributes the absence of a priestly class to the lack of religious doctrine It explains that in the Greek polytheistic religion the lack of a founder of religion and sacred scripture, the absence of a code of moral behaviour and the reliance on local and panhellenic rituals negated the spiritual role of the priests as intermediaries between the gods and the humans. It explores a second, complementary, argument, namely, the dominance of the demos in the political life of the city-states of Ancient Greece abrogated the potential of a priestly class to emerge as a source of social power.
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