So I think Pulleyn (1997) is right when he says that hymns are distinguished from
prayers not only by these formal aspects I have just been describing but also by their
desire to pleasethrough artistic merit. This is a functional distinction. A prayer might
be carefully formulated to convey a message as persuasively as possible to the god, but
the Greeks probably did not envisage the god being particularlypleasedto receive the
prayer. Indeed Lucian has an amusing description of a rather harassed Zeus on
Olympus opening the ‘‘prayer wells’’ in heaven to listen to the barrage of various
and conflicting prayers reaching him from earth (Ikaromenippos24–5). The hymn, on
the other hand, was anagalmain its own right, a beautiful thing, designed by its
words, music, dance-steps, and the beauty of its performers to please the god’s ear
and eye. It was intended asentertainmentfor the god(s), a treat designed on the one
hand to tempt the god to attend (he might have been distant and elsewhere before)
and on the other to sway his mind to a pleasant mood of benevolence toward the
community worshiping him so lavishly. In this way, the hymn is part of the system of
reciprocalchariswhich many scholars have recognized in Greek religion (Bremer
1998).Charisis difficult to translate, because it is (at least) two-sided. On the one
hand it expresses the feeling of gratitude felt by humans to the gods for giving them
good things, and on the other it means that ‘‘grace’’ or ‘‘bounty’’ which the gods
give men. And the word is related tochairo ̄, Greek for ‘‘feel joy or happiness.’’ In
worship the Greeks aimed at generating an atmosphere of reciprocalcharis; they
would express their grateful worship of the splendid gods; the gods, in turn, would –
hopefully – grant them theircharis, goodwill, which translated into wealth, health,
and power. We can see how hymn-singing is part of the human ‘‘charis-drive’’; it is an
aesthetic offering to go with other material offerings (animal sacrifice, libations,
incense, etc.) designed to secure divine goodwill. Prayer, on the other hand, is a
request put to god(s) backed up by references toother actsof worship (sacrifice etc.)
which might induce the god(s) to grant the request. The prayer-request itself is not
conceived as an offering, either material or aesthetic.
Worship as Heightened Discourse
I noticed recently that the new Pope Benedict XVI recommended that people enjoy
their holidays by communing with nature, meditating on the deep issues of life, and
praying. It struck me that thisprivateandmeditativeaspect of Christian piety is very
much at odds with ancient Greek prayer. For ancient Greek prayer and hymn-singing
does everything it can to draw attention to itself as a public display. It is a form of
heightenedexpression which claims a god’s attention by rhetorical structures as well as
by contextual framing. By the former I mean the resources of words which the prayer
or singer deploys in his attempt to make his case irresistible; by the latter I mean the
ritual structure which frames the prayer. Let us take the latter first.
The Ritual Frame
Burkert (1972) has well described the primacy of animal sacrifice in Greek religion
and shown how the act of killing forms the centerpiece of Greek worship. The
Prayers and Hymns 119