Divine Saving in Greek and Chinese Polytheism

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

Contrary to the tendency to study ancient Mediterranean religions in isolation from religions in the Far East, this project brings together for the first time two world polytheistic systems: ancient Greece and premodern China. It embraces Marcel Detienne’s call to ‘compare the incomparable’. In this seminar I will share the findings on one aspect of this project: divine saving. The central question is: how did worshippers in two major polytheistic traditions imagine, experience, and represent the divine saving as they confronted the unknown and unknowable? I will look at the wide-ranging power of the gods in the Greek and Chinese pantheons on the one hand, and worshippers’ religious beliefs, practices and experience of worshippers on the other. I hope also to shed light on the Greek and Chinese religious worldviews and perceptions of their gods, and ultimately to open up new questions for the study of both fields.