{"id":799,"date":"2007-01-27T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-27T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=799"},"modified":"2007-01-27T16:05:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-27T16:05:00","slug":"new-paganism-is-not-old-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=799","title":{"rendered":"New Paganism is not Old Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Beard, noted Classics scholar<\/a> from Cambridge University, writes that today’s Greek Pagans are not practicing exactly what their Hellenic ancestors did<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t entirely clear what this group (\u201cEllenais\u201d) believes; but it is clear that, whatever they say, it bears very little relationship to ancient Greek religion. You can tell that already from the rather charming prayer to Zeus to bring about world peace. From an ancient point of view, whatever myths are peddled about the \u201cOlympic Truce\u201d, there could hardly be a less likely divine candidate for putting a stop to war in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her slightly patronizing tone aside, so what? Religions do change–even while their adherents insist on continuity with the past. <\/p>\n

I have great respect for Beard as a Classics scholar–I own one or two of her books–but I suspect that she has not given much thought before to new religious movements until she decided to give her opinion on this new development in her blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mary Beard, noted Classics scholar from Cambridge University, writes that today’s Greek Pagans are not practicing exactly what their Hellenic ancestors did. It isn\u2019t entirely clear what this group (\u201cEllenais\u201d) believes; but it is clear that, whatever they say, it bears very little relationship to ancient Greek religion. You can tell that already from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[33,5],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-greece","tag-paganism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-cT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=814","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":0},"title":"Animal Sacrifice and Authenticity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last month Classics scholar Mary Beard suggested that contemporary Hellenic Pagans were not quite authentic because they omitted the centerpiece of ancient Paganism: animal sacrifice. (I discussed her critique here, and she responded.)Orthodox Christian blogger Rod Dreher's recent post--and especially the comments--pretty well illustrate just how squeamish today's population--even omnivores--are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greece\"","block_context":{"text":"Greece","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greece"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=98","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":1},"title":"Inventing Jane Harrison","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I have received Mary Beard's The Invention of Jane Harrison--there goes the evening. (And all hail the interlibrary loan staff for producing it so quickly.) Ronald Hutton writes of Harrison in his book The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft: \"Savagery and barbarism both frightened and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14218,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14218","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":2},"title":"Upcoming Zoom with Robin Douglas, Sasha Chaitow","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Two leading scholars of contemporary Paganism will be live on Zoom this weekend: Robin Douglas has a book in press with the Equinox series on Pagan studies: The Pagan Revival A Documentary History of Modern Paganism, 1700-1950. Sasha Chaitow is also widely published, including in The Pomegranate: The International Journal\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/robin-sasha.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/robin-sasha.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/robin-sasha.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/robin-sasha.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":548,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=548","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":3},"title":"What the Romans did for\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"What the Romans did for us--and keep on doingSpurred by the latest spate of TV miniseries and feature films, Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard looks in the mirror of ancient Rome and describes the different images that it reflects back to us.This game of defining ourselves against the habits of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2673,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2673","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":4},"title":"Caroline Tully Interviews Ronald Hutton","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Australian blogger and graduate student Caroline Tully interviews Ronald Hutton on her blog, Necropolis Now. One excerpt: In that case what is your relationship with Paganism? It has been long and close. As I mentioned in my book Witches, Druids and King Arthur, I was in fact brought up Pagan,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5853,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5853","url_meta":{"origin":799,"position":5},"title":"Defining Paganism (2)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Previous: \"Defining Paganism (1)\" and \"Defining Paganism (1.5)\" The first definition that I offered was created by a scholar of religion, Michael York. It facilitates the ability to talk about Paganism not as a set of doctrines, but as a way of being religious. In an essay that he published\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}