The polis-religion in the mirror of exousia: sources of authority in Greek ritual norms

The notion of polis-religion was born to explain the dynamics of authority in a tradition without church and dogma. A good way to test its efficacy is therefore to assess it in the light of the Greek vision of authority understood as exousia, the «faculty» to operate attributed by an external source. In the light of this vision, what are the sources of exousia and the institutions with authority in religious matters for the Greeks? With regard to the latter, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood has shown that in the Greek world it is the polis that assumes the role played in Christianity by the Church. With regard to the former, Angelos Chaniotis has noted that the provisions contained in Greek ritual norms are generally based on «ancestral rules» of an oral nature (patria) and written “laws” (nomoi). Our goal is to reflect on the differences between these two kinds of norms and Christian holy text as sources of religious authority. The comparison will serve to highlight the structures of thought and action specific to Greek polytheism and to verify whether the category of polis-religion is useful for describing them.