Colloquium " The notion of "polis-religion" under the test of religious norms and authority "

Colloquium organized by Professor Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, June 29-30 2023 at the Collège de France (Ulm site).

The notion of " polis-religion " put to the test by religious norms and authority

The notion of " polis-religion " was popularized in Hellenistic circles by two articles by Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood published in the 1980s and reprinted in Oxford Readings of Greek Religion in 2000. At the heart of a nuanced argument, the author had the misfortune to write the following sentences : " The polis anchored, legitimated and mediated all religious activity ", and " Polis religion embraces, contains and mediates all religious discourse ". These assertions have become a kind of synthesis of his two studies, leading many critics to dispense with a careful reading of the entire text. Yet, contrary to a somewhat caricatured vision of the polis-religion thus sketched out, Chr. Sourvinou did not ignore individuals and the various circles of sociability in which the religious experience of the ancient Greeks flourished. As for political structures other than the polis, they were simply not the object of his investigation. Yet it is in polemical contrast to his work that the allegedly " individual ", even " personal ", aspects of Greek religion or its " messy margins " have been addressed (Kindt 2009, 2015 ; Bremmer 2010 ; cf. Harrison 2015). In addition, the debate has extended to the Roman world, in similar terms, even if the centrality of Rome itself has led the discussion down distinct paths (Rüpke 2011 vs. Scheid 2013). The result is a strong bibliographical record, based partly on a misunderstanding - the questionable attribution of a totalizing " theory " to Chr. Sourvinou - and partly on different contemporary ways of thinking about the relationship between the individual and society (cf. Pirenne-Delforge 2016 ; Parker 2018, and the collective Rüpke 2013).

The meeting on June 29 and 30 2023 does not aim to add a single stone to an already rich body of work, nor to replay in another form the debate on the notions of " public " and " private " in antiquity. It is part of the background to the Collection of Greek Ritual Norms project (CGRN : http: //cgrn.ulg.ac.be) and the questioning it implies in terms of norms and authority in religious matters. Without limiting the investigation to this type of document alone, it is in particular through precise epigraphic files that we can hope to deepen and refine the reflection opened up by Christiane Sourvinou.