9. THE RITE

DISCOVER

"[Oedipus is changed by] a rite that lets him do the most simple yet most difficult of acts: tell his story. So too, in a subtle way, Lee Breuer, in his African American Holiness-Pentecostal rendering of Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus, The Gospel at Colonus, tells a tale of African American life in America. The consequences in the rite done and the story told mark the differences between the settings and ultimate meanings of these plays, one Greek and tragic and the other, finally, Christian and transformed by joy."

"Oedipus at Colonus and The Gospel at Colonus: African American Experience and the Classical Text," LeBlanc, J.R., Medine, C.M.J. (2012). 

Ancient Greek Worship

Many Ancient Greek religious practices were rooted in the Bronze Age (3000–1050 B.C., Oedipus' time) or even earlier. 

The ancient Greeks had no single guiding work of scripture like the Torah, the Bible, or the Qu’ran. Nor did they have a strict priestly caste. The relationship between human beings and deities was based on the concept of exchange: gods and goddesses were expected to give gifts. Votive offerings from the suppliants, which have been excavated from sanctuaries by the thousands, were a physical expression of thanks on the part of individual worshippers.

Many smaller cults were exclusive to locals. For example, Colonus had a cult of the legendary horseman Colonus. 

Note that while many rituals involved animal (or even human) sacrifice, the rite Oedipus was asked to perform was humble and gentle.

Symbolism in the Rite