The Hierocentric State

• Author: Hugh Nibley
• Published date: 01 June 1951
• DOI: 10.1177/106591295100400203
• Date: 01 June 1951
• Subject Matter: Articles

THE HIEROCENTRIC STATE
HUGH NIBLEY
Brigham Young University
THE GREAT ASSEMBLY
N
HIS great history of Greek religion, Professor Nilsson comments
on the neglect by scholars of an institution of first importance in the
development of civilization and the state. That is the panegyris, the
great assembly of the entire race to participate in solemn rites essential to
the continuance of its corporate and individual well-being. The meeting
was a tremendous affair (Pindar leaves us in no doubt about that), yet it
was paralleled by equally great and imposing assemblies of other nations
all over the ancient world. At hundreds of holy shrines, each believed
to mark the exact center of the universe and represented as the point at
which the four quarters of the earth converged-&dquo;the navel of the earth&dquo;-
one might have seen assembled at the New Year-the moment of creation,
the beginning and ending of time-vast concourses of people, each thought
to represent the entire human race in the presence of all its ancestors
and gods.
A
visitor to any of these festivals would have found a market or fair
in progress, the natural outcome of bringing people together from wide
areas in large numbers, and the temple of the place functioning as an
exchange or bank. He could have witnessed ritual contests: foot, horse,
and wagon races, odd kinds of wrestling, choral competitions, the famous
Troy game, beauty contests, and what not. He would note that all came
to the celebration as pilgrims, often traversing immense distances over
prehistoric sacred roads, and dwelt during the festival in booths of green
boughs.
What would most command a visitor’s attention to the great assembly
would be the main event, the now famous ritual year-drama for the glori-
fication of the king. In most versions of the year-drama, the king wages
combat with his dark adversary of the underworld, emerging victorious
after a temporary defeat from his duel with death, to be acclaimed in a
single mighty chorus as the worthy and recognized ruler of the new age.~
2
The New Year was the birthday of the human race and its rites dramatized
the creation of the world; all who would be found in &dquo;the Book of Life
opened at the creation of the World&dquo; must necessarily attend. There were
1
M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der Griechischen Religion, V,2,1 of Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, ed.,
W. Otto (Munich: 1941), pp. 778 f.
2
S. H. Hooke (ed.), The Labyrinth (London: 1937) and Th. H. Gaster, Thespis (New York: H. Schuman,
1950), are general treatments of the subject. See infra for other references.
226

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227
coronation and royal marriage rites, accompanied by a ritual representing
the sowing or begetting of the human race; and the whole celebration
wound up in a mightly feast in which the king as lord of abundance gave
earnest of his capacity to supply his children with all the good things of the
earth. The stuff for this feast was supplied by the feasters themselves,
for no one came &dquo;to worship the King&dquo; without bringing his tithes and
first fruits.3
3
Volumes would not suffice to trace the survival of present-day institu-
tions throughout the world from the practices and rites of the ancient
national assemblies. They were the general reservoir into which the myriad
culture-streams of an earlier day eventually found their way, and from
which are supplied in turn the mainstreams of our civilization. Space will
not allow us to examine these magnificent gatherings one by one, nor is it
necessary to draw the same identical picture a score of times. However,
since no work on the subject has to our knowledge yet appeared (though
the evidence is neither suspect nor difficult of access), it will be necessary
to reinforce our claims by passing quickly from west to east over the ancient
world, pointing out as we go some of the more important sources to which
the student might turn for a description of a score of the more illustrious
assemblies.
Beginning in the far northwest, we may take the great Things of
Iceland as typical of the primitive assemblies of the whole Germanic
North. The meeting place was a mound (the holy logberg, mountain of
the law) in the center of a stone circle where the four quarters of the
island met; the president of the meeting was a ritual king (the Gothi);
attendance was compulsory; booths, feasting, games, markets, and the
rest were never lacking.4
4
Identical though more imposing were the rites
at Uppsala5 and at various Teutonic shrines on the continent.&dquo; Typical
of all Celtic nations was the Beltene fair of the Irish as Usenech, held
&dquo;at the turn of the year,&dquo; at the hill where stood &dquo;the stone and umbilicus
3 For a general treatment of the year-feast, see H. Nibley, "Sparsiones," The Classical Journal, Vol. XL
(June, 1945), pp. 515-538.
4 See W. Golther’s notes in his edition of Are’s Islendingaboc (Halle: 1923), pp. 11 f.; also P. Herrmann,
Island (Leipzig: 1914), Vol. I, pp. 302 f., 515; F. Niedner, Islands Kultur zur Wikingerzeit (Jena:
1913), pp. 45-47.
5
Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, in Mon. Hist. Ger. SS., Vol. VII, p. 379;
P. Herrmann, Nordische Mythologie (Leipzig: 1903), pp. 300, 501; and P. B. Du Chaillu, The
Viking Age (New York: 1890), Vol. I, p. 296.
6
On the time, place, and nature of these assemblies, see A. Tille, Yule and Christmas (London: 1899),
pp. 47 f., 71; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (Goettingen: 1835), Vol. I, pp. 26-29; P. Herrmann,
Nord. Mythol., pp. 497-499, 503 f., 509; Carl Clemen, Religionsgeschichte Europas (Heidelberg:
Winter, 1926), Vol. I, pp. 355-361; Tacitus Annals i. 51, and Germania chap. 40; Thietmar
Chronicon i. 17; and numerous references in the sagas, especially Egils Saga. The classic study
of the survival of the old Germanic assemblies in the Middle Ages are Dissertations iv and v of
M. Du Cange, Dissertations ou Reflexions sur l’Histoire de Saint Louys in Vol. VII of Glossarium
Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (Paris: 1850), pp. 15 ff.

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228
of Ireland ... regarded as being in medio et meditullio terrae positus.&dquo;’
7
There the king of the new age was established and the creation of the
world was rehearsed.8 An inscription from Ancyra recording just such a
fair of the ancient Galatians9 reminds us that we are dealing with no
medieval innovations in the Irish fairs or in those of Britain and Gaul
which follow the same pattern.
In moving terms, Cicero has described the immemorial rites at Enna
in Sicily: &dquo;It is the exact center of the island, and is called the navel of
Sicily&dquo; where, at a sacred lake in the top of a mountain there congregates
once a year &dquo;a renowned assemblage of people not only from Sicily but
from other nations and races.&dquo; ~2 Rome itself was originally, and forever
remained, a place of universal assembly. The old Roma quadrata was,
or contained, a circular enclosure divided into four equal parts, at the
center of which stood the lapis manalis, the seal of the underworld,
marking the mundus-a term held by some to be identical with the
Greek kosmos. 13 At the end of the sacred roads stood the king’s house
on the holy mount. Hither repaired the whole human race for the ludi
saeculares, the universal birthday party from which no human being was
permitted to be absent. On this occasion, the king acted as host to all the
world; and having won a ritual contest with the powers of darkness, was
hailed as father and king of the race for a hundred years. 14
7 John Rhys, Celtic Heathendom (London: 1898), p. 192. Another such stone, a petra quadrata in ora
fontis, is described in the Book of Armagh, in Fontes Historiae Religionis Celticae, ed., J. Zwicker
(Berlin: 1934), Vol. II, p. 154. The stone of Tara was moved to Tailtiu when that became the
capital, Rhys, op. cit., pp. 207, 576, 585. See also H. Hubert in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions,
Vol. LXXI (1914), pp. 12, 15, and Vol. LXXII (1915), pp. 208-9; H. Hubert, Greatness and Decline
of the Celts (London: 1934), pp. 241 ff., and L. D. Agate, in Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics, Vol. X, p. 21.
8
H. D. De Jubainville, The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Heathendom, trans. R. Best (Dublin:
1903), pp. 3, 9, 20 ff., 25-35, 41, 56 f., 84, 89 ff., 93, 100, 136, 146 f., 219; H. Hubert, op. cit., pp.
1 ff. 242; Rhys, op. cit., pp. 409, 460, 514-17, 519 f., 459 f., 412, 581, 608, 614, etc.; J. A. MacCulloch,
Celtic Mythology, Vol. III of Mythology of All Races (Boston: 1918), pp. 28, 34 ff.; H. Allcroft,
The Circle and the Cross (London: 1927-30), Vol. II, pp. 73, 20, 207.
9 Corp. Inscr. Lat., No. 4,039k, cited in Allcroft, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 299; cf. Strabo Geog. xii. 5, 1.
10
British assemblies described in a letter to Gregory the Great in Migne, Patrologia Latina, Vol. 77,
pp. 1215-1216; at the Council of Cloveshove, 747 A.D., in J. D. Mansi, Sacr. concil. nov. et ampl.
collect. (1901 ed.), Vol. XII, p. 400; by Geoffrey of Monmouth Hist. Reg. Brit. iv. 14; iii. 5; iv. 8;
see especially the Welsh version, trans. A. Griscom (London: 1929), ix. 1; iii. 3. The year-drama
is described by Rhys, op. cit., pp. 155 ff., 160 ff., 562; cf. M. Williams, "An Early Ritual Poem in
Welsh," Speculum, Vol. XIII (1939), pp. 43 ff., and R. W. Muncey, Our Old English Fairs
(London: 1935), pp. 46, 103, 116, 145-147, 156, 162 f., 166, etc.
11
General descriptions: Athenaeus Deipn. iv. 34 (150-2); Venatius Fortunatus Vita St. Amantii xx.
108 ff.; Strabo Geog. iv. 3, 2-3; iv. 34, 15; v. 11, 1; Gregory of...