What Is "Real" Worship?

By Dawn Raffel

While traveling in Italy, I visited several sacred sites—some of them archeological ruins and others active places of worship. In Paestum, south of Naples, three massive Greek temples built some 500 years BC stand largely intact; the goddesses Hera and Athena were worshipped here. A few hours north is Pompeii, an ancient city whose life was extinguished almost instantaneously when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, burying everything under lethal ash while at the same time preserving buildings, their contents, and even some bodies for thousands of years. Every day, throngs of tourists make their way through what’s left of what were once remarkably sophisticated homes and public places. Here, too, one finds temples erected for the worship of Greek and Roman gods who, unlike their ancient counterparts in the Hindu and Jewish religions, are now “extinct.”

Standing amid the remains of Pompeii's temple of Apollo—the god of music, song, dance, and poetry—I overheard a tour guide explain to her group that these pagan gods often behaved in ways that were reprehensible, and that worship of them was extremely transactional. (And yet, I thought, don't many people continue to pray in a transactional manner, requesting a particular worldly outcome, bargaining with God?)

The ruined Apollo temple is no longer a place of devotion. Nobody makes a pilgrimage here, or lights a candle, or says a prayer (at least not aloud). Yet the Greek and Roman gods and their myths have left a profound impression on Western thought. You can find their influence on everything from psychological archetypes to high art to earthy commerce (for instance, Ajax cleaning products). Standing in that crowded, half-destroyed space, I felt something more than historical curiosity or admiration for an earlier civilization’s imperfect strivings. I experienced a sense of the sacred. And I wondered: If neither subject (individual worshippers) nor object (images of a deity) is real; if even our most elegant words (stories) and thoughts (more stories) are not real, then how much does it matter that the images were “pagan,” the gods were poorly behaved, and the rituals no longer meet our approval? To put it another way, were the ancient Romans worshipping only lust and gold? Or was the reverence for divinity—the love—real?

North of Pompeii, Italy’s capital, Rome, is the home of the Vatican and many famous churches. Among the most visited is the Pantheon, which began as a Roman temple. In 608 AD, Pope Boniface IV, recognizing its architectural magnificence, installed the remains of Christian martyrs here, and the temple was “converted.” Today it is filled with Christian iconography and holds Catholic services. Was everything previously held within these walls, under this soaring ceiling, expunged? Or is there a spiritual energy that shape-shifts but never goes away? Scholars can explain the history, the architecture, the artwork, and even the doctrine of these sacred spaces. But it’s the deeper, intangible mysteries, the ones that can never be captured in words, that continue to draw us in.