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ritual · Greek

Prayer to Athena

Athena
Most High Goddess Pallas, golden wreathed Athena, Great Goddess of the World; You who sprang fully armed from our Father's venerable head. Virgin goddess who awakens in us the indestructible and illuminated Nous. Shield-bearing, Immaculate, You who governs the Whole World. Untamed Metis who merges the opposites, thrice-born Maiden; bright flower. You have filled the mind of the Father with the laws of Universal Beauty. You are all which exists, all which is still to come and all that has been. Glorious Goddess, Bright-eyed Maiden, grant the strength and love to raise me from the embrace of Gaia to illuminated Olympos. O' Goddess, offer to us your immaculate Wisdom and mental power, granting us the blessings of Olympos that uplift the soul, banishing the great illusions of the World.
Commentarius · Commentary

A modern LABRYS text (see greek-agathodaimon-001), and here a caveat is needed not only about the words but about the occasion.

"Heliodites, a Sunday solar ceremony" is a new institution. The Greeks had no seven-day week at all: the month was divided into decades, and there was no Sunday in it. The planetary week with a day of the Sun is a phenomenon of Roman date, which came into general use by way of the Christian calendar. A community that meets on Sundays is living by a timetable the ancients did not know.

The hymn itself, meanwhile, rests on genuine material, but late material. "Untameable Metis", "thrice-born Maiden", "you filled the Father's mind with the laws of universal Beauty", "you are all that exists" — this is the Athena of the Neoplatonists: for the later Platonists she is the intellect proceeding from the paternal mind, and Proclus wrote her a hymn in precisely these terms. The theology is ancient but not classical, and academic rather than cultic.

Compare the Homeric hymn on the same birth (homeric-athena-001): there we have armour, a shaken Olympus and frightened gods, and not one abstract word. One event, two theologies, and eight centuries between them.

Fons · Source
AuthorLABRYS Polytheistic Community
WorkHellenic Polytheism: Household Worship
SectionHeliodites — Hymn to Athena
OccasionHeliodites — Sunday solar ceremony
Classificatio · Taxonomy
CultureGreek
Formritual
DeitiesAthena
FunctionsInvocation · Petition · Praise
SpherePersonal · Arts & Poetry