The Encyclopedia of World Religions

34 S Artemis

Some myths tells how she killed the mighty hunter Orion after he had insulted her. In an indirect way she was responsible for another death. Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, was devoted to Artemis. Jeal ous, the goddess Aphrodite engineered an amorous intrigue that eventually resulted in Hippolytus’s death. The playwright Euripides made this story famous in one of his plays. Artemis watches over the young from birth to maturity. Ancient Greek girls would dance in choruses in her honor as part of their rituals of growing up. Girls of Athens served Artemis at the sanctuary at Brauron. They were known as arktoi, bears, apparently after a bear whom myths said the Athenians had once killed. asceticism Self-denial and living a very simple life for religious reasons. Seriously religious peo ple in virtually all traditions have given up things, especially things that appeal to the senses, for the sake of religion. They have given up food by fasting, or by subsisting only on coarse and taste less food. They have worn only rough clothes, or even gone without clothes at all. They have lived in cold caves or hard monastic cells. They have foregone marriage. They have meditated for hours under a hot sun, or in freezing mountains. They have deliberately induced discomfort by wearing hair shirts or chains, sleeping on beds of nails, and standing under waterfalls. A few have even muti lated themselves. These states of self-denial are called asceti cism—abstention from the natural pleasures of life for religious reasons. It ranges from what may be called “normal” asceticism, that of, say, a monk or nun in an austere order with long hours of prayer or meditation and a sparse but wholesome diet, to the greatest extremes of self-inflicted pain. Ascet ics are found in the spiritual traditions of most religions. Examples would include the MONKS AND NUNS of R OMAN C ATHOLICISM and E ASTERN O RTHODOX C HRISTIANITY , of B UDDHISM and of T AOISM , the Sufi ascension, of Christ See J ESUS .

symbolize certain qualities, like Ganesa’s wisdom. With the exception of the Eastern Orthodox icon, Christian art tends to be realistic when dealing with C HRIST or the saints. In some religions, believers object to certain religious uses of art, usually on the grounds that they represent idolatry or the representation of the infinite God in a particular form at a particular place. J UDAISM , for example, employs decorative art and art for educational purposes but avoids sacred statues or paintings in places of worship. I SLAM rejects any attempt to portray God or the Prophet in art, and in MOSQUES there is only abstract orna mentation, often calligraphed lines from the Koran ( see Q UR ’ AN ). Protestant churches may have stained-glass windows and prints or paintings, less often statues, as storytellers and reminders but not as objects of devotion in the Catholic or Eastern Orthodox sense. The use or nonuse of forms of art in worship has been a heated issue in religious history, the subject of fierce argument and even violent per secution. But for all the conflicts, few things have brought more joy to religious believers than the best of religious art within its tradition. Further reading: S. G. F. Brandon, Man and God in Art and Ritual (New York: Scribner, 1975); Jane Dillenberger, Image and Spirit in Sacred and Secular Art (New York: Crossroad, 1990); Albert C. Moore, Iconography of Religions: An Introduction (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990); Gerardus Van der Leeuw, Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963). Artemis An ancient Greek GODDESS . In mythol ogy she is A POLLO ’s twin sister. Among other func tions, Artemis presided over the rituals that marked a young woman’s coming of age. In character, Artemis is a virgin and a hunt ress. In the battle of the gods in book 21 of the Iliad, she comes off poorly. In effect, Hera disci plines her physically, and she runs to Z EUS for com fort. But Artemis is not always such a weakling.