#charis

“Hephaestus deserves better!”

Charis is difficult to translate, because it is (at least) two-sided. On the one hand it expresses the feeling of gratitude felt by humans to the gods for giving them good things, and on the other it means that ‘‘grace’’ or ‘‘bounty’’ which the gods give men. And the word is related to chairō, Greek for ‘‘feel joy or happiness.’’ In worship the Greeks aimed at generating an atmosphere of reciprocal charis; they would express their grateful worship of the splendid gods; the gods, in turn, would – hopefully – grant them their charis, goodwill, which translated into wealth, health, and power. We can see how hymn-singing is part of the human ‘‘charis-drive’’; it is an aesthetic offering to go with other material offerings (animal sacrifice, libations, incense, etc.) designed to secure divine goodwill. Prayer, on the other hand, is a request put to god(s) backed up by references to other acts of worship (sacrifice etc.) which might induce the god(s) to grant the request. The prayer-request itself is not conceived as an offering, either material or aesthetic.