Ancient Mystery Cults

Walter Burkert

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Year: 1989
• ISBN:
  9780674253155
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

The foremost historian of Greek religion provides the first comprehensive, comparative study of a little-known aspect of ancient religious beliefs and practices. Secret mystery cults flourished within the larger culture of the public religion of Greece and Rome for roughly a thousand years. This book is neither a history nor a survey but a comparative phenomenology, concentrating on five major cults. In defining the mysteries and describing their rituals, membership, organization, and dissemination, Walter Burkert displays the remarkable erudition we have come to expect of him; he also shows great sensitivity and sympathy in interpreting the experiences and motivations of the devotees.

Notes

Introduction

1. See Reitzenstein 1927 (1910¹; English trans. 1978); Cumont 1931 (original French ed. 1907; English trans. 1911). The work of Reitzenstein developed into a religionsgeschichtliche Schule exploring mainly the influence of Iranian religion on Gnosticism; see Colpe 1961. For the influence of Reitzenstein in theology see, for example, Dibelius 1917; Bultmann 1963 (1949¹); Schneider 1954; J. Leipoldt, Von den Mysterien zur Kirche (Leipzig 1961), for whom early Christianity is a form of “mystery religion” (81). A mirage of Jewish mystery religion was created by J. Pascher, He basilike Hodos: Der Königsweg zu Wiedergeburt und Vergottung bei Philon von Alexandreia (Paderborn 1931), and in a more subtle way by E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven 1935). An independent study claiming the influence of mysteries on Christianity was Loisy 1930 (1919¹), based largely on Cumont. A scholar who maintained a cautious and critical position was A. D. Nock; see, for example, Nock 1952. For a more recent, cautious assessment, see Koster 1980 (English trans. 1982), sec. 4d, who still speaks of an “age of mystery religions” (209) and is inclined to include Christianity among them (206). As pertinent surveys, Prümm 1960 and Nilsson GGR II² (1961) should still be mentioned. For a bibliography see Metzger 1984. Schneider 1979 (edited posthumously) lacks references; Goodwin 1981 is a syncretistic picture book.

2. This series (Leiden: Brill) started in 1961, reached its one hundredth volume in 1984, and is still continuing; it includes CCCA (vol. 50), Bianchi 1979 (vol. 80), Bianchi-Vermaseren 1982 (vol. 92); it was preceded by CIMRM (1956/60).

3. See Hinnells 1975; Duchesne-Guillemin 1978; Journal of Mithraic Studies 1–3 (1976–1980).

4. Especially in vol. 11, 17(3/4, 1984); see Beck, Johnson, Leclant, Malaise, Metzger, Thomas.

5. See Sabbatucci 1979; Bianchi 1979, 1980; Cosi 1976, 1982; Casadio 1982, 1983; Sfameni Gasparro 1979, 1981, 1985; Lévêque 1982; for criticism of Cumont’s picture of Mithraism, see Gordon 1975, cf. n. 29; for Reitzenstein, see n. 1 above.

6. Reitzenstein 1927, 94–108, tried to establish, against E. Meyer and others, that the “mystery religions” date from the Hellenistic epoch, not from later antiquity, but excluded the old Greek mysteries as insignificant (3n.; 133). In the same vein, Giversen 1975 treats gnosticism and “mystery religions” together without regard to Eleusis or Dionysus.

7. See n. 22 below.

8. Reitzenstein 1927, 2: “Ich bezeichne dabei mit dem Worte ‘Hellenistisch’ Religionsformen, in denen orientalische und griechische Elemente sich mischen”; 3n.: “die dem Orient entlehnten, also hellenistischen Mysterienvorstellungen.”

9. This was stated by Wilamowitz 1932, 368–387; cf. Schneider 1939. This is not the place to discuss the various phenomena of Egyptian or Mesopotamian religion that have been called “mysteries” by modern scholars at one time or another. For Isis, see chap. II, n. 66 below; for the mirage of Iranisches Erlösungsmysterium created by Reitzenstein, see Colpe 1961, 1975. M. Adriani, Misteri e iniziazione in oriente (Florence 1978), is nothing but a popularized survey of so-called mystery religions.

10. Reitzenstein 1927, 9: “Urn Unsterblichkeit, also im allerweitesten Sinne um ‘Erlösung,’ handelt es sich bei dem eigentlich religiösen Teil dieser Mysterien immer.”

11. This begins with Justin Martyr Apol. 1.54, 1.66.4; Dial. c. Tryph. 70, 78; Tertullian Cor. 15, Bapt. 5, Praescr. haer. 40; see also Firmicus Err. 22.1, 27; Ambrosiaster PL 35.2279; Augustine In Ioh. tract. 7.1.6, PL 35.1440, etc.; Cosi 1976, 66. Lucian Mort. Per. 11 calls Christianity a “new telete” as Origen, adopting his opponent’s terms, calls Christianity “the teletai which are with us,” Cels. 3.59.

12. The most explicit testimony is Irenaeus Haer. 1.21.3 (1.14.2 p. 185 Harvey): “They prepare a bridal chamber and celebrate mysteries.” Clement repeatedly says the Gnostics celebrate sexual intercourse as mysteries, Strom. 3.27.1,5, cf. 3.10.1; 3.30.1. A homosexual encounter is insinuated in the “Secret Gospel of Mark,” Smith 1973, 115–117; 185; 452. See also R. M. Grant, “The Mysteries of Marriage in the Gospel of Philip,” Vig. Christ. 15 (1961) 129–140. Cf. chap. III at nn. 6–7; chap. IV at nn. 114–118.

13. Von Soden 1911; Prümm 1937; in general, see Rahner 1945; Nock 1952; Hamilton 1977; Wiens 1980; Riedweg 1987.

14. E. Renan, Marc Aurèle et la fin du monde antique (Paris 1882), 579 ( = Oeuvres complètes, Paris 1947, v, 1107; quoted by Cumont 1923, 188): “On peut dire que, si le christianisme eût été arrêté dans sa croissance par quelque maladie mortelle, le monde eût été mithriaste.”

15. Cf. Sanders 1980–82; Meyer-Sanders 1982.

16. Pride of place is due to Samothrace (see Cole 1984; GR 282–285); mention should be made of the Kabirion near Thebes (GR 281f.) and, in Caria, of Zeus of Panamara (Oppermann 1924; the evidence now in M. C. Şahin, Die Inschriften von Stratonikeia, Cologne 1981/82). Nilsson 1950 claims that mysteria is used in a loose and uncharacteristic way in the later period, but he shows unjustified prejudice against dancing and feasting in mysteries.

17. The old standard work was Foucart 1914, outdated by the excavations; for the material evidence, see Mylonas 1961; for a serious attempt at unde...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• I: Personal Needs in This Life and after Death
• II: Organizations and Identities
• III: Theologia and Mysteries: Myth, Allegory, and Platonism
• IV: The Extraordinary Experience
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Notes
• Index of Greek Terms
• General Index