The Mystery-Religions

S. Angus

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486231242
• eBook ISBN: 9780486143514
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

What is the strange fascination of the Mystery-Religions for the ancient world and today, some 2,000 years later, for moderns? Why are these colorful ancient cults so little known, all information about them suppressed or distorted by centuries of official religion in Europe? What did these ancient beliefs have that exacted the respect of Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Apuleius, and other great men of the classical age? Was the religion that stamped them out, Christianity, itself originally a Mystery-Religion, with secret teachings that only initiates could comprehend and psychological techniques not generally revealed?
This volume, generally considered the most useful single work in English on the subject, attempts to answer such questions, while at the same time offering a sound, solid background in the various forms of religious experience that are grouped together under the term Mystery-Religions. From the Eleusinian mysteries of ancient Greece through the Asiatic cults of Cybele, the Magna Mater, and Attis; the strange rompings of the Dionysian groups; Orphics with their impact on Greek philosophy; the Mysteries emergent from Egypt — Hermes Trismegistos, the Pymander, Isis, and Osiris; on up to the religion that swept the Near East and Europe, carried by the Roman legions, and that almost became central for us today — Mithraism.
Each of these religions offered something to its devotees that the older ethnic and state religions could not: a sense of the value of the individual; heightened areas of experience, even to the manipulations of sensory experience; psychological insights that are only now being appreciated. Yet they all died out within a couple of centuries of the Christian era, Gnosticism (apart from a few vestigial groups in the Near East and Europe) subsuming their heritage last.

CHAPTER I

ORIENTATION : THE HISTORICAL CRISES OF THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD IN THEIR BEARING UPON THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY

‘Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.’—VIRGIL.

IN order to a proper understanding of the strange phenomenon presented by the rapid spread of the Eastern Mystery-cults in the Graeco-Roman world, the conflict of Christianity with, and ultimate triumph over, its competitors, the gradual and finally almost complete subjugation of the West to Oriental ways and thoughts and modes of worship, we must take into account the political, social, and religious history of the Mediterranean world during the period of approximately seven centuries, from the invasion of the East by Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. until the foundation of Constantinople by the first Christian emperor in A.D. 327. We must also review the means by which the new order inaugurated by Alexander arose out of the old order which had dominated the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean.

This period is of enthralling interest to the student of the history of religion. In these centuries the vital forces of old and ripe civilizations were brought to a focus. New ideas were implanted in human society which have been productive of much good—and evil—for all subsequent history. If these centuries cannot boast of anything so sublime as Hebrew prophecy or anything so perfectly finished and perennially beautiful as the classics of the Periclean age, they present, in their chequered story, themes that rival in human interest those of the Christianizing of Western Europe, the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades, the Renaissance, the discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Reformation and CounterReformation, and modern social reconstruction. During the ages stretching between the teaching of Aristotle and the baptism of Constantine mankind witnessed the fall of the polis—that most wonderful and fruitful of the political experiments of ancient history¹; the meteor-like appearance of Alexander the Great; the rapprochement between East and West such as has never since been achieved; the growth and influence of the Jewish Diaspora, the chief path-finder for Christianity; the political supremacy of the West over the East for the first time and the establishment of the first western empire; the dissemination of Oriental mysticism and with it a world-renouncing ethic in the West; the prevalence for half a millennium of the Gnosis conception of religion which left its indelible mark on Christian theology; the beginning and rapid spread of those voluntary associations for religious purposes and mutual support which have done so much to shape human society; the rise of the Roman Empire, the culminating factor in the consummation of ‘the fulness of the time.’

This period witnessed also the rise of a problem very similar to that which the Great War has accentuated for us—that of internationalism and nationalism. All the previous empires of the Orient had been based upon the principle of internationalism: some of them, e.g. the Assyrian, attempted to crush nationalism, others, e.g. the Persian, adopted a liberal policy toward subject nationalities. This liberal policy Alexander the Great expanded and transmitted to Rome. The ancient solution of the problem was instructive. Empire and Church and Oriental religions alike aimed at internationalism and achieved it to a degree unknown hitherto or since, so that internationalism prevailed in the world for about two millennia. It did not endure. During the Middle Ages racial, linguistic, and climatic factors reasserted the national or enchoric principle.

The economic life of the West was also profoundly affected by the introduction of the industrial and commercial spirit of the Asiatics, who, whether Syrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, or Jews, were adepts in barter and trade of all kinds. This spirit, once introduced, found a congenial soil in the practical West, which has in this respect outstripped its teachers (except perhaps the Jews) and carried competitive commerce to such an extent that Western society now seems to Oriental eyes to rest on a material civilization. The Western political life was also in this period orientalized by the spread of the Eastern monarchical principle of government as against native Western democracy, and the consequent rise of a court-life which played a leading part in history for fifteen centuries in the West and has to this day maintained a shadow of its influence.

In the third century B.C. Greek civilization was seriously threatened by the incursions of the Northern Keltic barbarians into the Hellenic peninsula and Asia Minor. Had they succeeded, Greek culture would have disappeared and thus the Roman masters of the world would have missed the refining influence of Greece.² Early in the third century A.D. the East again threw down the political challenge to the West in the rise of the Sassanid dynasty of Persia. Near the end of our period we read of the first appearance of the Franks on the Rhine, and the first invasions of Spain and Africa by these peoples who were destined to carry Roman civilization and Latin Christianity northward. Many other events of world importance might be mentioned from this period of human history. Never did mankind pass through more decisive crises, or drink a fuller cup, or witness greater social upheavals than during these centuries.

Throughout this long period, but particularly in the first Christian centuries, religious interests occupied the dominant place in the lives of the men and women who made the history of the Graeco-Roman world, with the result that for the ensuing thousand years, down to about A.D. 1300, “ the basis of human organization is the religious motive, and human society is ecclesiastical in its primary inspiration.” ³ Men were in quest of a religion of redemption with an adequate theology and a satisfying and stimulating worship. On this point students of the Graeco-Roman world are in agreement. Thus Legge⁴ affirms of the six centuries from Alexander to Constantine: ” There has probably been no time in the history of mankind when all classes were more given up to thoughts of religion, or when they strained more fervently after high ethical ideals.” Aust,⁵ speaking of the imperial age, says: “ The hero is less honoured than the saint; the religious movement puts its seal upon the century;” while Dill asserts of the same era: “ The world was in the throes of a religious revolution, and eagerly in quest of some fresh vision of the Divine, from whatever quarter it might dawn.”⁶

That such statements are correct will appear from even a superficial acquaintance with the literature and thought of the Hellenistic and Roman age. In the ever-increasing asceticism and other-worldliness; the sustained efforts made to surmount Dualism; the rapid spread of Mysteries which taught men to find symbols of the spiritual in the material; the theocrasia which sought satisfaction for spiritual longings from whatever quarter; the urgent call for salvation and appeals for redemption-religions ; the active religious missionary spirit and street-preaching; the burdensome sense of sin and failure; the earnest attempts to solve the enigmas of life and penetrate the mystery of the grave: in these and other features familiar to the student of the Graeco-Roman period are revealed the aspirations of this ancient world for a pragmatic view of God and the world upon which, in the phrase of Cicero, men might ‘live with joy and die with a better hope.’ The themes which most engaged the minds of men were the nature and unity of the divine, the origin of evil, the relation of Fate and Fortune to Providence, the nature of the soul and the problem of immortality, the possibility of purification from moral stains, the means of union with God, and spiritual support for the individual life. Hellenistic philosophy became less scientific⁷ and speculative, addressing itself directly to the practical business of the moral life until in Philo and Neo-Platonism it ended in a profound religion of unio mystica.

From the days of Aristotle onwards numerous treatises were written on prayer,⁸ as, e.g., by Persius, Juvenal, the author of Alcibiades II, Maximus of Tyre. Practically every moralist of later paganism—Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Lucian, Marcus Aurelius, Porphyry, Plotinus—devoted attention to this expression of the religious life. Many of their declarations upon this topic are marked by deep spiritual insight. Some of the language is of supreme beauty and might be used by Christian hearts. The many endeavours made by statesmen, poets, and philosophers, to bring about a revival of religion indicate that religion was viewed as the imperative necessity of society. After the close of the Roman civil wars there was a genuine outburst of religious feeling and thanksgiving, of which, it is true, Augustus shrewdly took advantage for political and dynastic purposes. Even the apotheosis of Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors showed that far-sighted rulers recognized in religion the best bond of social cohesion and the best means of promoting loyalty. There is also abundant evidence that the numerous and terrible calamities of the period were generally attributed to neglect of worship for which some religious observance must atone. The history of the Punic wars furnishes a conspicuous instance. During that protracted struggle the populace, discouraged by defeats and terrified by prodigia, turned coldly away from their national gods toward new cults.

The outbreak and universal prevalence of Superstition throughout the Graeco-Roman world is another index of its religious interests. As nationalistic religions decayed, individualistic tendencies were given freer play. Men did not cease to believe in the Supernatural or in divine interference in the affairs of the world, but there was a profound change in belief as to the nature of the Supernatural and the means of placating demonic powers. The ritual means offered by the Western states were distrusted; individuals sought means of their own. Hence popular beliefs that had been kept under during the halcyon days of state-religion emerged once more, and methods of approach to deity formerly looked upon as not respectable or even prohibited came into vogue. Superstition was in its first stages the continued belief of the masses in deities toward whom the cultured were agnostic or atheistical. The first marked impetus to the spread of superstition was given by the breaking up of the priestly colleges of Mesopotamia by Alexander and the opening up of Egypt, the land of fascinating mystery, to the West, through Alexandria. From the days of the Second Punic War superstition grew apace, first among the lower classes, but gradually penetrating the higher classes until under the Empire it became universal. In eagerness to lose no liturgic formula or ceremonial secret men looked with admiration toward the East, and thus the way was opened to magic, astrology, demonology, theosophy, and physico-psychical experiments. The greatest of the emperors, such as Augustus, fell a prey to superstition, while Nero and Domitian lived under ghostly terrorism. Certain forms of superstition, viewed as politically dangerous, were so popular that no legal enactments and no police investigations could exterminate them. Star-readers, necromancers, and purveyors of magical incantations drove a thriving trade. Governing circles were thwarted in their attempts to secure a monopoly of illicit means of forcing the hands of Deity by the tenacity with which their subjects clung to them. “ People could no longer take a bath, go to the barber, change their clothes, or manicure their finger-nails without first awaiting the proper moment.” ⁹

The rise of Superstitio or religiosity as a species of nonconformity against Religio was a symptom of the age, so that in post-Augustan literature the terms were often (as in Seneca) used synonymously, and Religio was given a bad name, as in Lucretius’ famous verse (1,101):

‘tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.’

The literature of the time teems with references to this religiosity. Cicero¹⁰ contrasts superstition as timor inanis deorum with religion as deorum cultu pio, and draws the distinction between the adjectives ‘superstitious’ and ’religious’ as alterum vitii nomen alterum laudis.¹¹ The rise of Epicureanism was a protest against current superstition. The chief aim of Epicurus, for which he was acclaimed a ‘Saviour’ by his disciples, was to deliver mankind from the terrors of superstition here by affirming the apathy of the gods, and hereafter by negating its existence. This passion inspired Lucretius¹² to his majestic De Rerum Natura, in which he characterizes superstitio as

‘omnia suflundens mortis nigrore.’

To cure the terrorem animi tenebrasque he applies the naturae species ratioque, while beyond the flammantia moenia mundi there are no terrors of hell but only darkness and nothingness. Seneca, as a man of his age and a student of religious pathology, recognized the power and the danger of this error insanus, which he endeavoured to exorcise by his Stoic principles. According to Augustine¹³ he wrote a book Contra superstitiones. Lucian’s satiric pen exposed the religious foibles of his day, especially in his Philopseudes. The most readable account has been given us by Plutarch in his essay On Superstition. He describes superstition as a moral and emotional disorder as compared with Atheism which is an intellectual error.¹⁴ Fear is the motive of superstition. The atheist believes that there are no gods; the superstitious wishes there were none,¹⁵ while he flees for refuge to the gods whom he fears. The dreadful presence of the Deity allows the superstitious man no respite by land or sea. Slaves may in sleep forget their tyrannous masters, but the superstitious man meets them in terrifying dreams.¹⁶ Even in the exercise of his religion there is no comfort, for at the very altar he is tortured. For guidance he has resort to fortune-tellers and other impostors who relieve him of his cash. He bathes in the sea, sits the live-long day on the bare earth, besmears himself with mud, rolls on the dunghills, observes sabbaths, prostrates himself in strange attitudes, passes time in silent contemplation before the god, employs absurd addresses and barbarous invocations, and makes religion an expensive affair, like the folk in the comedy who bestrew their beds with gold and silver while sleep is the only thing given gratis by the gods.¹⁷ There is one world common to waking men, while in sleep each wanders into worlds of his own. The deisidaimon, on the contrary, when awake fails to enjoy the rational world, and when asleep cannot escape the world of terrors. The power of superstition extends beyond the grave in attaching to death eternal torments—the yawning gates of Hell, flaming rivers, the dismal Styx, and ghostly shapes. In physical maladies and family and political misfortunes the conduct of the superstitious contrasts unfavourably with that of the atheist. The former is unmanned by what he calls the ‘plagues of the god,’ or ‘the attacks of the demon’: he denounces himself as hateful to gods and demons, and clad in miserable rags he makes public confession of his sins and negligencies. Atheism is not responsible for superstition, though the latter has conduced to the former. Plutarch concludes:

‘No disease is so full of variations, so changeable in symptoms, so made up out of ideas opposed to, nay, rather, at war with one another, as is the disease called Superstition. We must therefore fly from it, but in a safe way and to our own good—not like those who, running away from the attack of highwaymen, or wild beasts, or a fire, have entangled themselves in mazes leading to pitfalls and precipices. For thus some people, when running away from Superstition, fall headlong into atheism, both rugged and obstinate, and leap over that which lies between the two, namely, true Religion.’

In the complementary essay On Isis and Osiris¹⁸ Plutarch speaks of those who can transmute myths into symbols of religious truth as opposed to those who in their desire to shun the quagmire of Superstition slip unwittingly over the precipice of Atheism.

The religious spirit, even the religiosity of the age, is further marked not only by the beginnings and spread “of those great associations of mankind for religious purposes, henceforth the principal factors of world-history,” ¹⁹ but by an aggressive religious propaganda such as ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• FOREWORD
• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER I - ORIENTATION : THE HISTORICAL CRISES OF THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD IN THEIR BEARING UPON THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS AND CHRISTIANITY
• CHAPTER II - WHAT IS A MYSTERY-RELIGION ?
• CHAPTER III - THE THREE STAGES OF A MYSTERY-RELIGION
• CHAPTER IV - THE APPEAL OF THE MYSTERY-RELIGIONS
• CHAPTER V - THE APPEAL OF THE MYSTERY-RELIGIONS (continued)
• CHAPTER VI - CHRISTIANITY AND THE MYSTERY-RELIGIONS IN CONTRAST
• CHAPTER VII - THE VICTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MODERN WRITERS
• ADDENDA TO BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX OF AUTHORS
• INDEX OF SUBJECTS
• A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST