The Mystery Religions
Background
We don’t know as much as we would like to about the mystery
religions because people did such a good job keeping them secret.
So anything we say today has to be handled gently. Much of what
we do know comes from the writings of detractors. Interpreting
this is always a bit of a problem. Imagine voting for someone when
all you had to go on what his or her opponents said about him or
her. But over the years scholars have come up with a general story
that is fairly well agreed upon and it is that story that we will tell
today.
“By the time of Alexander the great and his successors, Olympian
Zeus had grown old. Father Zeus, lord of the sky and master of the
thunderbolt, had ruled easily and well over the traditional polis or
city-state, of pre-classical Greece. The feudal chieftain of the
Olympian pantheon, Zeus lived with his queen Hera, his brothers
Poseidon and Hades, and the other gods and goddesses in such a
way as to recall the proud, heroic days of the “Trojan War, when
deities and human beings fought gloriously side by side. But for
Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., the heroic days
celebrated by the bard Homer in his Iliad and Odyssey represented
the older order of the Greek world, and that old order, with its
increasingly anachronistic poleis (plural of polis) and its outmoded
gods, was giving way to a new, post-Olympian world” (Meyer, p.
1).
“Alexander the Great’s conquests of 336 to 323 B.C.E. brought
profound changes to the values of the old Greek polis and the
Olympian gods and goddesses linked to the polis” (Meyer, p. 1).
“With Alexander and those who came after him, the Greek
provincialism of the polis was modified, and in the Hellenistic
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period there emerged a new sense of the ‘inhabited’ world, as the
international stage for human action” (Meyer, p. 2).
“Doubts had been cast upon the Olympian deities of the Greek
polis, however, long before the time of Alexander the Great. In the
world of fifth-century Greece, philosophers and playwrights
already questioned the virtues and, implicitly, the existence of gods
and goddesses who were portrayed, with anthropomorphic
vividness, as lustful, jealous, malevolent immortals. The critics
demanded to know how one could worship a god like Zeus.
According to the Greek myths, Zeus dethroned his titanic father
Kronos, pursued and ravished, often while in bestial disguise,
many a beautiful woman, and resorted to countless stratagems in
order to evade his suspicious wife Hera. Such behavior on the part
of the Olympians raised serious theological doubts in the minds of
the more reflective Greeks” (Meyer, p. 2).
“In sum, the Olympians began to fall from glory for several
reasons. Their destiny was linked to that of the Greek polis, which
was no longer the basic political unit in the world after
Alexander’s time. Furthermore, the philosophical criticism of
religion that took place before and during the Hellenistic period
challenged Greek beliefs and exposed the gods as unworthy of the
worship and devotion of thoughtful Greek people. To be sure, the
Olympian pantheon maintained itself as a religious and cultural
force in the Hellenistic world, and attempts were made to inject
new philosophical and religious values into the systems of the
Olympian deities. Homer did not relinquish his place at the center
of ancient education, and the allegorical exegesis of Homeric texts
allowed people to interpret the sacred myths in new, scientific,
philosophical ways. Nonetheless, the hearts of many were turning
away from Zeus and the Olympians during this period, and many
searched at home and abroad for gods that would satisfy more fully
their religious longings” (Meyer, p. 3).
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“One type of religion, the so-called ‘mysteries,’ flourished during
the Hellenistic period and proved very popular among people
seeking new and more satisfying religious experiences” (Meyer, p.
3).
“The mysteries were secret religious groups composed of
individuals who decided, through personal choice, to be initiated
into the profound realities of one deity or another. Unlike the
official religions, in which a person was expected to show outward,
public allegiance to the local gods of the polis or the state, the
mysteries emphasized an inwardness and privacy of worship
within closed groups. The person who chose to be initiated joined
an association of people united in their quest for personal
salvation” (Meyer, p. 4).
“The word mystery (mysterion in Greek) derives from the Greek
verb myein, ‘to close,’ referring to the closing of the lips or the
eyes. This ‘closed’ character of the mysteries may be interpreted
in two ways. First of all, an initiate, or mystes (plural, mystai) into
the mysterion was required to keep his or her lips closed and not
divulge the secret that was revealed at the private ceremony. Vows
of silence were meant to ensure that the initiate would keep the
holy secret from being revealed to outsiders. Most mystai
observed their pledge of secrecy, and as a result we possess little
information about the central features of the mysteries” (Meyer, p.
4).
“A second way to interpret the ‘closed’ nature of the mysteries
relates to the closing and the opening of the eyes. Closed eyes
brought darkness to the prospective initiate both literally and
metaphorically, and the opening of the eyes was an act of
enlightenment. Just as one of a baby’s first responses to the world
is the discov3ery of light through the opening of the eyes, so the
initiate, sometimes described as one reborn, also saw the light.
Nocturnal initiatory ceremonies, with flickering torches
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accentuating the contrast between light and darkness, made the
primal experience of enlightenment that much more vivid to the
eyes and the emotions” (Meyer, pp. 4-5).
“One of the priests in the mysteries was termed a hierophant
(hierophants), ‘one who shows sacred things.’ The highest stage
of initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries is that of epopteia,
‘beholding,’ and an initiate into the great mysteries was called an
epoptes, ‘beholder’” (Meyer, p. 5).
“Blessed is one who goes under the earth after seeing these things.
That person knows the end of life, and knows its Zeus-given
beginning” (Meyer, p. 5).
“Many of the mystery religions were of great antiquity, and their
origins are hidden in the mists of prehistory. Some of the
mysteries seem to have developed from agrarian festivals that
celebrated the fertility of nature as it manifested itself in the life
cycle of crops” (Meyer, p. 5).
“This ancient heritage of the agrarian festivals may help explain
the prominent place of goddesses in the mystery religions of the
Hellenistic world. Through these early agricultural festivals,
worshipers expressed concern for the fertility of the earth and are
thought to have confessed the earth to be nourished and protected
by the divine Mother. It has often been supposed that in some of
the earliest religions in human history, the mother goddess reigned
alone or nearly alone and embodied the mysterious forces of life
and death in the world” (Meyer, p. 6).
“The development of early agrarian or fertility festivals into the
mystery religions involved, first and foremost, the conviction on
the part of the worshipers that the cycle of nature related directly to
human life. Plants and animals participated in a cycle of death and
life, and so also did human beings. Death came to all the divine
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forces of nature - Kore, Dionysus, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, the
Mithraic bull - but finally life was victorious. Kore returned from
the realm of Hades; Dionysus vivified his devotees; Adonis rose
from the dead; Attis gave an intimation of new life; Osiris reigned
as king of the underworld; and the bull provided life for the world.
Hence, if human beings could assimilate the power that made life
triumphant in the world of nature, they too might live in a more
complete way” (Meyer, pp. 7-8).
“Just how the initiates into the mysteries appropriated this power
we do not know, but they may have understood themselves to have
experienced an immediate or mystical encounter with the divine.
At times this experience seems to have entailed an approach to
death and a return to life. Sometimes, as in the Eleusinian and
Egyptian mysteries, the mystai underwent dramatic rituals of
darkness and death and emerged afterward into new light and life.
In several texts the initiates are specifically declared to be reborn”
(Meyer, p. 8).
“Ordinarily the mystai partook of food and drink in the ritual
celebrations, and sometimes they may have become one with the
divine by participating in a sacramental meal analogous to the
Christian Eucharist” (Meyer, p. 8).
“The experience of death is compared with initiation into great
mysteries. Plutarch initially notes the similarity of the Greek verbs
teleutan (to die) and teleisthai (to be initiated) and then observes
that people who die and people who are initiated go through
comparable transformations” (Meyer, p. 8).
“Whatever else the mystery religions were, they were fascinating
and delightful occasions for the participants” (Meyer, p. 9).
“Several …sources describe in detail the public celebrations that
preceded the secret ceremonies. A colorful band of people
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marched together in the parades and processions that took place
during the holidays observed for the mystery religions. Some
mystai sang and danced, others displayed unusual and sometimes
bizarre attire, while dignitaries carried the holy shrines or sacred
paraphernalia of the deities featured in the mysteries. As portrayed
by ancient authors, the processions in honor of the Magna Mater
and Isis were carnivals that would rival modern celebrations of
Mardi Gras” (Meyer, pp. 9-10).
“Other rituals preliminary to the secret initiations were less
spectacular but equally stirring to those taking part. These
observances included such rites of purification as fasting,
abstaining from specified foods (such as meat or wine), refraining
from sexual intercourse, and submitting to cleansings” (Meyer, p.
10).
“The secret ceremonies of the mystery religions, however, remain
largely hidden from us. We know that the purified devotees,
properly attired according to the regulations for a given mystery
religion, assembled at a holy site for the rituals of initiation. In the
Eleusinian mysteries the mystai participated in rites that
incorporated three types of sacred observances: legomena, ‘things
recited,’ deiknymena, ‘things shown,’ and dromena, ‘things
performed” (Meyer, p. 10).
“A fragment of Aristotle provides the occasion for a final word on
the ancient mystery religions. In this fragment Aristotle concludes
that initiates into the mysteries do not learn anything (ou mathein
ti), but rather have an experience (pathein) and are put in a certain
state of mind (diatethenai)” (Meyer, p. 12).
“They were not given instruction or taught doctrine in any
traditional sense. Initiation was not classroom education, but an
eye-opening experience that transcended earthly realities and
mundane learning. Just as any mystical experience ultimately
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cannot be put into words or described adequately in books, so also
the blessed mystai heard, saw, and performed the ineffable. They
claimed to have tasted death and life and to have been touched by
the divine. United with one or another of the deities of the mystery
religions - including, some scholars would say, Christ - they beheld
the light, and their lives were renewed” (Meyer, pp. 12-13).
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