Hellenistic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments Author(s): A. D. Nock Source: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 5, Fasc. 3 (1952), pp.

177-213 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4427382 Accessed: 09/12/2010 07:42
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Mnemosyne.

http://www.jstor.org

HELLENISTIC

MYSTERIES SACRAMENTS BY A. D. NOCK

AND

CHRISTIAN

Gerardi

Memoriae dilectae van der Leeuw 178 184 189 192 202 210

I. Mysteries and initiations in classical Greece. II. Mysteries in the Hellenistic period: the metaphorical use of mystery terminology . III. Mysterion and the metaphor of mysteries in Judaism. IV. Baptism and the Eucharist as dona data . V. Development in the second and third centuries . VI. Development in the fourth century .

from

This subject has been so much discussed that the reader will expect me neither striking novelties nor a complete of what knowledge it may be worth while to has been written about it. Nevertheless

and to submit some conclusionsx). We try to review the situation have perhaps reached the point where we can think of these things sine ira et studio, with no desire to explain away the rise of Christianof Hellenistic elements ity and with no feeling that the suggestion 1) A first form of these remarks was delivered as one of a series of Haskell Lectures at Oberlin in 1942 and as a lecture to the University of Chicago in 1944; a second was presented to the Seventh Congress of the History of Religion at Amsterdam in 1950 (cf. Proceedings, 53 ff. for the text as read) and to the University of Bonn in the same year. Under the circumstances it would be hard to thank all those to whom I am indebted; but I wish to express my gratitude to my hosts and to Professors Campbell Bonner, H. J. Cadbury, Martin P. Nilsson, Morton Smith and F. R. Walton and Mr. Zeph Stewart. For the evidence, references will be found in M. P. Nilsson, Gesch. d. griech. Rei., I, 619 ff., II 85 ff., 230 ff., 291 ff., 329 ff., 596 ff.; A. J. Festugiere-P. Fabre, Le monde gr?co-romain au temps de Notre-Seigneur, II 167ff.; Festugi?re, Rev. et. gr. LXIV (1951), 474ff.; Nock, Early Gentile Christianity and its Hellenistic Background (in Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation, ed. ?. E. J. Rawlinson, 51 ff.), Conversion, Ricerche Religiose, VI (1930), 392 ff., Enc. Social Sciences, XI 172 ff., Camb. Anc. Hist. X, XII. The notes which follow are intended only by way of supplement or to document individual statements. Mnemosyne V 12

178 in it

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS would whose involve death Dom Odo 'common or unclean'. something used the title was so great a loss to scholarship, the ancient Christi for a chapter in which he discussed

Casel, Die Vorschule mysteries *).

I. MYSTERIES AND INITIATIONS IN CLASSICAL GREECE Like the these conducted the of Anatolia, peoples Syria, Mesopotamia, ceremonies had many annual or periodic in an atmosphere and solemnity of secrecy and which Egypt, were

Greeks were

2). Some of or groups, while to others to special individuals their wives were in general citizens or (as to the Thesmophoria) and many, were in the main agrarian admitted. Such ceremonies restricted with Demeter and Dionysus. all, of them were associated solemn actions linked to the annually were heilige Handlungen, recurrent of theseedcorn, the renewcycle of nature, the fertilization al of plant and animal and human life; some of them were regarded but not These as the reliving of stories which reflected this cycle. Such renewal of life had always taken place, but it must be ensured. Heilige Handthe emphasis was on the action and was lungen were Handlungen: and not subjective, collective and not individual. can be little doubt that the mysteries of Eleusis were once of this type, a rite concerned with the daily bread and something of the then independent of Eleusis. This was well-being community objective There still at the time of our earliest record, the Homeric independent to Demeter, had already assumed a different but the mysteries Hymn in this life and a better portion in prosperity who had 'seen these things'. The rite retained

aspect, and promised the hereafter to those its relation invited the Greeks

to the farmer's

of the mysteries

year, and in the fifth century the Athenians in general to send first fruits to Eleusis at the time became primarily 3). Yet these mysteries initiatory,

1) Die Liturgie als Mysterienfeier, 1 ff. 2) The rites of Bona Dea at Rome belonged to this type and Cicero calls them mysteria (Wissowa, Pauly-Wissowa, III, 688.66). It should be noted that in the Near East and in Italy there are very few indications pointing to anything like the solemn rituals of initiation at puberty often found among primitives; such rites de passage as existed were not dramatic. 3) Dittenberger, Sy//.(ed. 3), 83. On the Telesterion at Eleusis cf. L. Deubner, Abh. Berlin, 1945/6, ii; on various phases of development, Nilsson, Cults, Myths>

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS a thing which

179

and which was changed the status of all who witnessed all qualified to as individuals and not only to important persons the Eleusinians as a group. In early times the rite, like others of the type, was presumably attended after year by all local inhabitants who wished to do so. year Later done what mattered was was to have so once sufficient. Initiation seen the holy things, was elaborated and to have and came to

several stages: the fluidity of the Greek language involve and the in the evidence and allusions of many statements leave vagueness us in doubt on essential points, but the scheme seems to have been as follows. called There was first myesis, itx); this was a purification in the Small Mysteries Initiation in the Great at least mentioned originally The fourth 'initiation administered as P. Roussel pr?alable' at any time of year2). was also required before last time.

initiation came

epopteia, The first stage is something the scheme. Hymn

at Agra(e) in Boedromion; at Eleusis, Mysteries a year later, at the same place and may

be an old prerequisite and only later independent must be a later

but the second

only

speaks of 'seeing' in a manner rite and that no higher blessedness was to be had. one essential epopteia was created when Eleusis drew men from far Presumably to attract for them to come 3). again or from elaboration

in incorporated the Homeric accretion; which implies that there was

it was and near, whether human natural penchant

Oracles and Politics in ancient Greece (Acta Inst. Athen. R. Sueciae, Ser. in 8% I, 1951), 36 ff., and F. R. Walton, Harv. Theol. Rev. XLV (1952). 1) Bull. Corr. Hell. LIV (1930), 51 ff.This myesis could be administered either at Eleusis or at Athens (B. D. Meritt, Hesperia, XIV, 1945, 77). 2) In Aristoph. Pax 31A a man in imminent danger of death desires myesis;. if he means this 'initiation pr?alable', it must have been credited with some general efficacy. Yet he probably has in mind the chain of acts culminating in initiation at Eleusis; for dramatic effect, Aristophanes could ignore the fact that Trygaeus, whenever he received 'initiation pr?alable', would have to wait till Boedromion and go to Eleusis if he was to become an initiate (cf. L. Deubner, Attische Feste, 78 ?. 12). 3) First mentioned in Syll. 42, a text to be used in Meritt's revised form,. I.e., 61 ff. (cf. Supp. epigr. gr. X, 6). There remain gaps; but the text as it stands specifies fees to be paid for admission to the Smaller Mysteries and to the Greater Mysteries, but none for epopteia. Is it possible that the epoptai mentioned (p. 78) are old initiates attending the mysteries again at a time before the pressure of those who wished to become mystai made this impossible for those who had no special qualification? For development at Eleusis, cf. Nilsson I 621.

180 With

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS the

and the influx of non-Athenians to growth of Athens in who were not performing some special function initiates Eleusis, must have been in general excluded after epopteia the Telesterion at the celebration. The building could not Old initiates that is conclusive1). persons; took part in the procession to Eleusis 2) and commonly the precinct while the sacred waited inside or outside from presence 3,000 than seat no more doubt

may have action was

1) For the size of the Telesterion cf. Guide Bleu, Gr?ce (ed 1935), 192 (The suggestion that others stood in the central space seems to me improbable). In addition to the priestly participants and the initiates there were the mystagogoi (Plut. Alcib. 34, 6). In spite of Philostr. V. Soph. II, 1, 12, Himer. Orat. XXIII 8 and the metaphor in Menander's fragment about the daimon of the individual (fullest text in J. Demianczuk, Suppl. com., 60), it is unlikely that there was one mystagogos for each mystes; yet it is probable that their number was appreciable. Our first detailed information about mystagogoi comes from a text (unfortunately mutilated) of about the first century B.C. published by J. H. Oliver, Hesp. X (1941), 65 ff. Here they are an official body as at Andania (Syll. 736, 149; cf. the paragogeies at the Theban Kabirion, LG. VII 2428, and the apparently single mystagogos at Panamara, for whom as primarily guiding the priest cf. Roussel, Bull. Corr. Hell. LI, 1927, 127, n. 5) and apparently responsible for the carrying out of regulations; in particular they were concerned with the deltaria or lists of those approved for initiation. This may be part of the late Hellenistic revival and elaboration of ritual known from the texts published by Meritt, Hesp. XI (1942), 293 ff. and Roussel, M?i. Bidez, 819 ff. It is of course possible that the responsibilities of the mystagogos ended at the door of the Telesterion. Oliver's text may represent a measure taken after the discovery of two unauthorized Acarnanians in the sanctuary in 200 B.C. (Liv. XXXI 14, 7; cf. S. Accame, Riv. Fil. LXIX, 1941, 189 f. on what may have been an attempt by Philip V to conciliate Athenian opinion). P. R. Arbesmann, Das Fasten bei den Griechen u. R?mern (Relg. Vers. Vorarb. XXI 1), 81 f. suggests that initiation was given on more than one night of the mysteries; but cf. Luc. Alex. 38 for three distinct days of ritual in Alexander's ceremonial, (read te???????? for te????????, with G. Zuntz, Cl. Q. XLIV, 1950, 69 f.) which imitated some of the external forms of Eleusis. I do not suggest that we can infer a comparable sequence of actions, but certainly the last day was marked by the special ceremony of plemochoai, which (apart from the formula) could be described without impropriety (Athen. 496 A-?). In some sanctuaries old initiates were no doubt present repeatedly; so at Ephesus (Syll. 820; the mystai join with the priestesses in performing the mysteries). 2) We should not take literally the 'about 30000 men' of the vision in Hdt. VIII 65, but the passage implies that a large proportion of the Athenian populace took part: cf. Andoc. 1111 'when we (the people) came from Eleusis'. Later the epheboi as a body went in full armor to escort the procession; there was an intention 'that they might become more pious men' (Syll. 885).

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS in the could not witness

181 it

proceeding

Telesterion;

they

normally

again. A new type of ceremony tions of public ritual thus sions. Eleusis Athenian

and a new view came into being

immense acquired literature to cultural rituals arose and

prestige;

of the potential implicaand had many repercusthe rise of Athens and of contributed modified to or rewhich 2), were

this *). New interpreted Galen twice undoubtedly deities who

primacy certainly ancient rituals were

in consequence. Thus the rites on Samothrace, in the same breath as those of Eleusis mentions

very old. These belonged to the Oreat Gods', mysterious were often but not always identified with the Cabiri. In view of Bengst Die Kabiren 3), a most thorough and Hemberg's discussion of one of the darkest corners of Greek religion, penetrating we should perhaps think of a Cabiric type of deity rather than of the here. A sacred precinct Cabiri themselves as being worshipped and an independent 'ritual area', both of the seventh have century, been discovered on the island and a covered building, which could serve for

was erected 500 B.C. 4). ceremonies, special by about The rites may well have had by then some wider reputation in the North Aegean region, but the fact that Samothrace was a member of the Athenian the Athenians Empire no doubt helped to interest and perhaps others. In Roman times at least, the influence of Eleusis is clear, for we find the two grades of mystes and epoptes. Samothrace a special attraction; at any both grades could be attained time of year, and even successively on the same day5). A corresponding antiquity may be ascribed to the rites on Lemnos 1) Note specially the reference in the Delphic paean to Dionysus (Diehl, Anth. Lyr. ed. 1, II 253), 1. 32. 2) De usu partium, VII 14, XVII 1 (i 418, ii 448 Helmreich). At Pergamon the epheboi in general received a Cabiric initiation (Dittenberger, Or. gr. inscr. sel. 764). 3) Uppsala, 1950. 4) K. Lehmann, Hesp. XIX (1950), 1 ff., XX (1951), 1 ff., XXI (1952), 19 ff. and Am. J. Arch. LV (1951), 195 f. 5) Lehmann (-Hartleben), Am. J. Arch. XLIV (1940), 345 ff.; the symmystai (356) probably had their fees paid by mystai (cf. Ch. Picard, Eph?se et Claros, 304). On the copying of Eleusis cf. Farnell in Hastings, Ene. Rei. Eth. VII 630 f.; Nock, Am. J. Arch. XLV (1941), 577 ff. (The rite of thronosis there inferred might have corresponded to 'initiation pr?alable' at Eleusis). devised

182 which

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS as belonging to the Cabiri. They won settlers on the island and of men born

described are expressly of the Athenian the devotion

elsewhere:

preserve honorific decrees inscriptions published recently in the second half of the fourth century by 'the isoteleis and passed and perhaps a little later by 'the assembly the People of the initiated' In other words, there was a congregational of the initiated'. spirit and status non-Lemnian of associate living on the spot could be given the a religione of these latter accepted membership; was to make Samothrace personal expense x). involving initiates

ous function

evidence a greater impress on the world at large but the Lemnian it will be remembered, and Lemnos, creativeness shows a notable with Athens. had old and close associations The Eleusinian and were performed only at Eleusis mysteries at the to gratify some potentate2)) fiction, only which The Greeks had however other initiations to such after restrictions. the Heroic

(except by legal canonical times. were not subject of Greek

As always in the development counted for much. Age, Dionysus religion He had not only numerous civic rites, many of them mysteries of but also private of voluntary the heilige Handlung type, groups In spite of early institutionalization, rehis worship worshippers. an element tained or could recapture of choice, movement, and individual is later, story. eagerness enthusiasm. but the So does the Most tale of our evidence of the Bacchae choral songs in Herodotus for Dionysiac of Euripides the initiation tell their disastrous

IV 79 about

of Scyles the Scythian to become an initiate of Dionysus at Cumae which provides that so, again, the inscription Bakcheios; no one who had not become a bakchos could be buried in a particular of private place 3). In the classical age these, like the indications initiations After Ptolemaic to cause in the cult of the kindred there is abundant this type Alexander Egypt are isolated data. god Sabazius, evidence for initiation and in

governmental

of worship assumed dimensions sufficient In general I am inclined to think regulation.

1) S. Accame, Ann. sc. arch. Atene, N.S. III/V (1941-1943), 89 ff. and 76 (cf. 87, of the end of the fifth cent, and 82); J.-L. Robert, R. et. gr. LVII (1944),221. 2) Plut. Demetr. 26; Syll. 869 n. 18; Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 476. 3) Cumont, Rei. orient, (ed. A), 197, 306 n. 17. Aristoph. Ran. 357 is perhaps significant in spite of the metaphorical character of 356.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS that,

183

of the sick to Asclepius, apart from the devotion Dionysus the single strongest focus for private spontaneous provided pagan initiations did not only, piety using ceremonial forms1). Dionysiac like those of Eleusis and Samothrace, confer a new status on the initiate: possessed him to groups of likeminded persons, they also admitted and often of a similar hope for the of the same status

which to a Church, but to congregations hereafter2)?not exactly We know from used the same symbols and spoke the same language. Apuleius that an initiate could count upon other initiates to recognize an allusion Before to things which they held sacred3). of Dionysus we pass on, a word is due to Plato's association which this refers to the purifications with the 'madness that initiates' ; on rigid diathe god was thought able to give. For all his insistence He of the non-rational. Plato had a profound appreciation rites of the Corybantes; of similar also, and repeatedly, speaks lectic, the way in which he does so implies that they were familiar4). Eleusinian was received once for all, like the call which the veiled god initiation in the Bacchae of Euripides claims to have received from Dionysus5). There were also these other like inoculations, from possession went had once the be repeated or defilement; to the teletai (cf. p. 186, later) which could, at need, when a man wished to be freed Man in Theophrastus the Superstitious the humbler those rites that being to experience

a month

initiated

implied quality did not have to learn

Even Orpheotelestai. statement in Aristotle's something

but rather

1) Cf. Festugi?re, R. Bibl. 1935 and Nilsson, Bull. soc. roy. lettres de Lund, 1951/2. On the Ptolemaic edict see now F. Sokolowski, J. Jur. Pap. Ill (1949), 137 ff. and Zuntz, Cl. Q. XLIV (1950), 70 ff. 2) Cf. Nock, Am. J. Arch. L (1946), 148. G. P. Carratelli, Dioniso, VIII (1940/1), 119 ff. published a small cylindrical base of white marble from Rhodes, not later than the first cent. B.C., with the text of Arist. Ran. 454-9. This means that the belief there expressed was taken seriously; and, since there is no name of a dedicator, the inscription is probably due to some gild of initiates of Dionysus or Demeter rather than to an individual. Cf. Robert, R. et. gr. LIX/LX (1946/7), 335 f. 3) Apol. 55. 4) Phaedr. 265B; cf. I. M. Linforth, U. Cai. Pubi. Cl. Phil. XIII (1946), 121 ff. and Fr. Pfister, W?rzb. Jahrbb. II (1947), 187 f.; also E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, 64 ff. 5) 466 ff.

184

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

and to be put in a given state of mind *). They were ways something of changing man's spiritual relation to reality; they were not like in which the individual cult-acts played his matter-of-fact ordinary or making vows or joining part as a voluntary agent, by sacrificing in a procession. II. MYSTERIES IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD! THE METAPHORICAL USE OF MYSTERY TERMINOLOGY The Hellenistic brought culture. of Alexander, Age, as introduced by the conquests the transplantation rather than the transformation of Greek Such transformation as occurred was largely an extension

of developments in the latter part of the themselves manifesting fifth century. The old Greek rites continued : the prestige of Demeter at Eleusis perhaps gained and the popularity of Dionysus certainly and Greek expansion did; he might be called the god of Macedonian into soil the Near alike; but East. there on alien and on familiar things flourished were also new growths. there were no initiates Egypt, as in Babylonia, as it has been described; the terms which appear as referring ceremonies to persons who were admitted and priestly lore 2). In the not certainly) before the beSuch

In pre-Ptolemaic in the Greek sense

to correspond are explained to participation in secret course

of time, and probably (though rites were developed for ginning of the Christian era new initiatory Mithras 3), Cybele 4), Attis etc. Like those of Eleusis and Dionysus, Isis, 1) Fr. 15 Rose; Dial. Frag. p. 79 Walzer. There was of course something to learn: cf. Pindar, Fr. 137 S., Apul. Apol. 55 (studio veri) and Origen's metaphorical use (p. 208 n. 1). 2) Cf. M. Alliot, Bull. Inst. fr. arch, orient. XXXVII (1937/8), 142; at least four worshippers of 'Isi Dieu-Vivant' are 'renouvel?s de vie'. In general, cf. Wiedemann in Hastings, Enc. VI 275. 3) I wish to withdraw the suggestion (Conversion, 278) that Athanas. V. Anton. 14 refers to an initiation; cf. rather R. Reitzenstein, Sitzungsber. Heidelberg, 1914, viii, 12 and J. Dani?lou, Platonisme et th?ologie mystique, 193 ff. For important evidence on mystai at Rome, cf. Cumont, C. R. Ac. Inscr. 1945, 397 f. To judge from Apul. Met. XI30 (cf. Plut. Is. 3, p. 352), initiates in the special sense of Isis sometimes assumed in an honorary capacity the functions of the lower clergy in Egypt; hence their shorn heads.?On Mithraism cf. now St. Wikander, Et. sur les myst?res de Mithras (Vetenskaps-Societetens i Lund, Arsbok, 1950), I. 4) In spite of Conversion, 69 Initium Caiani has nothing to do with mysteries; cf. J. Rom. St. XXXVIII (1948), 156 f.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

185

of a higher status, the sense of a closer the assurance conveyed to the divine, the hope (if not the dogmatic relationship assurance) Like those of Dionysus in the hereafter. of some sort of blessedness they and unlike or time. estimate Mithras those their We must at any place of Eleusis, they could be administered their emotional not underestimate depth or overin the cult of and dissemination. Only antiquity

which, as Nilsson has said (Gesch. II 648), was 'eine einmalige was the range of eines unbekannten Genies', religi?sen Sch?pfung with the range of worshippers. initiates co-extensive and initiation, We have considered various types of mystery all to be religious some quality of what seemed expeinvolving with the unseen world, but rience, some sense of greater intimacy are valid and of types. Such distinctions divisible into a variety indeed differentiated Yet we must not suppose that the ancients necessary. of these in our analytic of the diversity or were fully conscious way of the annual dramatic the Apostate rites phenomena. speaks Julian of Cybele and Attis as mysteria and treats them as parallel to the Eleusinian of Osiris this sense secured. like the neutral word orgia, used of rites as a (mainly and t?lete, like other Greek words, had a persistent pluralis tantum) of meaning; varieties the Greeks did not unity which transcended Mysteria use dictionaries sense like of ours, still less equivalents additional in another language. a range of Mysterion (in the singular) had the secret' without any ceremonial dictionaries giving from outside Biblical that Greek range and from also 2). T?lete of in literature pattern was so deeply rooted x). The Eleusinian mysteries that those who 'saw' the annual Finding and tradition of this sort; may often have treated it as being something is anticipated participation in personal and certainly a deep Herodotus, assurance was thus and spiritual

attitude

this associations; what derives from

'something is known chiefly it, but is found

1) V 169?, 173?; the mystai of 179C may well be a special group. 2) Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 45 ?. 4; Nock, Harv. St. Cl. Phil. LX (1951), 201 ff. K. Pr?mm, Z. kath. Theol. LXI (1937), 395 has rightly stressed the predominance of the plural when denoting a pagan rite, in contrast to the singular mysterion, as 'secret' in Paul. For an instance of the singular describing a rite cf. Buckler-Calder-Guthrie, Mon. As. min. ant. IV 281.

186 from which

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS of old denoted any solemn esoteric about the Panathenaea including it was also used to denote

rite,

had nothing it1); the consecration of a gem or of whatever else (including a procedure) was to be invested with supernatural properties 2). The fluid nature of the terminology is clear. Isis taught men myeseis in general3) and Orpheus teletai 4); initiation and secret appear side side in astrological texts 5), as in Melito (p. 205, later). The termiby nology, quality devised as also the fact, of mystery and initiation acquired a generic and an almost universal appeal. So Alexander of Abonutichus

a t?lete, with Eleusinian as an added attraction attributes, for his new oracle. Under the Empire certain delegates sent by cities to consult the oracle of Apollo at Claros underwent a rite, possibly described and entered some purificatory, by the verb myethenai, the inscriptions set up at special part of the sanctuary (embateuin); their expense or receiving the mysteries. speak also of performing It must have been a question of some optional to conpreliminary sultation. One of the panions to go through much more than the preliminaries at Lebadea, save that the latter there paid delegates the ceremony; were the for his young combut it can hardly have meant costs of Trophonius (the consultants

to the consultation

compulsory as private individuals and not as delegates)6). appear So at Panamara in Caria, where there had been seasonal ceremonies available at any time were apparently added and earlier, mysteries there was vigorous on behalf of the sanctuary7). We propaganda not be deceived by the various claims of immemorial antiquity.

must

1) Pind. P. IX 97; C. Zijderveld, T?lete (Diss. Utrecht, 1934). 2) On such consecration cf. C. Bonner, Studies in magical amulets, 14 ff.; Festugi?re, Cl. Phil. XLV (1951), 82 f. 3) W. Peek, Isishymnus, 122f.; R. Harder, Abh. Berlin, 1943, xiv, 21, 41. 4) Aristoph. Ran. 1032. 5) Gnomon, XV (1939), 361 f. Was Apollo called mystes (Artemidor. II 70 p. 168 Hercher) because he was thought to know hidden things? 6) Picard, Eph?se et Claros, 303 ff.; Nilsson II 456. A Scholiast on Aristophan. Nub. 508 uses the term myesis of those consulting Trophonius; this involved elaborate preparations and repeated examination of the entrails of victims to determine whether this or that man might approach Trophonius. Yet Venetus and Ravennas lack the passage and it may be Byzantine. 7) Roussel, Bull. Corr. Hell. LI (1927), 123 ff. (cf. Hanslik-Andr?e, PaulyWissowa, XVIII, iii, 450 ff.); note ib. 130 on the deliberate policy of Panamara.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS There was creative

187

new rites were invented and old innovation; or at least reinterpreted, e.g., to give them a relation to the now widespread in the heavenly interest bodiest). we are sometimes in termiNevertheless, dealing with innovation rather than with innovation in practice. who has Nilsson, nology done justice to the existence of innovation, has also remarked rightly rites were modified of the cult of Dionysus in later times, On soup?onne parfois ?taient plut?t une fa?on de parler qu'une r?alit?, myst?res en ce qui concerne n'emp?che pas que le sentiment mystique f?t une r?alit? tr?s This que les ce qui le dieu

forte'2). was capable of wider applications. The conf?terminology rencier Aristides, who tells in detail and with obvious of sincerity the deities to whom he turned in ill health and of their aid, recounts one vision vouchsafed ladders between the parts below by Sarapis; above earth, the power of the god in either realm, and other wondrous astonishment and perhaps not to be told 'was the content of the in a papyrus 4), there t?lete'3). Apart is no other indica-

and those

things causing to all men. 'Such', he says, from one possible exception

1) Cf. Nilsson, Hommages Bidez-Cumont (Coll. Latomus, II), 217 ff. and Gesch. II 665 (add perhaps that Pausan. Vili 31, 7 records the presence in the temple of the Great Goddesses at Megalopolis of a statute of Helios called Soter and Heracles, which implies the 'physical* interpretation of Heracles discussed by Jessen, Pauly-Wissowa, VIII 73, and by Gruppe, ib. Supp. Ill 1104). For the claim of immemorial antiquity cf. Apul. Met. XI 5, 5 aeterna mihi nuncupavit religio, of the Ploiaphesia, which must have been a Hellenistic creation. For innovations cf. Nilsson, Hess. Bl. f. Volkskunde, XLI (1950), 7 ff. and Nock, Harv. Theol. Rev. XXVII (1934), 96 f. 2) Studi e Materiali di Storia di Religione, X (1934), 15; cf. his paper in Serta Kazaroviana, I (Bull. Inst. Arch. Bulg. XVI, 1950), 17 ff. and Gesch. II 351 ff. Cf. again the description on coins of a contest at Side as mystikos and of the city as mystis (B.M.C. Lycia 162f.; F. Imhoof-Blumer, Kleinas. M?nzen, 343, 346); also L. Robert, Rev. phil. 1943, 184 n. 9 on 'mysteries' of Antinous. 3) XLIX 48, p. 424 Keil (i 500 f. Dindorf). 4) H. C. Youtie, Harv. Theol. Rev. XLI (1948), 9ff. publishes a Karanis papyrus letter (re^-edited as P. Mich. 511) of the first half of the third century A.D. The writer tells his father that the charge for a s??p?t???? at the banquet of Sarapis which is to take place in two months is 24 drachmae and that for a place is 22; instead of making these payments he proposes to undertake the position of an agoranomos which would free him from them and ensure him double portions (cf. E. Seidl, Studia et documenta historiae et iuris, XV, 1949, 351). After telling his father of his consequent need of wood, he says, 'For a man

188 tion

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

even Lucius in Apuleius of any mysteries of Sarapis himself; of the was not offered one. It would be rash to deny the possibility of such mysteries, but in the passage cited the existence sporadic t?lete was things initiation. the dream itself; of the underworld; Elsewhere Aristides t?lete' and says Sarapis showed to Aristides he saw them as Lucius did speaks of another of a revelation the hidden Isiac in his

Asclepius 'almost as though experience in a t?lete, good hope being present to me together with fear'*). the medical writer Aretaeus tells of people who in religious Again, and who, if they recovered madness their sanity, slashed themselves were cheerful and carefree, as having become initiates of the deity 2). as Mike some cannot refuse Lord Sarapis'. Youtie argues powerfully that siopetikos here, like se???t?? in a text published by Vogliano-Cumont, Am. J. Arch. XXXVII, 1933, 215 ff, is a religious term and means something like a silent novice who still has to become a full initiate. Certainty is unattainable and a cult could anywhere develop new forms; further, as has been seen, there was a taste for language suggesting mysteries even when there was little actuality to correspond. The statement that one cannot refuse Sarapis might be interpreted as implying a dream-command like those of Apul. Met. XI (to be sure a soldier says he received one to give a banquet for Sarapis: Preisigke-Bilabel, Sammelbuch, 8828; cf. the Zoilus story in Conversion, 49 f.), but may be more general (cf. n. on P. Mich. 511, 15 f.). In any event, the language of the text suggests to me nothing esoteric in the banquet. Youtie 12 n. 15 refers to a thank-offering to Sarapis and Isis by mystai kai dekatistai (G. Mendel, Bull. Corr. Hell. XXIV, 1900, 366 f.), but these mystai could be initiates of Isis. Artemid. II 39 p. 145 Hercher speaks of Sarapis, Isis, Anubis, Harpocrates, their images and their mysteries; these mysteries are spoken of as specially indicating grief, since even if their allegorical sense is different, the myth points to this, which strongly suggests that Artemidorus is thinking of the annual Search by Isis for Osiris. C.I.L. II 2395, supplemented by Ann. ?pigr. 1897 no. 86, 1898 no. 2 and J. Leite de Vasconcellos, Religi?es da Lusitania III 345, gives a dedication 'to the mysteries' (The reading in the gap is uncertain; highest Sarapis.and Vasconcellos gives s?? ????a, which I find hard to accept. R. Cortez, Panoias, mentioned in Am. J. Arch. LIV, 1950, 399 n. 27 is not accessible to me). The text, together with others (cf. Vasconcellos, 468 f.), comes from a sanctuary which was the concern of an individual who seems to have been a little like Artemidorus of Thera (Wilamowitz, Glaube, II 387 ff.). One mentions the dedication of an aeternus lacus. I doubt whether anv normal cult can be inferred. 1) L 7, p. 427K (?503D); XLVIII 28, p. 401K (?472D); cf. XLVIII 33 p. 402K (i 474D), where A. says that any initiate will understand his mingled feelings when Asclepius drew near (initiation being here a generalized or metaphorical type); L 50 p. 438K (i 517D), where he expresses anxiety as to whether he should reveal a grace of Asclepius; XLVII 71 p. 393K (i 463D) where he says that he does not think it right to tell lightly just what the god said to him. 2) III 6, 11, p. 44 Hude.

from

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

189

in less specifically The metaphor was common contexts; religious in a comedy spoke of sleep as being the Small Mysteries Mnesimachus of philosophic of deathx). Above all, the experience discipleship evoked it opened outsiders secrecy to transform men: such comparison. was thought Philosophy windows in heaven; its disciples were set apart from idiotai, uninformed the Pythagorean vow of who lived lives; was a fact familiar to all educated men. When Aristophanes under the form Plato used with the most

of Socrates represented entry into the thinking-shop he was using intelligible sarcasm. of an initiation, of in the

initiation; Euthydemus, playfully imagery in the Symposium. After all, the Seventh Letter solemn seriousness of the that any deeper understanding shows that he was convinced as mere information or techuniverse could not be communicated even in so seemingly was widely used, appearing dry as Chrysippus rites Seneca speaks of the initiatory 3). of philosophy (Ep. 90, 28), 'which open not some local shrine, but the vast temple of all the gods, the universe itself, whose true images and true likeness philosophy has brought before the mind's eye\ So fulness Galen (p. 181 n. 2) speaks of a new piece of evidence for the purposeof the body's structure as a t?lete by no means inferior to those in and of the study of such teleology of Eleusis and Samothrace, general as a t?lete in which all who honor the gods should be initiated; it is superior to those of Eleusis what indications, of nature cations to demonstrate are clear for they give faint and Samothrace, would teach, while the indithey beings. nique 2). The imagery a systematizer

in all living

III. MYSTERION AND THE METAPHOR OF MYSTERIES IN JUDAISM of initiation metaphor to philosophy was application The fitted to have other things but its also4), in Hellenistic

consequences

1) III 579 Meineke; II 442 fr. 11 Kock. 2) P. 341C; cf. Gnomon, XIII (1937), 163 ff. 3) St. vet. fragm. II 42, 1008. 4) So by way of parody in the Lucianic Tragodopodagra; note 30 ff., 113 ff., the contrast with the galloi. Cf. Harv. St. Class. Phil. LX (1951), 201 ff. and add Plut. Flamimin. 2 (of statesmanship), Cic. 22, 2 (young participants in the drama of the end of the Catilinarians as like initiates in the rites of an aristocratic

190

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS and more later the in Christianity. dramatic rites From of old the but in had

they and taught to regard all such things as meaningless idolatry, can hardly have taken much interest their brethren in Mesopotamia of Alexander in the dramatic festivals of the land. Now, the conquests and the growth of a great Jewish colony in Alexandria brought some the use contact with Greek worship, and, what was more important, been of the appears initiated Greek once In this mystis hence came our Septuagint. language; Sal. 8, 4) in the sense of 'one metaphorically (Sap. in knowledge'; otherwise and teletai are used of mysteria is here used also as objects of condemnation. Mysterion or of God, or with the whether of a king or commoner nuance of 'thing with hidden meaning' (e.g. in Daniel

Judaism Palestine

Jews

had known

of Tammuz,

pagan rites as 'secret',

important with the king's dream)x). 2, 18 in connection in Alexandria caused some Jews Again, life with Greek

to become acquainted at a high level and to discover that there were thought and something like Gentiles who maintained rigid moral standards From this sprang a philosophy of revealed religion and monotheism. a doctrine of grace known to us in the writings of Philo. He refers to pagan metaphor Great and of Small cult-mysteries of initiation philosophic So he speaks with deep feeling of congenial. of initiation as mysteries, by Moses, of Jeremiah with reference to the priestly consecration of with abhorrence but finds the

hierophant. Except Aaron and his sons, which was a thing done once for all in the past he never, I think, applies the and not a contemporary ceremony, to ritual2). he uses it of intimations instead of divine metaphor

regime); Joseph .C. Ap. II 188 (Jewish state compared, to its advantage, with a t?lete); Plut. Tranq. 20 p. 477D (life as a myesis and te/e/e). When Demetrius of Phaleron spoke of there being much of the hierophant (te?et??) in Plato (D. Hal. Demosth. 5, Pomp. 2, 6; cf. Coniectanea Neotestamentica, XI 170), he was thinking in metaphorical terms; the officiant at an initiation can hardly have uttered more than brief liturgical phrases. Cf. [Demetr.] Eloc. 101; also Hermog. Id. I 6 p. 246 Rabe ??st???? t? ?a? te?est???? ?t?. 1) Cf. 'His marvellous mysteries in Eternal Being' in one of the new Dead Sea Scrolls (W. H. Brownlee, Bull. Am. Sch. Or. Res. CXXI, 1951, 12; also I. Rabinowitz, J. Bibl. Lit. LXXI, 1952, 22, 27 f., citing also mysteries of evil). On te??s???e??? in Deut. 23, 18 cf. F. H. Colson, Philo, VU 285 ?. (also Hosea 4.14 in LXX). 2) Cf. Sacr. Abel 62, Cherub. 49 (cf. 48), V. Mos. II 149 (where the suggestion

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS truth, a way

191

in the interpreting of precious nuances of revelation. It was of expressing or prophetic intuitions which came to mystical a man as though from without, so that he seemed to himself to be acted upon rather than acting. Philo found the metaphor ready-

made, in a context free from any serious taint of idolatry. One more word on Philo before we pass to Christian sacramentalisiru His interest in the past was primarily concentrated on the Pentateuch, and not least on the Exodus and the revelation of Sinai. This was the significant story of the nation and for Philo this, like all Scripture, contained the significant The manna and the story of the individual. water from the rock alike stood for the Logos, and manna stood for the food of the soul; Pascha as passover indicated the nation's the soul's Egypt and passing through the Red Sea, and also to virtue *). passing over from passions The same events were central in the thought of Palestine; there, as throughout Jewry, every Passover time brought the remembrance of the national (one might almost say the reliving) there could at all times be as throughout There, Jewry, that Israel would someday be ransomed from her present It was in fact thought as of old she had been from Egypt. was to come. would Once more be chastised; the he would heaven; bring As the Law was of old thought) forth deliverance from

and telling liberation. the hope

subjection that the earlier there forth would Messiah

what ransoming prefigured be miracles; Israel's enemies would cause manna to fall from

water to quench his people's thirst. in the earlier time of crisis, so (at least in later Jewish given there would be a Torah of the Messiah, i.e. an authoritative tion 2). Such hopes and expectations were intensified

explanain Palestine

was perhaps given by te?e??s?? in Exod. 29, 22, 26. Levit. 8, 22 and te?e??sa? in Exod. 29, 29); also Gnomon, XIII 156 ff. and H. A. Wolfson, Philo, I 43 ff. 1) Leg. All. II 86, III 169; Quis r. div. her. 79, 192; Q. det. pot. 115; F. J. D?lger, Ant.u.Chr. II (1930) 66 ff.; p. 208 n. 1 later. For the concept of the gifts of God to the Jews at this time cf. L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, III 47 ff., 65 etc.; ib. I 9, III 46 on manna as the food of the blessed in the world to come. The parallel of bread and word appears already in Deut. 8, 3. Cf. Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels (J. Bibl. Lit. Monog. Ser. VI, 1951) 157 f.?On ideas about the Passover cf. W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Church of the Gentiles, 30 n. 2, 89; Ch. Mohrmann, Ephem. liturg. LXVI (1952) 37 ff. 2) For the antiquity of the domestic observance of the Passover, independent of the sacrifice and therefore correct outside Jerusalem, cf. L. Ginzberg ap.

192

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS events things John of the first century B.C. and the succeeding be borne in mind if we are to try to the and Jesus did and how their Baptizer in particular how baptism and the and place in a Jewish milieu.

by the political These decades. understand actions Eucharist were what

must

interpreted?and took their shape

IV. BAPTISM AND THE EUCHARIST AS 'DONA DATA' Ritual ablutions were common in Palestine and to the East of

in Jewish and were well established and Gentile practice. itx), introduced a novum, a dramatic piece of prophetic Nevertheless, John which moreover that required action of others?namely symbolism they should submit to a washing in Jordan (or other running water): and bring remission this should attest a drastic moral reorientation in view measure recommended of past sins. It was an emergency of the crisis as it was now proclaimed 2). The ministry impending to begin with his baptism of Jesus was believed by John and the of the Spirit upon him at that time. After his death the descent who deemed themselves to be Jesus' earthly representatives disciples, the practice, now and his predestined hereafter, continued coadjutors the assumption of a new loyalty to Jesus as which now involved the Christ. These early disciples had also communal meals in which G. F. Moore, Judaism, III 174. For the general associations involved cf. H. L. Strack-P. Billerbeck, Komm. ?. N.T. aus Talmud u. Midrasch, I 85 ff., II 481, IV 1 ff.; and for the possibility that something like a pillar of fire and of the cloud was expected in the Messianic Age cf. F. H. Colson on Philo, Praem. poen. 165 (VIII 418). 1) Cf. J. Thomas, Le mouvement baptis?e en Palestine et Syrie. Much of his material is later than the emergence of Christianity and the reader will note ihe criticisms of H. J. Schoeps, Theologie u. Geschichte d. Judenchristentums, 57; but at least wherever daily or repeated baptisms occur, this older background is to be recognized. Thomas has now published a brief and good discussion in Reallex. f. Ant. u. Chr. I 1167 ff. 2) On prophetic symbolism, cf. H. Wheeler Robinson, J. Theol. Stud. XLI 11 (1942), 129 ff. Baptism corresponded, again, to the blood smeared on the lintel at the time of the original Passover and to the mark in Ezekiel 9, 4.?Cf. now Carl H. Kraeling, John the Baptist, 95 ff. and in general H. G. Marsh, Origin and Significance of the New Testament Baptism. M. makes a good case for the view that proselyte baptism supplied a model for John. It certainly existed in his time, but he was not necessarily familiar with it and I prefer the other explanation. Note Marsh 153 ff. on the puzzling relation of baptism to Spirit in Acts.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

193

they looked forward to that time when with Jesus they should drink the historian Otherwise the fruit of the vine new in the Kingdom. of Christian can say only that his knowledge practice begins with in which Paul was involved, the controversies Paul and that, whatever there is no record of any which bore on the interpretation was what not have drawn said of baptism he had been the over same bread or Eucharistx). Paul's Certainly

of the Last Supper account even if they had taught by early disciples, from what they too held Jesus to inferences as they and cup. (The 'words of institution', to Exod. have a clear formal similarity 16, which the Lord hath

are commonly called, 15 This is the bread

given you to eat' and 24, 8 'Behold the blood all which the Lord hath made with you concerning of the covenant and in particular of what remains, The strangeness these words'. of the drinking character for a Jew of any suggestion the paradoxical the substantial of blood, guarantee authenticity much harder to imagine someone else inventing them. They too constituted 'prophetic uttering whoever of the record. the words than It is Jesus

Paul may not have thought baptized a dying with Christ when the waters went over his head; he may not to the death of like*so deep a significance have ascribed anything from wrath the Cross; he may have regarded baptism as a protection to come rather state. Christ's than an immediate as something effecting But for him, as much as for Paul, baptism and aside change involved

symbolism'.) that baptism

Again, involved

in spiritual becoming When baptism

man2). the early development considering we have to put and the Eucharist

of interpretation certain concepts

1) This is so in spite of the fact that undoubtedly for a long time an appreciable number of Christians did not follow the Pauline view of the Eucharist, just as there continued to be wineless celebrations, a thing which from charity Paul might have tolerated (cf. Nock, St. Paul, 57). For the Last Supper we should also perhaps remember the symbolic acts commonly associated with an oath or a covenant; on these cf. E. Bikerman, Arch. hist. Droit Oriental, V (1950), 133 ff. Later the Last Supper was inevitably viewed as the institution of a rite for the future and not as a unique action. 2) That is involved in baptism 'in the name of Christ*; cf. Fascher, P.W. IV A 2508 (in an excellent article on baptism). Cf. on the name 'Christians' E. Peterson, Misc. Mercati (Studi e testi, CXXI, 1946), 355 ff.; E. Bickerman, Harv. Theol. Rev. XLII (1949), 109 ff.; H. Fuchs, Vig. Christ. IV (1950), 69 ?. 5. V JVlnemosyne 13

194 which

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

are so familiar that we take them for granted and assume that have always been current ; we have also to recapture one concept they which is for us remote. On the one hand we have all grown up with as things of a specific kind; we are all of sacraments the category about their meaning and in the first century of our era category were not set and even in the fifth century what we call sacraments from other aspects of the Christian revelation. Then, sharply apart and the Eucharist were part of the as in the first century, baptism aware of the centuries of controversy number. There was no such whole of salvation; or dispensation then, as in the first economy which it has largely lost; had a public solemnity baptism century, between the word of and in neither period was there any antithesis or ritual?), or again between or institution God and a sacrament and institutional gifts of grace. we have to make a deliberate

individual

effort of historical On the other hand, of typolto realize something positive?the importance imagination of the idea that the Old that is to say the regular application ogy, in general, and not only Messianic bore a Testament prophecies, Christian meaning, that this meaning was primary and not secondary, and that in Christ's had actions of Salvation been came everything adumbrated and was into now focus; made the Plan manifest.

1) I Cor. 1, 14-7 does not imply any depreciation of the importance of baptism, but the definition of Paul's special function as having the Gospel for the Gentiles (on which cf. Rom. 15, 16 and A. Fridrichsen, The Apostle and his message, Uppsala, 1947), and his awareness of a potential danger that disciples might develop something like what psychiatrists call a fixation; (for devotees or initiates grouped around an individual cf. P. Roussel, Cultes ?gyptiens ? D?los, 100 and Nock, Conversion, 294). The previous verse suggests Paul's specific association of baptism with the death of Christ. To say nolo episcopari does not imply any failure to appreciate the dignity of the functions of a bishop (Acts 10, 48 may reflect a practice like Paul's). Later, the idea of Apostolocal Succession seems to have involved a guarantee of validity of doctrine rather than of validity of sacraments (cf. C. H. Turner in Essays on the early history of the Church and the Ministry, ?d. H. B. Swete, 1335; E. Molland, J.EccL Hist. I, 1950, 12 ff). The statement of Ignat. Smyrn. 8 about the Bishop and the Eucharist involves what would be in modern theological terms a question of jurisdiction rather than of sacramental validity. In fact, the sacramentalism of Ignatius is only part of his general belief in God and in Christ; 'you are full of God' (Magn. 14) expresses a total attitude. To isolate what we have come to think of as the sacraments is to misunderstand them and to misunderstand the whole early Christian movement.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS Burckhardt

195

spoke of myth in relation to the Greeks as being the it retained ihres ganzen Daseins'; that character Grundlage the Old Testament, even in late times x). For the Christians as reand supplemented, an 'ideale Grundlage'. Not only interpreted gave but also the idea that the did Christianity arise out of Judaism, 'ideale Christians ises of the mained record constituted Old Testament the new Israel2) and the belief that the promwere intended for them, were and reprophecy, any event, any phrase in the Jewish

central. Any was potentially fraught with contemporary meaning. Except who rejected like Marcion, to radicals Scripture (that is, the Old meant not an exercise of exegetical Testament), typology ingenuity but the statement of hidden been Paul, there contents. and fulfilled was of essential The

verities and the disclosure supernatural had to be fulfilled; Promises nay, they had in ultimis were being fulfilled To temporibus. so drastic need Supper would to find were a readjustment of his beliefs, the Old in the New. for Paul stark realities; wrong, for he had and his thought and

who had had to make a deeply personal and the Lord's them

Baptism to ask how he classified neither the time show

be in a sense

nor the temper to be analytical when he a kaleidoscopic moreover, range of variety; language or to point a of these things, it is to draw a moral inference speaks of the two phenomena his interpretation as Nevertheless, warning. a pair is set forth in ch. 10 of the First Epistle the strict obligations Paul has been emphasizing on his converts I want and himself alike and continues: to the which Corinthians. were binding

that our fathers were all under you to know, brethren, the sea, and all were baptized and all passed through clo\id, in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same superinto Moses drink. For they natural food and all drank the same supernatural the drank Rock pleased; from was Christ. for they the supernatural Rock which followed them, with most of them God Nevertheless were overthrown in the wilderness. and the was not

1) Quoted by Nilsson, Cults, Myths, etc. 12, in a work which puts the whole matter in a just perspective. 2) Cf. A. Fridrichsen, Rev. hist. phil. rei. XVII (1937), 339 f.; S. Munck, Stud. Nov. Test. Bull. 1950; for the broader aspects of typology cf. H.-C. Puech, Proc. VII Congr. Hist. Rei. 39, 45 f., 48.

196

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

Exactly so; baptism and the Lord's Supper (with its New Covenant) to the gifts vouchsafed to the People were to be thought to correspond to the community, from outside this of God in its Exodus?gifts world, but did not convey any changed the situation from future human and its pitiful security frailty To the Jews the deliverance from Egypt was the supconsequences. some of them believed that the reme type of Messianic redemption; radically guarantee of Messiah was rock the would a favorite were his people manna, and the water from the rock symbol of God's mercies to Israel. Both manna and give which tradition what is a name applied to always emphasized should have been the which

Christ

as God's Wisdom, explained in I Cor. 1, 24. Further, Jewish human weaknesses which marred of the national

phase idyllic In the same

history. Paul speaks of participation chapter of I Corinthians in the Blood and in the Body of Christ and compares Israel's partiin the altar by eating what had been offered thereon. His cipation is again moral and homiletical?to the giving purpose discourage by indiscriminate deities and to of meat which had been enjoyment was thereafter available for eating.

of scandal offered

pagan Yet his language implies another typological which was interpretation to have a long and developing view of Christian instihistory?the tutions as replacing the ceremonial ordinances of the Old Testament. 'and in every place incense is offered unto my name, 1,11 a pure offering'*) was one more prophetic text to be regarded in general were to be 'a holy priesthood, as fulfilled: Christians to offer spiritual that should sacrifices be acceptable' (I Pet. 2, 5). The cessation of sacrifice in Jerusalem after 70 no doubt encouraged Malachi and which of thinking. So also baptism came to be regarded as that circumcision. There is a suggestion of this in Coloss. replaced was too controversial an issue in Paul's 2, 11-3, but circumcision time for free development of the idea. this way The Epistle to the Hebrews dwells at length on Jesus as typified and on Jesus as making the perfect offering for sin, by Melchisedec in contrast with the blood of goats and of bulls as it had been used of old. Here the reference was to the single offering of Calvary and 1) Cf. Harnack's note on Didache 14, 3.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS not

197

to the Eucharist; 13, 10ff. shows this clearly; yet feeling and moved further. thought inevitably of the divine gifts of the old Exodus, The enjoyment as seen in and of the new deliverance, as a matter of contemporary retrospect, Moses had to lead experience, required man's obedient cooperation. the Israelites to strike gathered the people what the Red Sea and they had to follow; he had through rock and they had to drink; the manna had to be and consumed; where the pillar of fire and of the cloud led, the had came to follow. to believe had to carry out So now, the Christians to be the Lord's command 'Go ye thereof all nations, baptizing them in the name of and words Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28, 19); of blessing and break the Bread. the bread and wine which were to be and wine situation soon began to be to of the

they fore, and make disciples the Father and of the again, What had to

Son

they is more, they provided so taken and this providing of the bread

utter

as an offering to God. regarded A variety of factors within the Christian a further The death of development. were linked most closely to the Supper tions. Moreover, the words which Jesus over Bread and Cup brought them into his sacrificial was bound

contributed

the Last Jesus and likewise with all its associaPassover was believed an intimate to have connection uttered with

of Christian practice death; the Pauline interpretation in the long run. Again, for Jew and Gentile to triumph alike the natural form of homage to God or the gods was sacrifice? it was the offering of animal victims whether or of the fruits of the earth, whether it was material or metaphorical (i.e. prayer and praise). For both the natural ministrant of sacrifice was a priest, and for both in what led to participation sacrifice was a ceremony which commonly had been offered. of Bread separation Finally, there was a progressive in the nature of a communal meal such as and Cup from anything went like-minded took together; this inevitably Jews or Gentiles with ascription In some such ways the to the Eucharist. of a wholly special character the view that the Eucharist was a re-presentation of Calvary may be thought to have been approached

of the sacrifice

; it was probably a complicated and largely unconscious process and I to the see no reason to suppose that it was in any sense indebted to outweigh the continued the idea of reception Further, mysteries. idea of action.

198

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

of exposition looked into we have for a moment the future; let us now return to Paul. For him the main foreshadowing in the Old Testament, outside the prophecies of the New Dispensation For convenience to Christ, lay in the Promise to Abraham and not in the Mosaic Law; the function of him of typological and the ascription the latter was temporary by to sacrifice and circumcision is incidental. When Paul significance of the bodies of the speaks of sacrifice here and now, he is thinking as referring interpreted faith and in Abraham's Christians He ascribes action as kept pure or of their faith or of their charitable gifts. to the Eucharist a character of action. 'Do this', but it is

and of proclaiming the special sense of participating death of the Lord (I Cor. 11, 26), i.e., a method of setting forth within the the group the message of salvation x) (much as in the Passover of the earlier salvation message As in all God's dealings with was proclaimed). his chosen people, gift called for for Paul lay on the gift, as again but the main emphasis response; on being known rather than on knowing. To be sure, such supernatural to carry supernatural Paul hazards; gifts could easily be thought literally believed from that sickness and death in the could be explained as re-

in the

participation Supper by those sulting unworthy who did not discern the Body (I Cor. 11, 29). The manna which melted tasted sour to Gentiles and the manna which Dathan and Abiram bred worms and betrayed their guilt2); this food kept over-night had greater danger, for wrong participation led to judgment. The fact that an idea is foreign to us does not mean that it was an alien and intrusive in early Christianity. element These and considerations question their standing in a body which had its origin within a Judaism as non-sacramental; normally regarded they further help us to understand the parallelism which exists between ideas about baptism and ideas about the Eucharist. Both were nova?not classifiable acquired serious to me to give some answer to the old of how what are now called Christian sacraments seem

Lord's

1) On sacrifice in Paul cf. Behm in Kittel, Theol. W?rterb. Ill 182 etc. (ib. 187 Jewish analogies, 188 Greek); on later development, C. W. Dugmore, J. Eccl. Hist. II (1951), 24 ff.; on 'proclaim', cf. Philipp. 1, 17 and Schniewind in Kittel, I 56 ff., esp. 69 ff. (In Clem. Recogn. I 39 it is baptism which replaces the sacrifices of the Old Law). 2) Cf. Ginzberg, Legends, III 45, 48 (which improves on Exod. 16, 20).

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS institutions nova, often is the than word made for an enduring to emphasize state that of society. And when the word 'new' (kainos Christian denotes divine

199 I say more

I should

wish

neos)

is as characteristic

of early the

thought in history1).

'joy'. As in prophecy, characteristic of the results 'A new creation'

epithet of a drastic

as language what was intervention

(II Cor. 5, 17; Gal. 6, 15) was meant literally; we may recall the formulation quoted from Schweitzer no sacraments by Bethune-Baker, "Jesus 'instituted' but 'created' them" 2). And yet the new was rooted in the old, the Church indicated as primarily dona data is in the Fourth Gospel. clearly Birth from water and Spirit (3, 5) is a gift and so is the bread from Heaven the analogy of manna is made explicit. These (6, 32ff.); are gifts, like the living water for which the woman of Samaria could in I Cor. 10 and is set forth have asked flesh The view in Israel, redemption in Exodus. of baptism and the Eucharist

as used

of Christians

the

(4, 10, 14). The Fourth Gospel speaks indeed of eating of the Son of man and drinking his blood (6, 53); this is in defiance in a uttered of opposition deliberately strong language manner which almost Tertullian. Yet, as the paradox anticipates Lord

on the already in Paul made more intelligible by the emphasis of faith rather than the Jesus of Galilee and by his doctrine not Hellenistic) that the Church is itself the Body of Christ, (certainly was so also the Johannine view that Jesus was the Word offered an interTo Philo already manna was God's Word and God's Word pretation. was the food of the soul. (The idea appears also in Hebr. 6, 4 where to teaching and revelation and perhaps is, I think, rather than to the Eucharist)3). baptism, This idea of dona data retained its force among Christians; Justin I 65) tells how at the Eucharist brother the presiding Martyr (Apol. the reference gave thanks to God for the fact that he had thought the community of these and The food of which worthy partook things. they the water of baptism were gifts and also pledges of better things to come. Such was also the Spirit, which was so intimately linked to them. (For Paul and his successors Spirit and 'spiritual' had none

1) Cf. K. Pr?mm, Christentum als Neuheitserlebnis. 2) J. Theol. St. XVII (1916), 212. 3) Cf. H. Windisch ad loe. and W. Bauer on Joh. 6, 31.

200 of the

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS and abstract character idealizing to us. Spirit was an active power they are liable to showing itself in concrete as well as in the rational or ecstatic inspirawhich

suggest tangible manifestations tion and in the special holiness or normal piety of individuals. The same power was seen in the water of baptism, and in the Bread and Cup of the common meal.) This sense of gratitude for the total content

of the gifts of grace accounts for the somewhat character generalizing in the Didache. of the Eucharistie These express thanks to prayers God for what he has given, 'thy holy Name which thou hast made to dwell thou (i.e. Any in our hearts', 'the knowledge and faith and immortality which made known to us through Jesus thy Servant', 'spiritual food and drink'. supernatural) hast idea that what indebted to we call the Christian sacraments to the were in their or even

origin metaphorical pagan mysteries evidence. concepts based upon them shatters on the rock of linguistic Paul never uses t?lete or its correlatives, and has myein only once, and then metaphorically to describe what life had taught him (Phil. IV 1, 140. He has mysterion often, but 4, 12), just as in Epictetus to mean 'secret'?and Septuagint commonly and must now be proclaimed from the house might tops', some aspect of the 'mystery of the kingdom of God' as revealed to the disciples (Mark 4, 11), the novum which impinged on the world always 'secret which it unaware. It is mysterion, caught again, in the singular (in I Cor. 4, 1 the plural is an ordinary plural.) It has been thought that embateuo in Col. 2, 18 is to be connected with the use of the word at Claros (p. 186, above); but this is, I think, a misunderstanding, for means 'expatiating on what he has seen' and not probably he has seen when entering as an initiate'. The Fourth Gospel has none of these words, not even the neutral Ideas can be transposed into a different but mysterion. vocabulary we seldom banish from our speech words which we have had in com'what mon use. The absence from early Christian writing of other terminoleven of the less esoteric ogy commonly applied to pagan worship, kind, tells its own story *). In fact, for all his travels and missionary Paul shows extremely little knowledge of paganism as a labors, 1) Cf. Nock, J. Bibl. Lit. LU (1933), 131 ff. On Christian innovation in terms for baptism cf. Fascher, Pauly-Wissowa, IV A 2504, 12. Paul and as in the

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS concrete

201

he speaks of it in terms of what as boy and phenomenon; As for the writer youth he had heard in sermons in the synagogue. of the Fourth he lived in a closed Christian the circle; Gospel, 'would see Jesus' (12, 21) are lay figures in the drama, to prefigure the predestined spread of the good tidings. Let me add that in pagan initiatory was no more rites, washing than a preliminary, and meals were meals, with no known special Greeks who introduced Mithraism was not, it seems, a save in Mithraism?and significance notable force in the world around nascent Christianity x). We cannot, in a pagan rite. copious impromptu again, imagine prayer with Jewish a blessing or custom, Jesus uttered terms are synonymous) before breaking the Bread ; gave (the The blessings hence the name Eucharist and what it connotes. or of Christians at their common meal or Eucharist thanksgivings to admit of free individual but essenimprovisation, long continued thanks the Jewish God's Name' pattern. tially followed 'Blessing might be called the classic expression of Jewish piety: private and public laid great stress on much intercession, prayer alike, while containing the heart-felt praise of God for all his mercies. The Christians naturally above all their thankfulness for what God had done emphasized for them in recent times, and they added a new and important element?their to God in prayer and praise through Jesus approach as Servant (pa??) or as Christ. Paganism for also expressed gratitude received but affords no analogy to this use of thanksgiving blessings as a central act of devotion known Eucharistie 2). The earliest 'We give thanks to thee, Our Father' and 'We give prayers begin, 1) On Mithraic meals cf. Cumont, R. Arch. 1946, i, 183 ff.; Cumont-Rostovtzeff in Excavations at Dura-Europos, Rep.VII/VIII 107ff.,75, 124ff.;M. I.Vermaseren, De Mithrasdienst in Rome (Diss. Utrecht, 1951) 169 s.v. maaltijd. Against the ascription of mysterious character to the text on the Janiculum referring to a worshipper of Syrian deities cf. J.-L. Robert, R. et. gr. LIV (1941), 263 f., LV (1942), 361, LXIII (1950), 216. On the kykeon at Eleusis cf. Eitrem, S. Oslo. XX (1940), 140ff.; it was a solemn preliminary to initiation, and not a part thereof, and there was no table-fellowship or continued repetition. 2) A pagan philosopher could pour out heartfelt praise to God (Epict. I 16, 19 ff.) and the hymn of Cleanthes is essentially of this kind, since the existence of deities other than Zeus is there unimportant; but this is a matter of individual expression. The forms of praise which close Corp. Herrn. I and Ps. Apul. Asci. are clearly influenced by Judaism. In accordance

202 thanks

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS to thee,

was to increase the Jewish 0 God' ; later development the Sanctus, introduced element, by including by Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere ; Domine s?nete... or equivalent phrases. V. DEVELOPMENT IN THE SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES So much for origins and forms. The message which Paul and others to the Gentile world contained much that was unfamiliar brought and the could end not easily of the world be understood seemed or assimilated. time could imminent, catechumenate since Further, not be spared, for preparation

as it was

or proper later, for any The passage quoted from I Corinthians 10 probably means baptism. that some of Paul's converts at Corinth regarded themselves as having of a privileged in the an unconditional status received guarantee

to afford. This idea universe, such as some pagan rites were thought attached to baptism1); the next chapter of the was presumably from the same Epistle that, as one might have expected suggests to regard the communal were not predisposed pagan evidence, they meals waning Church have as a mysterium tremendum?quite the reverse. of the idea that the Lord would very soon became a continuing society in a continuing Again, with the come again, the world. It would

been only too natural for Christians to think of themselves in Lucian's a new t?lete 2). as having, phrase, After all, there can have been few if any Greek-speaking inhabitants of cities in the Near East who had not some awareness of the fact that there were ceremonies to see how slow called mysteria and teletai. It is the more and slight was the adaptation before the like mystery of anything and even of terminology as seen in Greek philosophers and in application or reinterpretation practice existed in

surprising fourth century its

metaphorical Philo, let alone of any effective approximation of any feeling that a serious analogy to Christian the world around.

1) The realism with which this was regarded is shown by the practice of 'baptism for the dead' on which cf. Early Gentile Christianity, 136 f. H. J. Cadbury's discussion of what he calls 'overconversion' (in The Joy of Study, ed. Sherman E. Johnson [N.Y. 1951], 43 ff.) is instructive. 2) Peregrin. 11; cf. Cels. ap. Orig. C. Cels. Ill 59 (discussed p. 208 later) and VI 24.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS It has indeed

203

that the description of baptism been thought as or photismos 'illumination' and of the sphragis, (or photisma) as 'perfect' or 'being perfected', is teleioi, teleioumenoi, baptized based on the language of initiation, and but this is not so. Sphragis 'seal' and as its cognates were used of the tattooing or branding of sacred of devotees or initiates in various cults \ but sphragis a term for a pagan initiation as such. It was perhaps already the eunuchs was not

applied, and Hebrew word was later, to circumcision corresponding Paul uses it in a context with circumcision, concerned but it denotes the general situation in relation of the baptized believer to God rather than baptism itself and, while later very often used of baptism, was not restricted to it2). In any event it must be remembered that seals and sealing were from the earliest known times infinitely in the daily life of the ancient and important are with us; the metaphor was inevitable. So was also the metaphor of light: apart from Old Testament there was the sun, there was the light of the moon and the usage, stars, there were those helpful surrogates by which man saved from darkness time for work and kept his feet from stumbling or taking world widespread than they passed showed tismos while be the wrong direction; there was now the quite special sense of having out of darkness into light. The natural symbolism of light itself in pagan piety 3), but I can find no evidence that phowas a term was illumino denoting common initiation. in earlier usage is significant; appears to usage, illuminatio Christian and illuminator language Latin more

almost

wholly Greek context.

confined to wholly in so. So again both adjective and verb meaning 'perfect' not only are not technical did not terms of initiation (Greek Teleios terms), but is primarily are not even moral, words as in Matt. conspicuous 5, 48, which in that echoes

run to technical

1) Cf. F. J. D?lger, Sphragis and Ant. u. Chr. I (1929), 66 ff., 88, II (1930), 100, 278, III (1932) 257 ff.; W. Heitmtiller, Neutest. Stud. Heinrici, 40 ff.; Cumont, Harv. Theol. Rev. XXVI (1933), 156. 2) Rom. 4, 11 (with Lietzmann's note); C. Bonner, Melilo, 29, 95; E. Peterson, Vig. Chr. Ill (1949), 148 ?. 25. 3) Cf. Nilsson, Acta Inst. Romani R. Sueciae, XV (1950), 96 ff.; Gesch. II 515. Apul. Met. XI 27-9 thrice uses inlustro in the context of initiation, but it can mean 'glorify'; note specially 29 felici ilio amictu illustrari posse, where the reference is to the privilege of wearing on ceremonial occasions the garb of an initiate.

204 Deut.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

mature'*).

18, 13 and Levit. 19, 2; it can also have the sense 'full-grown, To pass for a moment from terminology to ideas, the that Christ became man in order that man in his entirety concept in Greek Christian from might become as God is common thought Irenaeus onwards. At first sight this looks like an imported idea do not carry much

and, while the supposed parallels from initiation there are interesting in Hermetism. Nevertheless, analogies weight, the formulation of the idea proves on examination to be the product

of a development which, while it could be and was enriched by the Platonic idea of being made like to God, lay entirely within the range of Christian it is my impression that the Further, presuppositions. to the Incarnation and to the redemptive primarily action of Christ; the sacraments, involving exemplary though in divine experience a more intimate than is suggested participation idea and is linked by our evidence for pagan initiation, are, so to speak, necessary modalities2). Returning 'fellowinitiates to our study of Paul'3) of words, we find that Ignatius speaks of but in a metaphorical sense; his use of and shows a certain appreciation Pauline, Neither sense he nor the other they 'initiate') or t?lete; more bookish Apostolic too use of

mysterion is Biblical and of the term's solemn sound. Fathers have as mysterion The Apologists practice, teleo (in 'secret', the

pagan knowledge. of the bread and cup of water in the mysteria of speaks Justin in advance Mithras as an imitation daimones of the Eucharist; by 1) On perfection, cf. H. J. Schoeps, Aus fr?hchristlicher Zeit, 290. The combination of tele(i)os and t?lete in Plat. Symp. 210A, Phaedr. 249C, Plut. Rom. 28, 10 is a figure of speech. On telos cf. A. Wifstrand in Nilsson II 671 n. 1. For the exuberant variety of Christian language and imagery, cf. A. v. Harnack, Terminologie d. Wiedergeburt (Texte u. Unters. XLII, iii, ?918), 97 ff; also H. Rahner, Z. kath. Theol. LIX, 1935, 348 ff. on the idea of baptism as rebirth from the Spirit and the Virgin (i.e. the Church) and P. Lundberg, La typologie baptismale (Acta Sem. Neot. Upsal. X, 1942). 2) On divinization cf. J. Religion, XXXI (1951), 214f.; the idea is applied to baptism in the Theophania handed down under the name of Hippolytus (8, I ii 262, 10 f. ed. Bonwetsch-Achelis), but this is, I think, generally and rightly ascribed to a later time. 3) Eph. 12, 2.

'symbol'. somewhat naturally display it is at times rather though

knowledge

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

205

before entering a pagan temple but he speaks also of lustral washings in a similar relation to baptism, which means that the as standing as such. Further as Pr?mm was not initiation point of comparison was concerned like Clement of Alexandria, to find remarks, Justin, and philosophyx) he sought none an analogy between ; Christianity In general, and pagan worship. uses between Justin Christianity as a whole, the appearance mysterion to denote the Christian revelation in the Old Testament which of Christ, and anything passion the new salvation as prefiguring be interpreted 2) ; this seems unrelated to his use of mysteria with reference to paganism. entirely and could Particular Campbell uses anew from the interest Bonner, the Pauline the attaches to of homily combination later a slightly Melito on the text edited Passion. by Melito

and water of Red Sea, manna, as rock, and repeatedly applies mysterion to the Passover of the the death of Christ; it is the original Passover prefiguring The power of verbal commemoration. not the contemporary Exodus, in Greek was strong enough to lead him to speak of Egypt association 'uninitiated in the mystery', but the primary sense of mysterion of redemption'; or Old Testament protoype he uses the word of a natural Elsewhere Law became Word'3). 'datum of baptism, the renewal bodies by washing the third in the sea of the sun and mysterion and mysterion plural, it is an 4). heavenly this time on till well into

as 'the

remained

prototype and other From

century used of the sacraments, words are seldom cognate either in the singular or, if used in the is generally

1) Apol. I 66, 4, 62, 1 ; cf. I 54, 6, 62, 2 (on taking off shoes) and Dial. 70, 1 (with Cumont, Textes et monuments, II 20 ?. 2), 78, 6, 69, 1 ; Pr?mm, Neuheitserlebnis, 438 f. 2) Cf. ?. ?. Soden, ?. neut. Wiss. XII (1911), 201; H. G. Marsh, J. Theol. St. XXXVII (1936), 64 f. For mysterion in Ep. ad Diogn. cf. Meecham on 4, 6; it is not applied to the sacraments. 3) Homily on the Passion (K.-S. Lake, Studies and Documents, XII, 1940), 84/5 p. 147, 16 p. 95, 33 p. 107, 7 p. 89 (cf. p. 47); cf. R. P. Casey, J. Bibl. Lit. LX (1941), 83, 87. 4) E. J. Goodspeed, Apologeten, 311; cf. H. Rahner, Griech. Mythen in christlicher Deutung, 73 ff., on the ways in which ancient and mediaeval Christians found the Cross and baptism typified in the most varied aspects of nature and life. Goodspeed 312 gives a fragment ascribed to Melito which speaks of the leading of Isaac to be sacrificed as a novel mystery, but doubts its authenticity.

206

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

quite exceptional. my ein for baptism is apparently plural*); the Pauline sense of what is still primarily 'secret'?in Mysterion or in the other sense of had been secret and was now revealed, ordinary esoteric teaching still reserved be used for a 'happy few'. In the second mysterion meaning and sarcastically by to the idea of initiation could by convinced seriously From either side the adherents transition

but the point of departure remains rather than pagan 2). 'secret' rather than 'initiatory rite', Biblical it is is adduced, of pagan rites to Christianity When the analogy as the need for a and involves such generalities incidental usually of Small mysteries or the appropriateness purification, preliminary coming before Great, and the reference so, in other words, this is the literary Philo alike. Clement in terms of of Alexandria and is commonly to doctrine; metaphor as used by Plato and once speaks at length of Christianity

opponents. was easy,

but there are several a Dionysiac special analogy, features to note in this passage (Protr. 11, 118 ff., i 83 f. St.). First, he had in mind the Bacchae of Euripides and not actual contemporary as he goes on, his language worship; secondly, terms which had become literary commonplace, brings in Eleusinian and also Christian

1) Cf. K. Pr?mm, ?. kath. Theol. LXI (1937), 391 ff. 2) The evidence of the Apocryphal Acts is of particular interest, for they are documents in which we should not expect any high degree of caution and traditionalism. Ada Pauli 3, 23 p. 32 Schmidt-Schubart speaks of 'initiating in the seal in the Lord' (for the genitive cf. E. Peterson, Vig. Chr. Ill 148, and Porphyry's quotation of Apollonius of Tyana in Stob. I 70, 10 Wachsmuth [Epist. 78] referring to the theme of Philostrat. Ap. Ty. Ill 14, 32, 51, VII 14). Mysterion is used of consecrated oil (chrism) in Acta Thomae 121 (II ii 230 LipsiusBonnet), mystagogia in one text of A. Jo. 106 (II i, 203, 17), in an Eucharistie context; 'mysteria of Christ', in the same setting, is a variant reading in A. Thorn. 121 (II ii 231), as is (mystes of Christ' in Mart. Matth. 11 (II i 228). Passio S. Pauli ??. 15 (I 40, 6) has divinorum mysteriorum vivificatione sacrati of baptism. Contra, in A. Jo. Al (II i 174) Great and Small mysteries serve as a metaphor for grades of miracle; ib. 96 (p. 198) mysteria (in the plural) refers to all that is shown forth in the Dance, the repetition of which was not commanded; the singular mysterion in 100 (p. 201) denotes the meaning of the Cross 'Thy mysteria" in A. Thorn. 25 (II ii 141) means 'saving truths', as it may well in 88 (p. 204), 136 (p. 243). Otherwise ????, t?lete, te??? (in the ritual sense), epoptes appear to be absent from this literature. So the mysteries of the Coptic-Gnostic literature are primarily matters of special revelation, and Mani's Book of the Mysteries appears to have been principally concerned with theological controversy and not with ceremonial (P. Alfaric, Ecritures manich?ennes, II 17 ff.).

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

207

allusions; thirdly, of the sacraments parallel which

philosophyx). at the impropriety Protr. 2, 12 ff. (i 11 St. ff.), it is with abhorrence of their symbols and withthe absurdity of their myths and rites and to the sacraments. out any sense of their being analogous

of Christian life as a whole and not he is speaking in particular; as has been remarked, the fourthly, is that of for Christianity he desires to emphasize at length in of pagan he speaks When mysteries

Origen's usage is similar. On occasion he could employ an analogy. Thus, Celsus had urged that, whereas those who summoned people to those who had clean their invitation to other teletai addressed invited sinners. the Christians heads, Origen in sinners to repentance reply (III 59) said that the Christians summoned and did not invite them to 'the teletai which we have' till they had hands and clear shown amendment (60) (62) Yet, of life. He carries on the metaphor

. . . ??sta????? . . . ??st???a ??e?s?? ?e??? ??st????? d?d?s?a??? Miura-Stange foreign to both remarked, Celsus and the were mystery-religions Celsus mentioned

as ?.

something them for the purpose of polemical just as Origen (ib. I 7) argument, in general as but also to mysteries referred not only to philosophy without their secrets Origen popular disapproval. arousing having of initiation the metaphor elsewhere does however just as employ he sometimes, and when 'mysteries', the writings of revelation Testament'?and of the speaking as a term that would sense in Christ truth uses the term Eucharist, Yet in his be understood. to be 'fact in the only Old by

Origen2);

predominating made explicit again

of mysterion appears or foreshadowed to be apprehended

'higher

1) It may be recalled that Hor. Epp. I 16, 73 ff. used the Bacchae in a moral allegory; note also the use of the story of Pentheus in Strom. I 13, 57 (ii 36 St.) For Clement's use of mysterion etc. cf. Marsh, i.e. (p. 205, n. 2); Pr?mm, Neuheitserlebnis, 439 and Z. kath. Theol. LXI (1937) 398 ff. For teletai in a simile cf. Strom. V 4, 19 (ii 338); for epopteia, I 28, 176 (ii 108), with express but unidentifiable reference to Plato. The idea, so prominent in Clement, that there were some truths which were not to be communicated even to all believers was at least foreshadowed in I Cor. 3, 2 and had analogies in Judaism (M. Smith, Tannaitic Parallels, 156), as well as in Platonism and the Herm?tica. Certainly mysterion, etc. have in Clement no special attachment to the sacraments. 2) Celsus u. Or?genes (?. neut. Wiss., Beih. IV, 1926), 156.

208

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS to a particular stage in the spiritual

those who had mounted

ascent'*).

1) For the metaphor of initiation in Origen cf. F. J. D?lger, Ichthys II 516 f. {apropos of disciplina arcani) and In Cant. cant. II (G.C.S. XXXIII 171), qui per sacramentum vitis et botrum cypri initiati ad perfectionem feruntur et calicem novi Testamenti ab Iesu susceptum bibere contendunt. In Cant. cant. I (ib. 92), sub tempore mysteriorum, of the kiss of peace at the Eucharist is so used as to suggest that myst. was now familiar; cf. In Num. XVI 9 (G.C.S. XXX 152), bibere autem dicimur sanguinem Christi non solum sacramentorum ritu sed et cum sermones eius recipimus and In lib. lud. VI 2 (ib. 500) ubi vero iam militiae eoelestis sacramenta gustavimus et pane vitae refecti sumus. For the plural cf. In Levit. IX 10 (G.C.S. XXIX 438), qui mysteriis imbutus est; In Exod. XIII 3 (ib. 21 A) qui divinis mysteriis interesse consuestis; Sei. in Ps. Horn. II in Ps. XXXVII (P.G. XII 1386D) accedere ad tanta et iam eximia sacramenta?all referring to the Eucharist. This might be thought to reflect pagan usage (cf. p. 186 n. 2), but I think it is a generalizing plural; cf. In Levit. V 10 (G.C.S. XXIX 352) ad suscipienda verbi Dei mysteria (which means, I suppose, baptism and also Christian doctrine) and Comm. in Rom. V 8 (P.G. XIV 1040) typus tantummodo mysteriorum; {with reference to baptism). In any event we have the translation of Rufinus and not the ipsissima verba. It may be remarked that three of D?lger's quotations come from discussions of Old Testament prototypes. So in In Levit. XIII 3 (G.C.S. XXIX 471 f.) we have mysterii magnitudinem, to denote what was meant by the ordinance about the shewbread, before ecclesiastica mysteria (the Eucharist as thus prefigured) and, later, mysteria revelanda (secrets to be shown to Abraham). Cf. In Levit. IX 9 (ib. 436 f.) quid haec (se. sacrificio) etiam secundum rationem mysticam contineant and sed mirum contuere ordinem sacramentorum (also of O.T. offerings) before the Christian reference in 10 (p. 438). In lib. Iesu Nave IV (G.C.S. XXX 307 ff.) has per baptismi sacramentum Iordanis fluenta digressus es_ and nec ipsum absque mysterii ratione arbitror scriptum (of the way in which Jordan parted) and agni mysterium (of the Passover); entry on the catechumenate corresponds to the passing of the Red Sea, baptism to the passing of Jordan; cf. also V (ib. 313 f.) ea quae in lordane gesta referuntur formam teneant sacramenti quod per baptismum celebratur. Like earlier Jewish and Christian writers, Origen was familiar with mysteria in the pagan sense (cf. also In Num. XX 3, G.C.S. XXX 193, in huius ergo idoli mysteriis consecratus est Istrahel) but the material quoted and what the reader may find by looking at Baehrens' index in G.C.S. XXX under mysterium, sacramentum, etc. show that the primary connotations of mysterion were for him those which it had acquired in Christian usage (so In Exod. V 2, G.C.S. XXIX 186 baptismi mysteria, with reference to I Cor. 10) and these were perhaps somewhat more 'sacramental' than earlier. Origen's use of the metaphor of initiation has a literary flavor; cf. C. Cels. VII 10 (ii 162 Koetschau) where ??st???te?a and ?p?pt???te?a are used for the more recondite parts of what the Prophets had to reveal (??st???? in Entretien d'Origene avec H?raclide... ed. J. Scherer (Pub. Soc. Fouad, Textes et Doc. IX, 1949), 152, 10, 154, 2 is 'esoteric' and 'with inner meaning'; ib. 174, 1 mysteria is used of the wheels in Ezekiel). For the usage of Hippolytus cf. Pr?mm, ?.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS To

209

principal Tertullian rites lacked.

which for Christians be sure, sacramentum, came to be the Latin of mysterion, was freely equivalent applied by to baptism and the Eucharist and occasionally to pagan had overtones or beliefs x). But sacramentum which mysterion It meant

an oath in general, and in so doing carried possibilities of suggestiveness which did not attach to d????, and it meant this marked entry on milithe soldier's oath of loyalty in particular; of loyalty to its rules and its ruler, and tary life, was the symbol fitted the idea of militia Christi2). Again, Apuleius used sacramentum which be expected of dumb to mean 'the mutual loyalty might which poor Lucius, when transformed into the shape animals' (and of an ass, did not find), and 'the dignity of a court'3). Sacramentum had a wide range of meaning and in seeking to understand its use by Christian writers we must not try to press any one sense 4). Certainly kath. Theol. LXIII (1939), 207 ff.; ib. 350 ff. He treats that of Athanasius, as J. Dani?lou, Platonisme et th?ologie mystique, 189 ff. does that of Gregory of Nyssa. 1) So Cor. 15, Adv. Marc. I 13; cf. in general J. H. Waszink on Tert. Anim. 1, 4. (Note initio of baptism in Monog. 8; sacramento infanticida in Apol. 1, discussed by D?lger, Ant. Chr. IV 188 ff. seems to me a piece of Tertulliano own sarcasm). 2) Cf. the contrast in Tert. Cor. 11 (with Chr. Mohrmann, Vig. Christ. VI, 1952, 112 f., 116 f.) and also Orig. In. Libr. Jesu, V 2 (G.C.S. XXX 315) militiae huius et cinguli sacramentum. On the soldier's oath cf. A. v. Premerstein, Werden u. Wesen d. Prinzipals (Abh. Bayer. Akad. N.F. XV 1937), 279 s.v. sacramentum and J. H. Gilliam, Yale Classical Studies, XI (1950), 233; for its use as a simile note Epictet. I 14, 15 ff. (cf. Sen. Ep. 95, 35). 3) Met. Ill 26 and 3; for the second sense, cf. the use of religio in Suet. Tiber. 33 (with Rietra's note and reference to Cod. lust. Ill 1, 14 pr. on the oath taken by a judge). 4) For the range of suggestion of sacramentum cf. Chr. Mohrmann, Vig. Chr. Ill (1949), 170 f. and IV (1950), 197; we shall await eagerly the special study which she announces. O. Casel, Jahrb. f. Liturgiewiss. VIII (1928), 227 ff. (cf. Das christliche Kultmysterium (ed. 2), 105 f.) has stressed (1) the language of Livy concerning the solemn oath of the Samnite legio linteata (X 38, 2; cf. IX 40, 9); (2) the mutual pledge of unhallowed union which was ascribed to members of the Bacchanalia (Liv. XXXIX 15, 13); (3) the sacramentum of Apul. Met. XI 15; (4) the taking of oaths of conformity (cf. Nilsson II 667) before participation in certain rites. It will be observed that in (1) we have a comparison, ritu quodam sacramenti vetusto velut initiatis militibus, and a metaphor, sacrati. As for (2), to the Roman authorities this was a criminal conspiracy (cf. Liv. XXXIX 18, 3) and in (2) and (3) alike the point of departure of the metaphor is military service and not initiation. Further in (3) sanctae huic militiae is stressed, and rogabaris is after all the manuscript reading; if it is correct, the pledge Mnemosyne V 14

210

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS called sacraments sacramenta

the because they fitted in his mind; he did not call which the word had general associations other things sacramenta because they seemed akin to the sacraments. 'une grande plasticit?' In fact, the word sacramentum retained *). Tertullian

VI. DEVELOPMENT IN THE FOURTH CENTURY The free of mystery application like the full elaboration to the as an It was period of the answer to an a matter to the Christian terminology of disciplina arcani2), belongs of the Church and can be triumph internal rather than an external

sacraments, essentially explained

and paedagogic of diplomatic technique challenge. a fairly conscious which is made very clear in and involved effort, on Easter Eve, to catechumens various sermons baptism awaiting of loyalty which mattered for Lucius is primarily that which Isis demanded in the vision and not what was to follow in his initiation. As for (4), an oath was in no known instance a mode of initiation; it was at most a concomitant. The phrase sollemnis et sacrata militia is used of the service of disciplined soldiers who remembered their sacramentum, as contrasted with the caeca et fortuita (militia) of undisciplined soldiers; the latter also had sworn and it was not the oath which made the difference (Liv. VIII 34, 10). It is possible that the tattooing of soldiers as practised in the later Empire was thought to involve something like a consecration to the military service of the Emperor, but this was a preliminary to the sacramentum (Veget. II 5) and practical reasons may have predominated, as in the tattooing of the fabricenses and of the hydrophylaces (Perdrizet, Arch. Rei. Wiss. XIV, 1911, 99). A man might not normally fight unless duly enlisted; cf. Plut. Q. R. 39 p. 273E; with H. J. Rose's note. Whatever may be thought as to early ideas which may lie behind this, it was in effect a matter of Roman legal definition of the situation (sacrati conmilitones in S. H. A. Gord. 14, 1 is naturally a piece of rhetoric). The essence of military (as of other) oaths was the conditional curse which the individual invoked upon himself if he should fail to do his duty. [For an oath as required of men entering a religious body which lacked mysteries, cf. A. Dupont-Sommer, Dead Sea-Scrolls, tr. ?. M. Rowley, 47, 51]. 1) Mohrmann, V. Chr. Ill (1949), 170. 2) Cf. D?lger, Ichthys, II 516 ff.; v. Harnack, T.U. XLII, iii 124; O. Perler, Reallex. Ant. Chr. 1667 ff. In spite of this, Ps. Aug. Quaest. vet. nov. Test. (C.S.E.L. L) 114, 6, p. 305 could still contrast the simplicity and openness of Christian rites with the secrecy of pagan mysteries. This is like an objection which Philo, Spec. leg. I 319 f. made against Gentile teletai (cf. Lucan IX 576 f.). Consistency is not to be expected. Incidentally, K. Pr?mm, Z. k. Theol. LXIII (1939), 114 has well suggested that the use of mysterion in the New Testament made it more natural for the Fathers to adopt mystery terminology.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS to evoke the

211

these

in the neophytes and to maintain right sentiments We see a somewhat sentiments thereafter. attitude comparable

in the use of curtains around the altar, and later still in the iconoNow that the Church had come out of the period of persecustasisx). tion it was necessary to make entry into it sufficiently serious and it was appropriate to give all possible to Christian dignity worship. We now find the metaphorical of initiation into language coming use; but increasing mode of expression Dramatic ceremonies but them initiations, as a traditional metaphor concrete of initiations. reality in public were familiar in Augustine's boyhood in spite of the vigor with which Firmicus attacked with other manifestations of paganism) and in spite and not on the with which have been it was based on the

(together of the enthusiasm must

to them, mystagogia

First, even at this time the in baptism traditio was no less solemn than regeneration symboli at the font; a sacrament as tamquam again, describes Augustine, visibile verbum 3). The essential secret was the revelation, not a visible reflections as such, and there was no possibility of an antithesis expression between the two. Second, it is easy to contrast the Papal Mass of the sixth century, as reconstructed by Edmund Bishop 4), or the elaborate ceremonial of Sancta Sophia with the scene in the Upper Room or with one of the untidy meetings of the Corinthian converts of Paul. Yet the process of elaboration owed nothing essential to pagan ritual. It depended rather on the splendors of the old Temple of Jerusalem and on those it depended an Imperial solemnity of the New also on the must of the Church like those as portrayed Jerusalem fashions of secular life. needs move towards Court. in the After lectionary; Constantine

paganism Two further

the pagan aristocracy of Rome clung fast. The use of the term disappearing is particularly marked in the fifth century when organized was almost dead. everywhere are in order.

Imperial

a magnificence and Theodor Only recently

1) On the iconostasis cf. ?. Holl, Ges. Aufs. ?. Kirchengesch. II 225 ff. We may compare E. Bishop's remark (R. H. Connolly, Liturgical Homilies of Narsai, 93) on the idea of a holy awe in worship as stressed by Cyril of Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century. 2) Cf. Kattenbusch, R.E. Prot. Theol. (ed. 3) XIII 612 ff. 3) In. Jo. Evang. tract. 80, 3. 4) The Genius of the Roman rite (reprinted in Liturgica Hist?rica).

212 Klauser

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS has shown taken how some those of the attributes of civil of episcopal state were the bishops were dignitaries;

simply now such *). To argue as I have no influence

over from

done is not to suggest that pagan mysteries had on the development and acceptance of Catholic Christian-

they had so little. We can ity; the surprise is that on the evidence of course see something like a recrudescence of the old psychology in certain in East and West alike, as for Week ceremonies Holy instance in the Eastern 'He has truly response hodie of various liturgical at Easter greeting risen'. The same celebrations 'Christ attitude is risen' and the in the appears and in certain

of festivals

I do not for one moment suggest deliberate Epiphany ceremonials2). direct or any such interpretatio Christiana as appears adaptation in the acceptance of Natalis Solis Invicti as the birthday of the Sun of Righteousness. Rather of the drama of salvation closer old did we see made not than only how the annual commemoration its natural on men living impact most of us do. In any event the it was cherished and survive; legis

to the soil and to nature typology

Jewish

developed. Novum Phase Unless thing quarter I am mistaken, like the position of a century pascha novae v?tus termin?t.

opinion is moving towards somescholarly which I have outlined. If you look back a to the second of Carl Clemen's inedition

des Neuen Testaments Erkl?rung of many studies which resulted in different conclusions. the body and drinking the blood very Eating of the Lord was put on a level with the fact that in some remote past the worshippers rent animals of Dionysus asunder and devoured dispensable Religionsgeschichtliche will find a patient you analysis them and and that perhaps though by the were supposed beginning to partake of the god's of our era such rending flesh? was no

1) Der Ursprung d. bisch?flichen Insignien u. Ehrenrechte; cf. his Abendl?ndische Liturgiegeschichte, 12 f. 2) Cf. Harv. Theol. Rev. XXVII (1934), 91 n. 124; P. Argenti-?. J. Rose, Folk-Lore of Chios, 364; Usener, KL Sehr. IV 429 ff.; Holl. op cit. II 123 ff.; E. G. Turner, Aberdeen Papyri, p. 5.?Augustin. Serm. 220 (cf. Mohrmann, Ephem. liturg. LXVI, 1952, 50 f.) is instructive.

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS more than a respectable

213

? am the vine; ye are the bransurvivalx). ches' was again thought to reflect the same cult and belief in baptismal The Mandaeans, was related to the taurobolium. also, regeneration have had their day. Without made have and oversimplification exaggeration in most fields of humanistic investigation. been mentioned have served to stimulate enquiry; they have from an unwholesome on these liberated progress such Hypotheses little is as

of critical

ginnings an overemphasis mended

the study isolation; they have freed us from which comof early Christianity aspects

a great amount beof Christian

votaries of progress at the beginIn reacting them we must beware of against ning of this century. in the opposite direction and of any tendency to assume exaggeration of cause and effect in an area in which they are simple relations and very rare. We must, again, do justice to the high seriousness themselves to reasonable continued of much and to the essential of ancient vitality paganism of man's behavior towards the unseen. In the beautiful van der Leeuw, hat... unity words

of Gerardus und diese

die es der Menschheit

verg?nnt die Vorwelt

'Es gibt aber nur ganz wenige Gedanken, zu denken, ist, ?ber das G?ttliche sei es in anderen, l?ngst gedacht,

fremdartigen Harvard

Formen'2). University.

1) F. J. D?lger, Ant. u. Chr. IV (1934), 277 ff. notes the repugnance to the idea of feeding, even metaphorically, on a deity shown in Philostr. Ap. Ty. V 20. 2) Cf. Augustine Retract. I 12 (13), 3: nam res ipsa, quae nunc Christiana religio nuncupatur, erat et apud antiquos nec defuit ab initio generis humani, quousque Christus venir et in carne, unde vera religio, quae iam erat, coepit appellar i Christiana.