Mystery Cults

Mystery Cults


in antiquity, secret cults of certain divinities. Only the initiated, or mystae, participated in the cults, which consisted of a series of sequential dramatized actions illustrating the myths associated with the worshiped divinities. The dramatizations were accompanied by a particular ritual and usually by processions, incantations, and orgies.

Mystery cults were engendered by the cults of the most ancient gods, who personified death and rebirth in nature. When class society developed, some cults broke away from official religion and became secret cults. The first mystery cults grew out of ancient Oriental rituals (the cults of Osiris and Isis in Egypt and Tammuz in Babylon). There is evidence suggesting the existence of mystery cults in ancient Greece from the seventh century B.C.

Among the best known of the early mystery cults are the Eleusinian mysteries in honor of the fertility goddess Demeter and her daughter, Persephone (Kore); the Orphic mysteries, which, according to tradition, were founded by Orpheus, a mythical Thracian bard; and the Samothracian mysteries, which honored the Cabiri, patrons of seafarers. Archaeological evidence suggests that a number of Oriental mystery cults, including those of Isis, Attis, Cybele, and Mithra (Mithras), were introduced into Italy as early as the second century B.C. Near Pompeii archaeologists have excavated the Villa of Mysteries, which has a central room containing unique representations of the practices of mystery cults. Many elements of the mystery cults of late antiquity, particularly those of Isis and Mithra, were borrowed by Christianity and became an integral part of Christian religious services.


Novosadskii, N. I. Elevsinskie misterii. St. Petersburg, 1887.
Kern, O. Die griechischen Mysterien der klassischen Zeit. Berlin, 1927.
Maiuri, A. La villa dei misteri. Rome, 1931.
Kerenyi, K. Die Mysterien von Eleusis. Zürich, 1962.
References in periodicals archive ?
Some areas explored are mystery cults, divination, perceptions of the afterlife, British ritual killings, druids, and Mithraism.
Pan--the caprine god of wilderness, shepherds, and rustic music-died in the traditional Anno Domini 1, symbolically marking the passage in the West from the mystery cults of Greco-Roman paganism to the universalizing morality of Christianity.
Next an overview of the evidence and methodology is presented, followed by an explanation of the crucial relationship between ancient votive religion and mystery cults. Here the author emphasizes the non-contractual relationship between humans and gods.
Controlling sight and the interplay between vision and blindness seemed to have been of paramount importance in the course of initiation to some of the best attested mystery cults of the ancient world, e.g., the mysteries of Eleusis and the Kabeiric Mysteries of Samothrace.
Scholarship on the ancient mystery cults illustrates that streams and rock formations are common features in the sanctuary topography of many early, rural Mediterranean cults.
Subsequent chapters examine topics that include mystery cults, symbolic and actual ritual practice of eating flesh and blood, the historical context of betrayal at a meal, and the many allusions to the Eucharist in the Gospel of John.
Plutarch says only that the Cilician pirates "offered strange sacrifices upon Mount Olympus, and performed secret rites or religious mysteries, among which those of Mithras have been performed to our own time [i.e., the second century A.D., roughly two centuries after Pompey's time], having received their previous institution from them." It is also possible that the mysteries of Mithras, like certain other mystery cults in Roman dominions, were popularized by the mysterious "Chaldeans," itinerant sorcerers from the East who were periodically expelled from Roman territory for encouraging the formation of subversive cultic secret societies.
Absent are discussions of local religious organizations, mystery cults, healing sanctuaries, pilgrimages, athletic contests, hero worship, festivals, and adoptions of new gods.
The first main chapter, 'The Esoteric Tradition in Literature', plots a progression from Roman mystery cults, through Golden Agemystics and Neoplatonists, German Romantics, French symbolists and decadents, and finally to the surrealists, who, according to Nicholson, like the earlier poets, in their writings sought the sacred, although in human consciousness, not in nature.
In his chapter on "Art and Religion," Elsner discusses the seemingly contradictory phenomena of differentiation and syncretism at work in the imagery of competing religions of the late empire--the traditional civic and imperial rituals as well as the more esoteric mystery cults. He emphasizes monotheism and sacred Scripture as the key elements, inherited from Judaism, that gave Christianity the capacity to triumph as the new state religion in the fourth century, this in the face of its new need to accommodate aspects of civic imperial rituals that it had long opposed and "to promulgate that [Christian] identity through the active process of conversion" throughout the empire (225).
As a little girl, I'd learned about every detail of the resurrection as extraordinary -- which made it rather disconcerting when I found out that crucifixion was a common practice of the times, and that dozens of Greek mystery cults told stories of resurrections.