tic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments tic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments

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 [email protected].

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HELLENISTIC

MYSTERIES

AND

CHRISTIAN

SACRAMENTS BY A. D. NOCK

Gerardi

Memoriae dilectae van der Leeuw

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 .

178 184 189 192 202 210

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

from

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

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS

178 in

it

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

would

involve

whose

death

Casel, Die Vorschule *).

mysteries

I. MYSTERIES AND INITIATIONS IN CLASSICAL GREECE the

conducted

of Anatolia, peoples Syria, Mesopotamia, ceremonies had many annual or periodic in an atmosphere and solemnity of secrecy

these

restricted

Like the

Greeks

and which

Egypt, 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 were

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 the had but Demeter, Hymn already assumed a different mysteries

aspect, and promised the hereafter to those its relation invited

in this life and a better portion in prosperity who had 'seen these things'. The rite retained

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,

to the farmer's

the Greeks

of the mysteries

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>


179

which

a thing

and which was changed the status of all who witnessed all to as individuals and not only to important persons qualified the Eleusinians as a group. In early times the rite, like others of the type, was presumably attended after all local inhabitants who wished to do so. year by year Later

what

done

so once

mattered was

was to have

sufficient.

seen the holy things, was elaborated

Initiation

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 There was first myesis, itx); this was a purification in the Small Mysteries Initiation

as follows.

'initiation

called

administered

initiation

in the

came

epopteia, The first stage is something the scheme.

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

Great

at least mentioned originally The fourth

as P. Roussel pr?alable' at any time of year2). was also required before

be an old prerequisite and only later independent may

must

be

last time.

but the second

in incorporated the Homeric accretion; which implies that there was

a later

speaks of 'seeing' in a manner rite and that no higher blessedness was to be had. one essential when Eleusis drew men from far was created epopteia Presumably Hymn

only

it was and near, whether human natural penchant

to attract for

them

elaboration

to come

again

or from

a

3).

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

and the influx of non-Athenians to growth of Athens in who were not some initiates function Eleusis, special performing must have been in general excluded after epopteia the Telesterion With

the

from

presence

seat

than

3,000

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

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

proceeding

Telesterion;

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

immense acquired literature to cultural

this *). New interpreted Galen twice

rituals

arose

could

and a new view came

Eleusis

Athenian

they

and

into

being

prestige;

not

normally

181 it

witness

of the potential implicaand had many repercusthe rise of Athens and of

primacy certainly ancient rituals were

contributed modified

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

to or rewhich

2), were

very old. These belonged to the Oreat Gods', mysterious were often but not always identified with the Cabiri. In view of Bengst Die a most and Kabiren 3), Hemberg's thorough one the discussion of of darkest corners of Greek penetrating religion, we should perhaps think of a Cabiric type of deity rather than of undoubtedly deities who

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 devised

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).


182 which

described are expressly of the Athenian the devotion

as belonging to the Cabiri. They won settlers on the island and of men born

preserve honorific decrees inscriptions published recently in half of the fourth the second passed century by 'the isoteleis and and perhaps a little later by 'the assembly the People of the initiated' In other words, there was a congregational of the initiated'. spirit

elsewhere:

and

living on the spot could be given the a religione of these latter accepted membership; was make Samothrace to personal expense x). involving initiates

non-Lemnian

of associate

status

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

(except by legal canonical times.

and were performed only at Eleusis mysteries at the to some fiction, potentate2)) only gratify which The Greeks had however other initiations

As always in the development counted for much. Age, Dionysus religion He had not only numerous civic rites, many of them mysteries of but of the heilige Handlung also private type, groups voluntary In spite of early institutionalization, rehis worship worshippers. an element tained or could recapture of choice, movement, and inwere

not subject

of Greek

dividual

but

the

So does

Most

of our evidence of the

choral the

restrictions.

the Heroic

after

enthusiasm.

is later, story.

to such

tale

songs in Herodotus

Bacchae

for Dionysiac of Euripides

IV 79 about

the

initiation tell their disastrous

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 eagerness

initiations After

in the cult of the kindred

Alexander

Ptolemaic to cause

Egypt

there

is abundant

are isolated data. god Sabazius, evidence for initiation and in

this type

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.


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

that,

him to groups of likeminded persons, they also admitted and often of a similar hope for the of the same status

initiate: possessed

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

to things which they held sacred3). of Dionysus we pass on, a word is due to Plato's association which the this to with the 'madness that initiates' ; refers purifications Before

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 similar the and of also, speaks Corybantes; repeatedly, 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

like inoculations, from possession went had

once the

initiated

these

other

be repeated or defilement;

a month

teletai (cf. p. 186, later) which could, at need, when a man wished to be freed Man in Theophrastus the Superstitious

Even Orpheotelestai. statement in Aristotle's

to the

implied quality did not have to learn

something

the

humbler

that

but rather

rites

those

being to experience

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

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 the individual cult-acts which 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

the Near

soil

alike;

but

East.

Such

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

there

In pre-Ptolemaic in the Greek sense

to correspond are explained to participation in secret course

as referring ceremonies

to persons who were admitted and priestly lore 2). In the not certainly) before the be-

of time, and probably (though rites were developed for ginning of the Christian era new initiatory Mithras Attis Like etc. of those Eleusis and Isis, 3), Cybele 4), Dionysus, 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.


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

those

at any place of Eleusis, they could be administered their emotional not underestimate depth or overin and dissemination. the cult of Only antiquity

We must their

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 Mithras

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. the of these in our analytic conscious of or were diversity way fully the annual dramatic of the rites phenomena. Apostate speaks Julian of Cybele and Attis as mysteria and treats them as parallel to the Eleusinian

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

in literature of Osiris this

is

attitude

sense

of

in

anticipated

and certainly a deep Herodotus, assurance was thus and spiritual

participation

personal

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 which transcended unity Mysteria

use

dictionaries

equivalents additional

like

ours,

in another sense

this associations; what derives from

of

still

language.

a range of Mysterion (in the singular) had the secret' without any ceremonial

less

dictionaries

'something is known chiefly

from

Biblical

it, but is found

outside

that

giving

Greek range

and

from

also 2). T?lete

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

of old

denoted

which

any solemn esoteric about

rite,

the Panathenaea including it was also used to denote

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 in in side texts as Melito (p. 205, later). The termiby astrological 5), as also the fact, of mystery and initiation acquired a generic and an almost universal appeal. So Alexander of Abonutichus

nology, quality devised

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

paid delegates the ceremony;

panions to go through much more than the preliminaries at Lebadea, save that the latter

the

for his young combut it can hardly have meant costs

to the consultation were

of Trophonius (the consultants

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

there must

was vigorous on behalf of the sanctuary7). We propaganda not be deceived by the various claims of immemorial antiquity.

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

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

creative

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?

que les ce qui le dieu

tr?s

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; This

and those

above

earth, the power of the god in either realm, and other wondrous astonishment and perhaps not to be told

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

'was

the

content

in a papyrus

of the

4), there

t?lete'3). Apart is no other indica-

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

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 tion

t?lete was

the

dream

itself;

of the

things initiation.

Sarapis showed to Aristides he saw them as Lucius did

underworld; Elsewhere Aristides

hidden Isiac

from

Asclepius 'almost as though experience in a t?lete, good hope being present to me together with fear'*). in religious the medical writer Aretaeus tells of who people 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

t?lete' and says

speaks of another

of a revelation

the

in his

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.


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

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;

it opened outsiders secrecy

was a fact familiar

men.

to all educated

When

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

in

Aristophanes under the form Plato

used with

the

the most

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 nique 2). The imagery a systematizer

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 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;

fulness

it is superior

to those

of Eleusis

to demonstrate

indications, of nature cations

are clear

what

for they give faint and Samothrace, while the indiwould teach, they

in all living

beings.

III. MYSTERION AND THE METAPHOR OF MYSTERIES IN JUDAISM of initiation metaphor to was application philosophy The

fitted to have

other

things

consequences

but its also4), in Hellenistic

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

and

Judaism Palestine

more

later

had known

the

in Christianity. dramatic rites

From

of old the

of Tammuz,

but

Jews

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

In this mystis hence came our Septuagint. language; in of the sense 'one Sal. 8, 4) metaphorically (Sap. in knowledge'; otherwise and teletai are used of mysteria

Greek

appears initiated

once

pagan rites as 'secret',

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

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

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 with

Greek

to pagan

metaphor Great and of Small

with

abhorrence

but

finds

the

philosophic So he speaks with deep feeling of congenial. of initiation as mysteries, by Moses, of Jeremiah with reference to the priestly consecration of

cult-mysteries of initiation

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


191

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

truth, a way

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 deliverance

from

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

the soul's

and telling liberation. the hope

forth

of the national (one might almost say the reliving) there at as could all times be There, throughout Jewry, that Israel would someday be ransomed from her present It was in fact thought as of old she had been from Egypt.

subjection that the earlier

was to come.

there

would

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

would

Messiah forth

Once

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

more

be chastised; the he would heaven; bring As the Law was of old

intensified

thought)

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


by the political These decades.

Eucharist

things

what

understand actions

events

of the first century B.C. and the succeeding be borne in mind if we are to try to

must

John

were

the

interpreted?and took their shape

and Jesus did and how their Baptizer in particular how baptism and the and

place

in a Jewish

milieu.

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 a dramatic of Nevertheless, novum, piece prophetic 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 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,

of the

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.


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

of any which

is no record

bore on the interpretation

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,

was what not

drawn

have

said

of baptism he had been the

same

over

bread

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 which

the

Lord hath

the substantial of blood, guarantee authenticity much harder to imagine someone else inventing them. They too constituted 'prophetic uttering

of the record. the words

than

It is Jesus

symbolism'.) that baptism

Again, involved

an immediate as something effecting But for him, as much as for Paul, baptism

change involved

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

whoever

to come

rather

than

in spiritual

state.

becoming When

Christ's

baptism

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

and aside

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. JVlnemosyneV

13


194

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 which

about their meaning and in the first our of era century category were not set and even in the fifth century what we call sacraments revelation. Then, sharply apart from other aspects of the Christian and the Eucharist were part of the as in the first century, baptism aware

of the

number.

of

centuries

There

controversy

was no such

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

whole

and

individual

gifts of grace. we have to make a deliberate

institutional

effort of historical On the other hand, of typolto realize something positive?the importance imagination the of the idea that to that the Old is application regular say 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

of Salvation

had

came everything adumbrated and was

actions

been

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.


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 an 'ideale Not supplemented, interpreted gave Grundlage'. only but also the idea that the did Christianity arise out of Judaism, Burckhardt

'ideale

constituted

Christians ises

the

of

Old

the new Israel2) and the belief that the promwere intended for them, were and reprophecy, any event, any phrase in the Jewish

Testament

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 mained record

of essential

but the statement of hidden

contents.

been

fulfilled

Paul, there

who had had to make was

and

verities and the disclosure supernatural had to be fulfilled; Promises nay, they had in ultimis were being fulfilled To temporibus. The

so drastic need

a deeply personal and the Lord's

Baptism to ask how he classified

them

a readjustment of his beliefs, the Old in the New.

to find

Supper would

were

for

Paul

stark realities; wrong, for he had and his thought and

be in a sense

nor the temper to be analytical when he a moreover, kaleidoscopic range of variety; language it to draw a moral inference or to is of these point a speaks things, of the two phenomena his interpretation as Nevertheless, warning. neither

the time show

a pair is set forth in ch. 10 of the First Epistle the strict obligations Paul has been emphasizing on his converts

and himself

to the which

Corinthians. were binding

alike and continues:

that our fathers were all under you to know, brethren, the sea, and all were baptized all and clo\id, passed through in the in and the cloud into Moses sea, and all ate the same superdrink. For they natural food and all drank the same supernatural I want

the

drank

from

Rock

was

pleased;

the supernatural Rock which followed them, with most of them God Nevertheless

Christ. for they

were

overthrown

in the

and the was

not

wilderness.

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

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 which

but did not convey any changed the situation from future human and its pitiful security frailty the To the deliverance from consequences. Jews Egypt was the supsome of them believed that the reme type of Messianic redemption;

world,

Messiah

radically

of

guarantee

would

was

a favorite

rock

were

his people manna, and the water from the rock symbol of God's mercies to Israel. Both manna and give

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

Christ the

phase idyllic In the same

of the

which

is a name

applied

to

tradition what

always emphasized should have been the

national

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 moral and is homiletical?to the purpose again discourage giving

of scandal offered

to

by

indiscriminate deities

and

of meat which had been enjoyment was thereafter available for eating.

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 as fulfilled: Christians to general were to be 'a holy priesthood, offer spiritual that should sacrifices be acceptable' (I Pet. 2, 5). The cessation of sacrifice in Jerusalem after 70 no doubt encouraged Malachi and

of thinking. So also baptism came to be regarded as that circumcision. There is a of in this Coloss. replaced suggestion but circumcision was too controversial an in issue Paul's 2, 11-3, time for free development of the idea. this

way

which

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.


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 as matter a of deliverance, retrospect, contemporary Moses had to lead experience, required man's obedient cooperation. not

the

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,

Israelites

to strike gathered the people what

the

had

to follow.

came

they fore, and make disciples the Father and of the had

again, What

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

to believe

to

Son

utter

and

of the

Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28, 19); of blessing and break the Bread. the bread and wine which were to be

words

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

and wine

as an offering to God. regarded A variety of factors within the Christian a further

The death of development. linked were most Supper closely to the tions. Moreover, the words which Jesus over Bread and Cup brought them into

situation

soon

to be

began

contributed

to

the Last Jesus and likewise with all its associaPassover was believed

to have

an intimate

connection

uttered with

his sacrificial

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

was bound

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 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

had been offered.

with

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

ascription In some such ways

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 the of continued the idea Further, outweigh reception mysteries. idea of action.


198

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 and the ascription of the latter was temporary typological 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

as kept pure or of their faith or of their charitable gifts. to the Eucharist a character of action. 'Do this', but it is

in the

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

action

of the earlier salvation message As in all God's dealings with

was proclaimed). his chosen people, gift called for the main for Paul on the but response; emphasis gift, as again lay on being known rather than on knowing. To be sure, such supernatural to carry supernatural Paul hazards; gifts could easily be thought literally

believed

that

sickness

from

and death in the

could

be explained

as re-

Lord's

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

serious

seem

to me to give some answer to the old of how what are now called Christian sacraments

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

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

made

I should

nova, often

than

for an enduring to emphasize

wish

neos)

state that

is as characteristic

word

is the

'joy'. As in prophecy, characteristic of the results

thought in history1).

'A new

creation'

of society. And when the word 'new' (kainos

of early the

Christian

epithet of a drastic

as used

denotes divine

199 I say more

as language what was intervention

of Christians

(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 in Israel, redemption in Exodus. of baptism and the Eucharist

Church

The view

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

indicated

have

in I Cor. 10 and is set forth

asked

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

the

flesh

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

Lord

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 baptism, Eucharist)3). This idea of dona data retained its force among Christians; Justin I brother the presiding Martyr (Apol. 65) tells how at the Eucharist the

reference

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

gave

to them.

(For Paul

and his successors

Spirit

and 'spiritual'

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.

had none

200


of the

and abstract character idealizing to us. Spirit was an active power

which

they are liable to showing itself in concrete as well as in the rational or ecstatic inspira-

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 of the Eucharistie the Didache. These thanks to express 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

or even

to

were in their

the

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 as

in

the

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

and

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 Paul

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.


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, concrete

'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 copious impromptu again, imagine prayer pagan rite. In accordance

with Jewish a blessing or custom, Jesus uttered terms are the before Bread ; gave (the synonymous) breaking The blessings hence the name Eucharist and what it connotes. or of Christians at their common meal or Eucharist thanksgivings continued to admit of free individual but essenimprovisation, long 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 thanks to Our Father' and 'We give thee, prayers begin, give 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.

202


thanks

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

not easily of the world

could end

be understood seemed

as it was

or assimilated.

imminent, catechumenate

time

could

since Further, not be spared, for preparation

or proper later, for any I from The Corinthians 10 probably means baptism. passage quoted 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 not to the communal were predisposed regard pagan evidence, they meals waning Church

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 as having, phrase, 2). 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 have

that

there

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 and in Greek application philosophers

were ceremonies

to see how slow

surprising fourth century its

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

or reinterpretation practice existed in

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

203

that the description of baptism been thought as or 'illumination' and the of sphragis, photismos (or photisma) as 'perfect' or 'being perfected', is teleioi, teleioumenoi, baptized based on the language of initiation, and but this is not so. Sphragis indeed

'seal'

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

and

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 as

the

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 more

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 the was the there was sun, usage, light of the moon and the there were those stars, helpful surrogates by which man saved from darkness time for work and kept his feet from stumbling or taking world

widespread than they

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 pho-

passed showed tismos

was

a term

denoting common

initiation.

Latin

usage is significant; appears to usage, illuminatio Christian and illuminator language

while

illumino

be

confined to wholly in so. So again both adjective and verb meaning 'perfect' not only are not technical not did terms of initiation (Greek

was

almost

wholly Greek

run to technical context.

Teleios

terms), but is primarily

in earlier

are not even moral,

words

as in Matt.

conspicuous 5, 48, which

in that echoes

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


18, 13 and Levit. 19, 2; it can also have the sense 'full-grown, To pass for a moment from terminology to ideas, the in that that in Christ became man order man his entirety concept become as is in common from God Greek Christian might thought Deut.

mature'*).

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 of action the Christ; sacraments, involving exemplary though in a more intimate divine than is participation experience suggested idea

is linked

and

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,

mysterion is Biblical and of the term's solemn sound. Fathers

have

teleo (in 'secret',

as mysterion The Apologists practice,

the

Neither sense

he nor

'initiate')

the

other

or t?lete;

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

more

they

Apostolic too use

knowledge

of

bookish

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.


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 he an analogy between ; Christianity philosophyx) sought none In and uses between Justin pagan worship. general, 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

Campbell uses anew

attaches

interest

Particular

the

Bonner, the Pauline

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 it the of the death of is Passover the Christ; original prefiguring The power of verbal commemoration. not the contemporary Exodus, in Greek was strong enough to lead him to speak of Egypt association

from

the

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).

'uninitiated

as

remained 'the

prototype and other From

'datum

of baptism,

the renewal

by washing

in the sea of the sun

bodies

4). heavenly this time on till well into

the

third

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

and mysterion and mysterion plural,

it is an

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

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

could

mysterion meaning and sarcastically by to the idea of initiation

be used

opponents. was easy,

for

a 'happy

few'.

In the

by convinced seriously From either side the

second

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 such incidental involves generalities usually of the Small or appropriateness purification, mysteries preliminary and is commonly to doctrine; metaphor as used by Plato and once speaks at length of Christianity

coming before Great, and the reference so, in other words, this is the literary Philo alike. Clement

of Alexandria

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 in

terms

of

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.).


207

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

allusions; thirdly, of the sacraments parallel

which

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

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

He carries

on the metaphor

. . . ??sta????? . . . ??st???a ??e?s?? ?e??? ??st????? d?d?s?a???

(60) (62) Yet,

of life.

as ?.

Miura-Stange foreign to both

remarked, Celsus and

the

were mystery-religions Celsus mentioned

Origen2);

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

'mysteries', the writings of revelation Testament'?and

uses the term Eucharist, Yet in his be understood.

of the speaking as a term that would

when

sometimes, and

predominating made explicit again

sense

of mysterion appears or foreshadowed

in Christ

'higher

truth

to

be apprehended

to be 'fact in the only

Old by

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


those who had mounted

to a particular

stage in the spiritual

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

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

principal Tertullian rites

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; lacked.

It meant

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 when which into animals' transformed the (and poor Lucius, shape 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


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

called

sacraments

sacramenta

VI. DEVELOPMENT IN THE FOURTH CENTURY The

free

sacraments,

to the Christian terminology of disciplina arcani2), belongs of the Church and can be triumph

of mystery application like the full elaboration

essentially

to the

explained

as

an

It was

period of the answer to an

internal

rather

than

an

external

and paedagogic of diplomatic technique challenge. is made very clear in a fairly conscious which and involved effort, on Easter Eve, to catechumens various sermons baptism awaiting a matter

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

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

evoke

these

211

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

initiations,

them

(together of the enthusiasm

to them,

based

on the

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

with

not

on the

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 have

must

mystagogia

it was

paganism Two further

which

been

are in order.

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

Church like those

as portrayed Jerusalem fashions of secular life.

must of the

needs

move

Imperial

in the After

lectionary; Constantine

a magnificence and Theodor Only recently

towards Court.

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

HELLENISTIC MYSTERIES AND CHRISTIAN SACRAMENTS has shown

Klauser

taken

how some

over from

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

of the attributes

those

of civil

of episcopal state were the bishops were dignitaries;

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 and Week ceremonies East West alike, as for Holy in the

instance

Eastern

'He has truly response hodie of various liturgical

at Easter greeting risen'. The same celebrations

'Christ attitude

of festivals

is risen'

and the

in the appears and in certain

I do not for one moment suggest deliberate Epiphany ceremonials2). direct or Christiana as appears adaptation any such interpretatio in the acceptance of Natalis Solis Invicti as the birthday of the Sun of Righteousness. Rather of the drama of salvation closer old

we see made

how

to the soil and to nature

than

not

only

Jewish

typology

did

the

annual

commemoration

its natural

on men living impact most of us do. In any event the it was cherished and survive;

developed. Novum Phase I am mistaken, like the position

Unless thing

of a century

quarter

pascha novae v?tus termin?t.

legis

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 and the blood very Eating body drinking 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

were

perhaps though by the

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.

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.

more

than

a respectable

made

and oversimplification exaggeration in most fields of humanistic investigation.

have

been

Without

mentioned

have

served

ginnings an overemphasis

on

these

stimulate

progress such Hypotheses

as

a great amount beof Christian

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

enquiry; they have from an unwholesome

of critical

to

is

little

liberated

votaries of progress at the beginwe must beware of In them reacting 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 to reasonable

mended

themselves

continued

and to the essential of ancient vitality paganism of man's behavior towards the unseen. In the beautiful

of much

of Gerardus

van der Leeuw,

die es der Menschheit und

diese

fremdartigen Harvard

hat...

unity words

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

verg?nnt die Vorwelt

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.

tic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments tic Mysteries and Christian Sacraments

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