Ancient Mystery CultsThe foremost historian of Greek religion provides the first comprehensive, comparative study of a little-known aspect of ancient religious beliefs and practices. Secret mystery cults flourished within the larger culture of the public religion of Greece and Rome for roughly a thousand years. This book is neither a history nor a survey but a comparative phenomenology, concentrating on five major cults. In defining the mysteries and describing their rituals, membership, organization, and dissemination, Walter Burkert displays the remarkable erudition we have come to expect of him; he also shows great sensitivity and sympathy in interpreting the experiences and motivations of the devotees. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Personal Needs in This Life and after Death | 12 |
Organizations and Identities | 30 |
Myth Allegory | 66 |
The Extraordinary Experience | 89 |
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Common terms and phrases
allegory ancient mysteries ANRW Apuleius Apuleius Metamorphoses Attis Bacchanalia Bacchic Bacchic mysteries Berlin Bianchi bull Burkert CCCA century B.C. chap charismatic Christian CIMRM context cult Cumont death Demeter Diodorus Dionysiac Dionysiac mysteries Dionysus divine Duthoy ears of grain Eleusinian Eleusinian mysteries Eleusis Euripides evidence festival Firmicus Err Gnostic goddess Greek Hellenistic Herodotus hierophant Hinnells Hymn to Demeter iconography initiand initiation inscription interpretation Isis Kerényi Leiden Leiden EPRO Leipzig liknon logos M. J. Vermaseren Matz Merkelbach 1984 Meter Mithraeum Mithraic Mithraism Mithras mystai mystères mysteries of Mithras mystery religions mystic myth Nilsson orgia Orphic Osiris pagan Paris Pausanias Phaedrus Philo Plato Plutarch Plutarch Isis Porphyry priests purification reference Reitzenstein religious rites ritual Roman Rome sacred salvation sanctuary Santa Prisca Sarapis scene Schol secret SIRIS taurobolium Telesterion teletai telete teries theology thiasos tion Turcan Vidman Villa votive religion worship