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HELLENISTIC RELIGIONS

The conquests of Alexander the Great (336-323 b.c.e.) altered for all time the history, culture, languages, and civilizations of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean and Asia. To fulfill his dream of uniting as much of the known world as he could under his rule, Alexander established a network of Greek cities throughout his empire which helped him transform the varied cultures into an international, cosmopolitan world. Greek was the imposed international language, but the language itself was mutated into a common (Gr. koinē) language which was accessible to the general public. Alexander allowed the conquered local peoples to retain their unique ways even as he imposed Greek culture on them. The result was a thorough mixing of cultures into a hybrid form called Hellenistic culture. The Hellenistic age proper lasted from the death of Alexander (323) until Rome’s defeat of Egypt (30 b.c.e.), when Greek civilization was subsumed by Roman rule. The influence of Hellenism, however, continued down to the age of the emperor Constantine (d. 337 c.e.).

Significant developments occurred in religions during the Hellenistic age. Regional and national patterns of religious practice which had been mainly untouched by foreign influences and had enjoyed largely unquestioned adherence by the public were relativized or at least incorporated into an international community of religious alternatives. Travel, commerce, and the presence of military personnel throughout the world caused regional religions to become international. Sometimes the transported religions retained a form very similar to their original, while at other times they were altered by merger with other local religious traditions. The Olympic gods, which had been powerful as gods of the city-state, and the Asian and Egyptian deities which had been fixtures of their respective nations were now internationalized and venerated (or treated with skepticism) far from their native shores.

A new mentality or worldview was born, one that played down rationalism and emphasized personal spirituality and emotionalism (unlike the public, formal, and impersonal religions of the state). Hellenistic philosophies began to replace or at least to contend with religion as a means of offering people a sense of meaning and value in life. Variations of older types of philosophy shaped the views of many (e.g., Neo-Pythagoreanism, NeoPlatonism, and Neo-Aristotelianism), while the introduction of new philosophies even more directly served the needs of the Hellenistic mind (e.g., Epicureanism, which distrusted dialectic and abstract words but sought true happiness by trusting one’s feelings and common sense, or Stoicism, which taught that divine reason permeated the material order of the universe and that its adherents should live a moral and tranquil life).

The new worldview was served not only by philosophies, but also by the flourishing mystery religions that developed from cults in Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor. Their foci of worship were either personal salvation and immortality or the forces and patterns of nature or agrarian cults. The deities were often female or chthonic “earth deities” such as Isis, Demeter, Hagne, or Magna Mater, the “Great Mother.” Participation in the cults was voluntary, individual, and required taking vows of secrecy regarding the practices of the group.

Not all of these mysteries were new. The worship of Demeter at Eleusis began in the 15th century b.c.e. But even the old forms of mysterious piety were re-created and rejuvenated for a new age. Priests or mediator figures effected the union of the god and the believer; sacred meals or banquets were held; speaking in unknown languages (glossalalia) was practiced; incantations and sacred recitations were performed.

Because of the dangerous and orgiastic nature of the cult of Bacchus, and because the cult spread so quickly among the lower classes and slaves, the Roman Senate suppressed the cult in 186 b.c.e. Representations of Dionysiac or Bacchic worship from Thrace depict frenzied and drunken revelry during which the devotees tore apart a live animal and ate it uncooked.

Mithraism, a Zoroastrian (Persian) cult that gained widespread following and eventually became the official cult of the Roman Empire, held that Mithras the youthful god of light who, as a solstice deity, was born on December 25, had killed a bull from whose semen and blood new life came. Initiation into this cult was by the ritual of the taurobolium, in which the initiate was drenched with the blood of a bull, which guaranteed personal salvation. The devotees of Cybele or Magna Mater practiced the gashing of their arms in worship, as well as the taurobolium.

The Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris offered both assistance with problems during life and the promise of immortality for the afterlife. Orphism (the worship of Orpheus) offered immortality to its initiates on the example of the death and resurrection of Dionysus, and taught that the wicked would endure the tortures of hell.

Apart from participation in cults or philosophical schools, many people held as a general religious attitude the belief in chance or Fate (Gk. Tychē), which was personified and adopted as the protective goddess of some Hellenistic cities. Astrology and magical incantations were features of many groups that tried to influence or at least ascertain what had been fated.

Beneath all of these cults and the fear of fate lay a cosmic dualism, the sense that there were two worlds, a here and a there (heaven/hell), an ethical dualism (the contest between good and bad or truth and error, light and darkness), and sometimes a temporal dualism (the present and the future, what is already and what will come). Consequently, a dualistic worldview known as Gnosticism flourished during the period of Hellenistic influence. Gnosticism could be found in Judaism, Christianity, and pagan philosophies. It taught that salvation is based on knowledge — not a kind of knowledge available for casual acquisition, but a spiritual knowledge attained only by the elect.

All of these philosophies, mystery religions, and worldviews influenced Christianity, which emerged in their wake.

Bibliography. F. C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions (New York, 1953); M. C. Howatson, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1990); L. H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions (Oxford, 1987); M. W. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries (San Francisco, 1987).

Richard A. Spencer

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

HELLENISTIC RELIGIONS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)