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The analysis and understanding of the cosmos, that is, the world, the human environment in all its dimensions, continued to be the paramount intellectual peak to be scaled. There was in addition to the Hebrew worldview the worldview of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, the worldview of the ancient Egyptians as well as that of the ancient Greeks. Each of these offered impressive sets of assumptions about the origin of the cosmos and of mankind typically expressed in those enigmatic pre-rational narratives called myths. Ancient myths are not necessarily religious documents as many are wont to assume. Whereas a rational discourse differentiates between man and animate and inanimate things in an objective fashion, a myth is a parable-like story of action and interaction among animate, sentient, conscious person-like beings who make conscious decisions regarding their actions. Hence "the rock" always consciously decides to "lay down" on the ground when it leaves the man's supporting hand (an understanding we call gravity). The action verbs of most myths fall into the category of human behavior, relationships and interactions. Hence, it is not surprising that uninitiated modern readers understand these mythological actors to be gods, and conclude that myths are all about religion. They actually served as a way of understanding and explaining man's relationship to the physical universe in all of its incomprehensible and confusing detail.
These myths had by no means been abandoned among the common people in this age. Even ancient Greek wisdom regarding the origin of the gods (theogony), of the cosmos (cosmogony), and of mankind (anthropogony) had survived the ridicule, disdain and rejection of several generations of skeptical Greek philosophers. Generally, these bodies of esoteric wisdom, whether from Greece, Syria, Egypt or Iraq, along with other more modern ideas continued to be mined for concepts that would enrich contemporary understanding. Both the Hellenistic mystery religions as well as the practitioners of demonology and the purveyors of gnosticism in its almost limitless variety, actively disseminated such ideas among the vulnerable masses.
On the other hand, the most commonly cited worldview assumptions in the late Hellenistic age are drawn from the highly literate minority of educated scholars reflected in surviving literature. These views had developed not only on the basis of classical Greek philosophy, they have been tempered or seasoned with insights drawn from non-Greek sources.
A basic assumption of the synthetic worldview of most of the contemporary Hellenistic philosophical systems was that behind the world experienced by man was a more fundamental reality, eternal and unchanging, a timeless undifferentiated totality. There was no agreement, however, as to how that primeval totality was to be understood. Any number of scenarios attempted to explain how that original stuff could be understood as remaining eternally unchanged and undifferentiated while at the same time man experiences constant change, differentiation and variation. In most scenarios the initiating agent ultimately responsible for the physical universe with its constant process and variation was identified as a key
part of the primeval totality, that part that somehow remained eternally unchanging. That initiating agent might be identified with physical fire and rational, god-like logic, as the Stoics proposed, left unidentified and insignificant, as the Epicureans taught, or simply identified as God. Hellenistic students probably read the Hebrew Genesis accounts as simply another variation, another scenario of this basic Hellenistic assumption. Meanwhile Christian scholars were struggling to define their message in the light of this cultural worldview assumption.
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The long term effect of the competition and syncretism among the many religious practices and beliefs prevalent in the Empire, coupled with the rising philosophic criticism of all religion, produced quite noticeable trends of change by AD 200. Local and regional religious cults that had seen some decline in the first century AD due to the popularity of Roman cults revived once more during the second century AD as expressions of ethnic and regional culture. A number of universal mystery cults continued to enjoy increasingly widespread popularity. While the dual cult of Isis and Serapis continued to be popular among merchants, the new Mithras mystery, discussed below, also became prominent in military circles. Even imperial patronage (monetary support and other favors) became progressively more unrestricted in the second century. Competition for popular and imperial support resulted in many cults adopting essentially similar rites. For example, the almost inexplicable popularity of the new rite of taurobolium after it was introduced at the shrine of Magna Mater at Pergamum in c. AD 105.
Taurobolium was now a very elaborate ritual; it might last as long as five days. The central part of the ritual was the slaughter of a bull on a specially prepared altar. The slaying of the bull had been a part of the Magna mater rites held on 15 March for centuries, but this newly elaborated rite seems not to have been limited to that date. Beneath the perforated floor of this altar a grave-like pit had been excavated. First the initiate was dressed for burial and an elaborate funeral was carried out. After participating in his own "funeral" the initiate was solemnly "buried" (still quite alive) in the pit beneath the floor of the altar. Then the great beast was slaughtered on top of the altar; the blood ran through the floor onto the initiate in the "grave" below. After several hours the carcass was drug off of the altar, the floor taken up and the initiate summoned to arise from the grave. Cheers and great jubilation were sounded as the "reborn" initiate emerged thoroughly saturated with the crimson gore.
While soaked with the beast's blood the initiate was next treated to a special meal served on a cymbal and a tambourine, instruments sacred to the cult of Magna mater. The first course was milk and other "baby's food" probably followed by other courses of divine significance. In some cases initiates claimed to be "reborn forever" -- in aeternum renatus. But it was more typical to repeat the rite every 20 years.
This ritual spread rapidly in the second century attaching to several other cults in addition to the Great Mother. Emperor Antoninus Pius approved taurobolia performed by priests or other "stand-ins" in behalf of the Emperor, his family, and the Empire. By the end of the second century Magna mater was ranked beside Jupiter as a protector of the Emperor on the coinage of Commodus.
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There was a growing tendency, at least among the more educated urban classes, to judge religious ideas and practices by some philosophical standard. This development was spearheaded by Neo-Pythagorean (sometimes called Middle Platonists) and Cynic philosophers. For example the ancient myths, mysteries and rituals were now frequently "censored" to remove ethically objectionable elements such as murder, thievery, adultery, incest, etc. from the accounts. Serious efforts were made to rationalize and reconcile the conflicting mass of religious ideas. Allegorical interpretation was utilized to reconcile contradictory mythologies. The goal was a comprehensive integrated "theology" in which every religious concept and practice would have its proper place. Pagan gods were evaluated and labeled as "good" or "evil", based on various philosophical standards. Oracles, shrines, "talking"-idols and other "religious" or demonological gimmicks were debunked, condemned and disclosed as fraudulent. There was even a strong move to reject and condemn the worship of idols as being irrational and useless. The customary sacrificial practices were criticized on various grounds as irrational, ineffective and--in the case of animal sacrifices, abhorrent--to say nothing of the exorbitant cost of such practices.
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A primary characteristic of both Neo-Pythagorean and Middle Platonist thinkers was individual eclecticism. This means they combined various mixtures of Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic and Pythagorean ideas together with some mysticism. One of the common features of this philosophical activity could be described as a natural theology. In another context we will introduce the Gnostic development of the second century which mixes the eclectic philosophy with a variety of religious concepts, but we are concerned here to show how philosophic speculation led directly to new polytheistic theories synthesizing cosmology with theology.
Early in the second century the well-known author Plutarch of Chaeronea (in Greece) reflected a number of these philosophical conclusions in his works. He particularly emphasized the non-material purity of the one god he believed all men worshiped under different names and in different cults. This god was good and not responsible for the evil in the world. He seems to have identified the source of evil with some of the components of the world soul, that is the blueprint according to which the world was created. The rational, coherent and orderly components of the world soul came from the good god; nevertheless, the created world has its evil features. Between the good god and this less-than-good world there are ranks of divine beings. First are the star-gods and below them the ranks of demons. Some ranks of demons are good and serve as the instruments of Providence. Some of the demons are more prone to evil because they are worldlier. Man is a tripartite creature made up of the body (sarkos) which is most evil, the soul (psyche) which is less evil but subject to passions, and the mind (nous) which is the least evil part of man. The nous is the demon in man.
About AD 140, Nicomachus of Gerasa (in Arabia) expressed the understanding that the archetypal ideas (of Plato) were numbers (i.e. geometric figures or patterns, from Pythagoras) and that they existed before the creation of the world in the divine mind (nous). A contemporary of Nicomachus, Albinus, distinguished a "First god" (prôtos theos) as being "unmoved" (from Aristotle) but not "a mover" (contradicting Aristotle). He explained that this First god worked only through the world mind (nous).
In the latter part of the second century Numenius of Apamea in Syria distinguished between three gods, The "First god" was the principle or source of existence. Moreover this concept combined the attributes of both the absolute archetype of goodness (from Plato) and the divine self-conscious intelligence (from Aristotle's noésis noéseôs). The second god is Plato's démiurgos, the principle of creation, the creator. He is also good because his "being" is the same as that of the first god. The third god is the created earth.
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In the discussion that follows the author is very much indebted to the new understanding of Mithraic studies brought forward by D. Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries. Many of the older and traditional interpretations attempt to build a direct bridge between the Ancient Iranian Mithra and the Roman Mithras without taking into account the intervening intellectual terrain of the Hellenistic age.
The Cilician cult of Mithras, exclusively for men, was becoming popular in the Roman military camps in the period after 70 AD. Even though it focuses on a deity by the same name, this popular mystery which in this period developed and spread across the Roman Empire is not to be confused as identical with either the ancient Iranian (Persian and Parthian) or the Anatolian (Pontic and Armenian) cultic worship of Mithras. This hybrid Hellenistic mystery, another product of syncretism, seems to have emerged in cities of Cilicia where all the ingredients came together about the middle of the first century AD.
The Anatolian Mithraic cult had been patronized in the second and first centuries BC by the kings of Pontus and Armenia who descended from the Persian conquerors of the fourth century BC. The Greeks had identified this Anatolian Mithras with the heroic Greek demigod, Perseus who was Zeus's son by the mortal maiden, Danaë. Perseus' claim to fame was the decapitation of the Gorgon Medusa--a monstrous female creature with snakes for hair. Any mortal who gazed at the Medusa's severed head was turned to stone. Perseus was married to Andromeda; and they were the parents of Perses whose name, according to Herodotus (fifth century BC), was taken by the Persians.
Moreover, Perseus/Mithras was the patron and founder of the Cilician city of Tarsus and was worshipped there. Indeed Perseus is frequently depicted on the coins of Tarsus together with a depiction of a bull (taurus) being attacked by a lion. Note that Tarsus is situated in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. Nevertheless, these animal symbols are usually understood as reflecting the zodiac constellations of Leo and Taurus. A similar animal theme is found in the fifth/fourth century BC Persian sculptures found in Iran.
Finally, a second century AD Greek author, Plutarch, reported that the first worshipers of the Mithras mystery were among the descendants of former Lycian pirates that Pompey, the Roman conqueror of the pirates, had settled as farmers in Cilicia about 67 BC. These pirates had previously been employed by the king of Pontus whose family name was Mithridates, "gift of Mithras". The name Mithridates also shows up in the royal family of the Parthians who ruled Iran and Iraq in this same period. In the case of these names it seems likely they originally derived from the classic Iranian Mithra, an ancient Iranian god whose character and function is almost totally incongruent with the Mithras of the Roman mystery.
Cilicia, where Tarsus was located, was a very important intellectual center for both Stoicism and astrology. Stoic philosophy, astrology, and advancing Hellenistic astronomy combined syncretistically to support the Hellenistic mystery of Mithras. Essentially it was an astrological interpretation of the Perseus/Mithras myth supported by "scientific research". The constellation named Perseus was seen as symbolizing the god responsible for a newly discovered motion in the heavens, the precession of the Equinoxes. The Perseus constellation, now having been identified with Mithras, was situated "above" the constellation of Taurus (the Bull). This proximity made it possible to understand the positions as encoding the concept that Perseus/Mithras was slaying Taurus. The Perseus/Mithras constellation was also in the path of the Milky Way which for centuries had been understood as the stream of human souls on their way both to and from earth. Indeed, the Perseus constellation had been referred to as the gatekeeper of heaven. Evidently the new mystery now also identified this constellation as also representing that god wielding the most fundamental forces propelling the whole cosmos in motion. The ultimate significance of this symbolism is that Mithras controls the destiny of individuals as well as the beginning and ending of history.
The earliest literary description of what came to be the typical iconographic representation of the Roman Mithras slaying the bull [Tauroctonous Mithra] dates from the city of Rome in the early Flavian period, i.e., c. AD 80. All the archaeological evidence however, dates from the early second century through the early fourth century. This evidence is found mainly along the northern imperial frontier from the British Isles to the Parthian/Sassanid frontier. It is most heavily concentrated between the North Sea and the Black Sea for the most part following the Rhine and the Danube rivers where the ruins of many Roman military installations are found. The Mithras icons are usually found in underground or totally windowless chambers, some of which contain evidence of benches for the initiates. Furthermore the membership in the Mithras mystery was exclusively male, a factor of its association with the Roman troop concentrations. The seven steps of cultic initiation symbolized the advancement of the soul after death through the seven heavenly 'spheres', as defined by Hellenistic science, toward the eighth sphere, that of the fixed stars.
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So while mystery religions thrived in the second and third centuries, the old local and regional worships and shrines, especially among the urban people, were progressively neglected. When the communities in the middle of the third century were trying to defend themselves against repeated confiscations by competing governmental agencies and the occasional barbarian pillaging party, they built walls again for the first time in centuries. Many of the ancient religious shrines ended up being dismantled in order to use the material to build the wall. The worship of the ancient traditional gods of Rome became less and less enthusiastic as the third century crisis deepened. The need to revive this traditional worship in order to provide a unifying foundation in the face of political weakness and fragmentation is clearly evident in several types of governmental actions we noted above.
Meanwhile, urban polytheism under the influence of the mysteries developed a henotheistic approach. In competition with one another, the cults were frantically searching for a supreme god who was more powerful than any of the known gods. In practical terms all the cults seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the Sun was the symbol of the supreme god. However, the puzzle of solar henotheism that had everybody stumped was the identity of the supreme solar god. Emperors Claudius II (268-270) and Aurelian (270-275), each put forward different sun-god cults as the protectors of the Roman state. Aurelian may well have been about to act on the increasingly common assumption that all religions ultimately point to one supreme God and therefore should be tolerated in their proper place under the supreme God. His solution in the Christian property dispute may indicate that he recognized the Bishop of Rome as the head of Christianity, and it may further indicate that he understood Christianity as one of the several legitimate cults of the Unconquerable Sun.
By the middle of the third century the religious sentiments of the educated urban population have become much more refined and sophisticated than those of the rural uneducated masses which the city dwellers called the "pagans". This usage is based on the classical Latin usage of pâgânus in reference to farmers, villagers, or peasants, but on the tongue of a third century urbanite it seems to have taken on a derisive connotation, something akin to "country hick". The more isolated rural populations tenaciously held to the crudest and most archaic religious customs and beliefs.
The urban population labeled their enlightened ideological sentiments Hellenism. Hellenism sought out the more reasonable, refined and sophisticated forms of worship. They generally felt that offering bloody sacrifices to idols was not only unreasonable, but unrefined, unsophisticated and expensive. If such worship had any value at all it was in manipulating the basest sort of demons. It was certainly inappropriate for the sensitive, intelligent, reasonable and basically good sort of gods the Hellenists wished to worship.
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The best example of eclectic philosophy from the third century AD is called Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism was going to have great influence on the development of Christian thought in later centuries, especially in the Western Church. Plotinus (205-270) was an innovative synthesizer of ideas drawn from Platonism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism (See Appendix I), and various religious writings including the Bible. He is not considered a Gnostic because he did not claim to be Christian as did for example, the gnostic Manichaeans.
Basic to Plotinus' view was the premise that all logical knowledge is the result of divine revelation--a teaching derived from mystical methodology drawn from Plato and the Neo-Pythagoreans. He was not a religious guru but a philosopher who was looking for comprehensive truth. From this basis he logically attempted to analyze and systematize those divine revelations in order to understand the nature of reality. He concluded that there are four separate "understandings" (Greek: hypostasis, literally "standing under", i.e., foundation, base, ultimate reality) or fundamental categories of existence or reality that can be defined. Each hypostasis contains the totality of all that exists but is individually different from each of the other categories or levels of reality or existence.
The names given to the four individual understandings by Plotinus were: One, Mind, Soul, and Nature. The ultimate source of the latter three is the One. The One is above all spiritual or material existence and above knowing. It is both the source and the end (/purpose--hence cause) of all things. The One is the supreme deity. One "emanates" Mind, which is pure intellect, knowing itself and knowing the "ideas"--that is, the ideal forms or patterns of reality. Mind emanates Soul, which is the rational cosmic intellect that knows all the "ideas" that pertain to the cosmos--the universe. Soul then emanates Nature, which is the realm of all physical existence--the universe--and the natural order or laws of nature, which are all logical. The emanations all are treated as "downward."
Human beings have a composite existence bridging all four levels of reality including the One. However, the human soul first develops consciousness at the Natural level and needs to be liberated in order to rise to its fullest potential. This "salvation" begins with a "conversion" from a predominately physical existence "to reason", by which his soul "proceeds" upward out of the material hypostasis toward the intelligible hypostasis--the Soul. The "procession" from there on to salvation involves the man's "ascending" to the Mind and finally "ascending" to the highest reality, the One, which is God.
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Since Plotinus' teachings drew from so many sources and provided a rational quasi-religious structure, his teachings stimulated positive responses not only by those who were Christians but by others of virtually every other religious or philosophical persuasion, each giving a slightly different twist. This has led modern scholars to talk of the many "neoplatonisms" of the following centuries. Among his most important followers who contributed most to the Hellenist views were Porphyry, Iamblicus, and Proclus. We will note a number of Christian scholars who were influenced to one degree or another by Neoplatonism as we come to them. The most notable was Augustine of Hippo.
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