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Mystery religions, or simply Mysteries, were belief systems "of the Graeco-Roman world full admission to which was restricted to those who had gone through certain secret initiation rites."[1]
Definition The term 'Mystery' is a calque, deriving from Latin mysterium, from Greek musterion (usually as the plural musteria μυστήρια), in this context meaning "secret rite or doctrine." An individual who followed such a 'Mystery' was a mystes "one who has been initiated," from myein "to close, shut," perhaps a reference to secrecy or that only initiates were allowed to observe and participate in rituals.[2] // In linguistics, a calque (pronounced ) or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word (Latin: verbum pro verbo) or root-for-root translation. ...
The Mysteries were thus belief systems in which all religious functions were closed to the non-inducted and for which the inner-working of the religion were kept secret from the general public. Although there are no other formal qualifications, mystery religions were also characterized by their lack of an orthodoxy and scripture. Religions that were practiced in secret only in order to avoid religious persecution are not by default Mysteries.
The old meaning of 'mystery' is also preserved in the expression 'mystery play'. These stage performances of medieval Europe were known as such because the first groups to perform them were the craftsmen guilds, entry to which required an initiation and who zealously protected their trade secrets. Mystery plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. ...
A guild is an association of craftspeople in a particular trade. ...
The Mysteries are frequently confused with Gnosticism, perhaps in part because Greek gnosis means "knowledge." The gnosis of Gnosticism is however distinct from the arcanum, the "secret wisdom" of the Mysteries: while the Gnostics hoped to acquire knowledge through divine revelation, the mystery religions presumed to have it, with mystes of high rank revealing the possessed wisdom to acolytes of lower rank. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...
Esotericism refers to knowledge suitable only for the advanced, privileged, or initiated, as opposed to exoteric knowledge, which is public. ...
Religions classified as such The term 'mystery religion' applies to a few of the numerous belief systems of the eastern Mediterranean of late classical antiquity, including the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Orphic Mysteries and the Mithraic Mysteries. Some of the many divinities that the Romans nominally adopted from other cultures also came to be worshipped in Mysteries, so for instance Egyptian Isis, Thracian/Phrygian Sabazius and Phrygian Cybele.[3] Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD...
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremonies held every five years for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. ...
For other senses of the word Orpheus, see Orpheus (disambiguation). ...
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...
Isis is a goddess in Egyptian mythology. ...
Sabazios is the nomadic horseman sky and father god of the Phrygians. ...
Cybele with her attributes. ...
"Plato, an initiate of one of these sacred orders, was severely criticized because in his writings he revealed to the public many of the secret philosophic principles of the Mysteries."[3] PLATO was one of the first generalized Computer assisted instruction systems, originally built by the University of Illinois (U of I) and later taken over by Control Data Corporation (CDC), who provided the machines it ran on. ...
The mystery religions are possibly one of the origins of Western mystery tradition, but the two should not be confused with one another. For a list of Mysteries with an article on Wikipedia, see list of mystery religions. The term Western mystery tradition (also Western Esoteric tradition) refers to the collection of the mystical esoteric knowledge of the Western world. ...
References - ^ Crystal, David, ed. (1995), "Mystery Religions", Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language, Cambridge: Cambridge UP
- ^ Harper, Douglas, ed. (2001), "Mystery", Online Etymology Dictionary, Lancaster, Pa.: etymonline.com
- ^ a b Hall, Manly P. (1928), The Secret Teachings of all ages, San Francisco: s.p., at 21
- Frazer, James G. (1957), The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, London: Macmillan
- Kirk, Geoffrey S. (1970), Myth: Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge UP
- Dodds, Eric R. (1968), The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley: UC Press
Further reading - Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911), "Mystery", Encyclopædia Britannica, Cambridge: Cambridge UP
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