Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:05:06.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Problems of the History of Greek Religion in the Hellenistic and Roman Age*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Martin P. Nilsson
Martin P. Nilsson
Affiliation:
Lund University, Sweden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Facing as I do the great and difficult task of writing the second part of my History of Greek Religion, I should like beforehand to state some of the main problems and to bring out some dominant ideas. The subject is so vast that I can offer but a subjective selection; yet let me remark that my standpoint is not that of syncretism as a whole but that of Greek religion, which seems to me to be a factor of syncretism at times neglected.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 1943 , pp. 251 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1943

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Hatch, E., The Influence of Greek Ideas upon the Christian Church, 1888Google Scholar.

2 Anrich, G., Das antike Mysterienwesen in seinem Einfluss auf das Christentum, 1894Google Scholar.

3 Wobbermin, G., Religionsgeschichtliche Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Urchristentums durch das antike Mysterienwesen, 1896.Google Scholar

4 Lucius, E., Die Anfänge des Heiligenkults in der christlichen Kirche, 1904.Google Scholar

5 Deissmann, A., Licht von Osten, 1 ed., 1908Google Scholar.

6 Usener, H., Legenden der heiligen Pelagia, 1879Google Scholar; Der heilige Tychon, 1907; Das Weihnachtsfest, 2 ed., 1888, etc.

7 Dieterich, A., Abraxas, 1891Google Scholar; Nekyia, 1 ed., 1893; Eipe Mythrasliturgie, 1 ed., 1903, etc.

8 Reitzenstein, R., Zwei religionsgeschichtliche Fragen, 1901Google Scholar; Poimandres, 1904; Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen, 1 ed., 1910; the three much enlarged, 1927; Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium, 1921; and (with H. H. Schaeder), Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, 1926, etc.

9 Bousset, W., Kyrios Christos, 1913Google Scholar.

10 Cumont, F., Textes et monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, 1896–99Google Scholar; Les mystères de Mithra, 1 ed., 1899; Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 1 ed., 1906, the fourth enlarged, 1929; Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, 1912; After Life in Roman Paganism, 1922; La théologie solaire du paganisme romain, 1909; and Bidez, J., Les mages hellénisés, 1938Google Scholar; Recherches dans le symbolisme funeraire des Romains, 1941, etc., etc.

11 Wendland, P., Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum, 2 ed., 1912Google Scholar.

12 Geffcken, J., Der Ausgang des griechisch-römischen Heidentums, 1920Google Scholar.

13 Wilamowitz, U. v., Der Glaube der Hellenen, 2 vols., 1931–32Google Scholar.

14 Kern, O., Die Religion der Griechen, 3 vols., 1926–38Google Scholar.

15 Festugière, A. J., L'idéal religieux des Grecs et l'évangile, 1932Google Scholar.

16 Nock, A. D., Conversion, 1933, p. 268Google Scholar; cf. p. 37: “For the subsequent expansion of cults from the Near East in Greece and in the West no worships are of great importance except those which were substantially translated into Greek and remade with Greek elements into cults which retained an Oriental flavour but were divorced from their original cultural and religious setting.”

17 Schneider, C., “Die griechischen Grundlagen der hellenistischen Religionsgeschichte,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXXVI, 1939, p. 300 ffGoogle Scholar.

18 Schubart, W., Die religiöse Haltung des frühen Hellenismus, Die alte Orient, 35:2, 1939Google Scholar.

19 Kaerst, J., Geschichte des hellenistbchen Zeitalters, II, 1, 1909, p. 202 ffGoogle Scholar.

20 Nilsson, Martin P., Homer and Mycenae, 1933, p. 266 ffGoogle Scholar.

21 That the Greeks knew it themselves is proved by the words with which the Ephesians declined the proposal of Alexander the Great to dedicate the temple of Artemis: ὡς οὐ πρέποι θεῷ θεοῖς ἀναθήματα κατασκευάζειν, Strabo, xiv, p. 641.

22 Apuleius, Florida, I fr., 2; Fronto, Epistulae ad Verum, II, 6; Arnobius, Adv. nationes, I, 39, etc., etc.

23 Nilsson, Martin P., “The Origin of Belief Among the Greeks in the Divinity of the Heavenly Bodies,” Harvard Theological Review, XXXIII, 1940, p. 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 F. Cumont, La théologie solaire, etc.

25 Nilsson, Martin P., “Sonnenkalender und Sonnenreligion,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXX, 1933, p. 141 ffGoogle Scholar.

26 I refer e.g. to the inscriptions of the Athenian epheboi and the fasti of the gymnasium in Cos, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, 3 ed., No. 1028.

27 This is very conspicuous in the numerous sacral ordinances preserved in inscriptions of the Hellenistic age, e.g. concerning the mysteries of Andania and the oracle of Apollo at Corope, Sylloge, 735 and 1157 resp.

28 Poland, F., Geschichte des griechischen Vereinswesens, 1909Google Scholar; see especially the lists p. 548 ff.

29 The first example of this significance of the word occurs in Codex Theodosianus, xvi, 2, 18 of 370 A.D. [For another view of its origin, cf. H. J. Rose, Gnomon, X, 1934, p. 55.]

30 E. Lucius, Anfänge des Heiligenkultes, p. 10 ff.

31 Röhr, J., Der okkulte Kraftbegriff im Altertum, Philologus, Suppl. xvii: 1, 1923Google Scholar.

32 Nock, Conversion, p. 164 ff.

33 Minucius Felix, Octavius, 5.

34 Anthologia Palatina, xiv, 71; cf. inscriptions e.g. from the temple of Zeus Cynthius on Delos, Inscriptions de Délos No. 2529.

35 Weinreich, O., Stiftung und Kultsatzungen eines Privatheiligtums in Philadelphia in Lydien, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie, 1919, No. 16Google Scholar.

36 Pettazoni, R., Harvard Theological Review, XXX (1937), p. 3Google Scholar.

37 Dieterieh, Nekyia; see note 7.

38 Cumont, After Life, etc., p. 91 ff.

39 Reitzenstein, Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen, 3 ed., p. 17.

40 Valmin, N., Inscriptions de la Messénie, No. 2, Bulletin de la Société des lettres de Lund, 1928–29, p. 123 ffGoogle Scholar.

41 E. Briem, Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung der hellenistischen Mysterien, Lunds universitets Arsskrift, N. F. avd. 1, vol. 24, no. 5.

42 It is noteworthy that the priest of Eumolpos has the Persian name Bagoas, F. Preisigke, Sammelbuch ägyptischer Urkunden, Nos. 378 and 5065.

43 Amtlicher Bericht aus den Kön. Kunstsammlungen, xxxviii, 1916–17, p. 191 ff.; Reitzenstein in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xix, 1916, p. 191 ff. [On this text, cf. S. Eitrem, Symbolae Osloenses, xvii, 1937, p. 33 ff.]

44 Nilsson, Martin P., En marge de la grande inscription bacchique du Metropolitan Museum, Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni, x, 1934, p. 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

45 Berliner Klassikertexte, v: 1, 1907, No. 2; O. Kern, Fragmenta Orphicorum, No. 49.

46 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, favors the latter, Kroll, J., Die Lehren des Hermes Trismegistos, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, xii, 1914Google Scholar, the former view.

47 Bousset, W., Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 1907Google Scholar; de Faye, E., Gnostique et gnosticism, 1925Google Scholar, etc.

48 Gundel, W., Neue astrologische Texte des Hermes Trismegistos, Abhandlungen der Akademie in München, N. F., xii, 1936Google Scholar; cf. Cumont, F., L'Egypte des astrologues, 1937Google Scholar.

49 Bidez, J. et Cumont, F., Les mages hellénisés, 2 vols., 1938Google Scholar.

50 Journal of Roman Studies, xxx, 1940, p. 191.