Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis

Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis
Author: Giulia Sfameni Gasparro
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2015-09-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004296557

Preliminary material -- INTRODUCTION -- THE MYSTIC CULT OF CYBELE IN CLASSICAL GREECE -- MYSTERIES IN THE HELLENIZED CULT OF CYBELE -- MYSTIC ASPECTS IN THE “PHRYGIAN” MYTHICAL-RITUAL CYCLE -- THE PROBLEM OF THE PHRYGIAN MYSTERIES -- SOTERIOLOGICAL PROSPECTS IN THE CULT OF CYBELE -- MYSTIC AND SOTERIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE TAUROBOLIUM -- CONCLUSION -- SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ADDENDUM -- INDEX.

Cybele, Attis and Related Cults

Cybele, Attis and Related Cults
Author: Eugene N. Lane
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2015-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004295887

This volume brings together articles on the cult of the mother-goddess Cybele and her consort Attis, from the emergence of the religion in Anatolia through its expansion into Greece and Italy to the latest times of the Roman Empire and its farthest extent west, the Iberian Peninsula. It combines the work of established scholars with that of young researchers in the field, and represents a truly international perspective. The reader will find treatment inter alia of Cybele's emasculated priests, the Galli; the dissemination of Cybele-cult through the harbour city, Miletus; the cult of Cybele in Ephesus; the rock-cut sanctuary of Cybele at Akrai in Sicily; the competition between the Cybele-cult and Christianity; and the role of Attis in Neo-Platonic philosophy.

Drudgery Divine

Drudgery Divine
Author: Jonathan Z. Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 161
Release: 1990
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0226763633

In this major theoretical and methodological statement on the history of religions, Jonathan Z. Smith shows how convert apologetic agendas can dictate the course of comparative religious studies. As his example, Smith reviews four centuries of scholarship comparing early Christianities with religions of late Antiquity (especially the so-called mystery cults) and shows how this scholarship has been based upon an underlying Protestant-Catholic polemic. The result is a devastating critique of traditional New Testament scholarship, a redescription of early Christianities as religious traditions amenable to comparison, and a milestone in Smith's controversial approach to comparative religious studies. "An important book, and certainly one of the most significant in the career of Jonathan Z. Smith, whom one may venture to call the greatest pathologist in the history of religions. As in many precedent cases, Smith follows a standard procedure: he carefully selects his victim, and then dissects with artistic finesse and unequaled acumen. The operation is always necessary, and a deconstructor of Smith's caliber is hard to find."—Ioan P. Coulianu, Journal of Religion

Goddesses and the Divine Feminine

Goddesses and the Divine Feminine
Author: Rosemary Ruether
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2005-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520940415

This landmark work presents the most illuminating portrait we have to date of goddesses and sacred female imagery in Western culture—from prehistory to contemporary goddess movements. Beautifully written, lucidly conceived, and far-ranging in its implications, this work will help readers gain a better appreciation of the complexity of the social forces— mostly androcentric—that have shaped the symbolism of the sacred feminine. At the same time, it charts a new direction for finding a truly egalitarian vision of God and human relations through a feminist-ecological spirituality. Rosemary Radford Ruether begins her exploration of the divine feminine with an analysis of prehistoric archaeology that challenges the popular idea that, until their overthrow by male-dominated monotheism, many ancient societies were matriarchal in structure, governed by a feminine divinity and existing in harmony with nature. For Ruether, the historical evidence suggests the reality about these societies is much more complex. She goes on to consider key myths and rituals from Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Anatolian cultures; to examine the relationships among gender, deity, and nature in the Hebrew religion; and to discuss the development of Mariology and female mysticism in medieval Catholicism, and the continuation of Wisdom mysticism in Protestanism. She also gives a provocative analysis of the meeting of Aztec and Christian female symbols in Mexico and of today's neo-pagan movements in the United States.

Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity

Universal Salvation in Late Antiquity
Author: Archbishop Michael Bland Simmons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2015-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190272848

This study offers an in-depth examination of Porphyrian soteriology, or the concept of the salvation of the soul, in the thought of Porphyry of Tyre, whose significance for late antique thought is immense. Porphyry's concept of salvation is important for an understanding of those cataclysmic forces, not always theological, that helped convert the Roman Empire from paganism to Christianity. Porphyry, a disciple of Plotinus, was the last and greatest anti-Christian writer to vehemently attack the Church before the Constantinian revolution. His contribution to the pagan-Christian debate on universalism can thus shed light on the failure of paganism and the triumph of Christianity in late antiquity. In a broader historical and cultural context this study will address some of the issues central to the debate on universalism, in which Porphyry was passionately involved and which was becoming increasingly significant during the unprecedented series of economic, cultural, political, and military crises of the third century. As the author will argue, Porphyry may have failed to find one way of salvation for all humanity, he nonetheless arrived a hierarchical soteriology, something natural for a Neoplatonist, which resulted in an integrative religious and philosophical system. His system is examined in the context of other developing ideologies of universalism, during a period of unprecedented imperial crises, which were used by the emperors as an agent of political and religious unification. Christianity finally triumphed over its competitors owing to its being perceived to be the only universal salvation cult that was capable of bringing about this unification. In short, it won due to its unique universalist soteriology. By examining a rival to Christianity's concept of universal salvation, this book will be valuable to students and scholars of ancient philosophy, patristics, church history, and late antiquity.

Heroes Masked and Mythic

Heroes Masked and Mythic
Author: Christopher Wood
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-01-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1476683158

Epic battles, hideous monsters and a host of petty gods--the world of Classical mythology continues to fascinate and inspire. Heroes like Herakles, Achilles and Perseus have influenced Western art and literature for centuries, and today are reinvented in the modern superhero. What does Iron Man have to do with the Homeric hero Odysseus? How does the African warrior Memnon compare with Marvel's Black Panther? Do DC's Wonder Woman and Xena the Warrior Princess reflect the tradition of Amazon women such as Penthesileia? How does the modern superhero's journey echo that of the epic warrior? With fresh insight into ancient Greek texts and historical art, this book examines modern superhero archetypes and iconography in comics and film as the crystallization of the hero's journey in the modern imagination.

The Roman Mithras Cult

The Roman Mithras Cult
Author: Olympia Panagiotidou
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-11-02
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1472567404

The Roman Mithras Cult: A Cognitive Approach is the first full cognitive history of an ancient religion. In this groundbreaking book on one of the most intriguing and mysterious ancient religions, Roger Beck and Olympia Panagiotidou show how cognitive historiography can supplement our historical knowledge and deepen our understanding of past cultural phenomenon. The cult of the sun god Mithras, which spread widely across the Greco-Roman world at the same time as other 'mystery cults' and Christianity, offered to its devotees certain images and assumptions about reality. Initiation into the mysteries of Mithras and participation in the life of the cult significantly affected and transformed the ways in which the initiated perceived themselves, the world, and their position within it. The cult's major ideas were conveyed mainly through its major symbolic complexes. The ancient written testimonies and other records are not adequate to establish a definitive reconstruction of Mithraic theologies and the meaning of its complex symbolic structures. Filling this gap, The Roman Mithras Cult: A Cognitive Approach identifies the cognitive and psychological processes which took place in the minds and bodies of the Mithraists during their initiation and participation in the mysteries, enabling the perception, apprehension, and integration of the essential images and assumptions of the cult in its worldview system.

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels
Author: Craig S. Keener
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 873
Release: 2009-11-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802862926

The earliest substantive sources available for historical Jesus research are in the Gospels themselves; when interpreted in their early Jewish setting, their picture of Jesus is more coherent and plausible than are the competing theories offered by many modern scholars. So argues Craig Keener in The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. / In exploring the depth and riches of the material found in the Synoptic Gospels, Keener shows how many works on the historical Jesus emphasize just one aspect of the Jesus tradition against others, but a much wider range of material in the Jesus tradition makes sense in an ancient Jewish setting. Keener masterfully uses a broad range of evidence from the early Jesus traditions and early Judaism to reconstruct a fuller portrait of the Jesus who lived in history.

Mystery Cults in Visual Representation in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

Mystery Cults in Visual Representation in Graeco-Roman Antiquity
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004440143

This book fills a gap in the study of mystery cults in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Focusing on the visual language surrounding these cults, it aims to understand how images depict mysteries in different cults: Dionysus, Mithras, Mother of the Gods, and Isiac cults.

Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John

Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John
Author: Steven J. Friesen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2001-10-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190285001

After more than a century of debate about the significance of imperial cults for the interpretation of Revelation, this is the first study to examine both the archaeological evidence and the Biblical text in depth. Friesen argues that a detailed analysis of imperial cults as they were practiced in the first century CE in the region where John was active allows us to understand John's criticism of his society's dominant values. He demonstrates the importance of imperial cults for society at the time when Revelation was written, and shows the ways in which John refuted imperial cosmology through his use of vision, myth, and eschatological expectation.