The Religious Associations and Communities of the First Century
In
the domain of religion it is quite true that the state cults and
national institutions throughout the Empire were almost without
exception in a parlous state, and it is to be noticed that Apollonius
devoted much time and labour to reviving and purifying them. Indeed,
their strength had long left the general stateinstitutions of religion,
where all was now perfunctory; but so far from there being no religious
life in the land, in proportion as the official cultus and ancestral
institutions afforded no real satisfaction to their religious needs, the
more earnestly did the people devote themselves to private cults, and
eagerly baptised themselves in all that flood of religious enthusiasm
which flowed in with ever increasing volume from the East. Indubitably
in all this fermentation there were many excesses, according to our
present notions of religious decorum, and also grievous abuses; but at
the same time in it many found due satisfaction for their religious
emotions, and, if we except those cults which were distinctly vicious,
we have to a large extent before us in popular circles the spectacle of
what, in their last analysis, are similar phenomena to those enthusiasms
which in our own day may be frequently witnessed among such sects as
the Shakers and Ranters, and at the general revival meetings of the
uninstructed.It is not, however, to be thought that
the private cults and the doings of the religious associations were all
of this nature or confined to this class; far from it. There were
religious brotherhoods, communities and clubs— thiasi, erani, and
orgeônes—of all sorts and conditions. There were also mutual benefit
societies,burial clubs, and dining companies, the prototypes of our
present-day Masonic bodies, Oddfellows, and the rest. These religious
associations were not only private in the sense that they were not
maintained by the State, but also for the most part they were private in
the sense that what they did was kept secret,and this is perhaps the
main reason why we have so defective a record of them.Among them are to
be numbered not only the lower forms of mystery-cultus of various kinds,
but also the greater ones, such as the Phrygian, Bacchic, Isiac, and
Mithriac Mysteries, which were spread everywhere throughout the Empire.
The famous Eleusinia were, however, still under the ægis of the State,
but though so famous were, as a state-cultus, far more perfunctory.
It
is, moreover, not to be thought that the great types of mystery-cultus
above mentioned were uniform even among themselves. There were not only
various degrees and grades within them, but also in all probability many
forms of each line of tradition, good, bad, and indifferent. For
instance, we know that it was considered de rigueur for every
respectable citizen of Athens to be initiated into the Eleusinia, and
therefore the tests could not have been very stringent; whereas in the
most recent work on the subject,De Apuleio Isiacorum Mysteriorum Teste
(Leyden; 1900), Dr K H E. De Jong shows that in one form of the Isiac
Mysteries the candidate was invited to initiation by means of dream;
that is to say, he had to be psychically impressionable before his
acceptance. Here, then, we have a vast intermediate ground for religious
exercise between the most popular and undisciplined forms of private
cults and the highest forms, which could only be approached through the
discipline and training of the philosophic life. The higher side of
these mystery-institutions aroused the enthusiasm of all that was best
in antiquity, and unstinted praise was given to one or another form of
them by the greatest thinkers and writers of Greece and Rome; so that we
cannot but think that here the instructed found that satisfaction for
their religious needs which was necessary not only for those who could
not rise into the keen air of pure reason, but also for those who had
climbed so high upon the heights of reason that they could catch a
glimpse of the other side. The official cults were notoriously unable to
give them this satisfaction, and were only tolerated by the instructed
as an aid for the people and a means of preserving the traditional life
of the city or state.By common consent the most
virtuous livers of Greece were the members of the Pythagorean
schools,both men and women. After the death of their founder the
Pythagoreans seem to have gradually blended with the Orphic communities
and the “Orphic life” was the recognised term for a life of purity and
selfdenial.We also know that the Orphics, and therefore the
Pythagoreans, were actively engaged in the reformation, or even the
entire reforming, of the Baccho-Eleusinian rites; they seem to have
brought back the pure side of the Bacchic cult with their reinstitution
or reimportation of the Bacchic mysteries, and it is very evident that
such stern livers and deep thinkers could not have been contented with a
low form of cult.Their influence also spread far and wide in general
Bacchic circles, so that we find Euripides putting the following words
into the mouth of the chorus of Bacchic initiates: “Clad in white robes I
speed me from the genesis of mortal men,and never more approach the
vase of death, for I have done with eating food that ever housed a
soul.” [From a fragment of The Cretans. See Lobeck’s Aglaophamus p
622.]Such words could well be put into the mouth of a Brâhman or
Buddhist ascetic, eager to escape the bonds of Samsâra; and such men
cannot therefore justly be classed together indiscriminately with ribald
evelers,the general mind-picture of a Bacchic company.
But,
some one may say, Euripides and the Pythagoreans and Orphics are no
evidence for the first century; whatever good there may have been in
such schools and communities, it had ceased long before. On the
contrary, the evidence is all against this objection. Philo, writing
about 25 A.D., tells us that in his day numerous groups of men, who in
all respects led this life of religion, who abandoned their property,
retired from the world and devoted themselves entirely to the search for
wisdom and the cultivation of virtue, were scattered far and wide
throughout the world. In his treatise, On the Contemplative Life, he
writes: “This natural class of men is to be found in many parts of the
inhabited world, both the Grecian and non-Grecian world, sharing in the
perfect good. In Egypt there are crowds of them in every province, or
nome as they call it, and especially round Alexandria.”This is a most
important statement, for if there were so many devoted to the religious
life at this time, it follows that the age was not one of unmixed
depravity.It is not, however, to be thought that these
communities were all of an exactly similar nature, or of one and the
same origin, least of all that they were all Therapeut or Essene. We
have only to remember the various lines of descent of the doctrines held
by innumerable schools classed together as Gnostic, as sketched in my
recent work, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, and to turn to the
beautiful treatises of the Hermetic schools, to persuade us that in the
first century the striving after the religious and philosophic life was
wide-spread and various.We are not, however, among those who believe
that the origin of the Therapeut communities of Philo and of the Essenes
of Philo and Josephus is to be traced to Orphic and Pythagorean
influence. The question of precise origin is as yet beyond the power of
historical research, and we are not of those who would exaggerate one
element of the mass into a universal source. But when we remember the
existence of all these so widely scattered communities in the first
century, when we study the imperfect but important record of the very
numerous schools and brotherhoods of a like nature which came into
intimate contact with Christianity in its origins, we cannot but feel
that there was the leaven of a strong religious life working in many
parts of the Empire.
Our great difficulty is that these
communities, brotherhoods, and associations kept themselves apart, and
with rare exceptions left no records of their intimate practices and
beliefs, or if they left any it has been destroyed or lost. For the most
part then we have to rely upon general indications of a very
superficial character. But this imperfect record is no justification for
us to deny or ignore their existence and the intensity of their
endeavours; and a history which purports to paint a picture of the times
is utterly insufficient so long as it omits this most vital subject
from its canvas.Among such surroundings as these Apollonius moved; but
how little does his biographer seem to have been aware of the fact!
Philostratus has a rhetorician’s appreciation of a philosophical court
life, but no feeling for the life of religion. It is only indirectly
that the Life of Apollonius, as it is now depicted, can throw any light
on these most interesting communities, but even an occasional side-light
is precious where all is in such obscurity. Were it but possible to
enter into the living memory of Apollonius, and see with his eyes the
things he saw when he lived nineteen hundred years ago, what an
enormously interesting page of the world’s history could be recovered!
He not only traversed all the countries where the new faith was taking
root, but he lived for years in most of them, and was intimately
acquainted with numbers of mystic communities in Egypt, Arabia, and
Syria. Surely he must have visited some of the earliest Christian
communities as well, must even have conversed with some of the
“disciples of the Lord”! And yet no word is breathed of this, not one
single scrap of information on these points do we glean from what is
recorded of him.Surely he must have met with Paul, if not elsewhere,
then at Rome, in 66, when he had to leave because of the edict of
banishment against the philosophers, the very year according to some
when Paul was beheaded!
Apollonius of Tyana
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2012
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- Apollonius Of Tyana Introduction
- The Religious Associations and Communities of the ...
- India and Greece
- The Apollonius of Early Opinion
- Texts, Translations, and Literature
- The Biographer of Apollonius
- Apollonius of Tyana Early Life
- The Travels of Apollonius
- In the Shrines of the Temples and the Retreats of ...
- The Gymnosophists of Upper Egypt
- Apollonius and the Rulers of the Empire
- Apollonius The Prophet and Wonder-Worker
- Apollonius of Tyana Mode of Life
- Himself and His Circle
- Apollonius Of Tyana Sayings and Sermons
- From His Letters
- The Writings of Apollonius
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