Lecture 34: Alexander the Great has been credited with unwittingly transforming the religious life of the ancient world. The traditional public gods - and presumably the family gods—lost their force in the world created by Alexander. Near Eastern di…
Lecture 34: Alexander the Great has been credited with unwittingly transforming the religious life of the ancient world. The traditional public gods - and presumably the family gods—lost their force in the world created by Alexander. Near Eastern divinities such as the Egyptian couple Serapis (Osiris and Isis) or the great Anatolian mother goddess Cybele, gained favor in cities across the Hellenistic world. Simultaneously, the so-called mystery cults of ecstatic gods of the Greek countryside such as Dionysus and Demeter and Kore rose in popularity at the expense of state cults.
Ultimately, new cults with emphasis on moral conduct in this life and so spiritual rewards in the next one, undermined the patriotic and public cults of the Greek cities in the Hellenistic Age, and then the cities of the Roman Empire to the ultimate benefi t of Christianity. The vision proposed by Cumont still holds sway in popular presentations of the Hellenistic world, but evidence suggests the opposite was more likely true. Populations assimilated their local divinities to the Greek counterparts. Serapis and Isis were Egyptian gods Hellenized as the protectors of Alexandria, a Greek city. It was their Hellenic cult, not the pharaonic one, that was exported across the Mediterranean world. In Asia Minor, native gods such as Phrygian Men or Lairbenos were recast a Hellenic gods in the guise of Apollo or Hermes. The mother goddesses of Asia Minor and the Levant assumed the dignified attributes and guise or Hera or Athena. Furthermore, the civic festivals and sacrifices defined worship for all peoples of the Aegean world and Near
East. Mystery cults had specific rites of initiation, but they differed little from other cults, and they offered no special moral lessons or rewards of an afterlife. Alexander’s impact was not a new age of spirituality, but rather the Hellenization of sanctuaries and public worship–a process that influenced his ultimate heirs, the Romans.
Suggested Reading:
Burket, Ancient Mystery Cults.
Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra.
———, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism.
MacMullen, Paganism in the Roman Empire.
Price, Rituals and Power.
Roller, In Search of the Mother Goddess.
Shipley, The Greek World after Alexander.
Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization.
Witt, Isis in the Graeco-Roman World.
Lecture 35: https://www.bitchute.com/video/k9cARwOizFUc/
