Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists PDF
Preview Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists
Levente Nagy Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists University of Pécs, Center for Ecclesiastical Studies Pécs, 2019 Levente Nagy Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists Levente Nagy Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists Pécs, 2019 Editor: Tamás Fedeles Copy editor: István Kovács Supported by: EFOP 3.4.3-16-2016-00005 © Nagy, Levente © University of Pécs, Center for Ecclesiastical Studies Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................ 7 I. Ancient Greek and Roman Ghost Stories. Some New Approaches ................................................................................. 27 II. Th e Short History of Time in the Mysteries of Mithras: Th e Order of Chaos, the City of Darkness and the Iconography of Beginnings .......................................................................... 50 III. Mithraism and Early Christianity in Pannonia in the 3rd – 4th centuries A.D.: Reinterpreting the Evidence .................... 68 IV. Th e Methodological Problems of Christianization as a Historical Process in the 3rd – 5th century A.D. Pannonia. Can the Written and Archaeological Sources be Considered Together? ........................................................................................................ 88 V. Ascetic Christianity in Panonian Martyr Stories? .................................. 117 VI. Aspects of 4th Century Christian Identity in Late Roman Province Valeria .......................................................................................... 124 VII. Early Christianity in Hungary: a New Research Project ....................... 136 VIII. Early Christian Archaeology in Hungary between 2010 and 2016 .............................................................................. 147 Papers published in this volume ........................................................................... 157 List of Figures ......................................................................................................... 159 Abbrevations, Sources, Bibliography ................................................................... 167 ■ 5 ■ Introduction In memoriam Marianne Sághy Readers can meet ghosts, spirits of the dead, undiscovered mysterious religious ceremonies of victorious gods like Sol Invictus Mithras (who became defeated demons during the era of Christian emperors), martyrs as superstars of the late antique period, early Christian fi nds from hidden magazines being published by archaeologists, and last but not least the pagan and Christian human fates and the multicultural diversity of various identities on these pages. Th e antique Greek-Roman religions, evolved over centuries, were oft en re- ferred to as pagan by ancient Christians. Th e archaic and classical Greek tradi- tions of mythology were well known narratives depected on wall paintings, mo- saics, reliefs, sarcophagi, small artefacts in both Hellenistic and Roman periods up to late antiquity. Terrible Hades and his wife, Persephone dwelled in their underground palace since the narratives of the great bestsellers of the archaic period, the Odyssee and the Th eogony of Hesiod as they are shown on red fi gure apulian craters made in the 4th century (fi g. 1.). Th e souls of the dead (psychai in greek, free souls accord- ing to cultural anthropologists) left their former bodies for the realm of Hades in the mythical navigation expert’s, Charon’s boat, as it is represented on a white ground lekythos made in Athens in the 5th century B.C. (fi g. 2.). Th ere are plenty of narrative historical sources and literary works on stories about ghosts and spirits of the dead, some ghost stories from the Antiquity are analysed in Chapter 1 of this e-book with the help of literary sources, inscrip- tions and archeological aspects, showing the elementary signifi cance of the con- cept of death, burial and souls of the dead in the ancient Greek-Roman society. Not really all kinds of souls had to live a sad, sorrowful aft erlife in the realm of Hades: the mystery cult of Demeter and Persephone in the sanctuary district of Eleusis near Athens has been developed since the end of 7th century B.C. It of- fered a more optimistic view of aft erlife for the initiates. Written sources, inscrip- tions found in the sanctuary and archeological fi nds and depictions reveal a glad and joyful existence for the believers of the mysteries in their earthly life and in the underworld as well provided by the Eleusinian goddesses like Demeter, ■ 7 ■ ■ Victorious Gods, Defeated Demons, Superstars and Archaeologists ■ Persephone and Ploutos, who were represented on the great cultic image found in the great assembly hall (Telesterion) of the initiates (fi g. 3.). Dionysos, a typical victorious god of grape and wine, drunkenness and bliss- ful joy was extremely popular in archaic and classical Greece and Italy until late antiquity (fi g. 4.). He was able to descend uninjured into the underworld, so he was also able to off er happy aft erlife existence to his believers. Th e so-called Or- phic gold tablets found in graves in southern Italy, Greece, Macedonia and Crete in late classical and Hellenistic times off ered secret passwords to the souls of the dead for the sake of a kind of lucky existence in the netherworld. Th e passwords can be connected to the terminology of Eleusinian and Orphic-Dionysiac mys- teries (fi g. 5.). Aft er the foundation of Alexandria by Alexander the Great in Egypt, the cult of great victorious gods of Alexandria, Isis, Sarapis and Osiris of Graeco-Egyp- tian origin, established in the Ptolemaic kingdom by Ptolemaius I, became wide- spread in the Mediterranean world and in Italy by the early Imperial period. Th e seemingly ancient, exotic, esoteric wisdom of the Egyptian priests (held also as magicians) evoked the wide-spread popularity of orientalising Isiac public rit- uals and secret mysteries (fi g. 6.), off ering happiness for initiates on earth and aft er their death as well. New mysteries of another orientalised (Iranised) god, Mithras, the Invincible Sun arised at the end of the 1st century A.D. in Italy and in the Roman provinces. New cave-like sancutaries were built throughout the empire, furnished with new cult images (bullkilling Mithras), altars, frescoes, mosaics, reliefs with a newly established Mithraic iconography. In the last third of the 20th century, the secret meaning of the bullkilling Mi- thras image (taurochthony), like on the famous painting in the Barberini mi- thraeum in Rome (fi g. 7.) could be deciphered as a kind of star talk. Th e Mithra- ic representations of well-known Greek-Roman gods and other human fi gures and animals were interpreted as stars and planets on the starry sky. Mithras, the invincible Sun (this epitheton is well known from inscriptions) was associated with the Sun, the bull with the Moon, and the taurochthony itself with a lunar eclipse with a complex cosmological and cosmogonical meaning. Th ere were seven grades of initiation in the mysteries (corax, nymphus, miles, leo, perses, heliodromus, pater) with their own symbols and – presumably – their own rites of initiation. Th ey are shown on the famous mosaic fl oor of the Felicissimus mithraeum in Ostia (fi g. 8.). Cross-cultural contacts among the orientalising mystery cults and their con- nections with ancient Greek philosophical concepts are relevant for students of ancient religions. A good example is the famous relief of two lovers, Eros and ■ 8 ■
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