Ecstasy and Insight

Gnostic Development of Mysteries

Thesis Statement• “The Eleusinian Mysteries promoted ecstatic hope

and the Gnostics later bent that hope toward increasingly higher goals (Plato’s ascent of the soul, the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, and the levels of enlightenment).”

• Development of the Thesis: Athenians blended Mystery cults with Greek philosophy. Neo-Platonic thinkers, with Plotinus in the lead, re-shaped words like “divinity,” “immortality,” and “salvation.” Hellenistic scholars at Alexandria translated into Greek, edited, and sorted the sacred writings of the Egyptians, Hebrews, and Christians. They shared an interest in gnosis – insight into divinity.

Timeline of Eleusinian Evolution• Demeter I – 575 BC (Homeric Hymn to Demeter)• Demeter II – 450 BC (rise of Athenian

philosophy)• Plato’s Phaedrus, 365 BC (literary Mystery

images)• Gnostics in Alexandria 100 BC – 100 AD • Apuleius, Metamorphoses (Golden Ass), 150 AD• Clement of Alexandria, 150-220 AD• Plotinus, 205-270 AD• Council of Nicea, 325 AD• Bishop Theophilus and his iconoclasts demolish

the Serapeum & Library of Alexandria, 391 AD• Pseudo-Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, 500 AD

Festival of Dionysos / DemeterAs Demeter & Persephone descend to the Underworld, the wintry world grows dark; we are hungry and uncertainWith the return of the Persephone and Dionysos, we feel reborn, renewed; we celebrate the spring-summer feast of food & wine. We celebrate Bacchus, we “Bacchate” (bakxeuein), we celebrate Dionysos and drink his blood-wine; we are filled with the god (en theos); we become enthusiastic (enthusiasmos), full of divine life. We forget and “stand outside” our normal selves (ek-stasis); we feel ecstasy!

Gnostics in Alexandria 100 BC – 100 AD

• Multi-cultural city of Alexander the Great• Home of the Great Library, world-wide collection• Think-tank for religious knowledge• Greek language unifies learning (koinē)• All religious cults welcome – no persecution• Religious formulas are explored and scriptures are

edited• Active efforts to unify and consolidate• Widely influential through later history• Religious terminologies of East & West are

formulated and blended here

Terminology• Enthusiasm (en theos, a feeling produced by a

divine power)• Ecstasy (ek-stasis, standing outside our normal

selves)• Possessed by the god (katexomenoi ek tou theou)• Communion with divinity (oneness, uplifted,

apotheosis)• Dionysian frenzy: inspiration (in-spirited), mantic

(far-seeing), prophecy, soothsaying, dreams, drunken visions

• Dionysos is associated with moon and darkness (opposite of sun and daylight, Apollo)

• Dionysian versus Apollonian (Nietzsche)

Gnosis as personal insight• Greek culture emphasized intellect; Oriental culture

emphasized submission to higher powers• Salvation from a divinity was a new concept, an

outside influence prepared by the Mysteries• Mysteries fascinated Greek and Roman philosophers• Greek philosophy translated the Mysteries into a

language of intellect (see terminology)• Pre-Nicene Christianity was diverse and included

Gnostic groups• Line of influence: Plato > Plotinus > Clement > St.

Augustine > Pseudo-Dionysius

Realization as hidden knowledge (gnosis)• Knowledge not conveyed by words (secret door)• Words alone do not verify insight (gnosis)• Religion is not the same as system of moral law• Gnosis is not knowing laws of right and wrong• Knowledge of religion can be an obstruction to

gnosis• Gnosis implies “entering deep inside”• Groups like the Essenes (Jewish pre-Christians)

sought gnosis in communities, like Pythagorean and Christian monastics

• Example from late first century, Luke 11:52

“You legal experts, damn you! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves haven’t entered and you have blocked the way of those trying to enter.”

-Luke 11:52 translated by scholars who capture the directness of the original koinē Greek. [The Complete Gospels, edited by R.J. Miller]

Mysteries seem Exotic to Greco-Romans

• Gods of Greece and Rome belonged to political-social realm, not personal

• Mystery religions (from Egypt and Asia Minor) use feelings and emotional extremes

• Guilt & salvation alien to Romans• Roman sobriety and conservative piety (pius

Aeneas)• Oriental religions seemed to be about “magic” and

miracles

Gnostic Theory• The everyday world is lusterless and corrupt

(creation is outsourced to a Demiurge, an inferior divinity)

• Demiurge = δημιουργός, dēmiourgos, literally "public worker“

• Institutional truths degrade their higher truth• The hope is to find path back to original divinity,

understand true human potential (spark of divinity in a dull world)

• Religious teaching must be understood inspirationally, not literally in an everyday sense

Gnostic Secrets & Clement

• Information we now have about Gnostics comes from the Nag Hammadi Library

• Prior to finding Nag Hammadi, most information came from attacks against Gnostic heretics by Clement of Alexandria (church father), 150-220 AD

• Clement knew the Mysteries from having been an initiate himself

• Clement sees Christianity against the Mystery Religions

• But he also sees Christianity through the Mysteries

Clement of Alexandria, 150-220 AD

• “Exhortation to the Greeks,” aka Protrepticus• Every page quotes Old and New Testament as well

as Greek poets, dramatists, philosophers, and historians

• He illustrates his arguments by using Plato, Homer, or Euripides

• Clement ridicules the worst elements of popular Greek culture (the Mysteries)

• He describes idolatry and absurd superstitions• Clement also see Christianity through the Mysteries

Clement and Christian Initiates

• Clement treats newly baptized Christians as initiates into the “Mystery of Christ”

• He expects new Christians to undergo emotional transformation

• Their character is to be changed through identifying themselves with the suffering of crucified Jesus

• Their “new man” (Paul) is not a proud, arrogant self-centered person

• Baptism is a transformation that is manifest in every element of behavior

Goal of Initiation• Rebirth, palingenesia, re-generation• Kore disappears in Underworld and then re-appears

(Orphism, Orphic), new growth (wine, bread)• Identification with or joining the divinity • Ritual process is “becoming one with” or henosis

(Greek “hen” = “one”), sharing life of the god• Ritual components: catharsis (purification) through

fasting, avoiding certain foods, baptism or washing, confession, darkness, disorientation, procession, discovery, splendor, brightness, dance, celebration

• You “die to your old self” and are “reborn”

Early Christian Gnostic Gospels

• To affirm insight (gnosis) over one-size-fits-all dogma

• To “see into” the moral good rather than to follow a rule book unthinkingly

• To subvert literal readings of texts• To undermine stereotypes and all-too-easy

prejudices• To see the “bad guy” as the “good guy”• To shock the “obvious” understanding

Gnostic Gospel of Judas

• To see the “bad guy” as the “good guy”• To shock the “obvious” understanding• To “see into” the moral good rather than to

follow a rule book unthinkingly• To subvert literal readings of texts• To undermine stereotypes and all-too-easy

prejudices• To affirm insight (gnosis) over one-size-fits-

all dogma

Plotinus simplified• Enneads, collection of personal lectures• Yearning for simplicity, the One• Proceeding from Plato’s theory of Patterns (Ideal

Forms), Plotinus sees spiral of nested unities• Each unifying pattern held by higher pattern• Reaching greater simplicity• The One is the Good, the divine• Human mind participates in (is a “spark” of) the

divine vision• Love is yearning for Beauty, which is the simple

wholeness of unity, One = Good• Simplicity of life as an ideal

Plotinus and the One• Simplicity of life as an ideal• Continual purification is necessary because of

pollution from sense perception (distractions)• Words and thoughts fall short of pure One• If words could mirror the One, there would be two• Simplicity is beyond thought and desire• Mystic unity = unspeakable communion• Solitude is result of simplicity• Each soul seeks a way back to the One from

which all creation emanates• Neo-Platonism is a theory of emanation (entities

radiate from a single Source)

Bacchic dance in Plotinus• Big difference in mood yet ecstasy remains• Dionsysian cymbals become Orphic lyre• Ecstasy is communion with “the One”• Individual merges with divine Unity (Wholeness)• The mystic embraces solitude and ascends to

Oneness• Simplicity of life through simplicity of vision• Later influence on Augustine, Bishop of Hippo

(passages in Confessions of Saint Augustinecould have been drawn from Plotinus)

• See how choral “dance” appears in Plotinus (Ennead VI)….

Dionysius the Areopagite(thought to be friend of St. Paul)

orPseudo-Dionysius

(centuries later than St. Paul)or

Unknown Author(who blends the Christian Neo-Platonic One with multiple divine spirits of pre-Christian

polytheism