Theterminology of Mystery Cults in Cyril of Alexandria
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chapter 5 The Terminology of Mystery Cults in Cyril of Alexandria Hans van Loon What prompted me to investigate the use of the terminology of the mystery cults1 by Cyril of Alexandria (c. 378–444) was a note by Georges Matthieu de Durand in his edition of Cyril’s Dialogues on the Trinity.2 Cyril writes: ‘From then [the time of the incarnation] on, heaven, that is, the multitude of the holy angels, is mystagogically guided into the mystery concerning him [Christ] through the illumination of the Spirit’.3 In this brief sentence the archbishop uses three words that also played a role in the mystery cults: (1) guided mysta- gogically (μυσταγωγεῖται); (2) mystery (μυστήριον); (3) illumination or—literal- ly—torchbearing (δᾳδουχίας). Especially the last word, δᾳδουχίας, caused de Durand to write his note. The torchbearer (δᾳδοῦχος) was one of the most important priests at the Eleusinian Mysteries,4 and we also encounter an official with this title in other mystery cults.5 De Durand asserts in his note that it was Cyril who introduced the term δᾳδουχία into Christian theology. This is not entirely true, as the word is also found in a theological sense in John Chrysostom (although it is not quite 1 Whereas it was customary to speak of ‘mystery religions’ a hundred years ago, this title has been replaced by ‘mystery cults’ or simply ‘mysteries’, since it concerns not full-fledged reli- gions, but rather restricted cults. See W. Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA/Lon- don 1987), 10–11. Burkert still gives a definition of ‘mysteries’ (on p. 11), but later scholars tend to regard the various mystery cults as belonging to a group with Wittgensteinian family resemblances. J.N. Bremmer, Initiation into the Mysteries of the Ancient World, Münchner Vor- lesungen zu Antiken Welten 1 (Berlin 2014), xii–xiii, gives a number of characteristics, and so does H. Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ/Oxford 2010), 15. 2 G.M. de Durand (ed.), Cyrille d’Alexandrie. Dialogues sur la Trinité, vol. 3 (SC 246; Paris 1978), 258. 3 Cyril of Alexandria, De sancta trinitate dialogi VI, Aubert 626b, in SC 246, 128: διὰ τῆς τοῦ Πνεύ- ματος δᾳδουχίας μυσταγωγεῖται λοιπὸν τὸ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ μυστήριον ὁ οὐρανός, τουτέστιν ἡ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων πληθύς. Tr.: my own. 4 K. Clinton, The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society NS 64/3 (Philadelphia, PA 1974), 67–68. 5 Bowden, Mystery Cults, 75, 77, 128–129. © Nienke M. Vos and Albert C. Geljon, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004441729_007 the terminology of mystery cults in cyril of alexandria 107 clear what Chrysostom refers to by the word δᾳδουχία),6 but in earlier church fathers the word rarely occurs (its cognates somewhat more often), and it tends to have the literal meaning of ‘torchbearing’ or ‘torchlight’.7 Moreover, the word occurs much more often in Cyril of Alexandria than in any other church father, both before and after him.8 So, de Durand seems to have a point. This French scholar notes that Cyril attributes a different meaning to δᾳδουχία—illumination by the Spirit—, and he posits that this is part of a larger policy to incorporate the terminology of the mystery cults into the Christian vocabulary.9 De Durand does not consider the word μυστήριον itself, because it already belonged to a long tradition within Christianity, but he mentions three terms besides δᾳδουχία: μυσταγωγία (mystagogy), ἱεροφάντης (hierophant, the most important priest at the Eleusinian Mysteries), and ἐποπτεία (which indi- cates the highest degree of initiation in the Mysteries). As far as I have been able to ascertain, de Durand has never tested his hypoth- esis. I have encountered two brief references to his note: one by Marie-Odile Boulnois, in her work on Cyril’s understanding of the Trinity (1994),10 and one by Matthew Crawford, in his book on revelation and exegesis in Cyril (2014),11 but neither of them have elaborated on de Durand’s hypothesis. In this article, I want to investigate therefore how Cyril of Alexandria uses the terminology of the mystery cults, what meaning he attributes to the terms, and whether we must conclude from this that there was in fact a deliberate policy to Christian- ize this vocabulary, as de Durand suggests. 6 John Chrysostom, Epistulae ad Olympiadem 8.3. 7 Gregory of Nazianzus, Contra Julianum imperatorem 2 (Oratio 5), section 16; idem, In novam Dominicam (Oratio 44), section 5. See already 2Macc 4:22. 8 Searches in theThesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), a digital library of Greek literature, pub- lished by the University of California, Irvine: www.tlg.uci.edu, on 20 September 2016. The noun δᾳδουχία is found in Cyril of Alexandria (author = 4090) 23 times, and once in a ser- mon preached by him at the Council of Ephesus (author = 5000), in other church fathers four times or less. The noun δᾳδοῦχος does not occur in Cyril of Alexandria, and not more than twice in any of the other church fathers. And the verb δᾳδουχεῖν is found once in Cyril of Alexandria, seven times in Theodoret of Cyrus, five times in Gregory of Nazianzus, and three times or less in other church fathers. None of these three terms occur in authentic works of Origen or Athanasius. 9 De Durand, in SC 246, 258: ‘Cela fait d’ailleurs partie d’une politique plus large de natu- ralisation du vocabulaire mystérique’. 10 M.-O. Boulnois, Le paradoxe trinitaire chez Cyrille d’Alexandrie: Herméneutique, analyses philosophiques et argumentation théologique, Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 143 (Paris 1994), 435, n. 488. 11 M.R. Crawford, Cyril of Alexandria’s Trinitarian Theology of Scripture, Oxford Early Chris- tian Studies (Oxford 2014), 105–106, n. 161..