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Greek Religious Terminology—Telete & Orgia

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Greek Religious Terminology—Telete & Orgia Greek Religious Terminology—Telete & Orgia Religions in the Graeco-Roman World Editors H.S. Versnel D. Frankfurter J. Hahn VOLUME 169 Greek Religious Terminology— Telete & Orgia A Revised and Expanded English Edition of the Studies by Zijderveld and Van der Burg By Feyo L. Schuddeboom LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schuddeboom, Feyo. Greek religious terminology : telete, orgia : a revised and expanded English edition of the studies by Zijderveld and Van der Burg / by Feyo L. Schuddeboom. p. cm. – (Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, ISSN 0927-7633 ; v. 169) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-17813-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1.Telete(TheGreekword)2.Orgia(TheGreekword)3.Greeklanguage–Semantics.I. Zijderveld, Cornelis. Telete. II. Burg, Nicolaas Marius Henricus van der, 1902-1963. Aporreta-dromena-orgia. III. Title. IV. Series. PA430.T4S38 2009 485–dc22 2009029149 ISSN 0927-7633 ISBN 978 90 04 17813 7 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all right holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands IN MEMORIAM PATRIS WALTER ARNOLD SCHUDDEBOOM 19 Jun. 1933 – 5 Aug. 2009 CONTENTS NoteonthisEdition................................................... ix Preface ................................................................. xi ListofNewGreekLiterarySources...................................xvii ListofAbbreviations................................................... xxi PART ONE ΤΕΛΕΤΗ IN LITERARY SOURCES ChapterOne.Introduction............................................ 3 Chapter Two. The Use of τελετ uptoAlexander.................... 7 Chapter Three. The Use of τελετ afterAlexander ................... 39 Chapter Four. Τελετ inJewishandChristianAuthors.............. 103 ChapterFive.Summary ............................................... 119 PART TWO ΡΓΙΑ IN LITERARY SOURCES ChapterSix.Introduction ............................................. 127 Chapter Seven. The Use of ργια uptoAlexander ................... 131 Chapter Eight. The Use of ργια afterAlexander..................... 145 ChapterNine.Summary............................................... 183 ChapterTen.OrgiainLatinLiterature................................ 187 PART THREE ΤΕΛΕΤΗ AND ΡΓΙΑ IN INSCRIPTIONS IntroductoryNotes .................................................... 199 Chapter Eleven. The Use of τελετ inInscriptions................... 201 Chapter Twelve. The Use of ργια inInscriptions.................... 227 AppendixA ............................................................ 239 Falsa et dubia: τελετ ............................................... 239 Falsa et dubia: ργια ................................................ 242 viii contents AppendixB ............................................................ 245 The Proper Name Τελτη ........................................... 245 Bibliography ........................................................... 249 INDICES Source Index: τελετ .................................................. 257 Source Index: ργια ................................................... 267 SubjectIndex........................................................... 273 NOTE ON THIS EDITION This book examines the use of two semantically related Greek religious terms: τελετ and ργια. The work consists of three parts. Part One is a revised edition of C. Zijderveld, Τελετ:Bijdragetot de kennis der religieuze terminologie in het Grieksch (). The literary sources have been supplemented with more than sixty new additions. The inscriptions have been moved to a new chapter in Part Three. Part Two contains a revised edition of N.M.H. van der Burg, Απ ρ- ρητα - δρμενα - ργια: Bijdrage tot de kennis der religieuze terminolo- gie in het Grieksch (). Of this tripartite study, only the third part, where ργια is examined, has been retained. The literary sources have been supplemented with more than seventy new additions. Attestations of the loanword orgia in Latin literature have been collected in a new chapter by F.L. Schuddeboom. Part Three contains a collection of the epigraphical evidence by F.L. Schuddeboom in two new chapters (τελετ and ργια). False and dubi- ous attestations are presented separately in an appendix, as are the occur- rences of the proper name Telete in inscriptions. PREFACE The study of the word τελετ was first suggested to me by Professor Kevin Clinton ten years ago, when I was a visiting graduate student at Cornell University: I had shown a keen interest in the study of mystery religions and the standard work on τελετ by Cornelis Zijderveld happened to be written in my native tongue.1 At that time, however, my course work at Cornell and preparations for my Master’s thesis precluded me from progressing beyond a preliminary inventory of the literary sources and some very tentative conclusions. During the years that followed, other duties and activities kept me from further pursuing the project. In January , I finally decided that, rather than starting ab ovo, one should prepare an updated, English edition of Zijderveld’s seminal work, including a new chapter on inscriptions. When I set about working on the project, it soon became apparent that one should also include the term ργια and its cognates, because these are so often found in the same or similar context as τελετ . My task was made easier by the fortuitous circumstance that there was already a study of the term ργια by another compatriot of mine, Nicolaas van der Burg,2 who had used very much the same modus operandi as Zijderveld.3 At the heart of this book, therefore, there is a new edition of Zijder- veld’s study of τελετ (Part One) and Van der Burg’s study of ργια (Part Two). In addition, I have collected the attestations of the loanword orgia in Latin literature (Part Two, Chapter Ten) and of τελετ and ργια in inscriptions (Part Three). Several years after the publication of Zijderveld’s dissertation, Otto Kern wrote a highly critical review of it in Gnomon.4 Two of Kern’s prin- cipal complaints concerned the fact that the treatment of the epigraphical evidence was unsystematic and incomplete, and that the book was writ- ten in Dutch (albeit with an English summary). The present edition aims 1 C. Zijderveld, Τελετ. Bijdrage tot de kennis der religieuze terminologie in het Grieksch (). 2 N.M.H. van der Burg, Απ ρρητα - δρμενα - ργια. Bijdrage tot de kennis der religieuze terminologie in het Grieksch (). 3 In fact, his work is in many ways a supplement to Zijderveld, as Van der Burg himself indicated, op. cit. 4 O. Kern, Gnomon () –. xii preface to address these concerns: the language of the book is now English (Kern had suggested Latin) and the epigraphical evidence is presented in new chapters in a clear and systematic way. One piece of criticism I have not attempted to mitigate is the reproach that Zijderveld’s analysis is too superficial. While few will nowadays accept the postulation of a more or less linear development of the mean- ing of the words τελετ and ργια, Zijderveld’s main thesis, that τελετ is not in the first place an initiation into the mysteries, is still very valid and has, in my opinion, not received the attention it deserves. Moreover, as annotated collections of sources, the works of Zijderveld and Van der Burg remain invaluable for anyone who wishes to see where and how the Greeks used τελετ and ργια.WhytheGreeksusedthetermsprecisely in these contexts and not in others, is a question best reserved for another book. Brief History of Scholarship The first serious attempts to study the terms τελετ and ργια in a systematic manner were undertaken by Cornelis Zijderveld and Nicolaas van der Burg in the s. Both scholars were trained at the University of Utrecht and each wrote his doctoral dissertation on Greek religious terminology. These two dissertations still serve, not merely as starting points, but as standard works for the study of the words τελετ and ργια in Greek literature. In spite of criticism that its analysis lacks depth and despite its being outdated in several respects, Zijderveld’s dissertation has remained the standard work on the term τελετ . It examines the use of τελετ before Alexander, after Alexander, and in Jewish and Christian authors. Zijder- veld distinguished between religious ceremonies in general, religious acts of a special character, symbolic acts (mysteries), religious sects, magic rites, and metaphorical uses.5 Van der Burg’s dissertation was conceived as a supplement to Zijder- veld’s dissertation and follows more or less the same methodology.
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