Hellenistic religion

Hellenistic religion, any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from 300 bc to ad 300.

The period of Hellenistic influence, when taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most creative periods in the history of religions. It was a time of spiritual revolution in the Greek and Roman empires, when old cults died or were fundamentally transformed and when new religious movements came into being.

Nature and significance

The historical Hellenistic Age is defined as the period from the death of the Greco-Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great (323 bc) to the conquest of Egypt by Rome (30 bc), but the influence of the Hellenistic religions extended to the time of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor (d. ad 337); these religions are confined to those that were active within the Mediterranean world. The empire of Alexander and his successors created a great world community which, whether in Macedonian, Greco-Roman, or its later Christian form, established a cultural unity that was destined to be broken only 1,000 years later with the advent of Muslim imperialism (beginning in 7th century ad). This empire was so vast as truly to stagger the imagination. Extending from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Indus River, from the forests of Germany and the steppes of Russia to the Sahara Desert and the Indian Ocean, it took in an area of some 1.5 million square miles (3.9 million square kilometres; most of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, Persia, and the borderlands of India) and had a total population of more than 54 million.

The study of Hellenistic religions is a study of the dynamics of religious persistence and change in this vast and culturally varied area. Almost every religion in this period occurred in both its homeland and in diasporic centres—the foreign cities in which its adherents lived as minority groups. For example, Isis (Egypt), Baal (Syria), the Great Mother (Phrygia), Yahweh (Palestine), and Mithra (Kurdistan) were worshiped in their native lands as well as in Rome and other cosmopolitan centres. With few exceptions, each of these religions, originally tied to a specific geographic area and people, had traditions extending back centuries before the Hellenistic period. In their homeland they were inextricably tied to local loyalties and ambitions. Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to nationalistic or messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure) seeking to overthrow Greco-Roman political and cultural domination. Indeed, many of these native religions underwent a conscious archaism during this period, attempting to recover earlier forms and practices. Old texts in native languages (especially those related to relevant themes such as kingship) were recopied, national temples were restored, and old, mythic traditions were revived. From Palestine to Persia one may trace the rise of Wisdom literature (the teachings of a sage concerning the hidden purposes of the deity) and apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events) that represent these central concerns—i.e., national destiny, the importance of traditional lore, the saving power of kingship, and the revival of mythic images. Each of these native traditions likewise underwent hellenization (modifications based on Greek cultural ideas), but in a manner frequently different from their diasporic counterparts.

Each of these native religions also had diasporic centres that exhibited marked change during the Hellenistic period. There was a noticeable lessening of concern on the part of the members of the dispersed religious group for the destiny and fortunes of the native land and also a relative severing of the traditional ties between religion and the land. Certain cult centres remained sites of pilgrimage or objects of sentimental attachment; but the old beliefs in national deities and the inextricable relationship of the deity to certain sacred places was weakened. Rather than a god who dwelt in his temple, the diasporic traditions evolved complicated techniques for achieving visions, epiphanies (manifestations of a god), or heavenly journeys to a transcendent god. This led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure. In the diasporic centres, as is generally characteristic of immigrant groups, there were two circles. The first (or inner circle) was composed of devout, full-time adherents of the cult for whom the deity retained a separate and decisive identity (e.g., those of Yahweh, Zeus Serapis, and Isis). Its membership was drawn from the ethnic group for whom the deity was indigenous, and the group tended to continue to speak the native language. The second (or outer circle) was composed of either second- and third-generation immigrants or converts from groups for whom the religion was not native. These individuals tended to speak Greek, and this began the lengthy process of reinterpretation of the archaic religion. Ancient sacred books were translated or paraphrased into Greek—e.g., the 4th–3rd-century-bc Babylonian priest Berosus’ version of Babylonian materials, the 4th–3rd-century-bc Egyptian priest Manetho’s Egyptian accounts, the Jewish Septuagint (Greek version of the Old Testament), or the 1st-century-ad Jewish historian Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, and the ethnic histories of the 1st-century-bc Greek writer Alexander Polyhistor. In each case the material was reinterpreted both in light of common Hellenistic ideals and in accord with the special traditions and needs of the diasporic community. Both the inner and outer circles fostered esotericism (secrets to be known only by initiates)—the former by its use of native language and its oral recollection of traditions from the homeland; the latter by its use of allegory and other similar methods to radically reinterpret the sacred texts. The difference between these groups was responsible for many shifts in the character of the religion. Most notable was the shift from elements characteristic of native religion in its definition of religion (e.g., local tradition and custom, informal knowledge orally transmitted, and birth) to formulated dogma, creeds, law codes, and rules for conversion and admission that were characteristic of diasporic religion. It was a shift from “birthright” to “convinced” religion.

The history of Hellenistic religions is rarely the history of genuinely new religions. Rather it is best understood as the study of archaic Mediterranean religions in their Hellenistic phase within both their native and diasporic settings. It is usually by concentrating on the diaspora that the Hellenistic character of a cult has been described.