Sacred mysteries
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Revision as of 18:22, 13 January 2011
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
The term sacred mysteries generally denotes the area of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious ideology.
Pre-Christian religious mysteries
The mystery religions of antiquity were religious cults which required initiation before a participant was accepted. They included Eleusinian Mysteries, Mithraism, the Cult of Isis, and the Cult of Sol Invictus.
Mystery traditions were popular in ancient Greece and during the height of the Roman Empire, and may have influenced the introduction of sacred mysteries in Christianity.
- Greco-Roman mysteries, a class of religious societies of the Graeco-Roman world
- Western mystery traditions, a broad spectrum of spiritual traditions found in Western society.
Christian Mysteries
The term is used in Eastern Christianity to refer to what the Western Church currently calls Sacraments and Sacramentals. In the Early Church they were kept hidden from the pagans — the so-called Disciplina arcani — lest they become objects of ridicule. As the Age of Persecution ended, the secrecy was gradually relaxed. But the term continued to be used. Originally the term "Mystery" was used in both the East and the West, as shown from the "Mystagogical Homilies" of St. Cyril of Jerusalem and the work, "On the Mysteries" by St. Ambrose of Milan.
See also
