The connexion between the Greek Mysteries and Christian Mysticism is
marked not only by the name which the world has agreed to give to that
type of religion (though it must be said that [Greek: mystêria] is not
the commonest name for the Mysteries--[Greek: orgia, teletai, telê]
are all, I think, more frequent), but by the evident desire on the
part of such founders of mystical Christianity as Clement and
Dionysius the Areopagite, to emphasise the resemblance. It is not
without a purpose that these writers, and other Platonising
theologians from the third to the fifth century, transfer to the faith
and practice of the Church almost every term which was associated with
the Eleusinian Mysteries and others like them. For instance, the
sacraments are regularly [Greek: mystêria]; baptism is [Greek:
mystikon loutron] (Gregory of Nyssa); unction, [Greek: chrisma
mystikon] (Athanasius); the elements, [Greek: mystis edôdê] (Gregory
Naz.); and participation in them is [Greek: mystikê metalêpsis].
Baptism, again, is "initiation" [Greek: myêsis]; a baptized person is
[Greek: memyêmenos], [Greek: mystês] or [Greek: symmystês] (Gregory Ny.
and Chrysostom), an unbaptized person is [Greek: amyêtos]. The
celebrant is [Greek: mystêriôn lanthanontôn mystagôgos] (Gregory Ny.);
the administration is [Greek: paradosis], as at Eleusis. The
sacraments are also [Greek: teletê] or [Greek: telê], regular
Mystery-words; as are [Greek: teleiôsis, teleiousthai, teleiopoios],
which are used in the same connexion. Secret formulas (the notion of
secret formulas itself comes from the Mysteries) were [Greek:
aporrêta]. (Whether the words [Greek: phôtismos] and [Greek: sphragis]
in their sacramental meaning come from the Mysteries seems doubtful,
in spite of Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 295.) Nor is the language of
the Mysteries applied only to the sacraments. Clement calls purgative
discipline [Greek: ta katharsia], and [Greek: ta mikra mystêria], and
the highest stage in the spiritual life [Greek: epopteia]. He also
uses such language as the following: "O truly sacred mysteries! O
stainless light! My way is lighted with torches, and I survey the
heavens and God! I am become holy while I am being initiated. The Lord
is my hierophant," etc. (_Protr._ xii. 120). Dionysius, as I have
shown in a note on Lecture III., uses the Mystery words frequently,
and gives to the orders of the Christian ministry the names which
distinguished the officiating priests at the Mysteries. The aim of
these writers was to prove that the Church offers a mysteriosophy
which includes all the good elements of the old Mysteries without
their corruptions. The alliance between a Mystery-religion and
speculative Mysticism within the Church was at this time as close as
that between the Neoplatonic philosophy and the revived pagan Mystery
cults. But when we try to determine the amount of direct _influence_
exercised by the later paganism on Christian usages and thought, we
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