Initiation into the Mysteries

Anikó Daróczi, Miklos Vassanyi, Sepsi Eniko

Description

The present volume offers an interdisciplinary collection of twenty-four studies to readers interested in the religious, philosophical and artistic aspects of initiation. In itself, the concept of initiation presupposes that there is an initiator, someone to be initiated, and secret rite or knoweledge-in short, a mystery-into which the elect few would be admitted and which must not be revealed to the rest. Initiation is thus very personal, as it encompasses-in Christian theology at least-an encounter with God but also involves a communal experience.
While in European context, initiation is an essentially Christian idea, not all the papers of the present volume turn to the Christian tradition for sources. Hermetism, Neoplatonism, pre-Christian paganism and Renaissance esotericism also find a place among the studies published here. Religion and philosophy are not the only viewpoints adopted by our authors, however; the section on art and litterature discusses initiation as it appears on stage, in novels, short stories, and drama as well as poetry, especially in modern European literature.

Sujets

• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 11 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782336908298
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

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Cover
4th cover
Title



INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES

A COLLECTION OF STUDIES IN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY AND THE ARTS

E DITED BY A NIKÓ D ARÓCZI ‒ E NIKŐ S EPSI ‒ M IKLÓS V ASSÁNYI



Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary L’Harmattan Publishing • Éditions L’Harmattan Budapest • Paris 2020
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
P ART 1: R ELIGION AND S PIRITUALITY
Endre Ádám Hamvas: Initiation in the Hermetica
Stefan Freund: Cyprian’s Ad Donatum as a Mystagogic Protrepticus
Zsuzsanna Turcsán-Tóth: The Statue of Artemis Ephesia in the Light of Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs
Filip Doroszewski: Rite or Metaphor? The Use of ὄργια in the Works of the Greek Christian Writers of the 4th and 5th Centuries
István Pásztori-Kupán: Faith as a Prerequisite to the Initiation into the Mysteries in Theodoret of Cyrus
Anna Judit Tóth: Dionysus and his Doppelgängers in John Lydus
Vilmos Voigt: A Mystery among the Mysteries: Are there Old Icelandic mysteries?
Anikó Daróczi: Wording the Silence: Initiatory Reading of Mystical Texts
György E. Szönyi: A Christian-Hermetic-Judaic Initiation into the Mysteries: Lodovico Lazzarelli’s Crater Hermetis (ca 1493)
Zsuzsanna Kövi, Levente Fogarassy, Zsuzsanna Mirnics, Anna Mersdorf, Zoltán Vass: Spiritual Experiences in Adventure Therapy
P ART 2: P HILOSOPHY
Gerd Van Riel: Mysticism and Rationality. A Neoplatonic Perspective
Miklós Vassányi: Transcending Transcendence: The Mystery of God in Part 4 of St Denys the Areopagite’s On the Divine Names
Monika Frazer-Imregh: Initiation into Mysteries in Pico’s Works
Antonio dall’Igna: Is the Mysticism of Giordano Bruno a Form of Initiation?
Martin Moors: Which Initiation does not Lead Astray from the True Mysteries? The Later Schelling’s Quest for a True Method Compared with the Pre-critical and Critical Kant
Orsolya Horváth: Hermeneutical Borderline Situations—Kierkegaard and the Compelling Sign
Kate Larson : Authentic Presence—A Phenomenology of Initiation
P ART 3: A RTS AND LITERATURE
György Zoltán Józsa: Initiation Drama in Russian Symbolism
Léna Szilárd: The Development of the Genre of the Initiation Novel in 20th-century Russian Literature—Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita
Katalin G. Kállay: Initiation and its Travesty in The River by Flannery O’Connor
Anita Rákóczy: Denials of the Divine: Traces of Ineluctable Presence in the Antecedents of Samuel Beckett’s Fin de partie, Endgame, and Film
Enikő Sepsi: Theatrical Approaches to Mystery: “Kenosis” in Valère Novarina’s Works
Johanna Domokos: Endurance Running as Initiation into the Mysteries. A Case Study based on the Fiction of Jari Ehrnrooth
Melinda Sebők: The Aesthetics of Silence in György Rónay’s Poetry
INTRODUCTION

The present volume offers an interdisciplinary collection of studies to readers interested in the religious, philosophical and artistic aspects of initiation . In itself, the concept of initiation (Greek μυσταγωγία) presupposes that there is an initiator, someone to be initiated, and a secret rite or knowledge–in short, a mystery–into which the elect few would be admitted and which must not be revealed to the rest. In turn, the mystery is supposed to hide a salvific yet incommunicable experience of the divine, which at the same time implies the adherence to a community of the initiated. Initiation is thus very personal, as it encompasses–in Christian theology at least–an encounter with God but also involves a communal experience. Initiation is invariably viewed as a spiritual elevation or empowerment whereby an individual has more immediate access to what is considered to be the meaning of life, and may attain salvation. It is, hence, a transformative event or a transfiguration, the exact meaning of which depends on how a particular religious or philosophical tradition understands the divine.
While in a European context, initiation is an essentially Christian idea, not all the papers of the present volume turn to the Christian tradition for sources. Hermetism, Neoplatonism, pre-Christian paganism and Renaissance esotericism also find a place among the studies published here. Religion and philosophy are not the only viewpoints adopted by our authors, however; the section on art and literature discusses initiation as it appears in novels, short stories, and drama as well as poetry, especially in modern European literature. In chronological terms, the papers span late antiquity, the Middle Ages and early modern and modern times, with a particular emphasis on late ancient, late medieval, renaissance and contemporary authors and sources. In terms of methodology, besides literary, historical and philosophical approaches, some of our authors address this protean topic from an archaeological, psychological or hermeneutical point of view.
The volume is divided into three parts concerning, respectively, religion, philosophy, and the arts. Part 1, covering religion and spirituality, begins with Endre Ádám Hamvas’s paper on “Initiation in the Hermetica .” Getting to grips with R. Reitzenstein’s and A.-J. Festugière’s respective interpretations of the Corpus Hermeticum , Hamvas argues in defence of Reitzenstein’s conclusion that the Hermetica may be construed as a collection of initiatory texts, designed to be read by a teacher and her or his disciple. With his study on “Cyprian’s Ad Donatum as a Mystagogic Protrepticus,” Stefan Freund leads us into the domain of Christian mystical theology. While the Carthaginian Bishop Saint Cyprian’s dialogue To Donatus is usually seen as an apologetic work, our author advocates the interpretation that it is, instead, a “Christian mystagogic protrepticus,” which avails itself of the rhetorical tools of ancient pre-Christian literary style. The historian and archaeologist Zsuzsanna Turcsán-Tóth then discusses “The Statue of Artemis Ephesia in the Light of Porphyry’s On the Cave of the Nymphs .” She has decided to analyze the most frequent motifs on the Hellenistic statues of Artemis Ephesia, that is, the chest ornaments, which commonly include female figures and Cancer. Considering these as one coherent scene, Turcsán-Tóth interprets them with reference to Porphyry’s De antro nympharum , maintaining the possibility that they might be visual representations of mysteries related to the birth and rebirth of the soul. Next, Filip Doroszewski’s “Rite or Metaphor? The Use of ὄργια in the Works of the Greek Christian Writers of the 4th and 5th Centuries” examines the meaning of the term ὄργια in the works of Greek Christian writers of the 4th and 5th centuries. His analysis is carried out on the basis of a scoop of many occurrences of the term in the Greek Christian literature. Drawing on his data, Doroszewski concludes that, as far as the 4th and 5th centuries are concerned, the extant sources do not support the view that ὄργια was used to designate Church celebrations, let alone rites of initiation, as it was with reference to pagan cults. Carrying on with the history of Christian theology, István Pásztori-Kupán discusses “Faith as a Prerequisite to the Initiation into the Mysteries in Theodoret of Cyrus, ” an Eastern Church Father of the 5th century. To Theodoret, faith and confidence both in the initiator and the mystery itself is a precondition of initiation. To drive home his point, Theodoret even adopts a language and phraseology borrowed from ancient sacred rituals. Anna Judit Tóth focuses on a disturbing paragraph of the De mensibus by the sixth century author John Lydus, wherein two enigmatic epithets are given to Dionysus. She offers a clarifying Mithraic reading of the passage, bringing in etymological arguments, examples of iconographical materials of the Mithras sanctuaries and the Porphyrian summary of the Platonic idea concerning the journey of the souls in universe.
Next, Vilmos Voigt wonders whether there were any Old Icelandic Mysteries: while we know about many early Scandinavian religious sites, there are no reports of mysteries and initiation in Old Icelandic texts. The author approaches initiation through an analysis of its absence. He relies on Tacitus’ Germania as a guide and examines key words and word combinations in the 13th-century Edda manuscripts. Anikó Daróczi argues that passages from th