PAGAN REGENERATION

A STUDY OF MYSTERY INITIATIONS IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD

BY HAROLD R. WILLOUGHBY

[b. 1890 d. 1962]

Chicago., Ill., The University of Chicago Press

[1929, copyright not renewed]

PREFACE

IT MUST frankly be confessed that this study of mystery initiations in the
Graeco-Roman world is but a prolegomenon to further research in early Christian
origins. For some years the author has been fascinated by the problem of the
genesis of Pauline mysticism. How did it come about that, with Judaism and primitive
Christianity essentially unmystical in character, Pauline Christianity developed
in a way to accentuate the mystical phases of religious experience? The writer
hopes that some day circumstances will permit him to make a contribution toward
the solution of this problem. In order to answer this question it is patently
necessary to investigate the gentile religious milieu in which Pauline Christianity
had its development.

Researches in the field of Graeco-Roman religions prove conclusively that
apologists for early Christianity and even eminent classicists have been inclined
to underestimate the genuineness of gentile religious interests and the extent
to which religion dominated life in pagan lands when Christianity was emerging.
Of the gentile cults probably the most popular in the first century, and certainly
the least known and understood in the twentieth, were the so-called mystery
religions. Notwithstanding the protestations of apologists there is ample evidence
that in both the west and the east the mystery cults were widely disseminated
and very influential before Christianity appeared on the scene. In the following
pages care is taken to exhibit this evidence in relation to each of the mystery
systems.

A detailed investigation of typical cult experiences further convinced the
author that the central meaning of mystery initiation–the regeneration, both
essential and ethical, of the individual devotee–has largely escaped the notice
of even sympathetic researchers. To bring out this meaning in the terminology
and thought-forms of the initiates themselves, as recorded in scattered and
fragmentary remains both monumental and literary, is one of the major purposes
for which these studies are published.

Additional researches in Hermetic and Philonian literature demonstrated how
important this mystical type of religious experience was considered to be, not
only by religio-philosophical groups but also by individual thinkers quite outside
the circle of gentile cult brotherhoods. To the writer Philo’s case was particularly
interesting, because it illustrated the extent to which the thought and experiences
of a diaspora Jew might be influenced by gentile religious practices.

An analytical investigation of the social milieu in which the mystery cults
operated brought to light the fundamental character of the interests and needs
met by mystery initiation. On the one hand this made intelligible the undoubted
popularity of the mystery cults themselves; on the other hand it served to suggest
why it was the early Christian propagandists, in order to win gentile adherents
to their cult, came to place such insistent emphasis on the experience of individual
regeneration.

By means of the dedicatory page the author has tried to express a gratitude
and appreciation that lie too deep for words. He would also make grateful acknowledgment
to Professor Shirley Jackson Case, who guided his early studies in the mystery
religious, and to Professor Edgar J. Goodspeed, who gave helpful advice and
encouragement. The reading of proof, the verification of references, and the
preparation of the Index have been largely the work of Dr. A.D. Beittel and
Mr. R.B. Brewer. Their painstaking exactness is deserving of commendation. Above
all the writer would express his appreciation to a number of his own students
who with patience more than Christian have endured tedious lectures about pagan
mysteries.

H.R.W. Godspeed Hall The University of Chicago July 4, 1929