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INTRODUCTION to grips with R. Reitzenstein’s and A.-J. Festugiére’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 Turcsän-Töth 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, Turcsan-Toéth 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 dpyta in the Works of the Greek Christian Writers of the 4" and 5 Centuries” examines the meaning of the term dpyia in the works of Greek Christian writers of the 4" and 5" 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 4" and 5'* centuries are concerned, the extant sources do not support the view that öpyıa 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, Istvan Päsztori-Kupän discusses “Faith as a Prerequisite to the Initiation into the Mysteries in Theodoret of Cyrus,” an Eastern Church Father of the 5° 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 Toth 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 + 8° Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 8 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:09
