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RITE OR METAPHOR? THE USE OF őpyia
IN THE WORKS OF THE GREEK CHRISTIAN WRITERS
OF THE 4*# AND 5™ CENTURIES!
—o> —
FILIP DOROSZEWSKI
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the semantic field of the term dpyia in the works of
Greek Christian writers of the 4" and 5 centuries. It aims to determine if
the term was used by Christian authors for Church celebrations, as has been
suggested by some scholars. The paper first discusses the origin of the word
and the historical development of its meaning, including the first Christian
author to use 6pyix positively, Clement of Alexandria. The second part of the
paper examines 86 occurrences of the term in Greek Christian literature of
the period. The occurrences are divided into four categories based on their
meanings: 1) pagan cult, 2) Jewish and heretical worship, 3) metaphor for
secret knowledge, and 4) disputable passages from Eusebius of Caesarea
(H.E. 2.1.13 and V.C. 4.22.1). The paper concludes that, as far as the 4" and
5" centuries are concerned, the extant sources offer no support for the view
according to which öpyıa was used for Church celebrations.
! This paper is part of a collaborative research project on the cult of Dionysus and religious
policy of Roman emperors from Augustus to the end of the Severan dynasty, financed by
the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the National Programme for
the Development of Humanities (project number: 2bH 15 0163 83). Classical works are
referred to using the abbreviations listed in Geoffrey Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon,
Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961 (Christian authors) or Henry G. Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry
S. Jones, Greek-English Lexicon. With a Revised Supplement, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1996 (other authors). If none of these lexicons mention the work, titles follow abbreviations
from Franco Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, English Edition, edited by
Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden, Brill 2015.
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