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FILIP DOROSZEWSKI
frenzy, the word öpyıa was also used from at least the classical period as
a metaphor for experiences which constituted a sort of initiation and/or were
particularly intense. Thus, ancient authors could speak about the öpyıa of
Aphrodite and of Eros when they meant physical and spiritual love, as well as
about the dpyta of the Muses when they referred to the science or art. Similarly,
we may find the term related to excellence, pleasure, or even illness.!° Since in
a religious sense dpyta were initiatory rites in which one could commune with
the divine, the term also became a metaphor for accessing deeper philosophical
and theological knowledge. The process of gaining that knowledge was depicted
as an initiation into mysteries and as an experience of a Bacchic-like ecstasy.
This can be traced back to Plato, who assigned such a figurative meaning to the
verb öpyıalew, even if he did not use the word öpyıa itself.'° By contrast, later,
the word was used in this manner by many of Plato’s followers. Neoplatonist
philosophers used the term in reference to the arcana of philosophy, which was
to them the best way to approach the divine." Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish
thinker who was much indebted to the Platonic tradition and who deeply
influenced the Alexandrian school of Christian exegesis, applied őpyia to
philosophy, divine revelation, and Judaism as a whole."
The first author known to have used the term positively with reference to
Christianity was a Church Father inspired by both Plato and Philo, Clement of
Alexandria (died before 221), who adapted the Dionysiac vocabulary to the needs
of the Christian catechesis.! The Christian öpyıa are mentioned in his works
twice. At the end of the Protrepticus, after having harshly criticized the pagan
mystery rites, Clement unfolds a poetic vision of Christianity as the only true
mysteries (12.118—123).” As he is addressing a pagan readership, he deliberately
draws on Dionysiac imagery from Euripides’ Bacchae, a play which would
have been familiar to his audience. Clement makes his intentions clear in the
programmatic phrase “I will show you the Word (tov Adyov) and the mysteries of
4 Aristophanes, Lys. 832, 898; Aelianus, NA 9.66; Achilles Tatius 9.1; Clement of Alexandria,
Paed. 2.10.96.2; Hippocrates, Lex. 5 (4.642 Littre); Aristides, Or. 34.54; see also Motte —
Pirenne-Delforge, Le mot et les rites, 131-132.
Marcus Aurelius 3.7; Dio Chrysostomus, Or. 4.101; Lucianus, Trag. 112 (of podagra).
16 Plato, Phdr. 250c, 252d; see Christopher Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philon,
und Klemens von Alexandrien, Berlin—New York, Walter de Gruyter 1987, 39-44.
E.g. Synesius, Ep. 137.9; 143.33; Proclus H. 4.15. See also Helmut Seng, Untersuchungen zum
Vokabular und zur Metrik in den Hymnen des Synesios, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang
1996, 109.
Examples are listed in Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie, 115 with n18-20; Schuddeboom,
Greek Religious Terminology, 154-156.
Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie, 148-158; Fabienne Jourdan, Dionysos dans le Protreptique
de Clément d’Alexandrie. Initiations dionysiaques et mystéres chrétiens, Revue de l’histoire
des religions 223/3 (2006), 267-271; Massa, Tra la vigna e la croce, 161-189; Courtney J.P.
Friesen, Reading Dionysus: Euripides’ Bacchae and the Cultural Contestations of Greeks,
Jews, Romans, and Christians, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2015, 118-132.
0 See in general Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie, 148-158.
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