mystery cults

13 subentries

• mystery cults (98:4sec) (121:5sec). See also Mithraism; paganism
• Augustus tried to destroy (98:3.6)
• contended with Stoicism (195:3.3)
• influenced Christianity (98:7.7)
• Mithras supplanted Phrygian, Egyptian mysteries (98:5.1)
• most popular were Cybele and Attis; Osiris and Isis; Mithras (98:4.2-5)
• nonnational, interracial, personal, and fraternal (121:5.9)
• offered hopes of personal salvation; provided diversion and excitement (98:3.9) (121:5.6-16)
• originated in Egypt and Levant (98:4.1)
• Orphic brotherhood was the best (98:2.10)
• pertained to some god’s life, death, and rebirth (121:5.8)
• plunged Greece into intellectual stagnation, moral depravity, spiritual poverty (98:2.10-11) (98:3.5)
• prepared way for Jesus, Christianity (121:5.6,12)
• secret rites were sometimes gruesome (121:5.10)

Cross-references

• See also Mithraism
• See also paganism

Cited alongside

Headwords that cite the same paragraphs as this one, commonest first. The number is how many subentries each has.

• Christian church, early 77
• Osiris 3
• Paul 52
• Attis 1
• Cybele 1
• Egypt 36
• Iran 17
• Isis 3