HELLENISTIC RELIGION

any of the various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from 300 BC to AD 300. The period of Hellenistic influence, when taken as a whole, constitutes one of the most creative periods in the history of religions. It was a time of spiritual revolution in the Greek and Roman empires, when old cults died or were fundamentally transformed and when new religious movements came into being. any of various systems of beliefs and practices of eastern Mediterranean peoples from the period of the Greco-Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) to the period of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor (d. AD 337). The empire that Alexander established constituted most of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, Persia, and the borderlands of India. The political and economic unification of such a vast territory opened the way for religious interchange between East and West. Almost every so-called Hellenistic religion occurred in both its homeland and in diasporic centres-the foreign cities in which its adherents lived in minority groups. For example, Isis (Egypt), Baal (Syria), the Great Mother (Phrygia), Yahweh (Palestine), and Mithra (Kurdistan) were worshiped in their native lands as well as in Rome and other cosmopolitan centres. In many cases, the imposition of Greco-Roman political and cultural forms in disparate regions prompted a conscious revival of ancient religious practices, which became linked to nationalistic or messianic movements seeking to overthrow the foreign oppressors (e.g., the Maccabean rebellion led by Judas Maccabeus against Jewish hellenizing parties and the Syrian overlords in 167-165 BC). Among the dispersed groups, however, ties to the homeland tended to weaken with successive generations, and religion shifted its focus from national prosperity to individual salvation. In terms of transmission, the diasporic groups may be seen as shifting from "birthright" to "convinced" religion. The archaic religions of the Mediterranean world had been primarily religions of etiquette, in which the interrelationships among people, between the people and the gods, between individuals and the state, and between the living and the dead were all seen to mirror the divine order of the cosmos, which in turn was discernible through astrology, divination, oracles, and other occult practices. In the Hellenistic period, such an emphasis on conformity no longer spoke to the needs of displaced and subjugated peoples. The formerly revered law and order of the cosmos came to be viewed as an evil, perverse, and confining structure from which to be liberated. Most Hellenistic religions offered a highly dualistic cosmology in which the earthly realm in all its aspects-from despotic rulers to one's own body-constituted the imprisoning power of evil over the soul. Liberation was attainable through cultic activity, secret knowledge (gnosis), and divine intervention (see Gnosticism). The esotericism to which these changes led, emphasizing radical reinterpretation of the sacred texts and rigid codification of dogma, creeds, and means of admission, was met with deep suspicion by the Greco-Roman authorities. Attempts were made to expel foreigners or suppress foreign worship, and the emperor Augustus, among others, sought to revive traditional Roman religious practices. Externally, the heightened tension between Greco-Roman authority and the "new" Eastern religions expressed itself in wars, riots, and persecutions. The emergence of "emperor worship" with the deification of Augustus in AD 14 further escalated the animosity. The dominant feature of the decline of Hellenistic influence was the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire, culminating in the conversion of the emperor Constantine in 313. In this period the various Hellenistic cults were persecuted and eventually extinguished, although their influence continued even within Christianity. Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism, Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thought through the 18th century. Hellenistic magic, theurgy, astrology, and alchemy remained influential until modern times in both East and West. And many formal aspects of Hellenistic religion-from art and architecture to modes of worship to forms of literature-persist in the Jewish and Christian traditions today. Additional reading The most useful cultural and political history containing valuable discussions of controversial issues with full bibliography is Robert Cohen, La Grce et l'hellnisation du monde antique, new ed. (1948). W.W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, 3rd ed. rev. by Tarn and G.T. Griffith (1952, reissued 1975); and M. Rostovtzeff, The Social & Economic History of the Hellenistic World, 3 vol. (1941, reissued 1986), remain the standard English works. Karl Prmm, Religionsgeschichtliches Handbuch fr den Raum der altchristlichen Umwelt: Hellenistisch-rmisch Geistesstrmungen und Kulte mit Beachtung des Eigenlebens der Provinzen (1943, reissued 1954), is indispensable for its rich bibliography. The magnificent encyclopaedia now in progress, Reallexikon fr Antike und Christentum (1950- ), will be, when completed, the best single resource for the study of Hellenistic and early Christian religion.Important general interpretations include Paul Wendland, Die hellenistisch-rmische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum, 4th enlarged ed. (1972); Harold R. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration: A Study of Mystery Initiations in the Graeco-Roman World (1929, reprinted 1974); A.J. Festugire, L'Idal religieux des Grcs et l'vangile (1932, reissued 1981), and Personal Religion Among the Greeks (1954, reprinted 1984); Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vol. (1953-68); Samuel K. Eddy, The King Is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism, 334-31 B.C. (1961); Arnold Toynbee (ed.), The Crucible of Christianity: Judaism, Hellenism, and the Historical Background to the Christian Faith (1969); and Luther H. Martin, Hellenistic Religions: An Introduction (1987). In addition to these works (all of which contain full bibliographies), see the individual volumes in the important series tudes prliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain. Jonathan Z. Smith