Orgia
Inancient Greek religion,anorgion(ὄργιον, more commonly in the pluralorgia) was an ecstatic form of worship characteristic of somemystery cults.[1]Theorgionis in particular a cult ceremony ofDionysos(orZagreus), celebrated widely inArcadia,featuring "unrestrained" masked dances by torchlight andanimal sacrificeby means of random slashing that evoked the god's own rending and suffering at the hands of theTitans.[2][3]Theorgiathat explained the role of the Titans in Dionysos's dismemberment were said to have been composed byOnomacritus.[4]Greek art and literature, as well as somepatristictexts, indicate that theorgiainvolvedsnake handling.[5]
Summary
[edit]Orgiamay have been earlier manifestations of cult than the formal mysteries, as suggested by the violently ecstatic rites described inmythas celebrated byAttisin honor ofCybeleand reflected in the willing self-castration of her priests theGalliin the historical period. Theorgiaof both Dionysian worship and the cult of Cybele aim at breaking down barriers between the celebrants and the divinity through a state of mystic exaltation:[6]
Dionysian orgy allowed theBacchantto emerge from the 'ego' to be united with the god in the ecstatic exaltation ofomophagia,dancing and wine.… This kind of bodilymysticismandpsychosomaticliberation had only temporary effects each time—the period of theekstasis.[7]
Initiates of theOrphicand Bacchicorgiapracticed distinctive burial customs (seeTotenpass) expressive of their beliefs in anafterlife;for instance, it was forbidden for the dead to wear wool.[8]
Members of a group devoted to performingorgiaare calledorgeônes,whose activities were regulated by law. The cult of the Thracian goddessBendiswas organized at Athens by herorgeônesas early as theArchaic period.[9]
The participation of women inorgia,which in some manifestations was exclusive to women, sometimes led to prurient speculation and attempts to suppress the rites. In 186 BC,the Roman senate tried to banDionysian religion as subversive both morally and politically.[10]
Isidore of Sevillesays that theLatinequivalent oforgiawascaerimoniae(English "ceremonies" ), the arcane rites ofancient Roman religionpreserved by the variouscollegesof priests.[11]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^Georg Luck,Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds(Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, 2006, 2nd ed.), p. 504.
- ^Madeleine Jost, "Mystery Cults in Arcadia," inGreek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults(Routledge, 2003), pp. 144–164.
- ^Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)..Encyclopædia Britannica(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^Pausanias8.37.5; Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston,Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets(Routledge, 2007), p. 70.
- ^Jacquelyn Collins-Clinton,A Late Antique Shrine ofLiberPater at Cosa(Brill, 1976), pp. 33–34. Among Church Fathers seeArnobius,Adversus Nationes5.19;Clement of Alexandria,Protrepticus2.12.2;Firmicus Maternus,De errore profanarum religionum6.
- ^Giulia Sfameni Gasparro,Soteriology and Mystic Aspects in the Cult of Cybele and Attis(Brill, 1985), p. 53 and 11–19.
- ^Robert Turcan,The Cults of the Roman Empire(Blackwell 1996, 2001, from the original French 1992), p. 296.
- ^According toHerodotus2.81, as cited by Graf and Johnston,Ritual Texts,p. 159.
- ^Corinne Ondine Pache, "Barbarian Bond: Thracian Bendis among the Athenians," inBetween Magic and Religion(Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 8.
- ^Celia E. Schultz,Women's religious activity in the Roman Republicpp. 82–88.
- ^Isidore of Seville,Etymologiae6.19.36.