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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2011
Facing as I do the great and difficult task of writing the second part of my History of Greek Religion, I should like beforehand to state some of the main problems and to bring out some dominant ideas. The subject is so vast that I can offer but a subjective selection; yet let me remark that my standpoint is not that of syncretism as a whole but that of Greek religion, which seems to me to be a factor of syncretism at times neglected.
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10 Cumont, F., Textes et monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, 1896–99Google Scholar; Les mystères de Mithra, 1 ed., 1899; Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 1 ed., 1906, the fourth enlarged, 1929; Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, 1912; After Life in Roman Paganism, 1922; La théologie solaire du paganisme romain, 1909; and Bidez, J., Les mages hellénisés, 1938Google Scholar; Recherches dans le symbolisme funeraire des Romains, 1941, etc., etc.
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17 Schneider, C., “Die griechischen Grundlagen der hellenistischen Religionsgeschichte,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXXVI, 1939, p. 300 ffGoogle Scholar.
18 Schubart, W., Die religiöse Haltung des frühen Hellenismus, Die alte Orient, 35:2, 1939Google Scholar.
19 Kaerst, J., Geschichte des hellenistbchen Zeitalters, II, 1, 1909, p. 202 ffGoogle Scholar.
20 Nilsson, Martin P., Homer and Mycenae, 1933, p. 266 ffGoogle Scholar.
21 That the Greeks knew it themselves is proved by the words with which the Ephesians declined the proposal of Alexander the Great to dedicate the temple of Artemis: ὡς οὐ πρέποι θεῷ θεοῖς ἀναθήματα κατασκευάζειν, Strabo, xiv, p. 641.
22 Apuleius, Florida, I fr., 2; Fronto, Epistulae ad Verum, II, 6; Arnobius, Adv. nationes, I, 39, etc., etc.
23 Nilsson, Martin P., “The Origin of Belief Among the Greeks in the Divinity of the Heavenly Bodies,” Harvard Theological Review, XXXIII, 1940, p. 1 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 F. Cumont, La théologie solaire, etc.
25 Nilsson, Martin P., “Sonnenkalender und Sonnenreligion,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, XXX, 1933, p. 141 ffGoogle Scholar.
26 I refer e.g. to the inscriptions of the Athenian epheboi and the fasti of the gymnasium in Cos, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, 3 ed., No. 1028.
27 This is very conspicuous in the numerous sacral ordinances preserved in inscriptions of the Hellenistic age, e.g. concerning the mysteries of Andania and the oracle of Apollo at Corope, Sylloge, 735 and 1157 resp.
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29 The first example of this significance of the word occurs in Codex Theodosianus, xvi, 2, 18 of 370 A.D. [For another view of its origin, cf. H. J. Rose, Gnomon, X, 1934, p. 55.]
30 E. Lucius, Anfänge des Heiligenkultes, p. 10 ff.
31 Röhr, J., Der okkulte Kraftbegriff im Altertum, Philologus, Suppl. xvii: 1, 1923Google Scholar.
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33 Minucius Felix, Octavius, 5.
34 Anthologia Palatina, xiv, 71; cf. inscriptions e.g. from the temple of Zeus Cynthius on Delos, Inscriptions de Délos No. 2529.
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37 Dieterieh, Nekyia; see note 7.
38 Cumont, After Life, etc., p. 91 ff.
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41 E. Briem, Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung der hellenistischen Mysterien, Lunds universitets Arsskrift, N. F. avd. 1, vol. 24, no. 5.
42 It is noteworthy that the priest of Eumolpos has the Persian name Bagoas, F. Preisigke, Sammelbuch ägyptischer Urkunden, Nos. 378 and 5065.
43 Amtlicher Bericht aus den Kön. Kunstsammlungen, xxxviii, 1916–17, p. 191 ff.; Reitzenstein in Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xix, 1916, p. 191 ff. [On this text, cf. S. Eitrem, Symbolae Osloenses, xvii, 1937, p. 33 ff.]
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45 Berliner Klassikertexte, v: 1, 1907, No. 2; O. Kern, Fragmenta Orphicorum, No. 49.
46 Reitzenstein, Poimandres, favors the latter, Kroll, J., Die Lehren des Hermes Trismegistos, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, xii, 1914Google Scholar, the former view.
47 Bousset, W., Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 1907Google Scholar; de Faye, E., Gnostique et gnosticism, 1925Google Scholar, etc.
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50 Journal of Roman Studies, xxx, 1940, p. 191.
