MYSTERY
MYSTERY
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man ' (He 2**). He ' endured the cross, despising shame' (12-).
Literature. — Birdwood in Bible Educator, ii. 151 ; an ex- hausti\ e article by Hanburj-, ' The Botanical Origin and Country of Myrrh' in the Pharmaceutical Journal, 19th Apr. 1873.
J. Cromarty Smith.
MYSTERY {/uLvarripcoi' from ixmrrfs ' one initiated ' ; stem /J.V03 'to close,' 'shut' (cf. Lat. matus, Eng. 'mum'). — 1. In classical Greek fivarripiov means a hidden thing, a secret ; in Biblical writers primarily a hidden or secret thing ; in the piural (usually) individual matters of revelation or superliuman knowledge (Mt 13", Lk 8io, Ro 11^, iCof IS^'). In the singular with the article to /xvaTripiov is used, principally by St. Paul, of the hidden counsel of God, especially His redemptive plan culminating in the final judgment (Ro IG^^, 1 Co 2^ EphS^-^ Col l-^'-). This counsel of God is further char- acterized as the 'mystery of his will' (Eph P) ' which he formed ' (Col 2^ [1 Co 2', text of WH]) 'respecting Christ' (Col 4^), and constitutes the contents of the gospel (Eph Q^^). It is consum- mated in the parotisia (Rev 10'). In antithesis to 'the mystery of the faith' or 'of godliness' (1 Ti 39- 1«) stands that of 'lawlessness' (2 Th 2'), the purposed impulse of an antagonistic power opera- tive in the world.
Besides this primary sense, the word fxuarripiov is also used like xn and lio in Rabbinic writers to designate the hidden or mystic sense of a Scrip- ture (Eph 5^2), a name (Rev 17*), or the image or form seen in a vision (Rev 1-" 17*).
It is important to observe that tlie connotation of intrinsic difficulty of comprehension, obscurity, which has become inseiiarable from the word in modern use, is misleading. In Biblical and in ancient u.se generallj- the ' mystery ' is simply that which is made known only to the initiated, be its content easy or hard to understand, hence revealed as against reasoned knowledge.
2. In a looser sense the term ' mysteries ' was transferred from the teaching symbolized to (a) the rites enacted in cei'tain cults or rituals known to classic authors as reXeral (\Yis 14-^), and {b), still more loosely, to the reXerai themselves. From the former sense (a) the designation of the sacraments, or even the Church service generally, as ' the mysteries ' becomes common from the 2nd cent, onward. From the latter is doubtless derived the designation of mediaeval religious dramas or panto- mimes as 'mysteries' (cf., from the same stem, ' mummery ').
3. The reXeral, loosely called 'mysteries,' are of importance to our consideration as affecting the application of the term ' mystery ' to the gospel as a whole in Mk 4". They consisted of secret rites in honour of certain divinities especially repre- sentative of the drama of life, vegetable and animal, annually failing and renewed. These divinities are always chthonic, as against the Olympian (national) divinities of the upper air; and their worship, maintained by guilds, was com- monly associated with the rites of ancestor- and hero - worship. Mystery - religion transcended all lines of mere nationality, substituting its own brotherhoods of initiates, and offered the idea of personal deliverance and immortality as the goal ; as the means, it offered sacramental (instead of sacrificial) union witii a Redeemer-god (debs aurrjp), who, in contrast with the Olympian divinities, par- ticipated in the suffering and death of humanity, and won for men victory over their spiritual foes. Its strong monotheistic tendency, added to these other traits, gave it an obvious resemblance to the gospel as preached to the Gentile world, and made it a much more formidable rival than the various religionized forms of Greek and Oriental philo.sophy, in bidding for the adhei'ence of popular faith in
the Empire, after the dissolution of the national religions. Cliristianity itself, in the transition from a national to a universal religion, necessarily passed through some of the same phases as the mysterj'-cults ; for these had already connected themselves in a syncretizing spirit with the myth- ology of every people. Their influence is most apparent, as we should expect, in the development of the Pauline Cliurch, supremely in the ultra- Pauline or Gnostic. Tlie resemblances were in fact so striking alike in dogma, terminology, and ritual, as to lead early apologists to account for them by the theory of diabolic travesty (Justin M. A2}oI. i. 66, Dial. Ixx.). Some modern students of the history of religion find it impossible to deny a relation of dependence on the side of the Church, especially in the Pauline and post-Pauline period. [For an able presentation of the view that it is impossible to establish any direct relation during the Pauline or early post-Pauline period, see Anrich, Das antikc Mystcrienivesen']. This ap- pears not only from terminology, but even from the Pauline doctrine and ritual, in particular as regards the theory of the sacraments. In the Go.spels this influence is scarcely traceable outside the Fourth, wherein the type of the Spa/ia ixvcttlkov and the sacramental interest are very apparent (Harnack, Mission und Ausbrcitiing, pp. 169-173 — John and Origen the profoundest mysteriosophists of the Church) ; but in the single passage Mk 4" = Mt 13" = Lk 8'" even the Synoptic writers must be admitted to have been affected through St. Paul both as to phraseology and as to thought.