THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
status of the traditional liturgical forms. In fact, the mystagogical theory often affords the possibility of ascertaining what is old and what is new material. Especially are the many quotations from prayers, lections, etc., of value for critically collating the manifold liturgical texts.
The most renowned mystagogues of the Middle
Ages were the two metropolitans of Thessalonica,
Nikolaos Kabasilas (q.v.) and Sim-
5. Later eon (q.v.). The former is the more Eastern and ingenious, being comparable for acumen
Western to Theodore of Andida, whose mode of
Treatises, contemplation he specifically continued, particularly the thought that the liturgy visibly presents the entire incarnation of the Logos. But it were leading us too far afield to examine his work in detail. His " Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy " is found in MPG, cl. 368 sqq. Simeon is of much slighter compass; for him the external is everywhere the most engaging, the separate pieces of clerical vestments, their form, color, etc. The line of " Dionysius the Areopagite," Maximus Confessor, Theodore of Andida, Nicholas Kabasilas, is the line par excellence, that of the real thinkers; the second rank, to which Simeon belongs, is that of the dilettanti. Howbeit, Simeon suited the taste of his time, and owes it to this circumstance that he came to be the most popular mystagogue, the one whose name continues thoroughly current. In the form of a dialogue he discussed both dogmas and rites, besides composing tracts of a mystagogical nature (cf. MPG, civ. 61- 536). In his case, the drama of the liturgy comes to be a mere spectacular exhibition, " performed," in a sense, by puppets. The more modern era has also produced its mystagogues. In the second half of the sixteenth century flourished Johannes Nathanael (in Venice and Constantinople); later, Nicholas Bulgaris (close of the seventeenth century; not to be confused with Eugenius Bulgaris, q.v.), though he published simply what his brother Christodulos (a priest on the island of Corfu) had written. But the Russian literature is more important in this direction than the modern Greek. Among works that have become very well known may be mentioned the " Letters on the Divine Offices of the Eastern Church " by Ludovicus of Muralt (1838) ; the " Elucidation of the Divine Offices of the Eastern Church in the Light of their Symbolical Meaning," by Philaretus (archbishop of Tchernigov, in his " History of the Church of Russia "; Germ, transl. by Blumenthal, i. 369 sqq., Frankfort, 1872); the " Meditations on the Divine Liturgy," by the illustrious poet Gogol (Germ, transl. in A. V Maltzew, Liturgikon, Berlin, 1902). An inexhaustible wealth of imagination has been educed among the Russians by the liturgy, and the entire round of the Church solemnities. In the Western Church certain attempts are not wanting in the way of construing ceremonial worship in a mystagogical or symbolic sense. Only in the West this matter is hardly taken so seriously as in the East. There is much freer play in the East in this connection than in the West, where the great mystagogues are but paired with the great dogmatists.
F. Kattenbusch.
Bibliography: Besides the literature under the special articles in this work on the individuals named in the text, consult: W. Gass, Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas, pp. 155 sqq., Greifswald, 1849; idem, Symbolik der griechischen Kirche, pp. 298 sqq., Berlin, 1872; Steitz, in Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche Theologie, vols, ix.-xiii (1864-68);
E. Le Grand, Bibliographie hellenique, Paris, 1885 sqq.;
F. Kattenbusch, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Konfessionskunde, i. 335 sqq., 350 sqq., 393 sqq., 491 sqq., Freiburg, 1892; F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, pp. xciii.-xcv., London, 1896; P Meyer, Die theologisehe Litteratur der griechischen Kirche, Leipsic, 1899; Drews, in TSK, lxxiii (1900), 480-488; Krumbacher, Geschichte, consult index under the names of the individuals named in the text.
MYSTERIES, TRIBAL. See Tribal Mysteeies; and Comparative Religion, VI., 1, b, § 5.