Mystery Religions and Foreign Cults
The Household in the Ancient World
adaptation for the use of groups which extended beyond the traditional family boundaries. Samuel Dill suggests that no other age "felt such a craving for some form of social life wider than the family and narrower than the state."53 In the rest of this chapter we shall discuss the role of the household and its members in particular types of ancient groups. We shall interest ourselves particularly in the role of the household and patronage in four broad areas: the mystery religions and foreign cults, the philosophical schools, the Graeco-Roman associations, and the Jewish synagogue. This will provide a more general context for our discussion of the early Christian movement and show what kind of social expectations were present when a group met in an individual's house, or when a group drew sustenance from its wealthier members.
Mystery Religions and Foreign Cults Reciting the history of a plague which swept down upon Rome in 430-427
B.C., Livy states that not only bodies were infected with disease, but the minds of Romans, too, were polluted by a horde of foreign superstitions as a result of the intrusion of a certain class of (unspecified) individuals who "introduced strange rites into their homes." In response, the leading citizens rose up and reasserted the practice of the traditional household cult.54 This was a theme to which the Roman historian was to return; on the eve of Hannibal's invasion the Romans awoke to find themselves again infested with superstitious practices so that "within the walls of houses were Roman rites abandoned."55 Two centuries later Cicero was to echo Plato in his condemnation of the worship of private gods.56 All in vain; one of Augustus' achievements during his war against Antony was the expulsion of Egyptian deities — first from Roman households, later one mile from the official city boundaries.57 From the start, foreign cults won adherents through household channels.58
It is a commonplace to see mystery religions and foreign cults described as mission religions.59 How were adherents won? Plato describes one way. In Republic, Book II (364C) he describes two mythical Orphic mendicant priests,
Musaeus and his son Eumolpus, who knock on the doors of rich men and make available heavenly powers and an initiation for the price of a dinner.60 The practice was evidently still popular among various groups half a millennium later;
Origen describes a sect of Ophites who enter the houses of unsuspecting females and propagate their ideas.61
But this was not the only way. There is also evidence of patrons establishing conventicles in their own homes and inviting others to participate. A fourth to fifth century A.D. manuscript instructs an Orphic to prepare as he is able a private room for the introduction of the god.62 We know of three villas in Italy with wall murals from the cycle of Dionysian mysteries and rites, perhaps suggesting that the cult met in private homes of well-off property owners. 3 How such domestic cults may have been organized can be adduced from an inscription from Torre Nova near ancient Rome which contains a long list of members of a Dionysiac cult who erected a statue to the priestess Pompeia Agrippinilla. Originally from Lesbos, this woman brought the cult with her to Italy after she married a man who was proconsul in Asia Minor in A.D. 150.64 The list of members describes the dependants and clients of Agrippinilla's great
The Social Setting of the Ministry household — her husband, children, relatives, clientela, servants, and slaves. Thus we see the hierarchical order of the household maintained in the cult.
Mystery cults showed an affinity to the household community when they tended toward association on a family basis or met in secret. O f the 53 excavated mithraea, only ten appear to be specially constructed buildings. The rest are backroom or subterranean chambers in pre-existing private houses or public buildings.65 Laechuli coined the term "mithraic house church" to describe the small single-room mithraea of private houses.66 Scholars note that the establishment of a mithraeum depended upon the leadership and beneficence of wealthier individuals who were attracted to the cult.67 This is evidenced by the household mithraea of Callinicus, the "Mithraeum of the Painted Walls," both at Ostia,68 and the Dura Mithraeum,69 all dating from the second century. In the first case Callinicus invited his confrères into his home; in the second, evidence of architectural modifications to segregate the mithraeum from the rest of the private house may be interpreted as evidence of a host establishing a house conventicle, but attempting to protect his privacy. The Durene evidence is more ambiguous. This mithraeum was originally established in one room of a private house — possibly that of one of its Roman military founders — although it is also possible that an already existing house was purchased to establish a meeting place. Perhaps most significant is the evidence that the wealthier hosts and patrons, as a result of their beneficence, were given positions of leadership and titles betokening a high rank within the cult. The titles pater, pater patrum, pater sacrorum, and sacerdos were commonly ascribed to benefactors, and Vermaseren has suggested that the term pater was equated with patron, i.e. one who owned or donated the cult's property.70
The Sarapis cult took place in a more open setting, as is indicated by the spacious temple complexes which have been unearthed. But the private household also served as a setting for its religious practices. This may be adduced from evidence of common meals, where meat was sacrificed to the god, or sacrificial food was eaten.71 Invitations sent to members in the name of the god indicate that members of the cult believed Sarapis himself was both guest and host at the meal.72 Where there were no existing temples, all cult activities probably took place in households. In fact, we are able to trace the development of a Sarapis cult at Delos, from its foundations in a local household in 200 to 180 B.C. to the construction of a Sarapeum and temple complex on the site of the original house.73 The inscription recounts the importation of the Sarapis cult to Delos by one Apollonios (I), a hellenized Egyptian priest, who brought a statue of the god from Memphis in the mid-third century B.C. and established the cult in the rented quarters where he resided. His son Demetrius succeeded him as priest and continued to host the cult in his home. Later, when the number of adherents increased and the cult became more prosperous, his grandson, Apollonios (II) built a temple complex — its dining hall retaining its original position at the site of Apollonios Γ s residence. Here is a clear example of a priest acting as both patron and missionary of a cult.74
Less well-known cults spread in similar ways. A private cult in Philadelphia in Lydia (100 B.C.), dedicated to the Attic goddess Agdistis, probably consisted of the members of a well-to-do household.75 The goddess Agdistis, the "mis-