Mystery Religion

Mystery Religion, any of various cults of the ancient world that were open only to the initiated. The earliest known mysteries, from at least as early as 1875 bc, are those connected with the legend of the god Osiris in Egypt. The ancient Greeks had many local mystery rites such as the Eleusinian Mysteries, which included the cult of Demeter, the goddess of harvest. Dionysus (god of wine), Cybele (goddess of nature), and Orpheus (poet and musician) were also the focus of cult rituals in ancient Greece. In the 2nd century bc, at the beginning of the Greco-Roman period, there was a revival of mystery religions, which influenced one another. Mithraism—a cult of Mithra, ancient Persian god of light and wisdom—belongs to this period.

Underlying some mystery religions was a fertility ritual, in which a deity undergoes death and resurrection, and the initiates feed on the flesh and blood to attain communion with the divine and ensure their own life beyond the grave. The influence of mystery religions on early Christianity was considerable.