Eleusis and Enlightenment : The Problem of the Mysteries in Eighteenth-Century Thought / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith.
Material type:
TextLanguage: English Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History ; 351 | Early Modern History and Modern History E-Books Online, Collection 2023Publisher: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2024Copyright date: ©2024Description: 1 online resource (252 pages) : illustrationsContent type: - text
- computer
- online resource
- 9789004692305
- The Problem of the Mysteries in Eighteenth-Century Thought
- 220.4/2 23
- BS709.4
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Preliminary Material / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Chapter 1 The Word Mystery / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Chapter 2 The Religion of the Patriarchs / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Chapter 3 Law, Agriculture, and the Afterlife / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Chapter 4 The Common Temple of the World / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Chapter 5 Christianity Revealed / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith -- Conclusion / Ferdinand Saumarez Smith.
The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the Eleusinian mysteries. By attempting to reveal Demeter's secret cult, British, French, and German thinkers and freemasons of the eighteenth century revealed more than they bargained for: the pagan origins of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife, and through the mythical gift of law and agriculture to Eleusis an alternative narrative of the origins of civilisation to that found in the Bible.
English
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