CREUZER, FRIEDRICH. — Philologist, born in Marburg on 10 March 1771, died on 16 February 1858 in Heidelberg, where for more than 40 years he taught philology and ancient history. In his interpretation of ancient religions, particularly the Greek religion, he followed the symbolist school.
His thesis is set forth in the work Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, (2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig 1810–12; 4th ed., ibid. 1836–46), translated, with adaptations, into French by Guignaut as Religions de l'Antiquité considérée principalement dans leurs formes symboliques et mythologiques, (10 vols., Paris 1825–51). It maintains that the ancient and simple primitive religiosity of the Greeks, a monotheism tending toward naturalistic pantheism, through a theological and moral initiation originating in the Asian priesthood, rose to a profoundly spiritual significance found in the teaching of the mysteries. This teaching, which made use of symbolic representations, concerned cosmogony, the soul and its migrations and purifications, the existence of one God, and the destiny of the universe and of man. The artists and poets of Greece stopped at the symbolic shell beneath which this core of profound truths was concealed, whose ultimate echo vibrates in Neoplatonic philosophy (C. was a diligent student, editor, and commentator of Plotinus).
This thesis, now completely abandoned, was immediately opposed by Ch. A. Lobeck, who dismantled its philosophical-mystical framework, and by Ch. O. Müller, who denied the influence of Asian priestly thought on Greek mythology and highlighted its historical origins, connected with race, geographical environment, and the historical development of Greece.