CREUZER, FRIEDRICH. — Philologist, born at Marburg on 10 March 1771, died on 16 February 1858 at Heidelberg, where for more than 40 years he taught philology and ancient history. In his interpretation of ancient religions, particularly the Greek, he followed the symbolic 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 considérées principalement dans leurs formes symboliques et mythologiques* (10 vols., Paris 1825–51). It maintains that the ancient and simple religiosity of the Greeks, a monotheism tending toward a naturalistic pantheism, through a theological and moral initiation deriving from the Asian priesthood, was raised to a profoundly spiritual meaning that is found in the teaching of the mysteries. This teaching, which employed symbolic representations, concerned cosmogony, the soul and its migrations and purifications, the existence of a single God, the destiny of the universe and of man. Greek artists and poets stopped at the symbolic envelope under which this kernel of profound truths was concealed, the final echo of which resounds in Neoplatonic philosophy (Creuzer was a diligent student, editor, and commentator of Plotinus).
This thesis, now completely abandoned, was immediately contested 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 emphasized its historical origins linked to race, geographical environment, and the historical development of Greece.