Sabazius, Mysteries of

SABAZIUS, Mysteries of. - A Thraco-Phrygian god, a hypostasis of Dionysus (Diodorus Siculus, IV, 4, 1), whose cult, having begun in Greece in the 5th century, was widely diffused, especially toward the end of paganism, in Asia Minor and in the Roman world.

A first testimony concerning his mysteries is found in Demosthenes (De corona, 259 ff.). In them the serpent, symbol of the god, had great importance; the initiates let it be uncoiled through their breast: ὁ διὰ κύλιτου θεός (Clement of Alexandria, Protr., II, 13, 5), down to the sexual parts: inferioribus partibus atque iniis (Arnobius, Adv. nat. V, 21); an ancient rite of adoption or of new birth for the initiates. Perhaps St. Ambrose alludes to these mysteries (De virg., I, ch. 4, n. 16): « Quid de sacris Phrygiis loquar, in quibus impudicitia disciplina est... Quid de orgiis Liberi ubi religionis mysterium est incentivum libidinis ? ».

The mystery ritual of S. is connected in the first place with that of the Magna Mater and of Attis and then with the Orphic one. In the Hellenistic age, a clear example of syncretism, S. comes to be identified with Zeus «ὕριστος» or « most high », and then, through the close monotheistic Jewish influences, with the κύριος Σαβασάδ of the Hebrews, from which some objects of the cult derive, such as the lamps (CIG, III, add. 4380, n. 2), etc. From the same ritual perhaps derive the numerous votive hands which, in the gesture of the latina benedictio, previously already in use in the mysteries of Thracian Bacchus, bear a statuette of the god blessing and protecting his faithful. The first mention of the cult of Jupiter S. in Ostia is found in an epigraph, found in a building having the same characteristics as the mithraea (Vaglieri, in Notizie scavi, 1909, p. 22). Jupiter S. also had a shrine on the Capitoline on the side of the Aracoeli (CIL, VI, 30948-49). In the mysteries of S. the need for an otherworldly life was strongly felt, with the judgment of the soul and its inductio by means of an angelus bonus to a banquet presided over by the blessed, participation in which would have given the right to eternal joys.

A conspicuous example of this conception is the cycle of wall paintings, dating to the 3rd-4th century A.D., which a certain « Vincentius », numinis antistes Sabazi, had made in a hypogeum in honor of his wife Vibia (the inscription in Dessau, 1361). The hypogeum is located near the cemetery of Praetextatus and for a long time was held to be Christian, but it is more probable that such proximity is justified by the fact that the use of burial was imitated also by the pagans of the 3rd century A.D. after the system of cremation fell into disuse.

Lanfranco Fiore