a good story : part 3

 

When Paul has a night vision of a Macedonian asking him to cross over from the Troad to Macedonia and rescue the Macedonians, he and his companions sail across the Thracian Sea (the northernmost part of the Aegean Sea) spending a night on the island of Samothrace (Samothraki) (Acts 16.9-15).

It is said that the Sanctuary of the Great Gods was where Philip II of Macedon and his fourth wife, Olympias — the parents of Alexander the Great — met, and by Paul’s time it had been the Macedonian national sanctuary for several centuries. It was the centre of a mystery religion, that is, a religion with a focus on rituals that only the initiated witnessed; as such, it could be understood as an optional add-on to the expected participation in civil religion, and Samothraki’s popularity had not waned under Roman rule.

The Great Gods whose sanctuary was at Samothraki were particularly associated with protection at sea, which made them popular with sailors, travellers, adventurers, and would-be rulers alike. Unlike other mystery religions available at the time, who venerated particular days, initiation into the Samothracean mysteries was available throughout much of the year (the sailing season) and, moreover, made no distinction between men and women, adults and children, Greeks and non-Greeks. Anyone who came desiring initiation into the mysteries was welcome. Proceedings were overseen by a priestess. Initiation took place over two nights. On the first night, the first level of entry into the mysteries began with a ritual washing. Initiates received a purple headband, and a magnetised ring. At the second, optional, stage of initiation on the following night, initiates confessed their sins. Both nights concluded with a banquet.

It is inconceivable that Paul spent a night in Samothraki and did not encounter people who had sailed there to be initiated into the mystery religion.

When Paul and his companions arrive in Philippi they meet a Lydian woman, a dealer in purple (cloth; headbands?), who is open to their message, who along with her household is initiated into the Way of Jesus, and presides at a banquet that night.

The parallels are not exactly shrouded.

The story that Luke tells is that Jesus is the fulfilment of the desire — the motives — that drew Macedonians to Samothraki in search of participation in a mystery, in hope of protection at sea, in expression of a ‘national’ identity that was inclusive in embrace. And that, good though those desires were, Jesus rescues those Macedonians who will receive him from a superficial mystery and from unknowable, impersonal, and untrustworthy gods.

Nonetheless, there is much that is good about the Macedonian mystery, not least its egalitarianism and table-fellowship. Paul does not come to erase their journey so far towards knowing God in Jesus, but to see that journey come to fulfilment.

I am called to preside at the table for a community of those who follow Jesus, in the context of a society whose civil religion (sometimes called ‘British values’) is increasingly hostile to mystery or egalitarianism, in a parish named for St Nicholas, who was venerated as one who could offer protection at sea. Our parish church is, in a sense, a sanctuary for those who find themselves ‘lost at sea’ in the storms of life. There is much that is good about British society, and both the hopes and fears of her people should rightly be acknowledged and understood. The key is to chart a passage between those desires and the One in whom our desires find safe harbour (something, interestingly, that Samothraki lacked).