mystagogue

English

Alternative forms

• mystagog, mystagogus

Etymology

From Latin mystagōgus, Ancient Greek μυσταγωγός (mustagōgós). By surface analysis, mystic +‎ -agogue.

Noun

mystagogue (plural mystagogues)

1. A person who prepares an initiate for entry into a mystery cult, or who teaches mystical doctrines.

   Synonym: hierophant

   • 1820, [Walter Scott], The Abbot. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC:

     There is an overruling destiny above us, though not in the sense in which it was viewed by that wretched man, who, beguiled by some foreign mystagogue, used the awful word as the ready apology for whatever he chose to do—we must examine the packet.

   • 1838, Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio: Addressed to the Author, page 162:

     Philosophers themselves, the mystagogues in the temple of decorum, must approach it with reverence, and after all are allowed only to turn it aside a very little.

   • 1874, Charles Kingsley, Health and Education‎^[1]:

     It is simply common sense, combined with uncommon courage, which includes uncommon honesty and uncommon patience; and if you will be brave, honest, patient, and rational, you will need no mystagogues to tell you what in science to believe and what not to believe; for you will be just as good judges of scientific facts and theories as those who assume the right of guiding your convictions.

   • 1878, John Addington Symonds, Percy Bysshe Shelley‎^[2]:

     Yet again the thought of Death as the deliverer, the revealer, and the mystagogue, through whom the soul of man is reunited to the spirit of the universe, returns; and on this solemn note the poem closes.

2. One who keeps and shows church relics.

Related terms

• mystagogic
• mystagogical

Translations

person who prepares an initiate

• Dutch: mystagoog m
• French: mystagogue (fr) m
• German: Mystagoge (de) m
• Latin: mystagōgus m

Further reading

• mystagogue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “mystagogue”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

French

Noun

mystagogue m or f by sense (plural mystagogues)

1. mystagogue

Further reading

• “mystagogue”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.