Cult of Herodias

The Cult of Herodias, in medieval folklore, was a coven of witches worshipping the Roman goddess Diana and the Biblical character Herodias. Fables of this cult began to spread sometime before the 10th century, were denounced by the Roman Catholic Church as superstition or diabolical deception, and had largely died out by the time of the Reformation. The stories were picked up again in the early 20th century by some groups of modern neo-pagans, who added elements not found in the original folktales.

After the emperor Constantine had promoted Christianity and after Theodosius established it as the state religion of the Roman Empire and had outlawed worship of the pagan gods, not all people became Christians. Though classical paganism had largely disappeared from the Roman Empire by the time of Justinian, stories about pagan cults persisted into the Middle Ages.

After Christianity had forbidden non-heterosexual practices and orgies formerly common among Romans, a rumour arose that a group of women in Italy had started a cult centred on the goddess Diana. This cult, according to the story, was mainly intended for women, preferably lesbian, as many considered Diana a lesbian goddess. Some versions of the tale added what seemed to be an explicitly anti-Christian character: Herodias, the Jewish queen who plotted the death of John the Baptist, who had become deified as the daughter of the virgin goddess. (Other versions of the story identify Diana's daughter not as Herodias, but as the Germanic goddess Holda.)

This strange association between the Jewish Queen Herodias and the Roman goddess is resolved in the long-standing theory, now confirmed, [cite book |last=Ginzburg |first=Carlo |authorlink=Carlo Ginzburg |year=1990 |title=Ecstasies: Deciphering the witches' sabbath |publisher=Hutchinson Radius |location=London |id=ISBN 0-09-174024-X |pages=p. 104] that the nocturnal goddess was originally "Hera-Diana" or "Herodiana", and was later conflated with "Herodias", a name that lent itself to a particularly negative Christian interpretation.

Although the Church was aware of this supposed cult for a long period, it considered it to be a popular delusion rather than anything else: in the 10th century a fragment of text called the "Canon Episcopi" (attributed to an otherwise-unknown Council of Anquira) made mention of it as "a perversion of the mind originated by Satan", and consider the fable of the flying women accompanied by Diana to be a "fantasy experienced while dreaming". By the 12th century the folktales about this cult had expanded to other places in Europe; the Catholic Church continued to consider it delusory, attributing the stories of its existence either to demonic trickery or to folk superstition.

John of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres, France, made a comment on these fables in his book "Policraticus", naming the goddess Herodias and Noctiluca, queen of the night (12th century). He mentioned the supposed participation of women and men in these meetings. He too considered the existence of this cult to be a fable at best.

Among some modern Wiccans, a similar figure is worshipped, called Aradia. This name was most likely adopted from C.G. Leland's book "Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches" (1899), which claims to be the traditional lore of a 19th century Italian society of witches. This variation on the name Herodias (or Herodiana) is probably because in Late Latin and Italian the "h" is mute (the Italian form of "Herodias" is "Erodiade") [cite journal | author=Magliocco, Sabina | title=Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend | journal=Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies, | year=2002 | volume=18 | pages= – | url=http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/pom18/aradia.html | format=dead link|date=June 2008 – ^{[http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=intitle%3AWho+Was+Aradia%3F+The+History+and+Development+of+a+Legend&as_publication=Pomegranate%3A+The+Journal+of+Pagan+Studies%2C&as_ylo=2002&as_yhi=2002&btnG=Search Scholar search]} ] . A similar figure from Romania is Doamna Zînelor, also called "Irodiada" or "Arada". [cite book |last=Ginzburg |first=Carlo |authorlink=Carlo Ginzburg |title=Ecstasies: Deciphering the witches' sabbath |year=1990 |location=London |publisher=Hutchinson Radius |id=ISBN 0-09-174024-X |pages=p. 103]

References

ee also

*Sexual orientation and Wicca
*Skyclad
*Wicca

External links

* [http://www.constitution.org/salisbury/policrat123.htm John of Salisbury's Policraticus]