What were cults?
To archaeologists a cult is the localised worship of a god, as in the cult of Artemis at Ephesus mentioned in the New Testament (‘Diana’ comes via the Latin translation). Finds from temples with no obvious practical use are sometimes described as being ‘cult objects’ – sounds good, means nowt. Ancient historians use the word for the ‘mystery cults’ of classical Greece which persisted into Roman times. The mystery element has survived in that many modern cults have some hidden knowledge that is not revealed to outsiders or sometimes even to ordinary members. Gnosticism, a recurring Christan heresy, followed this path, as did the Sufis of Islam. Freemasonry is an organisation that deliberately imitated this secrecy.
