Hypsistarians

Hypsistarians, i.e. worshippers of the Hypsistos (Greek: Ὕψιστος, the "Most High" God), and similar variations of the term first appear in the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat.

The term has been linked to a body of inscriptions that date from around 100 AD to around 400 AD,[1] mostly small votive offerings, but also including altars and stelae, dedicated to Theos Hypsistos, or sometimes simply Hypsistos, mainly found in Asia Minor (Cappadocia, Bithynia and Pontus) and the Black Sea coasts that are today part of Russia.

[5] It is adorned with an inscription adapting a declaration of the Apollonian oracle in Didyma,[6] describing the god as, "Self-begotten, un-taught, un-mothered, undisturbed, not permitting a name, many-named, dwelling in fire."

Another proof for the existence of the Hypsistarians is also found in the city of Oenoanda in the form of another epigraph close to the location of the shrine: the epigraph, dedicated by Chromatis, involves a vow to the Most High God and illustrates a practice of prayer at dawn, which aligns with the oracle's description and possibly suggesting a form of henotheistic worship practice.

In what is now North Macedonia, the evidence for the presence of Hypsistarians includes three inscriptions from the Valley of the River Vardar, dated to the 2nd century AD.

In Phrygia, numerous small rural altars decorated with agricultural motifs, such as ears of wheat and grapes, indicate local worship practices.

For, on the one side, they reject idols and sacrifices, but reverence fire and lights; on the other, they observe the Sabbath and petty regulations as to certain meats, but despise circumcision.

]Persius (34-62) may have had Hypsistarians in view[citation needed] when he ridiculed such hybrid religionists in Satire v, 179–84:[13] [...] at cum Herodis venere dies unctaque fenestra dispositae pinguem nebulam vomuere lucernae portantes violas rubrumque amplexa catinum cauda natat thynni, tumet alba fidelia vino, labra moves tacitus recutitaque sabbata palles.

Quare, ut ab excessu reuertar, qui solem et diem eius nobis exprobratis, agnoscite uicinitatem : non longe a Saturno et sabbatis uestris sumus!

Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity.

[citation needed] The claim that Hypsistarians continued to exist until the ninth century relies on a mistaken interpretation of Nicephorus Const., "Antirhet.

[citation needed] After describing his difficulties with mainstream religion, Goethe laments that ...I have found no confession of faith to which I could ally myself without reservation.

Now in my old age, however, I have learned of a sect, the Hypsistarians, who, hemmed in between heathens, Jews and Christians, declared that they would treasure, admire, and honour the best, the most perfect that might come to their knowledge, and inasmuch as it must have a close connection to the Godhead, pay it reverence.