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Hierophant   Listen
noun
Hierophant  n.  
1.
The presiding priest who initiated candidates at the Eleusinian mysteries; hence, One who teaches the mysteries and duties of a religion or an arcane discipline; an expositor; as, In his television series "Cosmos", Carl Sagan became the foremost hierophant of modern cosmology..
Synonyms: mystagogue.
2.
An advocate or spokesperson.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hierophant" Quotes from Famous Books



... a burning thirst for knowledge To roam to Sais, in fair Egypt's land, The priesthood's secret learning to explore, Had passed through many a grade with eager haste, And still was hurrying on with fond impatience. Scarce could the Hierophant impose a rein Upon his headlong efforts. "What avails A part without the whole?" the youth exclaimed; "Can there be here a lesser or a greater? The truth thou speak'st of, like mere earthly dross, Is't ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... cunning, the Christian services, and led his little congregation, all unknown to themselves, back toward their ancestral worship of the Corn-Goddess. At last he had thrown away all disguise, and had appeared as a hierophant of Demeter, dressed in a fawn skin, with a crown of poplar leaves, and pedantically carrying the mystic basket and the winnowing fan appropriate to these mysteries. The wheaten posset he offered the shocked communicants ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... divine call to restore the throne to the Chinese race, and to deliver the people from the curse of idolatry. In this twofold crusade he was ably seconded by one Yang, who possessed all the qualities of a successful hierophant. Shrewd and calculating, Yang was able [Page 158] at will to bring on cataleptic fits, during which his utterances passed for the words ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... will so remain to all eternity, for sooner or later he will infallibly arrive at his destined station or happiness, from which he can never fall. This doctrine of metamorphosis or evolution, attributed to the Druids and the Welsh bards, is succinctly but fully stated by its hierophant, Iolo Morganwg, in his 'Poems' (1794), ii., 195-256, and elucidated by documents which had not previously been made public, but of which none are of ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... popular religion were propounded, is a theory that has, I think, been thoroughly overturned. The exhibition of ancient statues, relics, and symbols, concealed from daily adoration (as in the Catholic festivals of this day), probably, made a main duty of the Hierophant. But in a ceremony in honour of Ceres, the blessings of agriculture, and its connexion with civilization, were also very naturally dramatized. The visit of the goddess to the Infernal Regions might form an imposing part of the spectacle: ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... accept. Those whose intentions were strictly creditable, by some malignancy of fate, possessed no influence whatever. She came to regard herself as a peculiarly unlucky girl, being ignorant of the fact that Fortune, an impish hierophant, imposes identical tests upon every candidate who aspires to the throne ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... hierophant. Herald, to your office. Torchbearer, advance with the lights. Come forward, fair novice. We will celebrate the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... Eleusinian mysteries the philosophy of the works of Nature, with the origin and progress of society, are believed to have been taught by allegoric scenery explained by the Hierophant to the initiated, which gave rise to the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin



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