after the assembly the “mystae” went to the sea-shore (ἅλαδε μύσται)
and purified themselves with sea-water, and probably
with sprinkling of pigs’ blood, a common cathartic medium.
After their return from the sea, a sacrifice of some kind was
offered as an essential condition of μύησις, but whether as a
sacrament or a gift-offering to the goddesses it is impossible to
determine. On the 19th of Boedromion the great procession
started along the sacred way bearing the “fair young god”
Iacchus; and as they visited many shrines by the way the march
must have continued long after sunset, so that the 20th is sometimes
spoken of as the day of the exodus of Iacchus. On the
way each wore a saffron band as an amulet; and the ceremonious
reviling to which the “mystai” were subjected as they crossed
the bridge of the Cephissus answered the same purpose of
averting the evil eye. Upon the arrival at Eleusis, on the same
night or on the following, they celebrated a midnight revel
under the stars with Iacchus, which Aristophanes glowingly
describes.
The question of supreme interest now arises: What was the mystic ceremony in the hall? what was said and what was done? We can distinguish two grades in the celebration; the greater was the τέλεα and ἐποπτικά, the full and satisfying celebration, to which only those were admitted who had passed the lesser stage at least a year before. As regards the actual ritual in the hall of the mystae, much remains uncertain in spite of the unwearying efforts of many generations of scholars to construct a reasonable statement out of fragments of often doubtful evidence. We are certain at least that something was acted there in a religious drama or passion-play, the revelation was partly a pageant of holy figures; the accusations against Aeschylus and Alcibiades would suffice to prove this; and Porphyry speaks of the hierophant and the δᾳδοῦχος acting divine parts. What the subject of this drama was may be gathered partly from the words of Clemen—“Deo (Demeter) and Kore became the personages of a mystic drama, and Eleusis with its δᾳδοῦχος celebrates the wandering, the abduction and the sorrow” (Protrept, p. 12 Potter), partly from Psyche’s appeal to Demeter in Apuleius (Metamorph. 6)—“by the unspoken secrets of the mystic chests, the winged chariots of thy dragon-ministers, the bridal descent of Proserpine [Persephone], the torch-lit wanderings to find thy daughter and all the other mysteries that the shrine of Attic Eleusis shrouds in secret.” We may believe then that the great myth of the mother’s sorrow, the loss and the partial recovery of her beloved was part of the Eleusinian passion-play. Did it also include a ἱερὸς γάμος? We should naturally expect that the sacred story acted in the mystic pageant would close with the scene of reconciliation, such as a holy marriage of the god and the goddess. But the evidence that this was so is mainly indirect, apart from a doubtful passage in Asterius, a writer of questionable authority in the 4th century A.D. (Econom. martyr. p. 194, Combe). At any rate, if a holy marriage formed part of the passion-play, it may well have been acted with solemnity and delicacy. We have no reason to believe that even to a modern taste any part of the ritual would appear coarse or obscene; even Clement, who brings a vague charge of obscenity against all mysteries in general, does not try to substantiate it in regard to the Eleusinia, and we hear from another Christian writer of the scrupulous purity of the hierophant.
It would be interesting to know if the birth of a holy child, a babe Iacchus, for example, was a motive of the mystic drama. The question seems at first sight to be decided by a definite statement of Hippolytus (Philosoph. 5, 8), that at a certain moment in the mysteries the hierophant cried aloud: “The lady-goddess Brimo has borne Brimos the holy child.” But a careful consideration of the context almost destroys the value of his authority. For he does not pretend to be a first-hand witness, but admits that he is drawing from Gnostic sources, and he goes on at once to speak of Attis and his self-mutilation. The formula may then refer to the Sabazian-Phrygian mystery, which the Gnostics with their usual spirit of religious syncretism would have no scruple in identifying with the Eleusinian. And the archaeological evidence that has been supposed to support the statement of Hippolytus is deceptive.
Finally, we must not suppose that there could be any very elaborate scenic arrangements in the hall for the representation of Paradise and the Inferno, whereby the rewards of the faithful and the punishments of the damned might be impressively brought home to the mystae. The excavations on the site have proved that the building was without substructures or underground passages. A large number of inscriptions present us with elaborate accounts of Eleusinian expenditure; but there is no item for scenic expenses or painting. We are led to suppose that the pageant-play produced its effect by means of gorgeous raiment, torches and stately figures.
But the mystic action included more than the pageant-play. The hierophant revealed certain holy objects to the eyes of the assembly. There is reason to suppose that these included certain primitive idols of the goddesses of immemorial sanctity; and, if we accept a statement of Hippolytus (loc. cit.) we must believe that the epoptae were also shown “that great and marvellous mystery of perfect revelation, a cut corn-stalk.” The value of this definite assertion, which appears to be an explicit revelation of the secret, would be very great, if we could trust it; but unfortunately it occurs in the same suspicious context as the Brimo-Brimos formula, and we again suspect the same uncritical confusion of Eleusinian with Phrygian ritual, for we know that Attis himself was identified in his mysteries with the “reaped corn,” the στάχυς ἄμητος, almost the very phrase used by Hippolytus. Only, it is in the highest degree probable, whether Hippolytus knew anything or not, that a corn-token was shown among the sacred things of a mystery which possessed an original agrarian significance and was intended partly to consecrate and to foster the agricultural life. But to say this is by no means the same as to admit the view of Lenormant[1] and Dr Jevons[2] that the Eleusinians worshipped the actual corn, or revered it as a clan-totem. For of direct corn-worship or of corn-totemism there is no trace either at Eleusis or elsewhere in Greece.
Among the δρώμενα or “things done” may we also include a solemn sacrament, the celebration of a holy communion, in whiéh the votary was united to the divinity by partaking of some holy food or drink? We owe to Clement of Alexandria (Protrept. p. 18, Potter) an exact transcription of the pass-word of the Eleusinian mystae; it ran as follows (if we accept Lobeck’s emendation of ἐγγευσάμενος for ἐργασάμενος): “I have fasted, I have drunk the barley-drink, I have taken [the things] from the sacred chest, having tasted thereof I have placed them into the basket and again from the basket into the chest.” We gather from this that some kind of sacrament was at least a preliminary condition of initiation; the mystae drank of the same cup as the goddess drank in her sorrow, partly—as we say—“in memory of her,” partly to unite themselves more closely with her. We know also from an inscription that the priest of the Samothracian mysteries broke sacred bread and poured out drink for the mystae (Arch. epigr. Mitth. 1882, p. 8, No. 14). But neither in these nor in the Eleusinian is there any trace of the more mystic sacramental conception, any indication that the votaries believed themselves to be partaking of the actual body of their divinity;[3] for there is no evidence that Demeter was identified with the corn, still less with the barley-meal of which the κυκεών was compounded. Nor is it likely that the sacrament was the pivot of, the whole mystery or was part of the essential act of the μύησις itself. In the first place we have an almost certain representation of the Eleusinian sacrament on an archaic vase in Naples[4] probably of Attic provenance, and the artistic reproduction of a holy act would have been impious and dangerous, if this had belonged to the inner circle of the mystery. Again, there is no mention of sacrament or sacrifice among the five essential parts of μύησις given by Theo
