Smyrnaeus, nor in the imaginary narrative of the late rhetorician
Sopatros,[1] who supposes the strange case of a man being initiated
by the goddesses in a dream: they admit him to their full
communion merely by telling him something and showing him
something.
Besides the δρώμενα, then, there were also certain things said in the hall, or in the earlier stages of initiation, which we would gladly discover. Part of these were mystic formulae, one of which has been discussed already, the pass-word of the votaries. We gather also from Proclus and Hippolytus[2] that in the Eleusinian rites they gazed up to heaven and cried aloud “rain”—ὕε—and gazed down upon the earth and cried “conceive”—κύε. This ritual charm—we cannot call it prayer-descends from the old agrarian magic which underlay the primitive mystery. What else the votaries may have uttered, whether by way of thanksgiving or solemn litany, we do not know.[3] But there was also a certain ἱερός λόγος, some exposition accompanying the unfolding of the mysteries; for it was part of the prestige of the hierophant that he was chief spokesman, “who poured forth winning utterance and whose voice the catechumen ardently desired to hear” (Anth. Pal., app. 246); and Galen speaks of the rapt attention paid by the initiated “to the things done and said in the Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries” (De usu part. 7. 14). But we have no trustworthy evidence as to the real content of the λόγος of the hierophant. We need not believe that the whole of his discourse was taken up with corn-symbolism, as Varro seems to imply (Aug. De civit. Dei. 20), or that he taught natural philosophy rather than theology, or again, the special doctrine of Euhemerus, as two passages in Cicero (De natur. deor. i. 42; Tusc. i. 13) might prompt us to suppose. His chief theme was probably an exposition of the meaning and value of the ἱερά, as in an Australian initiation rite it is the privilege of the elders to explain the nature of the “churinga” to the youths. And his discourse on these may have been coloured to some extent by the theories current in the philosophic speculation of the day. But though in the time of Julian he appears to have been a philosopher of Neo-platonic tendencies, we ought not to suppose that the hierophant as a rule would be able or inclined to rise above the anthropomorphic religion of the times. Whatever symbolism attached to the ἱερά, the sacred objects shown, was probably simple and natural; for instance, in the Eleusinian, as in Egyptian eschatology, the token of the growing corn may have served as an emblem—though not a proof—of man's resurrection. The doctrine of the continuance of the soul after death was already accepted by the popular belief, and the hierophant had no need to preach it as a dogma; the votaries came to Eleusis to ensure themselves a happy immortality. And in our earliest record, the Homeric hymn. we find that the mysteries already hold out this higher promise. How, we may ask, were the votaries assured? M. Foucart in Les grands mystéres d’Eleusis has maintained that the object of the mysteries was much the same as that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead; to provide the mystae with elaborate rules for avoiding the dangers that beset the road to the other world, and for attaining at last to the happy regions; that for this purpose the hierophant recited magic formulae whereby the soul could repel the demons that it might encounter on the path; and that it was to seek this deliverance from the terrors of hell that all Greece flocked to Eleusis. This is in accord with his whole “egyptizing” theory concerning the Eleusinia, a theory which, though Egyptian influence cannot a priori be ruled out, is not found in harmony with the facts of the two religious systems. And the particular hypothesis just stated is altogether wanting in direct evidence, or—we may say—in vraisemblance. There is no hint or allusion to be found in the ancient sources suggesting that the recital of magic formulae was part of the ceremony. The λόγος, whatever it was, was comparatively unimportant. And the Greek public in general, in its vigorous period when the Eleusinian religion reached its zenith, was not tormented, as modern Europe has at times been, by ghostly terrors of judgment.
The assurance of the hope of the Eleusinian votary was obtained by the feeling of friendship and mystic sympathy, established by mystic contact, with the mother and the daughter, the powers of life after death. Those who won their friendship by initiation in this life would by the simple logic of faith regard themselves as certain to win blessing at their hands in the next.
It is obvious that the mysteries made no direct appeal to the intellect, nor on the other hand revolted it by any oppressive dogmatism. As regards their psychic effect, we have Aristotle's invaluable judgment: “The initiated do not learn anything so much as feel certain emotions and are put into a certain frame of mind” (Synes. Dion. p. 48a). The appeal was to the eye and to the imagination through a form of religious mesmerism working by means that were solemn, stately and beautiful. To understand the quality and the intensity of the impression produced, we should borrow something from the modern experiences of Christian communion-service, mass, and passion-play, and bear in mind also the extraordinary susceptibility of the Greek mind to an artistically impressive pageant.
That the Eleusinia preached a higher morality than that of the current standard is not proved. That they exercised a direct and elevating influence on the individual character is nowhere explicitly maintained, as Diodorus (v. 49) maintains concerning the Samothracian. But on general grounds it is reasonable to believe that such powerful religious experience as they afforded would produce moral fruit in many minds. The genial Aristophanes (Frogs, 455) intimates as much, and Andocides (De myster. p. 36, § 31; p. 44, § 125) assumes that those who had been initiated would take a juster and sterner view of moral innocence and guilt, and that foul conduct was a greater sin when committed by a man who was in the official service of the mother and the daughter.
Besides the greater mysteries at Eleusis, we hear of the lesser mysteries of Agrae on the banks of the Ilissos. Established, perhaps, originally by Athens herself at a time when Eleusis was independent and closed her rites to strangers, they became wholly subordinated to the greater, and were put under the same management and served merely as a necessary preliminary to the higher initiation into them. Sacrifice was offered to the same great goddesses at both; but we have the authority of Duris (Athenae, 253d), the Samian historian, and the evidence of an Attic painting, called the pinax of Nannion,[4] that the predominant goddess in the mysteries at Agrae was Kore. And this agrees with the time of their celebration, in the middle of Anthesterion, when Kore was supposed to return in the young corn. Stephanus (s.v. Ἄγρα), drawing from an unknown source, declares that the Dionysiac story was the theme of their mystic drama. Hence theorists have supposed that their content was wholly Orphic or that their central motive was the marriage of Dionysus and Kore. The theory has no archaeological or literary support except the passage in Stephanus, nor have we reason for believing that the marriage of these two divinities was recognized in Attic state ritual. The influence of Eleusis in early times must have been great, for we find offshoots of its cult, whether mystic or not, in other parts of Greece. In Boeotia, Laconia, Arcadia, Crete and Thera, Demeter brought with her the title of “Eleusinia”; and no other explanation is so probable as the obvious one that this name designates “the goddess of Eleusis,” and though there may have been other places called “Eleusis,” the only famous religious centre was the Attic. The initiation rites of Demeter at Celeae near Phlius, at Lerna in Argolis, and at Naples, were organized after the pattern of the Eleusinian. But of these and the other Demeter mysteries in the Greek world,
- ↑ Rhet. graec. viii. 121.
- ↑ In Tim. 293c; Ref. Omn. Haer. 5, 7, p. 146.
- ↑ The other formula which the scholiast on Plato (Gorg. 497 c.) assigns to the Eleusinian rite: “I have eaten from the timbrel, have drunk from the cymbal, I have carried the sacred vessel, have crept under the bridal-chamber,” belongs, not to Eleusis, but, as Clement and Firmicus Maternus themselves attest, to Phrygia and to Attis.
- ↑ Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. iii. p. 242, pl. xvi.
