Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/139

MYSTERIES 127 The Aeyo/neva were obscurely -worded phrases and tradi tional songs, whose sanctity was due to their antiquity. They had no didactic character, and were hardly intelligible without preparatory instruction. They were chanted by the hierophant, and that a fine voice was one of the requisites for this office several epigrams and inscriptions bear witness. The mythic ancestor of the family, in whom are embodied the requirements for the office, was called Eumolpus. The 8pwfj.fva appear to have been a dramatic representa tion of the life of the deities by whom the Mysteries had been instituted. These deities were presented on the stage in appropriate dresses, the parts being played by the minis ters of the cultus. At Andania this is known to have been the case, 1 and Porphyry enumerates the parts played by the chief officials of Eleusis at one point in the mystic drama. 2 It is also certain that figures, probably of great size, were introduced by machinery. The terms <f>do-fj.aTa ciyia, euSou- yuova, $eia, apprjra, are applied to the mystic sights. 3 The Homeric Hymn to Demeter is a religious, not an historical myth. It does not relate the origin of agricul ture, for the gift with which the goddess rewards her Eleusinian hosts is not the art of agriculture but the knowledge of the Mysteries (1. 273, 474). It springs directly from the cultus of Eleusis, and contains the lepos Adyos, the fortunes of the two goddesses, mother and daughter, the periodical representation of which formed the basis of the ritual. It is, of course, not a complete description of the ritual ; it is an exoteric and poetic statement, in which the most holy of the rites and the most mysterious of the personages are alluded to only in an indirect way. The express statement of Clement, 4 that the whole myth of Cora was represented at Eleusis, con firms the inference drawn from the Hymn. Many writers 5 refer to the appearance presented by the shores and bay of Eleusis on the dies lampadum, when the worshippers wandered in the darkness with torches searching for the lost Cora. This ceremony took place in the open country, and was therefore not a part of the mystic ritual revealed to the [j.vo-Tai in the TeAeoT?//oiov. It probably took place on Boedromion 21, on the night before the mystic rites proper began. The /J.VO-TO.L waited outside the sacred en closure in perfect darkness on the moonless eve of Boedro mion 22. Suddenly the -n-poirvXaia were thrown open, and the light was seen streaming through the oVouov in the roof of the TeXeo-rr/piov and through the open door in which stood the SaSo^xos holding up the sacred torches. This scene is frequently alluded to. 6 The scenes inside the reAeo-n/piov are mentioned less frequently, 7 but the few references point to episodes in the myth of Demeter and Cora. The hymn refers in guarded terms to the TrapacWis TO>V tepwv, the central act of the mystic ritual. Clement enumerates the simple objects that were displayed, and gives the formula in which each /xt cm/s replied as he received from the hierophant the holy objects : "I have fasted, and I have drunk the KVKCWV ; I have taken from 1 See 1. 24, 6Va 5 dec Siacr/cevd^ecrflcu as Oeuv 5ia.6ecnv, with Sauppe s and Foucart s commentaries. 2 Ap. Euseb., Praep. Evang., iii. 12, p. 117. 3 Themist. , Or., xvi. p. 244, rty eip-rjvrjv elffTJyev &o"irep ev reXeriJ df/o<priTi KO.I airpa.yfj.ov us ; Stob., Serm., cxix. p. 604 ; Aristid., Or., xix. 416, &c. 4 Cl. Alex., Protrept., ii. p. 12. 5 Tbemist., Or., xx. p. 235 (p. 288, ed. Bind.); Lobeck, p. 52; Clandian, De Rapt. Proserp., 1. 5-15 ; Lucian, Catapl., 22 ; Plut. ap. Stob., Serm., cxix. p. 604, and Pint., Prof. Virt. Sent., i. p. 312 (ed. Wytt). 6 Ar., Ran., 340-52 ; Soph., (Ed. Col, 1045 ; Eur., Ion, 1075 sq. ; yEsch., Fragm., quoted by schol. on Soph., I.e., &c. 7 Procl. on Plat., Polit., p. 384, CIVTTJS TT?S fj.eyi<rTr)5 6 fas iepovs rivets ev aTroppTjTots 6pr)vovs al reXercu wapadidovcn ; Apollod. ap. schol. Theocr. , ii. 36, A0r}vr)(n TOV lepofpdvTiijv T?}S Tprjs TriKaov/ji(V r]s fjriKpotifiv TO Kao6fj.evov ri xelov ; Hecate appeared on the stage (Hymn, 1. 52) ; Claud., Rapt. Pros., 15 ; Helios and Hermes (Hymn, }. 74, 346) both appeared on the stage, see note 2 above. the Kta-rrj ; after tasting I have deposited in the KaAa#os, and from the KaAatfos in the /ao-n;." 8 In these words he professed that he had fulfilled the sacred duties. This whole myth bears most evidently the character of having been acted continuously at one time. It could not have been divided without losing its power over the atten tion and emotions of the fuWcu. But it seems almost certain that there were two nights of mystic ceremonial, 22 and 23 Boedromion. 9 It is probable, therefore, that another play with a distinct subject was acted on one of these nights, and as the play just described is certainly the original and central point in the Eleusinian ritual it was probably acted on the first night. Again, it is certain that there was a distinction between /ruo-rcu and eVoTrrcu at Eleusis. As the yuwrcu were not admitted to witness the ritual of eVoi/ is, it is highly probable that the second night was devoted to the higher ceremonial. It would be exceedingly difficult to effect a change in the middle of the night from the p^o-i? to the eVoi/ is, and the good order and regularity for which the Eleusinia were famed could hardly have been maintained. The Hymn refers in covert terms to the holy child lacchus, to his death and resurrection (262-4). There seems no place for lacchus in the ritual as yet described. It is therefore a plausible conjecture that the eVoi^is was devoted more especially to the mystic child ; and further examination will make this conjecture almost a certainty. The development of the Eleusinian religion is a matter of speculation, but cannot be wholly passed over. Several elements must be distinguished. 1. Demeter always represents the productive and nourishing power of the earth. () In the simplest form of her cultus the act by which the earth-goddess is fertilized is conceived as an out rage and a deed of violence. The goddess, enraged, hides herself in a cave ; winter and death reign in the world. At last she is appeased ; she bathes in the sacred stream ; her child is born, and the life of spring blooms on the earth. This cultus is most dis tinctly seen in Arcadia, (b) The worship of Demeter Thesmophorus is the religion of a more educated race ; the goddess is the giver of all law, especially of the law of marriage, on which all society is founded. The worship of Demeter Thesmophorus is restricted more or less completely to women. It appears to have been the national religion of the Cadmeones, and the house of Cadmus at Thebes was the first temple of the goddess ; but it spread early into Attica. The Argolic Demeter is very similar, but her cultus has been affected by Eleusinian influence. The Thesmophoric rites are so obscure that no sure idea can be gained of the relation between them and the simpler Arcadian cultus. The anger of Demeter Achea or Achaia formed part of them, and the ritual has, as A. Mommsen observes, 10 an Oriental character of vehement mourning ; but we know not how the wrath of the goddess was kindled and allayed, how the alternation of winter and summer was conceived, (c) Eleusis was apparently the original scat of a modified form of this cultus, in which Demeter was associated with Cora. The modification per haps arose through the fusion of the religions of two races which united in the fertile Eleusinian plain. 2. The marriage of Cora is a form of the widespread idea that the marriage of the god and goddess each spring is the pledge and cause of the fertility of earth. The "holy marriage" was cele brated in Samos, Argos, &c. , with the rites of an earthly marriage, and vestiges of the primitive custom of marriage by capture can be traced in the ceremony. According to the iepbs yos of Eleusis, the rape of Cora takes place in the spring (Hymn, 1. 6, 425) ; it is the holy marriage by capture. But the Eleusinian myth is marked as composite and not original by an important fact ; it does not explain the vicissitude of winter and summer. The abduction takes place once in the spring ; winter arises from the anger of Demeter ; but ever afterwards Cora goes to her husband in the autumn with her mother s consent and returns in the spring. The myth has ceased to be closely and obviously connected with the life of nature. The two cults each lost something when they were amalgamated. The annual Theogamia, a central point in the original worship of Cora, 11 becomes a mere disagreeable episode in the life of the two 8 Protrept., p. 18 ; Arnob., v. 26, " qute rogati sacrorum in accep- tiouibus respondeant. " 9 Mommsen and Lenormant have given several reasons to think that there were two nights of Mysteries. 10 Heortol., under " Thesmophoria " ; cf. Plut., Solon, 12. 11 At Nysa, Cyzicus, and elsewhere.