III

PROGRAMME OF THE GREATER MYSTERIES

The following is the programme of the "Greater Mysteries," which extended over a period of ten days. The various functions were characterized by the greatest possible solemnity and decorum, and the ceremonies were regarded as "religious" in the highest interpretation of that term.

FIRST DAY.--The first day was known as the "Gathering," or the "a.s.sembly," when all who had pa.s.sed through the Lesser Mysteries a.s.sembled to a.s.sist in the celebration of the Greater Mysteries. On this day the Archon Basileus presided over all the cults of the city, and a.s.sembled the people at a place known as the Poikile Stoa. After the Archon Basileus, with four a.s.sistants, had offered up sacrifices and prayers for the welfare of Greece, the following proclamation was made by the Archon Basileus, wearing his robe of office:--

"Come, whoever is clean of all pollution and whose soul has not consciousness of sin. Come, whosoever hath lived a life of righteousness and justice. Come all ye who are pure of heart and of hand, and whose speech can be understood. Whosoever hath not clean hands, a pure soul, and an intelligible voice must not a.s.sist at the Mysteries."

The people were then commanded by the hierophant to wash their hands in consecrated water, and the impious were threatened with the punishment set forth in the law if they were discovered, but especially, and this in any case, with the implacable anger of the G.o.ds. The hierocceryx then impressed upon all the duty of observing the most rigid secrecy with respect to what they might witness, and bade them to be silent throughout the ceremonies, and not utter even an exclamation. The candidates for initiation a.s.sembled outside the temple, each under the guidance and direction of the mystagogue, who repeated these instructions to the candidates. Once within the sacred enclosure all the initiates were subject to a purification by fire ceremonial. All wore regalia special to the occasion. This is evident from the wording of inscriptions which have been discovered, but particulars of the regalia are wanting. We know that extravagant and costly dresses were regarded by Demeter with disfavour, and that it was forbidden to wear such in the temple. Jewellery, gold ornaments, purple-coloured belts, and embroideries were also barred, as were robes and cloths of mixed colours. The hair of women had to fall down loose upon the shoulders, and must not be in plaits or coiled upon the head. No woman was permitted to use cosmetics.

SECOND DAY.--The second day was known as _Halade Mystae_, or "To the sea, ye mystae," from the command which greeted all the initiates to go and purify themselves by washing in the sea, or in the salt water of the two consecrated lakes, called Rheiti, on what was known as "The Sacred Way."

The priests had the exclusive right of fishing in these lakes. A procession was formed, in which all joined and made their way to the sea or the lakes, where they bathed and purified themselves. This general purification was akin to that practised to this day by the Jews at the beginning of the Jewish year. The day was consecrated to Saturn, into whose province the soul is said to fall in the course of its descent from the tropic of Cancer. Capella compares Saturn to a river, voluminous, sluggish, and cold. The planet signifies pure intellect, and Pythagoras symbolically called the sea a tear of Saturn. The bathing was preceded by a confession, and the manner in which the bathing was carried out and the number of immersions varied with the degree of guilt which each confessed. According to Suidas, those who had to purify themselves from murder plunged into salt water on two separate occasions, immersing themselves seven times on each occasion. On returning from the bath all were regarded as "new creatures," the bath being regarded as a laver of regeneration, and the initiates were clothed in a plain fawn-skin or a sheep-skin. The purification, however, was not regarded as complete until the following day, when there was added the sprinkling of the blood of a pig sacrificed. Each had carried to the river or lake a little pig, which was also purified by bathing, and on the next day this pig was sacrificed. The pig was offered because it was very pernicious to cornfields. On the Eleusinian coinage the pig, standing on a torch placed horizontally, appears as the sign and symbol of the Mysteries. On this day also some of the initiated submitted to a special purification near the altar of Zeus Mellichios on the Sacred Way. For each person whom it was desired to purify an ox was sacrificed to Zeus Mellichios, the infernal Zeus, the skin of the animal was laid on the ground by the dadouchos, and the one who was the object of the l.u.s.tration remained there squatting on the left foot.

THIRD DAY.--On the third day pleasures of every description, even the most innocent, were strictly forbidden, and every one fasted till nightfall, when they partook of seed cakes, parched corn, salt, pomegranates, and sacred wine mixed with milk and honey. The Archon Basileus, a.s.sisted again by the four epimeletae, celebrated, in the presence of representatives from the allied cities, the great sacrifice of the Soteria for the well-being of the State, the Athenian citizens, and their wives and children. This ceremony took place in the Eleusinion at the foot of the Acropolis. The day was known as the Day of Mourning, and was supposed to commemorate Demeter's grief at the loss of Persephone. The sacrifices offered consisted chiefly of a mullet and of barley out of Rharium, a field of Eleusis. The oblations were accounted so sacred that the priests themselves were not permitted, as was usual in other offerings, to partake of them. At the conclusion of the general ceremony each one individually sacrificed the little pig purified in the sea the night before.

The hog of propitiation offered to Frey was a solemn sacrifice in the North of Europe and in Sweden, down to modern times, the custom has been preserved by baking, on Christmas Eve, a loaf or cake in the form of a hog.

FOURTH DAY.--The princ.i.p.al event of the fourth day was a solemn procession, when the holy basket of Ceres (Demeter) was carried in a consecrated cart, the crowds of people shouting as it went along, "Hail, Ceres!" The rear end of the procession was composed of women carrying baskets containing sesamin, carded wool, grains of salt, corn, pomegranates, reeds, ivy boughs, cakes known as poppies, and sometimes serpents. One kind of these cakes was known as "ox-cakes"; they were made with little horns and dedicated to the moon. Another kind contained poppy seeds. Poppy was used in the ceremonies because it was said that some grains of poppy were given to Demeter upon her arrival in Greece to induce sleep, which she had not enjoyed from the time of the abduction of Persephone. Demeter is invariably represented in her statues as being very rotund, crowned with ears of corn, and holding in her hand a branch of poppy.

FIFTH DAY.--The fifth day was known as the Day of Torches, from the fact that at nightfall all the initiates walked in pairs round the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, the dadouchos himself leading the procession. The torches were waved about and changed from hand to hand, to represent the wanderings of the G.o.ddess in search of her daughter when she was conducted by the light of a torch kindled in the flames of Etna.

SIXTH DAY.--Iacchos was the name given to the sixth day of the Festival.

The "fair young G.o.d," Iacchos, or Dionysos, or Bacchus, was the son of Jupiter and Ceres, and accompanied the G.o.ddess in her search for Persephone. He also carried a torch, hence his statue has always a torch in the hand. This statue, together with other sacred objects, were taken from the Iacchion, the sanctuary of Iacchos in Athens, mounted on a heavy rustic four-wheeled chariot drawn by bulls, and, accompanied by the Iacchogogue and other magistrates nominated for the occasion, conveyed from the Kerameikos, or Potter's Quarter, to Eleusis by the Sacred Way in solemn procession. It was on this day that the solemnity of the ceremonial reached its height. The statue, as well as the people accompanying it, were crowned with myrtle, the people dancing all the way along the route, beating bra.s.s kettles and playing instruments of various kinds and singing sacred songs. Halts were made during the procession at various shrines, at the site of the house of Phytalus, who, it was said, received the G.o.ddess into his house, and, according to an inscription on his tomb, she requited him by revealing to him the culture of the fig; particularly at a fig-tree which was regarded as sacred, because it had the renown of being planted by Phytalus; also upon a bridge built over the river Cephissus, by the side of which Pluto descended into Hades with Persephone, where the bystanders made themselves merry at the expense of the pilgrims. At each of the shrines sacrifices and libations were offered, hymns sung, and sacred dances performed. Having pa.s.sed the bridge, the people entered Eleusis by what was known as the Mystical Entrance. Midnight had set in before Eleusis was reached, so that a great part of the journey had to be accomplished by the light of the torches carried by each of the pilgrims, and the nocturnal journey was spoken of as the "Night of Torches" by many ancient authors. The pitch and resin of which the torches were composed were substances supposed to have the virtue of warding off evil spirits.

The barren mountains of the Pa.s.s of Daphni and the surface of the sea resounded with the chant, "Iacchos, O Iacchos!" At one of the halts the Croconians, descendants of the hero Crocon, who had formerly reigned over the Thriasian Plain, fastened a saffron band on the right arm and left foot of each one in the procession. Iacchos was always regarded as a child of Demeter, inasmuch as the vine grows out of the earth. Various symbols were carried by the people, who numbered sometimes as many as from thirty to forty thousand. These symbols consisted of winnowing fans--the "Mystic Fan of Iacchos," plaited reeds and baskets, both relating to the worship of the G.o.ddess and her son. The fan, or van, as it was sometimes called, was the instrument that separates the wheat from the chaff, and was regarded also as an emblem of the power which separates the virtuous from the wicked. In the ancient paintings by Bellori two persons are represented as standing by the side of the initiate. One is the priest who is performing the ceremony, who is represented as in a devout posture, and wearing a veil, the old mark of devotion, while another is holding a fan over the head of the candidate.

In some of the editions of Southey's translation of the _aeneid_ the following lines appear:--

Now learn what arms industrious peasants wield To sow the furrow's glebe, and clothe the field: The share, the crooked plough's strong beam, the wain That slowly rolls on Ceres to her fane: Hails, sleds, light osiers, and the harrow's load, The hurdle, and _the mystic van of G.o.d._

The distance covered by the procession was twenty-two kilometres, but Lycurgus ordered that if any woman should ride in a chariot to Eleusis she should be mulcted in a fine of 8,000 drachmas. This was to prevent the richer women from distinguishing themselves from their poorer sisters. Strange to relate, the wife of Lycurgus was the first to break this law, and Lycurgus himself had to pay the fine which he had ordained. He not only paid the penalty, but gave a talent to the informer. Immediately upon the deposit of the sacred objects in the Eleusinion, at the foot of the Acropolis, one of the Eleusinian priests solemnly announced their arrival to the priestess of the tutelary G.o.ddess of Athens--Pallas Athene. Plutarch, in commenting upon lucky and unlucky days, says that he is aware that unlucky things happen sometimes on lucky days, for the Athenians had to receive a Macedonian garrison "even on the 20th of Boedromion, the day on which they led forth the mystic Iacchos."

SEVENTH DAY.--On the seventh day the statue was carried back to Athens.

The return journey was also a solemn procession, and attended with numerous ceremonies. Halts were again made at several places, like the "stations" of Roman Catholic pilgrimages, when the inhabitants also fell temporarily into line with the procession. For those who remained behind at Eleusis the time was devoted to sports, the combatants appearing naked, and the victors were rewarded with a measure of barley, it being a tradition that that grain was first sown in Eleusis. It was also regarded as a day of solemn preparation by those who were to be initiated on the following night. The return journey was conducted with the same splendour as the outward journey. It comprised comic incidents, the same as on the previous day. Those who awaited the procession at the bridge over the Athenian river Cephisson exchanged all kinds of chaff and buffoonery with those who were in the procession, indulging in what was termed "bridge fooling." These jests, it is said, were to recall the tactful measures employed by a maidservant named Iambe to rouse Demeter from her prolonged sorrowing. There is a strange contradiction in the various statements made by the ancient writers as to what was permissible and what was forbidden during the ceremonies. Demeter, when in search of her daughter, broke down with fatigue at Eleusis, where she sat down on a well, overwhelmed with grief. It was strictly forbidden to any of the initiated to sit down on this well lest it should appear that they were mimicking the weeping G.o.ddess. Yet the mimicking of the jests of Iambe were part of the ceremonial of the Mysteries. According to the ancient writers the "jests," so-called, would be regarded to-day as in bad taste.

Having thus spoken, she drew aside her garments And showed all that shape of the body which it is improper to name--the growth of p.u.b.erty.

And with her own hand Iambe stripped herself under the b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Blandly then the G.o.ddess laughed and laughed in her mind, And received the glancing cup in which was the draught.

During the Peloponnesian war the Athenians were unable to obtain an armistice from the Lacedaemonians who held Decelea, and it became necessary to send the statue of Iacchos and the processionists to Eleusis by sea. Plutarch says: "Under these conditions it was necessary to omit the sacrifices usually offered all along the road during the pa.s.sing of Iacchos."

EIGHTH DAY.--The eighth day was called Epidaurion, because it happened once that aesculapius, coming from Epidaurius to Athens, desired to be initiated, and had the Lesser Mysteries repeated for that purpose. It therefore became customary to celebrate the Lesser Mysteries a second time upon this day, and to admit to initiation any such approved candidates who had not already enjoyed the privilege. There was also another reason for the repet.i.tion of the initiatory rites then. The eighth day was regarded as symbolical of the soul falling into the lunar orbi, and the repeated initiation, the second celebration of that sacred rite, was symbolical of the soul bidding adieu to everything of a celestial nature, sinking into a perfect oblivion of her divine origin and pristine felicity, and rushing profoundly into the region of dissimilitude, ignorance, and error. The day opened with a solemn sacrifice offered to Demeter and Persephone, which took place within the peribolus. The utmost precision had to be observed in offering this sacrifice as regarding the age, colour, and s.e.x of the victim, the chants, perfumes, and libations. The acceptance or rejection of a sacrifice was indicated by the movements of the animal as it approached the altar, the vivacity of the flame, the direction of the smoke, etc.

If these signs were not favourable in the case of the first victim offered, other animals must be slain until one presented itself in which all the signs were favourable. The flesh of the animal offered was not allowed to be taken outside the sacred precincts, but had to be consumed within the building. The following is said to have been an Invocation used during the celebration of the Mysteries:--

Daughter of Jove, Persephone divine, Come, blessed queen, and to these rites incline; Only-begotten, Pluto's honoured wife, O venerable G.o.ddess, source of life: 'Tis thine in earth's profoundities to dwell, Fast by the wide and dismal gates of h.e.l.l.

Jove's holy offering, of a beauteous mien, Avenging G.o.ddess, subterranean queen.

The Furies' source, fair-hair'd, whose frame proceeds From Jove's ineffable and secret seeds.

Mother of Bacchus, sonorous, divine, And many form'd, the parent of the vine.

a.s.sociate of the Seasons, essence bright, All-ruling virgin, bearing heav'nly light.

With fruits abounding, of a bounteous mind, Horn'd, and alone desir'd by those of mortal kind.

O vernal queen, whom gra.s.sy plains delight, Sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight: Whose holy forms in budding fruits we view, Earth's vig'rous offspring of a various hue: Espous'd in autumn, life and death alone To wretched mortals from thy pow'r is known: For thine the task, according to thy will, Life to produce, and all that lives to kill.

Hear, blessed G.o.ddess, send a rich increase Of various fruits from earth, with lovely Peace; Send Health with gentle hand, and crown my life With blest abundance, free from noisy strife; Last in extreme old age the prey of death, Dismiss me willing to the realms beneath, To thy fair palace and the blissful plains Where happy spirits dwell, and Pluto reigns.

NINTH DAY.--The ninth day was known as the Day of Earthen Vessels, because it was the custom on that day to fill two jugs with wine. One was placed towards the East and the other towards the West, and after the repet.i.tion of certain mystical formulae both were overthrown, the wine being spilt upon the ground as a libation. The first of these formulae was directed towards the sky as a prayer for rain, and the second to the earth as a prayer for fertility.

The words used by the hierophant to denote the termination of the celebration of the Mysteries-_Conx Om Pax_: "Watch and do no evil"--are said to have been Egyptian, and were the same as those used at the conclusion of the Mysteries of Isis. This fact is sometimes used as an argument in favour of the Egyptian origin of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

TENTH DAY.--On the tenth day the majority of the people returned to their homes, with the exception of every third and fifth year, when they remained behind for the Mystery Plays and Sports, which lasted from two to three days.

The Eleusinian Games are described by the rhetorician Aristides as the oldest of all Greek games. They are supposed to have been inst.i.tuted as a thank-offering to Demeter and Persephone at the conclusion of the corn harvest. From an inscription dating from the latter part of the third century B.C. sacrifices were offered to Demeter and Persephone at these games. They included athletic and musical contests, a horse race, and a compet.i.tion which bore the name of the Ancestral or the Hereditary Contest, the nature of which is not known, but which it is thought may have had its origin in a contest between the reapers on the sacred Rharian plain to see which should first complete his allotted task.

The ancient sanctuary in which the Mysteries were celebrated was burnt by the Persians in 480 or 479 B.C., and a new sanctuary was built--or, at least, begun--under the administration of Pericles. Plutarch says that Corcebus began the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis, but only lived to finish the lower rank of columns with their architraves; Metagenes, of the ward of Xypete, added the rest of the entablature and the upper row of columns, and that Xenocles of Cholargus built the dome on the top. The long wall, the building of which Socrates says he heard Pericles propose to the people, was undertaken by Callicrates. Cratinus satirized the work as proceeding very slowly:--

Stone upon stone the orator has pil'd With swelling words, but words will build no walls.

According to some writers the Temple was planned by Tetinus, the architect of the Parthenon, and Pericles was merely the overseer of the building. We are told by Vitruvius that the Temple at Eleusis consisted at first of one cell of vast magnitude, without columns, though it was probable that it was meant to be surrounded in the customary manner; a prostyle, however, only was added, and that not until the time of Demetrius Phalereus, some ages after the original structure was erected.

It is probable that the uncommon magnitude of the cell, added to the various and complicated rites of initiation to the Eleusinian Mysteries, of which it was the scene, prevented its being a peristyle, the expense of which would have been enormous. The Temple was one of the largest of the sacred edifices of Greece. Its length was 68 metres, its breadth 54,66 metres and its superficial area 3716,88 square metres. The monumental altar of sacrifice was placed in front of the facade, close by the eastern angle of the enclosure. According to Virgil the words "Far hence, O be ye far hence, ye profane ones," were inscribed over the main portal.

In the fourth century of the Christian era the Temple of Eleusis was destroyed by the Goths, at the instigation of the monks, who followed the hosts of Alaric.

The revenues from the celebrations must have been considerable. At both the Lesser Mysteries and the Greater Mysteries a charge of one obole a day was demanded from each one attending, which was given to the hierophant. The hierocceryx received a half-obole a day, and other a.s.sistants a similar sum. In current coinage an obole was of the value of a fraction over 1 1/4d.

IV

THE INITIATORY RITES

Two important facts must be set down with regard to the Mysteries: first, the general custom of all Athenian citizens, and afterwards of all Greeks generally, and eventually of many foreigners, to seek admission into the Eleusinian Mysteries in the only possible manner--viz. by initiation; and, second, the scrupulous care exercised by the Eumolpides to ensure that only persons duly qualified, of irreproachable--or, at any rate, of circ.u.mspect, character pa.s.sed the portals. In the earlier days of the Mysteries it was a necessary condition that the candidates for initiation should be free-born Athenians, but in course of time this rule was relaxed, until eventually strangers (as residents outside Athens were called), aliens, slaves, and even courtesans, were admitted, on condition that they were introduced by a mystagogue, who was, of course, an Athenian. An interesting inscription was discovered a few years ago demonstrating the fact that the public slaves of the city were initiated at the public expense. From historical records we learn that Lysias was enabled without difficulty to secure the initiation of his mistress, Metanira, who was then in the service of the courtesan Nicareta. There always prevailed, however, the strict rule that no one could be admitted who had been guilty of murder or homicide, wilful or accidental, or who had been convicted of witchcraft, and all who had incurred the capital penalty for conspiracy or treason were also excluded. Nero sought admission into the Eleusinian Mysteries, but was rejected because of the many slaughters connected with his name. Antoninus, when he would purge himself before the world of the death of Avidius Ca.s.sius, elected to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, it being recognized at that time that none was admitted into them who was justly guilty of heinous immorality or crime.

Apollonius of Tyana was desirous of being admitted into the Eleusinian Mysteries, but the hierophant refused to admit him on the ground that he was a magician, and had intercourse with divinities other than those of the Mysteries, declaring that he would never initiate a wizard or throw open the Mysteries to a man addicted to impure rites. Apollonius retorted: "You have not yet mentioned the chief of my offences, which is that, knowing, as I do, more about the initiatory rites than you do yourself, I have nevertheless come to you as if you were wiser than I am." The hierophant, when he saw that the exclusion of Apollonius was not by any means popular with the crowd, changed his tone and said: "Be thou initiated, for thou seemest to be some wise man that has come here." But Apollonius replied: "I will be initiated at another time, and it is (mentioning a name) who will initiate me." Hereon, says Philostratus, he showed his gift of prevision, for he glanced at the one who succeeded the hierophant he addressed, and presided over the temple four years later when Apollonius was initiated.

Persons of both s.e.xes and of all ages were initiated, and neglect of the ceremony came to be regarded almost in the light of a crime. Socrates and Demonax were reproached and looked upon with suspicion because they did not apply for initiation. Persians were always pointedly excluded from the ceremony. Athenians of both s.e.xes were granted the privilege of initiation during childhood on the presentation of their father, but only the first degree of initiation was permitted. For the second and third degrees it was necessary to have arrived at full age. The Greeks looked upon initiation in much the same light as the majority of Christians look upon baptism. So great was the rush of candidates for initiation when the restrictions were relaxed that Cicero was able to write that the inhabitants of the most distant regions flocked to Eleusis in order to be initiated. Thus it became the custom with all Romans, who journeyed to Athens to take advantage of the opportunity to become initiates. Even the Emperors of Rome, the official heads of the Roman religion, the masters of the world, came to the Eumolpides to proffer the request that they might receive the honour of initiation and become partic.i.p.ants in the Sacred Mysteries revealed by the G.o.ddess.

While Augustus, who was initiated in the year 21 B.C., did not hesitate to show his antipathy towards the religion of the Egyptians, towards Judaism and Druidism, he was always scrupulous in observing the pledge of secrecy demanded of initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries, and on one occasion, when it became necessary for some of the priests of the Eleusinian temple to proceed to Rome to plead before his tribunal on the question of privilege, and in the course of the evidence to speak of certain ceremonial in connection with the Mysteries of which it was not lawful to speak in the presence of the uninitiated, he ordered every one who had not received the privilege of initiation to leave the tribunal so that he and the witnesses alone remained. The Eleusinian Mysteries were not deemed inimical to the welfare of the Roman Empire as were the religions of the Egyptians, Jews, and ancient Britons.

Claudius, another imperial initiate, conceived the idea of transferring the scene of the Mysteries to Rome, and, according to Suetonius, was about to put the project into execution, when it was ruled that it was obligatory that the princ.i.p.al scenic presentation of the Mysteries must be celebrated on the ground trodden by the feet of Demeter and where the G.o.ddess herself had ordered her temple to be erected.

The initiation of the Emperor Hadrian (who succeeded where Claudius had failed, in introducing the celebration of the Mysteries into Rome) took place in A.D. 125, when he was present at the Lesser Mysteries in the spring and at the Greater Mysteries in the following autumn. In September, A.D. 129, he was again at Athens, when he presented himself for the third degree, as is known from Dion Ca.s.sius, confirmed by a letter written by the Emperor himself, in which he mentions a journey from Eleusis to Ephesus made by him at that time. Hadrian is the only imperial initiate, so far as is known, who persevered and pa.s.sed through all three degrees. Since he remained at Eleusis as long as it was possible for him to do so after the completion of his initiation, it is not rash to a.s.sume that he was inspired by something more than curiosity or even by a desire to show respect.

It is uncertain whether the Emperor Antonin was initiated, although from an inscription it seems probable that he was and that he should be included in the list of imperial initiates. Both Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, father and son, were initiated at the same time, at the Lesser Mysteries in March, A.D. 176, and at the Greater Mysteries in the following September. Septimius Severus was initiated before he ascended the throne.

There was, as stated, three degrees, and the ordinary procedure with regard to initiation was as follows:--

In the month of Anthesterion, the flower month of spring, corresponding with February-March, an applicant could, if approved, become an initiate into the first degree at the celebration of the Lesser Mysteries and take part in their celebration at the Eleusinion at Agra, near to Athens. The ceremony of initiation into this first degree was on a far less imposing scale than the ceremony of initiation into the second and third degrees at the Greater Mysteries. The candidate, however, had to keep chaste and unpolluted for nine days prior to the ceremony, which each one attended wearing crowns and garlands of flowers and observed by offering prayers and sacrifices. Immediately previous to the celebration the candidates for initiation were prepared by the Mystagogues, the special teachers selected for the purpose from the families of the Eumolpides and Keryces. They were instructed in the story of Demeter and Persephone, the character of the purification necessary and other preliminary rites, the fast days, with particulars of the food permissible and forbidden to be eaten, and the various sacrifices to be offered by and for them under the direction of the mystagogues.

Without this preparation no one could be admitted to the Mysteries.