Orphik Poet calls night the source of all things, to denote that productive power, which, as I have been told, it really possesses; it being observed that plants and animals grow more by night than by day. The ancients extended this power much further, and supposed that not only the productions of the earth, but the luminaries of heaven were nourished and sustained by the benign influence of the night.' 1 1 Sixth Day.-The Day of Iakchos. On this day, as noticed, the statue of Dionysos-Iakchos, torch in hand and crowned with myrtle, was carried along the Hiera Hodos, or Sacred Way, from the Kerameikos, or Potter's Quarter, to Eleusis, accompanied by the Iakchogogoi, or Iakchos leaders, also myrtle-crowned, who danced and sang and beat upon their tympana, or kettle-drums. They made a brief halt at a spot marked by an Hiera Syke, or Sacred Fig-tree, and then proceeding, entered Eleusis by the Mystike Eisodos, or Mystic Entry. On this day, the twentieth of Boedromion, the solemnity of the ritual reached its height; and Dionysos, as we saw in Euripides, hastens from Kastalia to lead the universal dance in honour of the golden-crowned Damsel and her awful Mother. The starry-faced Ether and the Moon begin the dance, and all nature follows; and the starryEther is but Dionysos in his spotted starry robe, the 'pattern of things in the heavens.' And how does the dance honour the Two Goddesses of life? Because it exhibits, to use modern terminology, the rhythm and continuity of motion and the persistence of force, and is thus the great life-manifestation. Motion being a special manifestation of life, and dance, the poetry of motion,' of orderly and harmonious life, hence is derived the simple yet profound and beautiful symbolism by which all 1 R. Payne Knight, Worship of Priapus, 106. 2 Sup. IV. iii. 1. 3 Ion, 1074 et seq. things are said to dance in honour of the mighty embodiment of kosmic being. An ancient bronze, which in Payne Knight's time was at Strawberry Hill among the many curiosities and objects of art collected by Horace Walpole, represents in a remarkable manner the union and harmony of the Demetrian and Dionysiak cults. Demeter is seated with a cup in one hand, various fruits in the other, and a small bull in her lap. The Earth-mother, it will be observed, is thus herself possessed of wine and the grape, which she brings forth equally with other food for the service of man; while the tauromorphic Dionysos, emblem of productiveness and of the vigour of the natural life, nestles to her as his patroness and superior.1 But the votaries of Eleusis have reached the entrance to the temple of Demeter, which was a square building of about 200 feet on each side, commenced by Iktinos, the architect of the Parthenon, and finished by Philon about B.C. 315. A herald thereupon dismissed the general crowd by solemn proclamation (Procul, procul ite profani!'), and the Mystics were then admitted into the illumined interior of the shrine, a process termed Photagogia, or the Leading-to-the-light. They were next admonished to draw near with hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water,' and having repeated the solemn oath of secrecy, holy mysteries were read to them out of a sacred book called Petroma, because it consisted of two stones closely joined together. At Pheneos, in northern Arkadia, was a temple of Demeter Eleusinia, where the same mystic ceremonies were performed as at Eleusis; and near the temple were two large stones closely joined together, and called Petroma, between which were preserved the mystic writings. These at the Greater Mysteries were taken out 1 Worship of Priapus, 72. Pl. viii. 2 Paus. viii. 14. and read to the neophytes, and replaced at night. Oaths were usually sworn on the Petroma; and inside, besides the sacred writings, was kept a mask of Demeter Kidaria, which the priest having put on invoked the infernal powers by striking with rods upon the ground.1 Pausanias is here unusually communicative about the mysteries, and the passage is of very considerable interest and importance, it being remembered that the ceremonies of Pheneos and Eleusis were similar, a fact of which Pausanias, himself an Epopt," was well qualified to judge. The reading being finished, the Mystics severally confessed to the Hierophant, and were strictly examined by him on numerous matters, but especially with regard to fasting and chastity, both of which were indispensable prerequisites to initiation. Answers were given according to a set form, and this part of the ceremony having been duly observed, the Aspirants were admitted to the mystic Sekos, or Enclosure, which adjoined the temple, and was of considerable size, large enough indeed to contain the crowd of a theatre. They were further prepared for the performance by partaking of a cup craftily qualified,' being an imitation of the celebrated 'Miscellaneous Potion' given to Demeter on her visit to Eleusis, and called Kykeon, meaning primarily that-which-is-stirred-up, and hence the state of confusion produced by drinking. Such was the drugged preparation given by Kirke to the companions of Odysseus.5 Poppies were an ingredient of it, and this presented to each mystic before the shows began, might have contributed more to that confusion of intellects than the awful appearance of the objects exhibited.' Deeply excited and agitated by all they had 1 Paus. viii. 15. 2 Ibid. i. 37, 38. 3 Strabo, ix. i. ▲ Hymn. eis Dem. 208. 6 5 Od. x. 234 et seq.. Christie, Disquisitions upon the Painted Greek Vases, 37. gone through, ready to believe anything and everything, in that state of abstinence which is, or is supposed to be, most favourable to the reception of supernatural displays, with their minds more or less affected by drugs, and their whole being permeated with the impression and expectation of a revelation of the more-than-mortal, they were allowed TO SEE. This is the Autopsia or Personal Inspection, the Crown of Mysteries, the Epopteia or Divine Beholding, which was used as a synonym to express the highest earthly happiness, and he who had enjoyed it became an Epoptes, or Contemplator, beyond which this world could give him nothing. But what saw they? naturally exclaims the reader. Before attempting to give some answer to this question, let us for a moment consider this august phraseology irrespective of what the Epopts of old saw or thought they saw. The extraordinary suitability of the language of the Mysteries to the Christian religion is as evident as remarkable. The mind can conceive no higher idea than to behold the Invisible God in peace, a privilege which implies a likeness of nature; for the Apostle declares that those who will see Him as He is, i.e., anthropomorphically displayed in His Eikon, or Personified Idea, will be like Him; and that this very hope stimulates them to aim at infinite purity and perfection.1 There can be no more godlike aspiration than the desire of being like God. So could the delighted astronomer exclaim on making his great discoveries that he entered into the mind of the Creator and read His thoughts, which naturally are not as man's. All men,' says Homeros, yearn after the gods.' Thou hast made us for Thyself,' says S. Augustin, and we cannot rest till we rest in Thee.' The ancient Patriarch Job, in a noble and familiar declaration of faith, which certain moderns have vainly attempted to twist into something comparatively 1 1 John iii. 2, 3. 6 petty and meaningless, states his emphatic belief in the Autopsia: In my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another;' and this belief in a Zeus Soter, and in His ultimate epiphany or manifestation to His worshippers, is called 'the root of the matter.'1 The anthropomorphic element and idea in religion is at present disparaged and attacked; people begin and end their creed with a Final Cause, a Great Unknown. But belief which contains no more than this is essentially valueless and unpractical. Amen, the Hidden God, will remain for ever hidden until anthropomorphically revealed. Gods who are only afar off are useless. The gods who haunt The lucid interspace of world and world, Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, Such gods, or again a mere pantheistic Dionysos,‘everlastingly within creation 2 as its inmost life, omnipresent and omniactive,' Erikepeios forsooth, Spring-timegarden-growth, are truely valueless; and no wonder that men should begin to doubt the propriety of praying to them. This vast subject cannot be further dealt with here. I merely mention it to illustrate the grandeur of the concepts to which the Eleusinian initiation naturally gives rise. Let us never be beguiled out of our faith in a 1 Job xix. 26-8. I am well aware that in certain quarters the Book of Job is called a poetical allegory, and is said to have been composed in the time of Solomon or later. Sed ei incumbit probatio qui dicit. Vide Sir W. Drummond's sage treatment and explication of Gen. xiv. (Edipus Judaicus. Dissert. Two). A man may say,' 2 Instead of creation being within him. Vide sup. II. iii. 3. 3 Rev. William Knight in Contemporary Review, Dec. 1873. |