Eleusinian Mysteries

“ However absurd, or even offensive they may seem to us, we should therefore hesitate long before we venture to lay desecrating hands on what others have esteemed holy. We can learn a valuable lesson in this regard from the Grecian and Roman writers, who had learned to treat the popular religious rites with mirth, but always considered the Eleusinian Mysteries with the deepest reverence.
It is ignorance which leads to profanation. Men ridicule what they do not properly understand. ”

“ This cave was in Sicily, in which country Ceres was known as the black Ceres, or the Erinnys, because the outrages offered her by Neptune turned her frantic and furious. Demeter was depicted in Sicily as clad in black, with a horse's head, holding a pigeon in one hand and a dolphin in the other.
On the submission of Eleusis to Athens, the Mysteries became an integral part of the Athenian religion, so that the Eleusinian Mysteries became a Panhellenic institution, and later, under the Romans, a universal worship, but the secret rites of initiation were well kept throughout their history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We understand from these accounts why the Eleusinian mysteries were for the mystic so rich in comfort for the hope of a better world. A beautiful Eleusinian epitaph shows this:
“Truly, a beautiful secret is proclaimed by the blessed Gods!
Mortality is not a curse, but death a blessing!” The hymn to Demeter [682] in the mysteries also says the same:
“Blessed is he, the earth-born man, who hath seen this! ”

“ Psyche is said to have fallen asleep in Hades through rashly attempting to behold corporeal beauty, and the truth intended to be taught in the Eleusinian Mysteries was that prudent men who earnestly employed themselves in divine concerns were, above all others, in a vigilant state, and that imprudent men who pursued objects of an inferior nature were asleep, and engaged only in the delusion of dreams ”

“ At the same time I am convinced that to seek that clue in those Mysteries which are at once the most famous, and the most familiar to the classical scholar, i.e., the Eleusinian, is a fatal mistake. There are, as we shall see, certain essential, and radical, differences between the Greek and the Christian religious conceptions which, affecting as they do the root conceptions of the two groups, render it quite impossible that any form of the Eleusinian Mystery cult could have given such results as we find in the Grail legend. ”

“ The value of subtle influences like these can never be apprehended save by those who have been subjected to them. In no age, under no sanction, have men been able to create sacred rites, whether secret or open, that could not be construed as mummery, not only by those of a different age but even by contemporaries who stood outside the circle of the elect. Were every “secret” of the Eleusinian Mysteries to be recovered, we should still be uninitiated into their higher wisdom. ”

“ According to the rumour of theologists, who delivered to us the most holy Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone abides on high, in those dwellings of her mother which she prepared for her in inaccessible places, exempt from the sensible world. But she likewise dwells with Pluto, administering terrestrial concerns, governing the recesses of the earth and imparting soul to beings which are of themselves inanimate and dead. ”

“ ĔLEUSĪNĬA (ἐλευσίνια) , a festival and mysteries, originally celebrated only at Eleusis in Attica, in honour of Demeter and Persephone. The Eleusinian mysteries, or the mysteries, as they were sometimes called, were the holiest and most venerable of all that were celebrated in Greece. ”

“ In the temple erected to Demeter at Eleusis, the famous Eleusinian Mysteries were instituted by the goddess herself. It is exceedingly difficult, as in the case of all secret societies, to discover anything with certainty concerning these sacred rites. The most plausible supposition is that the doctrines taught by the priests to the favoured few whom they initiated, were religious truths which were deemed unfit for the uninstructed mind of the multitude. ”

“ The whole poem leads up to the transformation scene in which the bare leafless expanse of the Eleusinian plain is suddenly turned, at the will of the goddess, into a vast sheet of ruddy corn; the beneficent deity takes the princes of Eleusis, shews them what she has done, teaches them her mystic rites, and vanishes with her daughter to heaven. The revelation of the mysteries is the triumphal close of the piece. ”

“ This simple and natural reflection seems perfectly sufficient to explain the association of the Corn Goddess at Eleusis with the mystery of death and the hope of a blissful immortality. For that the ancients regarded initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries as a key to unlock the gates of Paradise appears to be proved by the allusions which well-informed writers among them drop to the happiness in store for the initiated hereafter. No doubt it is easy for us to discern the flimsiness of the logical foundation on which such high hopes were built. ”

“ Fasting, prolonged intense mental action, great and unusual commotion of mind, will produce it; and, indeed, these extraordinary displays seem to have been so preceded. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, all began their careers by fasting, and visions of devils followed by angels. The candidates in the Eleusinian Mysteries also saw visions and apparitions, while engaged in the mystic orgies. ”

“ When we recollect how highly the Eleusinian mysteries were venerated by Greeks not born in Athens and even by foreigners, we shall not wonder at the violent indignation excited in the Athenian mind by persons who profaned or divulged them ”

“ Hence some other means by which man could be assured a happy lot after death had to be devised, and there seems 130no doubt that the post-Pythagorean Orphics taught that this was to be found in participation in the mysteries or secret rites already in existence in Greece before the commencement of their teaching. Whether the Eleusinian Mysteries were in their inception anything more than the worship of the Chthonian or infernal deities, as the gods presiding over agriculture and vegetation considered as a symbol of generation and death, is still undecided [397] ”

“ They were devoted to the service of Demeter at Athens and Eleusis, and were said to be the descendants of the Thracian bard Eumolpus, who, according to some legends, had introduced the Eleusinian mysteries into Attica. The high priest of the Eleusinian goddess (ἱεροφάντης or μυσταγωγός) , who conducted the celebration of her mysteries and the initiation of the mystae, was always a member of the family of the Eumolpidae, as Eumolpus himself was believed to have been the first hierophant. ”

“ Their words to him were: "You are forbidden to enter here; your heart is cruel, your hands are stained with crime. Go! repair the wrong you have done; repent of your evil doings, and then come with pure heart and clean hands, and the doors of our Mysteries shall be opened to you." The legend goes on to say that after his regeneration he returned and became a worthy member of the Order.
The ceremonies of the Lesser Mysteries were entirely different from those of the Greater Mysteries. The Lesser Mysteries represented the return of Persephone to earth—which, of course, took place at Eleusis ”

“ We have already dealt fully with the apparent similarity between the Christian Agapae, and the Bacchanalian mysteries (ante, pp. 222-227) . The supper of Adoneus, Adonai, literally, the "supper of the Lord," formed part of these feasts, identical in name with the supper of the Christian mysteries. The Eleusinian mysteries, celebrated at Eleusis, in honour of Ceres, goddess of corn, and Bacchus, god of wine, compel us to think of bread and wine, the very substance of the gods, as it were, there adored. And Mosheim gives us the origin of many of the Christian eucharistic ceremonies. ”

“ Wherefore although, my friend, it is an excellent thing to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, yet I see that the votaries and initiated of Love have a better time of it in Hades than they have, * *114 though in regard to legendary lore I stand in the position of one who neither altogether believes nor altogether disbelieves. ”

“ The Eleusinian mysteries are far more characteristic of the older Hellenic mind. These later rites breathe an Oriental spirit, and though their forms appear strange and distorted they have more in common with the subsequent religious phenomena of Christendom. And the Orphic doctrine may have even contributed something to the later European ideals of private and personal morality. ”

“ Eleusis, like Delphi, was a centre of Greek religious life, but its Panhellenism was of a later date and a direct consequence of the power of Athens within whose territory it lay. Although the worship of nature’s productivity, under the form of Demeter losing her daughter Persephone within the earth and recovering her again, was indigenous among the early Pelasgic dwellers in Eleusis, and although upon this native cult were grafted religious beliefs and practices imported from Thrace, it is yet true that the Eleusinian Mysteries waxed famous only as Athens waxed great. ”

“ The ritual “remained everywhere fundamentally the same.” Obviously if the Eleusinian Mysteries are of Phrygian origin (Ramsay) , they cannot also be of Egyptian origin (Foucart) . In truth they are no more specially of Phrygian or Egyptian than of Pawnee or Peruvian origin. Mankind can and does evolve such ideas and rites in any region of the world. ”

“ The term “Mysteries” is often applied to it. The expression “Eleusinian mysteries,” as applied to anything that is inexplicable, has become proverbial.
Elys ́ium. The Elysian Fields, a place in the infernal regions, where, according to the ancients, the souls of the virtuous existed after death.
Emped ́ocles. A philosopher, poet, and historian of Agrigentum in Sicily, who lived 444 B.C. He was a Pythagorean, and warmly espoused the belief in the transmigration of souls.
Endym ́ion. A shepherd, son of Æthlius and Calyce. He is said to have required of Jupiter that he might be always young. ”

“ They had the Eleusinian Mysteries at Athens, and Most of the prominent Athenians must have been initiated into them—since that was the State Religion; but Aeschylus alone in Athens went through life clothed in the living power of Theosophy.
Go to the life of such a man, if you want big clues as to the inner history of his age;—the life of Aeschylus, I think, can interpret for us that of Athens. There are times when the movement of the cycles is accelerated, and you can see the great wheel turning; this was one. Aeschylus had proudly distinguished himself at Marathon ”

“ And this resemblance is the more remarkable, as the Demeter of Attica was the Isis of Egypt. We cannot suppose, however, that the plan of all these buildings was even thought of when the worship of Ceres was established at Eleusis. They were the progressive creation of successive ages. ... Under the Roman Empire ... it was fashionable among the higher order of Romans to pass some time at Athens in the study of philosophy and to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. Hence Eleusis became at that time one of the most frequented places in Greece ”

“ The Isiac mysteries were a representation of the chief events in the myth of Isis and Osiris—the murder of Osiris, the lamentations of Isis and her wanderings, followed by the triumph of Horus over Seth and the resurrection of the slain god—accompanied by music and an exposition of the inner meaning of the spectacle. These were traditional in ancient Egypt, and in their later development were no doubt affected by the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter. They appealed powerfully to the imagination and the religious sense. ”

“ The Eleusinian mysteries were generally considered to have been founded by Eumolpus, the first priest of Demeter, but, according to some, by Eumolpus the son of Musaeus, Eumolpus the Thracian being the father of Keryx, the ancestor of the priestly family of the Kerykes. As priest, Eumolpus purifies Heracles from the murder of the Centaurs; as musician, he instructs him (as well as Linus and Orpheus) in playing the lyre, and is the reputed inventor of vocal accompaniments to the flute. ”

“ Andocides was acquitted, and it is stated that Cephisius having failed to obtain one-fifth of the votes of the court, the result, according to the law, was that he had to pay a fine of a thousand drachmas and to suffer permanent exclusion from the Eleusinian shrine. Diagoras was accused of railing at the sanctity of the Mysteries of Eleusis in such a manner as to deter persons from seeking initiation, and a reward of one talent was offered to any one who should kill him or two talents to any one who should bring him alive. ”

“ The presentation of the ear of corn was regarded as a special, indeed the most important, feature of the Mysteries of Eleusis, and it was reserved for the final degree. Much has been made of this incident by many who can see no beauty in pre-Christian or non-Christian systems of religion, their comments being based mainly on a statement of Gregory Nazianus, who stands almost alone in discerning lewdness in the Eleusinian ceremonial. He says: "It is not in our religion that you will find a seduced Cora, a wandering Demeter, a Keleos, and a Triptolemus appearing with serpents ”