4 02 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the worship of Bacchus, Apollo, and Deineter evolved the famous 

 and widely popular Eleusinian mysteries. These religious ceremo- 

 nies are thought by those who have made a study of early Greek 

 life to have been instituted about the time of the first record of 

 the Olympian games — 776 B. c. — but the final molding of this 

 elaborate ritual was not completed before the sixth century b. c. 

 " The mysteries of Eleusis were the one great attempt of the Gre- 

 cian genius to construct a religion that would keep pace with the 

 growth of thought and civilization." The survival of savage 

 thought in these rites, the progressive spirit of this cultured age, 

 attempted to overcome, while trying at the same time to preserve, 

 their fervor and self-devotion. There were four successive stages 

 in the ceremonies connected with the celebration of the Eleu- 

 sinian mysteries — confession, purification through immersion in 

 water, the initiatory rites, followed by the last and crowning one, 

 when the communicants were admitted to the most holy place and 

 partook of the flesh of Demeter, or Circe, and drank the blood of 

 Bacchus — this rite taking the place among these people of the 

 holy sacrament in the Christian Church. We find many evi- 

 dences from the Greek authors of that period that the people who 

 joined this religious assembly were thought to lead better lives, 

 and that through this connection salvation after death was assured 

 them. Sopater asserted that " the initiation establishes a kinship 

 with the divine nature." Plato wrote : " He that has been initi- 

 ated has learned that which will insure his happiness hereafter." 

 Plutarch, in a letter to his wife, wrote : " Some say the soul will 

 be entirely insensible after death, but you are too well acquainted 

 with the doctrine delivered in the mysteries of Bacchus and with 

 the symbols of our fraternity to harbor such a thought." Thomas 

 Taylor has given us these lines from an old Orphic hymn : 



" The soul that uninitiated dies, 

 Plunged in the blackest mire of hades lies." 



Modern research has proved that the celebration of the Eucha- 

 rist, in the mysteries' of all ancient peoples, was considered by 

 them as their highest act of worship and the most solemn ordi- 

 nance of their religion. In the Egyptian mysteries the commu- 

 nicants partook of bread which had been consecrated by their 

 priests, and was then regarded as the veritable body of Osiris, 

 just as in ancient Mexico the worshipers of the supreme Mexi- 

 can god ate sacramentally paste images made of corn and blood, 

 after a sacred formula was pronounced over the symbols. The 

 devotees informed the Spaniards who witnessed these ceremonies 

 that they were partaking of the body and blood of their god. 

 When the Mithraic mysteries were introduced into Rome, and 

 were celebrated in the world's metropolis, the holy sacrament 



