MYSTERIES 



369 



that, in fact, they hid under an outward garb 

 of mummery a certain portion of the real anil 

 eternal truth of religion, the knowledge of which 

 had been derived from some primeval or, perhaps, 

 the Mosaic revelation ; if it could not be traced to 

 certain (or uncertain) Egyptian, Indian, or gener- 

 ally eastern sources. To this kind of hazy talk, 

 however (which we only mention because it is 

 still repeated every now and then ), the real 

 and thorough investigations liegun by Loheck, and 

 still pursued by many competent scholars in our 

 own day, have, or ought to have, put an end. 

 There cannot be anything more alien to the whole 

 spirit of Greek and Unman antiquity than a hiding 

 of abstract truths and occult wisdom under rites 

 and formulas, songs and dances ; and, in fact, the 

 mysteries were anything but exclusive, either with 

 respect to sex, age, or rank, in point of initiation. 

 It \va> Hiily the speculative tendency of later times, 

 when Polytheism was on the wane, that tried to 

 symbolise and allegorise these olwcure ceremonies. 

 The very fact of their having to be put down in 

 later days as public nuisances in Home herself 

 speaks volumes against the occult wisdom incul- 

 cated in secret assemblies of men and women. 



How it was that in the best times of Greece 

 these mysteries had such a hold on such large 

 numliers nf people is a point about which there 

 need be no mystery. It is iierfectly plain. God 

 has at no timi: left himself without a witness. 

 The Greeks were men; and l>eing men found it 

 impossible to believe that with the death of the 

 booj nun's life was at an end, or that the stiller- 

 in^'s of the innocent met with no reward, the 

 triumph of the wicked with no requital. But 

 the Greeks had no revealed religion, no authori- 

 tative teaching on this point. Yet the religious 

 sentiment required some external support for this 

 aspiration, craved some confirmation of this hope. 

 And at the celebration of the mysteries the man 

 or woman whose thoughts were fixed upon the 

 next world found his or her faltering hope 

 strengthened by the sympathy of thousand- who 

 were present from the same motives and in the 

 same faith. That this is the secret of the mys- 

 teries is indicated partly by the fact that it was 

 the resurrection of various gods which was most 

 prominently set before the eyes of the initiated ; 

 and still more by such expressions as that of 

 I'indar (fr. 137), 'Blessed is he who has seen them 

 before he goes below ground ; ' or of Sophocles 

 (fr. 710), 'Thrice happy they who have been initi- 

 ated Itefore they die, for theirs is the lot of life, 

 and evil is it with the others ;' or of the chorus of 

 the initiated in Aristophanes ( Ran. 4.~>5 ), ' We alone 

 enjoy the holy light, we, who were initiated and led 

 a life of godliness toward both kin and stranger;' 

 or of the stone record (Kjihftn. arch. 1883), 'To 

 the initiated death is not an evil : it is a gain.' 



The mysteries, as such, consisted of purifications, 

 sacrificial offerings, processions, songs, dances, 

 dramatic performances, and the like. The mystic 

 formulas (Dakimmaut, lirnmena, Legomoi", the 

 latter including the Liturgies, &c. ) were held deep 

 seerets, and could only lie communicated to those 

 who had passed the last tAge of preparation at 

 the mvHtagogiie's hand. The hold which the 

 nightly secrecy of these meetings, together with 

 their extraordinary worship, must naturally have 

 taken upon minds more fresh and childlike than 

 our advanced ages can boast of was increased by 

 all the mechanical contrivances of the effects of 

 light and sound which the priests eould command. 

 Mysterious voices were heard singing, whispering, 

 and sighing all around, lights gleamed in manifold 

 colours from nlmveanil below, figures ap] tea red and 

 disappeared ; the mimic, the tonic, the plastic all 

 the arts, in fact, were taxed to their very utmost to 

 336 



make these performances ( the nearest approach to 

 which, in this country, is furnished by transfor- 

 mation-scenes, or sensation-dramas in general) as 

 attractive and profitable (to the priests) as could 

 be. As far as we have any knowledge of the plots 

 of these Mysteries as scenic representations, they 

 generally brought the stories of the special gods or 

 goddesses before the spectator their births, suffer- 

 ings, deaths, and specially their resurrections. 

 Many were the outward symliols nsed, of which 

 such as the Phallus, the Thyrsus, Flower Baskets, 

 Mystic Boxes, in connection with special deities, 

 told more or less their own tale, although the 

 meanings supplied by later ages, from the Neo- 

 platonists to our own day, are various, and often 

 very amazing. The most important Mysteries 

 were, in historical times, those of Eleusis and 

 the Thesmophorian, lioth representing each from 

 a different point of view the rape of Proserpina, 

 and Ceres' search for her : the Thesmophorian 

 mysteries being also in a manner connected with 

 the Dionysian worship. There were further those 

 of Zens of Crete (derived from a very remote 

 period), of Bacchus himself, of Cyl>ele, and Aphro- 

 dite the, two latter with reference to the Mystery 

 of Procreation, but celebrated in diametrically 

 op]xised ways, the former culminating in the self- 

 mutilation of the worshipper, the latter in prosti- 

 tution. Further, there were the Mysteries of 

 Orpheus, who in a certain degree was considered 

 the founder of all mysteries. Nor were the other 



SH!S and goddesses forgotten : Hera, Minerva, 

 iana, Hecate, nay, foreign gods like Mithras 

 (q.v. ) and the like, had their due secret solemnities 

 all over the classical soil, and whithersoever Greek 

 (and partly Roman) colonists took their Lares 

 ami Penates all over the antique world. The 

 Kleusinian mysteries can l>e traced back to the 7th 

 century B.C. (cf. Homeric Hymn to Dcmetcr, 1. 

 473 ff. ) In the time of Herodotus as many as 30,000 

 people attended them (viii. 65) ; and between 480- 

 430 B.C., the period of Athens' highest power and 

 of the Elcusinian mysteries' greatest fame, the 

 number must have lieen much greater. When, 

 towards the end of the classical periods, the 

 mysteries were no longer secret, but public orgies 

 of the most shameless kind, their days were 

 numbered. The most subtle metaphysicians, alle- 

 gorise and symbolise as they might, failed in re- 

 viving them, and in restoring them to whatever 

 primeval dignity there might have once been in- 

 herent in them. 



See Lobeck, Aylaophamut (1829); Preller, in Pauly'i 

 Enrye. 8. v. ; Chr. Petersen, Dcr gtheime Octl' 

 (1848); Lehrs, Popvldre AuftiUze ; Baameister, Denk- 

 maler, s. v. t'ltunnia ; and P. Stencel, in Miiller's Hand- 

 buck tier Klatriichtn Altertumt-wiisrwchaft, voL v. pt. 3. 



Mysteries and Miracle-plays were drama.* 

 founded on the historical parts of the Old and New 

 Testaments, and the lives of the saints, performed 

 during the middle ages, first in churches, and 

 afterwards in the streets on fixed or movable 

 stages. Mysteries were properly taken from biblical 

 and miracle-plays from legendary subjects, but this 

 distinction in nomenclature was not always strictly 

 adhered to. \Ve have an extant specimen of the 

 religious play of a date prior to the beginning of the 

 middle ages in the Cltristos Paschon, assigned, some- 

 what questionably, to Gregory Nazianzen, and 

 written in 4th-century Greek. Next come six 

 Latin plays on subjects connected with the lives 

 of the saints, by Hroswitha (c. 920-968), a nun of 

 Gandersheini, in Saxony, which, though not very 

 artistically constructed, possess considerable dra- 

 matic power and interest ; they were discovered 

 by Konrad Celtes and by him first published in 

 1501 at Nuremberg. The performers were at first 

 the clergy and choristers ; afterwards any layman 



