152 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
depths of Hades, where its release from the cycle consists in the more 
terrible fate of endless suffering.t Of the other souls, the good are 
sent for a time to an Elysium in Hades, while the unworthy but not 
beyond hope, are sent to a place of punishment. The temporary sojourn 
in Hades is one of purification. Those in the place of punishment are 
purified through suffering; those in Elysium, apparently through com- 
panionship with the good and a foretaste of greater joys to come.?_ The 
purification in Hades goes on for a considerable length of time—definitely, 
a period of a thousand years.3 
The purpose of the mysteries was, naturally, to exempt their votaries 
so far as possible from the cycle of exile and to reconcile the soul with 
god.4 They could at least promise to the mystic who had submitted 
himself to the rites of initiation, the ceremonies of purification and the 
Orphic rules of life, that between incarnations he would not suffer punish- 
ment, but would pass the time in comparative joy in Elysium. But 
there were degrees of virtue within the Orphic sect. To the chosen few 
who in each life kept their soul from guilt they promised complete puri- 
fication and release from the “wearisome cycle” after three lives of the 
body and three purgations in the Elysium of Hades.’ When at length 
the last penance is done and the last purgation is accomplished, the soul 
recovers its pure divinity, regains its lost estate and goes to dwell forever 
with the gods.°® 
These are the main ideas of mystic thought as they are gathered from 
Orphic fragments, from Empedocles, Pindar and Plato. Whether 
they are taken from one common source, an Orphic-Pythagorean poem, 
t Plato Phaedo 113 E; Repub. 615 D, E; Gorg. 525 C; Pindar Ol. 2. 74. ‘ 
2 For Elysium as a place of purgation see Maas Orpheus 231, Abel Orphica 231, where the good are 
purified and receive a ‘milder fate,’’ €v KaAg@ Aeyuavi, Babdppoov aud’ "Axépovta, Corresponding to this “fair 
meadow” is the Elysium of Pindar, fr. 129 (Rohde Psyche II, pp. 210, 211), and Plato’s Vorparadies in the 
heavens, Phaedr. 249; Repub. at end. 
3 Plato Phaedr. 249; Verg. Aen. vi. 748. 
4 Abel Orphica 266. 
s Pindar Second Olympian 75 ff., according to Rohde’s interpretation; Plato Phaedr. 249 A—where 
the Elysium of Hades is replaced by an intermediate heaven. Cf. Claudian In Rufin. ii. 491 ff. The gold 
tablets furnish no evidence on this point, but see Gruppe’s suggestion in Roscher, p. 1127. 
6 In the Compagno tablets the soul is freed from its mortality and is pronounced a god. It is sent 
és Spas evayéwv: in the Neoplatonic language of Proclus, mpds 7d voepov eldos, Abel Orphica 226; probably 
to Zeus or the ‘Starry Heaven,” whence came its divine, immortal essence. See Rohde Psyche II, pp. 130, 
131. So also Empedocles 449-51; Plato Phaedr. 247; and in more popular language, Pindar Ol. 2.71. 
