(3) Nature of the Mysteries.—In the Anatolian religion, either originally or at some stage in its history (whether through contact with some other race or through some other educational influence), the idea of the recurring death and new birth of the natural world—regarded, of course, as the annual death and rebirth of the Divine life—was combined with the fact of the sequence of genera- tions in human life. The same sequence must exist in the Divine nature, for the Divine nature is the counterpart and prototype of the human in all stages of its history. The Divine parents and the Divine child correspond to the human. The drama of this Divine life was set before the worshippers in the Mysteries.
But again in the Divine life, as we see it in the annual life of nature, the father is the son, the mother reappears as the daughter: it is never possible to draw any definite line of division be- tween them: the Divine child replaces the parent, different and yet the same. If that is the case with the Divine, the same must be the case in human life. The stream of human life goes on continuously, changing yet permanent ; and death is only a moment in the succession. Here the idea of immortality and a life of man wider than the limits of the material world is touched.
Obviously, an important aspect of religion is here introduced. Human life isregarded as permanent and everlasting, like the Divine life of nature ; and the religion of the grave is the foundation of the entire religion [see also § VIII (5)]. That man when he dies becomes a god, was considered already in the 4th cent. B.C. to be part of the teaching conveyed in the Mysteries, as is shown in the curious metrical inscriptions engraved on plates of gold which have been found in graves of South Italy and Crete, and which belong to that and the following cen- turies. There the deification is considered to be the result of initiation; but in the primitive re- ligion, when all men were religious and the Mys- teries were the religion of the whole people and not restricted to some chosen myst, the dead all went back to the god from whom they came. In a very ingenious paper, S. Reinach has discovered the mystic formula uttered by the initiated—‘ a kid I hese fallen into the milk,’ which conveyed in symbolic terms the same meaning as the words which the goddess of the world of death seems to have addressed to the initiated dead who came before her—‘ thou hast become a god instead of
a man,’ or ‘thou shalt be a god instead of a mortal.’ *
_ It is certain that the pagan apologists, defend- ing the established religion and attacking the Christian, found this philosophic meaning in the ritual of the Mysteries, in which that early re- ligion still lived on. That this meaning was implicit in the ritual from the beginning seems fairly certain. That it was understood by some persons is probable, and that some development of the ritual was made at some time or times to give more emphasis to the meaning is also probable. Not merely people in general, but also some of the most educated among the Greeks, believed in the salutary effect of the Eleusinian Mysteries ; and this salutary effect is expressly connected with the future world.+ Advantages in the world of death (or of life) are said to be gained by those who are initiated ; and those advantages are not the result of the mere ritual observance. The initiated are said to grow better; and salvation in the future life is said by Isocrates to be gained both by the initiated and by all who live a pious and just life (Symmv. xii. 266).
But this effect of the Mysteries was not attained or helped by any formal instruction. It was dependent entirely on the intense interest and eager contemplation of the initiated, and the strong impression produced on their minds. The ceremonies at Eleusis took place at night, after a considerable period of preparation and purification : the purification consisted mainly in ritualistic acts, but not entirely so, for probably some stress was laid on the condition that the initiated must be pure in heart and not conscious of having com- mitted any crime: they were, certainly, left to judge for themselves of their own moral purity, and the best ancient pagan conception of purity was consistent with habitual disregard of some of the elementary moral rules of the Christian and of the Hebrew religion. But the principle of moral purity was admitted, even though only in a very defective and poor form; and that was a great thing, at least in comparison with the general character of ancient paganism.
After this preparation, and when in a state of high expectancy, the initiated were admitted to see the drama of the Divine life: the words spoken in the drama were few, and concerned only with the action: the mystic objects were simple in character: the most holy and crowning act at Eleusis was the ear of corn mowed down silently. But there was a belief ready in the minds of the spectators that certain truths were enigmatically expressed in the action, though, as the ancient writers say, a philosophic training and a reverent religious frame of mind were required to compre- hend them. +