EXTRA VOL.—9
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to be dealt with by the god; it was not enforced as a rule by legal action.
VUI. INFLUENCE oN Society AND Lirn.—It is a necessary part of our task to observe the bearing of this religion and ritual on social life; but thig subject is too obscure to justify any general state- ments of a very positive kind ; and only a very few details can here be mentioned.
(1) Marriage.—There is unmistakable evidence that a marriage ceremony of a religious nature ex- isted, and that this ceremony stood in close rela- tion to a part of the ritual of the Mysteries. In fact, the marriage was, as it were, a reproduction by the bride and bridegroom of a scene from the Divine life, i.e. from the mystic drama. The formula, ‘I escaped evil: I found better,’ * was repeated by the celebrant who was initiated in the Phrygian Mysteries ; and the same formula was pronounced as part of the Athenian marriage ceremony. Another formula, ‘I have drunk from the kym- balon,’+ was pronounced by the initiated ; and drinking from the same cup has been proved to have formed part of a ceremony performed in the temple by the betrothed pair.+ It is distinctly stated by a grammarian that the marriage cere- mony took the form of celebrating the ‘Holy Marriage’ in honour of the Divine pair. At mar- riages in Athens certain instruction was imparted to the contracting pair by the priestesses of Demeter and Athena.
The ritual of the Mysteries as reported to us does not contain, it is true, any idea of marriage between the goddess and the god, but on the con- trary presents a series of incidents of violence and deceit ; and, as we have seen, the whole story is taken straight from the life of nature as seen in animals and crops. Undoubtedly, the suggestion from these incidents would seem to be that the Divine life, which is to form the model and ex- emplar for mankind, was of that rude and savage kind. But it must be remembered that our infor- mation comes from opponents whose object was only to paint the horrors, and not to give a fair judgment of the ritual as a whole. While we must admit the truth of everything they say, we must add what they have omitted; and in all probability they have omitted the reconciliation and the exhibition of the progress of life to a higher level through the influence of religion. That some such exhibition formed part of the Mysteries is made practically certain by certain allusions among the pagan authorities. The formula, ‘I escaped evil: I found better,’ implies it. So does the whole tone of the defence which the ancients give of the Mysteries. We suppose that the idea of legal union and of marriage formed part of this exhibi- tion and improvement.
Diels, Sibyllinische Blatter, p. 48, has observed that part of the marriage ritual was almost identical with the purificatory ceremonies practised in the Mysteries (compare also 8. Reinach’s ingenious paper, ev. Archéol., Sept. 1901, p. 210): the con- nexion was suggested tentatively in the present writer's Hist. Com. on Galatians, p. 90; and it may now be regarded as proved.
It is an extremely important fact that the human marriage ceremony was thus celebrated by forms
* touyoy xaxov' eUpoy d&ervov (Demosth. de Cor. 259),
t é% zy Bdaov xixaxe : Firmicus, de Err. Prof. Relig. 18.
{ The proof is given in the present writer’s Historical Com. on the Epistle to the Galatians, pp. 88-91, and is here strengthened by details there omitted. é ’
$ of yeepeotyres rotator 7H Ail zoel of “Hp iepovs yépous: Lex, Rhetor. p. 670 Porson, p. 345 Nauck. The grammarian prob- ably did not correctly apprehend the nature -of this fact, which he must have got from a good authority. Usener in Rhein. Mus. xxx. p. 227, assumes that the reference is to the Athenian ‘ Holy Marriage,’ a festival well known at Athens. But the Hieros Gamos was known elsewhere, and the true meaning of the grammarian’s words is certainly as stated in the text above.
130 RELIGION OF GREECE
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ee
taken from the Mysteries; and the conclusion must be that the human pair repeat the action in the way in which the god and goddess first per- formed and consecrated it, and that, in fact, they play the parts of the god and goddess in the sacred drama. This single eee is, as we may be sure, typical of a whole series of actions. We have seen also that some, probably all, domesticated animals, intended to be eaten, were slain and sacrificed accord- ing to an elaborate ritual (§ IIT (9)); and we may accept as highly probable the general principle that all the important acts of life were regarded as re- ligious ceremonies, which must be performed in the proper fashion, as inaugurated by the god or goddess and taught by them to men. Every important stage in life was modelled on what the goddess or the Divine pair had done, and thus each stage was consecrated by a sort of sacrament. The subject is both wide and obscure: see below, Nos. (5) and (6).
There are, however, many difficulties connected with the question of Anatolian marriage which must first be noticed briefly.