II. Payan ^fystcrits in yeneral. — These were ceremo-
])erformers. The following are some of the iirincipal nies in which only the initiated coidd participate. The
scenes given by a late eye-witness: " l.Thc triumplial practice may be obscurely traced to the early Orient, in
entrj- of Christ into Jerusalem ; the children and people the rites of Isis (q. v.) and Osiris ((]. v.) in Egypt, in the
shouting 'Ilosanna!' and strewing clothes and branch- Mithraic solemnities of Persia, and in the (ireek festi-
This introduced the Saviour and the apostles, and formed in itself an admirable introduction to the whole. There were certainly no less than two hundred persons in the crowd, including seventy or eighty children. 2. The long and animated debates in the Sanhedrim, in- cluding the furious evidence of the expelled money- changers, and later the interview with Judas, when the contract was ratified between him and the priests by the payment of the thirty pieces of silver. Nothing
vals connected with the worship of Bacchus and Cy- bele, and may be even faintly recognised in our day in the ceremonies of frcemasonrj-. They consisted in gen- eral of rites of purification and expiation, of sacrifices and processions, of ecstatic or orgiastic songs and dances, of nocturnal festivals fit to impress the imagination, and of spectacles designed to excite the most diverse emotions — terror and trust, sorrow and joy, ho];e and despair. The celebration was cliictly by symbolical
could be more characteristic, real, and unaifected than | acts and spectacles; yet sacred mystical words, formu- these. 3. The Last Supper, and the washing of the ; las, fragments of liturgies, or hymns, were also cm- apostles' feet. Here the table was arranged on the I ployed. Tliere were likewise certain objects with which model of the well-known picture of Leonarilo da Vinci, occult meanings that were im])arted to the iniiiated 4. Allthescenesin whichChristwasbroughtsuccessively i were associated, or which were used in the various cer- befo.-e Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, and Herod; the 'Ecce [ emoniesin the ascending scale of initiation. The sacred Homo' (copied, it struck me, from Van Dyck), the 1 phrases, the ovrdppvra, concerning which silence was scourging, etc. In some of these as many as two hun- I imposed, were themselves symbolical legends, and prob- dred and fifty persons were at once on the scene — infu- ] ably not statements of speculative truths. The most riated mobs of priests, money-changers, Poman soldiers, I diverse theories have been suggested concerning the etc. — and, violent as were the passions (lorsonified, tliere origin, nature, and significance of the Hellenic niyste- was not the least approach to rant, nor the slightest rics. As Schiinemann remarks ((/riVcA/.s-rAf, I //f?7//«;Hfr, transgression into irreverence or imjirobability. In the 3d cd., Berlin, 1873), the very fact that it was not jier- course of these scenes a striking occurrence was the con- mitted to reveal to the uninitiated when in tluse cults trast of Barabhas — a brutal and sipialid figure — ^^ith consisted, what were the rites |)eculiar to them, for wliat the noble form and countenance of the sacred sufferer — the gods were in\'oked. or what were the names tif the the latter formed more after the model of those of W- divinities worshipped, has been the cause of our cx- bert DiUer than of any otlier painter; at least such was [ trcmely incomplete information in regard to them, my impression. Both Pilate and Herod were admira- Tiie oldest of the Hellenic mysteries are believed to bly represented, but especially the former. 5, The [ be the C(/W/jV, in Samothrnce and Lennios, which wire whole long procession, at the slowest pace, from Pilate's I renowned through the whole period of pagan antiquity.
MYSTERY
791
MYSTERY
Though they were only less august than the Eleusinian, nothing is certain concerning them, and even the names of the divinities are known to us only by the profana- tion of jManaseas. (See below.) The Eleusinian were the most venerable of the mysteries. " Happy," says Pindar, " is he who has beheld them, and descends be- neath the hollow earth ; he knows the end, he knows the divine origin of life." They composed a long series of ceremonies, concluding with complete initiation or perfection. The fundamental legend on which the rit- ual seems to have been based was the search of the goddess Demeter, or Ceres, for her daughter Proserpine, her sorrows and her joys, her descent into Hades, and her return into the realm of light. The rites were thought to prefigure the scenes of a future life. The same symbol was the foundation of the Thesmophoria, which were celebrated exclusively by married women, rendering it probable that initiation was designed to protect against the dangers of childbirth. (See below.) The Oi-jjhic and Dionysiac mysteries seem to have de- signed a reformation of the popular religion. Founded upon the worship of the Thracian Dionysus, or Bac- chus, they tended to ascetic rather than orgiastic prac- tices. Other mysteries were those of Zeus, or Jupiter, in Crete; of Hera, or Juno, in Argolis; of Athene, or Minerva, in Athens; of Artemis, or Diana, in Arcadia; of Hector in ^gina, and of Khea in Phrygia. The worship of the last, under different names, prevailed in divers forms and places in Greece and the East, and was associated with the orgiastic rites of the Corybantes.