enjoyed a local worship were now raised to the rank of national gods. This seems also to have been the case with the Eleusinian goddess, for in the reign of Theseus we find mention of a temple at Athens called Eleusin- ian, probably the new and national sanctuary of Ceres. Her priests and priestpsses now became naturally at- tached to the national temple of the capital, though her original place of worship at Eleusis, wit li which so many sacred associations were connected, still retained its importance and its special share in the celebration of the national solemnities.
We must distinguish between the greater Eleusinia, which were celebrated at Athens and Eleusis, and the lesser, which were held at Agrie on the Ilissns. The lesser Eleusinia were only a preparation {izpoKci^apaK; or Trpodyvivauf) for the real mysteries. They were held every year in the month of Anthcsterion, and, ac- cording to some accoinits, in honor of Proserpina alone. Those who were initiated in them bore tlie name of Mystm (fimrai^, and had to wait at least another year before they could be admitted to the great mysteries. The principal rites of this first stage of initiation con- sisted in the sacrifice of a sow, which the mysta) seem to have first washed in the Cantharus, and in tlie puri- fication by a priest, who bore the name of llydranus ('Vi^pai/oc). The mystiB had also taken an oatli of se- crecy, which was administered to them by the Mysta-
stained from entering u])on any description of the sub- ject. Each individual, after his initiation, is said to have been dismissed by the words /coyS, vfxira^, in or- der to make room for other mysta>.
On the seventh day the initiated returned to Athens amid various kinds of raillery and jests, especially at the bridge over the Cephisus, where they sat down to rest, and poured forth their ridicule on those wlio ])ass- ed by. Hence the words yi<pvpiZuy and yKjivpinfii'ic. These (TKwi.ii.taTa seem, like the procession with torches to Eleusis, to have been dramatical and syniliolical rep- resentations of the jests by which, according to the an- cient legend, lambe or IJaubo had dis]Kllcd the grief of the goddess and made her smile. We may here ob- serve that probably the whole history of Ceres and Proserpina was in some way or other symbolically rep- resented at the Eleusinia. The eighth day, called J-.'puliiiina ('Eirtcavpui^, was a kind of additional day for those who by some accident had come too late, or had been prevented from being iniiiateil on the sixth day. It was said to have been added to the original number of days when vEsculapius, coming over from E|>idanrus to be initiated, arrived too late, and the Athenians, not to disappoint the god, added an eighth day. The ninth and last day bore the name of — Ai;//o- ;^o«(', from a pecidiar kind of vessel called Tz\tifio\oii, which is described as a small kind of kutvXoc. Two
MYSTERY
793
MYSTERY
of these vessels were on this day filled with water or wine, and the contents of the one thrown to the east, and those of the other to the west, while those who performed this rite uttered some mystical words.
The Eleusinian mysteries long survived the inde- pendence of Greece. Attempts to suppress them were made by the emperor Valentinian; but he met with strong opposition, and they seem to have continued down to the time of the elder Theodosius.
Respecting the secret doctrines which were revealed in them to the initiated, nothing certain is known. The general belief of the ancients was that they open- ed to man a comforting prospect of a future state. But this feature does not seem to have been originally connected with these mysteries, and was probably adcl- ed to them at the period which followed the opening of a regular intercourse between Greece and Egypt, when some of the speculative doctrines of the latter country and of the East may have been introduced into the mysteries, and hallowed by the names of the venerable bards of the mythical age. This supposition would also account, in some measure, for the legend of their introduction from Egypt {Sm'nb, Diet. 0/ Clans. A ntiq. s. v.). It does seem, indeed, as if the vague specu- lations of modern times on the subject were an echo of the manifold interpretations of the various acts of the mysteries given by the priests to the inquiring dis- ciple—according to the lights of the former or the lat- ter. Some investigators, themselves not entirely free from certain mystic influences (like Creuzer and others), have held them to have been a kind of misty orb around a kernel of pure light, the bright rays of which were too strong for the eyes of the multitude ; that, in fact, they hid under an outward garb of mummerj' a certain por- tion of the real and eternal truth of religion, the knowl- edge of wliich had been derived from some primeval, or, perhaps, the Mosaic revelation ; if it could not be traced to certain (or uncertain) Egyptian, Indian, or generally Eastern sources. To this kind of hazy talk, however (which we only mention because it is still re- peated every now and then), the real and thorough in- vestigations begun by Lobeck, and still pursued by many competent scholars in our own day, have, or ought to have, put an end. There cannot be any- thing more alien to the whole spirit of Greek and Roman 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 was only the speculative ten- dency of later times, when Polytheism was on the wane, that tried to symbolize and allegorize these obscure and partly imported ceremonies, the bulk of which had undoubtedly sprung from the midst of the Pelasgian tribes themselves in prehistoric times, and which were intended to represent and to celebrate certain natural phenomena in the visible creation. There is certain- ly no reason to deny that some more refined minds may at a very early period have endeavored to impart a higher sense to these wondrous performances ; but these can only be considered as solitary instances. The very fact of their having to be put down in later days as public nuisances in Rome herself speaks vol- umes against the occult wisdom inculcated in secret assemblies of men and women (Chambers, Cyclop, s. v.).