XXXVII

OF THE MYSTERIES OF ELEUSINIA CERES

IN THE chaos of popular superstition, which would have made almost the whole globe one vast den of ferocious animals, there was a salutary institution, which prevented one part of the human species from degenerating into an entire state of brutality: this consisted of mysteries and expiations. It was scarce possible not to find some people of gentle disposition, and sages, amongst so many cruel madmen; or that there should be no philosophers, who should endeavor to bring men back to reason and morality.

Those sages made use of superstition itself to correct its enormous abuses, in the same manner as the heart of a viper is applied to cure its bite; many fables were intermingled with useful truths, and these truths were supported by fable.

The mysteries of Zoroaster are no longer known: we have but very little insight into those of Isis; but we cannot doubt, that they foretold the grand system of a future state; for Celsus says to Origenes, book viii, “You boast of believing in eternal punishments, and did not all the mystical ministers preach them to their initiated?”

God’s unity was the principal dogma of all the mysteries. Apuleius has preserved for us the prayer of the priestesses of Isis: “The coelestial powers serve thee; the infernal regions are submitted to thee; the universe revolves in thine hand; thy feet trample upon Tartarus; the planets answer to thy voice; the seasons return at thy order; the elements obey thee.”

The mystical ceremonies of Ceres were an imitation of those of Isis. Those who had committed crimes confessed them and expiated them; they fasted, purified themselves, and gave alms. All the ceremonies were held sacred by solemn oaths, to make them more venerated. The mysteries were celebrated at night, in order to inspire a kind of holy horror. Certain species of tragedies were represented the fable of which set forth the happiness of the just, and the punishments of the wicked. The greatest men of antiquity, such as Plato and Cicero, have written eulogia upon these mysteries, which were not yet degenerated from their primitive purity.

Some very learned men have proved that the sixth book of the Eneid, is only a picture of what was practiced in these secret and famous representations. He does not, indeed, speak of the Demiourgoi, who represented the creator; but in the vestibule, or prelude, he brings on the children whose parents had left them to perish; and this was a hint to fathers and mothers. Continuo auditae voces vagitus & ingens, etc. Minos afterwards appeared to judge the dead. The wicked were dragged to Tartarus, and the just conducted to the Elysian fields. This garden comprised everything the imagination could suggest for the benefit of mere men. Only heroes and demi-gods obtained the privilege of ascending to heaven. Every religion has suggested a garden for the abode of the just; and even when the Essenians, amongst the Jewish people, received the dogma of a future state, they believed that the good, after death, would go into a garden upon the banks of the sea. As for the Pharisees, they adopted the metempsychosis, and not the resurrection. If it be allowed to quote the sacred history of Jesus Christ, amongst such a variety of profane things, we shall observe, that he says to the penitent thief, “this day shalt thou be with me in the garden.” 7 He conformed himself to the language of all men.

The mysteries of Eleusinia became the most celebrated. One very remarkable thing is, that they there read the beginning of the theogony of Sanchoniaton the Phoenician; this is a proof that Sanchoniaton had preached one supreme God, creator and governor of the world. It was then that this doctrine was unveiled to the initiated, instructed in the belief of polytheism. Let us image to ourselves a superstitious people, who were accustomed from their earliest infancy to pay the same worship to the virgin, St. Joseph, and the other saints, as to God the father. It would perhaps be dangerous to disabuse them all on a sudden; it would at first be prudent to reveal only to the most moderate and rational the infinite distance there is between God and his creatures. This was precisely the system of the mystagogues. Those who participated of the mysteries assembled in the temple of Ceres, and the Hierophanta taught them, that instead of adoring Ceres leading Triptolemus upon a car drawn by dragons, they should adore that God who nourished men, and permitted Ceres and Triptolemus to render agriculture so honorable.

This is so true, that the Hierophanta began by reciting the ancient verses of Orpheus: “Walk in the path of justice; adore the sole master of the universe; he is one, he is singly by himself; to him all beings owe their existence; he acts in them and by them; he sees all, and never was seen by mortal eyes.”

I acknowledge I do not conceive how Pausanias can say that these verses are not as estimable as those of Homer; it must be agreed, at least, that with respect to sense they are of more intrinsic value than the Iliad and Odyssey together.

The learned bishop Warburton, though very unjust in many of his bold decisions, gives great strength to all that I have been saying of the necessity of concealing the dogma of God’s unity to a people headstrong with polytheism. He observes after Plutarch, that the young Alcibiades, having assisted at these mysteries, readily insulted the statues of Mercury in a party of debauchery with several of his friends; and that the people in their rage insisted upon Alcibiades’s being condemned.

The greatest direction was therefore then necessary, not to shock the prejudices of the multitude: Alexander himself, having obtained leave in Egypt of the Hierophanta of the mysteries, to acquaint his mother with the secrets of the initiated, at the same time conjured her to burn his letter after reading it, that she might not irritate the Greeks.

Those who, deceived by a false zeal, have since imagined that the mysteries were nothing but infamous debauches ought to be undeceived by the word which answers to initiated; it signifies, that they entered upon a new life.

Another indubitable proof that these mysteries were celebrated only to inspire virtue in men is the set form with which the assembly was dismissed. Amongst the Greeks, the two ancient Phenician words Koff omphet, Watch and be pure, were pronounced. We may produce, as an additional proof, that the emperor Nero, who was guilty of his mother’s death, could not be admitted to these mysteries, when he travelled in Greece; the crime was too enormous; and as great an emperor as he was, the initiated would not receive him amongst them. Zozimus also says, that Constantine could find no Pagan priests who would purify him and absolve him of parricide.

There must then, in fact, have been amongst those people whom we call Pagans, Gentiles, and idolaters, a very pure religion, whilst the people and priests followed shameful customs, trifling ceremonies, ridiculous doctrines, and while they even sometimes shed human blood in honor of some imaginary gods, who were despised and detested by the sages.

This pure religion consisted in acknowledging the existence of a supreme God, his providence and justice. What disfigured these mysteries, if Tertullian is to be credited, was the ceremony of regeneration. It was necessary that the initiated should seem to be re-born; this was the symbol of the new kind of life he was to embrace. He was presented with a crown, and he trampled upon it. The Hierophanta held the sacred knife over his head; the initiated, who feigned to be struck with it, fell as if he were dead; after which he appeared to regenerate. The free-masons still retain a fragment of this ancient ceremony.

Pausanias in his Arcadics tells us, that in several temples of Eleusinia the penitents and initiated were flagellated; an odious custom, which was a long time after introduced in several Christian churches. I doubt not that in all these mysteries, the ground-work of which was so sensible and useful, many censurable superstitions were introduced. Superstition led to debauchery, which brought on contempt. Of all these ancient mysteries, there were at length no other remains, but those gangs of beggars, whom we have seen, under the name of Egyptians and Bohemians, wander all over Europe with castinets, dancing the priests of Isis’ dance, selling balm, curing the itch, though covered with it, telling fortunes, and stealing poultry. Such has been the end of what was the most sacred thing of half the known world.