MYSTERIES.
MYSTERIES (Greek Μυστήρια, a word ultimately derivable from the root MU, a sound produced with closed lips) were ceremonies in ancient religions, conducted secretly, and only in the presence of such as had undergone preliminary rites of initiation. The ultimate origin of such ceremonies is doubtless to be sought for in the nature of religion itself, and the feelings of awe and reverence with which its objects are regarded. For to such feelings is directly traceable whatever part sacerdotal exclusiveness or legislative wisdom may be supposed to have had in their institution and preservation. Mystery, in one form or another, is inherent in religion, and will never disappear from it. Mysterious ceremonies, doctrines, and language, are co-ordinate developments of the same religious feelings. The origin and significance of the ancient mysteries have been the subject of much investigation and discussion. On these points some observations will be subjoined to the following succinct account of the most celebrated of these institutions:—
1. The Mysteries of Isis and Osiris.—These two deities, like the reigning deities in all mythologies, are preceded in legend by others. A satisfactory explanation of this fact has not yet been reached; it was formerly the main support of the Euhemeristic theory, and has been plausibly explained by that of successive worship, a theory which has also been applied to the explanation of many of the peculiar features of the myths themselves. It is certain, at all events, in the case of Egypt, that the revolutions in her political history were accompanied by extensive changes in her religious systems, and by the displacement or absorption of the ancient and local deities in a more modern group, and the growth of new myths, in which, doubtless, the historical events attending these changes have been partially reflected. Herodotus states, and his statement is confirmed by the monuments, that the Egyptian gods formed three orders (ii. 145). These three orders are successive dynasties of gods whose reign preceded that of mortal sovereigns. Of these three, the most recent is that of Osiris, whose son Horus is the last reigning god. (Bunsen, Egypt's Place in Univ. History, vol. i., p. 357.) These two deities alone, Osiris and Isis, were worshipped over the whole of Egypt, and their mythical history formed the subject of the mysteries.
If actual events, as we have supposed, are partially reflected in the story, the whole has been thrown into the prehistoric and dateless periods of mythology, and has been so interwoven with the ideal and purely symbolic, that the elements are not now distinguishable. Osiris, sovereign of Lower Egypt, is, with Isis, his sister-spouse, the originator of agriculture and the arts of peace and civilization. The cultivation of grain and of the vine, settled life, letters, music, and the fine arts, are owing to him. He sets out on a career of conquest and civilization, leaving the government in the hands of Isis, against whom Typhon, brother and implacable enemy of Osiris, wages war in his absence, but is defeated, and affects reconciliation. Osiris visits
Ethiopia, India, and Greece, and introduces a new order of things. On his return to Egypt, he is surprised by Typhon at a peaceful banquet, and put into a coffer, which is committed to the Nile. Isis, learning this, searches for his body, and is guided to Biblos in Phœnicia. Her adventures here present a remarkable similarity to those of Demeter at Eleusis; she becomes nurse in disguise to the son of Astarte, the Queen of Biblos. At length she declares herself, gains possession of the coffer, and returns with it to Egypt, where she conceals herself with it. It is discovered by Typhon, who cuts in pieces the body of Osiris, and scatters it over the country. Isis again sets out in quest of the body, and succeeds in finding all the pieces but one, which she replaces with an artificial phallus, and inserts the body at Pousiri. According to other legends, she consigns each piece to a separate tomb, in the form of a human body, so that it is impossible afterwards to dishonour them. Horus defeats Typhon and makes him prisoner, but Isis sets him at liberty and banishes him. Of the ceremonies to which this myth corresponds our information is vague and imperfect. They seem to have been six in number, and celebrated at different periods of the year. 1. The Aphanism, or disappearance of Osiris, on the 17th of Athyr (13th Nov.) 2. The Zetesis, or search for Osiris, about the winter solstice. In this ceremony, the sacred cow, symbol of Isis, was led seven times round the temple. (Plut., De Is. et Osir. 52.) 3. The finding of Osiris in January. 4. The burial. 5. The resurrection of Osiris. And 6. In March the entrance of Osiris into the moon. At Abydos and Philæ, supposed tombs of Osiris, were celebrated mystic rites, of which we have no certain information. These ceremonies throw considerable light upon the meaning of the legend. Osiris was the active, life-giving power; hence the sun, the Nile, &c., and hence his symbol, the bull: Isis, the passive, life-receiving power; hence Egypt, the earth, vegetation, &c., and hence her symbol, the cow. The life-giving power suffers in the course of the year a temporary death, but is restored to activity again in the vernal season. The Egyptian mysteries of Isis are to be distinguished from those of maritime Isis, established at Corinth, and afterwards so notorious at Rome. We have a description of these mysteries, doubtless embellished by the author's fancy, in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (lib. xi.) The festival was preceded by purification in the sea before sunrise, and at sunrise a procession was formed, in which the sacred coffer and image of the goddess was borne by a train of priests to the shore, when a curiously-adorned vessel was consecrated. The ceremonies of initiation were practised by night. The neophyte, after various lustrations and instructions, was led into the presence of the goddess, and there heard and saw what he dared not reveal. The discourse put by Apuleius in the mouth of Isis is a commentary on the inscription of Saïs,—"I am all that has been, is, and will be." The advantages
Mysteries. to be derived from initiation were, length of life, the protection of the goddess, and a happy lot in the next world. The worship of maritime Isis seems to have been introduced into Rome about the time of the empire, and was for a long time held in contempt and detestation. This feeling doubtless facilitated the degradation of these mysteries into what they became under the later emperors,—scenes of debauchery, and all kinds of wickedness. (See Ste Croix, Recherches, &c., vol. ii., p. 172.)
2. The Mysteries of Demeter, of Dionysus, and of the Cabiri.—While the history and mythology of Egypt cannot be said to be as yet completely deciphered, we have, on the other hand, very full and exact information on the mythology and worship of Greece. In Greece every deity had his peculiar mysteries; Jupiter, e.g., had a mystic worship in Crete, Juno in Argolis, Hecate in Ægina, Diana in Arcadia, &c. The most celebrated of all, however, were those of Demeter at Eleusis in Attica. They owed their fame, doubtless, to the city in which they were celebrated, the influx of cultivated strangers into Athens, and partly also to the nature of the myth itself, of which they were a kind of commemorative representation. The myth, whose most ancient form is preserved in the Homeric hymn to Demeter, is well known: it is that of the wanderings of Demeter in search of Persephone, carried off by Aidoneus (Pluto); her arrival and disguise at Eleusis; her final recovery of her daughter; and her institution of agriculture, arts, laws, and civilized life; according to one legend also, of the mysteries themselves, to the participants in which her protection and the favour of Persephone, queen of the under-world, were secured. The mysteries of Demeter were originally peculiar to the Eleusinians, and were conducted by the Eumolpids; when Eleusis became subject to Athens, it was stipulated that they should always continue to do so. Thus, while Athenians were initiated, the superintendence of the festival was in the hands of that family, under the second Archon (Basileus), and associated with the Ceryces (originally of the same family), and with the female descendants of King Celeus. The Hierophantes and the Dadouchos were the chief ministers; the latter had charge of the purifications. Among the inferior offices an important one was that of Exegetes, or interpreter. The Eumolpids had also an authority, subject to appeal, in all matters of sacrilege. The cases of Diagoras (Lysias, Con. Andoc.), of Aristotle (Diog. Laert. v. 1), and of Æschylus (Aristot., Eth. Nicom. iii. 2), prove the strictness with which the laws were enforced, and the jealousy with which the mysteries were guarded from profanation. (See also Liv. xxxi. 14.) The less and the greater mysteries must be distinguished; the former, held at Agræ, on the Hissus, in the month of Anthesterion (February), consisted mainly in preparatory purifications by the sacrifice of a sow; an oath was administered to the mystæ, as they were called, at this stage, and instructions given them. The great mysteries were celebrated in the month of Boedromion (September), probably nine days (15–23). The first five days were occupied with various lustrations; on the sixth a grand procession was formed, bearing the statue of Iacchus from the Eleusinion in Athens to Eleusis, and on the night of this day the last initiation was performed. Proclamation being made by the Hieroceryx commanding the profane to withdraw, an oath was exacted, mystic questions put (the better to prevent intrusion), further purifications practised, and the recesses of the temple were disclosed to the Epoptæ. It would appear, from various allusions in ancient authors, that the punishments of the under-world were represented, as the myth required, and probably also the nuptial union of Aidoneus and Persephone. This latter scene, with certain others of a similar kind in the other mysteries, perhaps gave colour to the charges of immorality brought against them by later, especially Christian, writers. These scenes were fol-
lowed by the autopsia, a kind of beatific vision, of which we have no clear account, and which appears to have been accompanied by a prescribed discourse from the hierophant, and then the assembly was dismissed with the mystic formula Kone, Ompax, repeated by the audience.
Connected with the Eleusinia were the Thesmophoria, a mystic festival celebrated by the Attic women alone, 14–18 Pyanepsion (October), and which derived its name from the procession to Eleusis on the last day, in which the laws were solemnly carried. These mysteries were also held during the night; were prepared for by continence, fasting, and lustrations; and appear to have had reference to the supposed institution of laws by Demeter.
The mysteries of Dionysus were also celebrated by women alone, in the month of Anthesterion, in the temple of Dionysus & Aphrodite. They were presided over by the wife of the Archon king (Basilissa), assisted by fourteen priestesses, called geraræ (venerable), to whom she took an oath that she was pure and unpolluted, and with whom she offered mystic sacrifices for the welfare of the city. The mystæ wore skins of fawns, and myrtle, instead of ivy. The sacrifice was a sow, as in the mysteries of Demeter. When these mysteries were introduced into Rome, they speedily degenerated into shameful immoralities; men, as well as women, were initiated; they were held five days in every month; and such were the crimes and excesses committed, that they were at length suppressed by a senatus consult B.C. 186. (Liv. xxxix. 8–18.)
The names, nature, and origin of the Cabiri are perhaps the most obscure points of Greek mythology. The etymology of the name itself has been the subject of much conjecture. This much appears certain, that the deities worshipped as Cabiri in Samothrace and Lemnos were the gods of an ancient Pelasgian people of the same name, and had relations with the most ancient seat of the Pelasgian worship in Northern Greece. The mystic names of the Cabiri were "Axieros," "Axiokersos," and "Axiokersa," to whom a fourth, "Cadmilus," is sometimes added. But to what Grecian divinities these names corresponded the conflicting testimonies of ancient authors leaves us in entire ignorance. This conflicting testimony has given rise to the conjecture of successive epochs in the Cabiric worship, the last being that in which the Cabiri were confounded with the Dioscuri, and became nothing more than mariner-preserving deities, their former attributes being lost in a haze of tradition. (St Croix, i., p. 44; Limburg-Brouwer, Hist. de la Civilis. des Grecs, iv., p. 352.) At all events, preservation from the dangers of the sea came to be the main object of initiators in the mysteries of Samothrace. The initiated were furnished with amulets for this purpose. Of the rites observed in these mysteries nothing certain is known. The myth of the murder of Cadmilus by his brothers appears to have been represented in them.
3. The Worship of Mithras, its origin, rites, and meaning, are extremely obscure. (Creuzer, Symbolik, ii., p. 193, ff.; Seel, Mithrageheimnisse, 1823; Ste Croix, Recherches, ii., p. 121.) In the Zendavesta, Mithras is the chief of the Izeds, under Ormuzd, who is his creator, and in whose war against Ahriman he is the presiding agent. He covers the earth with fruits and verdure, dispenses light and heat in nature, and guards men from the attacks of Ahriman; he is the judge of man in a future state, one month in the year is consecrated to him, and the sixteenth of every other. He is to be invoked thrice a-day. When the mystic worship of Mithras spread from Persia into Asia Minor with the Medo-Persian power, and afterwards, under the Hellenic monarchies, into Alexandria, and under the Roman empire into Rome and Europe, the original Persian idea was altered. Mithras was confounded with the sun and the supreme deity, and practices were adopted—celibacy and fasting, e.g., partly, it is probable, from the Christian religion—quite inconsistent with the Persian worship. We hear of it first
Mysteries. in Rome at the close of the first century, under Trajan. Monuments have been found in Italy, in the Tyrol, and other parts of Europe. On these, Mithras is represented as a young man plunging a sacrificial knife into a bull on which he is seated, and surrounded with mystic, sometimes clearly zodiacal figures,—a physical emblem, it has been held, of the reproductive forces of nature, from year to year bringing life out of death; and a moral emblem of the ever-repeated victory of the good over the evil principle. Nor is there in this duplicity of signification anything repugnant to the spirit of ancient mythology. Mithriac initiation was protracted and severe. The neophyte was baptized, anointed on the forehead, and received bread and wine; a crown was placed on his head, which he rejected with the words, "Mithras is my crown;" and finally he received a sword, and was declared, "soldier of Mithras." This was the lowest grade; the others had mystic names derived from animals sacred to the god.
The discussion respecting the Grecian mysteries has chiefly turned upon the question, what esoteric religious doctrine they were meant to conceal and convey?—a question which should surely have been preceded by the inquiry, whether they were meant or employed to convey any doctrine at all? The former question has also been constantly confounded with another, and a very different one, viz., What is the real import of the myths with which these ceremonies were connected?—it having been assumed, without satisfactory evidence, that the myths, and their interpretation into abstract terms, were handed down together, the former having been invented as a cloak for the latter, to be removed only to a select few, under the strictest bond of secrecy. In the first place, such a notion—and any theory of an esoteric doctrine involves it—is opposed to sound views of mythology. Such explanations are not possible beside the still living and credited myth; a myth not being the secondary but the primary expression of religious thought in the period which produced it,—the spontaneous and living form of the idea. Secondly, the theory of an esoteric doctrine is opposed to a sound criticism of the facts. On the introduction of Christianity, the philosophic adherents of polytheism interpreted the mysteries in an ethical and spiritual way; probably they attempted to modify them in accordance with their views, and largely appealed to those explained and reformed ceremonies in reply to the accusations of immorality and absurdity brought against polytheism and its institutions. The mysteries became in their hands points of contact between philosophy and the popular religion; and by this means what were at first simply secret ceremonies connected with secret symbols, acquired arbitrary significations of profound import,—descent of the soul into union with matter, &c. But when we ascend to earlier writers, we find that every one attempted to allegorize or euhemerize the myths which underlie the mysteries in his own fashion, just as the other myths were dealt with, and that these discordant explanations are frequently without hesitation attributed to the secret tradition revealed to the initiated alone. (Limburg-Brouwer, iv., p. 287.) This of itself is sufficient proof that there was no esoteric tradition at all; nor is there any evidence that the instructions given to the initiated were anything more than the necessary information as to their conduct during the ceremony. The supposed necessity of finding a concealed doctrine has given rise to many singular theories, of which one or two of the most remarkable may be noticed. According to Warburton (Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated), the mysteries had three objects: 1. To commemorate the origin of civilization. 2. To inculcate the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. 3. To reveal the doctrine of the unity of God. In this last consisted the real secret doctrine, and it was revealed only in the great mysteries, to which access was as difficult and rare as
it was frequent and easy to the less. On this last assertion,—destitute of all proof, and opposed to everything certainly known of the matter,—and on the further reasoning, that though the revelation of such a doctrine would be fatal to the popular system, it would not affect the worship of beings intermediate as to man and the Deity,—he relies to obviate the invincible objection that polytheism and such mysteries could not have existed together. The paradox reaches an extreme when it is alleged, that legislators established ceremonies subversive of the public religion, for the purpose of furnishing stronger bonds of social faith and order. The uncritical way in which, to support his theory, Warburton treats his authorities, has been ably exposed by Leland, Ste Croix, De Sacy, and Limburg-Brouwer. Ste Croix, while rejecting Warburton's theory, that the secret doctrine of the mysteries was the unity of God, is at one with him in regard to the special moral and religious aims which he attributes to them. According to that learned writer (Recherches Hist. et Crit. sur les Mystères du Paganisme, 2de édit., par Silvestre de Sacy, Paris, 1817, 2 vols.), they were instituted by the early legislators to commemorate the blessings of civilization, and, further, to furnish expiation for crimes. The germ of the mysteries is lustration and expiation; the doctrines taught were, the necessity of repentance and confession, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments. The views of the editor of that work, Silvestre de Sacy, are more sound: there was no secret doctrine in the mysteries; certain rites and symbols were secret, and these it was sacrilege to reveal. Theories of explanation and allegory may have found their way from the schools of philosophy into the celebration of the mysteries; but it is utterly erroneous to conceive that any philosophical doctrines had their origin there. Creuzer (Symb. u. Myth. der alten Völker, iv., p. 512, ff.) has delivered himself, with little reservation, to the reveries of the Neo-Platonists. Egyptian priests introduced their doctrines into Greece under the veil of the mysteries, instructing the few, who, by submitting to the necessary probations, showed themselves worthy of being instructed in the doctrines of the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, its emanation from the Supreme, &c. When Christianity commenced to threaten the ruin of polytheism, the philosophers at length resolved to betray the great secret which had been concealed for ages in the rites of Eleusis and Samothrace. Perhaps the extreme in this exaggerated estimate of the mysteries has been reached by Schelling. His positions are (Philosophie u. Religion, p. 75; comp. Wegscheider, De Myster. Græcorum Religioni non obtrudendis, Göttingæ, 1805), that the doctrine taught in them was in the directest opposition with the public religion, that this doctrine included a pure monotheism, and that Christianity is only the publication of their secret. According to F. C. Baur (Symb. u. Mythol., tom. iii., p. 159), the fundamental idea of the mysteries is that of a god (representative of nature and humanity) who suffers and dies, and who afterwards triumphs over death, and has a glorious resurrection. The mystic doctrines included sublime doctrines of cosmogony, of immortality, palingenesis, and of the most refined pantheism. Ouvaroff (Essai sur les Mystères d'Eleusis) has maintained that the initiated "not only acquired just notions on the Deity and his relations to man, on the primitive dignity of human nature and its fall, on the immortality of the soul, and the means of its reconciliation with God; but that oral and even written traditions were revealed to them,—precious remains of the great shipwreck of humanity." Heeren (Ideen, &c., vi., p. 76, ff.) maintains generally that the mysteries were instituted to preserve the symbolico-physical signification of the gods of paganism, which without them would have been lost. As already observed, such theories have their origin in the imagined necessity of finding something worthy, in modern conception, of concealment in the