THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
the Greeks varnished over with
Christianity
menaced Paganism with
of their
fictions
tlie
ruin, the
own
17
poets,
and that
finally,
when
then philosophers determined to unlock the
and in N"eo-platonisni to lay it bare to mankind, as a rival source of
been hidden under the cloak of the Mysteries of
religion, showing plainly wdiat had long
Eleusis and Samothrace.
secrets of their religion,
declares that the fundamental principle is that of a Deity who suffers and dies, and
The INIysteries, accordafterwards triumphs over death, and has a glorious resurrection.
ing to this writer, were schools of virtue and philanthropy.
Schelling" thought that the doctrine taught in them was in the directest opposition to
Baur
1
who
the public religion, that this doctrine included a pure monotheism, and that Christianity
is
only the publication of their secret
Mitford considers that the Mysteries had their origin in the efforts of the Eg}^itian
nobles who had migrated into Greece to maintain their pre-eminence and that, to attract
!
;
certain sections of the people to their fortunes, they initiated
Chandler* and
their object the teaching of the unity of God.^
ject rather irreverently,
the
latter
considering
prototype of the Papal traffic in indulgences.
that the Samothracian Mysteries,
expectations
if really
them
the
into rites having for
De Pauw
treat the sub-
Mysteries as a kind of
contents himself with saying
Bernhardy^
Eleusinian
made known
to us,
would not come up
to
our
!
Lastly come Lobeck and Limburg-Brouwer," whose conclusions very nearly coincide, as
they also do with common sense.
They consider that the Mysteries could not have originated
either with savages or with a people in an
have taken their
therefore
rise
in
advanced
state of civilisation,
the intermediate state
in
and that they must
which we may picture the
augment the respect due to
Pelasgi to have been, and their raison d'etre was the desire to
There is scarcely any ancient people in which some sanctuary might not be found
religion.
cither occasionally or wholly closed to the multitude, nor any among whom some secret and
nocturnal rites were not celebrated.''
It will be observed that the various theories presented above are of a very contradictory
"
that they have their origin in
character, which may be explained by the natural inference,
the imagined necessity of finding something worthy in modern conception, of concealment in
the Ancient Mysteries, and derive their support and plausibility from an uncritical confusion
of times
and
authories."
^
Still it is tolerably clear, that
however much the Mysteries may have degenerated
in the
course of time, or have become obscured by popular tradition or fanciful allegory, they were
established in very early and semi-civilised times, and that they contained the germs of those
great moral truths
—
possibly, indeed, the
'
Sj'mbolik und Myth, tome
2
History of Greece, 1784, chapter
^
relics
of a primitive religion
—but
-
und
which we
find
Grundriss der Greichischen Literatur.
^
Aglaophamus
;
iii.,
and Hist, de
p. 159.
Pliilosopliie
*
i.
la Civilisation
Mor.
Religion, p. 75.
Travels in Greece.
et E^lig. des Grecs.
These high authorities differ, however, on one important point. Loheck (Aglaophamus, tome i., Elusin, p. 228)
whilst Lira burg- Brouwer (Hist, de la
insists that the religious ceremonies performed at Eleusis were of native origin
^
;
Civilisation, etc.,
tome
ii.,
p.
298) says positively,
" Je
crois rj'au
a I'Egypte."
'
Encycloppedia Britannica (Eleusinia).
C
moins pour
les
ceremonies d'Eleusis
il
faut en reveiiir