THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES.
20
from shipwreck was the leading benefit held out by this religious system,
infer that iiniuunity
votaries were probably taught certain prayers, and received amulets, mucli in the same
fasliion as we now find images of the saints given away in the more superstitious of Eomau
and
its
Catholic
purifications, that
things,
The
countries.
and not
were also formal, and, so
purifications
to
mechanical
speak,
from some imaginary defilement such as touching impure persons or
The Scholiast on Aristophanes,
true purification and elevation of the soul.
is,
tlie
"They apjKur to be righteous."^
The periods of probation between the successive ceremonies, as well as the number and
"
Four years was
development of the latter, are not very clearly defined. Warburton says
says,
—
the usual time of probation for the greater mysteries in whicli the secrets were deposited," but,
as we have already seen, one year was considered sufBcient at Eleusis.
Of the gradation
was distributed
programme
into five parts,"- but this
Yet
of the Eleusinians.
be undergone in the Mithraic
eighty degrees," he says,
"
if
rites far
system
may
The whole business
gone through them all,
cold, hunger, and thirst, to undergo
is
Nonnus may be
relied on, the probationary labours to
transcended those of
These labours are
initiated.
much
of initiation
have corresponded with the nine days'
all rival
of these labours, from less to greater,^ and
he
Amongst
"
of the Mysteries, Taylor informs us that
—
to pass
"
systems.
when
There were
the aspirant has
through
to
fire,
endure
journeyings, and, in a word, every toil of this nature."
It was an old maxim of this
the Pythagoreans there were similar gradations.
It is said that they had common
everything was not to be told to everybody.
meals, resembling the Spartan syssitia, at which they met in companies of ten, and by some
sect, that
authorities they were divided into three classes, "Acustici, Mathematici,
and Physici."
It
symbols, by which members of the
fraternity could recognise each other, even if they had never met before.*
That, in all the Mysteries, the initiated possessed secret signs of recognition, is free from
"
In the " Golden Ass
doubt.
of Apuleius, Lucius, the hero of the story, after many
also appears that they
had some
vicissitudes, regains his
human
secret conventional
shape, and
is
initiated into the Mysteries of Isis
;
he
finds,
"
of the great God, and
expected of him to be also instructed in those
In a dream he perceives one of the
father of the gods, the invincible Osiris."
supreme
"
He also walked gently with a limping step, the
officiating priests, of whom he thus speaks
however, that
it
is
:
left foot being a little bent, in order that he might afford me some sign by
*
In another work {Apologia) the author of the " Metamorphosis"
might know him."
If any one happens to be present who has been initiated into the same rites as myself,
ankle bone of his
which
I
"
says
if he
:
tvill
me
he shall then be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with so
Plautus, too, alludes to this custom in one of his plays {Miles Gloriosus, iv. 2),
give
much care."
when he says
the sign,
;
"
1
'
Pax.,
1.
Cedo Signum, liarunc
si
es
Baccharum."
2
276.
Divine Legation,
vol.
i.,
p.
272.
Even
in the lowest types of
mankind
"
Pamphleteer, vol.
viii., p.
52.
there exist degrees or probations.
Sir
.1.
Lubbock says: "Amongst the Aborigines
of Australia, in the South Adelaide district, according to Mr Moorhouse,
"
there are five distinct stages of initiation before the native is admitted to all the
(Prehistoric Times,
privileges of a man
3d Ed., 1872, p. 447).
*
«
^
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography (Pythagoras).
Taylor, Apuleius, 1S22, Book xi.,
Give me the sign, if you are one of these votaries
literally one of the Baccha; or votaries of Bacchus.
;
had a sign or password— sy»iiiw?!(?!i or mcmomculum
—by which they recognised each other.
p. 287.
Tliesc