[598] An interesting inscription has recently come to light, which shows that the public slaves of the city were initiated at the public expense. Foucart, l.c. p. 394.
[599] Cf. Origen, c. Cels. 3. 59.
[600] Philostratus, Vita Apoll. 4. 18, p. 138.
[601] Alex. 38.
[602] Cf. Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 39 ff. and 89 ff.; Welcker, Griech. Götterl. ii. 530-532. “The first and most important condition required of those who would enter the temple at Lindus is that they be pure in heart and not conscious of any crime.”—Professor W. M. Ramsay in Ency. Brit. s. v. “Mysteries.” For purification before admission to the worship of a temple, see, in C.I.A. iii. Pt. i. 73. 74, instances of regulation prescribed at the temple of Mên Tyrannus at Laurium in Attica, e.g. μηθένα ἀκάθαρτον προσάγειν, various periods of purification being specified. Cf. Reinach, Traité d’Épigr. Grecque, p. 133, on the inscr. of Andania in Messenia, B.C. 91; the mysteries of the Cabiri in Le Bas and Foucart, Inscr. du Peloponnèse, ii. § 5, p. 161; and Sauppe, die Mysterieninschr. von Andania.
[603] Tertullian, de Baptismo, 5, “Nam et sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur ... ipsos etiam deos suos lavationibus efferunt;” Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk. 5. 4: “The mysteries are not exhibited incontinently to all, but only after certain purifications and previous instructions.” Ibid. 5. 11: “It is not without reason that in the mysteries that obtain among the Greeks, lustrations hold the first place, as also the laver among the Barbarians. After these are the minor mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the great mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things.” We have thus a sort of baptism and catechumenate.
[604] The fast lasted nine days, and during it certain kinds of food were wholly forbidden. Cf. Lobeck, Aglaoph. pp. 189-197.
[605] There was a lesser and a greater initiation: “It is a regulation of law that those who have been admitted to the lesser should again be initiated into the greater mysteries.” Hippol. 5, 8: see the whole chapter, as also cc. 9, 20.
[606] Cf. Clem. Alex. Protrept. 12: “O truly sacred mysteries! O stainless light! My way is lighted with torches and I survey the heavens and God: I am become holy whilst I am initiated. The Lord is the hierophant, and seals while illuminating him who is initiated,” &c. Ib. 2: “Their (Demeter’s and Proserpine’s) wanderings, and seizure, and grief, Eleusis celebrates by torchlight processions;” and again p. 32. So Ælius Aristid. i. p. 454 (ed. Canter), τὰς φωσφόρους νύκτας.
[607] “I have fasted, I have drunk the cup,” &c. Clem. Alex. Protrept. 2.