The proclamation was probably accompanied by some words or sights of terror. When Nero went to Eleusis and thought at first of being initiated, he was deterred by it. Here is another instance of exclusion, which is not less important in its bearing upon Christian rites. Apollonius of Tyana was excluded because he was a magician (γόης) and not pure in respect of τὰ δαιμόνια—he had intercourse with other divinities than those of the mysteries, and practised magical rites.[600]
We learn something from the parody of the mysteries in Lucian’s romance of the pseudo-prophet Alexander. In it Alexander institutes a celebration of mysteries and torchlights and sacred shows, which go on for three successive days. On the first there is a proclamation of a similar kind to that at Athens. “If any Atheist or Christian or Epicurean has come as a spy upon the festival, let him flee; let the initiation of those who believe in the god go on successfully.” Then forthwith at the very beginning a chasing away takes place. The prophet himself sets the example, saying, “Christians, away!” and the whole crowd responds, “Epicureans, away!” Then the show begins—the birth of Apollo, the marriage of Coronis, the coming of Æsculapius, are represented; the ceremonies proceed through several days in imitation of the mysteries and in glorification of Alexander.[601]
The proclamation was thus intended to exclude notorious sinners from the first or initial ceremonial.[602] The rest was thrown upon a man’s own conscience. He was asked to confess his sins, or at least to confess the greatest crime that he had ever committed. “To whom am I to confess it?” said Lysander to the mystagogoi who were conducting him. “To the gods.” “Then if you will go away,” said he, “I will tell them.”
Confession was followed by a kind of baptism.[603] The candidates for initiation bathed in the pure waters of the sea. The manner of bathing and the number of immersions varied with the degree of guilt which they had confessed. They came from the bath new men. It was a κάθαρσις, a λουτρὸν, a laver of regeneration. They had to practise certain forms of abstinence: they had to fast; and when they ate they had to abstain from certain kinds of food.[604]
(ii.) The purification was followed by a sacrifice—which was known as σωτήρια—a sacrifice of salvation: and in addition to the great public sacrifice, each of the candidates for initiation sacrificed a pig for himself.[605] Then there was an interval of two days before the more solemn sacrifices and shows began. They began with a great procession—each of those who were to be initiated carrying a long lighted torch, and singing loud pæans in honour of the god.[606] It set out from Athens at sunrise and reached Eleusis at night. The next day there was another great sacrifice. Then followed three days and nights in which the initiated shared the mourning of Demeter for her daughter, and broke their fast only by drinking the mystic κυκεὼν—a drink of flour and water and pounded mint, and by eating the sacred cakes.[607]
(iii.) And at night there were the mystic plays: the scenic representation, the drama in symbol and for sight. Their torches were extinguished: they stood outside the temple in the silence and the darkness. The doors opened—there was a blaze of light—and before them was acted the drama of Demeter and Koré—the loss of the daughter, the wanderings of the mother, the birth of the child. It was a symbol of the earth passing through its yearly periods. It was the poetry of Nature. It was the drama which is acted every year, of summer and winter and spring. Winter by winter the fruits and flowers and grain die down into the darkness, and spring after spring they come forth again to new life. Winter after winter the sorrowing earth is seeking for her lost child; the hopes of men look forward to the new blossoming of spring.
It was a drama also of human life. It was the poetry of the hope of a world to come. Death gave place to life. It was a purgatio animæ, by which the soul might be fit for the presence of God. Those who had been baptized and initiated were lifted into a new life. Death had no terrors for them. The blaze of light after darkness, the symbolic scenery of the life of the gods, were a foreshadowing of the life to come.[608]
There is a passage in Plutarch which so clearly shows this, that I will quote it.[609]
“When a man dies, he is like those who are being initiated into the mysteries. The one expression, τελευτᾶν—the other, τελεῖσθαι, correspond.... Our whole life is but a succession of wanderings, of painful courses, of long journeys by tortuous ways without outlet. At the moment of quitting it, fears, terrors, quiverings, mortal sweats, and a lethargic stupor, come over us and overwhelm us; but as soon as we are out of it, pure spots and meadows receive us, with voices and dances and the solemnities of sacred words and holy sights. It is there that man, having become perfect and initiated—restored to liberty, really master of himself—celebrates, crowned with myrtle, the most august mysteries, holds converse with just and pure souls, looking down upon the impure multitude of the profane or uninitiated, sinking in the mire and mist beneath him—through fear of death and through disbelief in the life to come, abiding in its miseries.”
There was probably no dogmatic teaching—there were possibly no words spoken—it was all an acted parable.[610] But it was all kept in silence. There was an awful individuality about it. They saw the sight in common, but they saw it each man for himself. It was his personal communion with the divine life. The glamour and the glory of it were gone when it was published to all the world.[611] The effect of it was conceived to be a change both of character and of relation to the gods. The initiated were by virtue of their initiation made partakers of a life to come. “Thrice happy they who go to the world below having seen these mysteries: to them alone is life there, to all others is misery.”[612]