[21] At least in later ages there was plenty to hear: εἰς ἐφάμιλλον κατέστη ταῖς ἀκοαῖς τὰ ὁρώμενα, Aristid., Eleus. I, 415 Di. [ii, 28 Ke.]. We frequently hear of the beautiful voices of the hierophants, of ὕμνοι ringing out, etc.
[22] The well-known statements of Pindar, Sophokles, Isokrates, Krinagoras, Cicero, and others are collected by Lobeck, Agl. 69 ff. There is a reminiscence of Isocr. in Aristid. Eleus. I 421 Di. [ii, 30 Ke.] ἀλλὰ μὴν τό γε κέρδος τῆς πανηγύρεως οὐχ ὅσον ἡ παροῦσα εὐθυμία . . . ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῆς τελευτῆς ἡδίους ἔχειν τὰς ἐλπίδας. id. Panath. I, 302 Di. τὰς ἀρρήτους τελετὰς ὧν τοῖς μετασχοῦσι καὶ μετὰ τῆν τοῦ βίου τελευτὴν βελτίω τὰ πράγματα γίγνεσθαι δοκεῖ. Cf. also Welcker’s account, Gr. Götterl. ii, 519 ff., in which, however, there is a good deal mixed up which has nothing to do with the mysteries.
[23] That is, in the time of still vital religion and in the circles which still retained an unspoilt feeling for it. Apart from these it is true that the allegorical interpretation of myths was already familiar in antiquity, and in learned circles the gods and the stories of the gods were transformed and disintegrated εἰς πνεύματα καὶ ῥεύματα καὶ σπόρους καὶ ἀρότους καὶ πάθη γῆς καὶ μεταβολὰς ὡρῶν as Plutarch complains, Is. et O. 66, p. 377 D. These allegorical interpreters from Anaxagoras and Metrodoros onwards are the real ancestors of our modern “nature” mythologists. No one doubts, however, that from their interpretations nothing can be learnt except what the real sense of Greek belief in the gods certainly was not. It is worth noticing that Prodikos, because he said that ἥλιον καὶ σελήνην καὶ ποταμοὺς καὶ λειμῶνας καὶ καρποὺς καὶ πᾶν τὸ τοιουτῶδες were the real essence of the Greek gods, was looked upon as one of the ἄθεοι (S.E., M. 9, 51–2 = B 5 Diels). Quam tandem religionem reliquit? asks the Greek whom Cicero is reproducing in ND. i, 118, with reference to this ancient prophet of Greek “nature-religion”.—For the ancient allegorists Persephone, too, is nothing but τὸ διὰ τῶν καρπῶν φερόμενον πνεῦμα (so Kleanthes: Plu. as above). Acc. to Varro Persephone “means” fecunditatem seminum, [234] carried off by Orcus on the occasion of some crop-failure, etc. (Aug., CD. vii, 20). In Porph. ap. Eus., PE. 3, 11, 7–9. we actually have the very interpretation which has been recently restored to so much favour—that Κόρη is nothing else but a (feminine) personification of κόρος = young plant, shoot.
[24] A hint of such an explanation occurs in Sallustius, de Dis iv, κατὰ τὴν ἐναντίαν ἰσημερίαν (i.e. the autumnal) ἡ τῆς Κόρης ἁρπαγὴ μυθολογεῖται γενέσθαι· ὃ δὴ κάθοδός ἑστι τῶν ψυχῶν (from the standpoint of this Neoplatonist at any rate the analogy might be carried through). So, too, Sopater διαίρ. ζητ. in Walz, Rh. Gr. viii, 115, 3, speaks of τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς τὸ θεῖον συγγενές as if it were confirmed in the (Eleusinian) mysteries.
[25] It may be mentioned here by anticipation that a real doctrine of the indestructibility of the human soul was first traditionally attributed in antiquity to the Greek philosophers such as Thales or to the theosophoi such as Pherekydes (and Pythagoras too). In what sense this can be regarded as true we shall learn in the course of our inquiry. The mysteries of Eleusis, from which many modern critics would like to derive the belief in immortality among the Greeks, are mentioned by no ancient authority as among the sources of that belief or of such a doctrine. In which they were quite right.
[26] Soph. fr. 753 N. [791 P.] ὡς τρὶς ὄλβιοι κεῖνοι βροτῶν, οἳ ταῦτα δερχθέντες τέλη μόλωσ’ ἐς Ἅιδου· τοῖσδε γὰρ μόνοις ἐκεῖ ζῆν ἔστι, τοῖς δ’ ἄλλοισι πάντ’ ἐκεῖ κακά.
[27] The privileged position of the initiated is exhibited with striking vigour in the well-known outburst of Diogenes: τί λέγεις, ἔφη, κρείττονα μοῖραν ἕξει Παταικίων ὁ κλέπτης ἀποθανὼν ἢ Ἐπαμεινώνδας, ὅτι μεμύηται; Plu., Aud. Poet. iv, p. 21 F; D.L. vi, 39; Jul., Or. vii, 238 A (p. 308 Hert.).—A homiletic application of Diogenes’ saying is made by Philo, Vict. Off. 12, ii, p. 261 M. συμβαίνει πολλάκις τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν μηδένα μυεῖσθαι, λῃστὰς δὲ ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ καταποντιστὰς καὶ γυναικῶν θιάσους βδελυκτῶν καὶ ἀκολάστων, ἐπὰν ἀργύριον παράσχωσι τοῖς τελοῖσι καὶ ἱεροφαντοῦσι. Cf. Spec. Leg. 3, 7, i, p. 306 M.
[28] Of this nature were the ἱερά which the hierophant “showed” and the other things that were employed in the festival: pictures of gods, relics, and paraphernalia of all sorts (e.g. the κίστη and the κάλαθος: O. Jahn, Hermes, 3, 327 f.): see Lob., Agl. 51–62.
[29] Preller, for example (stimulated by K. O. Müller), is fond of dwelling on the special character and meaning of the worship of the chthonic deities as something quite distinct from other Greek worships of the gods. An example may be found in Pauly-Wissowa1, s.v. Eleusis, iii, p. 108: “The department of religion to which the Eleusinian cult belongs is that of the chthonic deities, which had been indigenous in Greece from the earliest times and was a widely popular cultus. In this cultus ideas of the generous fruitfulness of the earth’s soil and of the fruitfulness of death—whose seat seems to be beneath the earth like the Old Testament Sheol—were interwoven in a mysteriously suggestive way: a way which essentially resisted all efforts at clear and distinct comprehension, and could not help leading to mystical or occult suggestions and obscure symbolistic expression.” This and further amplifications in the same sense all rest upon the unprovable axiom that the activities of the χθόνιοι as gods of the soil and as gods of the kingdom of the souls were “interwoven”: the suggestive haze of the rest follows naturally. But what in all this is Greek?
[30] ἡ κρύψις ἡ μυστικὴ τῶν ἱερῶν σεμνοποιεῖ τὸ θεῖον, μιμουμένη τὴν φύσιν αὐτοῦ φεύγουσαν ἡμῶν τὴν αἴσθησιν. Str. 467. [235]