[987] For this general character of the Grecian mysteries, with their concealed treasure of doctrine, see Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses, book ii. sect. 4.
Payne Knight, On the Symbolical Language of ancient Art and Mythology, sect. 6, 10, 11, 40, etc.
Saint Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères du Paganisme, sect. 3, p. 106; sect. 4, p. 404, etc.
Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der Alten Völker, sect. 2, 3, 23, 39, 42, etc. Meiners and Heeren adopt generally the same view, though there are many divergences of opinion between these different authors, on a subject essentially obscure. Warburton maintained that the interior doctrine communicated in the mysteries was the existence of one Supreme Divinity, combined with the Euemeristic creed, that the pagan gods had been mere men.
See Clemens Alex. Strom. v. p. 582, Sylb.
The view taken by Hermann of the ancient Greek mythology is in many points similar to that of Creuzer, though with some considerable difference. He thinks that it is an aggregate of doctrine—philosophical, theological, physical, and moral—expressed under a scheme of systematic personifications, each person being called by a name significant of the function personified: this doctrine was imported from the East into Greece, where the poets, retaining or translating the names, but forgetting their meaning and connection, distorted the primitive stories, the sense of which came to be retained only in the ancient mysteries. That true sense, however, (he thinks,) may be recovered by a careful analysis of the significant names: and his two dissertations (De Mythologiâ Græcorum Antiquissimâ, in the Opuscula, vol. ii.) exhibit a specimen of this systematic expansion of etymology into narrative. The dissent from Creuzer is set forth in their published correspondence, especially in his concluding “Brief an Creuzer über das Wesen und die Behandlung der Mythologie,” Leipzig, 1819. The following citation from his Latin dissertation sets forth his general doctrine:—
Hermann, De Mythologiâ Græcorum Antiquissimâ, p. 4 (Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 171): “Videmus rerum divinarum humanarumque scientiam ex Asiâ per Lyciam migrantem in Europam: videmus fabulosos poëtas peregrinam doctrinam, monstruoso tumore orientis sive exutam, sive nondum indutam, quasi de integro Græcâ specie procreantes; videmus poëtas, illos, quorum omnium vera nomina nominibus—ab arte, quâ clarebant, petitis—obliterata sunt, diu in Thraciâ hærentes, raroque tandem etiam cum aliis Græciæ partibus commercio junctos: qualis Pamphus, non ipse Atheniensis, Atheniensibus hymnos Deorum fecit. Videmus denique retrusam paulatim in mysteriorum secretam illam sapientum doctrinam, vitiatam religionum perturbatione, corruptam inscitiâ interpretum, obscuratam levitate amœniora sectantium—adeo ut eam ne illi quidem intelligerent, qui hæreditariam a prioribus poësin colentes, quum ingenii præstantiâ omnes præstinguerent, tantâ illos oblivione merserunt, ut ipsi sint primi auctores omnis eruditionis habiti.”
Hermann thinks, however, that by pursuing the suggestions of etymology, vestiges may still be discovered, and something like a history compiled, of Grecian belief as it stood anterior to Homer and Hesiod: “Est autem in hac omni ratione judicio maxime opus, quia non testibus res agitur, sed ad interpretandi solertiam omnia revocanda sunt” (p. 172). To the same general purpose the French work of M. Emérie David, Recherches sur le Dieu Jupiter—reviewed by O. Müller: see the Kleine Schriften of the latter, vol. ii. p. 82.
Mr. Bryant has also employed a profusion of learning, and numerous etymological conjectures, to resolve the Greek mythes into mistakes, perversions, and mutilations, of the exploits and doctrines of oriental tribes long-lost and by-gone,—Amonians, Cuthites, Arkites, etc. “It was Noah (he thinks) who was represented under the different names of Thoth, Hermês, Menês, Osiris, Zeuth, Atlas, Phorôneus, Promêtheus, to which list a farther number of great extent might be added: the Νοῦς of Anaxagoras was in reality the patriarch Noah” (Ant. Mythol. vol. ii. pp. 253, 272). “The Cuthites or Amonians, descendants of Noah, settled in Greece from the east, celebrated for their skill in building and the arts” (ib. i. p. 502; ii. p. 187). “The greatest part of the Grecian theology arose from misconception and blunders, the stories concerning their gods and heroes were founded on terms misinterpreted or abused” (ib. i. p. 452). “The number of different actions ascribed to the various Grecian gods or heroes all relate to one people or family, and are at bottom one and the same history” (ib. ii. p. 57). “The fables of Promêtheus and Tityus were taken from ancient Amonian temples, from hieroglyphics misunderstood and badly explained” (i. p. 426): see especially vol. ii. p. 160.
[988] The Anti-Symbolik of Voss, and still more the Aglaophamus of Lobeck, are full of instruction on the subject of this supposed interior doctrine, and on the ancient mysteries in general: the latter treatise, especially, is not less distinguished for its judicious and circumspect criticism than for its copious learning.