Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

by J. C. Lawson

But while the promises held forth by the Eleusinian and other mysteries, and therefore also the doctrines which elucidated those vague promises, were a product of the popular religion, those doctrines themselves were not a matter of popular knowledge. The very fact of initiation, the death-penalty inflicted upon the profane who by any means penetrated to the scene of the mysteries, the wild indignation excited in Athens by a charge of mocking the mystic rites, the scrupulous privacy observed in investigating that charge before a court composed of the initiated only—all these are proofs that Eleusis was the school of secret beliefs and hopes held in deep veneration by those to whom the knowledge of them was vouchsafed. Secret doctrines existed; that which had sprung from the beliefs of the many had become the property of the few. How can this be explained?

The explanation is not difficult. The worship of Demeter and possibly many other rites which were afterwards called ‘mysteries’ were the most holy part of the religion of the Pelasgians; and when the Achaeans, a people of strange tongue and strange religion, came among them, the Pelasgians would not admit them to a knowledge of their rites but thenceforth performed those rites in secrecy. This is proved by two facts. First, the rites which at Eleusis, in Samothrace, and among the Cicones in Thrace, the country of Orpheus, were imparted as mysteries to the initiated only, were in Crete open to all and there was no obligation to secrecy concerning them[1433]. Secondly, at Eleusis at any rate the purity required of candidates for initiation was not only physical and spiritual, as secured by ablution and abstinence, but also linguistic; it was necessary καθαρεύειν τῇ φωνῇ[1434], to speak the Greek language purely. These two facts taken together solve the difficulty. Before the coming of the Achaeans the whole Pelasgian population whether of the Greek mainland or of such an island as Crete celebrated the rites of Demeter openly. In Crete, where no Achaeans penetrated, the old custom naturally continued unchanged. On the mainland the influx of a people of strange tongue and strange religion necessitated secrecy in the native rites, lest the presence of men who knew not Demeter should profane her worship; the right of entry therefore at her festivals was decided by the simplest test of Achaean or Pelasgian nationality, the test of speech; and in later times, when the Achaeans had acquired the Pelasgian speech[1435], the customs thus established were not abolished; the rites of Demeter remained ‘mysteries’ to be conducted in secret, and the Shibboleth was still exacted.

Since then we may not seek in the teachings of the mysteries anything alien from the spirit of the popular religion, the scope of our enquiry is more limited and its course more clear. The secret to be discovered is something which had been evolved from the popular religion, some intensification and higher development of those hopes and beliefs, yearnings and strivings, which have continuously marked the religious life of the Greek folk. Now the mass of the Greek people have always hoped and believed, as their care for the dead has constantly shown, that beyond death and dissolution lay a life in which body and soul should be re-united and restored to their old activity; the mysteries might well confirm the initiated in that expectation and picture to them the happy habitations where they should dwell. Again the mass of the Greek people have always yearned and striven by manifold means in this life for close communion with their gods; the mysteries might well be a sacrament which afforded to the initiated both a means and a pledge of enjoying in the next world, to which body as well as soul should pass, the closest of all communion with their gods, the union of wedlock.

Let it then be supposed that the two main ideas of the mysteries, whether expounded in speech or represented in ritual, were these—bodily survival after death, and marriage of men with gods; what would have been the natural attitude of Christians towards these doctrines? For it is in the light of the charges brought by early Christian writers against the mysteries that such a supposition must first be examined. The doctrine of the immortality of the body as well as of the soul was evidently little exposed to Christian attacks; and it may have been because the Christian doctrine of the resurrection had much in common with the old Greek doctrine, that St Paul found among his audience on the Areopagus some who did not mock, but said ‘We will hear thee again of this matter.’ But with the further doctrine of marriage between men and gods Christianity could have no sympathy, but would inevitably regard it as offensive both in theology and in morality, as implying the existence of a plurality of gods, and as savouring of that sensuality, which above all other sin the apostle to the Gentiles set himself to combat.

And it is in fact upon these two points that the mass of the accusations brought by early Christian writers against Greek paganism hinge and hang. These were the points at which Greek religion seemed to its assailants most readily vulnerable, and against which they sought to use as weapons the very language of paganism itself. Just as Clement of Alexandria[1436] seeks to prove out of the mouth of Homer, who speaks of the gods in general as δαίμονες[1437], that the Greek gods are confessedly mere demons (for the word δαίμων had seemingly deteriorated in meaning), that is to say, abominable and unclean spirits, enemies of the one true God, so too the words ἄρρητος and ἀπόρρητος, used by the pagans of their ‘unspeakable’ mysteries, were misinterpreted by the Christians with one consent and became a handle for convicting the old religion of ‘unnameable’ impurities.

With the question of polytheism however we are not further concerned; whether the Hellenic gods were true gods, as their worshippers held, or devils, as Clement thought, or non-existent, as many will think to-day, matters not; all that we need to know in this respect is known, namely, that the mysteries, like the popular religion, acknowledged a plurality of gods; for in the Eleusinian drama alone several gods played a part. It is rather the frequent and violent charges of impurity which call for investigation.

A few examples will suffice for the present. A comprehensive denunciation is that of Eusebius, who charges the pagans with celebrating, ‘in chant and hymn and story and in the unnameable rites of the mysteries, adulteries and yet baser lusts, and incestuous unions of mother with son, brother with sister[1438].’ And again he says, ‘In every city rites and mysteries of gods are taught, in harmony with the mythical stories of old time, so that even now in these rites, as well as in hymns and odes to the gods, men can hear of marriages of the gods, and of their procreation of children, and of dirges for death, and of drunken excesses, and of wanderings, and of passionate love or anger[1439].’ Equally outspoken is Clement of Alexandria in his ‘Exhortation to the heathen.’ Some specific statements in that work concerning the mysteries of several gods, though they support the general charges of impurity, may be postponed for later examination. It will be enough here to adduce the phrases in which, after denouncing those who, whether in the mysteries of the temples or the paintings with which their own houses were adorned, loved to look upon the lusts of gods (he risks even the word πασχητιασμοί), and ‘regarded incontinence as piety,’ Clement reaches the climax of his invective:—‘Such are your models of voluptuousness, such your creeds of lust, such the doctrines of gods who commit fornication with you; for, as the Athenian orator says, what a man wishes, that he also believes[1440].’ This brutal directness of Clement is however hardly more effective than the elegant innuendo of Synesius in dealing with the same subject. Commenting on the secrecy of the nocturnal rites, he describes them as celebrated at ‘times and places competent to conceal ἀρρητουργίαν ἔνθεον[1441]’—a phrase which I despair of rendering, for the ‘unspeakable acts’ to which ‘divine frenzy’ led, are those which are either too holy or too infamous to be named.

These few typical passages amply demonstrate that alike by insinuation and by open accusation the Christian writers conspired to brand the mysteries with the infamy of deeds unnameable. What is the explanation of this organised campaign of calumny?

Some have supposed that the Christian writers in general confused the public and the private mysteries, and that, aware of the license which characterized the latter, they included all in one condemnation. But this explanation appears at any rate inadequate. We have seen how Cicero distinguished sharply between the Eleusinian mysteries, in which he had participated and for which he felt reverence, and other nocturnal rites which gave shelter to all manner of excess. It is difficult therefore to suppose that in later times the Christian writers should all have fallen unwittingly into the error of confusing all mysteries together; and no less difficult to imagine that, if they recognised how far removed were the most respected of the public mysteries from the baser private orgies, they should have deliberately exposed themselves to the charge of ignorance of the subject concerning which they presumed to preach. Clement of Alexandria was too shrewd a disputant so to stultify himself.

Nor again is it a sufficient explanation to say that the strain and excitement of such mysteries as those of Eleusis were responsible for a certain amount of subsequent indiscretion. Let it be granted that many of those who had witnessed the solemn rites were guilty afterwards of drunkenness and licentiousness[1442]; yet these would be no grounds for convicting the mysteries themselves of impurity; to so perverted a charge the heathen might well have answered that rioting and drunkenness had not been unknown at the Christians’ most solemn service; and indeed the same argument could up to this day be used against the Greek celebration of Easter. No; the charges of impurity were brought against the mysteries themselves, not against the incidental misdoings of some who had witnessed them. It must have been either the doctrines taught or the dramatic representations by means of which they were taught that furnished the Christian writers with a handle for accusation.