Again in the Sabazian mysteries, which some connect with Dionysus and others with Zeus, the little that is known of the ritual favours the view that here also the motif was the marriage of the deity with his worshippers. According to Clement[1469], the subject-matter of these mysteries was a story that Zeus, having become by Demeter the father of Persephone, seduced in turn his own daughter, having as a means to that end transformed himself into a snake. That story, it may safely be said, is presented by Clement in its worst light; but the statement, that in the ritual the deity was represented by a snake, obtains some corroboration from Theophrastus, who says of the superstitious man, that if he see a red snake in his house he will invoke Sabazius[1470]. Now the token of these mysteries for those who were being initiated in them was, according to Clement[1471] again, ‘the god pressed to the bosom’ (ὁ διὰ κόλπου θεός); which phrase he explains by saying that the god was represented as a snake, which was passed under the clothing and drawn over the bosom of the initiated ‘as a proof of the incontinence of Zeus.’ Clearly then the act of initiation was the symbolic wedding of the worshipper with the deity worshipped; and it is probable that the union which was symbolized in this life was expected to be realised in the next.
Finally in the orgiastic worship of Cybele the same religious doctrine is revealed. Here to Attis seems to be assigned the same part as to Adonis in the mysteries of Aphrodite. He is the beloved of the goddess; he is lost and mourned for as dead; he is restored again from the grave to the goddess who loved him. And in all this he appears to be the representative of all Cybele’s worshippers; for the ritual of initiation into her rites, if once again we may avail ourselves of Clement’s statements, is strongly imbued with the idea of marriage between the goddess and her worshipper. The several acts or stages of initiation are summarised in four phrases: ‘I ate out of the drum; I drank out of the cymbal; I carried the sacred vessel; I entered privily the bed-chamber—ἐκ τυμπάνου ἔφαγον· ἐκ κυμβάλου ἔπιον· ἐκερνοφόρησα· ὑπὸ τὸν παστὸν ὑπέδυν[1472]. In the passage from which these phrases are culled there appears to be a certain confusion between the rites of Cybele and those of Demeter; but the fact that Clement shortly afterwards gives another formulary of Demeter’s ritual is sufficient proof that he meant this present formulary, as indeed the mention of kettle-drum and cymbal[1473] suggests, to apply to the mysteries of Cybele[1474]. It appears then that the final act or stage of initiation consisted in the secret admission of the worshipper to the bed-chamber of the goddess. Such ritual can have borne only one interpretation. It clearly constituted a promise of wedded union between the initiated and their deity. Viewed in this light even the emasculation of the priests of Cybele may more readily be understood; it may have been the consecration of their virility to the service of the goddess, a final and convincing pledge of celibacy in this life, in return for which they aspired to be blest by wedlock with their goddess hereafter.
The mention of the goddess’ bed-chamber in the above passage is of considerable interest. The παστός (or παστάς) in relation to a temple meant the same thing as it often meant in relation to an ordinary house, an inner room or recess screened off, and in particular a bridal chamber. Such provision for the physical comfort of the deity was probably not rare. Pausanias tells us that on the right of the vestibule in the Argive Heraeum there was a couch (κλίνη) for Hera[1475], and he seems to speak of it as if it were a common enough piece of temple furniture. So too at Phlya in Attica, where were held the very ancient mystic rites ‘of her who is called the Great,’ there was a bridal chamber (παστάς), where, it has rightly been argued, there ‘must have been enacted a mimetic marriage[1476].’ Again Clement of Alexandria speaks of a παστός of Athena in the Parthenon, and makes it quite clear by the story which he relates that he understood the word in the sense of bed-chamber. The story is also for other reasons worth recalling, because it shows how the religious conception of marriage between men and gods was readily extended to the worship of other deities than those whose mysteries we have sought to unravel, and at the same time furnishes the only case known to me in which that mystic belief was prostituted to the base uses of flattery. The occasion was the reception accorded by the Athenians to Demetrius Poliorcetes. Not content with hailing him as a god in name, they went so far in their mean-spirited subjection as to set up a temple, at the place where he dismounted from his horse on entering their city, to Demetrius the Descender (Καταιβάτης)[1477], while on every side altars were erected to him. But their grossest piece of flattery was a master-piece of grotesque impiety, and met with a fitting reward. A marriage was arranged between him (the most notorious profligate of his age) and Athena. ‘He however,’ we are told, ‘disdained the goddess, being unable to embrace the statue, but took with him to the Acropolis the courtesan Lamia, and polluted the bed-chamber of Athena, exhibiting to the old virgin the postures of the young courtesan[1478].’ Even that contemptuous response to the Athenians’ flattery did not abash them, but, finding that he did not favour their acknowledged deity, they determined to deify his acknowledged favourite, and erected a temple to Lamia Aphrodite[1479].
But such travesties of holy things were rare; and this one notorious case excited the contempt alike of the man[1480] to whom the flattery was paid and of all posterity—a contempt which teaches, hardly less clearly than the indignation excited a century earlier by the supposed profanation of the mysteries, in what reverence and high esteem the idea of marriage between men and gods was generally held.
Even Lucian, in whom reverence was a less pronounced characteristic than humour, condemns seriously enough a parody of the mysteries of Eleusis which occurred in his own day; and his account of it at the same time shows once more that the marriage of men and gods was the very essence of the mysteries. The impostor Alexander, he says, instituted rites with carrying of torches (δᾳδουχία) and exposition of the sacred ceremonies (ἱεροφαντία) lasting for three days. “On the first there was a proclamation, as at Athens, as follows: ‘If any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean hath come to spy upon the holy rites, let him begone, and let the faithful be initiated with heaven’s blessing.’ Then first of all there was an expulsion of intruders. Alexander himself led the way, crying ‘Out with Christians,’ and the whole multitude shouted in answer ‘Out with Epicureans.’ Then was enacted the story of Leto in child-bed and the birth of Apollo, and his marriage with Coronis and the birth of Asclepius; and on the second day the manifestation of Glycon and the god’s birth[1481]. And on the third day was the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander’s mother; this was called the Torch-day, for torches were burnt. And finally there was the love of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of his daughter now married to Rutilianus[1482]. Our Endymion-Alexander was now torch-bearer and exponent of the rites. And he lay as it were sleeping in the view of all, and there came down to him from the roof—as it were Selene from heaven—a certain Rutilia, a very beautiful woman, the wife of one of Caesar’s household-officers, who was really in love with Alexander and was loved by him, and she kissed the rascal’s eyes and embraced him in the view of all, and, if there had not been so many torches, worse would perhaps have followed (τάχα ἄν τι καὶ τῶν ὑπὸ κόλπου ἐπράττετο)[1483].”
The inferences which may be drawn from this narrative are, first, that the mysteries in general, while reproducing in some dramatic form the whole story of the deities concerned, culminated in the representation of a mystic marriage between men and gods; (the birth of a child was also represented or announced in this parody, as we know that it was at Eleusis[1484], but it had, I am inclined to think, no mystic significance otherwise than as proof of the consummation of that marriage;) and, secondly, that the wild charges of indecency brought by early Christian writers against the mysteries are baseless; for Lucian condemns a much lesser license in this parody than that which they attributed to the genuine rites.
Thus our examination of the mysteries, so far as they are known to us, tends to prove that the doctrines revealed in them to the initiated were simply a development of certain vaguer popular ideas which have been prevalent among the Greek folk from the classical age down to our own day. The people entertained hopes that this physical life would continue in a similar form after death; the mysteries gave definite assurance of that immortality by exhibiting to the initiated Persephone or Adonis or Attis restored from the lower world in bodily form; and though that exhibition was in fact merely a dramatic representation, yet to the eyes of religious ecstasy it seemed just as much a living reality as does the risen Christ in the modern celebration of Easter. The people again were wont to think and to speak of death as a marriage into the lower world; the mysteries showed to the initiated certain representatives of mankind who by death, or even in life, had been admitted to the felicity of wedlock with deities, and thereby confirmed the faithful in their happier hopes of being in like manner themselves god-beloved and of sharing the life of gods.
Since then there is good reason to believe that this was in effect the secret teaching of the mysteries, it would naturally be expected that human marriage should have been reckoned as it were a foretaste of that union with the divine which was promised hereafter, and also that death should have been counted the hour of its approaching fulfilment; in other words, if my view of the mysteries is correct, it would almost inevitably follow that the mysteries should have been brought into close association both with weddings and with funerals. This expectation is confirmed by the facts.
An ordinary wedding was treated as something akin to initiation into the mysteries. An inscription of Cos[1485], relating to the appointment of priestesses of Demeter, mentions among other duties certain services on the occasion of weddings; and the brides, who are the recipients of these services, are divided into two classes, αἱ τελεύμεναι and αἱ ἐπινυμφευόμεναι, the maidens who, are being ‘initiated,’ and the widows who are being married again; a woman’s first marriage in fact is called by a religious document her initiation, and Demeter’s priestesses are charged therewith. Nor was this usage or idea confined to Cos; Plutarch speaks of services rendered by the priestess of Demeter in the solemnisation of matrimony as part of an ‘ancestral rite[1486]’; while the term τέλος was commonly used both of the mystic rites and of marriage, and τέλειοι might denote the newly-wed[1487].
The same thought seems also to have inspired another custom associated with marriage. The newly-wed, we hear, sometimes attended a representation of the marriage of Zeus and Hera[1488], an ἱερὸς γάμος which formed the subject of mystic drama or legend all over Greece[1489]. The widely extended cults of Hera under the titles of Maiden (παρθένος or παῖς) and of Bride (τελεία or νυμφευομένη) appear to have been closely interwoven; indeed for a full appreciation of the Greek conception of the goddess they must be treated as complementary. They are well interpreted by Farnell. Rejecting the theory of physical symbolism, he suggests ‘a more human explanation. Hera was essentially the goddess of women, and the life of women was reflected in her; their maidenhood and marriage were solemnised by the cults of Hera Παρθένος and Hera Τελεία or Νυμφευομένη, and the very rare worship of Hera Χήρα might allude to the not infrequent custom of divorce and separation[1490].’ With, Hera the Widow we are not here concerned, but only with the higher conceptions of Zeus and Hera as expressed in the representation of the ‘sacred marriage’; the bride and bridegroom who looked upon that saw in it, we may be sure, not a symbolical representation of the seasons and the productive powers of the earth, but rather the divine prototype of human marriage. It reminded them that deities, like mortals, were married and given in marriage, and it imparted to their wedding a sacramental character, making it at once a foretaste and a gage of that close communion with the gods which, when death the dividing line between mortals and immortals should once be passed, awaited the blessed among mankind.