3 Lib. xxxix. cap. viii xvi.
assured of a better fate than otherwise could be expected in the future state. Two or three specimens from these witnesses will suffice. Aristophanes, in the second act of the Frogs, describes an elysium of the initiates after death, where he says they bound "in sportive dances on rose enamelled meadows; for the light is cheerful only to those who have been initiated."4 Pausanias describes the uninitiated as being compelled in Hades to carry water in buckets bored full of holes.5 Isocrates says, in his Panegyric, "Demeter, the goddess of the Eleusinian Mysteries, fortifies those who have been initiated against the fear of death, and teaches them to have sweet hopes concerning eternity." The old Orphic verses cited by Thomas Taylor in his Treatise on the Mysteries run thus: "The soul that uninitiated dies Plunged in the blackest mire in Hades lies." 6
The same statement is likewise found in Plato, who, in another place, also explicitly declares that a doctrine of future retribution was taught in the Mysteries and believed by the serious.7 Cicero says, "Initiation makes us both live more honorably and die with better hopes." 8 In seasons of imminent danger as in a shipwreck it was customary for a man to ask his companion, Hast thou been initiated? The implication is that initiation removed fear of death by promising a happy life to follow.9 A fragment preserved from a very ancient author is plain on this subject. "The soul is affected in death just as it is in the initiation into the great Mysteries: thing answers to thing. At first it passes through darkness, horrors, and toils. Then are disclosed a wondrous light, pure places, flowery meads, replete with mystic sounds, dances, and sacred doctrines, and holy visions. Then, perfectly enlightened, they are free: crowned, they walk about worshipping the gods and conversing with good men."10 The principal part of the hymn to Ceres, attributed to Homer, is occupied with a narrative of her labors to endow the young Demophoon, mortal child of Metaneira, with immortality. Now, Ceres was the goddess of the Mysteries; and the last part of this very hymn recounts how Persephone was snatched from the light of life into Hades and restored again. Thus we see that the implications of the indirect evidence, the leanings and guidings of all the incidental clews now left us to the real aim and purport of the Mysteries, combine to assure us that their chief teaching was a doctrine of a future life in which there should be rewards and punishments. All this we shall more fully establish, both by direct proofs and by collateral supports.
It is a well known fact, intimately connected with the different religions of Greece and Asia Minor, that during the time of harvest in the autumn, and again at the season of sowing in the spring, the shepherds, the vintagers, and the people in general, were accustomed to observe certain sacred festivals, the autumnal sad, the vernal joyous. These undoubtedly grew out of the deep sympathy between man and nature over the decay and disappearance, the revival and return, of vegetation. When the hot season had withered the verdure of the
4 Scene iii.
5 Lib. x. cap. xxxi.
6 Phadon, sect. xxxviii.
7 Leg., lib. ix. cap. x.
8 De Leg., lib. ii. cap. xiv.
9 St. John, Hellenes, ch. xi.