41 Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. v.: On the Connection of the Fabulous Hades with the Mysteries.
invitations, storms and calms, island homes and unknown havens, of the dim seas of nature and of man, of time and of eternity.42
Thirdly, the defenders of the Arkite theory are driven into gross inconsistencies with themselves by the falsity of their views. The dilaceration of Zagreus into fragments, the mangling of Osiris and scattering of his limbs abroad, they say, refer to the throwing open of the ark and the going forth of the inmates to populate the earth. They usually make Osiris, Zagreus, Adonis, and the other heroes of the legends enacted in the Mysteries, representatives of the diluvian patriarch himself; but here, with no reason whatever save the exigencies of their theory, they make these mythic personages representatives of the ark, a view which is utterly unfounded and glaringly wanting in analogy. When Zagreus is torn in pieces, his heart is preserved alive by Zeus and born again into the world within a human form. After the body of Osiris had been strewn piecemeal, the fragments were fondly gathered by Isis, and he was restored to life. There is no plausible correspondence between these cases and the sending out from the ark of the patriarchal family to repeople the world. Their real purpose would seem plainly to be to symbolize the thought that, however the body of man crumbles in pieces, there is life for him still, he does not hopelessly die. They likewise say that the egg which was consecrated in the Mysteries, at the beginning of the rites, was intended as an emblem of the ark resting on the abyss of waters, and that its latent hatching was meant to suggest the opening of the ark to let the imprisoned patriarch forth. This hypothesis has no proof, and is needless. It is much more plausible to suppose that the egg was meant as a symbol of a new life about to burst upon the candidate, a symbol of his resurrection from the mystic tomb wherein he was buried during one stage of initiation; for we know that the initiation was often regarded as the commencement of a fresh life, as a new birth. Apuleius says, "I celebrated the most joyful day of my initiation as my natal day."
Faber argues, from the very close similarity of all the differently named Mysteries, that they were all Arkite, all derived from one mass of traditions reaching from Noah and embodying his history.43 The asserted fact of general resemblance among the instituted Mysteries is unquestionable; but the inference above drawn from it is unwarrantable, even if no better explanation could be offered. But there is another explanation ready, more natural in conception, more consistent in detail, and better sustained by evidence. The various Mysteries celebrated in the ancient nations were so much alike not because they were all founded on one world wide tradition about the Noachian deluge, but because they all grew out of the great common facts of human destiny in connection with natural phenomena. The Mysteries were funereal and festive, began in sorrow and ended in joy, not because they represented first Noah's sad entrance into the ark and then his glad exit from it, but because they began with showing the initiate that he must die, and ended with showing him that he should live again in a happier state. Even the most prejudiced advocates of the Arkite theory
42 Procopius, in his History of the Gothic War, mentions a curious popular British superstition concerning the ferriage of souls among the neighboring islands at midnight. See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, kap. xxvi. zweite ausgabe.
43 Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. 10: Comparison of the Various Mysteries.
are forced to admit, on the explicit testimony of the ancients, that the initiates passed from the darkness and horrors of Tartarus to the bliss and splendors of Elysium by a dramatic resurrection from burial in the black caverns of probation to admission within the illuminated hall or dome of perfection.44 That the idea of death and of another life runs through all the Mysteries as their cardinal tenet is well shown in connection with the rites of the celebrated Cave of Trophonius at Lebadea in Boeotia. Whoso sought this oracle must descend head foremost over an inclined plane, bearing a honey cake in his hand. Aristophanes speaks of this descent with a shudder of fear.45 The adventurer was suddenly bereft of his senses, and after a while returned to the upper air. What he could then remember composed the Divine revelation which had been communicated to him in his unnatural state below. Plutarch has given a full account of this experience from one Timarchus, who had himself passed through it.46 The substance of it is this. When Timarchus reached the bottom of the cave, his soul passed from his body, visited the under world of the departed, saw the sphere of generation where souls were reborn into the upper world, received some explanation of all these things: then, returning into the body, he was taken up out of the cave. Here is no allusion to any traditions of the Deluge or the ark; but the great purpose is evidently a doctrine of the destiny of man after death.
Before the eyes and upon the heart of all mankind in every age has passed in common vision the revolution of the seasons, with its beautiful and sombre changes, phenomena having a power of suggestion irresistible to stir some of the most profound sentiments of the human breast. The day rolls overhead full of light and life and activity; then the night settles upon the scene with silent gloom and repose. So man runs his busy round of toil and pleasure through the day of existence; then, fading, following the sinking sun, he goes down in death's night to the pallid populations of shade. Again: the fruitful bloom of summer is succeeded by the bleak nakedness of winter. So the streams of enterprise and joy that flowed full and free along their banks in maturity, overhung by blossoming trees, are shrivelled and frozen in the channels of age, and above their sepulchral beds the leafless branches creak in answer to the shrieks of the funereal blast. The flush of childish gayety, the bloom of youthful promise, when a new comer is growing up sporting about the hearth of home, are like the approach of the maiden and starry Spring, "Who comes sublime, as when, from Pluto free, Came, through the flash of Zeus, Persephone." And then draw hastily on the long, lamenting autumnal days, when "Above man's grave the sad winds wail and rain drops fall, And Nature sheds her leaves in yearly funeral."
44 Faber, Mysteries of the Cabiri, ch. 10, pp. 331-356. Dion Chrysostom describes this scene: Oration XII.
45 The Clouds, 1. 507.