his mother, took a journey into Greece, and had a mind to be present at the celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the conscience of his parricide deI terred him from attempting it *. On the same account, the good emperor M. Antoninus, when he would purge himself to the world of the death of Avidius Cassius, chose to be initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries; it being notorious, that none were admitted into them, who laboured under the just suspicion of any heinous immorality. And Philostratus tells us, that Apollonius was desirous of being initiated in these Mysteries; but that the Hierophant refused to admit him, because he esteemed the Aspirant to be no better than a Magician: for the Eleusinian stood open to none who did not approach the Gods with a pure and holy worship. This was, originally, an indispensable condition of initiation, observed in common, by all the Mysteries; and instituted by Bacchus, or Osiris himself, the first inventer of them; who, as Diodorus tells us, initiated none but pious and virtuous men §. During the celebration of the Mys

teries,

τέτο κελεύσαντος ἢ τῶν θεῶν, τῦτο δεῖ ποιεῖν; ἐπηρώτησε. Φαμενόν δὲ, τῶν θεῶν, Σὺ τοίνυν, ἔφη, ἐκποδῶν μὲν κατάςηθι, κακείνοις ἐρῶ ἐὰν worlávila-Why initiation into these Mysteries is called, enquiring of the oracle, will be seen afterwards.

* Peregrinatione quidem Græciæ, Eleusiniis sacris, quorum initiatione impii & scelerati voce præconis submoverentur, interesse non ausus est. Sueton. Vita Neron. cap. 34. § 12. Edit,

Pitisci.

+ Jul. Capit. Vita Ant. Phil. and Dion Cass.

† Ο δὲ ἱεροφάνης ἐκ ἐβέλειο παρέχειν τὰ ἱερὰ, μὴ γὰρ ἄν ποτε μνῆσαι γόηλα μὴ δὲ τὴν Ἐλευσῖνα ἀνοῖξαι ἀνθρώπῳ μὴ καθαρῷ τὰ Δαιμόνια. De Vita Apollonii Tyanensis, 1. iv. c. 18. Edit. Olearii, fol.

§ – καταδείξαι δὲ καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς τελείὰς, καὶ μελαδῆναι τῶν μυςηρίων τοῖς εὐσεβέσι τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ δίκαιον βίον ἀσκᾶσι. Lib. iii. p. 138. St. ed.

teries, they were enjoined the greatest sanctity, and highest elevation of mind. "When you sacrifice or pray (says Epictetus in Arrian) go with a prepared

purity of mind, and with dispositions so previously "ordered, as are required of you when you approach "the ancient rites and Mysteries*." And Proclus tells us that the Mysteries and the Initiations, drew the souls of men from a material, sensual, and merely human life, and joined them in communion with the Gods †. Nor was a less degree of purity required of the Initiated for their future conduct They were obliged by solemn engagements to commence a new life of strictest piety and virtue; into which they were entered by a severe course of penance, proper to purge the mind of its natural defilements. Gregory Nazianzen tells us, that "no one "could be initiated into the Mysteries of Mithras, till " he had undergone all sorts of mortifying trials, and "had approved himself holy and impassible §." The consideration of all this made Tertullian say, that, in the Mysteries, " Truth herself took on every

shape, to oppose and combat Truth ||." And St. Austin, "That the devil hurried away deluded souls

· Καὶ μετὰ θυσίας δὲ, καὶ μετ ̓ εὐχῶν, καὶ προηΓνευκότα, και πρωδιακείμενον τῇ γνώμῃ, ὅτι ἱεροῖς προσελεύσεται καὶ ἱεροῖς παλαιοίς. Arrian, Dissert. lib. iii. cap. 21.

† Τά τε μυςήρια καὶ τὰς τελεῖὰς ἀνάγειν μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐνύλα καὶ θηλοειδές ζωῆς τὰς ψυχὰς, καὶ συνάπλειν τοῖς θεοῖς. In Remp. Plat. lib. i.

† Καὶ τῶν μυτηρίων ἀξεοθεὶς ἐδεόμην καὶ τῆς παρ' ὑμῶν ἀρίσης παιδεύσεως. Quidam apud Sopatrum, in Div. Quæst.

§ ἐδεὶς δὲ δύνασθαι τελεῖσθαι τὰς τῷ Μίτρε τελεῖὰς, εἰ μὴ διὰ πασῶν τῶν κολάσεων παρέλθοι, καὶ δείξει ἑαυτὸν ἀπαθῆ καὶ ὅσιον. 1 Orat. cont. Julian.

|| Omnia adversus veritatem, de ipsa veritate constructa sunt. Apol. cap. 47.

to

86

to their destruction, when he promised to purify "them by those ceremonies, called INITIATIONS*."

The initiated, under this discipline, and with these promises, were esteemed the only happy amongst men. Aristophanes, who speaks the sense of the people, makes them exult and triumph after this manner: "On us only does the sun dispense his blessings; we only receive pleasure from his beams: we, who are initiated, and perform towards citizens "and strangers all acts of piety and justice t." And Sophocles, to the same purpose," LIFE, only is "to be had there: all other places are full of misery " and evil t Happy (says Euripides) is the man " who hath been initiated into the greater Mysteries, " and leads a life of piety and religion §." the longer any one had been initiated, the more honourable was he deemed. It was even scandalous not to be initiated: and however virtuous the person otherwise appeared, he became suspicious to the people: As was the case of Socrates, and, in after

66

And

Diabolum-animas deceptas illusasque præcipitasse-quum polliceretur purgationem animæ per eas, quas TEAETAE appellant. De Trinitate, lib. iv. c. 10.

Η Καὶ ὁ μὲν ἀξιτελὴς μύσης ἀτιμότερα το πάλαι μέσα. Aristidis

in Orat. περὶ παραφθέγματα.

times, of Demonax *. No wonder, then, if the superior advantages of the Initiated, both here and hereafter, should make the Mysteries universally aspired to. And, indeed, they soon grew as comprehensive in the numbers they embraced, as in the regions and countries to which they extended: men, women, and children ran to be initiated. Thus Apuleius describes the state of the Mysteries even in his time: "Influunt turbæ, sacris divinis initiatæ, viri fœminæque, omnis ætatis & omnis dignitatis." The Pagans, we see, seemed to think initiation as necessary, as the Christians did baptism. And the custom of initiating children appears from a passage of Terence, to have been general.

11

"Ferietur alio munere, ubi hera pepererit;

"Porro autem alio, ubi erit puero natalis dies, "Ubi INITIA BUNT."

Nay they had even the same superstition in the administration of it, which some Christians had of Baptism, to defer it till the approach of death; so the honest farmer Trygæus, in the Par of Aristophanes : Δεῖ γὰρ μυηθῆναι με πρὶν τεθνηκέναι.

The occasion of this solicitude is told us by the scholiast on the Rana of the same poet. "The "Athenians believed, that he who was initiated, and "instructed in the Mysteries, would obtain celestial

• Lucian. Vit. Dem. t. II. p. 374, et seq. Edit. Reitzii, 4°. Amstel. 1743.

+ Met. lib. xi. pag. 959. Edit. Lugd..1587, 8vo.

Phorm. act. i. sc. i. And Donatus, on the place, tells us, the same custom prevailed in the Samothracian mysteries: “Teren"tius Apollodorum sequitur, apud quem legitur, in insula Samo"thracum à certo tempore pueros initiari, more Atheniensium.".

"honour

"honour after death: and THEREFORE all ran to "be initiated *." Their fondness for it became so great, that at such times as the publick Treasury was low, the Magistrates could have recourse to the Mysteries, as a fund to supply the exigencies of the State. "Aristogiton (says the commentator on Hermogenes) in a great scarcity of publick money, "procured a law, that in Athens every one should pay a certain sum for his initiation †.

Every thing in these rites was mysteriously conducted, and under the most solemn obligations to secrecy. Which how it could agree to our representation of the Mysteries, as an institution for the use of the people, we shall now endeavour to explain.

They were hidden and kept secret for two reasons:

I. Nothing excites our curiosity like that which retires from our observation, and seems to forbid

* Λόγω γὰρ ἐκράτοι παρ' Αθηναίοις, ὡς ὁ τὰ μυτήρια διδαχθεὶς, μετὰ τὴν, ἐνθένδε τελευτὴν θείας ἠξιῦτο τιμῆς· διὸ καὶ πάντες πρὸς τὴν μύησιν ἔσπευδον.

† Αριτογείτων ἐν σπάνει χρημάτων, γράφει νόμον, παρ' Αθηναίοις μισθό μνεῖσθαι. Syrianus.

Cum ignotis hominibus Orpheus sacrorum ceremonias aperiret, nihil aliud ab his quos initiabat in primo vestibulo nisi jurisjurandi necessitatem, & cum terribili quadam auctoritate religionis, exegit, ne profanis auribus inventæ ac composita religionis secreta proderentur. Fermicus in limine lib. vii. Astronom. -Nota sunt hæc Græcæ superstitionis Hierophantis, quibus inviolabili lege interdictum erat, ne hæc atque hujusmodi Mysteria apud eos, qui his sacris minimè initiati essent, evulgarent. -Nicetas in Gregorii Nazianzeni Orat. siç và äyia Qura. This obligation of the initiated to secrecy was the reason that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for them, was a grass-hopper, which was supposed to have no mouth. See Horapollo Hieroglyph. lib. ii. cap. 55. Edit. Pauw, 1727, 4to.