A_Dissertation_on_the_Eleusinian_and_Bacchic_Mysteries

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DR. WARBURTON, in his Divine Legation of Moses, has ingeniously proved, that the sixth book of Virgil’s Æneid represents some of the dramatic exhibitions of the Eleusinian Mysteries; but, at the same time, has utterly failed in attempting to unfold their latent meaning, and obscure though important end. By the assistance, however, of the Platonic philosophy, I have been enabled to correct his errors, and to vindicate the wisdom[9] of antiquity from his aspersions

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by a genuine account of this sublime institution; of which the following observations are designed as a comprehensive view.

In the first place, then, I shall present the reader with two superior authorities, who perfectly demonstrate that a part of the shows (or dramas) consisted in a representation of the infernal regions; authorities which, though of the last consequence, were unknown to Dr. Warburton himself. The first of these is no less a person than the immortal Pindar, in a fragment preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus: “Ἀλλα και Πινδαρος περι των εν Ελευσινι μυστηριων λεγων επιφερει. Ολβιος, οστις ιδων εκεινα, κοινα εις ὑποχϑονια, οιδεν μεν βιον τελευταν, οιδεν δε διος δοτον αρχαν.”[10] i. e. “But Pindar, speaking of the Eleusinian Mysteries, says: Blessed is he who, having

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seen those common concerns in the underworld, knows both the end of life and its divine origin from Jupiter.” The other of these is from Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s Politicus, who, speaking concerning the sacerdotal and symbolical mythology, observes, that from this mythology Plato himself establishes many of his own peculiar doctrines, “since in the Phædo he venerates, with a becoming silence, the assertion delivered in the arcane discourses, that men are placed in the body as in a prison, secured by a guard, and testifies, according to the mystic ceremonies, the different allotments of purified and unpurified souls in Hades, their severed conditions, and the three-forked path from the peculiar places where they were; and this was shown according to traditionary institutions; every part of which is full of a symbolical representation, as in a dream, and of a description which treated of the ascending and descending ways, of the tragedies of Dionysus (Bacchus or Zagreus), the crimes of the Titans, the three ways in Hades, and

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the wandering of everything of a similar kind.”—“Δηλοι δε εν Φαιδωνι τον τε εν απρῥοητοις λεγομενον, ὡς εντινι φρουρᾳ εσμεν ὁι ανϑρωποι, σιγῃ τῃ τρεπουση σεβων, και τας τελετας (lege και κατα τας τελετα) μαρτυρομενος των διαφορων ληξεων της ψυχης κεκαϑαρμενης τε και ακαϑαρτου εις ᾁδου απιουσης, και τας τε σχεσεις αυ, και τας τριοδους απο των ουσιων και των (lege καί κατα των), πατρικων ϑεσμων τεκμαιρομενος. α δη της συμβολικης ἁπαντα ϑεωριας εστι μεστα, και των παρα τοις ποιηταις ϑρυλλουμενων ανοδων τε και καϑοδων, των τε διονυσιακων συνϑηματων, και των τιτανικων ἁμαρτηματων λεγομενων, και των εν ᾁδου τριοδων, και της πλανης, και των τοιουτων ἁπαντων.”[11] Having premised thus much, I now proceed to prove that the dramatic spectacles of the Lesser Mysteries[12] were designed by the ancient theologists, their founders, to signify occultly the condition of the unpurified soul

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invested with an earthly body, and enveloped in a material and physical nature; or, in other words, to signify that such a soul in the present life might be said to die, as far as it is possible for a soul to die, and that on the dissolution of the present body, while in this state of impurity, it would experience a death still more permanent and profound. That the soul, indeed, till purified by philosophy,[13] suffers death through its union with the body was obvious to the philologist Macrobius, who, not penetrating the secret meaning of the ancients, concluded from hence that they signified nothing more than the present body, by their descriptions of the infernal abodes. But this is manifestly absurd; since it is universally agreed, that all the ancient theological poets and philosophers inculcated the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments in the most full and decisive terms; at the same time occultly intimating that the death of the soul was nothing more than a profound union with the ruinous bonds of the body.

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[paragraph continues] Indeed, if these wise men believed in a future state of retribution, and at the same time considered a connection with the body as death of the soul, it necessarily follows, that the soul’s punishment and existence hereafter are nothing more than a continuation of its state at present, and a transmigration, as it were, from sleep to sleep, and from dream to dream. But let us attend to the assertions of these divine men concerning the soul’s union with a material nature. And to begin with the obscure and profound Heracleitus, speaking of souls unembodied: “We live their death, and we die their life.” Ζωμεν τον εκεινων ϑανατον, τεϑνηκαμεν δε τον εκεινων βιον. And Empedocles, deprecating the condition termed “generation,” beautifully says of her:

The aspect changing with destruction dread,

She makes the living pass into the dead.

Εκ μεν γαρ ζωων ετιϑει νεκρα ειδε αμειβων.

And again, lamenting his connection with this corporeal world, he pathetically exclaims:

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For this I weep, for this indulge my woe,

That e’er my soul such novel realms should know.

Κλαυσα τε και κωκυσα, ῶων ασυνηϑεα χωρον.

Plato, too, it is well known, considered the body as the sepulchre of the soul, and in the Cratylus concurs with the doctrine of Orpheus, that the soul is punished through its union with body. This was likewise the opinion of the celebrated Pythagorean, Philolaus, as is evident from the following remarkable passage in the Doric dialect, preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus in Stromat. book iii. “Μαρτυρεοντα δε και οι παλαιοι ϑεολογοι τε και μαντιες, ὡς δια τινας τιμωριας, ἁ ψυχα τῳ σωματι συνεζευκται, και καϑαπερ εν σωματι τομτῳ τεϑαπται.” i. e. “The ancient theologists and priests[14] also testify that the soul is united with the body as if for the sake of punishment;[15] and so is buried in body as in a sepulchre.” And, lastly, Pythagoras

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himself confirms the above sentiments, when he beautifully observes, according to Clemens in the same book,

“that whatever we see when awake is death; and when asleep, a dream.”

θανατος εστιν, οκοσα εγερϑεντες ορεομεν· οκοσα δε ευδοντες, ὑπνος.