Part 37 (2/2)
Nor was it at Athens only, that the wors.h.i.+p and Mysteries of Isis, metamorphosed into Ceres, were established. The Botians wors.h.i.+pped the Great or Cabiric Ceres, in the recesses of a sacred grove, into which none but Initiates could enter; and the ceremonies there observed, and the sacred traditions of their Mysteries, were connected with those of the Cabiri in Samothrace.
So in Argos, Phocis, Arcadia, Achaia, Messenia, Corinth, and many other parts of Greece, the Mysteries were practised, revealing everywhere their Egyptian origin and everywhere having the same general features; but those of Eleusis, in Attica, Pausanius informs us, had been regarded by the Greeks, from the earliest times, as being as far superior to all the others, as the G.o.ds are to mere Heroes.
Similar to these were the Mysteries of Bona Dea, the Good G.o.ddess, whose name, say Cicero and Plutarch, it was not permitted to any man to know, celebrated at Rome from the earliest times of that city. It was these Mysteries, practised by women alone, the secrecy of which was impiously violated by Clodius. They were held at the Kalends of May; and, according to Plutarch, much of the ceremonial greatly resembled that of the Mysteries of Bakchos.
The Mysteries of Venus and Adonis belonged princ.i.p.ally to Syria and Phnicia, whence they pa.s.sed into Greece and Sicily. Venus or Astarte was the Great Female Deity of the Phnicians, as Hercules, Melkarth or Adoni was their Chief G.o.d. Adoni, called by the Greeks Adonis, was the lover of Venus. Slain by a wound in the thigh inflicted by a wild boar in the chase, the flower called anemone sprang from his blood. Venus received the corpse and obtained from Jupiter the boon that her lover should thereafter pa.s.s six months of each year with her, and the other six in the Shades with Proserpine; an allegorical description of the alternate residence of the Sun in the two hemispheres. In these Mysteries his death was represented and mourned, and after this maceration and mourning were concluded, his resurrection and ascent to Heaven were announced.
Ezekiel speaks of the festivals of Adonis under the name of those of Thammuz, an a.s.syrian Deity, whom every year the women mourned, seated at the doors of their dwellings. These Mysteries, like the others, were celebrated in the Spring, at the Vernal Equinox, when he was restored to life; at which time, when they were inst.i.tuted, the Sun (ADON, Lord, or Master) was in the Sign Taurus, the domicile of Venus. He was represented with horns, and the hymn of Orpheus in his honor styles him ”the two-horned G.o.d;” as in Argos Bakchos was represented with the feet of a bull.
Plutarch says that Adonis and Bakchos were regarded as one and the same Deity; and that this opinion was founded on the great similarity in very many respects between the Mysteries of these two G.o.ds.
The Mysteries of Bakchos were known as the Sabazian, Orphic, and Dionysiac Festivals. They went back to the remotest antiquity among the Greeks, and were attributed by some to Bakchos himself, and by others to Orpheus. The resemblance in ceremonial between the observances established in honor of Osiris in Egypt, and those in honor of Bakchos in Greece, the mythological traditions of the two G.o.ds, and the symbols used in the festivals of each, amply prove their ident.i.ty. Neither the name of Bakchos, nor the word _orgies_ applied to his feasts, nor the sacred words Used in his Mysteries, are Greek, but of foreign origin.
Bakchos was an Oriental Deity, wors.h.i.+pped in the East, and his orgies celebrated there, long before the Greeks adopted them. In the earliest times he was wors.h.i.+pped in India, Arabia, and Bactria.
He was honored in Greece with public festivals, and in simple or complicated Mysteries, varying in ceremonial in various places, as was natural, because his wors.h.i.+p had come thither from different countries and at different periods. The people who celebrated the complicated Mysteries were ignorant of the meaning of many words which they used, and of many emblems which they revered. In the Sabazian Feasts, for example [from Saba-Zeus an oriental name of this Deity], the words EVOI, SABOI, were used, which are in nowise Greek; and a serpent of gold was thrown into the bosom of the Initiate, in allusion to the fable that Jupiter had, in the form of a serpent, had connection with Proserpina, and begotten Bakchos, the bull; whence the enigmatical saying, repeated to the Initiates, that a bull engendered a dragon or serpent, and the serpent in turn engendered the bull, who became Bakchos: the meaning of which was, that the bull [Taurus, which then opened the Vernal Equinox, and the Sun in which Sign, figuratively represented by the Sign itself, was Bakchos, Dionusos, Saba-Zeus, Osiris, etc.], and the Serpent, another constellation, occupied such relative positions in the Heavens, that when one rose the other set, and _vice versa_.
The serpent was a familiar symbol in the Mysteries of Bakchos. The Initiates grasped them with their hands, as Orphiucus does on the celestial globe, and the Orpheo-telestes, or purifier of candidates did the same, crying, as Demosthenes taunted aeschines with doing in public at the head of the women whom his mother was to imitate, EVOI, SABOI, HYES ATTe, ATTe, HYES!
The Initiates in these Mysteries had preserved the ritual and ceremonies that accorded with the simplicity of the earliest ages, and the manners of the first men. The rules of Pythagoras were followed there. Like the Egyptians, who held wool unclean, they buried no Initiate in woolen garments. They abstained from b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifices; and lived on fruits or vegetables or inanimate things. They imitated the life of the contemplative Sects of the Orient; thus approximating to the tranquility of the first men, who lived exempt from trouble and crimes in the bosom of a profound peace. One of the most precious advantages promised by their initiation was, to put a man in communion with the G.o.ds, by purifying his soul of all the pa.s.sions that interfere with that enjoyment, and dim the rays of divine light that are communicated to every soul capable of receiving them, and that imitate their purity. One of the degrees of initiation was the state of inspiration to which the adepts were claimed to attain. The Initiates in the Mysteries of the Lamb, at Pepuza, in Phrygia, professed to be inspired, and prophesied; and it was claimed that the soul, by means of these religious ceremonies, purified of all stain, could see the G.o.ds in this life, and certainly, in all cases, after death.
The sacred gates of the Temple, where the ceremonies of initiation were performed, were opened but once in each year, and no stranger was ever allowed to enter it. Night threw her veil over these august Mysteries, which could be revealed to no one. There the sufferings of Bakchos were represented, who, like Osiris, died, descended to h.e.l.l and rose to life again; and raw flesh was distributed to the Initiates, which each ate, in memory of the death of the Deity, torn in pieces by the t.i.tans.
These Mysteries also were celebrated at the Vernal Equinox; and the emblem of generation, to express the active energy and generative power of the Divinity, was a princ.i.p.al symbol. The Initiates wore garlands and crowns of myrtle and laurel.
In these Mysteries, the aspirant was kept in terror and darkness to perform the three days and nights; and was then made [Greek: A?a ??s??], or ceremony representing the death of Bakchos, the same mythological personage with Osiris. This was effected by confining him in a close cell, that he might seriously reflect, in solitude and darkness, on the business he was engaged in: and his mind be prepared for the reception of the sublime and mysterious truths of primitive revelation and philosophy. This was a symbolic death; the deliverance from it, regeneration; after which he was called [Greek: d?????] or twin-born. While confined in the cell, the pursuit of Typhon after the mangled body of Osiris, and the search of Rhea or Isis for the same, were enacted in his hearing; the initiated crying aloud the names of that Deity derived from the Sanscrit. Then it was announced that the body was found; and the aspirant was liberated amid shouts of joy and exultation.
Then he pa.s.sed through a representation of h.e.l.l and Elysium. ”Then,”
said an ancient writer, ”they are entertained with hymns and dances, with the sublime doctrines of sacred knowledge, and with wonderful and holy visions. And now become perfect and initiated, they are FREE, and no longer under restraint; but, crowned and triumphant, they walk up and down the regions of the blessed, converse with pure and holy men, and celebrate the sacred Mysteries at pleasure.” They were taught the nature and objects of the Mysteries, and the means of making themselves known, and received the name of Epopts; were fully instructed in the nature and attributes of the Divinity, and the doctrine of a future state; and made acquainted with the unity and attributes of the Grand Architect of the Universe, and the true meaning of the fables in regard to the G.o.ds of Paganism: the great Truth being often proclaimed, that ”Zeus is the primitive Source of all things; there is ONE G.o.d; ONE power, and ONE rule over all.” And after full explanation of the many symbols and emblems that surrounded them, they were dismissed with the barbarous words [Greek: ????] and [Greek: ?pa?], corruptions of the Sanscrit words, Kanska Aom Pakscha; meaning, _object of our wishes, G.o.d, Silence_, or _Wors.h.i.+p the Deity in Silence_.
Among the emblems used was the rod of Bakchos; which once, it was said, he cast on the ground, and it became a serpent; and at another time he struck the rivers Orontes and Hydaspes with it, and the waters receded and he pa.s.sed over dry-shod. Water was obtained, during the ceremonies, by striking a rock with it. The Bakchae crowned their heads with serpents, carried them in vases and baskets, and at the [Greek: ????s??], or finding, of the body of Osiris, cast one, alive, into the aspirant's bosom.
The Mysteries of Atys in Phrygia, and those of Cybele his mistress, like their wors.h.i.+p, much resembled those of Adonis and Bakchos, Osiris and Isis. Their Asiatic origin is universally admitted, and was with great plausibility claimed by Phrygia, which contested the palm of antiquity with Egypt. They, more than any other people, mingled allegory with their religious wors.h.i.+p, and were great inventors of fables; and their sacred traditions as to Cybele and Atys, whom all admit to be Phrygian G.o.ds, were very various. In all, as we learn from Julius Firmicus, they represented by allegory the phenomena of nature, and the succession of physical facts, under the veil of a marvellous history.
Their feasts occurred at the equinoxes, commencing with lamentation, mourning, groans, and pitiful cries for the death of Atys; and ending with rejoicings at his restoration to life.
We shall not recite the different versions of the legend of Atys and Cybele, given by Julius Firmicus, Diodorus, Arn.o.bius, Lactantius, Servius, Saint Augustine, and Pausanias. It is enough to say that it is in substance this: that Cybele, a Phrygian Princess, who invented musical instruments and dances, was enamored of Atys, a youth; that either he in a fit of frenzy mutilated himself or was mutilated by her in a paroxysm of jealousy; that he died, and afterward, like Adonis, was restored to life. It is the Phnician fiction as to the Sun-G.o.d, expressed in other terms, under other forms, and with other names.
Cybele was wors.h.i.+pped in Syria, under the name of Rhea. Lucian says that the Lydian Atys there established her wors.h.i.+p and built her temple. The name of Rhea is also found in the ancient cosmogony of the Phnicians by Sanchoniathon. It was Atys the Lydian, says Lucian, who, having been mutilated, first established the Mysteries of Rhea, and taught the Phrygians, the Lydians, and the people of Samothrace to celebrate them.
Rhea, like Cybele, was represented drawn by lions, bearing a drum, and crowned with flowers. According to Varro, Cybele represented the earth.
She partook of the characteristics of Minerva, Venus, the Moon, Diana, Nemesis, and the Furies; was clad in precious stones; and her High Priest wore a robe of purple and a tiara of gold.
The Grand Feast of the Syrian G.o.ddess, like that of the Mother of the G.o.ds at Rome, was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox. Precisely at that equinox the Mysteries of Atys were celebrated, in which the Initiates were taught to expect the rewards of a future life, and the flight of Atys from the jealous fury of Cybele was described, his concealment in the mountains and in a cave, and his self-mutilation in a fit of delirium; in which act his priests imitated him. The feast of the pa.s.sion of Atys continued three days; the first of which was pa.s.sed in mourning and tears; to which afterward clamorous rejoicings succeeded; by which, Macrobius says, the Sun was adored under the name of Atys. The ceremonies were all allegorical, some of which, according to the Emperor Julian, could be explained, but more remained covered with the veil of mystery. Thus it is that symbols, outlast their explanations, as many have done in Masonry, and ignorance and rashness subst.i.tute new ones.
In another legend, given by Pausanias, Atys dies, wounded like Adonis by a wild boar in the organs of generation; a mutilation with which all the legends ended. The pine-tree under which he was said to have died, was sacred to him; and was found upon many monuments, with a bull and a ram near it; one the sign of exaltation of the Sun, and the other of that of the Moon.
The wors.h.i.+p of the Sun under the name of Mithras belonged to Persia, whence that name came, as did the erudite symbols of that wors.h.i.+p. The Persians, adorers of Fire, regarded the Sun as the most brilliant abode of the fecundating energy of that element, which gives life to the earth, and circulates in every part of the Universe, of which it is, as it were, the soul. This wors.h.i.+p pa.s.sed from Persia into Armenia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, long before it was known at Rome. The Mysteries of Mithras flourished more than any others in the imperial city. The wors.h.i.+p of Mithras commenced to prevail there under Trajan. Hadrian prohibited these Mysteries, on account of the cruel scenes represented in their ceremonial: for human victims were immolated therein, and the events of futurity looked for in their palpitating entrails. They reappeared in greater splendor than ever under Commodus, who with his own hand sacrificed a victim to Mithras: and they were still more practised under Constantine and his successors, when the Priests of Mithras were found everywhere in the Roman Empire, and the monuments of his wors.h.i.+p appeared even in Britain.
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