assisted in these and all other religious ceremonies: The hierophant was always an Athenian citizen, and held his office for life; he was required to observe the dictates of pure chastity, and to dedicate himself entirely to the service of the gods. To this end he anointed his body with the juice of hemlock, the extreme coldness of which was supposed to extinguish in a great degree the natural heat of the body. The basileus (king) derived his title from the supposed institution of the mysteries of Erectheus, king of Athens: he was one of the archons of the city, and his duties were to offer prayers and sacrifices; to see that the mysteries were celebrated conformably to custom; and to repress every tendency to riot, indecency, or irregularity of any kind during the revelation of the mysteries and the representation of the peculiar scenic and dramatic shows which formed so striking a portion of the secret rites. The first thing required of the candidates for initiation, after entering the temple, was to wash their hands in holy water—a ceremony typical of the inward purification required as an essential preparation, the aspirants being admonished by the hierophant, that the cleanness of the body would not be accepted by the gods unless conjoined with the purity of the soul. They were then introduced into the mystic subterranean hall, where, while they stood absorbed in curiosity, wonder, and awe, strange and amazing objects were presented to their sight. The foundations of the temple seemed to quake, and the scene became suddenly illuminated by flashes of light; then it would become involved in pitchy darkness, sometimes fitfully relieved by flashes of mimic lightning, followed by the imitation of thunder, and horrid howlings, as of a chorus of infernal demons. Then the spell-bound, and perhaps trembling spectators, were startled by sudden and terror-inspiring apparitions, concerning which Proclus says, that 'the initiated meet many things of multiform shapes and species, which prefigure the first generation of the gods.' Apuleius states, that the celestial and infernal deities all passed in review before the spectators, and that a hymn was sung to each by the hierophant; which hymns have been generally attributed to Orpheus. Pausanias says, that these hymns were sung in the secret rites of Ceres in preference to those of Homer, though the latter were more elegant, because they were supposed to be the composition of Orpheus, to whom was ascribed the introduction of the mysteries into Greece. Warburton is of opinion that the popular reference of the institution to Orpheus, mentioned by Theodoretus, while the Athenians ascribed it to another, could only have arisen from the use of these hymns. Many allusions may be found in the works of ancient writers to the spectacles shewn to the aspirants in the mysteries, as in Dion Chrysostom, who says: 'As when one leads a Greek or barbarian to be initiated in a certain mystic dome, excelling in beauty and magnificence, where he sees many mystic sights, and hears in the same manner a multitude of voices; where darkness and light alternately affect his senses, and a thousand other uncommon things present themselves before him.' Claudian also alludes to them, and Pletho, speaking of the Mithraic mysteries, says: 'It is the custom in the celebration of the mysteries to present before many of the initiated phantasms of a canine figure, and other monstrous shapes and appearances.' Celsus gives a similar description of the shows introduced in the Bacchic mysteries, and allusions to these spectacles may also be found in Lucian and Themistius.

The scenes and phantasms represented were explained to the spectators by the hierophant, who, when they had all passed in review, sang the concluding hymn, supposed by Warburton to have been one of which a fragment has been preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius.

The erudite theologian bases his supposition on the several grounds that the hymn in question is one of those attributed to Orpheus; that the subjects of the Orphic hymns were the pagan mysteries; that this particular hymn is addressed to Musæus, who was supposed by some to have introduced the mysteries at Athens; that it begins with the formula used by the hierophant in opening the rites; and that it inculcates doctrines in accordance with the secrets then revealed to the aspirants. Clemens Alexandrinus, in introducing the portion of this hymn which he has preserved, says that Orpheus,' after he had opened the mysteries, and sung the whole theology of idols '-by which he is supposed to mean the hymns sung by the hierophant to the phantasms in the spectacles-' recants all he had said, and introduceth truth.' The hymn, in the literal prose version, commences thus: 'I will declare a secret to the initiated; but let the doors be shut against the profane. But thou, Musæus, offspring of fair Selene, attend carefully to my song; for I shall speak of important truths. Suffer not, therefore, the former prepossessions of your mind to deprive you of that happy life which the knowledge of these mysterious truths will procure you. But look on the Divine Nature, incessantly contemplate it, and govern well the mind and heart. Go on in the right way, and see the Sole Governor of the world. He is One, and of himself alone; and to that One all things owe their being. He operates through all, and was never seen by mortal eyes, but does himself see everything.' The secrets were then read to the initiated by the hierophant from a large book, or rather tablet, made of two stones cemented together; and Apuleius states that a similar tablet, covered with hieroglyphics, was used for the same purpose in the mysteries of Isis. When this revelation had been made, the initiated were dismissed by the hierophant with two uncouth words which seem to prove the foreign origin of the mysteries, and which Le Clerc supposed to be a corruption or bad pronunciation of the Phœnician words, kots and omphets, which signify watch and abstain from evil. The garments which the initiated wore at the celebration of the mysteries were held sacred, and never left off until unfit for wear, when they were either dedicated to Ceres or adapted for children. It is probable that the former manner of disposing of them was generally followed by the more affluent citizens, and the latter by the poorer orders.

V.

What were the secrets revealed in the mysteries? This question naturally suggests itself at this stage of the inquiry, and in the answer are involved very important considerations. It has been shewn that the

mysteries had their origin in Egypt; and it must be borne in mind that in that country the priest and the philosopher were united in the same person, and that the esoteric doctrines which the hierophants retained to themselves included the unity of the divine nature and the immortality of the

soul. These are, therefore, the doctrines which we may naturally expect to find preserved and taught by them in the mysteries; and Cudworth expresses himself satisfied by the testimony of the ancients, that the first of them was actually taught by the Egyptian hierophants in the mysteries of Isis. Varro says, in a fragment of his 'Book of Religions,' preserved by St Augustine, that 'there were many truths which it was not advantageous to the state should be generally known, and many things which, though false, it was expedient that the people should believe; and therefore the Greeks shut up their mysteries in the silence of their sacred enclosures.' For this reason the legislators who introduced the mysteries into Europe took such precautions to veil these secret doctrines from the public eye, by forbidding the initiation of slaves, barbarians, and persons of disreputable character, and by punishing with death those who surreptitiously became possessed of them, or, being initiated, divulged them to the profane. They were revealed to those who were judged worthy of receiving them, because their cautious revelation to such proper persons was deemed a benefit to the state, by promoting the cause of morality, and giving vigour and elasticity to the mind; and the mystic veil of secrecy was thrown over them, to guard them from the eyes of those who were not deemed fitting custodians of secrets so important. It must have been evident to the Grecian legislators, that the effect of the licentious stories told of their mythic deities upon the minds of the people must be demoralising in the extreme; and we know from passages in the tragedies of Euripides, and the comedies of Terence, that the examples of the gods were urged whenever an excuse was wanted for an immoral action. It was therefore their object in the mysteries to overthrow the whole fabric of the vulgar creed, and strip the gods of Olympus of the tinsel with which the poets had decked them, as Euhemerus subsequently did in his 'Panchaia;' and hence those illusions and phantasms which have been described. That this was done in the mysteries is proved by the evidence of many of the ancients. Chrysippus says of them, that 'it is a great prerogative to be admitted to these lectures, wherein are delivered just and right notions concerning the gods, and which teach men to comprehend their natures;' and Pythagoras, who was initiated in the mysteries of Orpheus or Bacchus, as well as in those of Isis, says, as quoted by Jamblicus, that he was taught in them the unity of the First Cause. Cicero gives a similar account of the mysteries of Cybele and of Vulcan; and Plutarch, in condemning the immoral and absurd stories recorded of the gods by the Greek poets, says that 'they seemed to do it as if industriously to oppose what was taught and done in the most holy mysteries.' The purpose of the spectacles represented in them being to undeceive the initiated, and to expose the errors and absurdities of polytheism, it is easy to understand the actions recorded by Plutarch of the great Alcibiades, that he revealed the mysteries of Ceres to his friends at a banquet, and that he knocked the noses off the statues of the gods. The biographer does not connect these two actions, both deemed so irreligious in a city which was to Grecian paganism what Rome is to Catholicism; but nothing could be more likely than that Alcibiades, when he had learned in the mysteries of Eleusis the falsity of the national creed, should rush forth from the banquet, heated with wine, and deface

the statues, which had ceased to have any other claim to his respect and admiration than their beauty as works of art.

That the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, was the second part of the secrets revealed by the hierophant in the mysteries, appears very evident; and that it was not the commonly-received tenets upon this subject which were taught, is equally so; because, as all the nations of antiquity held these doctrines in some form or other, there could have been no motive for veiling them in mystery and secrecy, and for revealing to some what was believed by all. Celsus, in replying to Origen, who had contrasted polytheism with Christianity, and pointed to the superiority of the latter in its doctrine of a future state, says: 'Just as you believe eternal punishments, so do the ministers of the sacred rites, and those who initiate into and preside in the mysteries.' We learn from Apuleius and others that these doctrines were taught in the mysteries of Isis; and both Cicero and Porphyry bear similar testimony concerning those of Mithra. Plato says that the initiated were taught that they would be happier after death, in the future life that was beyond the grave, than those to whom the mysteries had not been revealed; and that while the souls of the uninitiated were struggling in the mire and darkness of the heathen purgatory, those whose mental vision had been freed from the film of error and delusion in the mystic temple of Eleusis, would wing their flight at once to the happy islands of eternal beatitude, and behold the unshrouded glory of the Supreme Being. This doctrine, its revelation in the mysteries, the inward purity required of the aspirants, and the engagements into which they entered by their initiation to commence a new life of usefulness and virtue, led those to whom it had been disclosed to be regarded as happier, on that account, than any others. We may gather this from the dramatic poets of Greece, both tragic and comic, who may be supposed to express the sentiments of the people: Euripides making Hercules express his happiness at having been introduced to the mysteries; and Aristophanes, in one of his choruses, representing the people as exulting thus: On us only does the orb of day shine benignantly; we only receive pleasure from its beams - we who are initiated, and perform towards citizens and strangers all acts of piety and justice.' Isocrates calls the mysteries the thing that human nature stood most in need of; and in another passage, says that Ceres hath made the Athenians two presents of the greatest consequence: corn, which brought us out of a state of barbarism; and the mysteries, which teach the initiated to entertain the most agreeable expectations touching death and eternity.' And Cicero, in excepting the Eleusinian mysteries from the general condemnation which he pronounces upon secret and nocturnal rites in general, the causes of which condemnation will presently be adverted to, says still more emphatically: 'For as, in my opinion, Athens has produced many excellent and even divine inventions, and applied them to the uses of life, so has she given nothing better than those mysteries, by which we are drawn from an irrational and savage life, and tamed, as it were, and broken to humanity. They are truly called Initia, for they are indeed the beginnings of a life of reason and virtue; from whence we not only receive the benefits of a more comfortable and refined subsistence here, but are

taught to hope for and aspire to a better life hereafter.' These extracts shew not only that great importance was attached to the mysteries, particularly to those of Ceres, but also that the doctrine of the soul's immortality and its state after its separation from the body, which was taught in the mysteries, must have differed from that which was publicly and generally delivered to the people. Could the common doctrine have maintained any hold upon the minds of those before whose eyes all the dramatis persona of Olympus, and all the scenery and properties of Tartarus and Elysium, had passed in review in the mystic temple of Eleusis, only that their true character might be seen, and all the errors and absurdities connected with them detected and exposed? Would so many of the most eminent philosophers of every sect, men eminent alike for virtue and learning, have given their countenance and support to the mysteries, if the secret doctrines taught in them were no other than those which were commonly believed, and which they scouted as idle tales? Could there, in short, have been anything to reveal if this had been the case?

It must be remembered, moreover, that the mysteries, except in Egypt (where the priests were philosophers, and taught doctrines in the former capacity different from those which they revealed in the latter, to those mentally capacitated to receive and appreciate them), were not under the direction and control of the priesthood, but of the state. The priests taught the people that to obtain admission into the Elysian fields, nothing was required but prayers, oblations, and sacrifices, but in the mysteries was inculcated the necessity of a virtuous and holy life. 'The priests,' says

Locke, 'made it not their business to teach the people virtue; if they were diligent in their observances and ceremonies, punctual in their feasts and solemnities, and the tricks of religion, the holy tribe assured them that the gods were pleased, and they looked no further. Few went to the schools

of philosophers to be instructed in their duty, and to know what was good and evil in their actions; the priests sold the better pennyworth, and therefore had all the custom; for lustrations and sacrifices were much easier than a clean conscience and a steady course of virtue, and an expiatory sacrifice, that atoned for the want of it, much more convenient than a strict and holy life.' The mysteries were designed for the support of a sounder and more elevated morality than could possibly be taught in connection with the mythological fables of Homer and Hesiod, and hence the legislators by whom they were introduced into Europe placed them under secular control. The state was represented in those of Eleusis by the basileus, who presided over their celebration, and whose assistants were chosen by the people; the priests only filled offices subordinate to these, and had no share in the direction of the rites and spectacles. Political as well as moral considerations may have had some influence in leading legislators to establish, and rulers who came after them to maintain, the mysteries; it may have been that the initiated were regarded by them as a counterpoise to those who were excluded from participating in the mysteries by the national, social, and moral distinctions which disqualified for admission. The alien, the enslaved, and the vicious were excluded; and these must have formed a considerable portion of the population in states where so many were slaves, and where the tendencies of the religious teachings and public worship were so demoralising. These the laws kept