 |
The Festival at Eleusis
"The Eleusinian Mysteries, held annually in honor of
Demeter and Persephone, were the most
sacred and revered of all the ritual celebrations of ancient Greece. They
were instituted in the city of Eleusis, some twenty-two kilometers west of
Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period, and continued
for almost two thousand years. Large crowds of worshippers from all over
Greece (and later, from throughout the Roman empire) would gather to make
the holy pilgrimage between the two cities and participate in the secret
rites, generally regarded as the high point of Greek
religion."
- Edward A. Beach, "The
Eleusinian Mysteries"
Demeter, the goddess of corn and fertility, was seduced
by a mortal called Iasion. Infuriated, Zeus killed Iasion with a
thunderbolt and made love to Demeter himself. The result of this union was
a daughter, Persephone.
Hades, "god of the Underworld, asked Zeus for
Persephone as his wife. Zeus agreed, but, thinking that Demeter would not
accept the match as she would lose her daughter forever to the Underworld,
assisted Hades in Persephone's abduction. He asked Gaia to send up many
lovely flowers near where Persephone dwelt, whilst she was picking them
with her friends, Hades came up from the Underworld in a chariot and took
the poor girl back with him. Demeter searched the world for many days and
nights in the guise of a mortal. At every town she visited, she told men
the secrets of the harvest...Demeter threatened famine to the earth unless
her daughter was returned; but Persephone had eaten several pomegranate
seeds which meant that she would have to stay in Hades for one-third of
the year, during which period Demeter refused to allow the crops to grow.
Festivals were held for the return of Persephone every spring. At Eleusis,
Demeter leant her winged chariot, drawn by dragons, to the youth
Triptolemus; he was to use it every year to scatter seed over the
earth."
- David Bellingham, An
Introduction to Greek Mythology
"The myths and rites of Eleusis have their counterpart in
the religions of certain tropical cultures whose structure is agricultural
and matriarchal."
"At Eleusis, as in the Orphic-Dionysiac
ceremonies, as in the Greco-Oriental mysteries of the Hellenistic
period, the mystes submits himself to initiation in order to transcend the
human condition and to obtain a higher, superhuman mode of being. the
initiatory rites reactualize an origin myth, which relates the adventures,
death, and resurrection of a divinity."
"None of these initiatory cults
can be regarded as a creation of the Greek mind. Their roots go deep into
prehistory, Cretan, Asiatic, and Thracian traditions were taken over,
enriched, and incorporated into a new religious horizon. It was through
Athens that Eleusis became a Pan Hellenic religious center; but the
mysteries of Demeter and Kore had been celebrated at Eleusis for
centuries. The Eleusinian initiation descends directly from an
agricultural ritual centered around the death and resurrection of a
divinity controlling the fertility of the
fields."
- Mircea Eliade, Rites and
Symbols of Initiation
The cult of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis "dates back to
the second millennium BC; traces of a small temple-house of that date have
been found which would fit the myth well. When Eleusis came under the
power of Athens, there was expansion of the buildings, and by the time of
the dictator Pisistratus in the sixth century BC it was becoming a
pan-hellenic cult. The great Hall of the Mysteries, with its forty-two
columns, belongs to the following century, and in Roman times the
buildings on the site were greatly expanded and enriched.
"The cult was
entrusted hereditarily to two families, who provided the chief officials -
the Hierophant, or chief priest, and his assistant; the priestess of
Demeter and other priestesses; the Torchbearer; the Herald; and the
Altar-priest."
- John Ferguson, An
Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mysticism and the Mystery Religions
"The rites of Eleusis overshadowed the civilization of
that time, absorbing other smaller schools, and influencing the
development of democracy, culture and the
arts.
- Geoffrey Hodson, "The
Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
"In the month of Anthesterion (February) the lesser
mysteries were conducted near Athens, at Agrai by the Ilissos River, as
something of a preparation for the greater mysteries celebrated in
Boedromion [September]."
- The
Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, Marvin W. Meyer, Editor
"This sacred month was highly respected -- even if a war
was on, it would be halted to allow its members to attend the mysteries. A
truce was proclaimed, and fighting would cease, for example in Sparta,
Thracia, and the Peloponesus, to allow participation. This also occured,
incidentally, with the Olympic games.
-
Geoffrey Hodson, "The Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
The ceremonies involved "ritual washing in the sacred
rivers...enlivened by much joking and laughter. This was followed by
several days of sacrifices at minor
sanctuaries."
- David Maybury-Lewis,
Millennium
"The great processions gathered on the Acropolis, and
made their way on foot to the sacred temples in
Eleusis."
- Geoffrey Hodson, "The
Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
The Iacchos procession occurred on Boedromion 19.
Initiates robed in white and bearing torches "marched along the sacred Way
from Athens to Eleusis, singing, dancing, and carrying the 'sacred things'
[hiera] of the goddesses back to the Telesterion (great hall
of initation) in Eleusis."
- The
Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook, Marvin W. Meyer, Editor
Along with the sacred cult objects, the initiates bore "a
statue of the boy-god Iacchos. The latter deity, who personified the
shouts of exultation that the participants would periodically emit, was
identified at least as far back as the days of Sophokles with Dionysos
(cf. Antigone, vv. 1115 ff.)."
-
Edward A. Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries"
CHORUS
"Forward, now to the goddess's sacred circle-dance to the grove that's in blossom and play on the way for we belong to the company of the elect, and I shall go where the girls go and I shall go with the women who keep the nightlong rite of the goddess and carry their sacred torch.
Let us go where the roses grow and fields are in flower, in the way that is ours alone, playing our blessed play which the prosperous Fates today ordain for our playing.
On us alone the sun shines here and the happy daylight, for we are Initiates, we treat honorably all strangers who are here and our own people."
- Aristophanes, The Frogs
"After a long walk, the doors of the Telestrion (the
outer temple) were reached. They passed through, and the doors closed
behind them."
- Geoffrey Hodson, "The
Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
"Only those who spoke Greek and had shed no blood (or had
subsequently been purified) were eligible to participate in the rituals at
Eleusis. Each new initiate, known as a 'mystes', would
receive preliminary instructions and guidance from an experienced sponsor,
or 'mystagogos', who was often from one of the leading
families of Eleusis. A mystes who returned a second time to
Eleusis for induction into the highest levels of esoteric knowledge was
known as an epoptes."
-
Edward A. Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries"
"If they then proved worthy of further advancement, they
were taken to a more secluded smaller temple, the Anaktoron (holy of
holies), which is where the sacred rite itself was performed in the
greatest secrecy."
- Geoffrey Hodson,
"The Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
"...The initiates gathered in a great hall, consumed a
sacred drink, and witnessed the reenactment of a sacred drama concerning
the goddess Demeter, her daughter Persephone, and Hades, the god of the
underworld. The festival drew on ideas of fertility in agriculture - what
is 'underground is the source of 'wealth; the grain is cut and dies but
yields seed and grows again - to symbolize the journey of the soul. In
this way, the promise was fulfilled that the initiate souls find that
death 'is not only not an evil, but a good
thing'."
- David Maybury-Lewis,
Millennium
"At the heart of the Eleusinian sanctuary was a cave,
called the Plutonion, and an omphalos
stone that was said to bring together the energies of the underworld
and the regions known to mortal men and women. Beginning in the sixth
century BC, the Eleusinian mysteries flourished for nearly a thousand
years. And the omphalos at Eleusis came to embody for the Greeks their
most profound feeling for the earth as the source of all fertility and
wonder."
- Earth Energies
 Demeter and Persephone Reunitedc. 450 BCE |
"What happened in the sacred ceremony? Initiation into
the mysteries, which brought about a spiritual birth, thus regenerating
the whole individual. This was intended to reunite the personal self with
the divine spirit of the kosmos as a whole. It was often accompanied by
and aided the bringing about of enlightened comprehension. It also led to
the development of intuitive insight and spiritual will-power as well as a
deepening realization of oneness with all that exists, as well as a
growing power to draw upon that oneness for the benefit of
others."
"What actually were the revelations made is entirely unknown.
The solemn vows, under the penalty of death, ensured that secrecy was
maintained. Archaeologists and historians have speculated on these
secrets, but no-one disclosed what occured and what was revealed in the
Anaktoron. Some contemporary writers however have provided hints as to
what was revealed."
- Geoffrey Hodson,
"The Still-functioning Greater and Lesser Mysteries"
"As the festival wound down, the participants would
dedicate special services in honor of the dead. Ritual libations would be
poured on the ground, the consecrated liquid flowing in the eastward and
westward directions. The initiates (probably exhausted at this point)
would then return to Athens singly or in small groups. There does not
appear to have been any organized procession. This was a time for
reflection and meditation."
- Edward A.
Beach, "The Eleusinian Mysteries"
Hyperlinks