Eleusis is a town and municipality in West Attica, Greece. It is situated 18 kilometers northwest. From the center of Athens. It is situated at the northernmost tip of the Saronic Gulf on the Thriasian Plain.
Eleusis stood upon a height at a short distance from the sea and opposite to the island of Salamis. Its situation possessed three natural advantages: it was on the road from Athens to the Isthmus of Corinth and a very fertile plain.
And it was at the head of an extensive bay formed on three sides by the coast of Atttica and shut in on to the south by the island of Salamis.
The town dates back to ancient times.
ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES
Eleusis was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the Mysteries of Demeter and Kore, which became popular in the Greek-speaking world as early as 600 BC and attracted initiates during the Roman Empire before declining in the mid-late 4th century AD. These mysteries centered around a belief that there was hope for life after death for those who were initiated.
Such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things, including the seed of life in a stalk of grain. The central myth of the mysteries was Demeter's quest for her lost daughter (Kore, the maiden, or Persephone), who had been abducted by Hades.
It was here that Demeter, disguised as an old lady who was abducted by pirates in Crete, came to an old well where the four daughters of the local king Keleos and his queen Metaneira (Kalidike, Kleisidike, Demo, and Kallithoe) found her and took her to their palace to nurse the son of Keleos and Metaneira, Demophoon. Demeter raised Demophoon, anointing him with nectar and ambrosia until Metaneira found out and insulted her.
Demeter rose, insulted, casting off her disguise, and in all her glory instructed Metaneira to build a temple to her. Keleos, informed the next morning, ordered the citizens to build a rich shrine to Demeter, where she sat in her temple until the lot of the world prayed to Zeus to make the world provide food again.
The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis. They are the most famous of the secret religious rites of ancient Greece. Their basis was an old agrarian cult, and there is some evidence that they were derived from the religious practices of the Mycenean period.
The mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades in a cycle with three phases: the descent (loss), the search, and the ascent, with the main theme being the ascent of Persephone and the reunion with her mother. It was a major festival during the Hellenic era and later spread to Rome. Similar religious rites appear in the agricultural societies of the Near East and in Minoan Crete. The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret and consistently preserved from antiquity.
For the initiated, the rebirth of Persephone symbolized the eternity of life, which flows from generation to generation, and they believed that they would have a reward in the afterlife. There are many paintings and pieces of pottery that depict various aspects of the Mysteries.
Since the Mysteries involved visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a consistent set of rites, ceremonies, and experiences that spanned two millennia, came from psychedelic drugs.
According to a theory, the lesser mysteries were held as a rule once a year in the early spring in the month of flowers, the Anthesterion, while the greater mysteries were held once a year, and every fourth year they were celebrated with special splendor in what was known as the penteteris. The lesser mysteries were held at Agra in the month of Anthesterion, our February. The initiates were not even admitted to the epopteia in the same year but only in September of the following year. This cycle continued for about two millennia.
THE PARTICIPANTS.
The first act of the Greater Mysteries was the bringing of the sacred objects from Eleusis to The Eleusinion a temple at the base of the Acropolis of Athens. The Greater Mysteries took Place in Boedromion the third month of the Attic Calender falling in late summer and lasted 10 days.
On 15th Boedromion called Agyrmos the ‘Gathering’ the hierophants declared prorrhesis. The start of the rites and carried out the Hither the victims of sacrifice. Hiereia deuro. The sea ward initiates halide mystai began in Athens on 16th Boedromion with the celebrants.
On 17th Boedromion the participants begun the Epidauria a festival for Asklepios named after his main sanctuary at Epidaurus. This festival within a festival celebrated the hero’s arrival at Athens with his daughter Hygeia. And consisted of a procession leading to the Eleusinion during which the mystai apparently stayed at home a great sacrifice and an allnight feast pannykhis.
The procession to Eleusis
Began at Kerameikos on 19th Boedromion from where the people walked to Eleusis along what was called the Sacred Way swinging branches called bacchoi.
At a certain spot along the way they shouted obscenities in commemoration of lambe or Baubo an old wonan who by cracking Dirty jokes had made Demeter smile as she mourned the loss of her daughter. The procession also shouted Iache O Iache referring to Iachus possibly an epithet for Dionysus or a separate deity son of Persephone or Demeter.
And 21th Boedromion the initiates entered a great hall called Telesterion in the center stood the Anaktoron (palace) which only the hierophants could enter where sacred objects were stored.
Before mystai could enter the Telesterion they would recite I have fasted ,I have drunk the Kykeon, I have taken from the kiste(box) and after working it have put it back in the kalathos (the open basket).
It is widely supposed that the rites inside the Telesterion comprised three Elements.
1 ) Dromena things done a dramatic reenactement of the Demeter-Persephone myth.
2) Deiknymena things shown,displayed sacred objects in which the hierophantai played
3) The essential role and finally legomena things said commentaries that accompanied the deiknymena. Combined these three elements were known as the aporheta (unrepeatables) the penalty for divulging was death.
LESSER MYSTERIES
The dramatic shows of the lesser mysteries occultly signified the miseries of the soul while in subjection to the body, while those of the greater obscurely intimated by mystic and splendid visions the fertility of the soul both here and hereafter. Participants would sacrifice a piglet and then ritually purify themselves in the river Ilisos.
The Eleusinian Mysteries were observed by nearly all Greeks, but particularly by Athenians, and were celebrated yearly at Eleusis, though in the earlier annals of their history they were celebrated only once in every 3 years and once in every 4 years by Celeans, Cretans, Parthasians, Pheneteans, Phliasians, and Spartans. It was the most celebrated of all the religious ceremonies of Greece and was regarded as of such importance that the festival is referred to frequently simply as ‘The Mysteries.'
The mysteries were divided into two parts: the lesser and the greater.
The Lesser Mysteries were said to have been instituted when Heracles, Castor, and Pollux expressed a desire to be initiated; they happened to be in Athens at the time of the celebration of the Mysteries by the Athenians in accordance with the ordinance of Demeter.
Not being Athenians, they were ineligible for the honor of initiation, but the difficulty was overcome by Eumolpus, who was desirous of including them in the ranks of the initiated. A man of such power and eminence as Hercules, foreigner though he might be... The three
Were first made citizens, and then as a preliminary to the initiation ceremony as prescribed by the goddess Eumolpus, instituted the Lesser Mysteries, which then and afterwards becamends are stained with crime."
Go repair the wrong you have done, repent of your evil doings, and then come with a pure heart and clean hands, and the doors of the mysteries shall be opened to you. The legend goes on to say that after his regeneration he returned and became a worthy member of the Order. The ceremony of the Lesser Mysteries was entirely different from the one of the Greater Mysteries.
The Lesser Mysteries represented the return of Persephone to earth, which of course took place at Eleusis, and the Greater Mysteries represented her return descent to the infernal regions. The Lesser Mysteries honored the daughter more than the mother, who was the principal figure of the Greater Mysteries.
In the Lesser Mysteries Persephone was known as the Pherrephata, and in the Greater Mysteries she was given the name of Kore.
Everything was in fact a mystery, and nothing was called by its right name. The object of the Lesser Mysteries was to signify occultly the condition of the impure soul invested with a terrestrial body and merged in a material soul.
The Greater Mysteries taught that he who in the present life is in subjection to his irrational part is truly in Hades if Hades, then, is the region of punishment and misery, the purified soul must reside in the region of bliss theoretically in the present life and according to a deific energy in the next.
They intimated by gorgeous mystic visions the felicity of the soul both here and hereafter. The Mysteries were supposed to represent in a kind of moral drama the rise and establishment of civil society, the doctrine of a state of future rewards and punishments, the errors of polytheism, and the unity of the Godhead.
Which last article was afterward demonstrated to be their famous secret. The ritual was produced from the sanctuary. It was developed in symbolical figures of animals, which suggested a correspondence utterly inexplicable to the uninitiated.
The main object of the Lesser Mysteries was to put the candidates for initiation in a condition of ritual purification, and they included certain instructions and preparations for the Greater Mysteries. Like the Eleusinian Mysteries, they included dramatic representations of the rape of Persephone and the wanderings of Demeter.
Two months before the full moon of Boedromion, sphondophoroi, or heralds selected from the priestly families of Eumolpides and Keryces, went forth to announce the forthcoming celebration of the Greater Mysteries and to claim armistice on the part of all who might be waging war. The truce commenced on the 15th of the month.
The hierophant was a revealer of holy things. He was a citizen of Athens, a man of mature age, and held his office for life, devoting himself wholly to the service of the temple and living a chaste life, to which end it was unusual for him to anoint himself with the juice of hemlock, which by its extreme coldness was said to extinguish to a great measure the natural heat.
In the opinion of some writers, celibacy was an indispensable condition of the highest branch of the priesthood, but according to inscriptions that have been discovered, some, at any rate, of the hierophants were married, so in all probability the rule was that during the celebration of the Mysteries and probably for a certain time before and after it was incumbent on the hierophant to abstain from all sexual intercourse.
Among the inscriptions discovered at Eleusis, there is one dedicating a statue to a hierophant by his wife. It was essential that the hierophant be a man of commanding presence and lead a simple life. On being raised to the dignity, he received a kind of concentration at a special ceremony at which only those of his own rank were permitted to be present when he was entrusted with certain secrets pertaining to his high office.
Prior to this ceremony, he went through a special purificatory rite, immersing himself in the sea. An act to which the Greeks attributed great virtue. He had to be exemplary in his moral conduct and was regarded by people as being particularly holy. The qualifications of a Hierophant were so high that the office could not be regarded as hereditary.
The robe of the Hierophant was a long purple garment; his hair, crowned with the wreath of myrtle, flowed in long locks over his shoulders, and a diadem ornamented his forehead. He was held to represent the Creator of the world. He alone was permitted to penetrate into the innermost shrine in the Hall of the Mysteries, and his form appeared suddenly to be transfigured with light before the rapt gaze of the initiated. He alone was permitted to reveal to the fully initiated the mystic objects, the sight of which marked the completion of their admission into the community.
He had the power of refusing admission to the applicants whom he deemed unfit to be entrusted with the secrets. He was not inactive during the intervals between the Celebration of the Mysteries. It was his duty to superintend the instruction of the candidates for initiation, who were divided into groups and instructed by officials known as mystagogues.
The personal name of the hierophant was never mentioned. It was supposed to be unknown, and he was known only by the title of the office that he bore. There is an interesting inscription at Eleusis engraved on the base of a statue erected to a hierophant: ‘Ask not my name; the mystic rule has carried it away into the blue sea.' But when I reach the fated day and go to the abode of the blessed, then all who care for me will pronounce it. One of his sons had written below this inscription after the death of had the hierophant.
"Now we, his children, reveal the name of the best of fathers, which, when alive, he did in the depths of the sea. This is the famous Apollonius’
There is certainly an epigram by a female hierophant, which runs, ‘Let my name remain unspoken on being shut off from the world when the sons of Cecrops made me hierophantine to Demeter.' I myself hid it in the vasty depths.'
The manner in which the name was committed to the sea was either by the immersion of the bearer or by writing the name on a leaden tablet, which was cast into the sea.
The holy name by which the hierophant was afterwards known was derived from the name of some god or bore some ritualistic meaning. Sometimes the hierophant was known by the title of his office with the addition of his father’s name. The hierophant was compelled to avoid contact with the dead in the same manner as Jewish faith and with certain animals reputed to be unclean; contact with any person from whom blood was issuing also caused impurity.
He was assisted by a female hierophant into this high degree; she was brought forward naked to the sight of a sacred font in which her right hand was placed, the priest declaring her to be true and holy and dedicated to the service of the temple.
Next in rank came the male and female dadouchos; they were the torchbearers, and their duty consisted mainly in carrying the torches at the sacred festival. They also wore purple robes, myrtle crowns, and diadems until the first century BC. The dadouchos was never addressed by his own name but always by the title of his office.
The hierocyrex, or messenger of holy tidings, was the representative of Hermes, who, as the messenger of the gods, was indispensable as a mediator whenever men wished to approach the immortals. He also wore a purple-colored robe and a myrtle crown. He was chosen for life from the family of the Keryces.
He made the necessary proclamations to the candidates for initiation into the various degrees and in particular enjoined them to preserve silence. The phaidantes had custody of the sacred statues and the sacred vessels, which they had to maintain in good repair.
Among the other officials were the liknophoroi, who carried the mystic fan; the hydranoi, who purified the candidates for initiation by sprinkling them with holy water at the commencement of the festival; the spondophoroi, who proclaimed the sacred truce, which was to permit the peaceful celebration of the Mysteries; and the heeraules, who played the flute during the time the sacrifices were being offered.
They were the leaders of the sacred music who had under their charge the hymnodoi, the hymnetriai, the neokoroi who maintained the temples and the altars, and the panageis who formed a class between the ministers and the initiated.
Then there were the initiates of the altar who performed expiatory rites in the name and in the place of all the initiated. There were also many other minor officials by the general name of "melissae," perhaps so called because bees, being makers of honey, were sacred to Demeter.
The diluvian priestesses and regenerated souls were called 'bees.' The officials whose duty was to take care that the ritual was punctiliously followed in every detail included nine archons. The sacred symbols used in the ceremonies were enclosed in a special chamber in the Telesterion, or hall of initiation, known as the Anaktoron, into which the hierophant alone had the right to penetrate.
PROGRAMME OF THE GREATER MYSTERIES.
The first day was known as the ‘gathering’ or the Assembly of all who had passed through the Lesser Mysteries assembled to assist in the celebration of the Greater Mysteries.
On this day the archon-basileus presided over all the cults of the city and assembled the people at a place known as the Poikile stoa.After the archon basileus with four assistants had offered up sacrifices for the welfare of Greece the following proclamations were made come whoever is clean of all pollution and whose soul has not consciousness of sin.
Come whoever hath lived a life of righteousness and justice. Come all ye who are pure of heart and of hand and whose speech can be understood. Whoever hath not clean hands a pure soul and an intelligible voice must not assist at the Mysteries Once within the sacred enclosure all the initiates were subject to a purification by fire ceremonial.
Second day The second day was known as Halade Mystai or ‘To the sea ye mystai’from the command which greeted all the initiates to go and purify themselves by washing in the sea in the salt water. Clakes, Rheiti on what was known as the ‘Sacred Way’.
The priests had the exclusive right of fishing in these lakes.A procession was formed. The day was concentrated to Saturn into whose province the soul is said to fall in the course of its descent from the topic of Cancer. The bathing was preceded by a confession and the manner in which the bathing was carried out and the number of immersions varied with the degree of guilt which each confessed. After the bath all were regarded as ‘new creatures’.
The purification was not regarded as complete until the following day when there was added the sprinkling of the blood of a pig sacrificed. On the Eleusinian coinage the pig standing on a torch placed horizontally appears as the sign and the symbol of the Mysteries.
On this day also some of the initiated submitted to a special purification near the altar of Zeus Mellichios on the Sacred Way….an ox was sacrificed to Zeus Mellichios. The skin of the animal was laid on the ground by the dadouchos and the one who was the object of the lustration remained there squatting on the left foot.
Third day: On the third day, pleasures of every description, even the most innocent, were strictly forbidden, and everyone fasted until nightfall, when they partook of seed cakes, parched corn, salt, pomegranates, and sacred wine mixed with milk and honey.
The Archon Basileus, assisted again by the four epimeletae, celebrated in the presence of the representatives from the allied cities the great sacrifice of the Soteria for the well-being of the state, the Athenian citizens, and their wives and children.
This ceremony took place in the Eleusinion at the foot of the Acropolis. The day was known as the day of mourning and was supposed to commemorate Demeter’s grief at the loss of Persephone. The sacrifices offered consisted of a mullet and of barley out of Rharium, a field at Eleusis.
The oblations were accounted so sacred that the priests themselves were not permitted, as was unusual in other offerings, to partake of them. At the conclusion of the general ceremony, each one individually sacrificed a little pig purified in the sea the night before.
Fourth day The principal event of the fourth day was a solemn procession when the holy basket of Ceres (Demeter) was carried in a nonconsecrated cart by the crowds of people shouting as it went along. "Hail Ceres."
The rear end of the procession was composed of women carrying baskets containing sesamin, carded wool, grains of salt, corn, pomegranates, reeds, ivy boughs, cakes known as poppies, and sometimes serpents. One kind of those cakes was known as 'ox cakes'; they were made with little horns and dedicated to the moon.
Another kind contained poppy seeds. Poppy was used in ceremonies because it was said that some grains of poppy were given to Demeter upon her arrival in Greece to induce sleep, which she had not enjoyed from the time of the abduction of Persephone.
The fifth day, this day was known as the day of torches from the fact that at nightfall all the initiates walked in pairs round the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, the dadouchos himself leading the procession. The torches were waved about and changed from hand to hand to represent the wanderings of the godess in search of her daughter when she was conducted by the light of a torch kindled in the flames of Etna.
The sixth day, Iacchos, was the name given to the sixth day of the festival. The fair young god Iacchos, or Dionysos, or Bacchus, was the son of Jupiter and Ceres and accompanied the goddess in her search for Persephone.
He also carried a torch. His statue, together with other sacred objects, was taken from the Iacchion, the sanctuary of Iacchos in Athens, mounted on a heavy rustic four-wheeled chariot drawn by bulls and accompanied by the Iaccho gogue and other magistrates nominated for the occasion, conveyed from the Kerameikos to Eleusis by the sacred Way in solemn procession.
The statue as well as the people were crowned with myrtle, the people dancing all the way across the route, beating brass kettles and playing instruments of various kinds and singing sacred songs. Having passed the bridge, the people entered Eleusis by what was known as the mystical entrance. The nocturnal journey was called the ‘Night of Torches.' The barren mountains of the pass of Dafni and the surface of the sea resounded with 'Iacchos, O Iacchos.'
At one of the halts the Croconians, descendants of the hero Crocon, who had formerly reigned over the Thriasian plane, fastened a saffron band on the right arm and left foot of each one in the procession. The distance covered by the procession was 22 kilometers. SEVENTH DAY: On the seventh day the statue was carried back to Athens.
The return journey was also a solemn procession. For those who remained behind at Eleusis, the time was devoted to sports, the combatants appearing naked, and the victors were rewarded with a measure of barley. The eighth day was called Epidaurion because it happened once that Asclepius, coming from Epidaurus to Athens, desired to be initiated and had the lesser Mysteries repeated for that purpose.
The eighth day was regarded as symbolical of the soul falling into the lunar orbit, and the repeated initiation, the second celebration of that secret rite, was symbolical of the soul bidding adieu to everything of a celestial nature, sinking into a perfect oblivion of her divine origin and felicity and rushing profoundly into the region of dissimilitude, ignorance, and error.
The day opened with a solemn sacrifice offered to Demeter and Persephone, which took place within a peribolus. The acceptance or rejection of a sacrifice was indicated by the movements of the animal as it approached the altar, the vivacity of the flame, and the direction of the smoke.
If these signs were not favorable in the case of the first victim, other animals must be slain until one presented itself in which all the signs were favorable. Ninth day it was known as the day of earthen vessels because it was the custom on that day to fill two jugs with wine.
One was placed towards the east and the other towards the west, and after the repetition of several mystical formulas, both were overthrown, the wine being spilt upon the ground as a libation. The first of these formulas was directed towards the sky as a prayer for rain and the second as a prayer for fertility. The words used by the hierophant to denote the termination of the celebration of the Mysteries, ‘Watch and do no evil,' are said to have been Egyptian.
The bulk of people returned to their homes on the tenth day, with the exception of the third and fifth years, when they stayed behind for the Mystery Plays and Sports, which lasted two to three days each.
The Eleusinian Games are supposed to have been instituted as a thank offering to Demeter and Persephone at the conclusion of the corn harvest. They included athletic and musical contests and a horse race. The revenue from the celebrations must have been significant. At both the Lesser and Greater Mysteries, a charge of one obole each day was imposed on each attendee, which was delivered to the hierophant. The hierodulic was paid half an obole per day, and other aides were compensated similarly.
Persons of both sexes and of all ages were initiated, and neglect of the ceremony came to be regarded almost like a crime. Athenians of both sexes were granted the privilege of initiation during childhood on the presentation of their father, but only the first degree of initiation was permitted. For the second and third degrees, it was necessary to have arrived at full age. The ceremony of initiation into this first degree was far less in magnitude than the ceremonies of initiation into the second and third degrees at the Greater Mysteries.
The candidate, on the other hand, had to remain chaste and unpolluted for nine days ahead of the event, which they all attended while wearing flower crowns and making prayers and sacrifices. The applicants were prepared by mystagogues, who were special teachers chosen from the Eumolpides and Kerykes families.
They were instructed in the story of Demeter and Persephone, the character of the purification necessary and other preliminary rites, the fast days with particulars of the food permissible and forbidden to be eaten, and the various sacrifices to be offered by and for them. Under the direction of the mystagogues in the following autumn, if of full age and approved by the hierophant, the neophyte could be initiated into the Greater Mysteries, into the second degree, that of Mysta.
This, however, did not secure admission to all the ceremonies performed during the celebration of the Greater Mysteries. A further year at least had to elapse before the third degree, that of Epopta, before he could see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears all that took place in the temple during the celebration of the Mysteries. The two days prior to initiation into the second and third degrees were spent by the candidates in solitary retirement and in strict fasting. It was a retreat in the strictest sense of the word.
Fasting was practiced not only in the initiation of the sufferings of Demeter when searching for Persephone but also because of the danger of the contact of holy things with unholy, the clean with the unclean. At the entrance to the temple, tablets were placed containing a list of forbidden things, foods for example. Several kinds of fish, garnet crab, mullet, and whistle fish and crab, were held to be impure, the first because it laid its eggs through the mouth and the second because it ate filth.
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