Europe, blasts the vegetation. The stalk withers and no fruit follows. The drought continues and the ground will not sprout the seed which is sown anew. The prayer of man in extremity, and the cries of the beast ready to perish, are heard. After the drought, Jupiter, the Cloud Collector, sends his mes senger Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, to Ceres. With Iris the showers descend; for Ceres is propitiated, and the earth smiles in plenty again. In return for this joyous release from famine Ceres is to be honored in such a way that she will never again withdraw her favor, nor famine waste the earth. She is to be worshipped by sacred rites which shall forever keep in remembrance the loss and recovery of her daughter, as well as the kindness with which she, as an angel unawares, was entertained while an alien from Olympus, and hiding among men. Such is the interpretation of the origin of Eleusinia growing out of Nature worship. The establishment of these mysteries, briefly stated according to this view, is as follows.* Proserpine is gathering flowers in a meadow of Argolis, near the river Erasinus, when Pluto appears with his chariot and black steeds and bears her away. Ceres discovers her loss, abandons Crete her usual abode, and goes in every direction on a fruitless search. After long wandering she stops near Eleusis, and is most hospitably entertained in the family of Keleus. Here she remains in disguise during the famine caused by her wrath on account of her daughter. When at last her true character is discovered and she is propitiated, she unfolds to Keleus the sacred mysteries which are to be celebrated perpetually in her honor. These were first imparted to Keleus and his daughters, because they had taken pity on her when she was a wanderer. Several other persons are mentioned as subsequently receiving directions from her touching the manner and substance of her rites. Musæus, and at least six persons named Eumolpus, are stated to have aided in their establishment. But these names are allegorical, and refer to the singing and music with which these persons adorned the rites. Besides these,† Diocles and Triptolemus share in the honor of their origin. But the great number of founders is to be accounted for by the fact, that each considerable family of Hymn in Cererem, 473-8.

*Pausanias, II, 36, 7.

Eleusis, and in fact of all Attica, desired to identify itself with the founding of this the most honored institution of the ancient Gentile world. The different statements of the several authors who treat of their establishment, would be a mass of inextricable confusion on any other theory. But when we remember that the date of their origin-which, according to an inscription on one of the Oxford marbles, was 1399 B. C.; while Eratosthenes would put it circa 1383; and Callimachus 1327 (in both the former dates, taking Erechtheus as the reigning king at their inception)-long antedates written records among the Greeks. Besides, as much that has been written is retrospective, and made to explain a tradition, but is not the warrant itself for the tradition, we easily see how this diversity of statement could arise. For every king who directed, or priest who officiated when any important change was made in the ceremonies, would be held by his descendants to be the founder. Besides those already named, Erechtheus himself has been invested with this honor. This brings us to consider the current historical narrative of their origin; not as they were known in mythological story, but in their actual character.† The statement is that Erechtheus derived these mysteries from Egypt, on the occasion of a large importation of corn to relieve a famine in Attica. This is in truth the second stage in the growth of these mysteries, which was effected by incorporating the recondite wisdom of the Egyptian priests with the institution already existing, by which greater completeness was given to the doctrines, as well as regularity to the rites.

Egypt has always been noted for its exuberant fertility; and for this reason was often resorted to by the neighboring nations in time of scarcity. Famines, similar to that recorded in the Bible, are not unknown in the Levant, as is witnessed by profane history.§ Many parts of Greece, and especially Attica, are so barren that they have never produced enough grain in ordinary years to supply the inhabitants; and hence a dearth would be felt there especially. The importation of corn was doubtless the first incentive to intercourse with Egypt; and a famine would make Greece dependent in the same way

*Marmor. Ox. Ed. Chand., II, 21. Ewald Hist. Is., I, 408, § II, 3.

+ Diod. Sic., i, 29.

§ Abdollatif, II, 2; also, El Macrisi.

that Phoenicia was in the time of the patriarchs. Thus the story that Erechtheus when he imported corn also introduced the mysteries from Egypt, arises plausibly. For the more perfect form and fuller doctrines which Eleusinia received at this time, would easily pass for the first establishment among those. who had no records but tradition.* Nevertheless the story which attributes them to Ceres herself, in the manner before explained, was wide spread; and has every indication of probability, because of its exact correspondence with Nature worship. And if any credence is to be placed in the ancient myths, there is undoubted evidence that the mysteries antedate the reign of Erechtheus. But, as is well known, intellectual culture of an advanced type existed in Egypt when the Greeks were yet in a state of semi-barbarism. However, an inquiring people as they were, would naturally be excited by the superior civilization they found in that country, and be ready to borrow from its advanced knowledge. Indeed Egypt continued until after the time of Herodotus to be the finishing school for scholars from Greece; who resorted thither to acquire the wisdom for which the priests were so famous. It was also a leading principle with these priests to keep their doctrines most sedulously from the common people. No where else, not even in India, that land of castes, was there a sharper discrimination between the learned and the ignorant. The common people in Egypt were degraded to the lowest level of bondmen. They had absolutely no part in the esoteric doctrines which the priesthood held. It was from the Egyptians, doubtless, that the Greeks borrowed the distinction of Exoteric and Esoteric doctrines. For such diversity was contrary to the spirit of equality which seems to have been natural among the freemen of Greece. The culture of this people was advanced in many respects by intercourse with Egypt; but the various authorities who point to the land of the Nile as the source whence Eleusinia originated err because they mistake a great improvement for the origin.

Neither is Egypt admitted by many to have been the primal seat of these mysteries. India comes in for its share in this, as is the case respecting almost all of the germs of civilization

* Isocrates, Panage I, 29.

among the sons of Japhet. Yet there is no more propriety in saying that India is the original seat of culture than that Egypt should have the honor. Nay, more: Modern research does not justify the claim to greater antiquity or higher progress in the former than is found in the other countries which were peopled by the same Aryan stock. It has been too much the fashion to refer everything back to India, and ignore the fact that neither its literature nor remains of art show greater excellence than those of several contemporary nations. The time has been when the Sanscrit was thought to contain almost all the germs of elegant literature. When this language and the antiquities of the Indian Peninsula were a new and unexplored region, as in the days of Sir William Jones and Warren Hastings, these ideas were natural enough. For the little that was then known, revealing much splendor and greatness, led to the view that there lay, in what was still unexplored, the roots of almost all modern culture. But the facts are better understood now; and the truth begins to be apparent, that contemporary migrations from one common Aryan stock carried the same ideas, and similar forms of speech to the East and the West; and that kindred institutions sprang up among the descendants in all their new homes. Accordingly, while there are undoubted similarities between the Phallic worship in India and the deification of Nature in her generative powers as a part of the Eleusinian mysteries, there is no good reason to think that the one borrowed from the other. For this Nature worship is, in fact, the first stage in advancing civilization among the heathen wherever it is found. Much stress has been laid upon the words nóy oμna, which were said to be a part of the formula used in the initiation of the mysteries. It is generally admitted that these words are of foreign origin. The Abbé Barthelemy,* and Le Clerct thought them Phoenician. Wilford, in the Asiatic Researches, says these words are Sanscrit ; and his view was much strengthened by the declaration of Mr. Onsely, the English Ambassador to Persia, that the Brahmins. use the formula at present in their addresses to the gods. This, however, is by no means decisive. Admitting that these words. are employed by the Brahmins, they may have been borrowed

from the Greeks after the Expedition of Alexander the Great. It is quite probable, nay rather certain, that the influence of Grecian culture was felt wherever the conqueror went; and we should bear this fact in mind when estimating the relations between the two countries in question. Neither the conclusions of Ouvaroff, in his very learned work, Essai sur les Myst. d'Eleusis, which are derived from the fact that the Puranas affirm that Egypt was under the especial guardianship of Vischnu; nor the statements of Eusebius,* which represent the color of the Demiurgus Kneph of the same hue which Sir William Jonest finds to be consecrated to Vischnu, prove anything definite as to the connection between these two countries. Such coincidences between the institutions of different lands are accidental, and furnish no reliable data for argument. They are adverted to solely to explode the idea that Egypt necessarily borrowed any of her institutions from India, and that Greece derived them through such transmission. But, that there was a close connection between Greece and Egypt, and that the priests of the latter country were resorted to in order to obtain wisdom, is a matter of constant reference among classic authors.

The ceremonies of initiation before Ceres became one of the patron gods of Attica all took place at Eleusis, and were much simpler than after this event. We infer from the scattered traditions that all the rites at first symbolized the grief of Ceres; her wanderings in search of her lost daughter; and her sojourn in the house of Keleus, where she was nurse for Damophoon, and was kindly treated by the family. But beyond the fact that a drink made of barley meal and water was tasted, that a search for a lost person was acted, and that the grief of Ceres was dispelled by the coarse jests of the servant maid Iambe, little can be known. However, after Athens became the great protectress of Eleusinia, the ceremonies became very formal and august in character. They began first with the Lesser Mysteries, which took place at Agræ, near the river Illissus. They were celebrated in the month Anthesterion (February), and were simple, consisting chiefly in bodily purifications. They had but little signification except as a preparation for the Greater Mysteries, which occupied nine * Prep. Evan., Lib. III.

Asiat. Res., 3, 571.