Chapter IV: The Women’s Festivals (2)

As to the primitive gist of the Haloa, there is no shadow of doubt: the name speaks for itself. Harpocration[374] rightly explains the festival, ‘the Haloa gets its name, according to Philochorus, from the fact that people hold sports at the _threshing-floors_, and he says it is celebrated in the month Poseideon.’ The sports held were of course incidental to the business of threshing, but it was these sports that constituted the actual festival. To this day the great round threshing-floor that is found in most Greek villages is the scene of the harvest festival. Near it a booth (σκηνή) is to this day erected, and in it the performers rest and eat and drink in the intervals of their pantomimic dancing.

The Haloa was celebrated in the month Poseideon (December-January), a fact as surprising as it is ultimately significant. What has a threshing festival to do with mid-winter, when all the grain should be safely housed in the barns? Normally, now as in ancient days, the threshing follows as soon as may be after the cutting of the corn; it is threshed and afterwards winnowed in the _open_ threshing-floor, and mid-winter is no time even in Greece for an open-air operation.

The answer is simple. The shift of date is due to Dionysos. The rival festivals of Dionysos were in mid-winter. He possessed himself of the festivals of Demeter, took over her threshing-floor and compelled the anomaly of a winter threshing festival. The latest time that a real threshing festival could take place is Pyanepsion, but by Poseideon it is just possible to have an early _Pithoigia_ and to revel with Dionysos. There could be no clearer witness to the might of the incoming god.

As to the nature of the Haloa we learn two important facts from Demosthenes. It was a festival in which the priestess, not the Hierophant, presented the offerings, a festival under the presidency of women; and these offerings were bloodless, no animal victim (ἱερεῖον) was allowed. Demosthenes[375] records how a Hierophant, Archias by name, ‘was cursed because at the Haloa he offered on the _eschara_ in the court of Eleusis burnt sacrifice of an animal victim brought by the courtezan Sinope.’ His condemnation was on a double count, ‘it was not lawful on that day to sacrifice an animal victim, and the sacrifice was not his business but that of the priestess.’ The epheboi[376] offered bulls at Eleusis, and, it would appear, engaged in some sort of ‘bull fight[377],’ but this must have been in honour either of Dionysos or of Poseidon who preceded him: the _vehicle_ of both these divinities was the bull. It was the boast of the archon at the Haloa that Demeter had given to men ‘gentle foods.’

Our fullest details of the Haloa, as of the Thesmophoria, come to us from the newly discovered scholia on Lucian[378]. From the scholiast’s account it is clear that by his day the festival was regarded as connected with Dionysos as much as, or possibly more than, with Demeter. He definitely states that it was instituted in memory of the death of Ikarios after his introduction of the vine into Attica. The women he says celebrated it alone, in order that they might have perfect freedom of speech. The sacred symbols of both sexes were handled, the priestesses secretly whispered into the ears of the women present words that might not be uttered aloud, and the women themselves uttered all manner of what seemed to him unseemly quips and jests. The _sacra_ handled are, it is clear, the same as those of the Thesmophoria: that their use and exhibition were carefully guarded is also clear from the exclusion of the other sex. The climax of the festival, it appears, was a great banquet. ‘Much wine was set out and the tables were full of all the foods that are yielded by land and sea, save only those that are prohibited in the mysteries, I mean the pomegranate and the apple and domestic fowls, and eggs and red sea-mullet and black-tail and crayfish and shark. The archons prepare the tables and leave the women inside and themselves withdraw and remain outside, making a public statement to the visitors present that the “gentle foods” were discovered by them (i.e. the people of Eleusis) and by them shared with the rest of mankind. And there are upon the tables cakes shaped like the symbols of sex. And the name Haloa is given to the feast on account of the fruit of Dionysos—for the growths of the vine are called _Aloai_.’

The materials of the women’s feast are interesting. The diet prescribed is of cereals and of fish and possibly fowl, but clearly not of flesh. As such it is characteristic of the old Pelasgian population before the coming of the flesh-eating Achaeans. Moreover—a second point of interest—it is hedged in with all manner of primitive taboos. The precise _reason_ of the taboo on pomegranates, red mullet and the like, is lost beyond recall, but some of the particular taboos are important because they are strictly paralleled in the Eleusinian mysteries. That the pomegranate was ‘taboo’ at the Eleusinian mysteries is clear from the aetiological myth in the Homeric hymn to Demeter[379]. Hades consents to let Persephone return to the upper air.

‘So spake he, and Persephone the prudent up did rise
Glad in her heart and swift to go. But he in crafty wise
Looked round and gave her stealthily a sweet pomegranate seed
To eat, that not for all her days with Her of sable-weed,
Demeter, should she tarry.’

The pomegranate was dead men’s food, and once tasted drew Persephone back to the shades. Demeter admits it; she says[380] to Persephone:

‘If thou hast tasted food below, thou canst not tarry here,
Below the hollow earth must dwell the third part of the year.’

Porphyry[381] in his treatise on _Abstinence from Animal Food_, notes the reason and the rigour of the Eleusinian taboos. Demeter, he says, is a goddess of the lower world and they consecrate the cock to her. The word he uses, ἀφιέρωσαν, really means put under a _taboo_. We are apt to associate the cock with daylight and his early morning crowing, but the Greeks for some reason regarded the bird as chthonic. It is a cock, Socrates remembers, that he owes to Asklepios, and Asklepios, it will be seen when we come to the subject of hero-worship, was but a half-deified hero. The cock was laid under a taboo, reserved, and then came to be considered as a sacrifice. Porphyry goes on ‘It is because of this that the mystics abstain from barndoor fowls. And at Eleusis public proclamation is made that men must abstain from barndoor fowls, from fish and from beans, and from the pomegranate and from apples, and to touch these defiles as much as to touch a woman in child-birth or a dead body.’ The Eleusinian Mysteries were in their enactments the very counterpart of the Haloa.

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES.

The Eleusinian Mysteries[382] are usually treated as if they were a thing by themselves, a ceremony so significant, so august, as to stand apart from the rest of Greek Ritual. If my view be correct, they are primarily but the Eleusinian _Haloa_: all their ultimate splendour and spiritual as well as social prestige are due to two things, first the fact that Athens for political purposes made them her own, second that at some date we cannot exactly fix, they became affiliated to the mysteries of Dionysos. To Athens the mysteries owe their external magnificence, to Dionysos and Orpheus their deep inward content. The external magnificence, being non-religious, does not concern us; the deep inward content, the hope of immortality and the like are matters of cardinal import, but must stand over till a later chapter, after the incoming of Dionysos has been discussed. For the present what concerns us is, setting aside all vague statements and opinions as to the meaning and spiritual influence attributed by various authors, ancient and modern, to the mysteries, to examine the actual ritual facts of which evidence remains.

Mysteries were by no means confined to the religion of Demeter and Kore. There were mysteries of Hermes, of Iasion, of Ino, of Archemoros, of Agraulos, of Hecate. In general mysteries seem to occur more usually in relation to the cult of women divinities[383], of heroines and earth-goddesses; from the worship of the Olympians in Homer they are markedly absent. In general, by a mystery is meant _a rite in which certain sacra are exhibited, which cannot be safely seen by the worshipper till he has undergone certain purifications_.

The date of the mysteries at Eleusis is fortunately certain. The ceremonies began on the 13th of Boedromion, i.e. about the end of September, an appropriate date for any harvest festival which was to include the later fruits and notably the grape. Our evidence for this date is an imperial Roman inscription[384], but this inscription expressly states that its enactments are ‘according to ancient usage.’ ‘The people has decided to order the Kosmeter of the Epheboi in accordance with ancient usage to send them to Eleusis on the 13th day of Boedromion, in their customary dress, for the procession that accompanies the _sacra_, in order that on the 14th they may escort them to the Eleusinion which is at the foot of the Acropolis. Also to order the Kosmeter of the Epheboi to conduct them on the 19th to Eleusis in the same dress, escorting the _sacra_.’ The inscription is of great importance, as it is clear evidence that _sacra_ were part of the regular ritual. What precisely these _sacra_ were we do not know; presumably they were objects like those in use at the Thesmophoria. The going to and fro from Eleusis to Athens is purely political. The _sacra_ were really resident at Eleusis, but Athens liked to think she brought them there. The Epheboi _escorted_ the _sacra_, but, as was fitting, they were really in charge of, and actually carried by, _priestesses_[385].

On the 15th of Boedromion took place the ἀγυρμός or assembling of the candidates for initiation, and the proclamation by the Hierophant in the Stoa Poikile interdicting those whose hands were defiled and those whose lips spoke unintelligible words[386]. Some such interdiction, some ‘fencing of the tables,’ took place in all probability before all mysteries. It is this _prorrhesis_ of course that is parodied by Aristophanes in the _Frogs_[387], who actually dares to put his burlesque into the mouth of the Hierophant himself.

The 16th of Boedromion saw the accomplishment of a rite of cardinal importance. The day was called in popular parlance ‘ἅλαδε μύσται,’ ‘To the sea ye mystics,’ from the cry that heralded the act of purification. Hesychius[388] in commenting on the expression says ‘a certain day of the Mysteries at Athens.’ Polyaenus[389] is precise as to the date. He says ‘Chabrias won the sea-fight at Naxos on the 16th of Boedromion. He had felt that this was a good day for a battle, because it was one of the days of the Great Mysteries. The same thing happened with Themistocles against the Persians at Salamis. But Themistocles and his troops had the “Iacchos” for their call, while Chabrias and his troops had “To the sea ye mystics.”’ The victory of Chabrias was won, as we know from Plutarch[390], at the full moon, and at the full moon the Mysteries were celebrated.

The procession to the sea was called by the somewhat singular name ἔλασις, ‘driving’ or ‘banishing[391],’ and the word is instructive. The procession was not a mere procession, it was a driving out, a banishing. This primary sense seems to lurk in the Greek word πομπή[392], which in primitive days seems to have mainly meant a conducting out, a sending away of evil. The bathing in the sea was a purification, a conducting out, a banishing of evil, and each man took with him his own pharmakos, a young pig. The ἔλασις, the driving, may have been literally the driving of the pig, which, as the goal was some 6 miles distant, must have been a lengthy and troublesome business. Arrived at the sea, each man bathed with his pig—the pig of purification was itself purified. When in the days of Phocion[393] the Athenians were compelled to receive a Macedonian garrison, terrible portents appeared. When the ribbons with which the mystic beds were wound came to be dyed, instead of taking a purple colour they came out of a sallow death-like hue, which was the more remarkable as when it was the ribbons belonging to private persons that were dyed, they came out all right. And more portentous still—‘when a mystic was bathing his pig in the harbour called Kantharos, a sea-monster ate off the lower part of his body, by which the god made clear beforehand that they would be deprived of the lower parts of the city that lay near the sea, but keep the upper portion.’

The pig of purification was a ritual element, so important that when Eleusis was permitted (B.C. 350-327) to issue her autonomous coinage[394] it is the pig that she chooses as the sign and symbol of her mysteries. The bronze coin in fig. 14 shows the pig standing on the torch: in the _exergue_ an ivy spray. The pig was the cheapest and commonest of sacrificial animals, one that each and every citizen could afford. Socrates in the _Republic_[395] says ‘if people are to hear shameful and monstrous stories about the gods it should be only rarely and to a select few in a mystery, and they should have to sacrifice not a (mere) pig but some huge and unprocurable victim.’

Purification, it is clear, was an essential feature of the mysteries, and this brings us to the consideration of the meaning of the word mystery. The usual derivation of the word is from μύω, I close the apertures whether of eyes or mouth. The _mystes_, it is supposed, is the person vowed to secrecy who has not seen and will not speak of the things revealed. As such he is distinguished from the _epoptes_ who has seen, but equally may not speak; the two words indicate successive grades of initiation. It will later be seen (p. 480) that in the Orphic Mysteries the word _mystes_ is applied, without any reference to seeing or not seeing, to a person who has fulfilled the rite of eating the raw flesh of a bull. It will also be seen that in Crete, which is probably the home of the mysteries, the mysteries were open to all, they were not mysterious. The derivation of mystery from μύω, though possible, is not satisfactory. I would suggest another and a simple origin.

The ancients themselves were not quite comfortable about the connection with μύω. They knew and felt that _mystery_, secrecy, was not the main gist of ‘a mystery’: the essence of it all primarily was purification in order that you might safely eat and handle certain _sacra_. There was no revelation, no secret to be kept, only a mysterious _taboo_ to be prepared for and finally overcome. It might be a _taboo_ on eating first-fruits, it might be a taboo on handling magical _sacra_. In the Thesmophoria, the women fast before they touch the _sacra_; in the Eleusinian mysteries you sacrifice a pig before you offer and partake of the first-fruits. The gist of it all is purification. Clement[396] says significantly, ‘Not unreasonably among the Greeks in their mysteries do ceremonies of purification hold the initial place, as with barbarians the bath.’ Merely as an insulting conjecture Clement[397] in his irresponsible abusive fashion throws out what I believe to be the real origin of the word _mystery_. ‘I think,’ he says, ‘that these orgies and mysteries of yours ought to be derived, the one from the wrath (ὀργή) of Demeter against Zeus, the other from the pollution (μύσος) relating to Dionysos.’ Of course Clement is formally quite incorrect, but he hits on what seems a possible origin of the word _mystery_, that it is the doing of what relates to a μύσος, a pollution, it is primarily a ceremony of purification. Lydus[398] makes the same suggestion, ‘Mysteries,’ he says, ‘are from the separating away of a pollution (μύσος) as equivalent to sanctification.’

The bathing with the pig was not the only rite of purification in the mysteries, though it is the one of which we have most definite detail. From the aetiology[399] of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, we may conjecture that there were, at least for children, rites of purification by passing through fire, and ceremonies of a mock fight or stone-throwing (λιθοβολία, βαλλητύς). All have the same intent and need not here be examined in detail.

On the night of the 19-20th[400] the procession of purified mystics, carrying with them the image of Iacchos, left Athens for Eleusis, and after that we have no evidence of the exact order of the various rites of initiation. The exact order is indeed of little importance. Instead we have recorded what is of immeasurably more importance, the precise formularies in which the mystics avowed the rites in which they had taken part, rites which we are bound to suppose constituted the primitive ceremony of initiation.

Before these are examined it is necessary to state definitely what already has been implied, i.e. the fact that at the mysteries there was an offering of first-fruits; the mysteries were in fact the _Thargelia_ of Eleusis. An inscription[401] of the 5th century B.C. found at Eleusis is our best evidence. ‘Let the Hierophant and the Torch-bearer command that at the mysteries the Hellenes should offer first-fruits of their crops in accordance with ancestral usage.... To those who do these things there shall be many good things, both good and abundant crops, whoever of them do not injure the Athenians, nor the city of Athens, nor the two goddesses.’ The order of precedence is amusing and characteristic. Here we have indeed a commandment with promise.

The ‘token’ or formulary by which the mystic made confession is preserved for us by Clement[402] as follows: ‘_I fasted, I drank the kykeon, I took from the chest, (having tasted?) I put back into the basket and from the basket into the chest_.’ The statement involves, in the main, two acts besides the preliminary fast, i.e. the drinking of the kykeon and the handling of certain unnamed _sacra_.

It is significant of the whole attitude of Greek religion that the confession is not a confession of dogma or even faith, but an avowal of ritual acts performed. This is the measure of the gulf between ancient and modern. The Greeks in their greater wisdom saw that uniformity in ritual was desirable and possible; they left a man practically free in the only sphere where freedom is of real importance, i.e. in the matter of thought. So long as you fasted, drank the _kykeon_, handled the _sacra_, no one asked what were your opinions or your sentiments in the performance of those acts; you were left to find in every sacrament the only thing you could find—what you brought. Our own creed is mainly a _Credo_, an utterance of dogma, formulated by the few for the many, but it has traces of the more ancient conception of _Confiteor_, the avowal of ritual acts performed. _Credo in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam_ is immediately followed by _Confiteor unum baptismum_, though the instinct of dogma surges up again in the final words _in remissionem peccatorum_.

The preliminary fast before the eating of sacred things is common to most primitive peoples; it is the simplest negative form of purification: among the more logical savages it is often accompanied by the taking of a powerful emetic. The _kykeon_ requires a word of explanation. The first-fruits at Eleusis were presented in the form of a _pelanos_[403]. The nature of a _pelanos_ has already been discussed, and the fact noted that the word _pelanos_ was used only of the half-fluid mixture offered to the gods. Its equivalent for mortals was called _alphita_ or sometimes _kykeon_. Eustathius in commenting on the drink prepared by Hekamede for Nestor, a drink made of barley and cheese and pale honey and onion and Pramnian wine, says that the word _kykeon_ meant something between meat and drink, but inclining to be like a sort of soup that you could sup. Such a drink it was that in the Homeric Hymn Metaneira prepared for Demeter, only with no wine, for Demeter, as an underworld goddess ‘might not drink red wine’: and such a wineless drink, made in all probability from the _pelanos_ and only differing from it in name, was set before the mystae.

Some ceremony like the drinking of the _kykeon_ is represented in the vase-painting[404] in fig. 15. Two worshippers, a man and a woman, are seated side by side; before them a table piled with food, beneath it a basket of loaves. They are inscribed _Mystae_ (Μυστα). A priest holding in the left hand twigs and standing by a little shrine, offers to them a cylix containing some form of drink. The presence of the little shrine has made some commentators see in the priest an itinerant quack priest (ἀγύρτης), but it is quite possible that shrines of this kind containing sacra were carried at the Eleusinian mysteries. Anyhow the scene depicted is analogous.

Of the actual _sacra_ which the initiated had to take from the chest, place in the basket, and replace in the chest, we know nothing. The _sacra_ of the Thesmophoria are known, those of the Dionysiac mysteries were of trivial character, a ball, a mirror, a cone, and the like: there is no reason to suppose that the _sacra_ of the Eleusinian mysteries were of any greater intrinsic significance.

Clement[405] in a passage preceding that already quoted gives the Eleusinian ‘tokens,’ with slightly different wording and with two additional clauses: he says ‘the symbols of this initiation are, I ate from the timbrel, I drank from the cymbal, I carried the _kernos_, I passed beneath the _pastos_.’ The scholiast[406] on Plato’s _Gorgias_ makes a similar statement. He says ‘at the lesser mysteries many disgraceful things were done, and these words were said by those who were being initiated: I ate from the timbrel, I drank from the cymbal, I carried the _kernos_’; he further adds by way of explanation ‘the _kernos_ is the _liknon_ or _ptuon_,’ i.e. it is some form of winnowing fan.

There has been much and, I think, needless controversy as to whether this form of the tokens belongs to the mysteries at Eleusis or not. From the words that precede Clement’s statement, a mention of Attis, Kybele and the Korybants, it is quite clear that he has in his mind the mysteries of the Great Mother of Asia Minor, but from his mentioning Demeter also, it is also clear that he does not exactly distinguish between the two. The mention of the ‘tokens’ by the scholiast on Plato is expressly made with reference to the Lesser Mysteries, and these, it will later (Chap. X) be seen, are related especially to Kore and Dionysos. The whole confusion rests on the simple mythological fact that Demeter and Cybele were but local forms of the Great Mother worshipped under diverse names all over Greece. Wherever she was worshipped she had mysteries, the timbrel and the cymbal came to be characteristic of the wilder Asiatic Mother, but the Mother at Eleusis also clashed the brazen cymbals. In her ‘tokens’ however her mystics ate from the _cista_ and the basket, but the distinction is a slight one.

The question of the _kernos_ is of some interest. The scholiast states that the _kernos_ was a winnowing fan, and the winnowing fan we shall later see (p. 548) was, at least in Alexandrine days, used in the mysteries of Eleusis. It was a simple agricultural instrument taken over and mysticized by the religion of Dionysos. From Athenaeus[407] however we learn of another kind of _kernos_. In his discussion of the various kinds of cups and their uses he says: ‘_Kernos_, a vessel made of earthenware, having in it many little cups fastened to it, in which are white poppies, wheat, barley, pulse, vetch, ochroi, lentils; and he who carries it after the fashion of the carrier of the _liknon_, tastes of these things, as Ammonius relates in his third book On Altars and Sacrifices.’ A second and rather fuller notice of the _kernos_ is given by Athenaeus[408] a little later in discussing the _kotylos_. ‘Polemon in his treatise “On the Dian Fleece” says, “And after this he performs the rite and takes it from the chamber and distributes it to those who have borne the _kernos_ aloft.”’ Then follows an amplified list of the contents of the _kernos_. The additions are italicized: ‘_sage_, white poppies, wheat, barley, pulse, vetch, ochroi, lentils, _beans_, _spelt_, _oats_, _a cake_, _honey_, _oil_, _wine_, _milk_, _sheep’s wool unwashed_.’

The list of the παγκαρπία, the offering of all fruits and natural products, is in some respects a primitive one: the unwashed wool reminds us of the simple offering made by Pausanias at the cave of Demeter at Phigalia; but there are late additions, the manufactured olive oil and wine. Demeter in early days would assuredly never have accepted wine. The _kernos_, like the offerings it contained, is comparatively late and complex. Vessels exactly corresponding to the description given by Athenaeus have been found in considerable numbers in the precinct at Eleusis, both vessels meant for use and others obviously votive. In the accounts[409] of the officials at Eleusis for the year 408-7 B.C. there is mention of a vessel called κέρχνος, which in all probability is identical with the _kernos_ of Athenaeus. The shape and purport of the vessel are clearly seen in the very perfect specimen[410] in fig. 16. Such a vessel might well be called a _separator_; each of the little _kotyliskoi_ attached would contain a sample of the various grains and products. It is easy to see how the scholiast might explain it as a _liknon_. The _liknon_ was an implement for winnowing, _separating_ grain from chaff, the _kernos_ a vessel in which various sorts of grain could be kept _separate_. The _Kernophoria_ was nothing but a late and elaborate form of the offering of first-fruits. In the simple primaeval form of the Mysteries as certified by the tokens, we have but two elements, the presentation and tasting of first-fruits and the handling of _sacra_. All later accretions will be discussed in the chapter on Orphic Mysteries.

In discussing the Anthesteria (p. 42) mention has already been made of a rite which, according to Athenaeus[411], took place on the final day of the Mysteries. On this day, which took its name from the rite, two vessels called _plemochoae_ are emptied, one towards the east, the other towards the west, and at the moment of outpouring a mystic formulary was pronounced. Athenaeus explains that a _plemochoè_ was an earthenware vessel ‘shaped like a top but standing secure on its basis’: it seems to have been a vessel in general use for the service of the underworld, for he quotes a play called _Peirithous_ in which one of the characters said:

‘That these _plemochoai_ with well-omened words
We may pour down into the chthonian chasm.’

What the mystic formulary was we cannot certainly say, but it is tempting to connect the libation of the _plemochoè_ with a formulary recorded by Proclus[412]. He says ‘In the Eleusinian mysteries, looking up to the sky they cried aloud “Rain,” and looking down to earth they cried “Be fruitful.”’ The simplicity of the solemn little prayer cannot be reproduced in English. It was a fitting close to rites so primitive.

Last of all, over those who had been initiated were uttered, if we may trust Hesychius[413], the mysterious words Κὸγξ ὄμπαξ.

* * * * *

It remains to resume the results of the last four chapters. It has been seen in examining four of the great public festivals of Athens, the Diasia, the Anthesteria, the Thargelia, the Thesmophoria, that neither their names, nor primarily their ritual, were concerned with the worship of the Olympian gods to whom the festivals were ostensibly dedicated. When the nature of that ritual was examined, it was seen to consist not in sacrifice like that paid to the Olympians, which was of the nature of _tendance_ and might be embodied in the formula _do ut des_, but rather of ceremonies of _aversion_ based on ignorance and fear. Its formula was _do ut abeas_. In the Anthesteria the ceremonies known as ἐναγισμοί were seen to be purifications (καθαρμοί), and by purifications were meant placations of Keres, of ghosts and sprites. In the Thargelia the ceremony of the pharmakos was seen to be also a purification, but in the sense not of the placation or riddance of ghosts and sprites but of a magical cleansing from physical evil. In the Thesmophoria the ceremony with the pigs was preceded by ceremonies of purification, and was in itself of magical intent. Moreover the element of cursing and _devotion_ was seen to lie at the root of the later notion of _consecration_. To these three festivals, taken from the three seasons of the agricultural year, has now been added the rite of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the gist of which has been shown to be purification as preliminary to the handling of magical _sacra_ and to the partaking of first-fruits.

The only just way of understanding the religious notions of a particular race is to examine the terminology of the language of that race. Our modern notion of ancient religion is largely summed up by the word ‘sacrifice.’ We are too apt to ask ‘what was the nature of sacrifice among the Greeks?’ If we follow the lead of their language instead of imposing our language on them, it is abundantly clear that sacrifice, with all our modern connotations of vicarious expiation and of mystical communion, they had not. All the ancient ceremonies, so far considered, point to a thought simpler and nowise less beautiful or less deeply religious, and that thought is _purification_. Purification practically unknown to Olympian worship is the keynote of the lower stratum.

It is all important that this should be clearly and emphatically stated at this point in order that the sequel may be intelligible. When the new impulse connected with the names of Dionysos and Orpheus entered Greece, it left aside the great and popular Olympian system embodied in the formula _do ut des_, and, by a true instinct, fastened on an element which, if in some respects it was lower, was truer to fact and had in it higher possibilities, a religion that recognized evil, though mainly in physical form, and that sought for purification.

The essence of that new religion was, as will later be shown, the belief that man could become god: the new ritual feature it introduced, a feature wholly lacking in the old uneaten ‘sacrifices,’ was mystical communion by the eating of the body of the god. But, because man was mortal, there was mortality to be purged away; and hence, although with a new faith and hope, men reverted to the old ritual of purification.

So much by anticipation; but before we come to the study of the new impulse it is necessary to leave ritual and turn to theology, which is in fact mythology: the rites have been considered, and now in the next three chapters something must be said of the beings worshipped,—at first in vague shifting outlines as ghosts and sprites,—later crystallized into clear shapes as goddesses and gods.