ELEUSINI, MISTERI. — They were celebrated at Eleusis (today Lefsina), a village 22 km. northwest of Athens. They were dedicated to Demeter, the “mother earth” of grain, and to Core, the “maiden,” that is, the vegetation, her daughter. Originally of purely agrarian significance, like the other festivals celebrated there on the various occasions of the agricultural year—Proerosia (sowing), Chloia (the sprouting of the grain), Kalamaia (the strengthening of the stalk), Haloa (ploughing)—the Eleusinian festivals, through that intrinsic capacity which agrarian rites possess to rise to a higher significance, acquired, especially after the close union established between Eleusis and Athens, a spiritual meaning and opened to the initiated the hope and vision of a better life.
The period of this transformation must be placed between the 8th and 6th centuries, the age of the great spiritual and social upheaval of ancient Greece, religiously represented by the Orphic-Dionysian movement. That it was Dionysus, the god beloved by the common people for his beatifying ecstasies, who brought about this transformation may be inferred from the fact that Etimolpo, the eponymous founder of the first Eleusinian priestly family, came from Thrace, the homeland of Dionysus; that the lesser mysteries, celebrated in Athens, were partly dedicated to Dionysus; that the great procession which carried the “sacred things” (τὰ ἱερᾶ) from Athens to Eleusis had as its mystagogue Iacchus, the youthful and enthusiastic form of Dionysus; and that Pindar (Isth. 6, 3, 5) calls Dionysus parèdros, that is, consort of Demeter, because he is associated with her in the mysteries.
The sanctuary dates back to the Minoan period, as the excavation has shown: beneath the present telesterion, the “hall of initiations,” the only hypostyle hall with twelve columns, built by Pericles (5th century), with orthogonal bench-seats cut into the rock along three sides, it has brought to light another, considerably smaller structure, which clearly belongs to the Minoan period. The entire sanctuary, which included smaller chapels and shrines, was enclosed by a surrounding wall (periholos) that concealed it from the eyes of the profane.
The priesthood was exercised chiefly by the two families of the Eumolpids and the Keryces. From the Eumolpids came the hierophant, so called from his proper office of “showing the sacred things.” From the Keryces came the “torch-bearer” (daduchos) in the nocturnal ceremony of the mysteries. There were also lesser priesthoods.
The celebration of the great mysteries, which fell in autumn, was preceded by the lesser mysteries, which should be regarded as preliminary instruction for the great ones and took place on the 19th–21st days of the month of Anthesterion (February–March). The great mysteries followed six months later, from the 13th to the 21st of the month of Boedromion (September–October). Of these days, the most noteworthy were the 16th, on which the purification of the initiands took place in the sea at Phalerum, with the sacrifice of a piglet; and the 19th, on which the great procession took place, led by the image of Iacchus. It carried in an ox-drawn wagon the basket containing the “sacred things” and, following the coast of the Bay of Salamis, arrived in the evening, amid dances and songs, before the peribolos of the sanctuary. What took place within on the days from the 20th to the 22nd was secret (μυστήριον) and reserved for the initiated. The secret has been preserved as regards the ceremonial; therefore, it is possible only fragmentarily to attempt an outline of what were the most solemn mystery celebrations of Hellenism.
a) 21 Boedromion. — Liturgical drama of Demeter and Core: initiation of the first degree (μέτρας). There were two kinds of secret celebrations performed in the telesterion: liturgical dramas (δράμενα) and initiatory rites (τελεταί).
By drama here one must understand not a theatrical performance, which the hypostyle construction of the telesterion would not have allowed one to see, but a ceremony of a liturgical type in which the officiant performs, in reduced form and with ritual garments, the sacred action whose protagonist is the being of whom he is the minister. The liturgical drama that took place in the telesterion had the two goddesses, Demeter and Core, as its protagonists. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (late 6th century B.C.) offers a reasonably adequate idea of this drama: a kind of sacred hymn, not liturgical, born in an Eleusinian milieu and intended to exalt the city’s religious privilege.
The hymn, consisting of 495 hexameters, narrates the abduction of Core by Pluto, who carries her to Hades; the consternation of Demeter, who, having set out in search of her daughter, arrives at Eleusis, where she meets the royal family, to whom she reveals her identity and orders King Celcus to build her a temple. As soon as it has been completed, she shuts herself within it until her daughter is returned to her, thereby depriving the earth of the benefit of vegetation. Zeus orders Pluto to release Core and establishes that the maiden should spend two-thirds of the year with her mother and one-third with Pluto (a perfectly transparent myth signifying the seed concealed for three months within the earth and, for the remainder, sprouting as vegetation). Once Demeter’s confinement has ended, the whole earth is replenished.
This dramatic myth of the two goddesses consists of two parts: one sorrowful, corresponding to the abduction of Core, Demeter’s mourning, and the consequent barrenness of the earth; and one joyful, corresponding to the finding of Core, the mother’s gladness, and the consequent renewal of vegetation.
That two moments, one sorrowful and one joyful, were celebrated at Eleusis is indicated in general terms by Plato (Phnedr., 250 B C), by Themistius (in Sodeo, Plur., 1, 107), and by the rhetorician Aristides (Eleus., 256); and, with direct mention of the two goddesses, by Clement of Alexandria (Protr., II, 12), Apuleius (Met., VI, 2), the grammarian Apolledorus (frg. 36, Mufler), Statius (Silv., IV, 8, 50–51), and Lactantius (Div. Inst. Epit., 18).
From these direct references it may be inferred that the mystical drama of the two goddesses reproduced at Eleusis must have been a liturgical procession in which the initiates ran anxiously, brandishing torches behind the daduchos acting in the role of Demeter, in search of the daughter. The procedures and formulas used in this liturgical race have remained secret.
It is impossible to establish when the actual initiatory rite took place; the formula preserved by Clement of Alexandria attests that it was preceded by a fast and by the drinking of a potion of flour, water, and pennyroyal (χυλεών, kykeon), and that it consisted in touching and sacramental use of the sacred things.
Through this rite the initiate was almost adopted into the goddess’s spiritual family.
Clement of Alexandria (Protr., II, 20), in fact, in a precious passage reproduced by Arnobius (V, 25), gives us the initiatory formula of the mysteries, which the mystes pronounced, declaring that he had performed the prescribed ceremonies. It is as follows: “I have fasted; I have drunk the kykeon; I have taken the ‘sacred things’ from the basket; having touched them, I have placed them in the calathos; and from the calathos I have put them back into the basket.”
The most recent and most probable interpretation (Koerte, Kern) sees in the “sacred things” a reproduction (in paste 1) of the sexual organ (more precisely, of the female womb), by touching which the initiate consummated union with Demeter, emerging from her as a son.
Certainly, through this initiation the mystai consummated the sacred union with the goddess, felt themselves assimilated to her in a wholly special way, and were therefore capable of sharing in her vision and joys, just as they had shared in her fasting and sorrow.
Thus the liturgical drama of 21 Boedromion came to an end, and the first-degree initiation was completed. Not all the mystai also received the second degree, and in any event this took place only after an interval of a year or more.
b) 22 Boedromion. — From numerous sources it may be inferred that the night of the 22nd was devoted to the celebration of the sacred union between Zeus and Demeter, represented respectively by the hierophant and the priestess of the goddess. The scholiast on Plato’s Gorgias (Schol. Plat., Gorg., 497, C) states this unequivocally. The Fathers of the Church (Clem. Alex., Protr. 2,15; Tertulli, Ad. not., 2,7; Hippol., Ref. haer., 3,8,59; Greg. Nas., Orot., 39,4) show themselves scandalized by it and use it as a weapon with which to inveigh against the obscenities of paganism.
An extremely ancient tradition recorded by Homer (Odys., VI, 125) and Hesiod (Theog., 669-71) relates the coupling of Demeter with Iasion; the goddess is said to have lain with Iasion in a field ploughed three times; or, according to another version collected by the scholiast on Aristides (Schol. Arist., p. 22), she is said to have given herself to King Celcus in the territory of Eleusis in exchange for information concerning the disappearance of her daughter.
This tradition must be regarded as an echo of that ancient magical-agrarian practice by which, among many primitive peoples, the sexual act is performed by a highly representative couple in order to provoke and assist the fertility of the earth.
It is clear that, once the m. e. had been constituted and its spiritual value correspondingly elevated, the magical value of that nuptial rite gradually became obliterated, giving way to a mythical and mystical value; and Demeter, instead of coupling with a mortal, coupled with Zeus. This evolution may have been aided by the development of philosophical thought, which saw in that hierogamy the fertilization of Mother Earth (Demeter) by Father Heaven (Zeus), through the agency of rain, which precisely in the autumn season, when the celebration of the great mysteries took place, began to pour down upon Greece.
In the Eleusinian rite, the divine couple was represented by the hierophant and the priestess. The hierophant drew the woman aside, while all the torches were extinguished and those present remained silent in religious expectation. Then, suddenly, the light was restored, and the hierophant solemnly announced that the divine Brimo (the “strong one”) had given birth to Brimo (the “strong one”), displaying a head of grain as proof.
The displaying of the ear of grain symbolically signified the rebirth of the initiate, who had become the “strong one” through the rite. With 22 Boedromion the series of Eleusinian celebrations came to an end. On the 23rd, those who had gathered departed from Eleusis and each went his own way.
Thus, at Eleusis, one encounters a magical-agrarian nuptial rite that goes back to that extremely ancient period when Eleusis
was a poor village where the women, as among all primitive groups, cared for rudimentary agriculture. An essential part of this rite was the sacrifice of a pig, an animal particularly sacred to the deity of the earth, and a coupling actually performed in the field and intended to elicit luxuriant vegetation from the earth. The poetry of Homer and Hesiod knows this agrarian stage of the Eleusinian religion.
In a period to be placed between the 8th and 6th centuries, a profound transformation of the old rite also took place at Eleusis, corresponding to the great social and spiritual upheaval affecting Greek society. This transformation was due to the addition of a new, more spiritual and more universal element, corresponding to the new religious movement known as Orphic-Dionysian and to the new Panhellenic political order that was becoming centered in Athens—a religious movement represented by Dionysus.
At Eleusis, faith in blessed immortality was attained not through dogmatic catechesis, but through an impression experienced especially by sight and touch of the “sacred things” and of the representative rites. This is expressed most effectively in a fragment of Aristotle (in Syn. Dion., 48), which asserts that one goes to Eleusis not to learn (χωδεῖν) but to have a spiritual impression (χωδεῖν). This impression, reserved for the initiates, was a sure pledge of immortality. Hence, after the Homeric Hymn (vv. 485-89), Sophocles, in a surviving fragment (no. 755 Nauck), calls those who were able to witness the Eleusinian celebrations thrice blessed, since only to them is it granted to live beyond the grave.
The m. e. remained in vogue throughout the imperial period and were revered by Augustus and Claudius; some emperors—Hadrian, Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus—were initiated into them. The prohibition issued by Valentinian (364) against pagan nocturnal festivals made an exception for the m. of Eleusis. The sanctuary was destroyed in 394 by the Goths of Alaric.