The historical supremacy of the Eleusinian Mysteries E-Book

Nicola Bizzi

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The long history of the European, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern religious experience, since the most remote ages, has been characterized by the presence and diffusion of mystery religions. These were marked by a common order, a general rule, consisting in the fact that all the beliefs of the cult, the foundational myths, the religious practices, and the nature of the teachings and the revelatory message of the Gods, they all had to be reserved, with different ranks, to the initiates, who have become part of an exclusive community of new men. Thus, the initiated were distinguished from the uninitiated, those who could not have access to the Mysteries. The initiated, as such, had to keep a solemn oath and were obliged to make a vow of silence, they could not reveal the secrets, which had to remain unspeakable. Many were the mystery religions, but, historically, the primacy and superiority of Eleusinian Mysteries can be well summarized by a passage offered by Plutarch: «…and all the men whose land he visited, how he met with holy writings and was initiated into all the mysteries, it would take more than one day to enumerate as he did, well and carefully in all details...».

Leseprobe

Τεληστήριον

NICOLA BIZZI

THE HISTORICAL SUPREMACY OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: The historical supremacy of the Eleusinian Mysteries

Author: Nicola Bizzi

Publishing series: Telestèrion

Editing and illustrations by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN e-book version: 979-12-5504-077-4

Cover image: Detail of an Apulian red-figured volute krater with scenes of the Underworld, ca. 340-330 BC, (Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen)

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THE HISTORICAL SUPREMACY

OF THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

The long history of the European, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern religious experience, since the most remote ages, has been characterized by the presence and diffusion of mystery religions. These were marked by a common order, a general rule, consisting in the fact that all the beliefs of the cult, the foundational myths, the religious practices, and the true nature of the teachings and the revelatory message of the Deity, they all had to be reserved, with different ranks, to the Initiates–to those who could be initiated into the mysteries, and be part of a community of new men. Thus, the Initiated were distinguished from the Uninitiated, those who could not have access to the Mysteries (by choice, by impediment, or for other reasons of a juridical or social nature). The initiated, as such, had to keep a solemn oath and were obliged to make a vow of silence, they could not reveal the secrets, which had to remain unspeakable.

Another common feature of the mystery religions – sometimes not understood or distorted by modern anthropologists and historians of religions – is their nature of revealed religions and of salvific, messianic, and eschatological character. Indeed, the initiatory action, and the acquisition and gradual comprehension of the message of the Deities that goes with it, was destined to realize a liberating reality offered to the individual – and, consequently, to the whole community – in response to the existential problems concerning the link between life and death.

Through the various degrees of Initiation (which always had to be, in fact, “gradual”), the adept could perceive the vision of the Deities and understand their message. The constant presence of the figure of a Deity who stayed on earth, among the mortals, disguised as one of them– following a path that envisaged birth, death, and resurrection – was a guarantee of “liberation” for the Initiated, which meant the overcoming of the human state, of the individual limitation that death and resurrection of a God symbolized; a resurrection that indicated a birth – or, better, a rebirth – beyond death and beyond this world, proving that human life does not consist in mere survival.

As I had explain in depth in many essays and articles, a general mistake made by modern anthropologists, from James Frazer onwards, was to associate the mystery religions with the cyclicity of nature and seasons, and consequently to the principles and concepts of fertility. It is an exoteric and markedly popular interpretation of myth and rituals, which were presented to the uninitiated during processions and celebrations of public festivals that characterized every mystery religion (even the uninitiated could participate to this kind of event). In fact, behind certain symbols that could recall the cycles of nature and fertility, there were important allegory and initiatory truths that were well known to the adepts, but which resulted completely incomprehensible to the eyes of the uninitiated. This is why they were easily associated by the common people, to natural or “agrarian” concepts.

It is not easy to understand the mystery religions, if one does not keep in mind that, precisely because of the presence in their systems of an initiatory path, they were characterized by a double doctrine: one for the uninitiated and one for the initiated.

Well-known are the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris, of Egyptian origin and particularly widespread during the Roman empire, the Mysteries of Adonis and Astarte, of Syriac origin, the Mysteries of Attis and Cybele, of Anatolian origin, and the Mysteries of Aphrodite in Cyprus, the Mysteries of the Dioscuri in Anfissa, those of Hecate in Aegina, the Mysteries of Dionysia, those of the Cabyrs of Samothrace and those of Mithras, of Persian origin, which found an extraordinary diffusion throughout the Roman Empire, especially among the ranks of the army. But, among the various and multiple mystery religions, no one has ever achieved the fame and diffusion (and at the same time such a secrecy and an impenetrability), equal to that of the Eleusinian Mysteries. So much so that, not unjustly, it has been affirmed by the most authoritative scholars that the very foundations of Western culture and Tradition lie in them.

A great initiated into the Sacred Mysteries, the rhetorician Aelius Aristides (117-180 A.D.), wrote: «Is there any Greek or barbarian who was so stupid or ignorant, or is there anyone who dwelled so far apart from the earth or the Gods, or in sum, who was so insensitive to beauty - except those who will perish most horribly, the perpetrators of these acts - who did not regard Eleusis as a shrine common to the whole Earth, and of all the divine things that exist among men, both the most awesome and the most luminous? Of what other place or myth were more wonderful tales told, or where did the sacred ritual cause greater awe, or the sights more compete with what one had heard? As for the spectacles, they have been seen in the secret apparitions by numerous generations of blessed men and women?»1.

«The valleys of Eleusinian Demeter are a common good!» claims a chorus in work from Sophocles2. And Sophocles wrote again: «O thrice-blessed they that are they pass to Hades have beheld These Mysteries; from them only, in that world, is life; the rest have utter misery»3.

«The inviolable Rites of Eleusis – Proclus writes – promise the initiated that they will enjoy the relief of Kore once they are freed from their bodies»4.

«Happy among earth-bound mortals is he who has seen these things. But whoever is uninitiated in the rites, whoever takes no part in them, will never get a share of those sorts of things [that the initiated get], once they die, down below in the dank realms of mist» recites the Homeric Hymn to Demeter5.

Cicero, another initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, referred to them in his writings – as well as in relation to their role for a major civilized development – concerning the knowledge of the “principle of life”, and the hope of a happy survival after death, which the initiation could give: «There is nothing better than the mysteries by which we are polished and softened into politeness, from the rude austerities of barbarism. Justly indeed are they called initiations, for by them we especially learn the grand principles of philosophic life, and gain, not only the art of living agreeably, but of dying with a better hope»6.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The primacy of the Eleusinian Mysteries over all the other mystery religions in ancient times is outlined by Pausanias as well: (110-180 A.D., he was an initiated into the Mysteries of the two Goddesses): «For the Greeks of an earlier period looked upon the Eleusinian mysteries as being as much higher than all other religious acts as gods are higher than heroes»7.