1
Chapter 1
The Formation of Myth
There is a level of experience consisting in a passive receptivity to an
indeterminate outer material. It is an unformed, inchoate stream of sensory
contents. This is the level of sensory consciousness.
Now, it is impossible to remain at this level of awareness. That
impossibility is founded in the very nature of humanity. To be human is to be
endowed with, not merely sensory consciousness, but spiritual consciousness.
In this context, spiritual consciousness becomes an activity that seeks to
find an order, a rule of law, that brings meaning to the flux of sensory
experience. The diversity of forms are to be held together by a unity of
meaning. In our time, empirical science has become the paramount formation in
which this goal is achieved. But there have always been other formations
directed to the securing of meaning. Myth and mythic thinking is one such
effort.
In this chapter we shall consider certain mythic formations that have,
historically, been developed in the effort, not only to impose meaning on the
world of sensory consciousness, but, more importantly, to provide meaning to
the process of life itself. Mythic constructs and ideas spring out of all of
the accessible spheres of immediate experience. The great fundamental
relations of nature and human experience—light and darkness, spirit and
matter, life and death, good and evil, strength and weakness, exaltation and
depression, joy and sorrow, hope and despair—are the material of myth.
2
Harold R. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1
c1929), p. 276.
The emergence of myth from these fundamental intuitive fields is
strikingly evident in the pagan myths of the Graeco-Roman world into which
Christianity was inserted. Some considerable attention will be devoted to
this subject, since many of the elements in these myths resemble elements in
the New Testament account.
The first century of our era witnessed the revival of the oriental cult
of the monarch. Augustus (63 B.C. – A.D. 14) was deified. Elevated to this
rank, he became, so it was claimed, the power to unify the various races
living within the Roman empire. More importantly, he was to become the means
of delivering the masses of people from their wretchedness. But this promise
of the imperial cult could not be fulfilled. The wars immediately preceding
the Christian era had terribly depressed Roman society. The middle classes,
the backbone of society, had all but been eliminated. There was also a bad
social cleavage between the wealthy and aristocratic classes on the one hand,
and the masses, including the slaves, on the other. In his work, Pagan
Regeneration, Professor Willoughby succinctly describes this condition:
Conditions were such that the classes had the opportunity of becoming
more wealthy and prosperous, while the proletariat correspondingly became
more destitute and wretched. Enormous sums of gold and silver, the
accumulated wealth of the east, was disgorged on the Empire. This
created a demand for luxuries, raised the standard of living, and
multiplied the misery of the poor. Throughout the period the number of
slaves was constantly being augmented. This lowered wages and drove free
laborers to the idleness of cities where they were altogether too willing
to be enrolled among the state-fed.1
Accounts of that period show that, on the one hand, the wealthy classes
became disgusted with life, a result of their self-indulgence and satiety.
Gaius Petronius (1 cent. A.D.) gives an account of a dinner given by st
Trimalchio. It is a vivid description of the selfish hedonism of the wealthy
classes. Chapter Five, which contains the account of the dinner, closes with
a passage that depicts both the indulgence and satiety of the revelers:
3
Gaius Petronius, The Satyricon, tr. Alfred R. Allison (New York: The Panurge 2
Press, 1930), chap. v.
After being duly complimented on this refinement, our host cried out,
“Fair play’s a jewel!” and accordingly ordered a separate table to be
assigned to each guest. “In this way,” he said, “by preventing any
crowding, the stinking servants won’t make us hot.”
Simultaneously there were brought in a number of wine-jars of glass
carefully stoppered with plaster, and having labels attached to their
necks reading:
FALERNIAN; OPIMIAN VINTAGE
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.
Whilst reading the labels, Trimalchio ejaculated, striking his palms
together, “Alackaday! to think wine is longer lived than poor humanity!
Well! bumpers then! There’s life in wine. ‘Tis the right Opimian, I
give you my word. I didn’t bring out so good yesterday, and much better
men than you were dining with me.”
So we drank our wine and admired all this luxury in good set terms. Then
the slave brought in a silver skeleton, so artfully fitted that its
articulations and vertebrae were all movable and would turn and twist in
any direction. After he had tossed this once or twice on the table,
causing the loosely jointed limbs to take various positions, Trimalchio
moralized thus:
Alas! how less than naught are we;
Fragile life’s thread, and brief our day!
What this is now, we all shall be;
Drink and make merry while you may.2
There are, on the other hand, accounts depicting the condition of the
poor masses. If the aristocrat felt depressed because he had too many
pleasures, the poor freeman felt depressed because he had too few pleasures.
The need was so great that, in the closing days of the Republic, the office of
consoler was developed. Consolation literature was printed and disseminated
throughout the Empire. Cantor, who originated this type of literature, wrote
a book for a bereaved parent, which Cicero termed “a golden book.” When his
own daughter died, he wrote a consolatio for himself. Seneca, the prince of
counselors, made a study of individual cases and devised formulas of sympathy
for calamities of all kinds: ill health, old age, financial disaster,
confiscation of property, exile, and most of all for death itself. All
classes of society were emotionally distraught, most particularly the
inarticulate masses who had no way of expressing their misery.
The religions that came from the east promised the emotional
4
3Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, tr. Hugh G. Evyln-White, Loeb Classical
Library , No. 57 (London: Heinemann, 1929) 1.1-2, p. 289.
satisfaction that the age demanded. These religions told of savior-gods who
came to earth to work for and suffer for the people. The savior-gods knew the
agony of parting from loved ones, of persecution, of mutilation, and, finally,
of death itself. They had won salvation for humanity and now stood ready to
help all who were in need. The rites of the mystery religions re-enacted the
suffering and triumph of the savior-gods. The initiate felt himself
participating in the archetypal experiences of his lord, felt himself lifted
beyond his wretchedness and suffering and enjoying repose in an exalted sense
of security. In the following days and years, the memory of his experiences,
most importantly his initiation, provided continuing emotional stimulation
through the experience of contact with a sympathetic savior.
The Eleusinian mysteries, of Greek origin, were widespread in the
Graeco-Roman world. The mysteries are based on the Eleusinian myth. The myth
is, first of all, a nature myth. It vividly depicts the action of life in the
vegetable world with the changing of the seasons. But it is also a reflection
of poignant human experiences, registering the joys, sorrows, and hopes of
humankind in the face of inevitable death.
The myth is stated in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Its opening lines
are:
I begin to sing of rich-haired Demeter, awful goddess–-of her and her
trim-ankled daughter whom Aidoneus rapt away, given to him by all-seeing
Zeus the loud-thunderer.3
According to the myth, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, was stolen
by Pluto and carried to the underworld to be his bride. Zeus was an
accomplice in this theft. Demeter, frantic with grief, searched the earth for
nine days, torch in hand, abstaining from eat and drink, in the effort to find
her daughter. When she rested at “the maiden well of fragrant Eleusis,” she
was welcomed by the daughter of Celeus, who provided her with refreshment. In
resentment to Zeus, Demeter brought famine upon the earth. No crops grew and
5
Origin Contra Celsum iii. 59, tr. Frederick Crombie, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 4
ed. Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson (10 vols.; New York: The Christian Literature
Co., 1890), IV, 487.
no offerings were made to the gods. Finally an arrangement was made with
Pluto and Persephone was restored to her mother. However, Persephone had
eaten a sweet pomegranate seed in the underworld and was required to return
there for a portion of each year. Demeter so rejoiced in the restoration of
her daughter that she allowed the crops to grow once more and instituted in
honor of the event the Eleusinian mysteries, which gave to mortals the
assurance of a happy future life.
The myth became the pattern for the Eleusinian ritual. There were four
stages: the katharsis, or preliminary purification, the sustasis, or
preparatory rites and sacrifices, the teletç, the initiation proper, and the
epopteia, the highest grade of initiation. The first two rites were public,
while the last two were strictly private. There is considerable information
about the public rites, while the private rites are shrouded in mystery.
The “lesser mysteries” were celebrated at Agrae, a suburb of Athens, on
the banks of the Illisus river. Six months later, in September, the “greater
mysteries” were celebrated for a full week. The preliminary rites were held
at Athens. There was a solemn assembly in the Stoa Poicilç (painted porch),
where the hierophant gave a proclamation warning those who were unworthy of
initiation to depart. Origin mentions this:
Those who invite to participation in other mysteries, make proclamation
as follows: “Everyone who has clean hands, and a prudent [Hellenic]
tongue;” others again thus: “He who is pure from all pollution, and whose
soul is conscious of no evil, and who has lived well and justly.” Such
is the proclamation made by those who promise purification from sins.4
On the following day the cry was given, “To the sea, O Mystae!” and the
candidates for initiation marched to the sea, there to cleanse themselves in
its salt waves. Each participant carried a suckling pig, which was purified
by being placed in the sea. Later the pig was sacrificed and the blood
sprinkled on the candidate for initiation. The mystae believed that this
6
Tertullian De Baptismo 5, tr. S. Thelwall, Ibid., III, 671. 5
Clement of Alexandria Protrepticus ii, Ibid., II, 175. 6
Eleusinian baptism had regenerative powers, constituting them new beings.
Thus Tertullian writes, quoting Celsus:
. . . at the . . . Eleusinian games they are baptized; and they presume
that the effect of their doing that is their regeneration and the
remission of the penalties due to their perjuries.5
The initiates then marched to Eleusis, where the celebration of the
festival was completed. Visiting holy places and performing ritualistic
observances on the way, they reached Eleusis by torchlight late in the
evening. There then followed a midnight revel under the stars. It was
probably a mimetic ritual in which the revelers shared in the experiences of
their goddess.
The climax of the festival took place in the telestçrion, or Hall of
Initiation. Only the initiates were allowed in the sacred place, and the
events that occurred there are shrouded in mystery. The initiates were under
the pledge of secrecy. There are, however, certain sources that indicate that
the ritual was a religious drama. The priests were the actors and the
initiates the spectators. The drama was a passion play, the subject matter
being essentially the same as the Homeric myth. Clement of Alexander says:
Demeter and Proserpine have become the heroines of a mythic drama;
and their wanderings, and seizure, and grief, Eleusis celebrates by
torchlight processions.6
Various writers provide additional information about the elements in the
passion drama. The hierophant sounded a gong, this to represent the cry of
Demeter when she called for aid upon the abduction of Persephone. The actors
in the drama also offered lamentations, expressing the grief of the mother,
the great goddess herself. The initiates then accompanied the priestess, who
personified the goddess, in mimetic action signifying the search for the lost
child goddess. Finally, in the closing scene of the drama, the two goddesses
are united. The initiates who shared in the anxious wanderings of the mother
7
Asterius Encomium in sanctos martures 113B. Quoted in Willoughby, op. cit., p. 7
53.
Hippolytus Philosophoumena v, iii, tr. J. H. Macmahon, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 8
V, 55.
now shared in her happiness at the recovery of her daughter.
There may have been a second drama, acted on the evening of the passion
play. A first feature was a dramatic representation of a sacred marriage.
Asterius, a fourth century Christian bishop, writes of:
the underground chamber and the solemn meeting of the hierophant and the
priestess, each with the other alone, when the torches are extinguished,
and the vast crowd believes that its salvation depends on what goes on
there.7
There is no reason to assume that the rite was illicit. It was probably
but a liturgical fiction. The ritual assured the initiates of a direct and
intimate communion with their goddess.
A second feature of the drama was the birth of a holy child. In his
Saassenic sermon Hippolytus states:
(Now) by night in Eleusis, beneath a huge fire, (the Celebrant,) enacting
the great and secret mysteries, vociferates and cries aloud, saying
“August Brimo has brought forth a consecrated son, Brimus;” that is, a
potent (mother has been delivered of) a potent child. But revered, he
says, is the generation that is spiritual, heavenly, from above, and
potent is he that is so born.8
The name Eleusis is derived from the term eleusesthai, which means to
come. Thus the initiates said of themselves, “we spiritual ones came on
high.” Their holy birth was, they affirmed, “spiritual, heavenly, and from
above,” a birth that translated them from the earthly, human sphere to the
heavenly, spiritual realm.
The epopteia, the highest grade of initiation, took place a year after
the teletç. Only a single rite is known to us, and this on the authority of
Hippolytus. He speaks of “. . . the Athenians, while initiating people into
the Eleusinian rites, likewise display to those who are being admitted to the
highest grade at these mysteries, the mighty, and marvellous, and most perfect
secret for one initiated into the highest mystic truth . . . an ear of corn in
8
Ibid. 9
Clement of Alexandria op. cit. ii, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, II, 177. 10
Willoughby, op. cit., p. 60. 11
silence reaped” Their background being agricultural, a corn token was among 9
the most sacred things of the Eleusinia. For this reason, its exhibition was
“in solemn silence.” The token was a symbol of birth and rebirth in man
paralleling the vernal rebirth of nature. The rite gave the assurance of
individual rebirth to a new life.
Clement of Alexandria writes of a formula suggesting the possibility of
a different type of ritualistic observance. He says:
And the following is the token of the Eleusinian mysteries: I have
fasted, I have drunk the cup; I have received from the box; having done, I
put it into the basket, and out of the basket into the chest.10
The elements of the rite are drawn from the Eleusinian myth. The
fasting of the mystae corresponds to the mythic fasting of Demeter, the grain
goddess, who “sat smileless, nor tasted meat nor drink, wasting with long
desire for her deep-bosomed daughter.” The drinking of the barley drink
corresponds to the breaking of her fast, when, after having refused a cup of
wine, “she had them mix meal and water with the tender herb of mint, and gave
it to her to drink.” In drinking a similar potation the mystae shared the cup
from which the sorrowing goddess drank. By this participation in the
experience of the goddess, they attained fellowship with the deity.
The eating of food from the chest was probably a sacrament of communion.
Most likely this sacred food was a cereal. Its assimilation meant a union
with Demeter, the goddess of grain. It meant an incorporation of divine
substance into the human body. “Already emotionally united with Demeter
through participation in her passion, the initiates now became realistically
one with her by the assimilation of food and drink.”11
In sum, the effects of the Eleusinian ritual upon the lives of the
devotees were: (1) an emotional stimulation, (2) purification and elevation of
9
Euripides Bacchae 274-86, tr. Gilbert Murray (London: George Allen & Unwin, 12
Ltd, 1904), p.19.
Ibid. 94-99, p. 11. 13
Ibid. 284. The identity of the god and the wine is explicitly stated in a 14
variant translation: “And when we pour libations to the gods, we pour the god of wine
himself . . . .” Tr. William Arrowsmith.
the present life, and (3) assurance that, having shared in the sorrow of the
goddess, they would share also in the triumph over death.
In the Baachae, Euripides calls Demeter and Dionysus the greatest of the
gods:
Two spirits there be,
Young Prince, that in man’s world are first of worth,
Dêmêtêr one is named; she is the Earth——
Call her which name thou will!——who feeds man’s frame
With sustenance of things dry. And that which came
Her work to perfect, second, is the Power
From Semelê born. He found the liquid shower
Hid in the grape. He rests man’s spirit dim
From grieving, when the vine exalteth him.
He giveth sleep to sink the fretful day
In cool forgetting. Is there any way
With man’s sore heart, save only to forget?
Yea, being God, the blood of him is set
Before the Gods in sacrifice, that we
For his sake may be blest . . . .12
Dionysus was an earth-deity, a god of the peasantry. His father was
Zeus, the sky- and rain-god. His mother was Semelê, who was of the earth
earthy. Before he was born, while in his mother’s womb, Zeus destroyed his
mother by lightning. As she was dying Zeus rescued the unborn child from her
tortured body.
Till Zeus, the Lord of Wonder,
Devised new lairs of birth;
Yea, his own flesh tore to hide him,
And with claps of bitter gold
Did a secret son enfold.13
In the phase of his worship, Dionysus was preeminently a wine-god. It
was he who made “the clustered vine” grow for the benefit of humankind. But
he was more than the creator of wine; he was the wine itself. Euripides
affirms that identity: “Yea, being God, the blood of him is set Before the
Gods in sacrifice.” Thus the identification of the god with the wine is 14
absolute. Parallel to this identification is that of Christ and the
10
Ibid. 1017-19, p. 59. 15
Ibid. 280-83, p. 19; 380-85, p. 23. 16
consecrated wine of the Mass in Catholic thought. And in the religious system
of the Vedas, the God Soma is identified with the soma drink.
Dionysus was also the god of animal life. He is represented in various
animal forms. The chorus of Bacchanals, for example, invoke their god in
their moment of supreme anxiety:
Appear, appear, whatso thy shape or name
O Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads,
Lion of the Burning Flame!
O God, Beast, Mystery, come!15
Dionysus was thought of as being actually embodied in the bull. Thus the
animal, like the wine, was the god.
The central experience of devotees of the god involved the wine. It
played the prominent part in Dionysian worship. Baachic literature is filled
with wine and the joys of intoxication. The chorus in Euripides Baachae
sings:
He found the living shower
Hid in the grape. He rests man’s spirit dim
From grieving , when the vine exalteth him.
He giveth sleep to sink the fretful day
In cool forgetting. Is there any way
With man’s sore heart, save only to forget?
The joy induced by the wine puts an end to woe:
In the music and the laughter,
In the vanishing of care,
And of all before and after;
In the God’s high banquet, when
Gleans the grape-blood, flashed to heaven;
Yea, and in the feasts of men
Comes his crowned slumber; then
Pain is dead and hate forgiven!16
It is clear that the essence of Dionysian religion was physical
intoxication through drinking of the wine. But the devotees believed that the
experience was something more and higher than physical intoxication. It was
spiritual ecstasy. The wine was potent with spiritual power, and this because
the god himself, and the quintessence of divine life, was in the wine. It was
11
Ibid. 72-77, pp. 10-11. 17
Euripides Fragmenta 475, in Porphyry De Abstinentia iv. 19. 18
Euripides Baachae 736-47, pp. 42-43. 19
a matter of personal experience, when, after drinking the wine, they felt a
strange new life within themselves. It was the life and power of the god.
Their ecstasy was the experience of having the god within themselves, of being
filled with and fully possessed by the god. Thus Euripides can say:
Oh, blessed he in all wise,
Who hath drunk the Living Fountain.,
Whose life no folly staineth,
And his soul is near to God.
Whose sins are lifted, pall-wise,
As he worships on the Mountain . . . .17
In addition to drinking of wine, the devotees of Dionysus observed a
sacrament of eating. This rite was the “feast of raw flesh.” The initiate
into the mysteries of Dionysus was obliged to avow
I have . . .
Fulfilled his red and bleeding feasts.18
The feast of raw flesh was an orgiastic rite. The devotees tore the
slain animal asunder and devoured the dripping flesh to assimilate the life of
the god resident within it. Raw flesh was living flesh and had to be eaten
quickly lest the divine life within it should escape. So the feast was a
wild, frenzied, and barbaric event. In the Baachae Euripides describes the
affair:
They swept toward our herds that browsed the green
Hill grass. Great uddered kine then hadst thou seen
Bellowing in sword-like hands that cleave and tear,
a live steer riven asunder, and the air
Tossed with rent ribs or limbs of cloven tread.
And flesh upon the branches, and a red
Rain from the deep green pines. Yea, bulls of pride,
Horns swift to rage, were fronted and aside
Flung stumbling, by those multitudinous hands
Dragged pitilessly. And swifter were the bands
of garbled flesh and bone unbounded withal
Than on thy royal eyes the lids may fall.19
The sacred dance was another means of inducing the divine possession,
and usually accompanied the sacraments of drinking and eating. They prepared
12
Ibid. 862-85, p. 51. 20
for this Baachic revel by equipping themselves with the gear of Dionysus.
They carried the thyrus, a wand tipped with a pine cone and entwined with
ivory. In their hair they twisted serpents and over their shoulders threw a
sacred fawn-skin. The dances were held at night by the light of torches.
There was weird music and the clashing of tambourines. The revelers added
their own eerie shouts to this strange music. The dances were wild and
irregular, characterized by a tossing of the head and violent, whirling bodily
motion. All this induced a physical frenzy, assumed to be the divine
possession itself. For such an ecstatic experience, the Baachae of Euripides
yearned when they sang in chorus:
When they ever come to me, ever again
The long long dances,
On through the dark till the dawn-stars wane?
Shall I feel the dew on my throat, and the stream
Of wind in my hair?20
The philosophico-religious system bearing the name of Orpheus was a
reform of the cruder religion of Dionysus. Orpheus may have been a mythical
figure, or he may have been a real person. If the latter, he was a prophet,
reformer, and a martyr. Whether mythical or real, he was the antitype of
Dionysus the wine-god.
Classical writers provide considerable information about the Orphic
movement. The Orphic tablets, from tombs in Italy and Crete, contain
fragments of ritual hymns, and therefore yield valuable information,
particularly about beliefs concerning the next world. The “Apulian” vase
paintings depict the blessed dead in the society of the gods.
In his “Exhortation to the Greeks,” Clement of Alexandria details in
mythological form the fundamentals of Orphic theology. He probably had Orphic
texts that have since been lost. According to the myth, a son, Dionysus
Zagreus (“the hunter) was born to Zeus and Persephone. He was his father’s
favorite. The Titan were therefore jealous of him, and, urged on by Hera,
13
Kaibel, Inscriptiones Graecae Sicilae et Italiae, No. 638 (Berloni, 1890). 21
Quoted in Willoughby, op. cit., p. 97.
they murdered him. They tore him to pieces and cooked and ate the pieces.
The goddess, Athena, saved his heart and brought it to his father, who struck
the Titans with his thunderbolts. Having received the heart from Athena, Zeus
swallowed it. Later, when Semelê bore Dionysus to Zeus, the new god was but
Zagreus reborn.
The myth is significant as providing for Orphic thought a theory of the
nature of man and of man’s eternal destiny. Man was created from the ashes of
the blasted Titans. But these Titans had already consumed the god Dionysus,
and their ashes contained the vitality of divinity. Hence man was a compound
of two natures, one Dionysian and immortal and the other Titanic and mortal.
The soul was divine, but while in the body imprisoned in a charnel house.
There appears on an Orphic tablet the words:
I am a child of Earth and of Starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven.21
Salvation, for the Orphic, is a process of purification from bodily
taint. This was not merely salvation from the evils of a single existence,
but, finally, salvation from a series of physical existence, i.e., release
from the wheel of many reincarnations.
This was begun in the rite of initiation into the Orphic mysteries. On
the threshold of this rite was the omophagy, or feast of raw flesh, which
figured, as we have observed, in the Dionysian rite. It served two functions:
communion and memorialization. It reinforced and enlivened the spark of
divinity resident in man, and it was a ritual enactment of the ancient tragedy
when their god was slain by the Titans. At this occasion, the Titans had
smeared themselves with white clay or gypsum in order to conceal their
identity. The Orphics did likewise, but in order to purify themselves of the
stains of their physical nature.
Having been cleansed initially, the Orphics were then to lead a pure
14
Euripides Fragmenta 475. Quoted in Willoughby, op. cit., pp. 102-03. 22
Aristophanes Ranae 1032, tr. Benjamin Bickley Rogers, Loeb Classical Library, 23
No. 178 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 393.
Demosthenes Aristogeiton 11, tr. J. H. Vince, Loeb Classical Library, No. 299 24
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978 ), pp. 521.
life of self-discipline. The life they led was one of austerity. There were
rules concerning cleanliness and clothing. Food regulations prohibited the
consumption of animal flesh. Having once partaken of the sacrament of raw
flesh, the Orphic was forever forbidden to eat animal food. In his Cretans,
Euripides speaks of the austerities of the Orphic life:
Robed in pure white I have born me clean
From man’s vile birth and coffined clay,
And exiled from my lips alway
Touch of all mean where life has been.22
Personal purity, although ceremonial and ritualistic, was central to
Orphism. It thus opened the way for the development of morality. Pindar
believed that knowledge of the teachings of Orphism would help men lead good
lives. Aristophanes, who was critical of Orphism, yet said of Orpheus:
“First, Orpheus taught you religious rites, and from bloody murder to stay
your hands . . . .” Presumably, this meant not only purification from blood 23
but also abstention from murder. It was an early gospel of peace on earth.
The author of the speech against Aristogeiton commends Orpheus:
You must magnify the Goddess of Order who loves what is right . . . who,
as Orpheus, that product of our most sacred mysteries, tells us, sits
beside the throne of Zeus and oversees all the works of men24
It is also important to note that Orphism disallowed suicide. Since the
soul inhabited the body as penance, one had no right to take one’s life. Were
he to do so, he would become a fugitive attempting to escape before God
released him. In the Phaedo Plato represented Socrates saying just before his
death:
Now the doctrine that is taught in secret about this matter, that we men
are in a kind of prison and must not set ourselves free or run away, seems
to me to be weighty and not easy to understand. But this at least, Cebes,
I do believe is sound, that the gods are our guardians and that we men are
15
Plato Phaedo 62b, tr. Harold North Fowler, Loeb Classical Library, No. 36 25
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 217.
Kaibel, op. cit., No. 638. Quoted in Willoughby, op. cit., p. 106. 26
one of the chattels of the gods.25
But participation in the rites of initiation and a life of ascetic
observance were not in themselves sufficient for a final and full salvation.
There were certain rules of postmortem conduct that had to be observed as
well. The Orphic tablets provide for the initiate a chart of the landscape of
the next world, introduce him to the divine beings who determine their
condition in the future state, inform him of certain ritual acts to be
observed, and instruct him in the necessary formularies and confessions that
need to be repeated under certain conditions.
The Petelia tablet mentions a nameless well-spring located at the left
of the House of Hades. This is to be avoided. This spring was probably
Lethe, or Forgetfulness. Because the Orphic has spent his life in
purification, he had nothing to forget. But there was a well-spring from
which he was to drink. It was the one flowing from the Lake of Memory. It
was the counterpart of the “well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
The devotee was to use the formula in asking for a drink: “I am a child of
Earth and Starry Heaven.” It was a formula of divine origin. It would be
sufficient to gain the desired reward from the guardians of the Lake of
Memory:
Of themselves they will give you to drink,
From the holy Well-spring.
And thereafter among the other Heroes,
You shall have Lordship.26
Another tablet, the Compagno tablet, has the soul coming as a suppliant
to the divine Persephone herself. She is addressed at the “Pure Queen of Them
Below.” As in the Petelia tablet, there is the affirmation of divine origin:
“I avow me that I am of your blessed race.” There is then a declaration of
purity obtained by observance of Orphic practices:
16
Ibid., No. 641. Quoted in Willoughby, Ibid., p. 107. 27
Plutarch Consolatio ad Uxorem 10, trs. Phillip H. De. Lacy & Benedict 28
Einarson, Plutrach’s Moralia, 16 vols., Loeb Classical Library No. 405 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1968), VII, 601-05.
Out of the pure I come. . . .
I have flown out of the sorrowful weary wheel,
I have passed with eager feet to the circle desired.27
Orphism had real significance in the Graeco-Roman world at the beginning
of the Christian era. It promised a regeneration in this life and a new birth
into immortality consequent upon the release of the soul at the time of bodily
death. Even those who did not believe in the efficacy of certain rites and
practices, and refused to be frightened by the terrors of Hell, found the
Orphic hope a real consolation in the time of trouble. Plutarch was one such
man who shared the Orphic hope in the first Christian century.28
The cult of the Great Mother of the Gods came into the west from Asia
Minor. The divinity was the Magna Mater Deum, who was regarded at the sources
of all life and the personification of nature. She was associated with a hero
divinity, Attis, who personified the life of the vegetable world particularly.
Around these two there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of
their cult rites.
The myth states that the goddess-mother loved the youthful, virgin-born
shepherd Attis. But Attis died, either slain by another or by his own hand.
According to the latter view, he had been unfaithful to his mother and in
recompense for his sin he emasculated himself and died. His mother mourned him
and eventually effected his restoration. Thus he became a deity and immortal.
The cult ritual began on the Ides of March. On the following day the
dendrophori, or tree bearers, cut a pine tree and took it to the temple of
Cybele. According to the myth, it was under a pine tree that Attis mutilated
himself and died. Changed to a pine tree, he was carried to the temple of
Cybele, where the goddess mourned her dead lover. Thus the pine tree was
regarded as the corpse of Attis and treated with divine honors.
17
29Prudentius Peristephanon x. 1035-40, tr. H. J. Thompson, Loeb Classical
Library No. 398 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 297.
The following day was a day of fast when the devotees mourned their god.
It was a vegetable abstinence. As the cutting down of the pine tree symbolized
that the god of vegetation was dead, so the vegetable world shared in the
defunct condition of the god. To partake of vegetables would violate the
broken body of the god.
The climax of the festival was held on the twenty-fourth of March, a day
that was called the “Day of Blood.” To the accompaniment of wild and barbaric
music, the devotees, in a frenzy of emotion, staged a dance. They lacerated
their bodies in mourning for the dead Attis. This would cause the Great Mother
to know, when she saw the flowing blood, that they shared with her in her
sorrow. Its ultimate purpose was to strengthen Attis for his resurrection.
The final act of consecration to the deity was self-emasculation. With
this act the devotee became a eunuch-priest of the goddess. Even more, he
became another Attis, mystically united as a divine lover to the Great Goddess.
He participated in the resurrection of his god and realized the happiness of
immortality.
Another rite of supreme importance connected with the rite of the Great
Mother was the taurobolium, of sacrifice of a bull. A priest with a golden
crown on his head and adorned with fillets descends into a trench that was
covered over with planks. A bull, gleaming with gold and covered with a
garland of flowers, is led on to the platform and stabbed to death by a
consecrated spear. The blood flows out over the planks and down on the devotee
in the trench.
Then through the many ways afforded by the thousand chinks it passes
in a shower, dripping a foul rain, and the priest in the pit below catches
it, holding his filthy head to meet every drop and getting his robe and his
whole body covered with corruption. Laying his head back he even puts his
cheeks in the way, placing his ears under it, exposing lips and nostrils,
bathing his very eyes in the stream, not even keeping his mouth from it but
wetting his tongue, until the whole of him drinks in the dark gore.29
The initiate then emerges from the trench, drenched and dripping with
18
Clement of Alexandria op. cit. ii, II, 175. The cernos was probably a vessel 30
containing poppy carried in sacrificial procession. For “bedroom” one can read
“bridal chamber.”
blood. He presents himself to the assembled crowd, who honors him as a god, as
one who has been born again to a divine life.
The rite was regarded as a rebirth to a new kind of existence. The bath
of blood was believed to purify the neophyte and, in effect, make him a
divinized human. The effect of the rite was thought to be everlasting and that
the devotee was in aeternum renatus.
Very little is known of the secret rites of the Attis cult. The only
extant source is Clement of Alexandria. According to him the confessional of
the initiate was:
I have eaten out of the drum,
I have drunk out of the cymbal,
I have carried the Cernos,
I have slipped into the bedroom.30
The formula expresses to experiential elements. One is union with
divinity by a mystic marriage. “I have entered the bedchamber.” The votary
entered the shrine of the goddess as a bridegroom. In that secret chamber
humanity and deity were united in marriage and hence the devotee attained
communion with his goddess. The second element indicates communion with the
deity by the act of eating and drinking:
I have eaten out of the drum,
I have drunk out of the cymbal,
The drum and cymbal were the favorite instruments of the Great Mother. For
this reason they were used as cup and plate in the ceremony.
The common meal was more than a communion with others. It was a
communion with divinity. It was believed that this rite communicated divine
life to the devotee and assured him of salvation.
Two other pagan regenerative rites may be briefly noted. They employ
elements similar to those found in certain of the cults discussed in the
foregoing. Mithraism was of Persian origin. Mithra was the god of light. He
19
31Jerome Epistolae cvii. 2. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, (14 vols.; New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1890-
1900), VI, 190.
Tertullian De Corona 15, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, III, 103. 32
appears in the Vedas as Mitra. The sanctuaries of the god were in deep caves
of the mountains, where the devotees could feel themselves close to the
divinity. Very little is known about the rites and ceremonies of this cult.
Jerome, however, says that there were various degrees of initiation that
conferred upon the initiates various grades of privilege. One ceremony was 31
the rite of the crown. It was enacted during the sacrament of the Soldier.
With a sword pressed to his breast, the soldier was offered a crown, “as though
in mimicry of martyrdom,” Tertullian said. The crown was rejected, the 32
soldier affirming “Mithra is my crown!.” Thereafter he never wore a garland or
crown, and whenever a crown was offered him, he replied “It belongs to my god.”
In this refusal he offered proof that he was a soldier of Mithra. Another
ceremony was the rite of sealing. A sign was burned on the forehead,
signifying that the initiate was a soldier of Mithra.
A very distinctive rite of Mithraism was a simulated murder. The rite
brought out the view that death was the precursor of life. The pretense of
death qualified the neophyte for the regenerative experiences of baptism and
sacramental communion that followed the ritual.
The Egyptian cult of Osiris and Isis emphasized the idea of resurrection.
The myth that give rise to the cult has it that Osiris was murdered by his
brother. Isis, his wife, after a long wandering to find his corpse, performed
certain rites over the dead body and revived her husband. Thus Osiris was a
dying and reviving god, giving assurance that life obtained beyond the mystery
of death. Isis, like Demeter and the Magna Mater, was a mother-goddess,
expressing the unquenchable hope that life triumphs in its conflict with death.
The pagan beliefs and practices were supported by the various
aetiological myths. The term aetiological derives from the Greek áÆôßá
20
Clement of Alexandria Protrepticus i, op. cit., II, 171. 33
(aitia), which means cause or reason. Thus an aetiological myth is the
conceptual element that provides the base upon which rites and practices are
founded.
These myths constitute the material for the great redemptive themes that
appear, not only in pagan culture, but in the developed religions, particularly
in the Christian religion. These themes are the sorrow and sin of human
existence, the dying and risen savior, the birth of a holy child, redemption
and purification through the shedding and appropriation of blood, cleansing and
newness through baptism, rites of communion with the deity by means of
sacrament of wine and food and marriage, and, ultimately, resurrection as
victory over death.
Now, it is obvious that the pagan themes bear at least a general
resemblance to the elements of Christianity. When one reads the Pre-Nicene
Fathers, it becomes evident that they wrestled with the pagan cults in their
effort to establish the distinctive and unique superiority of the Christian
faith, and to establish that faith as supreme in the Graeco-Roman world. From
out of the ages of the long-ago past, one may hear even today the ring of the
voice of Clement of Alexandria:
But the dramas and the raving poets, now quite intoxicated, let us
crown with ivy; and distracted outright as they are, in Baachic fashion,
with the satrys, and the frenzied rabble, and the rest of the demon crew,
let us confine to Cithæron and Helicon, now antiquated.
But let us bring from above out of heaven, Truth, with Wisdom in all
its brightness, and sacred prophetic choir, down to the holy mount of God;
and let Truth, darting her light to the most distant points, cast her rays
all around on those that are involved in darkness, and deliver men from
delusion, stretching out her very strong right hand, which is wisdom, for
their salvation.33
As a matter of history, that attempt proved successful. Christianity
was officially recognized as a legitimate religion during the reign of
Constantine the Great. That Rome should become Christian was thenceforth all
but inevitable. Yet there are two observations that need to be made. First,
notwithstanding the strident animadversions of the Fathers, the rites of pagan
21
Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (New York: The Viking 34
Press, 1959), pp. 182-83
redemption were not all or always lacking in moral and ethical idealism. There
were injunctions requiring of the devotees purity of life and action and the
observance of justice. Second, the devotees did, without question, experience
a sense of redemption and fulfillment. In especially their initiatory rites,
they felt an achieved communion and unity with their deity. They enjoyed an
assurance of a blessed and happy immortality, of the victory of life over
death.
For individuals of the twenty-first century, the question of the
distinctive integrity of the Christian faith is a subject of supreme
importance. Contemporary writers on the subject of myth and religion almost
invariably regard the content of the Christian faith as but a form of myth,
possessing fundamentally the same status as that which pertains to other mythic
formations. Thus, in writing about the ritual love-death of primitive
mythology, in which the myth of the Eleusinian Mysteries is located, Joseph
Campbell says:
Something of the sort can be felt in the Christian myth of the
killed, buried, resurrected, and eaten Jesus, whose mystery is the ritual
of the altar and communion rail. But here the ultimate monstrosity of the
divine drama is not stressed so much as the guilt of man in having brought
it about; and we are asked to look forward to a last day, when the run of
this cosmic tragedy of crime and punishment will be terminated and the
kingdom of God realized on earth, as it is now in heaven. The Greek
rendition of the mythology, on the other hand, remains closer to the
primitive view, according to which there is to be no end, or even essential
improvement, for this tragedy (as it will seem to some) or play (as it
appears to the gods.34
Now, it is true, on the assumption that Christianity has only a mythic
import, that certain important distinctions can be made between the “Christian
myth” and pagan myths. As the above quote suggests, pagan myths emphasize the
immanence of deity in nature, to the extent that nature and its processes and
forces are themselves deified. The “Christian myth,” coming out of Jewish
thought, emphasizes the transcendence of God over nature, albeit in that
transcendence exercising a providential care over nature. Thus, as Professor
22
Campbell suggests, pagan myth sees no end to the tragedies of history, while
Christianity finds the ultimate redemption of history. That is, certainly, a
valid and important distinction. But notwithstanding this insight, it yet
remains, so it is alleged, that Christianity has but mythic status. Thus, if
Christianity possess a distinctive truth and validity, beyond the borders of
myth, an altogether different analysis is necessary.
It may be maintained that the sole significant element in myth is its
value in informing experience. It enables the individual to find a sense of
meaning in this life and to bring a measure of confidence for the future.
Certainly, as the above has pointed out, the devotees of the various pagan
myths found a sense of bliss. At the center of their being they found a
renewal of life and an assurance of a happy immortality beyond death. It thus
makes no difference whether or not the myth has significance beyond the scope
of immediate experience.
Now, myth—its beliefs and practices—contains at least an implicit
cognitive claim. It carries with it, perhaps but tacitly, the assumption that
it holds a measure of truth and validity. It is highly questionable that
primitive man made no tacit judgment as to the significance of his experience.
When one reads the accounts of the Fathers of the Church, who give us today the
greater portion of information about the pagan myths of redemption, it becomes
quite evident that the devotees held beliefs regarding the import of their
myths.
But there is no certification of the truth value and validity of those
tacit claims and assumptions held by those who devoted themselves to myth. The
felt immediacy of experience is no guarantee of the significance of that
experience. And, as we hope to demonstrate, there is that in the myth that
contravenes its claims and assumptions.
The same is essentially true with respect to Christian experience.
Testimonies are incontrovertible that Christians, too, find renewal and
assurance. But here also the validation of the experience, if such is
23
possible, must derive from a context other than the immediacy of experience.
What that context is and the manner of its functioning are themes that must
wait consideration later in this work.
Myth, as we have noted, functions to order inner experience. But it also
functions to order outer experience, the experience of the outer world. There
are mythic formulations of the object, of causality, of whole and part, of
space, time, and number. In our modern world, these formulations have been
replaced by science. In the next chapter, we propose to discuss this subject
in some considerable detail.
A second, and main, topic of the chapter is devoted to the subject of the
symbolic nature of science. The point to be developed is that science is
itself a symbolic construct and, accordingly, cannot claim a literalism that
confers upon it a status superior to other forms of symbolism, particularly the
symbolism of religion.
