FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  
undles of the Pawnees, and the _churinga_, and bark "native portmanteaux," of which Mr. Carnegie brought several from the Australian desert. [Demeter and Persephone sending Triptolemos on his mission. Marble relief found at Eleusis--now in Athens: lang92.jpg] For all Greek Mysteries a satisfactory savage analogy can be found. These spring straight from human nature: from the desire to place customs, and duties, and taboos under divine protection; from the need of strengthening them, and the influence of the elders, by mystic sanctions; from the need of fortifying and trying the young by probations of strength, secrecy, and fortitude; from the magical expulsion of hostile influences; from the sympathetic magic of early agriculture; from study of the processes of nature regarded as personal; and from guesses, surmises, visions, and dreams as to the fortunes of the wandering soul on its way to its final home. I have shown all these things to be human, universal, not sprung from one race in one region. Greek Mysteries are based on all these natural early conceptions of life and death. The early Greeks, like other races, entertained these primitive, or very archaic ideas. Greece had no need to borrow from Egypt; and, though Egypt was within reach, Greece probably developed freely her original stock of ideas in her own fashion, just as did the Incas, Aztecs, Australians, Ojibbeways, and the other remote peoples whom I have selected. The argument of M. Foucart, I think, is only good as long as we are ignorant of the universally diffused forms of religious belief which correspond to the creeds of Eleusis or of Egypt. In the Greek Mysteries we have the Greek guise,--solemn, wistful, hopeful, holy, and pure, yet not uncontaminated with archaic buffoonery,--of notions and rites, hopes and fears, common to all mankind. There is no other secret. The same arguments as I have advanced against Greek borrowing from Egypt, apply to Greek borrowing from Asia. Mr. Ramsay, following Mr. Robertson Smith, suggests that Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, may be "the old Semitic Al-lat." {95a} Then we have Leto and Artemis, as the Mother and the Maid (Kore) with their mystery play. "Clement describes them" (the details) as "Eleusinian, for they had spread to Eleusis as the rites of Demeter and Kore _crossing from Asia to Crete, and from Crete to the European_ peninsula." The ritual "remained everywhere fundamentally the s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Mysteries

 

Eleusis

 
archaic
 

nature

 

Artemis

 

Demeter

 

borrowing

 
Greece
 

solemn

 

diffused


belief

 

correspond

 

creeds

 
religious
 
ignorant
 

universally

 

selected

 
Aztecs
 

Australians

 

fashion


original
 

Ojibbeways

 
remote
 

Foucart

 

argument

 

peoples

 

wistful

 

mystery

 

Clement

 
describes

Mother

 

Semitic

 

details

 
Eleusinian
 

remained

 
ritual
 
fundamentally
 

peninsula

 

European

 
spread

crossing

 
common
 
mankind
 

secret

 

notions

 

uncontaminated

 

buffoonery

 
freely
 
arguments
 

suggests