The Ancients expressed their religious beliefs in a dramatic way on a number
of occasions throughout the year. The festivities were held in the Spring,
Autumn, or Winter. These were to commemorate the activities of the sun, his
renewed activity in the Spring calling forth rejoicing and his decline in
the Fall being the cause of sorrow and lamentation. As well as the
festivities, there were the various mysteries, such as the Eleusinia, the
Dionysia and the Bacchanalia. These were conducted by the priests who
moulded religious beliefs and guarded their secrets. The mysteries were of
the utmost importance and the most sacred of religious conceptions were here
dramatized.
Mythology also gave expression to the religious ideas of the time and we
find that the most important myths, dramatically produced at the religious
festivals, were sun myths.
The annual festivities and mysteries will be discussed together because both
were intended to dramatize the same beliefs. Both were under priestly
control and so were national institutions. The festivals were for the common
people but the mysteries were fully understood only to the initiated.
While no very clear account of the mysteries has been given, a certain theme
seems to run through them all, and this is found in the myths as well. A
drama is enacted, in which the god is lost, is lamented, and is found or
returns amid great rejoicing.[3] This was enacted in Egypt where the
mourning was for Osiris; and in Greece for Adonis, and later for Bacchus.
All these are, of course, sun gods, and the whole dramatization or myth is
in keeping with the activities of the sun.
[3] The Enactment and Rebirth.
On these occasions, the main object seems to have been to restore the lost
god, or to insure his reappearance. The women took the leading part and
mourned for Osiris, Adonis or Bacchus. They wandered about the country at
night in the most frenzied fashion, avoided all men and sought the god. At
times, during the winter festival, the quest would be fruitless. In the
Spring, when they indulged themselves in all sorts of orgies and
extravagances, Adonis was found.
The underlying motive appears to have been to enact a drama in which the
deity was supposed to exercise his procreative function by sexual union with
the women. This was an ideal which they wished to express dramatically. In
order to realize this ideal obstacles were introduced that they might be
overcome; in the old myth, Adonis was emasculated under a pine tree, and in
Egypt Osiris was similarly mutilated, his sex organs being lost. But at the
festivals it was portrayed that Adonis was found, and in the myth, Osiris
was restored to Isis in the form of Horus (the morning sun). In a number of
myths, the god is said to have visited the earth to cohabitate with the
women, an occurrence which was doubtless desired, in order that the deistic
attributes might be continued in the race. Thus, judging from what we have
been able to learn of this subject, the worship expressed in the mysteries
revolved about sexual union, the desire being to dramatize the continued
activity of deistic qualities.
This character of many of the festivals and mysteries is very evident. In
the Eleusinian mysteries the rape of Persephone by Pluto, the winter god, is
portrayed. The mother, Demeter, mourns for her daughter. Her mourning is
dramatically carried out by a large procession, and this enactment requires
several days. Finally Persephone is restored. The earlier part of the
festival was for dramatic interest, and the real object was the union of
Persephone with Bacchus. "The union of Persephone with Bacchus, i.e., with
the sun god, whose work is to promote fruitfulness, is an idea special to
the mysteries and means the union of humanity with the godhead, the
consummation aimed at in the mystic rites. Hence, in all probability the
central teaching of the mysteries was Personal Immortality, analogue of the
return of the bloom to plants in Spring."[4]
[4] Dr. Otto Rhyn, Mysteria.
The mysteries of Samothrace were probably simpler. Here the phallus was
carried in procession as the emblem of Hermes. In the Dionysian mysteries
which were held in mid-winter, the quest of the women was unsuccessful and
the festival was repeated in the Spring. The Roman mysteries of Bacchus
were of much later development, and consequently became very debased. Men as
well as women eventually came to take part in the ceremony, and the whole
affair degenerated into the grossest of sexual excesses and perversions.
We have stated what appears to us to have been the underlying motives of the
religious festivals and mysteries; namely, the enactment of a drama in which
the reproductive qualities of the deity were portrayed. The phallus was
carried in procession for this purpose and the women dramatized the motive
as searching for the god. Our account can be regarded as little more than an
outline, but it is sufficient for our present purposes. It indicates that
the mysteries give an expression of phallic worship, just as do the various
monuments of art and religion to which we have referred. It may also be
said that this same worship is represented in what may be termed early
literature, for much of the early mythology deals with the same subject. The
study of origins in mythology, however, cannot be dealt with adequately in
our present communication.