Besides the 6peoyEva, then, there were also certain things said in the hall, or in the earlier stages of initiation, which we would gladly discover. Part of these were mystic formulae, one of which has been discussed already, the pass-word of the votaries. We gather also from Proclus and Hippolytus (in Tim. 293c; Ref.
Omn. Hoer. 5, 7, p. 146) that in the Eleusinian rites they gazed up to heaven and cried aloud "rain"—i5e—and gazed down upon the earth and cried "conceive"—KbE. This ritual charm—we can not call it prayer—descends from the old agrarian magic which underlay the primitive mystery. What else the votaries may have uttered, whether by way of thanksgiving or solemn litany, we do not know'. But there was also a certain lean X6yos some exposition accompanying the unfolding of the mysteries; for it was part of the prestige of the hierophant that he was chief spokesman, "who poured forth winning utterance and whose voice the catechumen ardently desired to hear" (Anth. Pal., app. 246) ; and Galen speaks of the rapt attention paid by the initiated "to the things done and said in the Eleusinian and Samothracian mysteries" (De usu part. 7. 14). But we have no trustworthy evidence as to the real content of the Xlryos of the hierophant. We need not believe that the whole of his discourse was taken up with corn-symbolism, as Varro seems to imply (Aug. de civit. Dei. 20), or that he taught natural philosophy rather than theology, or again, the special doctrine of Euhemerus, as two passages in Cicero (De natur. deor. i. 42; Tusc. i. 13) might prompt us to suppose. His chief theme was probably an exposi tion of the meaning and value of the lEpa as in an Australian initiation rite it is the privilege of the elders to explain the nature of the "churinga" to the youths. And his discourse on these may have been coloured to some extent by the theories current in the philosophic speculation of the day. But though in the time of Julian he appears to have been a philosopher of Neo-platonic tendencies, we ought not to suppose that the hierophant as a rule would be able or inclined to rise above the anthropomorphic religion of the times. Whatever symbolism attached to the tEpet, the sacred objects shown, was probably simple and natural; for instance, in the Eleusinian, as in Egyptian eschatology, the token of the growing corn may have served as an emblem—though not a proof—of man's resurrection. The doctrine of the continuance
of the soul after death was already accepted by the popular belief, and the hierophant had no need to preach it as a dogma ; the votaries came to Eleusis to ensure themselves a happy immor tality. And in our earliest record, the Homeric hymn, we find that the mysteries already hold out this higher promise. How, we may ask, were the votaries assured? The Egyptianizing theory of Foucart, that they were given directions and spells to take them past the terrors of the underworld, after the manner of the 'This is Dr. Jevons's supposition—op. which he bases an important theory of the whole Eleusinian mysteries and their intrinsic attraction.
Cults, vol. iii. p1. 'The other formula which the scholiast on Plato (Gorg. 407 c.) assigns to the Eleusinian rite: "I have eaten from the timbrel, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have carried the sacred vessel, I have crept under the bridal-chamber," belongs, not to Eleusis, but, as Clement and Firmicus Maternus themselves attest, to Phrygia and to Attis.
Book of the Dead, is wholly improbable. The terror of hell is not normal Greek, although something of the kind existed in Orphism; nor have we any evidence that spells of any kind were taught or that the XOyos was regarded as particularly important. If we could be sure that the Minoans had a developed eschatology (see Evans in foam. Hell. Stud., xlv. p. 43 ff., but cf. Nilsson, Minoan-Myc. Rel., p. 549 ff.), we might suppose some of it to survive; but the matter is very doubtful.
The assurance of the hope of the Eleusinian votary was ob tained by the feeling of friendship and mystic sympathy, estab lished by mystic contact, with the mother and the daughter, the powers of life after death. Those who won their friendship by initiation in this life would by the simple logic of faith regard themselves as certain to win blessing at their hands in the next.