"Eleusinian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... asserted by some Masons of strong powers of imagination that they take their origin from the Eleusinian Mysteries. These were pagan orgies attached to some Grecian temples. Surrounded by mysterious ceremonies and symbols, and supported by every mythical and allegorical illusion that could inspire awe or confidence, these mysteries were very ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... without speaking figuratively, the profound significance and high aim of life can only be revealed and shown to the masses symbolically, because they are not capable of grasping life in its real sense; while philosophy should be like the Eleusinian mysteries, for ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... because some parts of them were transacted in deep silence, and were the objects of such awe and reverence that they were not spoken of. No one, moreover, could assist at these rites without being solemnly initiated after a period of probation and purification. Of the Eleusinian mysteries at least, which were the most widely diffused and which formed part of the state religion of Athens, ancient writers agree in their report that the course of training before admission was powerfully elevating and solemnising, so that the period of ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... unanimous wish of their followers. Then came, on the part of Ministers, a mysterious resignation—an episodical and futile attempt to re-construct a Whig government—and the return of Sir Robert Peel to power. Still there was no explanation. Men were left to guess, as they best might, at the Eleusinian drama performing behind the veil of Isis—to speculate for themselves, or announce to others at random the causes of this huge mystification. "The oracles were dumb." This only was certain, that Lord Stanley was no longer ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Orphic and Bacchic sects, in the Eleusinian and Samothracian Mysteries, was thus treasured up the secret doctrine of the old theological and philosophical myths, which had once constituted the primitive legendary stock of Greece in the hands of the original priesthood and in the ages anterior to Homer. Persons who had gone through ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... nine days of the festival. This first is the day of the agurmos, ([Greek: agyrmos],) or assembling together the flux of Grecian life into the secret chambers of its Eleusinian heart. To-morrow is the day of purification; then, "To the sea, all ye that are initiated!" ([Greek: Alade, mystai!]) lest any come with the stain of impurity to the mysteries of God. The third day is the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Greece and of Italy, and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, religion—all, to his eyes, had their cradle there. It was the home of all that was literature to him; and there, too, were the great Eleusinian mysteries—which are mysteries still, but which contained under their veil whatever faith in the Invisible and Eternal rested in the mind of an enlightened pagan. There can be little doubt but that Cicero took this opportunity of ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... was in nowise benefited thereby. This amiable lady finally loaned me a copy of their sacred book called "Science and Health," expressing the opinion that a careful reading thereof would renew my youth and make me a believer in their modern Eleusinian mysteries forever. ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... cup—kissubion—into which life entered, and from which it was drained as wine; so, too, from its wood was made the sacred chest (kiste) in which, in the Dyonisiac mysteries, the same secret was preserved under the form of a serpent, while in the Eleusinian it hid the dread pomegranate which Persephone had tasted. For they were all one and the same, this wine and serpent and pomegranate—the type of life and of knowledge—of human birth, and human intellect—of the world's generation and of eternal wisdom. The fruit of which Adam ate, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... different sect, and claimed affinity with the gods of each conquered race. At one moment the zealous supporter of Christianity, then the ablest advocate of the Platonic philosophy: at another, initiated into all the arcana of the Theurgic science and the Eleusinian mysteries, terminating his checkered religious career by that great edict of universal toleration which astonished the whole Roman world, when all classes of all religions, Pagan and Christian, received alike an express command to open the portals of their temples. Paganism could afford ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... influences derived from early philosophy— especially from the gnomic wisdom of the sixth century and from the spirit of theosophic speculation, which in Aeschylus goes far even to recast mythology. The latter influence was probably reinforced, through channels no longer traceable, by the Eleusinian worship, in which the mystery of life and death and of human sorrow had replaced the primitive wonder at ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... silver was lying about in heaps, with all kinds of rich tapestry and other countless treasures, he would neither touch them himself nor allow the others to do so, though some helped themselves without his knowledge. Among these was Kallias, the torch-bearer in the Eleusinian mysteries. One of the prisoners, taking him for a king because of his long hair and fillet, fell on his knees before him, and having received his hand as a pledge for his safety pointed out to him a great store of gold concealed in a pit. Kallias now acted most cruelly and wickedly. He took ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the outset divine, with its roots in ritual, why does it issue in an art profoundly solemn, tragic, yet purely human? The actors wear ritual vestments like those of the celebrants at the Eleusinian mysteries. Why, then, do we find them, not executing a religious service or even a drama of gods and goddesses, but rather impersonating mere Homeric heroes and heroines? Greek drama, which seemed at first to give us our clue, to show us a real link between ritual and art, breaks ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... own ancient Roman imagination. Here are some Greek words of no less virtue: "Aski, Kataski, Tetrax." When the Greek priests let out of their doors those who had been completely initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, they said to them last of all the awful and powerful words, "Konx, ompax." If you want to know what the usual result was, just say them to somebody, and you will see, instantly. The ancient Hebrews believed that there was a secret name of God, usually thought to be inexpressible, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... them to those heroes who figured in their own country in the earliest times. "The labors of Hercules originated in Egypt, and relate to the annual progress of the sun in the zodiac. The rape of Proserpine, the wanderings of Ceres, the Eleusinian mysteries, and the orgies of Bacchus were all imported from Egypt or Phoenicia, while the wars between the gods and the giants were celebrated in the romantic annals of Persia. The oracle of Dodona was copied from that of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... the tent, as if it contained their Eleusinian mysteries. And the old priest gave us to know, that it would be profanation to ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... caps as to whether you were a saint or a devil, and whether you did really work miracles or not, as corroborations of your ex-supra-lunar illumination on social questions. . . . Yes . . . you will have to submit, and see Bogy, and enter the Eleusinian ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the engineer had agreed to breakfast with me at the hotel. When I entered the dining-room with the intention of waiting for him, I found two individuals sitting at table. One was no other than the red-nosed Scotchman, the Eleusinian victim whom I had watched through the bottle-rack at Epernay. Of the second I recognized the architectural back, the handsomely rolled and faced blue coat and the marble volutes of his Ionic shirt-collar: it was my good friend of the cathedral. Every ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... called the Cytheria of the southern hemisphere, not only from the beauty and elegance of the women, but their being so deeply versed in, and so passionately fond of the Eleusinian mysteries; and what poetic fiction has painted of Eden, or Arcadia, is here realized, where the earth without tillage produces both food and cloathing, the trees loaded with the richest of fruit, the carpet of nature ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... part of the youths; the other half that of the maidens, and sing us Sappho's Hymenaeus. I will be the torch-bearer; that dignity is mine by right. You must know, Bartja, that my family has an hereditary right to carry the torches at the Eleusinian mysteries and we are therefore called Daduchi or torch-bearers. Ho, slave! see that the door of the andronitis is hung with flowers, and tell your comrades to meet us with a shower of sweetmeats as we enter. That's right, Melitta; why, how did you manage to get those lovely violet ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the Fascination of the Exception. So soon as the exception becomes, instead of merely proving, the rule, that particular avenue of romance is closed. The New Woman of the future will be the woman with the petticoats, she who shall restore the ancient Eleusinian mysteries of the silk skirt ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... introduce the Christian faith to one who believed and took part in the Eleusinian cult of Demeter? (Cf. 1 Corinthians and St Paul's method of dealing with a similar situation, and notice the things he stresses—e.g. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... he rapped. "We are dealing, remember, with the Si-Fan, which, if I am not mistaken, is a sort of Eleusinian Mystery holding some kind of dominion over the eastern mind, and boasting initiates throughout the Orient. It is almost certain that there is an Egyptian branch, or group—call it what you will—of the ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... present century is not propitious of any changes. Against all intrusion upon its rites, the physiological laboratory in England and America maintains as successful an opposition as ever characterized the Eleusinian mysteries of the pagan world. No laboratory—so far as known—dares to invite inspection at any hour, even from men of the highest personal character, and leave them free to reveal or to publicly criticize whatever ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... movements. We shall now ask our readers to follow us out into these movements themselves,—that, as before we saw how the world is centred in each human soul, we may now see how each soul develops itself in the world; for thither it is that the ever-widening cycles of the Eleusinian ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Valentinians as observed by themselves (adv. Valent. 1). "Valentiniani nihil magis curant quam occultare, quod praedicant; si tamen praedicant qui occultant. Custodiae officium conscientiae officium est (a comparison with the Eleusinian mysteries follows.) Si bona fide quaeras, concreto vultu, suspenso supercilio, Altum est, aiunt. Si subtiliter temptes per ambiguitates bilingues communem fidem adfirmant. Si scire te subostendas negant quidquid agnoscunt. Si cominus certes, tuam simplicitatem sua caede dispergunt. Ne discipulis ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... was the birth-place of Astronomy; and we still mark the constellations as they were arranged by Egyptian shepherds. The wisest of the Grecian philosophers, among whom were Solon, Pythagoras and Plato, went there for instruction, as our young men now go to England and Germany. The Eleusinian mysteries were introduced from Egypt; and the important secret which they taught, is supposed to have been the existence of one, invisible God. A large portion of Grecian mythology was thence derived; ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... was evidently making a desperate effort to reinforce her statement; but accuracy of detail was not her strongest point. At length she began in a deep murmur: "Surely they used to do something of the kind at the Eleusinian mysteries—" ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... to Syria and Egypt, and on his return to Italy through Athens he was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. It was the practice of the emperor to conform to the established rites of the age, and to perform religious ceremonies with due solemnity. We cannot conclude from this that he was a superstitious man, though we might perhaps do so if his book did not show that he was not. But that is ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... the great instances of Homer and Hesiod, who not only tell lies but bad lies; stories about Uranus and Saturn, which are immoral as well as false, and which should never be spoken of to young persons, or indeed at all; or, if at all, then in a mystery, after the sacrifice, not of an Eleusinian pig, but of some unprocurable animal. Shall our youth be encouraged to beat their fathers by the example of Zeus, or our citizens be incited to quarrel by hearing or seeing representations of strife among ...
— The Republic • Plato
... favour, or anything but strict justice;" yet before lovers his genius stands rebuked, and they alone find him neither implacable nor relentless. Wherefore although, my friend, it is an excellent thing to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, yet I see that the votaries and initiated of Love have a better time of it in Hades than they have, * *[114] though in regard to legendary lore I stand in the position of one who neither altogether believes nor altogether disbelieves. For legendary lore speaks well, and by a ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... ethics of Christianity it was,—new ethics and unintelligible, in a degree as yet but little understood, to the old pagan nations,—which furnished the rudder, or guidance, for a human revolution; but the mysteries of Christianity it was,—new Eleusinian shows, presenting God under a new form and aspect, presenting man under a new relation to God,—which furnished the oars and sails, the moving forces, for the advance of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... speculation and at mastering the secrets of the world. In these chapters regions are visited which scholars have usually neglected or ignored. It may seem strange to seek the origins of Apollo, and of the renowned Eleusinian Mysteries, in the tales and rites of the Bora and the Nanga; in the beliefs and practices of Pawnees and Larrakeah, Yao and Khond. But these tribes, too, are human, and what they now or lately were, the remote ancestors of the Greeks must once have ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... title) greeting him with prolonged croakings. Approaching Pluto's Palace in fear and trembling, he knocks timidly at the gate. Being presently admitted, he finds a contest on the point of being held before the King of Hades and the Initiates of the Eleusinian Mysteries, who form the Second Chorus, between Aeschylus, the present occupant of the throne of tragic excellence in hell, and the pushing, self-satisfied, upstart Euripides, who is for ousting him ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... the strains of the Hallelujah* of the Hebrews (* L'Escarbot, Charlevoix, and even Adair (Hist. of the American Indians 1775).); as, according to the Pundits, the three sacred words of the mysteries of the Eleusis* (konx om pax) resound still in the Indies. (* Asiat. Res. volume 5, Ouvaroff on the Eleusinian Mysteries 1816.) I do not mean to suggest, that the nations of Latin Europe may have called whatever has a foreign physiognomy Hebrew or Biscayan, as for a long time all those monuments were called Egyptian, which were not in the Grecian or Roman style. I am rather disposed ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... hollow valley in which this monastic habitation is situated, the road sharply turns round an elbow of the mountain, and the Eleusinian plain opens immediately in front. It is, however, for a plain, but of small dimensions. On the left is the Island of Salamis, and the straits where the battle was fought; but neither of it nor of the mysteries for which ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt |
