DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0405
382
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. XIII-
destinies of the human soul were there made known to
the votaries ; while on the other hand strong partisans
of revealed as opposed to natural religion have declined
to credit the inner doctrines of Paganism with noble
thoughts or lofty aspirations, and have revolted, like
the Fathers of the Christian Church, against the crude
imagery and obscene-sounding myths connected with the
Eleusinian festival.
The learned and critical work of Lobeck, Aglaophamus,
published some half century ago, finally disposed of the
views of those who would see in the Mysteries a great
repository of religious truth laid up there as in an ark of
safety ; but on the other hand this writer carries his nega-
tions too far and forgets that it is not fair to judge of
the inner value of religious ceremonies from their outward
show. We want to know not only what took place at
Eleusis but what the mystae thought and felt, and this is
lost beyond recovery. But we have more materials than
had Lobeck. His material was gathered almost entirely
from the statements of early Christian writers who at-
tacked, and their Pagan opponents who defended, the
Eleusinian rites. We now possess two or three impor-
tant inscriptions which relate to them.* The testimony
of vases has also some weight. And much truth has
been fairly sifted out by the careful labours of scholars
skilled in the critical methods of modern times; in
particular by Preller and August Mommsen in Germany,
and Guigniaut and F. Lenormant in France, who have
succeeded in dispelling many illusions and representing
the subject, not indeed in detail, but in broad masses
of light and shade. The excavations at Eleusis, too,
begun by the English Society of Dilettanti, continued
by the French School of Athens, and recently com-
* Dittenberger's Sylloge, 384-387. See also the important inscrip-
tion from Andania, published by Sauppe.
New Chapters in Greek History. [Chap. XIII-
destinies of the human soul were there made known to
the votaries ; while on the other hand strong partisans
of revealed as opposed to natural religion have declined
to credit the inner doctrines of Paganism with noble
thoughts or lofty aspirations, and have revolted, like
the Fathers of the Christian Church, against the crude
imagery and obscene-sounding myths connected with the
Eleusinian festival.
The learned and critical work of Lobeck, Aglaophamus,
published some half century ago, finally disposed of the
views of those who would see in the Mysteries a great
repository of religious truth laid up there as in an ark of
safety ; but on the other hand this writer carries his nega-
tions too far and forgets that it is not fair to judge of
the inner value of religious ceremonies from their outward
show. We want to know not only what took place at
Eleusis but what the mystae thought and felt, and this is
lost beyond recovery. But we have more materials than
had Lobeck. His material was gathered almost entirely
from the statements of early Christian writers who at-
tacked, and their Pagan opponents who defended, the
Eleusinian rites. We now possess two or three impor-
tant inscriptions which relate to them.* The testimony
of vases has also some weight. And much truth has
been fairly sifted out by the careful labours of scholars
skilled in the critical methods of modern times; in
particular by Preller and August Mommsen in Germany,
and Guigniaut and F. Lenormant in France, who have
succeeded in dispelling many illusions and representing
the subject, not indeed in detail, but in broad masses
of light and shade. The excavations at Eleusis, too,
begun by the English Society of Dilettanti, continued
by the French School of Athens, and recently com-
* Dittenberger's Sylloge, 384-387. See also the important inscrip-
tion from Andania, published by Sauppe.