mentioned, are proofs of it. The Grecian artist was secure against anything similar to this, when their gods had become not merely physical but human moral beings. He never could have thought of representing a Jupiter or Juno with ten arms; he would have destroyed his own work by offending the religious popular notions. Hence he was forced to remain true to the pure human figure, and was thus brought very near the step which was to raise him still higher and give ideal beauty to his images. That step he would probably have taken without assistance; but the previous labors of the poets made it more natural and more easy. Phidias found in Homer the idea of his Olympian Jupiter; and the most sublime image in human shape which, time has spared to us, the Apollo of the Vatican, may be traced to the same origin.

Besides the popular religion, Greece possessed also a religion of the initiated, preserved in the mysteries. Whatever we may think of these institutions, and whatever idea we may form of them, no one can doubt that they were of a religious nature. They must then have necessarily stood in a certain relation to the religion of a people; but we shall not be able to explain, with any degree of probability, the nature of that relation, until we trace them to their origin.

We must preface this inquiry with a general remark. All the mysteries of the Greeks, as far as we are acquainted with them, were introduced from abroad; and we can still point out the origin of most of them. Ceres had long wandered over the earth before she was received at Eleusis, and erected there her sanctuary. Her secret rites at the Thesmophoria, according to the account of Herodotus, were first introduced by Danaus, who brought them from Egypt to the Peleponnesus. Whether the rites of Orpheus and Bacchus originally belonged to the Thracians or the Egyptians, they certainly came from abroad. Those of the Curetes and the Pactyli originated in Crete.

It has often been said, that these institutions suffered in process of time many and great alterations; that they commonly dege

nerated; or, to speak more correctly, that the Grecians accommodated them to themselves. It was not possible for them to preserve among the Greeks the same character which they had among other nations. And here we are induced to ask: What were they originally? How were they introduced and preserved in Greece? And in what relation did they stand to the popular religion?

The answer to these questions is contained in the remarks which we have already made on the transformation and appropriation of foreign gods by the Greeks. Most of those gods, if not all of them, were received as symbolical, physical beings; the poets made of them moral agents; and as such they appear in the religion of the people.

The symbolical meaning would have been lost if no means had been provided to ensure its preservation. The mysteries, it seems, afforded such means. Their great end, therefore, was, to preserve the knowledge of the peculiar attributes of those divinities which had been incorporated into the popular religion under new forms; what powers and objects of nature they represented; how these, and how the universe came into being; in a word, cosmogonies, like that contained in the Orphic doctrines. But this knowledge, though it was preserved by oral instruction, was perpetrated no less by symbolical representations and usages; which, at least in part, consisted of those sacred traditions and fables of which we have already made mention. "In the temple of Sais," says Herodotus, "representations are given by night of the adventures of the goddess; and these are called by the Egyptians, mysteries; of which, however, I will relate no more. It was from thence that these mysteries were introduced into Greece." Admitting this even to be the chief design of the mysteries, it does not follow that it was the only one. Indeed, it is very probable that, in the progress of time, great variety of representations may have arisen in the mysteries; their original meaning might perhaps be gradually and entirely lost, and another be introduced in its stead.

Those passages may therefore be very easily explained, which import that the mysteries, as has been particularly asserted of those of Eleusis, exhibited the superiority of civilized over savage life, and gave instructions respecting a future life and its nature. For what was this more than an interpretation of the sacred traditions which were told of the goddess, as the instructress in agriculture, of the forced descent of her daughter to the lower world, &c. And we need not be more astonished, if in some of their sacred rites we perceive an excitement carried to the borders of that enthusiastic frenzy, which belonged indeed peculiarly to the east, but which the Greeks were not unwilling to adopt. For we must not omit to bear in mind that they shared the spirit of the east ; living as they did on the boundary line between the east and west. As those institutions were propagated further to the west they lost their original character. We know what the Bacchanalian rites became at Rome; and had they been introduced north of the Alps, what form would they have there assumed? To those countries it was indeed possible to transplant the vine, but not the service of the god to whom the vine was sacred. The orgies of Bacchus were equally unsuited to the cold soil and inclement forests of the north, and to the character of its inhabitants.

The secret doctrines which were taught in the mysteries, may have degenerated into mere forms and an unmeaning ritual. And yet the mysteries exercised a great influence on the spirit of the nation, not of the initiated only, but also of the great mass of the people; and perhaps they influenced the latter still more than the former. They preserved the reverence for sacred things; and this gave them their political importance. They produced that effect better than any modern secret societies have been able to do. The mysteries had their secrets, but not everything connected with them was secret. They had, like those of Eleusis, their public festivals, processions, and pilgrimages; in which none but the initiated took a part, but of which no one was prohibited from being a spectator. Whilst the multitude were permitted to gaze at them, they learned to believe, that

something sublimer than anything which they knew was revealed to the initiated; and while the value of that sublimer knowledge did not consist in secresy alone, it did not lose any of its value by being concealed.

Thus, the popular religion and the secret doctrines, although always distinguished from each other, united in serving to curb the people. The condition and the influence of religion on a nation are always closely connected with the situation of those persons who are particularly appointed for the service of the gods, the priests. The regulations of the Greeks concerning them deserve the more attention, since many unimportant subjects of Grecian antiquities have been treated with an almost disproportionate expense of industry and erudition: but with respect to the priesthood of the nation, we are as yet left without an investigation corresponding to the importance of the subject. The very abundance of matter renders it the more difficult, for very little can be expressed in general terms, and many dangers were brought about by time.

During the heroic age, we learn from Homer, that there were priests, who seem to have devoted themselves exclusively to that vocation. We readily call to mind Calchas, Chryses, and others. But even in that age, such priests appear but seldom; and it does not appear that their influence over the rest of the people was considerable. The sacred rites in honor of the gods were not performed by them alone; they were not even required at the public solemnities. The generals and commanders themselves offer their sacrifices, perform the prayers, and observe the signs which indicated the result of an enterprise. In a word, kings and generals were at the same time priests.

Traces of these very ancient regulations were preserved for a long time among the Greeks. The second archon at Athens, who presided at the public ceremonies of worship, was called the king, because he had to prepare the sacred rites, which were formerly regulated by the kings. He had his assistants; and it was necessary for his wife to be of irreproachable character, as

she also had secret religious services to perform. He was, however, like the other archons, annually appointed, and the election was by lot. The priests and priestesses of the several divinities were for the most part chosen by vote. But the priestesses could be married, and the priests seem by no means to have been excluded by their station from participating in the offices and occupations of the citizens. There were some sacerdotal offices, which were hereditary in certain families. But the number of them seems to have been inconsiderable. In Athens, the Eumolpidæ possessed the privilege that the hierophant, or first director of the Eleusinian rites, as well as the other three, should be taken from his family. But the place of hierophant could not be obtained except by a person of advanced years; and those other offices were probably not occupied during life, but frequently assigned anew. How far the same was true in other cases is but seldom related. At Delphi, the first of the Greek oracles, the Pythian priestess was chosen from among the women of the city, and was cut off from all intercourse with men. It is hardly probable, from the violent exertions connected with the delivery of the oracles, that the same person could long fill the place. Here, as elsewhere, people were appointed for the service without the temple, and were even educated within its limits. But the service within the temple was performed by the most considerable citizens of Delphi, who were chosen by lot. The sanctuary of Dodona, where the responses of the oracle were made, as at Delphi and in other temples, by priestesses, seems to have belonged to the family of the Selli, of which Homer makes mention; but we have no particular accounts respecting the family.

The regulations respecting priests, proposed by Plato in his laws, show most clearly, that the ideas of the Greeks required that the offices of priests should not long be filled by the same persons. "Let the election of the priests," says he, "be committed to the god, by referring the appointment to lot; those on whom the lot falls must submit to an examination. But each priesthood shall be filled for one year, and no longer, by the same