ABSTRACT
In the last chapter we were concerned with religious associa tions which were founded and organised by private individuals, which to the end remained as they had been from the begin ning in the hands of private individuals, and so may be called “ private mysteries.” But there also arose in Greece, as a consequence of the wave of revivalism which spread over that country in the sixth century B.C., “ public mysteries,” and it is of importance that the meaning of the term “ public” in this connection should be clearly understood. The term does not imply that these mysteries were more widely open to the general public than the “ private ” mysteries were: both alike were open to all who chose to go through the ceremony of initiation. Nor does the distinction consist merely in the fact that more persons availed them selves of the permission in the one case than in the other; for, though it is true as a matter of fact that a greater number did go to the “ public” mysteries, yet that was simply because they were more widely known, and their wider fame was due to the fact that they were under the management of some famous State. This, however, indicates that in some cases the State’s attitude towards the new movement was not one merely of tolerance but one of actual participation: for some reason or other the State adopted the new principle of initiation, fivTjaw, instead of the old principle of birthright, of citizenship, as the qualification for admission to the worship of the State gods. Now, this was a violation of all the traditional ideas, according to which none but the members of a tribe or state would be listened to by the gods of that state or tribe, and the human members of the
community were as jealous as the divine of strangers. It is therefore important to note that it was only in the case of one State, Athens, that the sixth century wave of revivalism broke through this jealous exclusiveness-though in after years other States imitated Athens-and it was only one cult in that State which was thus thrown open to all Greeks, bond or free, men or women. The worship of Demeter in Eleusis became a “ mystery,” i.e. was thrown open to all who chose to become initiated, become mystce, but the worship of the same goddess elsewhere, e.g. at the Athenian Thesmophoria, was not thrown open thus.
