Summary
Summary of The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites
Key ideas
Key idea 1
A festival promised hope beyond death
At Eleusis, a town near Athens, a secret religious festival endured for about two thousand years. Dudley Wright gathers accounts from ancient writers to explore its myth, its ceremonies and the people who took part. His central concern is what those people hoped to gain.
The answer leads from Demeter and her lost daughter to a procession and a promise of a better fate after death. These connected elements make the mysteries a way of approaching both religious practice and human hopes.
Key idea 2
Loss and return shape the rites
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Key idea 3
Initiation followed a shared sacred path
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Key idea 4
The secret ceremony offered new hope
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Key idea 5
The rites left an enduring question
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Key idea 6
Myth and ritual addressed death together
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Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers drawn to Greek myth, ancient religion and secret societies will enjoy this book, as will anyone curious about how people once faced death and how thinkers like Plato and Plutarch read the rites.
What this book is
The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites is a study by Dudley Wright, a writer who died in 1949, of the most honored religious festival of ancient Greece. Each autumn, crowds walked from Athens to the town of Eleusis to be initiated into rites that promised hope in life and in death. Wright gathers what ancient authors, inscriptions and later scholars tell us about the story behind the rites, the priests who ran them, the days of the festival and the steps of initiation.
Because initiates swore silence, much was never set down plainly. Wright therefore pieces the picture together from poets, philosophers, orators and travellers, from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter to Cicero and Plutarch. You will meet a goddess who stops the harvest, a priest whose name is thrown into the sea, an emperor who is turned away at the door, and a philosophy that calls ordinary life a kind of sleep. Let us begin with the myth at the root of it all.
In this summary
- 1A mother's grief ends the harvestFree
- 2The tale has many versions and wide reach
- 3Two festivals and a hereditary priesthood
- 4Ten days of purification and torchlight
- 5Initiation demanded purity, silence and nerve
- 6The rites teach that life is a sleep
Key point 1 of 6
A mother's grief ends the harvest
The book opens with the legend that stands behind the rites. Persephone, also called Kore or Proserpine, is picking flowers when Pluto, lord of the dead, carries her off to his gloomy home. Zeus, her father and Pluto's brother, has agreed to the deed. Her mother Demeter arrives too late to see who took her. For nine nights and days she wanders with a torch in her hand, and no god or human will tell her the truth.
At last the sun god Helios names the abductor. Furious with Zeus, Demeter leaves Olympos and walks the earth disguised as an old woman. She reaches Eleusis, where King Keleos and his wife Metanira welcome her and ask her to care for their newborn son Demophon. She plans to make the child immortal. By day she anoints him with ambrosia, and by night she lays him in the fire like a burning brand.
Metanira catches her at it, and the goddess has to show who she is. She orders the people to build a temple and promises to teach them rites that will win her favor. Yet her grief does not ease. She makes the earth barren for a whole year. The oxen pull the plow and seed is sown, but nothing grows, so humanity faces ruin and the gods lose their offerings.
Zeus finally sends Hermes to Pluto with an order to give Persephone back. Pluto agrees, but he offers her four pomegranate seeds to eat before she goes. Demeter's first question is whether her daughter has tasted food below. Because of the seeds, Persephone must spend four months of each year with Pluto and eight with her mother. Demeter brings the fields back to life and teaches the princes of Eleusis her sacred rites, forbidding anyone to speak of them.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Check yourself
Which myth gives the mysteries their central pattern?
Right. “The mysteries rest on the myth of Demeter, goddess of grain, and her daughter Persephone.”Not quite. “The mysteries rest on the myth of Demeter, goddess of grain, and her daughter Persephone.”
What distinguished participation in the mysteries from many civic cults?
Right. “Anyone who spoke Greek and had clean hands could take part, including women and slaves.”Not quite. “Anyone who spoke Greek and had clean hands could take part, including women and slaves.”
What benefit did ancient writers say initiates gained from the rites?
Right. “They say that initiates went home with better hope for death and a gladder sense of life.”Not quite. “They say that initiates went home with better hope for death and a gladder sense of life.”
Questions about The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites
What were the Eleusinian Mysteries?
They were the yearly religious festival of ancient Greece, held at Eleusis near Athens in honor of Demeter and Persephone. Candidates were purified, fasted, joined processions and passed through degrees of initiation that promised hope for the soul after death.
What is the myth of Demeter and Persephone about?
Pluto carries Persephone to the underworld, and her mother Demeter stops the harvest in grief. Persephone returns but must spend part of each year below because she ate pomegranate seeds. The tale explains the seasons and gave the rites their meaning.
What did the hierophant do?
The hierophant was the chief priest, chosen for life from the Eumolpides family. He directed the initiation, instructed the teachers of candidates, entered the innermost shrine alone and showed the sacred objects. His personal name was never spoken.
Why were the Mysteries kept secret?
Initiates swore silence, and breaking it brought severe punishment. Ancient writers say the secrecy guarded holy things from contact with the unclean, and some claim it also protected a teaching about the gods that the state did not wish to spread.
What does the ear of corn mean in the Eleusinian rites?
According to Hippolytus, an ear of corn shown in silence was the great sight of the highest degree. It is linked to grain, to Demeter's gift of agriculture and to the idea of life springing again from the buried seed.
