{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/ebm/ebm11.htm","path":"cla/ebm/ebm11.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/ebm/ebm11.htm","text":"The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, by Thomas Taylor, [1891]\nAporrheta, Greek \u03b1\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u1fe5\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u2014The instructions given by the hierophant or interpreter in the Eleusinian Mysteries, not to be disclosed on pain of death. There was said to be a synopsis of them in the petroma or two stone tablets, which, it is said, were bound together in the form of a book.\nApostatise\u2014To fall or descend, as the spiritual part of the soul is said to descend from its divine home to the world of nature.\nCathartic\u2014Purifying. The term was used by the Platonists and others in connection with the ceremonies of purification before initiation, also to the corresponding performance of rites and duties which renewed the moral life. The cathartic virtues were the duties and mode of living, which conduced to that end. The phrase is used but once or twice in this edition.\nCause\u2014The agent by which things are generated or produced.\nCirculation\u2014The peculiar spiral motion or progress by which the spiritual nature or \u201cintellect\u201d descended from the divine region of the universe into the world of sense.\nCogitative\u2014Relating to the understanding: dianoetic.\nConjecture, or Opinion\u2014A mental conception that can be changed by argument.\nCor\u00e9\u2014A name of Ceres or Demeter, applied by the Orphic and later writers to her daughter Persephon\u00e9 or Proserpina. She was supposed to typify the spiritual nature which was abducted\nCor\u00e9\u2014continued.\n by Hades or Pluto into the Underworld, the figure signifying the apostasy or descent of the soul from the higher life to the material body.\nCorically\u2014After the manner of Proserpina, i. e., as if descending into death from the supernal world.\nD\u00e6mon\u2014A designation of a certain class of divinities. Different authors employ the term differently. Hesiod regards them as the souls of the men who lived in the Golden Age, now acting as guardian or tutelary spirits. Socrates, in the Cratylus, says \u201cthat d\u00e6mon is a term denoting wisdom, and that every good man is d\u00e6monian, both while living and when dead, and is rightly called a d\u00e6mon.\u201d His own attendant spirit that checked him whenever he endeavored to do what he might not, was styled his D\u00e6mon. Iamblichus places D\u00e6mons in the second order of spiritual existence.\u2014Cleanthes, in his celebrated Hymn, styles Zeus \u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd (daimon).\nDemiurgus\u2014The creator. It was the title of the; chief-magistrate in several Grecian States, and in this work is applied to Zeus or Jupiter, or the Ruler of the Universe. The latter Platonists, and more especially the Gnostics, who regarded matter as constituting or containing the principle of Evil, sometimes applied this term to the Evil Potency, who, some of them affirmed, was the Hebrew God.\nDistributed\u2014Reduced from a whole to parts and scattered. The spiritual nature or intellect in its higher estate was regarded as a whole, but in descending to worldly conditions became divided into parts or perhaps characteristics.\nDivisible\u2014Made into parts or attributes, as the mind, intellect, or spiritual, first a whole, became thus distinguished in its descent. This division was regarded as a fall into a lower plane of life.\nEnergise, Greek \u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03c9\u2014To operate or work, especially to undergo discipline of the heart and character.\nEnergy\u2014Operation, activity.\nEternal\u2014Existing through all past time, and still continuing.\nFaith\u2014The correct conception of a thing as it seems,\u2014fidelity.\nFreedom\u2014The ruling power of one\u2019s life; a power over what pertains to one\u2019s self in life.\nFriendship\u2014Union of sentiment; a communion in doing well.\nFury\u2014The peculiar mania, ardor, or enthusiasm which inspired and actuated prophets, poets, interpreters of oracles, and others; also a title of the goddesses Demeter and Persephone as the chastisers of the wicked,\u2014also of the Eumenides.\nGeneration, Greek \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2\u2014Generated existence, the mode of life peculiar to this world, but which is equivalent to death, so far as the pure intellect or spiritual nature is concerned; the process by which the soul is separated from the higher form of existence, and brought into the conditions of life upon the earth. It was regarded as a punishment, and according to Mr. Taylor, was prefigured by the abduction of Proserpina. The soul is supposed to have pre-existed with God as a pure intellect like him, but not actually identical\u2014at one but not absolutely the same.\nGood\u2014That which is desired on its own account.\nHades\u2014A name of Pluto; the Underworld, the state or region of departed souls, as understood by classic writers; the physical nature, the corporeal existence, the condition of the soul while in the bodily life.\nHerald, Greek \u03ba\u03b7\u03c1\u03c5\u03be\u2014The crier at the Mysteries.\nHierophant\u2014The interpreter who explained the purport of the mystic doctrines and dramas to the candidates.\nHoliness, Greek \u1f41\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2\u2014Attention to the honor due to God.\nIdea\u2014A principle in all minds underlying our cognitions of the sensible world.\nImprudent\u2014Without foresight; deprived of sagacity.\nInfernal regions\u2014Hades, the Underworld.\nInstruction\u2014A power to cure the soul.\nIntellect, Greek \u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u2014Also rendered pure reason, and by Professor Cocker, intuitive reason, and the rational soul; the spiritual nature. \u201cThe organ of self-evident, necessary, and universal truth. In an immediate, direct, and intuitive manner, it takes hold on truth with absolute certainty. The reason, through the medium of ideas, holds communion with the world of real Being. These ideas are the light which reveals the world of unseen realities, as the sun reveals the world of sensible forms. \u2018The Idea of the good is the Sun of the Intelligible World; it sheds on objects the light of truth, and gives to the soul that knows the power of knowing.\u2019 Under this light the eye of reason apprehends the eternal world of being as truly, yet more truly, than the eye of sense apprehends the world of phenomena. This power the rational soul possesses by virtue of its having a nature kindred, or even homogeneous with the Divinity. It was \u2018generated by the Divine Father,\u2019 and like him, it is in a certain sense \u2018eternal.\u2019 Not that we are to understand Plato as teaching that the rational soul had an independent and underived existence; it was created or \u2018generated\u2019 in eternity, and even now, in its incorporate state, is not amenable to the condition of time and space, but, in a peculiar sense, dwells in eternity: and therefore is capable of beholding eternal realities, and coming into communion with absolute beauty, and goodness, and truth\u2014that is, with God, the Absolute Being.\u201d\u2014Christianity and Greek Philosophy, x. pp. 349, 350.\nIntellective\u2014Intuitive; perceivable by spiritual insight.\nIntelligible\u2014Relating to the higher reason.\nInterpreter\u2014The hierophant or sacerdotal teacher who, on the last day of the Eleusinia, explained the petroma or stone book to the candidates, and unfolded the final meaning of the representations and symbols. In the Phoenician language he was called \u05e4\u05ea\u05e8, peter. Hence the petroma, consisting of two tablets of stone, was a pun on the designation, to imply the\nInterpreter\u2014continued.\n wisdom to be unfolded. It has been suggested by the Rev, Mr. Hyslop, that the Pope derived his claim, as the successor of Peter, from his succession to the rank and function of the Hierophant of the Mysteries, and not from the celebrated Apostle, who probably was never in Rome.\nJust\u2014Productive of Justice.\nJustice\u2014The harmony or perfect proportional action of all the powers of the soul, and comprising equity, veracity, fidelity, usefulness, benevolence, and purity of mind, or holiness.\nJudgment\u2014A peremptory decision covering a disputed matter; also \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1, dianoia, or understanding.\nKnowledge\u2014A comprehension by the mind of fact not to be overthrown or modified by argument.\nLegislative\u2014Regulating.\nLesser Mysteries\u2014The \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, teletai, or ceremonies of purification, which were celebrated at Agr\u00e6, prior to full initiation at Eleusis. Those initiated on this occasion were styled \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, myst\u00e6, from \u03bc\u03c5\u03c9, muo, to vail; and their initiation was called \u03bc\u03c5\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, muesis, or vailing, as expressive of being vailed from the former life.\nMagic\u2014Persian mag, Sanscrit maha, great. Relating to the order of the Magi of Persia and Assyria.\nMaterial d\u00e6mons\u2014Spirits of a nature so gross as to be able to assume visible bodies like individuals still living on the Earth.\nMatter\u2014The elements of the world, and especially of the human body, in which the idea of evil is contained and the soul incarcerated. Greek \u1f51\u03bb\u03b7, Hul\u00e9 or Hyl\u00e9.\nMuesis, Greek \u03bc\u03c5\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2, from \u03bc\u03c5\u03c9, to vail\u2014The last act in the Lesser Mysteries, or \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, teletai, denoting the separating of the initiate from the former exotic life.\nMysteries\u2014Sacred dramas performed at stated periods. The most celebrated were those of Isis, Sabazius, Cybel\u00e8, and Eleusis.\nMystic\u2014Relating to the Mysteries: a person initiated in the Lesser Mysteries\u2014Greek \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.\nOccult\u2014Arcane; hidden; pertaining to the mystical sense.\nOrgies, Greek \u03bf\u03c1\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9\u2014The peculiar rites of the Bacchic Mysteries.\nOpinion\u2014A hypothesis or conjecture.\nPartial\u2014Divided, in parts, and not a whole.\nPhilologist\u2014One pursuing literature.\nPhilosopher\u2014One skilled in philosophy; one disciplined in a right life.\nPhilosophise\u2014To investigate final causes; to undergo discipline of the life.\nPhilosophy\u2014The aspiration of the soul after wisdom and truth, \u201cPlato asserted philosophy to be the science of unconditioned being, and asserted that this was known to the soul by its intuitive reason (intellect or spiritual instinct) which is the organ of all philosophic insight. The reason perceives substance; the understanding, only phenomena. Being (\u03c4\u03bf \u03bf\u03bd), which is the reality in all actuality, is in the ideas or thoughts of God; and nothing exists (or appears outwardly), except by the force of this indwelling idea. The word is the true expression of the nature of every object: for each has its divine and natural name, besides its accidental human appellation. Philosophy is the recollection of what the soul has seen of things and their names.\u201d (J. Freeman Clarke.)\nPlotinus\u2014A philosopher who lived in the Third Century, and revived the doctrines of Plato.\nPrudent\u2014Having foresight.\nPurgation, purification\u2014The introduction into the Telet\u00e6 or Lesser Mysteries; a separation of the external principles from the soul.\nPunishment\u2014The curing of the soul of its errors.\nProphet, Greek \u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2,\u2014One possessing the prophetic mania, or inspiration.\nPriest\u2014Greek \u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b9\u03c2\u2014A prophet or inspired person, \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b5\u03c5\u03c2\u2014a sacerdotal person.\nRevolt\u2014A rolling away, the career of the soul in its descent from the pristine divine condition.\nScience\u2014The knowledge of universal, necessary, unchangeable, and eternal ideas.\nShows\u2014The peculiar dramatic representations of the Mysteries.\nTelet\u00e9, Greek \u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03c4\u03b7\u2014The finishing or consummation; the Lesser Mysteries.\nTheologist\u2014A teacher of the literature relating to the gods.\nTheoretical\u2014Perceptive.\nTorch bearer\u2014A priest who bore a torch at the Mysteries.\nTitans\u2014The beings who made war against Kronos or Saturn. E. Pococke identifies them with the Daityas of India, who resisted the Brahmans. In the Orphic legend, they are described as slaying the child Bacchus-Zagreus.\nTitanic\u2014Relating to the nature of Titans.\nTransmigration\u2014The passage of the soul from one condition of being to another. This has not any necessary reference to any rehabilitation in a corporeal nature, or body of flesh and blood. See I Corinthians, XV.\nVirtue\u2014A good mental condition; a stable disposition.\nVirtues\u2014Agencies, rites, influences. Cathartic Virtues\u2014Purifying rites or influences.\nWisdom\u2014The knowledge of things as they exist; \u201cthe approach to God as the substance of goodness in truth.\u201d\nWorld\u2014The cosmos, the universe, as distinguished from the earth and human existence upon it.\nEleusinian Priest and Assistants.","title":"The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: Glossary","type":"page"}