Nile; the powerful effect produced upon tlmm is attested by many evidences, but especially by the interesting narrative of Herodotus. Now the Egyptian ceremonies were at once more licentious, and more profuse in the outpouring both of joy and sorrow, than the Greek:[1] but a still greater difference sprang from the extraordinary power, separate mode of life, minute observances, and elaborate organization, of the priesthood. The ceremonies of Egypt were multitudinous, but the legends concerning them were framed by the priests, and as a general rule, seemingly, known to the priests alone: at least they were not intended to be publicly talked of, even by pious men. They were "holy stories," which it was sacrilege publicly to mention, and which from this very prohibition only took firmer hold of the minds of the Greek visitors who heard them. And thus the element of secrecy and mystic silence—foreign to Homer, and only faintly glanced at in Hesiod—if it was not originally derived from Egypt, at least received from thence its greatest stimulus and diffusion. The character of the legends themselves was naturally affected by this change from publicity to secrecy: the secrets when revealed would be such as to justify by their own tenor the interdict on public divulgation: instead of being adapted, like the Homeric mythe, to the universal sympathies and hearty interest of a crowd of hearers, they would derive their impressiveness from the tragical, mournful, extravagant, or terror-striking character of the incidents.[2] Such a tendency, which appears explicable and probable even on general grounds, was in this particular case rendered still more certain by the coarse taste of the Egyptian priests. That any recondite doctrine, religious or philosophical, was attached to the mysteries or contained in the holy stories,
- ↑ Ægyptiaca numina fere plangoribus gaudent, Græca plerumque chor cis, barbara autem strepitu cymbalistarum et tympanistarum et choraularum." (Apuleius, De Genio Socratis, v. ii. p. 149, Oudend).
- ↑ The legend of Dionysos and Prosymnos, as it stands in Clemens, could never have found place in an epic poem (Admonit. ad Gent. p. 22, Sylb.). Compare page 11 of the same work, where however he so confounds together Phrygian, Bacchic, and Eleusinian mysteries, that one cannot distinguish them apart.
Demetrius Phalereus says about the legends belonging to these ceremonies—Διὸ καὶ τὰ μυστήρια λέγεται ἐν ἀλληγορίαις πρὸς ἔκπληξιν καὶ φρίκην, ὥσπερ ἐν σκότῳ καὶ νυκτί. (De Interpretatione, c. 101).
