the flood, gave occasion to a mistaken notion of the pre-existence of the soul, for which Plato has endeavoured to account in his Phædo, by very absurd and inconclusive arguments. Some of the conjectures upon the state of the soul are there professed to be drawn in the way of inference from the лa and the vóμμa, by which I presume we must understand the mysteries and the popular religion of his country; and, I doubt not, the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul was meant to be included amongst these inferences. That it formed a part of what was taught in } the Eleusinian mysteries we know from a fragment of Cicero, preserved by Augustine (lib. iv. contra Pelagium), which is thus given, p. 403. vol. iii. Ed. Oxon. 4to. 1783. 66 "Ex quibus humanæ vitæ erroribus et ærumnis fit, ut "interdum veteres illi sive vates, sive in sacris initiisque tra"dendis divinæ mentis interpretes, qui nos ob aliqua scelera "suscepta in vita superiore, poenarum luendarum causa natos "esse dixerunt, aliquid vidisse videantur; verumque sit illud, quod est apud Aristotelem, simili nos affectos esse supplicio, " atque eos, qui quondam, cum in prædonum Etruscorum manus incidissent, crudelitate excogitatâ necabantur; quorum corpora " viva cum mortuis, adversa adversis accommodata quam aptissimè colligabantur: ita nostros animos cum corporibus copulatos, ut " vivos cum mortuis esse conjunctos." 66 Here it is shown that those who conducted the mysteries taught a previous state of existence, and a state also of degradation resulting from sin; and from a passage in the Phædo, it appears that in consequence of the latter the mysteries were considered necessary for cleansing and spiritualising every individual. A consideration of the vignette prefixed to this last chapter, taken from one of the Townley terra cottas in the British Museum, will, I apprehend, afford a consistent and rational explanation of the origin of the opinion, that the soul had existed in a previous state, and of Socrates's or Plato's doctrine of reminiscences. This monument represents a figure on the lotus with the body and limbs of an infant, feeble, and leaning for support on two perpendicular tendrils of the plant; but the head is that of an old man, expressing in the most evident manner a notion of a previous state, and of regeneration from water. The renovation of the animal and vegetable creation is represented by the composite figures in a state of rest on either side. In fact, the sculptured monuments of the ancient Greeks and Romans are full of allusions to the Noachic Deluge. The tradition of the patriarch having lived in the old world which had preceded that event, and having been, as it were, born again in the new, imperfectly preserved, led to the supposition, that the same had been the case with every individual. So that, although occasional reference is made in their monuments to the operation of the Divine Spirit on the primary chaotic fluid, yet the two circumstances were blended together; and I know not how the allusions to water in the construction of the Egyptian temples can be explained, if not by reference to these important events. For if the use of the temple was to express therein gratitude to the Deity for the preservation of mankind, what greater act of temporal mercy can we suppose them to have experienced in the early part of their history, than this preservation from water? It would naturally follow, that if the buildings erected for offering prayer and praise admitted any ornament or devices, these would be records of the mercies they had experienced. The Egyptian temples in fact record them. But the renovation of a world submerged was viewed as another creation; accordingly the Divine Spirit, symbolised as the orb of light, is represented on the cornice of these temples, extending its wings, and hovering over the columns of reeds swathed together at intervals, while the foliage of the capitals, elevated above these columns, marked where life had been borne aloft, and to what depth the waters had prevailed. The boasted philosophy of Thales was no more than a publication of these doctrines in Greece, where they had been long preserved, in secret, at Eleusis. The Ionic order of architecture attested the opinions of Thales; but the same had been more simply and strongly expressed in the earlier Doric. * That these traditions had come down in very gradual succession we may believe from the regular order in which the mysteries may be traced in Greece through Eumolpus up to Orpheus, and from him to certain personages called Cabirs, or the powerful ones. These Cabirs are to be found in other countries, though differing in point of number; for they were four in Greece, with allusion to the number of males preserved in the patriarchal family; seven in Egypt and India, as the colonists of the renewed earth under the instructions of the patriarch, who completed the Ogdoad. Thus all these countries equally derived revealed truths from the purest sources, but in the course of time they variously disfigured and disguised them. The real history of these Cabirs is thus expressed by a genuine poet, in a very elegant little essay, which has been hitherto withheld from the public: "To Shinaar from the East Japhet, Shem, Ham-the three Curetes came, Hence the Cabirs of Samothrace were supposed to have the We further learn, from the fragment of Cicero, that a state of degradation, the consequence of sin, was taught in the mysteries; * See observations in the Appendix. + See animadv. in Athenæum, lib. x. p. 715. Ed. Casaub. 7 and it is observable that it had reference to sin committed in a state of pre-existence: and it appears to have been a principal object in the mysteries, to purify the soul by way of qualifying it for a future state. To this effect Socrates, in the Phædo, observes:-"The probabilities seem to be, that the founders of our "mysteries were not much out in their conjecture; nay, that what "they implied of old by ænigma was a real truth, that those who go to Hades, uninitiated and unspiritualised, will abide there in "filth, but the purified and the perfected, upon arriving there, will " inhabit with the gods."-P. 195. Ed. Forster. 66 The purification offered in the mysteries must have formed the concluding as well as the introductory part of them; and so much, indeed, is implied by the etymology of the word TEλET; for, as únos, or initiation, in the lesser mysteries, was the first rite, the TλT, in the greater mysteries, was the perfectory or concluding one. That a higher degree of purification followed the scenic exhibitions, which were considered only as shadows or faint images of doctrines, designed to entertain as well as to instruct, I collect from the Phædo: and here I cannot refrain from expressing my opinion, that the sentiments and speculations proposed in that dialogue were those entertained by Plato himself, and are by him only fictitiously ascribed to Socrates. I believe too, from the actual mention of the mysteries in some passages, and from apparent slight reference to them in others, that Plato, while he would have abstained from reporting the symbols, and the means by which the doctrines of the mysteries were inculcated, was less scrupulous in discussing the principles conveyed in them, which he uttered in safety, screening himself under the character of an upright man, against whom malevolence had already done its worst. But to revert to what I had suggested respecting purification, the passage on which I ground my conjecture, abovementioned, is the following: "In a word, that is real virtue, "which is accompanied with wisdom, independent of pleasures, "fears and the like; for when virtue is not inwardly received and 66 felt, but proceeds from interested motives, may it not be viewed "as a kind of shadow painting, servile, unreal, and unsound? But "true virtue purifies from all this; for temperance, justice, manli66 ness, and wisdom itself may be considered a kind of purification.' Here allusion is made to the Exıaygapia, or, as I suspect, to the scenes of the Eleusinian shows, which are treated as unsubstantial instruction received by the eye, and where the pleasure or the pain of the representation rather affected the spectator, than the meaning of the things represented; and it leads me to believe that something really of a nature to elevate and spiritualise the minds of the Epoptæ, and possibly of a moral tendency, was enforced after the close of the exhibition. But whatever were the means of purification provided in the mysteries, it is admitted that they were not generally efficacious; for Plato cites the ministers of these perfectory rites for the assertion, that they had many more thyrsus-bearers than individuals deserving the name of Bacchus: Εἰσὶ γὰρ δὴ, φασὶν οἱ περὶ τὰς τελετάς, ναρθηκοφόροι μὲν πολλοὶ, βάκχοι δέ γε παῦροι. γε παῦροι. — Ibid. p. 195. The thyrsus was formed of the vágŷn, or ferule plant. In the pith of it, which was used as a slow match, Prometheus was fabled to have concealed the fire he had stolen from Heaven. The meaning of the expression is, therefore, that in the mysteries there were many initiated who had a capacity for spiritual and heavenly purity, but few were properly disposed to receive it, so that a very small number arrived to a state of perfection resembling Bacchus, who, as Passeri suggested, was "totus igneus et fulgidus." * Καὶ ξυλλήβδην ἀληθὴς ἀρετὴ μετὰ φρονήσεως, καὶ προσγιγνομένων καὶ ἀπογιγνομένων καὶ ἡδονῶν καὶ φόβων, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων πάντων τῶν τοιέτων χωριζόμενα δὲ φρονήσεως, καὶ ἀλλαττόμενα ἀντὶ ἀλλήλων, μὴ σκιαγραφία τὶς ᾗ ἡ τοιαύτη ἀρετὴ, καὶ τῷ ὄντι ἀνδραποδώδης τε, καὶ οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς οὐδ ̓ ἀληθὲς ἔχῃ, τὸ δ' ἀληθὲς τῷ ὄντι ᾖ κάθαρσίς τις τῶν τοιύτων πάντων· καὶ ἡ σωφροσύνη καὶ ἡ δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἡ ἀνδρεία καὶ αὕτη ἡ φρόνησις μὴ καθαρμός τις ᾖ. Phæd. p. 195. Ed. Forster. Q |