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=== THE "ELEUSINIAN" MYSTERIES AT POMPEII ===

©Text by Amedeo Amendola
Oct. 2, 2008

In Eleusis
 

By "Eleusinian mysteries" I mean mysteries like those which are typically performed in Eleusis (Attica). They used to be performed in many parts of Hellas, with variations, and -- with less knowledge on our part -- in many parts of the Greek Ecoumene of the first millennium B.C., which ran from Asia Minor to southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and beyond.

When we speak of the Eleusinian mysteries, "mysteries" does not mean enigmas, secrets, mysterious things, or mysticism in the sense of ecstasy which various people, including some Christians, strove for. Such "mysticism" existed in Greece, as in the case of Dionysian inebriation which , as they believed, made the mind ascend into the Divine (and is called en-theo-ousia-smos: being-in-god, delirium); in the case of Sibylline descent into the chthonic Deity, Gaia or Demeter, from whom oracles are proffered; and in the case of Socrates/Plato who, having learned from  sibyl Diotima,  proposed the ascent, by degrees, so as to reach the realm of  immutable realities. Mysticism is a psychic process and occurrence; the mysteries of the "Eleusinian mysteries" are so named events of a RITE that must not be spoken of. Revealing them is tantamount to a crime. The verb Myo^ = I am closed (in the lips or the eyes), I am silent. (The enactments that one must be silent about are themselves called "silences", mysteries.)

Strictly speaking, we should avoid the expression "Eleusinian mysteries" and should say "Eleusinian-type rite (or rites)." A rite is like a theatrical performance in which things are said, done, and shown. But in either a theatrical performance or in a religious rite, the actors or agents do everything in the open and may freely  talk about whatever they do. In an Eleusinian rite, the essential activities are done in private, and the agents are bound by silence about them.

THE FRIEZE IN THE TRICLINIUM OF THE VILLA OF THE MYSTERIES IS A PICTORIAL  RECORDING OF THE MAJOR EPISODES OF AN ELEUSINIAN RITE, WHICH COULD ACTUALLY TAKE PLACE WITHIN THAT ROOM. (That room could have been used to stage the rite -- for which there was no audience, of course. In that case, it is a Pompeian domestic Telesterion.) Most importantly, what transpires during the rite is hidden from view and is thus unlike the change of color in a leaf or the change of a foot's position. (There are many occurrences that are hidden from the view of others, occult ["kryphaios", kryptic], such as the occurrence of one's own feelings, thoughts, and self.)

A typical agent or actor of an Eleusinian rite  is called a MYSTIS [plural Mystidai], who is a female. (For general purposes,  Mystis is translated as  "mystic".) So, "Eleusinian mysteries" in effect means "the secrecy-bound practices or enactments of the Eleusinian-type rite." More specifically, a Mystis is a newcomer into the rite, a person who is being initiated, admitted,  into the rite. (The initiator into the Mysteries is also called Mystis or "He Mystis," The Mystic.) In the history of the Eleusinian mysteries in Attica, there is a third phase when outstanding or famous men were also initiated. The Pompeian frieze is about the third phase of the Rite. (A male initiate is  a MYSTE^S [pl. Mystoi]. However, this name may be used generically for any kind of initiate.) In the Peloponnese, the officiants in the Rite were to be married women (whereas in Eleusis, men took over), a fact that is born out of a pregnant woman in the Pompeian frieze. So, the Pompeian Rite is not directly derived from the one at Eleusis; it is older than the Attic one and has its own peculiar features.

What is a basically Eleusinian-type RITE? The essential protagonists are the divine Demeter [De^me^te^r]  and her daughter Kore [Kore^ , the Maiden] and the initiates, but nobody knows exactly what role the initiates play. The rite is not a religious rite (with priests or priestesses and the audience of the faithful) and the initiates are not worshippers or sacrificers in a temple: this is what so mysterious about the Mysteries, but the Pompeian frieze provides the answer symbolically. So, we must "read" the episodes of the rite. (A "sacred rite" or a mystery like the Eleusinian one used to be called an "AGHISTEIA.")

-- on the left wall of the Triclinium --

(Episode 1). INTROIBO (I shall enter).

A moment ago (p. 100), we peered into the Triclinium (Room 5 or "the Hall of Mysteries" or "Sala dei Misteri" or the Telesterion) from the main door.

While still standing there, let us look at our left: 

(Flickr ph.)

 

(Episode 2). LECTIO (The Reading) 
  

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As seen here or in the picture before the last, an officiant is carrying sliced bread or cake. She is recognizable as such by the wreath she wears. (She has to be one who was previously initiated, but there is no specific name for an "accomplished mystic", unless "epopte^s" -- an accomplished mystic who is a spectator (in the Telesterion) -- was generically used for the purpose. In fact, one meaning of "epopteo^" is "I accomplish the highest degree of the initiation," that is, I complete the rite.)

There is going to be a bread-sharing or cordial banquet [Agape^] for the mystics, who by now are seating or reclining in the Triclinium. And what is bread? Bread is something made from the grains of wheat or barley, the seed released by Demeter. The officiant is bearing that which is going to be growing as a child, as Kore.

Pompeian bread from 79 A.D. (extra-baked in volcanic ashes)
[The Villa of the Mysteries had its own oven.]

(Episode 4). THE ASPERSION

Demeter (or the officiant acting as Demeter) -- He^ Mystis -- is seated, with her back toward us. She is assisted by two ladies, one of whom is pouring water on her hand (or an apparently laurel branch she is holding), while the other has provided a tray (presumably with sliced bread), which Demeter is uncovering.  She consecrates the bread by a sprinkling (as it is usually done over animals to be sacrificed, or, more importantly,  as the Sky does to make the seeds germinate), and she will proclaim to the congregation of the mystics that this is her offspring, something sacred, to be consumed by them for their own transformation. She will go and distribute the slices to the mystics. Probably in much earlier times, plain grains were distributed.  (Livia, Augustus' wife, may have been an officiating Demeter in the Villa of Mysteries, where her statue has been found. In the statue -- on p. 100 -- she is duly veiled for the performance of the rite.)

Bread makes the body fleshy; blood (or its surrogate, wine) makes the body living. But, thus far, bread and wine are understood as nourishments. If we consider the ingesting of either bread or wine, we can see that we become [we are consequentially constituted by] what we ingest. Now,  the ancient mythic mind goes a bit further and considers, in macroscopic terms,  the "generation history" or re-generation of  flesh and blood. Wheat is something that is constantly re-born; it is part of its nature to be reborn, to re-emerge. What is made of the wheat-substance  ("demeter") dies, but it contains the seed of its re-birth. Kore is Demeter re-born. Kore is the ever re-born Demeter. In the rite or ceremony [Ceres' rite], Demeter, who is called Ceres in Latin,  distributes Kore, and he who ingests Kore becomes an Other Kore. He who becomes Kore gains re-birth immortality. He who becomes an Other Dionysus (by drinking his consecrated blood) gains re-birth immortality. These are occult or "mystical" transformations.

Thus, the Eleusinian Rite (or Demeter/Kore Rite, the CEREMONY) and the Dionysian Rite are rites for the procurement of immortality -- in a Greek world where man was practically defined as the mortal one [Merops or Brotos], in contradistinction to a god, the immortal one [Theos]. (Such a perspective on man  and such rites -- respectively for women and for men -- did not exist among the barbaric peoples. However,  pre-Orphics in the Greek Ecoumene developed also the theory of body-shade humans, wherefore a shadow-like immortality occurs by nature, without having to be initiated by Demeter or Dionysus, and Plato will take pains to demonstrate in various dialogues that the soul [psyche, the Breath or Life, now identified with or replacing the Shade of a person] is an immortal (incorruptible, incorporeal), reality. With the coming of the Greek Christians, who were Pythagorean/Platonic Orphics, the Eleusinian and the Dionysian Mysteries dwindled and were finally banned.)

The actual communion, by the distribution of the "consecrated" bread, is not depicted in the Pompeian Telesterion. The Greeks will transform Jesus of Nazareth (in the Last Supper episode) into a Demeter-Dionysus figure, and  Churchmen will fashion the "Mass" out of the Eleusinian and the Dionysian rites. The scene of the Last Supper has been painted to no end, from the Roman catacomb painters to Salvador Dali`. In Christian churches, however, the consecration table is not the communal dining table and the celebrant has his back to the congregation, in the manner of the painted Demeter.  (In the "mystical theology" of the early Greek church, the celebrant of the Mass, the only one to take communion, literally becomes an Other Christ, "alter Christus" in the Latin translation I have read. / The Christian baptism changed from immersion to sprinking, but in either case a kate^khumenos, analogous to an initiate, is being consecrated thereby "really" becoming a child of the divine Trinity. He is baptized just as Jesus was, who was declared son of God.  By receiving the Extreme Unction, an individual has concluded the re-enactement of the life of Christ on earth.) What actually occurs during a consecration is, of course, hidden from everybody's view and cannot be spoken of; there is no need of prohibiting divulgation here. (Meanwhile, watch the ancient rites of the Holy Week, when plain water was turned into holy, efficacious, water -- for a year's use -- by the priest's manual insertion of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit into it -- that is, by poking the water while uttering the magic names of the Trinity.)

(Episode 5). THE ORPHIC NURSING OF THE NEWBORN KORE

The great Orpheus was a singer of things divine, a minstrel of the gods. His singing and playing of the LYRE was so great that even wild animals gathered to listen to him. By his lyre, he even induced the king of Hades to release his beloved wife, who had died of viper's bite. (Monteverdi's opera about Orpheus and Eurydice, more than any other opera on the subject, could be titled "The Triumph of Music.") The descent of Orpheus to the Underworld is one of the few human descents that were allowed  in antiquity, otherwise it is the place where the shade of a human goes or is taken upon death.

According to the inscriptions on the  golden lamellae found at Thourioi [my ancestral hometown] and other places in Magna Graecia, people who die are instructed not to go and drink of the River Lethe [the River of Oblivion] in Hades but to make a claim: I am a child of the Earth and the Stars [I have an earthly body and an astral body]. I have sat at Orpheus' feet, and now I claim my birthright [to reside in the heavenly elysium]. (In Greek mythology, occasionally the gods took living humans up to heaven, the starry sky or abode of the gods. Upon his death, Orpheus himself ascended to heaven, according to one myth, and so did the Greek-scripted Jesus, after he visited  the Underworld and returned from it. [The descent ad inferos is in the Nycaean Creed, not in the Gospels.])

The lyre-playing man in the above picture is an Orphic rhapsode. Probably he sings of immortality , as the next scene illustrates  modifiedly an Orphic inscription which in effect says: I, a kid [goat's offspring], upon drinking fell into the vat with the milk. The scene shows a kid standing and a female kid being nursed by a female satyr (a goat-fitted human person). Another satyr is playing the panpipes, which are a shepherd's instrument. So, this is a pastoral scene but a metaphorical one. The suckling kid is a mystic who has just been ["mystically"] transformed into Kore and is a newborn Kore. The newborn Kore is being nursed with the milk of the grain-goddess. (In the language of Homer, a newborn kid or lamb is called Herse^ or Erse^.)

In this amazing pastoral scene, myths upon myths are compounded. It shows a male kid (with horns) and a female kid, both called by the same name in Greek, Eriphos. The woods may be the sacred woods, Nysa or Nyse^, where Dionysus was brought up by nymphs. Actually Dio-nysos [Dio-: Zeus': son of Zeus] is  a god specifically named after some kind of woods. "Dionysos" = {"Zeus' son" "Of the Woods"}.  Satyrs, of whom Silenus (whom we shall meet in a moment) is a major one, are woodland creatures and followers of Dionysus. So, the pastoral scene in question alludes to Demeter/Kore, Orphic, and Dionysian ideas. [In rites, satyrs were goat attired; so, kids represent newborn satyrs. Hence, an Orphic who identifies himself as a kid identifies himself as a newborn satyr. The "goat's lament" in connection with a certain Dionysiac or "satyr's play" is "trago-ode" in Greek; the satyr's play with the lament for the death of Dionysus, of which no script remains,  is a Tragodi`a, a  Tragedy.]

In the Triclinium or Pompeian Telesterion, the mystics are probably given milk to drink or they are suckled by accomplished mystics who had recently given birth, to the music of the Orphic rhapsode, and they may even be treated with a brief play of Orpheus and Eurydice, for she was allowed to return to earth (except for the blunder that the loving Orpheus committed). On the other hand, a tragedy is being acted out in the theater...

(Episode 6). THE SEARCHING DEMETER

nome della foto: VMisteri009.jpg Autore giovanni Lattanziautanzi fai clic qui se ti interessa questa foto This photo, which was printed backwards (with respect to the direction of our journey), shows the last episode on the left wall of the Triclinium. What is pictured here is Demeter in search of Kore, after she grew as a young lady and was abducted by Aidoneus. Since this episode is not depicted at the end of the series of paintings, I suppose that the scene illustrates a passage in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. (It is a flash-forward, since the painter is going to end his work with the mystic's expectation of returning to earth.) This photo is valuable inasmuch as it shows that the rhapsode, who is in the foreground, is looking at Demeter, who is also in the foreground. So, it is possible that the rhapsode is chanting of the abduction of Kore, after she grew up, and of Demeter's wanderings in search of her. (Her billowing veil indicates that she is "sailing", wandering far and wide.) Demeter's wanderings are translated in Sicily into the wanderings of the virgin or parthenogenic Mary in search of her vanished son. On Good Friday, a statue of the Sorrowful Mary is taken from a church and is carried all around the town. Like Kore, Jesus will return from Hades. Resurrection day is celebrated in relation to the Spring equinox, Spring being the time of regeneration or returns. (The frieze "mentions" the wanderings of Demeter, but they would not be actually enacted in the Telesterion or in the city of Pompeii, since the Mysteries are not a dramatization of the biography of Demeter.) At Adrano in Sicily "...Per le vie cittadine,  la processione è accompagnata da una dolcissima e struggente musica, di incomparabile fattura artistica, che accompagna anche la processione della mattina del "Venerdì Santo", durante la quale l'Addolorata, portata a spalla da un folto numero di ragazze e di artigiani barbieri, va in cerca del Figlio."   P.S.: Come to think of it, in the so Demeter-mysteric Sicily, there is a  lullaby that Mary sorrowfully sings to her baby. [I have a recording.] She says in effect: Sleep now, this is the time to sleep, for there will be plenty of time for suffering. Mary is anticipating her own sorrow. So, I can see now that Demeter is singing a lullaby to her daughter telling her to sleep in her arms, for a time will come when she will disappear and Demeter  will be searching for her far and wide. (The tale of the lullaby, or the picture, anticipates Demeter's distressed wanderings.)   -- on the back wall of the Triclinium -- (Episode 7). THE INITIATION OF MEN [-or see photo in Episode 9 -] The sitting man is Silenus (Seile^nos), the wise teacher and then follower of Dionysus. He is identified by his typical mask, which is hanging on the wall. Also, while the Officiants and the Rhapsode wear wreaths of olive branches, Silenus wears an ivy wreath. He is holding a large vase (a stamnos), from which a young man is drinking. As Silenus is looking at the pastoral scene, we may infer that was is happening here is an imitation of what is happening there. There a female mystic is drinking milk; here a young man is drinking either the famous kykeon (barley drink) which initiates used to be served with or, more fittingly, wine. Another man is standing by. So, that's how men in the Triclinium were initiated in the "Eleusinian mysteries.".   (Episode 8). THE HIEROS GAMOS   The initiated man has become a Dionysus. The reclining figure is identifiable as that of Dionysus by the thyrsus (pinecone-topped staff) that he or his maenads carry. Under other circumstances, we would think of the sitting lady as a maenad or bacchante (a follower of Dionysus), but in the present context, the lady must be none other than Kore. However, the picture is not an historical illustration, since it has never been written or shown that Kore and Dionysus had a sacred marriage (hieros gamos). The notion of a sacred marriage [which I discussed in the previous post] must have been formulated from the late rites carried out at Eleusis, where there was a high priestness and a high priest (consecrated people who are no longer understood as to who they might represent), who presumably had a marriage in the basements of the Telesterion. On the other hand, the presumed real marriage between Dionysus and Ariadne gave rise to the idea of a non-profane or non-erotic marriage. (The theme of sacred love and profane love came into play again during the Renaissance. But "sacred" meant "chaste, not "non-erotic." Anyway, the ancients distinguished a human marriage from a marriage between gods, which would be called "sacred" or "holy" because of the holy protagonists.) Now, Ariadne was actually the maiden of vegetation or grain-plants,  the Cretan Kore, and she was the one that Dionysus found in Crete after Theseus had abandoned her. So, it is Ariadne or Kore that is being portrayed here in a sacred marriage, a marriage of the two rebirth deities. But a real marriage of this sort cannot be fruitful; it can only signify an alliance between two rites. Yet, by this marriage, Kore or Ariadne is  made a maenad-in-law.   (Episode 9). THE UNVEILING OF THE KISTE The final scene on the back wall of the Triclinium has three figures and a reprehensible act. The kneeling figure, with a thyrsus, is Kore [a mystic who has already become a Kore]. By "marriage," she has become a maenad and partakes in the rites of Dionysus, which does not include sexual intercourse. What is she doing? In ancient accounts of the Eleusinian rites, a kiste^ (cista, chest),  usually made of wickers, was fetched from Eleusis and brought to Athens. The carrying (by an assistant of rooster-identifiable Kore) occurred also at Locri in Calabria: It contained objects which were kept secret and were shown only to the mystics. This is what it looked like: (From Locri, Calabria) Some people speculated that it contained an ear of wheat, the emblem of Demeter; others tought that it contained a phallus. Anyway, they were some of things that a mystic must not divulge. The standing figure behind the maenadic Kore is partially missing, but I have seen somewhere a reconstruction to the effect that the lady is carrying a large and low wicker tray that contained sheaves of wheat. (This would be a Liknon  or winnowing basket used by farmers  to blow off the chaff from the grain after the thrashing of the sheaves.) In that case, wheat sheaves were shown to the mystics. In the above painting there is a strangely shaped object or chest that is covered with  a cloth. It may be an upsidedown wicker basket , deep, used when gathering fruits or grapes. It was called Ko`phinos ["co`fanu" in the Longobardese dialect]: Image of a Locrian Pinax   The maenadic Kore is in the process of unveling what seems to be a phallus. A phallus used to be carried in public Dionysian processions [supplanted by processional Christians by a host -- the body of Christ -- in an ostensorium, monstrance], and now it is likely that this maenadic mystic  is about to engage in stroking a Dionysus. But the winged lady, who is holding a whip, looks away and signals with her free hand to desist. The mystic has aroused the indignation of the divine Nemesis (the spirit of just retribution -- for commmitted improprieties). A Roman marble statue of Nemesis, 2nd century A.D., now at the Louvre. (Wikip. photo)     -- on the right wall of the Triclinium -- (Episode 10). LIBERATION (Scene on the right)

Having been flogged or just threatened, the maenadic mystic runs and cowers by her mother who, while looking at Nemesis,  extends a protective and consoling hand to her daughter. Kore has given up the thyrsus (a phallus symbol), which is being held by an assistant. She has also shed the clothes of bondage and dances carefreely. Upon the discovery of his own trangression, Oedipus stripped his clothes, blinded his eyes, and departed from his kingdom. (Hers is not a Bacchante's dance, which is more like a Tarantella or a Pizzicata, such as they are preserved in southern Italy. [See the 1996 movie, "Pizzicata" directed by Eduardo Winspeare.] Hers is a graceful subdued dance such as the Apollonian Muses or the Graces used to perform. By "music" the Greeks meant primarily the regular rhythms of poetry. A Pizzicata is dithyrambic or Dionysiac.) The Triclinium has become a hall for a swan-song ballet of the  mystics.

It is safe to infer from the Locri Pinakes that  there was an Eleusinian Mystery also at Locri in Calabria, but the one at Pompei included another development -- the disavowment of the Sacred Marriage on the part of Kore. (In one of her searches, thirsty Demeter was offered wine, which she refused -- a foreshadowing  of Kore's refusal to be or to remain a maenad.)

(Episode 11). THE ABDUCTION

(the window)

One day, as the free and uncommitted Maiden was picking flowers with her friends, or dancing inside her  home, the earth gaped and Aidoneus snatched her and carried her away to Hades. Death had arrived for the beautiful and marriageable Kore.

"The Rape of Persephone" [Here the latinate word "Rape" translates Lat. Raptus, that is, seizing/abduction, not the Lat. Stuprum.]
fresco from Macedonia Tomb 1; 4th Cent. B.C. (at the Verginia Museum, Greece)
http://www.theoi.com/Khothonios/Hades.html

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From Locri (Calabria, 490/450 B.C.): www.locriantica.it/

We have to imagine that in the Triclinium the curtain of the window (formerly a gap) in the right wall is drawn open and each  mystic Kore is abducted, carried to the portico along the outside of the wall, and taken into "Hades" through the main door of the Triclinium. By now it was night and they enter the dark "Hades" carrying torches. (In Eleusis, the abducted mystics are taken to Plouton's Cave, a natural cave near the Telesterion.)

The wall above the window is barren today. It should be painted, and probably was,  with a stylized Hades with Aidoneus and Kore and famous personalities who reside there or who, like Orpheus, made a descent and then returned to earth. It is a scene such as it was occasionaly painted on some large vases. So, the scenes after the window have to do with Kore in Hades.

THE UNDERWORLD.  The "Orpheus in the Underworld" vase, an Apulian krater, 4th Cent. B.C., from Canosa:

(Episode 12) THE TOILET OF KORE BEFORE HER MARRIAGE TO AIDONEUS

Kore is being assisted in the grooming, while a putto (a cupid) is holding up a mirror so that she can see herself. Or is it a small portrait? Usually mirrors were round. Anyway, in this situation, it is the assistant that is looking at what the putto is holding.

-- on the front wall (with the main door) --

On this wall there is a panel painted with a putto who is watching the toilet. He pictorially complements the other putto. (The compositions of all the scenes in the frieze are the most brilliant that any painter has ever made.)

Older toilet scene in a tomb paitinting at Cuma (Kyme^). The lady is holding a mirror.
http://marcheo.napolibeniculturali.it/percorso/nel-museo/P_RA33

_____

Death marries the Maiden -- that's the "Death and the Maiden" theme in European cultural history.

Hades [Aidoneus] and Persephone Married (from an Apulian Krater, 4th cent. B.C.) Though already crowned, she is still holding a torch -- to tell us she entered the kingdom of Darkness.

"Aidoneus and Persephone" enthroned (Pinax from Locri, Calabria, ca. 480 B.C.):

_____

(Episode 13) PERSEPHONE AWAITING

Kore has married Aidoneus, as her wedding ring shows. Now she is the queen of Hades and as such  she is called Persephone. She sits enthroned or on her nuptial bed, but, in her loneliness, she  is looking back and obviously longing for her return to earth as the Maiden.

-- back to the wall on the left --

(Episode 14) ITE, MISSA EST

(the side door)

We can imagine that after the enthronment of the mystics and the drinking of the kukeon, the mystics now can live only with the expectation or being reborn . So, they are dismissed from "Hades" and go home through the side door. I cannot be sure from this photograph whether between the main entrance and the side door there is the painting of a mystic wearing a crown or a diadem and looking toward the side door -- as there might be. Judging from the dress in the next photo, there is indeed Persephone [a Persephone]. The hazy enlargment of the other photo shows that she is still sitting but she seems to be turned toward the door -- ready to go out and return to the upper world. {According to the photograph, a new mystic is being led into the Telesterion!}

http://www.sights.seindal.dk/sight/722_Pompei.htlm 

(A partial photograph in www.pompeiiinpictures.com shows clearly that Persephone is still sitting on the same throne or recliner.) [I was in Pompeii once, but at that time I did not visit the Villa of the Mysteries or know of its existence.]

The dismissal may have taken the Latin form (as later on in the Latin church Mass) of "ite, missa [perfecta] est," that is, "go [home], the 'mystery' has been accomplished."

{The phrase, "ita, missa est" must have come into use when in Rome the Mass was being  said in Latin rather than Greek. The Doxology, the Kyrie,  and other Greek phrases were retained, but apparently that dismissal phrase was not employed in the Greek rite. It was coined by the use of a corrupted Greek word, Mysteria, whose ending sounds like a Latin singular feminine ending. So, the verb employed in the phrase is singular. In proper language, the phrase would be, "Ite, Mysteria (perfecta) sunt." The dismissal phrase in the Mozarabic church is an approximate translation of it, "Solemnia completa sunt in Domine" : "The solemnities have been completed in the Lord." The earliest attestation of the term " missa" is in the writing of St. Ambrosius -- of Roman origin -- in the 4th century. It was never the Greek or Latin name of the rite in question; the Lord's Banquet or the whole rite called "Mass of the Faithful" was at first called the "Eukharistia" or "Thanksgiving Rite". Then some dignitary in Rome or in Magna Graecia must have included  the "Eukharistia" in the (pagan) Mysteries as "mysteria" -- which the Latin ear picked as "misseria" and assimilated it  to their own word "missa" ["sent"], assimilation being a common practice of the Romans. To this day some people translate the "missa" of the dismissal as "sent", but this translation makes the dismissal phrase totally meaningless. / Why was it called the Thanksgiving Rite to begin with? Because, just before quoting Jesus' words at the Last Supper, the priest says to God that Jesus our lord took the bread in his holy hands, raised his eyes to Him, and "gratias agens" -- while giving thanks [to God for the bread], he broke it and, while giving it to his disciples, he said, "This is indeed my body...." The priest's consecration consists really in the re-enactment of Jesus' words, which turned bread into his body. Another name of the Mass is also incidental: Prosphora, that is, the Offering Rite. What is exactly offered? Jesus said that this wine is his blood, which will be given (shed) for many, for the forgiveness of sins. He is made to speak  as if anticipating the crucifixion and conceiving his shed  blood as an expiation. It is his sacrifice on the cross that was offered to God. His disciples are given the redemptive blood to drink./  Jesus, a Dionysian figure,  bade his banquet disciples to do these things in commemoration of him, not to change bread and wine into His body and blood to be distributed to people for their salvation.  However, the re-enacting of the Rite, with those words, by priests must have been recognized by some Greeks and Magna-Graecians as the performance of Mystery Rites, the Demetric and the Dionysiac, and thus they were unofficially called Mysteries. It was thereafter that a re-enacting priest would consider himself an "Alter Christus" efficaciously operating as the banquet Jesus did. The Christian rite of initiation is the Baptism; it makes a person the immaculate son of God by erasing the original sin, though not its Biblical consequences, such as death, disease, and having to toil or suffer in bearing children.}

CONCLUSION

By RE-ENACTING THE LIFE OF KORE (from germination to death), a mystic becomes an Other Kore and thus immortal, as she will be born again. This transformation or empowerment,  by sympathetic magic, is something arcane, a mysterion FOR US. The "world of myth" was also the world of gods and of magical metamorphoses. The gods themselves produced things and effects magically. The Canaanite or Biblical Gods said  words, the names of things, and fully formed things appeared, just like the armed Athena appeared from Zeus' head. People conceived the dynamics of reality according to their dream experiences, and they even interpreted dreams as divine revelations (as historically late as the composition of the Gospels).

The re-enacting [that is, the Ceremony] is, if open to view (pictorially in a way or actually as in the case of a Dionysian rite), "theama" (exposition, spectacle), and the place where it  is exposed is "theatron"*†* -- a Greek invention.

[Peripheral Conclusion: Any person becomes an Other Christ by undergoing Baptism, Communion, and Extreme Unction, and, as a Christ, he will resurrect after death. Our faith would be in vain, as Paul of Tarsus said, if Christ had not risen from  death. But the "historic" Christ's mission was, not to resurrect, but to save the children of Israel from the fires of hell after the cataclysmic end of the world which he predicted to occur within one generation. The "Apocalypse", written after the unverified prophesy,  postpones the end of the world at an unknown future time and postulates the resurrection of the dead from their tombs, not from Hades. This concept of immortality by resurrection is probably Egyptian, neither Israelitic (since there is no  from the hellish Gehenna),  nor Greek as a return from the Underworld or as a rebirth. Strictly speaking, for the Israelites there is no other world or immortality: They were condemned to death because of their transgression in Yahweh's planted Garden: They yielded to the temptation of wanting to be like gods!  / At Pompeii there was also a temple for the cult of Isis, and some of the paintings in the Villa of the Mysteries refer to the Egyptian goddess. She, daughter of Earth and Sky, the goddess of bread and green fields, was instrumental in resurrecting the body of the dead Osiris. The resurrecting was a matter of recomposing the  parts of the body. The tears of the Sorrowful Isis for her brother/husband had produced the Nile River. A statue of hers, holding or nursing her son Horus, was in Rome on the road between St. Peter's in  Vatican and St. John's in Lateran as late as the time when Luther went to Rome, where he saw it. It had become the model for the "Mother and Child" of  the Christians.] Let's not confuse the diverse types of immortality that humans have conceived either by inference from some strange events and dreams, or by identifying with persons deemed immortal.

Many of the statements I made throughout this essay, such as the definition of a god (arrived at  in the ca. 1974 "On the Origin of the Gods"),  are based upon many and diverse investigations, studies, argumentations, and reflections  I made over the years.

*†*

Dr. J's Illustrated Lectures

The Orchestra

Even the most primitive of Greek theaters had the most important of these elements: the orchestra, or "dancing-place." It was in this circular area that the chorus, a group of 12-15 actors in a single unit, sang and danced. In the archaic Theater of Dionysus in Athens (left), the original orchestra floor was just smoothed dirt and was eventually replaced with polished stone as the architecture of theater evolved. In the center of the orchestra there was an altar to the god Dionysus where a flute player was stationed. _________________ [COMMENT: The aulos (flute/oboe) was the instrument of the Dionysians; the lyre was the instrument of the Orphics. In the contest between Apollo [the lyre or kythara player, who usurped the Delphic oracle, and was Orpheus' central god] and satyr Marsyas, the double-flute player, Marsyas lost and forfeited his own skin. But the contest was a sham, for it was judged by the Muses, whose leader was Apollo. You can't trust even a god!] Dancing faun (satyr) in the "House of the Faun" at Pompeii... ....or watch the dancing in the movie "Zorba the Greek."

Double-aulos [diaulos] player and lyre [lyra] player, at the Tomb of the Leopards, Tarquinia (Etruria), ca. 480 B.C.

*** (Iakkhos)

I have dealt etymologiocally with gods related to Iakkhos before,  but now it is time to be more synthetic, though without making the necessary elaborations such as I made before.

There is Iapetos [Ia-petos], who is a Titan in the Olympian pantheon (turned by the Bible writers into the first of Noah's sons), and there are the pre-historic Ionoi (or Io^noi or Iaonoi) in the pre-Shemitic Levant. IA-/IO-  is the etym of the god after whom Iapetos and the Iaonoi were named. (I would use "Iaonoi" to distinguish them from the historical Ionoi of Asia Minor.) [It was the progeny of Shem that commingled with the invading Arabs, who brought their language and their gods into the Levant. The commingling of languages is alluded to in the myth of the Tower of Babel.]

Gr. Iakkh(os) < *proto-Gr. iaF(os)/iaV(os), which > Lat. Jou(us)/Jov- > Jou-pater [Juppiter] and the vocative Jove (or, using the English orthography: Yoveh). [Either "ia`" or "io^e^`" is a Greek word that now means "scream." It is said to be of onomatopoeic origin. Indeed!  Some people screamingly invoked, "YA`" or "YAUE`", and these meaningful invocation sounds came to mean "scream" when the invoked one was  forgotten.]

Lat. Yoveh = pre-semitic Yahweh (who is attested in the Ebla epigraphy and in the Hebrew Bible). (The Bible has two distinct deities I have analyzed to death: the proto-Arabian/Canaanite Elohim, who made humans in their own image [male and female],   and the Caucasian Yahveh, who sculpted a man and breathed life -- "psykhe^" -- into it).

So, the Eleusinian rites started amongst the Iaonoi of the agricultural Levant, where the Sky-god [who thunders and rains] was IaFos (Iakkhos) -- south-west of the Euphrates while the dry seasons were making the Arabian desert advance [q.v.]. "de-METER" is an Ionic name. It = Doric da-MATER, where the "da-" stands for ga-, which = ge^- = earth. Demeter = Lat. TEllus Mater, Earth-Mother.  [Gaia, Zeus, etc. are western Greek deities. The myth of Demeter as the grain-mother confirms what I suggested much earlier, that the Levantine Greeks, rather than the Sumerians, initiated agriculture.]

P.S.: Lo and behold, I just found out [while exploring the etymology of "Vesuvius"] that  Zeus (the thunderer and gatherer of clouds) had a specific epithet as a rain-god or raining sky: 'Ye^s (Hues). The etym in question is Ye^- or Ya-, which corresponds to the Ia- of IAF- [Iakkhos], the rain invocation (ia`),  and the Yav- of Yahweh [iaue`]. The Greek word for rain is 'YEtos (Huetos). (Rain-water was simply called Water: Hydo^r.). So, the raining Zeus was essentially called Iacchic Zeus. [In Latin, Juppiter was specified as Pluvius.]

[[[By the way, the mystics at Eleusis used a rite of purification [really?] by using the blood of a pig, supposedly sacrificed to Demeter.  When Canaan [which includes the faction of pastoral Hebrews] was constituted by the invasion of proto-Arabs, the conquered population was forbidden to eat pork, which means that it was forbidden to sacrifice pigs [boars, I would say for certain reasons] to Yahweh. Eventually Moses resuscitated the YAHweh religion as he headed the predominantly Caucasoid IO-udaioi [Hebr. YE-hud-im], but pork continued to be forbidden in abeysance to El and his ministers (Gabri-el, Micha-el, Satana-el, and the rest), for they still identified themselves as part of the People/Tribe of Abraham's covenant with El, wherefore they practiced a ritualistic castration, circumcision. (Today the tribesmen pretend that El and Yahweh are two names of one deity!)

"Judah" {Hebr. Yehuda} has been etymologically defined as "God is praised".  By the same token, "Judaeans" or "Ioudaioi" means "praisers of God." Not bad, if Yah/Yeh/Yuh/Yoh is translated by "God" [El] or "Lord" [Adonai]; actually the rabbinical Jews have no idea of what that etym means or of where it comes from. (It is proto-Greek.) "-Hud(a)" and "-Hud(im)" < Gr. Hude(o^) or Hud(o^) = I sing, I celebrate -- and thus "I praise". So, Ioudaioi or Yehudim (Judaeans, Jews) < Gr. YaF- + Hud-: = Iakkhos/Jove/Yahweh praisers. They settled in what will be called Judaea [the Kingdom of Judah], whereas the IsraELites, the faithful of El, settled in Galilee and Samaria. Yeshua of Nazareth in Galilee, son of Joseph, claimed to be of the bloodline of King David, was rejected by the Jews as king of the Jews, and died bitterly questioning his own god: "Eloi, Eloi, why hast thou forsaken me?" The Temple of El in the Kingdom of Israel had long been destroyed. The same Jesus was also claimed -- in Greek style -- to be the son of Yahweh and the unwed Miriam, while Moses had decreed that only one god be recognized and worshipped. The Bible preserves the memory of [Greek] gods or their sons consorting with human females -- which was the reason why infuriated Yahweh destroyed mankind except for Noah. Yah had never created, fashioned, or generated gods; he himself was one of them./ Yah or El never created either the devils who used to possess people and Jesus exorcized. The two-testament Bible is a valuable myth book for ethnologists and logical analysts!]]]

http://www.mmdtkw.org/ALRItkwVes05VillaMysteries.htlm

Looking at this reconstruction of the Villa, I imagine that the aspiring women walked to the Villa from the surrounding farmlands at an appointed time and, as a leader took them up the steps to the Telesterion, they kept on invoking rain by shouting "Ya, Ya, Yaue`/Iakkhe^".  This chanting continued as the scrolls were brought into the Telesterion. (In the Middle Ages, the "conductus" was the name of the  chanting that took place on solemn days while the book or "lectionary" was being brought, conducted, to the altar for the celebration of the Mass.) Then they remained totally silent -- mystical -- during the Aghisteia (sacred rite), the re-enactment of the whole life of Kore. (The painter of the Mysteries must have been a male initiate who had first-hand knowledge of  the unfolding of the Aghisteia.) Approaching the entrance of the Telesterion:

In Attica, the Mysteries were carried out in late September -- around the September equinox, which marks the death of vegetation or the descent of Kore to Hades. She will return around the March equinox, the beginning of Spring.

Sandro Botticelli's 15th century painting of "the Return of Spring" is, wittingly or not, of "the Return of Kore," although the inspiration came from contemporary poets intent more on beauty than on the rebirth of wheat: "Once more, in his beautiful vision of Primavera, Sandro has given utterance to that fulness of joy in the return of spring and the beauty of the young May-time which was the favourite theme of Tuscan poets. All the bright and pleasant imagery of Lorenzo's Ambra, or the Rusticus of Poliziano, lives again in this fair picture of the " laurel groves which sheltered the singing-birds who carolled to the Tuscan spring." Here Queen Venus holds her court and Spring comes, garlanded with roses, while flowers spring up at her feet, and the Graces dance hand in hand under myrtle bowers. There Zephyr sports with Flora, dropping roses from her lips, and Mercury, in the form of Giuliano [de' Medici], scatters the clouds of winter, all unaware that Cupid is aiming an arrow at his heart." [A 1909 appraisal]

However, in keeping with the mythical disjunction of Demeter and Kore as two distinct and SIMULTANEOUS persons, Kore returned to her mother, as some reliefs and vases indicate. In the following vase, Hermes, sent by Zeus,  is the "psykhopompous" (the taker of souls -- to or from Hades). Persephone is paying homage to Hekate ['Ekate^], the goddess of the Underword, who is holding torches to show the way, and is telling her to go in the direction of her left foot. She had been the one, together with Helios, to inform Demeter about the abduction. Demeter, with her royal staff (as queen of the earth), is waiting to receive her Kore back.

[T16.6] THE RETURN OF PERSEPHONE Museum Collection: Metropolitan Museum, New York City, USA  Ware: Attic Red Figure Shape: Krater, bell Painter: Attributed to the Persephone Painter Date: --

One of the attributes of Hekate was that of the being the avanger of mistreated children. The Furies (Erinyes) were her ministers. Her heavenly counterpart was Selene, the Moon, who is the luminary of the night on earth. The intersections of three roads were sacred to Hekate and, on certain days, people brought food there and left it for "Hekate's Dinner" ['Ekate^s deipnon]. The ritual is still preserved by few people in my hometown, which has a Greek origin [as this very weblog proposed to establish and succeeded]. However,  within the Christian context, food is left on the table on the eve of "all-saints Day" [Holloween] in case the dead should return in the dark in search of a dinner. The venerable Hekate has been forgotten, but her dogs continue to bark at the moon in dreadful nights and phantom lights  -- mysterious apparitions -- occasionally arise from the depths of the earth, hover, spin, and disappear as suddenly as they had appeared.

Persephone's departure from Hades:

http://spazioinwind.libero.it/popoli_antichi/Magna%20Grecia/Campania/Cuma-storia.htm

or, for the picture, search "Popoli Antichi"
> le aree archeologiche > Cuma > La Storia

-----

Probably "Hermes taking Persephone away from Hades"

Pinax from Locri (The chariot is not drawn by horses!)

_________________________________________

One of the deeds of Demeter and the returned Kore was to send a young man in the world and teach the grain culture. Here is a relief (from Eleusis) with Demeter, Kore, and the naked Triptolemos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/524098690/in/pool-classicalantiquity

 

[O28.6] DEPARTURE OF TRITPTOLEMOS Museum Collection: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, New York City, USA Catalogue Number: RISD 25.083 Beazley Archive Number: 4808 Ware: Attic Black Figure Shape: Amphora Painter: -- Date: ca 550 - 530 BC Period: Archaic SUMMARY. Side A: Triptolemos departs in a flying chariot. He is farewelled by the goddesses Demeter and Persephone.

Perhaps the naked child who is reading to the Eleusinian mystics [Cf., Episode 2] represents the legendary Triptolemos, supposedly the son of a king of Eleusis. In that case, one of the two scrolls may contain instructions about grain agriculture or the miracle of regeneration ("Geo^rgia"), which the child himself is learning; the other, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which probably will be read by the sitting doleful lady (or, as it is poetry, chanted when the Rhapsode will be playing). [A naked, exposed, child that is being spoken to or who is speaking or reading may signify "aletheia": uncovering, revelation, the truth, mythos (true account).]

P.S.: I missed what somebody mentioned about the naked boy: he is wearing the "kothornoi", the high shoes which, typically, tragic actors used to wear in Greece. So, we must reassert that he is reading the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which does not preclude at at some point of the Rite he will be reading a Geo^rgia. / In this Pompeian mosaic, a tragedy actor is wearing them while holding  a tragic mask:

The is name is rather problematic. "Tri-Ptolemos" is usually translated as "thrice warrior," since Ptolemizo^ = Polemizo^ = Polemeo^ (= I combat), but "Polemos" = War; it is not a related adjective (like Polemios or Polemikos). Triptolemos is not known as a warrior at all. So, we have to look at the verb Poleo^ or Poleuo^ (= I spade, turn, till [the soil]). Trip[t]olemos is the thrice-tiller (the excellent tiller), operating before the invention of the plough and of irrigation -- which makes me think once again that the inventors of agriculture were the Levantine Greeks, the Iaones. (However, in  keeping with Demeter's appointed mission, farmers will be offering sacrifices to Her before tilling or ploughing the ground, the face of Demeter; in later times, they were called "ta proe^rosia (iera)" [the pre-ploughing (rites)].)

People had been gathering grains from plants from time immemorial, but they never wondered how new plants grew out of the soil. However, some ladies of a house left grains soak in a ceramic pot for too long and, lo and behold, plants were found growing. They understood what happened,  scattered grains in watery areas or shallow ponds, and the plants grew, in a certain season. [There is still the ritual, in southern Italy, a  Byzantyne tradition, to let wheat plants grow in ceramic pots or dishes for a short while and in the dark, and for children to bring the whitish growing young vegetation to the sepulcher of Jesus staged in church -- probably to sympathetic-magically induce arising --  resurgence  or  resurrection.]  Men were then enjoined to break large dry grounds and, after the sowing, the women invoked the sky to rain, wherefore the plant-begotten seeds grew into plants. It was the Demeter-Kore process of generation and rebirth that, once grasped by a human mind, gave rise to the tilling of fields and the rest of agriculture. It was that process, too, that millennia later was understood again and became paradigmatic for Ionian physics, Anaximander's and Heraclitus' physics of the cosmos. (Against Thales' opinion that the world is full of [generating]gods and that things are generated by water [Neptune, in older Greece], Anaximander  returned to the Demeter/Kore  process but, upon considering the variety of generated things in the universe, he had to say that the source is Not Definite  in kind, not of any specific kind. They emerge from the A-Peiron, and into the Aperon [state] they perish. This will prompt the postulation by Empedocles of Akagras [Agrigento] of  four realms of definite different roots [elements], wherefore their combination in different proportions  results into the  things of different kinds that we find in the universe. Elementarism will give rise to Alexandrian alchemy, the first experimental approach to the genesis of things.)

At Canosa, Puglia

Finalized on Columbus Day, Oct. 12, 2008 [and later]

At Pompeii

Still-life from Herculaneum, "Bread and Figs" (Museo A. N. Napoli)

The agricultural village of Nola buried by a Vesuvius eruption in nearly 2000 B.C.

CARBONARA DI NOLA (NA)

Dal 1998 in rete Provincia di Napoli Villaggio preistorico Nola (NA)   IL VILLAGGIO PREISTORICO DI NOLA (la Pompei della Preistoria) Il Villaggio Preistorico di Nola, la cosiddetta Pompei della Preistoria, è uno straordinario sito archeologico dell'Età del Bronzo Antico, seppellito dall'eruzione del Vesuvio detta delle Pomici di Avellino (1860-1680 a.C.). L'eccezionalità, unica al mondo, del ritrovamento di Nola è dovuta al fatto che le capanne, sepolte dall’eruzione vulcanica, si sono conservate attraverso il loro calco nel fango e nella cenere che le ha inglobate, sigillando anche tutte le suppellettili che si trovavano nelle stesse al momento del disastroso evento. Per la prima volta è stato così possibile comprendere la forma che avevano queste costruzioni, l'orditura dei tetti e la carpenteria e quale organizzazione avessero dato gli abitanti agli spazi delle abitazioni, nello svolgimento delle attività di ogni giorno. E' una straordinaria fotografia di una laboriosa comunità preistorica cancellata dalla forza distruttrice del Vesuvio.   Ricostruzione delle capanne del Villaggio Preistorico (1800 - 1600 a.C.) Museo Storico-Archeologico (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta) Capanna (1800 - 1600 a.C.) (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta)   Capanna n.4 - Impronta impalcatura lignea (1800 - 1600 a.C.) (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta) Capanna n. 3 (1800 - 1600 a.C.) (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta)   Idolo femminile (1800 - 1600 a.C.) Museo Storico-Archeologico (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta) Impronta di spiga di grano (1800 - 1600 a.C.) Museo Storico-Archeologico (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta)   Copricapo in zanne di cinghiale (1800 - 1600 a.C.) Museo Storico-Archeologico (Foto di Gennaro Morgese - Laboratorio di Conservazione e Restauro della Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta) Fornetto della capanna n. 4 (1800 - 1600 a.C.) (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta)     Vaso a clessidra (1800 - 1600 a.C.) Museo Storico-Archeologico (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Caserta) Fonte: Meridies - www.meridies-nola.org Indirizzo: Via Polveriera - Nola (a 800 metri dall'uscita autostradale di Nola direzione Saviano). Orario: Aperto tutte le domeniche (tranne in caso di pioggia) dalle 10.00 alle 13.00. Gli altri giorni su prenotazione. Contatti: Tel. 338 41 54 925 / 347 61 14 697

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LA STORIA DEL RITROVAMENTO

La scoperta del villaggio del bronzo a Nola è avvenuta mentre si stavano gettando le fondamenta per la costruzione di un supermercato. Affiorarono i resti di diverse capanne e moltissimi reperti ceramici. Il villaggio di Via Polveriera venne sigillato da un'eruzione del Vesuvio avvenuta nel corso dell'età del Bronzo Antico, fra il XIX ed il XVII secolo a.C. Gli scavi hanno messo in luce ben tre grosse capanne orientate in direzione NO-SE, al margine di un'area nella quale erano presenti una vasta aia, alcuni forni, una gabbia in argilla e legno nella quale sono stati rinvenuti gli scheletri di 9 capre, tutte gravide. Vi era poi una sorta di stalla dove trovavano posto altri animali, come testimoniato dalle impronte degli zoccoli nel terreno.
Le capanne avevano una forma a ferro di cavallo con apertura al centro di uno dei lati lunghi e struttura fatta di paletti di legno. L'interno era a due navate. La capanna più lunga misura ben 15,60 x 4,60 m con un'altezza di 4,40 m. Le altre due capanne sono leggermente più piccole.
Nelle capanne sono stati ritrovati più di 200 vasi alcuni dei quali contenevano cibo. Anche nei pressi del forno della capanna 4 sono stati ritrovati piatti, tazze, e vasi, di cui uno ancora sulla soglia.
L'eccezionalità della scoperta sta anche nel fatto che, dopo la caduta di pomici dovuta all'eruzione, l'area venne seppellita da uno strato di fanghiglia cineritica che consolidò le strutture delle capanne, conservandole in maniera eccezionale fino ad oggi. In questo modo è stato possibile scavare per la prima volta delle capanne quasi integre verificando anche l'organizzazione degli spazi sociali del villaggio. Un risultato insomma molto simile a quello di Ercolano e Pompei, sebbene diversa sia stata la modalità di seppellimento. Un caso unico, insomma, che fa del villaggio di Nola una struttura senza eguali.
Gli scavi potrebbero fornire ancora interessanti dati. Al di sotto delle capanne, un saggio effettuato ha mostrato la presenza del pavimento di una struttura preesistente, rasa al suolo per costruire le nuove capanne. E poco lontano da questo scavo, in località Masseria Rossa, è stato individuato un altro abitato successivo a questo, probabilmente il risultato del ritorno degli indigeni in queste zone dopo l'eruzione.

CULTS AND MYSTERIES IN SICILY

http://www.vivienna.it/speciali/speciale1106_062004.htm

La città di Demetra e Core Enna conserva evidenti retaggi di spiritualità antica di Rocco Lombardo Per attenuare gli effetti traumatici di un drastico cambiamento di divinità, la nascente chiesa di Cristo riadattò riti e miti radicati da secoli. Fu un'opera lenta, che per quanto riguarda la figura della Vergine si rivelò particolarmente lunga e complessa, perché nella corredentrice Madre di Dio si potevano condensare funzioni e prerogative che in precedenza erano state appannaggio di diverse deità pagane. L'accostamento con Cerere, ovvero Demetra, fu il più spontaneo e immediato. Ma se altrove la Maria del Vangelo poteva sostituirsi alla Cerere del mito con facile tempestività, a Enna, celebrata da poeti e scrittori quale culla e dimora della benefica Dea, la trasposizione dalle cerimonie pagane alle liturgie cristiane si rivelò più problematica. Il fatto che Demetra e Maria fossero accomunate dall'identico angoscioso dolore materno, provato dall'una per il rapimento di Proserpina (nome latino di Persefone/Core) e dall'altra per la crocifissione di Gesù; la stessa amorosa benevolenza dimostrata al genere umano; il naturale paragone tra il grano, sostentamento per la vita terrena, e Cristo, cibo per l'eternità, paradossalmente favorirono negli ennesi il proseguimento spontaneo del culto tributato da secoli alla "loro" Cerere. Allle soglie del Quattrocento c'era ancora chi continuava a venerare una statua lignea di Cerere, che Re Martino non esitò a bruciare, convinto di distruggere gli anacronistici e ormai blasfemi riti dedicati all'indigeno nume. Ma la soppressione auspicata dal sovrano aragonese non fu ne totale ne definitiva, perché alcuni aspetti delle cerimonie pagane rimasero latenti e "frammentati" nella pratica cristiana. Alla statua bruciata da Re Martino gli ennesi sostituirono quella della Madonna della Visitazione, comprata a Venezia nel 1412, che presto adornarono di una fulgida corona di pietre preziose, oro e smalti multicolori, e awolsero in un manto trapuntato di sfolgoranti gioielli. Con questi sfarzosi addobbi, nel giorno della sua festa la Madonna della Visitazione è portata tutt'oggi in processione lungo un itinerario che secondo la tradizione venne suggerito un tempo dal volo di bianche colombe. Per tutto l'anno il simulacro della Vergine è conservato nel duomo di Enna, in una nicchia occultata allo sguardo del pubblico, così come in antico era celato alla vista dei non adepti quello della Dea, conservato nell'adyton, cioè nel sacrario impenetrabile del tempio. La Madonna della Visitazione è condotta da portatori, detti "Nudi" (in realtà vestiti di bianche tuniche come gli antichi sacerdoti di Cerere Fino a pochi decenni fa la "Nave d'oro" era agghindata con fasci di spighe, papaveri e altri fiori di campo, offerti da fanciulle in età da marito, ignare emule di Core/Persefone che, mentre era intenta a raccogliere crochi, narcisi, giacinti nei circostanti prati ennesi perennemente fioriti, fu rapita da Ade/Plutone, inconsapevole precursore del tipico rito nuziale siciliano della "fuitina". Addirittura, fino al tardo Ottocento la "vara" era illuminata nel suo percorso da grandi torce, indiscutibile ricordo delle fiaccole usate dalla dea nella sua tormentosa ricerca della figlia ghermita dal signore degli inferi. Evidenti appaiono i legami col mondo pagano: la "vara" ricorda il currus navalis di Iside, la dea egizia assimilata ora a Proserpina ora a Cerere quando, agli albori dell'impero romano, il suo culto si diffuse anche in Sicilia; l'aurea corona rimanda al diadema di spighe con cui la Dea era raffigurata anche nella monetazione; i monili sono retaggio degli antichi doni votivi; i fasci di spighe, i mazzi di papaveri, le torce alludono al grano e al celebre rapimento. In questi riferimenti possiamo includere perfino il Bambino, che la Madonna sorregge nel braccio sinistro e la cui presenza nel contesto festivo ennese appare per lo meno inopportuna, visto che, stando all'evangelista Luca, Gesù all'epoca della Visitazione di Maria a Elisabetta era ancora nel grembo materno. Il Bambino Gesù sostituisce probabilmente il piccolo simulacro della Vittoria che era posto in mano a Cerere, nella scultura che ispirò a Verre sacrileghi desideri di rapina, come ci tramanda Cicerone quando nella sua violenta arringa (In Verrem, IV, 112) gli rinfaccia l'atto scellerato: «E tu da Enna osavi sottrarre la statua di Cerere, da Enna hai tentato di strappare la Vittoria dalla mano di Cerere e di portar via una dea all'altra dea?». La liturgia della Madonna della Visitazione già dal XIII secolo fu fissata dalla Chiesa al 2 luglio, cioè proprio nel periodo della mietitura, quando la riconoscenza alla dea delle messi si manifestava con più sentite pratiche e, pertanto, costituiva un momento molto delicato da sottoporre a una "rivisitazione" cristiana. E se da un lato si seguita a distribuire mustazzola e, in altri contesti festivi, cuddureddi e cuccia, dolci votivi ricordo dei mustacea, dei milli e, pare, del ci'ceon consumati in onore di Cerere, da un altro gli ennesi esclamano ancora nei più diversi frangenti della vita quotidiana «Cori! Cori!», dedicando la spontanea invocazione, ora accorata ora gioiosa, non si sa più se all'antica Core, la mitica Proserpina, considerata la vergine per antonomasia tra le pagane deità (kore in greco significa 'giovinetta'), o alla nuova Core, l'evangelica Maria Madre di Cristo, glorificata "vergine prima, durante e dopo il divin parto" e acclamata da secoli su queste balze montuose con immutabile fiduciosa venerazione.

Demetra. Ragioni e luoghi di un culto in Sicilia Demetra e Core un mito... Demetra e Core sulla rocca di Cerere la città di Demetra e Core enna e i misteri Eleusi enna 3000 anni Morgantina

(c) ViviEnna - 2002 tutti i diritti riservati

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http://www.vivienna.it/cultura/settimanasanta.php?article=tra15.html

Nel primo pomeriggio del Venerdì Santo, .... ["Demetra" va in cerca del Figlio perduto].

http://www.giovannirinaldi.it/page/tradition/enna/

enna0021 ITALY - ENNA Venerdì Santo Madonna Addolorata ______   enna0022 ITALY - ENNA Venerdì Santo Visita al cimitero [la Terra dei Morti] durante la processione con l'urna del Cristo Morto e il fercolo della Madonna Addolorata E` la` che la Madonna trova il Figlio poiche` e` nell'Ade, nel Regno dei Morti, che Demetra trovo`  sua Figlia.   [The searching Mary finds her Son in a cemetery, the Land of the Dead, since the searching Demeter found her Daughter in Hades, the Kingdom of the Dead.]    (Having been infomed of the abduction by Hekate and Helios, now Demeter finds Kore as Persephone in Hades but is not allowed to bring her back. [Votive Relief from Eleusis, 5th cent. B.C.]) www.calvin.edu/ ___________________________________________   La Settimana Santa si conclude con la Risurrezione, ma nel culto liturgico o processionale non vi e` alcun incontro tra la Madre e il Figlio sorto. Nei Vangeli, il Risorto [che significa semplicemente il Levatosi o il Sorto dalla grotta tombale, dove, secondo un Vangelo,  il capo non gli era stato affatto fasciato]  incontro` Maria Maddalena, alcuni discepoli, e poi due uomini per la strada di Emmanus che dapprima nemmeno lo riconobbero. Di solito ci volevano giorni prima che un crocifisso morisse. (Il " resurrexit" che l'angelo annunzio` traduce il greco "aneste^" [< ana-istemi] che = "stette su`; si levo`;  si ` alzo`; Lat. Surrexit".) Il Gesu` si era dichiarato estraneo a parentele umane e appellava sua madre "donna". Dunque, a questo punto non ci sono piu` corrispondenze; il culto cristiano non poteva trasporre l'incontro cordiale di Demetra e della ritornata Core, che e` forse ricordato nel seguente bassorilievo, mentre la cena con quegli  uomini ad Emmaus (ad una distanza fuori pericolo da Gerusalemme) e` stata spesso narrata e dipinta. Si dice che l'ultimo ad incontrare il Gesu` fosse stato il discepolo Pietro sulla Via Appia presso la chiesetta del "Quo Vadis".

Al ritorno della Primavera sbocciano i fiori, e i papaveri nei campi di grano, mentre i galletti neonati hanno risvegliato la Madre Terra. (Dunque il gallo e` sacro a Persefone, come si vede dal Pinax -- tavoletta, placca -- di  "Ade e Persefone" di Locri.)

Core e` ritornata -- Kore has come back:

In Calabria,  "Papavero in un campo di grano" crescente. ©Paolo Lobascio

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A regretful appraisal of the Eleusinian Mysteries and  Dionysian Mysteries as pathways to immortality

 

One consequence of agriculture -- the production of plants by using seeds -- was a revolution in human thinking about animal generation: the seed planted in a female is what will become a new individual. A female merely incubates the seed. (That's why, by the way, the first human to be constructed by Yahweh had to be a man, otherwise there would be no ensuing human species. And, by the way, Genesis-2 was obviously composed by a man after agriculture had already revolutionized the human thinking in question. [There goes another god!]) So, the "Eleusinian" Rites are prior to this revolution, since it is a female, Demeter, that begets a female, Kore -- in the manner in which vegetation works, not animals (apparently) work. The "Eleusinian" Rites are very close to the beginning of agriculture.

 

The antiquity of those Rites  is practically as great as the antiquity of the inception of agriculture and viticulture (which I think originated in Crete, the homeland of one Dionysus), as we can see from the following analysis. It was through those cultures that the human mind began to understand the re-generation of similar things. In our terms, or in terms of Aristotelian thinking, the ancients at least on the surface confused the birth of an individual of the same kind as the parent with the RE-birth of the parent. The perenniality of a species was mistakenly identified with the perenniality (by recurrence) of an individual. Thus, in fact, the human immortality that the Rites procured -- by our  magically identifying with observed natural species -- was not a personal/individual immortality. That is why, I think, the immortality of the Orphic/Pythagorean/Platonic Soul supplanted the hope for immortality geared to those Rites.

 

What made for the confusion I have mentioned, namely the SAMENESS OF KIND in many and successive things, persisted even through Plato in a certain way.  He supposed that the character or nature [Eidos] which is found in many things is a subsisting causal reality that somehow can be present in many, and can be lost from the many. A thing can become beautiful or triangular and stop being so. And Aristotle added that indeed a body can become canine or human, and stop being so, but the reasons why the many successive dogs are dogs is not due to the participation of bodies in the Dog-Eidos; this Form is automatically "impressed" by a  canine organism upon  little bodies it contains, wherefore  new individuals of the same kind are produced. A human germ/seed is already an  homunculus, a miniature man. We must so think because in the begetting, the parent continues to live with his own individuality; he does not pass himself unto the offsprings. Well, this is obviously a tricky theory which Aristotle could not demonstrate and is going to be restructured by modern genetics. Anyway, were we not able to experience our own SELVES (which we do not transmit or reproduce), we could not seriously object to the sense of re-birth or cloning that those Rites rely on.

 

Coming from chthonic Apollo or the Orphics, or  from the original fount of wisdom, the chthonic Demeter, the Delphic oracular injunction, "Gnodi SEAUTON" (Know Thyself), had many and unexpected consequences, one of them being, some time or other,  the pulling of the rug from under those Rites. We, The Mortals who know our SELVES, no longer seek an immortality that turns out to consist of species-perenniality. [One of the other consequences was the prompting of inquiry, the very thing that the Biblical Yah forbade. Indeed, any oracular response was a respose to an inquiry. Sibyls were not unsolicited forth-speakers, prophets. Their presence in Greek culture paved the way for the rise of philosophers.]

 

As for the existence of the Immortals, against which we measure ourselves, it has no place in Heracleitos of Ephesus' Cosmos and in Parmenides of Elea's Being [one, immutable, eternal, unbegotten and immortal, and, for Plato, powerful]. This Cosmic Flux and this Being became Plato's central problem, which eventually Giordano Bruno of Nola (which is near Elea/Velia), by  paying heed to Heraclitus and listening to the Logos,  resolved in an admirable synthesis. Thereafter he was burned at the stake as a heretic by the Pope anno Domini 1600.

 

We humans or Greeks still suffer for our condition of being Mortal as we behold  Immortal Being ("To Ti Esti").

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The ideologers of "the Age of Men [or of Reason]" which, according to Vico, supersedes "the Age of the [conceived] Gods" and "the Age of the Heroes [Warlords]" as the protagonists in the course or re-courses of human history [actually Greek-Italian history, to begin with]:

 

Pompeian mosaic: "Plato's Academy"

 

 

Raffaello: "The School of Athens"

 

 

 

    
Archimedes (Syracuse, Sicily, 287-212 B.C.)         

 

.........................XGXGXGXHXHXHHHHHXHXHXHXHXH..........................                   

 

 

                                                                             
                                                                           Galileo (Pisa 1564-1642)

 

Pomponazzi (Mantua 1462-1525)

 

 

Telesio (Cosenza, Calabria, 1509-1588)

 

  

Bruno (Nola 1548-1600)                                                     

           

                      

 

 

                       Giambattista Vico (Naples 1668-1744)

                                     

The monument to Bruno in the place he was executed, Campo de' Fiori in Rome.

                                                                 

 

 

Spallanzani (Scandiano, Modena, 1729-1799)
"... also discovered and described animal (mammal) reproduction, requiring semen and an ovum. He was the first to perform an artificial insemination, using a dog. Spallanzani showed that some animals, especially lizards, can regenerate some parts of their body if injured or surgically removed." (There begins to go the post-agricultural theory of the male being sole generator of offsprings and, therefore, the assumption made by the composer of Genesis-2!)

Stock Photo - Lazaro Spallanzani, 18th century Italian naturalist and biologist / 1158184 ImageState RM Rights Managed Photograph

 

 

                                                                                            Alessandro Volta

 

 

Galvani (Bologna 1737-1798) and Volta (Como, 1745-1827) initiated the field of neuroelectricty and the generation of current electricity respectively. "Electrology" (including electrical engineering and undulation physics [which actually started with Galileo's acoustics]), which became a European and American scientific enterprise (just as physics, etc. had become),  has recontrived human living in the world, even more than agriculture had, as well as the theory of Nature and, rudimentarily thus far,  of the "Psyche" (the brain as the Life-energizer of the body and as the Mind-Organ). [ The Body-Consciouness or Mind dichotomy was overcome by  the Aristotelian Pomponazzi, was resolved in a way by Telesio, and is resolved generally in the same way that Bruno resolved the Becoming-Being dichotomy.] We are in the Age of the Recontrivance*** or Ricongegnamento(within the Age of Men that started in Italy in the  14th century, in this, the second course of human history).  

 

An "Age of Men" is a period of time for an "ethnicon" or society that is universally defined by its articulate discourses, analytic and synthetic intelligence, poetry, music, theater and shows, artists, mathematicians, ideologers (philosophers and scientists), inventors, engineers, production and manufacturing and servicing technologies, self-reliance instead of religion, amicable associations, republican political organization and public administration, jurisprudence instead of lordly legislation, and  just governance in the economico-financial social system. 

 

A Humanist -- a man that, thanks to his evolved brain, truly belongs to the Age of Men (not just to a chronological period by that name), sometimes called a Freethinker or a Classical Socialist -- is a pursuer, a striver; he is not a subject or server of either gods or lords. He is a free man that pursues and enacts (and thus lives for) TRUTH, AMENITY (in his living in the world), BEAUTY, and JUSTICE (in his interactions with others). They are the actual drives, objectives, and virtues ("andreiai") of a man who lives as a Mortal Man, with a tragic sense of life, who as such does not renounce the world or expect to be revealed to, provided for, avenged, and either recycled or transplanted to an eventless paradise.  A mummy  in a Leopardi poem declared that he remembers the bitterness that is called life and lives the tedium that is called immortality.

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*** An account is in one of the pages at

http://www.xanga.com/AmedeoAmendola

 

                                                                                                                                                    
Oct.  17, 2008

 

                                                                        

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