The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight.

  • Knight, Richard Payne, 1751-1824.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology : an inquiry / by Richard Payne Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/458
    XX for the Apostle Paul himself does not hesitate to assert the same thing of narratives in the Old Testament^ which are not easy to verify as authentic history/ The “ Mystic Drama of Eleusis,” as Clement so aptly de- nominates the sacred rites or orgies of the Great Mother, Demeter, was doubtless taken from the same source as the Mysteries of Isis/ It extended from the institution by the mythical Eumolpus till the ancient worship was forcibly sup- pressed by the Emperor Theodosius, about the year 380, a period of more than eighteen centuries.* In it appears to have been expressed all that was vital and essential in the religion of Greece. Of its sacredness and majesty. Antiquity has but one voice. Renan gives us the following outline of the holy orgies: “ Setting acide the immense superiority of the Christian dogma, setting aside the lofty moral spirit which pervades its legend [the story of Jesus and his Passion], and to which noth- ing in antiquity can be compared—perhaps, if we could be per- mitted to assist at an ancient Mystery, we would witness simi- lar things there; symbolical spectacles in which the mystagogue was actor and spectator at once, a group of representations traced in a pious fable, and almost always relating to the so- journ of a deity on the earth, to his passion, his descent into hell, his return to life. Sometimes it was the death of Adonis, sometimes the mutilation of Atys, sometimes the murder of Zagreus or of Sabazius. “ One legend, in particular, contributed wonderfully to the commemorative representations; it was that of Ceres and Proserpina [or Demeter and Persephoneia]. All the circum- stances of this myth, all the incidents of the search after Pro- serpina by her mother, gave room for a picturesque symbolism * In the Epistle to the Galatians, the circumstances relative to the wife, con- cubine, and two elder sons of Abraham are denominated opovf.iEvoc (allegoroumend) or allegorising ; and to the Corinthians he declares that the ex- odus from Egypt and adventures in the wilderness were rvitoi {tupoi), types or symbols, which were written for instruction. * “ The worship of this Great Mother is not more wonderful for its antiquity in time than for its prevalence as regards space. To the Hindu she was the Lady Isani. She was the Ceres of Roman mythology, the Cybele (Kubele) of Phrygia and Lydia, and the Disa of the North. According to Tacitus {Germa- nia, ix.) she was worshipped by the ancient Suevi. She was worshipped by the Muscovite, and representations of her are found upon the sacred drums of the Laplanders. She swayed the ancient world, from its south-east corner in India to Scandinavia in the North-west; and everywhere she is the ‘ Mater Dolorosa.’ And who is it, reader, that in the Christian world struggles for life and power under the name of the Holy Virgin, and through the sad features of the Madonna? ” {Atlantic Monthly, vol. iv. p. 297,— The Eleusinia, note.)