er published a book at Gottingen, so long ago as the
year 1755, maintaining this very assertion. His work, which is
quite scarce now, bears the title "Dogma de perenni Animoruin
Natura per Sacra pracipue Eleusinia Propagata." The consenting
testimony of more than forty of the most authoritative ancient
writers comes down to us in their surviving works to the effect
that those who were admitted into the Mysteries were thereby
purified, led to holy lives, joined in communion with the gods,
and

2 Suetonius, Vita Neronis, cap. xxxiv.

3 Lib. xxxix. cap. viii xvi.

assured of a better fate than otherwise could be expected in the
future state. Two or three specimens from these witnesses will
suffice. Aristophanes, in the second act of the Frogs, describes
an elysium of the initiates after death, where he says they bound
"in sportive dances on rose enamelled meadows; for the light is
cheerful only to those who have been initiated."4 Pausanias
describes the uninitiated as being compelled in Hades to carry
water in buckets bored full of holes.5 Isocrates says, in his
Panegyric, "Demeter, the goddess of the Eleusinian Mysteries,
fortifies those who have been initiated against the fear of death,
and teaches them to have sweet hopes concerning eternity." The old
Orphic verses cited by Thomas Taylor in his Treatise on the
Mysteries run thus: "The soul that uninitiated dies Plunged in the
blackest mire in Hades lies." 6

The same statement is likewise found in Plato, who, in another
place, also explicitly declares that a doctrine of future
retribution was taught in the Mysteries and believed by the
serious.7 Cicero says, "Initiation makes us both live more
honorably and die with better hopes." 8 In seasons of imminent
danger as in a shipwreck it was customary for a man to ask his
companion, Hast thou been initiated? The implication is that
initiation removed fear of death by promising a happy life to
follow.9 A fragment preserved from a very ancient author is plain
on this subject. "The soul is affected in death just as it is in
the initiation into the great Mysteries: thing answers to thing.
At first it passes through darkness, horrors, and toils. Then are
disclosed a wondrous light, pure places, flowery meads, replete
with mystic sounds, dances, and sacred doctrines, and holy
visions. Then, perfectly enlightened, they are free: crowned, they
walk about worshipping the gods and conversing with good men."10
The principal p