ded, referred to
the glad exit of the patriarchal family from their floating prison
into the blooming world. The advocates of this theory have
laboriously collected all the materials that favor it, and
skilfully striven by their means to elucidate the whole subject of
ancient paganism, especially of the Mysteries. But, after reading
all that they have written, and considering it in the light of
impartial researches, one is constrained to say that they have by
no means made out their case. It is somewhat doubtful if there be
any ground whatever for believing that traditions concerning
Noah's deluge and the ark, and his doings in connection with them,
in any way entered into the public doctrines and forms, or into
the secret initiations, of the heathen religions. At all events,
there can be no doubt that the Arkite theorists have exaggerated
the importance and extent of these views beyond all tolerable
bounds, and even to absurdity. But our business with them now is
only so far as they relate to the Mysteries. Our own conviction is
that the real meaning of the rites in the Mysteries was based upon
the affecting phenomena of human life and death and the hope of
another life. We hold the Arkite theory to be arbitrary in
general, unsupported by proofs, and inconsistent in detail, unable
to meet the points presented.

In the first place, a fundamental part of the ancient belief was
that below the surface of the earth was a vast, sombre under
world, the destination of the ghosts of men, the Greek Hades, the
Roman Orcus, the Gothic Hell. A part of the service of initiation
was a symbolic descent into this realm. Apuleius, describing his
initiation, says, "I approached to the confines

36 Golden Ass, Eng. trans., by Thomas Taylor, p. 280.

37 Copious instances are given in Oliver's History of Initiation,
in Faber's Origin of Pagan Idolatry, and in Maurice's Indian
Antiquities.

of death and trod on the threshold of Proserpine." 38 Orpheus, to
whom the introduction of the Mysteries into Greece from the East
was ascribed, wrote a poem, now lost, called the "Descent into
Hades." Such a descent was attributed to Hercules, Theseus,
Rhampsinitus, and many others.39 It is painted in detail by Homer
in the adventure of his hero Ulysses, also by Virgil much more
minutely through the journey of Aneas. Warburton labors with great
learning and plausibility, and, as it seems to us, with
irresistible cogency, to show that these desce