Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/101

Rh PILGRIMAGE 91 river to perform orgic dances, and at Bubastis itself offered great sacrifices, besides feasting copiously, in particular consuming vast quantities of grape-wine. He states the numbers assembling on this occasion, exclusive of children, to average 700,000. Next to this ranked the festival of Isis at Busiris, attended with ceremonies of mourning, most probably in memory of the sufferings of Osiris. Third in order was the feast of Athene (Neith) at Sais, celebrated at night, with illuminations. Fourth was the festival of the Sun (Ra) at On or Heliopolis ; fifth that at Buto in honour of Latona (Buto or Uat). These two were attended with simply sacrificial rites, and there were no symbolical ceremonies in addition. Last came the festival of Ares (Har-tash, the Hertosi of Cedrenus) at Papremis, at which there was a rough tussle, symbolizing war, between the temple-attendants and the pilgrims, in which lives were sometimes lost. There was another high festival, that of Apis at Memphis, not included by Herodotus in his list, perhaps because not of yearly recur rence, besides the much frequented oracle of Ammon at Thebes, whither it had been transferred from Meroe, its first seat in Egypt. And it is noticeable that there was no pilgrimage at all to the most sacred spot in Egypt, the island of Phite, the burial-place of Osiris, because its very sanctity made it &quot;tabu&quot; to lay folk. The mysteries, in like manner, being rigidly confined to a few, did not form an occasion of pilgrimage. Assyrian As regards the great Mesopotamian empires, our know- nd ledge does not yet enable us to say that pilgrimages entered into their religious system, though we may not unreasonably infer so from the size and wealth of several temples, notably those of Ishtar, from the Assyrian custom of imposing their own deities upon conquered nations, and from the example of one great religious assembly from all the provinces of the Babylonian empire, recorded in Daniel iii. There may, perhaps, be indirect proof of Babylonian pilgrimages in what Cyrus states in his cylinder-inscription, namely, that Nabonidus had offended the gods by trans porting their images to Babylon, and thus, as it were, making them perform pilgrimage. ^ersian. The ancient Zend creed of the Medes and Persians, having no temples for worship, had no pilgrimages ; but in its later Mithraic form, the initiation of neophytes by the Magians into the mysteries, through a painful course of purgation (curiously resembling one prevalent in Ireland far within the present century), in a cavern or grotto at Babylon, necessitated a pilgrimage thither on the part of those who desired to become experts ; and Lucian has left some account of its rules in his Menippus. 1 3 lice- Amongst the Phoenicians there are clear traces of at lician. least two great pilgrimages in honour of Ashtoreth, one to Aphaca (probably the Aphek of Scripture), celebrated for a yearly miracle of a ball of fire appearing on the mountain summit, and thence falling into the sea. The obscene rites for which this temple was infamous led to its destruc tion by Constantine the Great (Euseb., Vit. Const., iii. 56). Syrian. The other great Ashtoreth pilgrimage was to Hierapolis in Syria, frequented by votaries from all the Semitic races except the Jews. Antioch was also a great centre of this cult, as also of that of Thammuz, but, s.tfictly speaking, there is no proof of a Thammuz pilgrimage, nor of one in honour of Melkarth, though his worship was carried from Tyre, its chief seat, into all the Phoenician colonies, and the famous oracle of his temple at Gades drew crowds of inquirers annually. In Palestine proper, though the cults of Baal, Ashtoreth, Moloch, Dagon, and Beelzebub were widespread and persistent, and though the name Jericho 1 This is probably the source of the Moslem legend of Harut and Mariit, the fallen angels chained in a cavern at Babylon, who will teach magic to such as consult them in a prescribed manner. probably, and Ashtaroth-Karnaim certainly, point to a seat of moon-worship, as Bethshemesh does to one of sun- worship, there is no direct evidence of organized pilgrim ages to these places. In ancient Helks there were four classes of religious Greek, observance more or less cognate with pilgrimage, though not in any case identical therewith. First may be placed the consultation of oracles, those of Apollo at Delphi, of Zeus at Dodona, of Trophonius at Lebadeia, and of Asclepius at Epidaurus (the last of which was resorted to also for the cure of disease) being the most famous and most frequented, while, outside Greece and its colonies, the oracle of the Libyan Ammon in the desert south of Gyrene was also in much esteem. Next come the four great national festivals and games, the Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian, attended by crowds from all Greek states, not only as attractive shows, but as religious ceremonies. 2 Thirdly may be named the more local or tribal festivals, such as the Panathenaea, the feast of the Charites at Orchomenus, that of Hera at Samos, of Aphrodite at Paphos, and of Artemis at Ephesus, which drew together many worshippers besides those who were specially bound to visit the shrines in question. But the closest parallel to the Christian theory of pilgrimage is found in the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries (see MYSTERIES), the special likeness of which to pilgrimages of a later day lies in the notion of merit and spiritual benefit attached to initiation, to the belief that happiness in a future state of existence would be promoted, nay, insured, by admission to the ranks of the mystae. The Latin customs bear a certain superficial likeness to Roman, the Greek, in that local oracles, such as those of Faunus, of Albunea, of Fortuna, and of the Sibyls, were much frequented ; there are traces of great tribal sanctuaries and gatherings, such as the worship of Jupiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, of more narrowly restricted tribal cults, such as the Julian worship of Vejovis at Bovilke and the Fabian sacrifice to Hercules on the Quirinal, and of at least two temples to which regular pilgrimages seem to have been made those of Juno Sospita at Lanuvium, and of Vesta (perhaps of all the Penates also) at Lavinium. But, apart from racial and theosophic differences of belief, there was one factor at work in Italy which tended to bring about a wholly different character of popular religion from that which was evolved in Hellas the overmastering centralization of Rome, and the practical identification of all solemn worship (apart from the rustic ceremonies in honour of minor and little known deities) with the apothe osis of the Republic. Hence, after the chief seat of Roman worship was transferred from the Regia to the Capitol, pilgrimage proper disappeared, for the local gods of each newly absorbed city or state were added to the original triad of Roman gods, and to the other Sabine triad, moved from the Quirinal to the new sanctuary, and it becomes impossible to distinguish clearly between the purely poli tical ceremonies performed in honour of gods viewed primarily as the tutelars of Rome and voluntary resort to the great temple for the personal cult of any particular deity enshrined there. One relic of the older custom seems to have survived till later times, namely, the pilgrimage of Roman women barefoot to the temple of Vesta in the Forum on June 9 every year. No pilgrimages seem to have been usual in the Teutonic Teutonic and Slavonic religions, though both had special temples and regarded as more sacred than the remainder, and in the Slavon case of the latter we know with tolerable accuracy that Kieff, Novgorod, Rethra in Mecklenburg, Karenz, Winneta 2 The Panhellenic festival at JEgina is omitted, as a mere factitious device of the emperor Hadrian, when classical paganism was dying, and not a real Greek custom.