Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/595

 in the lower world, but her passing thither was not death but wedding. Therefore just as now the resurrection of Christ, who though divine is the representative of mankind, is held to be an earnest of man's resurrection, so the wedded life of Kore in the nether world may have been to the initiated an assurance of the same bliss to be vouchsafed to them hereafter.

What was there then in this drama of Demeter and Kore at which the Christian writers could take offence or cavil? We do not of course know in what detail the story was represented; but the pivot on which the whole plot turned was necessarily the rape of Kore. Now it appears that in the play the part of Aïdoneus was taken by an hierophant and the part of Kore by a priestess; and it was the alleged indecency resulting therefrom which the fathers of the Church most severely censured. Asterius, after defending the Christians from the charge of worshipping saints as if they had been not human but divine, seeks to turn the tables on his pagan opponents by accusing them of deifying Demeter and Kore, whom he evidently regards as having once been human figures in mythology. Then he continues, 'Is not Eleusis the scene of the descent into darkness, and of the solemn acts of intercourse between the hierophant and the priestess, alone together? Are not the torches extinguished, and does not the large, the numberless assembly of common people believe that their salvation lies in that which is being done by the two in the darkness ?' Again it was objected against the Valentinians by Tertullian that they copied 'the whoredoms of Eleusis ,' and from another authority we learn that part of the ceremonies of these heretics consisted in 'preparing a nuptial chamber' and celebrating 'a spiritual marriage .' These two statements, read in conjunction, form a strong corroboration of the information given by Asterius; and we are bound to conclude that the scene of the rape of Kore was represented at Eleusis by the descent of the priest and priestess who played the chief parts into a dark nuptial chamber.

Now it is easy enough to suppose, as Sainte-Croix suggests , that public morals were safeguarded by assigning the chief rôles in