Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/607

 first of all there was an expulsion of intruders. Alexander himself led the way, crying 'Out with Christians,' and the whole multitude shouted in answer 'Out with Epicureans.' Then was enacted the story of Leto in child-bed and the birth of Apollo, and his marriage with Coronis and the birth of Asclepius; and on the second day the manifestation of Glycon and the god's birth. And on the third day was the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander's mother; this was called the Torch-day, for torches were burnt. And finally there was the love of Selene and Alexander, and the birth of his daughter now married to Rutilianus. Our Endymion-Alexander was now torch-bearer and exponent of the rites. And he lay as it were sleeping in the view of all, and there came down to him from the roof—as it were Selene from heaven—a certain Rutilia, a very beautiful woman, the wife of one of Caesar's household-officers, who was really in love with Alexander and was loved by him, and she kissed the rascal's eyes and embraced him in the view of all, and, if there had not been so many torches, worse would perhaps have followed ([Greek: tacha an ti kai tôn hypo kolpou epratteto]) ."

The inferences which may be drawn from this narrative are, first, that the mysteries in general, while reproducing in some dramatic form the whole story of the deities concerned, culminated in the representation of a mystic marriage between men and gods; (the birth of a child was also represented or announced in this parody, as we know that it was at Eleusis, but it had, I am inclined to think, no mystic significance otherwise than as proof of the consummation of that marriage;) and, secondly, that the wild charges of indecency brought by early Christian writers against the mysteries are baseless; for Lucian condemns a much lesser license in this parody than that which they attributed to the genuine rites.

Thus our examination of the mysteries, so far as they are known to us, tends to prove that the doctrines revealed in them to the initiated were simply a development of certain vaguer popular ideas which have been prevalent among the Greek folk from the