The Greek Notion of the The Greek Notion of the Afterlife, Demeter, Afterlife, Demeter,

The Eleusinian Mysteries The Eleusinian Mysteries and Persephoneand Persephone

The Earth Goddess and the Disappearance of her Only

Daughter.

Alternate Title for Future Lifetime Movie:

Married to Her Uncle in Hades, Married to Her Uncle in Hades, Persephone’s StoryPersephone’s Story

Most of this presentation was taken from Classical Mythology Lecture Series by Professor Elizabeth Vandiver, PhD, published by The Teaching Company. Course #241

How Do We Know?How Do We Know?♀The story is recounted in the Homeric

Hymn to Demeter.♀The Homeric Hymns is a series of

poems, ranging from only a few lines to several hundred, in honor of various gods.

♀They were composed at different times between 650 and 550 BCE.

♀They are called “HomericHomeric” because they are written in the same dialect of Greek and using the same meter (dactylic hexameter) as the Iliad and Odyssey.

BackgroundBackground….♀ One of the most

transparently aetiologicalaetiological myths it explains the seasons, or teaches people why the crops die off in winter and return in the spring.

♀ Highly multivalentmultivalent as it deals with questions of gender roles, sexuality, marriage customs, relative power of deities, and human mortalities.

BackgroundBackground

♀ It also reflects the reality of the dangers of being a beautiful young woman—if you go out alone, you may be kidnapped by some man (maybe even your creepy old uncle) who couldn’t help himself

♀ That was their excuse, no self-control you know…helpless against the innate power of conniving women.

♀ Have times changed?

♀ From an anthropological and psychological position, it was a comfort, or attempted to be, to common women who would have been separated from their daughters without being consulted and their daughters who would be likewise lonely without the mothers who raised them.

♀ It was common practice for fathers to arrange to sell their daughters to the highest bidder, and then without informing or consulting the mother send them to live with the new husband’s family.

♀ Since women weren’t allowed to travel outside of the home without a chaperone, most women would never see their mother/daughter again.

♀ This was a source of great grief for women and evidence of their status as property, as well as evidence of the authoritarian and powerful role of men.

♀ In the end, even goddess aren’t exempt from the control of their stronger male counterparts.

Summary ♀ Demeter (daughter of Cronus

and Rhea) was the goddess of the corn, and was older than Dionysus since the corn was necessary since the settled life on earth began.

♀ It was also important that a goddess and not a god represent the corn because the care of the fields belonged with the women of Greek society, and so a goddess would understand the troubles and pains of “women’s work.”

♀Her chief festival came at harvest—lasted nine days and happened in September every five years.

♀The Mysteries were the chief part of worship and took place in secret in the temple Eleusis.

♀This is one of the few myths that has a clear connection with a specific ritual.

The Eleusinian MysteriesThe Eleusinian Mysteries

Actual Town of EleusisActual Town of Eleusis

♀ Dionysus was worshipped withwith Demeter, as would be the case since they represent the two acts of life affirming daily sustenance—eating and drinking wine.

♀ They were the only two Olympians who understood suffering—thus they were very important in the day-to-day lives of Greeks.

Communion Communion AnyoneAnyone??

Getting to the Story…Getting to the Story…

♀ Demeter and Zeus’ daughter, Persephone (Maiden of Spring) was picking narcissus and she was kidnapped by Hades and taken to (Tartaros) the underworld.

♀ The kidnapping happened with Zeus’ permission.

♀ Demeter wandered the world and worried for 9 days looking for her.

♀ Helios, the sun god finally told her.

♀ She went to Eleusis and there, disguised as disguised as an old woman,an old woman, is taken in by Queen Metaneira, her four daughters, and Demophoöne a prized, late-born baby boy.

♀ She sets out to make him immortal by feeding him ambrosia and laying him in the fire each night.

♀ Metaneira catches her and freaks out, so Demeter throws down Demophoöne (According to some myth he is guaranteed a heroic life because of his exposure to her, and according to others, he dies.)

♀ Demeter demands that they build her a temple.

♀ They do it and she’s happy. ♀ She hangs out there and refuses to bless the

earth, causing world-wide famine while Persephone is gone.

♀ Zeus freaks out and sends every Olympian to talk her into blessing the earth again, but she refuses.

♀ Finally, after mediating between Hades and Demeter, Zeus sends Hermes to tell Hades that he has got to let her go back to her mom for two-thirds of the year. (Think of Greek seasons.) Also, her mother, Rheia appears to her to convince her to accept a compromise.

♀ Hades releases Persephone to return, but tricks her by getting her to eat a pomegranate seed (if you eat anything in the underworld you must return).

♀ Persephone returns to her mother who is thrilled to have her back but is dismayed that she will have to return to Hades for one-third of the year.

What Does That Crazy Baby-Burning Story Even What Does That Crazy Baby-Burning Story Even Mean?Mean?

It offers a window into the nature of the gods it describes and the society that created them. Let me explain…

Demeter seems to be using Demophoön as a Persephone-substitute. It is noteworthy that she picks a malemale child, especially because a male child will not be taken away from her through marriage. (patrilocal custom)

1. Demeter follows the same pattern as Gaia and Rheia with an infant male son and an oppressive father. Demeter’s attempt doesn’t work. This is consistent with the picture given by Hesiod that the order of the universe under Zeus is fixed. Where Gaia and Rheia could succeed before Zeus’ reign, Demeter fails.

2. She is taking away from Hades (receiver of all) one soul that ought to belong to him by immortalizing Demophoön to redress the balance.

3. She, like the other immortals, doesn’t value human life in and of itself, she doesn’t love Demophoön and doesn’t seem to care that she is doing to Metaneira what Hades and Zeus have done to her.

Did They Really Do That Did They Really Do That “Marrying Your Daughter to Her “Marrying Your Daughter to Her

Uncle” Thing?Uncle” Thing?♀ In a word, yes. First, in Athens, a marriage was a contract between the husband and the bride’s father. Not a bride and groom. (Most girls were married at around age 14.)

♀ Second, the marriage of an only daughter with no brothers to her uncle was perfectly acceptable. Such a girls was called and epiklerosepikleros.

♀ Also, marriage was patrilocalpatrilocal. (Remember, marriage is a custom, not natural, a reflection of cultural values)

♀ Finally, mothers and daughters would have greatly restricted contact after marriage. Thus sorrow was a natural reaction to such an arrangement. Women were sequestered.

Why Was Zeus So Worried About Why Was Zeus So Worried About Famine?Famine?

♀Zeus didn’t intervene and persuade Demeter to lift the famine because he loves humans, or to protect the innocent.

♀Oh no, humans are useful to gods. Without them, who would give the gods sacrifices?

What About the Human What About the Human Experience?Experience?

♀ Olympians couldn’t go to the underworld with the exception of Hades and Hermes (the messenger). So Demeter’s anguish is very close to what every human feels at a loved one’s death.

♀ This is the only time a god/goddess feels this type of mourning for another deity.

♀ Additionally, a symbolic connection between death and marriage is common in Greek literature, in part a reflection of high rates of maternal mortality.maternal mortality.

So, Who Likes This Myth?So, Who Likes This Myth?♀ Jungians love the application of the female

archetypes: maiden, mother, crone (Demeter in disguise), Demeter is persuaded by Rheia (wise mother) to compromise.

♀ Freudians love it as wish fulfillment: Both for mothers everywhere who wish they could get their daughters back from marriage and all humans who wish they could bring back someone from the dead: Demeter can at least partially succeeds.

♀ Structuralists find many contradictions to be mediated: the acceptance death as opposed to the desire of life, the desire to remain a child as opposed to the necessity of marriage.

♀ Adherence of the ritual theorists point to the Eleusinian Mysteries and say, “Look how this myth grew directly from a ritual.”

♀ Even Frazer’s Dying God is not far off as Persephone could easily be read as being “the grain.”All of these is appropriate to elucidate part of the

myth, but none are complete in explaining the appeal of the myth.

Eleusinian MysteriesEleusinian Mysteries♀ Took place annually in the town of Eleusis for

at least 1000, but most likely 2000 years falling into disuse around 400 AD.

♀ Mysteries meant “secrets” and were open only to initiates. Initiates were forbidden to tell non-initiates about the rites. (Like Fight Club☺)

♀ Initiates could be male or female, free or slave. The blending of the genders is most unusual.

♀ Qualifications for initiates: 1. You had to come to Eleusis—it was a location

specific religious ceremony. (This actually limited participation for those who lived far away and for the poor who could not afford travel.)

2. You could not be a murderer.3. You had to speak Greek.4. You had to sacrifice a pig—this also had a

limiting effect socio-economically.

What Do We Know?What Do We Know?

Because it was secret, our knowledge is limited and probably biased.

Some initiates must have told the secret, the surviving written references observe the prohibition. They allude to details of the Mysteries but do not describe them.

The only writers who do describe the Mysteries are early Christian authors. Because they wrote with the desire to prove the Mysteries false, their testimonies may be biased and inaccurate.

What Do We Know?What Do We Know?We know that the ceremonies had

three components:1.Things that were done2. Things that were said3. Things that were shown

The doingdoing and sayingsaying may have been the acting out of some sort of religious dramas.

The things that were shownshown were of the greatest interest.

The Things That Were The Things That Were ShownShown

Considered the high points of the ceremony.

As the initiates proceeded through the initiation ceremony over several days they would go deeper into the great temple complex in Eleusis and the final ceremony, we think, was held in an under ground chamber.

(The temples are still there today in Eleusis which is now a suburb of Athens. The temple complex is surrounded by chemical and power plants .)

The Things That Were The Things That Were ShownShown

According to the Christian authors the sacred object shown was something obsceneobscene: statue, figurine, or symbol.

Other authors have suggested that this great revelation, the meaning of life and death was an ear of ear of wheat being sliced in silencewheat being sliced in silence—rather tame?

Cutting an Ear of Wheat? Cutting an Ear of Wheat? Really?Really?

The power of a religious symbol seen from within a religion doesn’t depend on what that symbol is or how it would look from the outside.

Another example would be the act of Christian Communion. The objects involved have little meaning in and of themselves. It is what they symbolize that makes them powerful.

In this religion that was concerned with life and death, issues of mortality and immortality, Persephone’s decent and return from the underworld, cutting an ear of living grain to symbolize the death and rebirth of all life may have been highly powerful. So it is possible that this was the high point.

Details that Connect Details that Connect We know enough to recognize many details

in the Homeric Hymn as aetiologies for parts of the ritual of the Mysteries.

1. When Demeter arrives she drinks barley meal, mint, and pennyroyal. The initiates drank a similar drink in the ceremony.

2. Demeter’s visit to Eleusis explains why the Mysteries are celebrated there.

3. On a conceptual level, the connection with death and the afterlife is aetiological, because initiation promised a happy afterlife.

4. If we had more information we might recognize other details as aetiological as well.

Happily Ever AfterHappily Ever After

Initiates were promised a happier afterlife than they would otherwise have.

“Whoever on this earth who has seen these is blessed, but he who has no part in the holy rites hath another lot as he wastes away in dank darkness.”

--Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Happily Ever AfterHappily Ever After

The reason people became initiates was to guarantee a happier afterlife.

With more details about the rituals, we might understand more about the promise. Some believe that the Demophoön in the fire episode has some aetiological value.

AfterlifeAfterlife

The standard view in other Greek literature is substantially less pleasant.

The Underworld, Tartaros, as described by Homer in The Odyssey is a place of dim shadowy existence much less desirable than life in this world.

The ghost is called and eidoloneidolon—”image”—what survives in the afterworld is much less real or important than the living person on earth. This differs from Christianity or Islam.

AfterlifeAfterlife

The word for soul, “psyche” originally meant “the breath”—the thing that leaves the body at death—the thing that makes the difference between and live body and dead body.

Spirits in Tartaros are described as being witless, not even knowing themselves. In The Odyssey, Odysseus must give them a drink of blood to regain their wits and remember who they were when they lived.

AfterlifeAfterlifeSome noteworthy souls are picked out

for reward or punishment, but overall there is little sense that one’s state in the afterlife was determined by one’s actions in this life. Most souls are dim shadowy remnants of themselves in Tartaros where nothing much happens and they eventually fade into nothing.

The conception of the Elysian FieldsElysian Fields, reserved for a very few especially good souls is alluded to in The Odyssey and elsewhere in literature, but the concept wasn’t fully developed, it seems, during the time of Homer or the writing of the Homeric Hymns.

AfterlifeAfterlifeThe idea of punishment for the wicked is

more clearly developed, but even it does not apply to the majority of humanity; punishment is restricted to a few famous wrongdoers, such as the “cardinal sinners.”

TantalosTantalos (tried to trick gods into eating human flesh)

TityosTityos (At Hera’s behest, tries to rape Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis)—liver eaten for eternity by two vultures), and

SisyphusSisyphus (must push a boulder up hill every day only to have it roll back down).

ReincarnationReincarnation?

Pythagoras (in the sixth century BC) apparently taught a doctrine that included reincarnation (and vegetarianism). Souls could be reincarnated as humans or animals. The records of his teachings were not written until at least 100 years after his death.

Reincarnation in PlatoReincarnation in Plato

Plato discusses reincarnation in the so-called, “Myth of Er” in The Republic.

Story: A warrior is killed (or thought to have been killed) in battle remains dead for a period of some days, when he comes out of his “coma” he recounts what he saw while he was dead. Among other things, he sees people being reincarnated according to the kinds of lives they have lived previously. For instance, wily Odysseus came back as a monkey.

This detail may indicate that the story was created to suggest caution about proper human behavior.

Reincarnation in PlatoReincarnation in Plato

1. One difficulty in using this as evidence for fourth-century belief is that Plato may have invented this “myth” for use in The Republic.

2. Elsewhere for instance in the Apology of Socrates, Plato describes a view of the afterlife that is much closer to the traditional one.

Reincarnation in VirgilReincarnation in Virgil

Virgil, writing in Rome in the first century BC, combined the ideas of reward and punishment and the idea of reincarnation in Book VI of The Aeneid.

StoryStory: Anchises, Aeneas’ dead father, tells him that some souls go to the land of the blessed as he has done, and some really bad ones goes to Tartaros, most souls go to a period much like Catholic Purgatory where they spend 1,000 years and then drink from the river Lethe. They are reincarnated without knowing anything of their previous lives. Anchises is showing Aeneas a long line of souls about to be reincarnated who are to be great Romans of the future and Aeneas’ descendants.

Again, as with Plato, it is difficult to determine to what extent Virgil used the idea of reincarnation purely as a literary device and to what extent it mirrors actual belief.

Orpheus and EurydiceOrpheus and EurydiceOne of the most important myths concerning the

afterlife. Orpheus, son of Apollo and one of the Muses,

was the greatest poet who ever lived. He had the power to charm animals, stones, and trees with his music/singing.

When his wife Eurydice was bitten in the heal by a snake on their wedding day, and dies. He goes into the underworld with his Lyre and his poetry to try to get his wife back from the underworld. It works, Hades and Persephone agreed with the one condition: he cannot look back at her until they have reached the land of the living again. Of course, he looked back, and she falls back into the underworld, never to be seen again.

Orpheus and EurydiceOrpheus and Eurydice

This purely mythical Roman Orpheus was associated with a body of writings and a set of religious beliefs called “OrphismOrphism.”

1. Began to be taught in the sixth century BC. (Same time as Pythagoras)

2. The Orphic writings supposedly contain the knowledge that Orpheus gained while in the Underworld.

3.3. Reincarnation is central to the doctrine;Reincarnation is central to the doctrine; only by following the teachings of Orpheus to lead an asceticascetic life can the soul eventually be freed from rebirth. As in Buddhism, incarnation is a bad thing from which one seeks release.

4. Some Orphic writings contained precise instructions about what one should say and do in the Underworld to avoid reincarnation.

Thus Orphism, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, held out the promise of a happy, or at least happier, afterlife.

As in so many other areas of Greek religion, no orthodoxy about the afterlife exists. It seems safe to say that it was generally considered both less important and less pleasant than this life.

Greek mythology contains no aetiology for death through, for example, human sin or mistake. This is very unusual. Most cultures have mythology to suggest that we should live forever, but because of some mistake, death was brought upon us.

Questions to Consider:Questions to Consider:

1. Modern students often find it strange that Greek religion and mythology had no set doctrine about the afterlife and that the different descriptions diverged from one another so greatly. To what extent do you think this lack of unified doctrine can be attributed to the lack of a “sacred book”?

2. The Greeks’ relative lack of agreement about the afterlife is often cited as proof that their interest was mainly focused on this world and this life. Do you think this conclusion is valid?