Chapter LII: Appendix: XI

INITIATION CONSIDERED AS ADOPTION BY THE GOD

The Mystes whose soul is speaking in the first of the gold tablets found at Sybaris (Diels, No. 18) says, l. 7-8: ~himertou= d' epe/ban stephanou= posi\ karpali/moisi, _despoi/nas d' hupo\ ko/lpon e/dun chthoni/as basilei/as_~. This ~hupo\ ko/lpon e/dun . . .~ can hardly mean anything else than: I seek (as ~hike/tês~) the protection of her maternal bosom (or lap). It would certainly be attractive to take this (with Dieterich, _de hymn. Orph._, p. 38) as referring to a symbolical act, corresponding to the ceremony in which in Greece and elsewhere, the adoption of a boy, his reception into a new ~ge/nos~, was symbolically represented. (D.S. 4, 39, 2, in particular records the process: see Wesseling's learned note there; cf. also Preller, _Gr. Mythol._^4 i, 702.) But such a _symbolical_ proceeding if it was to bring about the association of the ~mu/stês~ with the goddess must have taken place already in the ~o/rgia~ once held upon earth--here we are in Hades, and it is to say the least of it difficult to believe that this ~die/lkesthai tou= ko/lpou~ can have been supposed to occur in Hades in the neighbourhood of the goddess herself (a fact which made a merely symbolical act of the kind supposed quite {602} unnecessary).--Apart from this the views of Dieterich are quite sound: the ceremony was essentially regarded as an _adoption_ of the ~mu/stês~ by the goddess or the god, as a reception of the initiated into the divine ~ge/nos~. The ~dra/kôn~ (who represents the god himself) ~dielko/menos tou= ko/lpou~ in the Sabazia seems actually to have had this meaning. Further the ~mu/stês~ is sometimes called _renatus_, or _in aeternum renatus_ (Apul., _M._ xi, 21; _CIL._ vi, 510; 736); the day of his initiation is his _natalis sacer_ (Apul., _M._ xi, 24, where _natalem sacrum_ should be read): in these circumstances we may venture to recall that the above-mentioned solemn rites of adoption also represented a _new birth_ of the ~theto\s huio/s~ from the womb of his new mother (see D.S. l.c. Hence Hera is called the _~deute/ra tekou=sa~_ of Herakles whom she adopted: Lycophr. 39; and hence also the adopted is called _~deutero/potmos~_, i.e. reborn: Hsch. s.v. ad fin.) This conception also provides the simplest explanation of the fact that the ~_muô=n_~, who has received the ~ne/os mu/stês~ into the divine ~ge/nos~ to which he himself already belongs, can be called the _pater_ or _parens_ of the ~mu/stês~ (Apul., _M._ xi, 25; Tert., _Apol._ 8; _ad Nat._ i, 7)--he effects the entrance of the new member into his own family. (In Greek the name for such a mystic "father" seems to have been ~patromu/stês~, _CIG._ 3173, 3195.)--This conception of a _new birth_ by initiation reminds us of the Christian idea of _rebirth_ by baptism (which in its turn is developed from older Jewish ideas: see Anrich, _Ant. Mysterienwesen_, p. 111, n.). It is nevertheless one which the Greeks themselves had at an early date. The ~mu/stai~ of the Eleusinia seem to have been not far from regarding initiation as an adoption into the divine ~ge/nos~.

In the ps.-Platonic _Axiochus_, p. 371 D, we read in the description of the ~chô=ros eusebô=n: entau=tha toi=s memuême/nois esti/ tis proedri/a kai\ ta\s hosi/ous hagistei/as kakei=se suntelou=si; pô=s ou=n ou soi\ prô/tô| me/testi tê=s timê=s, _o/nti gennê/tê|_ tô=n theô=n? kai\ tou\s peri\ Hêrakle/a te~ (perhaps ~de/~ would be better) ~kai\ Dio/nuson katio/ntas eis Ha/idou pro/teron lo/gos entha/de~ (i.e. at Athens) ~_muêthê=nai_ kai\ to\ tha/rsos tê=s ekei=se porei/as para\ tê=s Eleusini/as enau/sasthai~.--Here Axiochos (for it is to him that Sokrates is speaking) is plainly described as ~gennê/tês tô=n theô=n~ simply and solely because he belongs to the ~memuême/noi~. According to Wilamowitz (Gött. Gel. Anz._, 1896, p. 984) he is called ~gennê/tês tô=n theô=n~ only as a member of the ~ge/nos~ of the ~Eupatri/dai~ to which he apparently belonged. But that anyone just on the strength of the by no means uncommon fact that he belonged to a ~ge/nos~ that happened to trace its earliest origin from a god (nor is it certain even that the ~Eupatri/dai~ did this)--that anyone on this account should have dared to call himself a "member of the same family as the gods" is to say the least of it difficult to parallel. In this case at any rate nothing of the kind can be meant. From the general principle that the initiated have a ~proedri/a~ in Hades it is deduced, simply as conclusion from premiss, with a "surely then"--(~pô=s _ou=n_ ou--~), that Axiochos too may hope to enjoy this same honour (~_tê=s_ timê=s--~). It is then entirely impossible that, to account for this hope, a reason {603} should be implied and expressed which, like the supposed descent of Axiochos from the gods, had nothing to do with the mysteries and the privileges of the ~mu/stai~. If it was the (alleged) descent of Axiochos from the gods which secured him ~timê/~ in Hades it would be quite meaningless to accompany the mention of the ~timê/~ thus secured to Axiochos with an allusion to the ~timê/~ obtained on quite different grounds by the ~memuême/noi~ (which yet is mysteriously equivalent to that obtained by right of birth). This allusion, moreover, is put in such a way that it quite unambiguously includes the special case of Axiochos in the common denomination of the ~memuême/noi~ of whom he is said to be one. The fact, indeed, that the privileges of the ~memuême/noi~ is the only subject alluded to throughout is shown also by the third and last sentence: the famous cases of the initiation of Herakles and Dionysos are only mentioned as emphasizing still further the importance of _~muêthê=nai~_ for those ~eis ha/|dou katio/ntas~.

Here then Axiochos can only be called ~gennê/tês tô=n theô=n~ in so far as he is ~memuême/nos~. Why, indeed, he ~prô=tos~, before other ~memuême/noi~, should have a claim to the honour of ~proedri/a~ is something that our text does not say and that can hardly be extracted from it. It certainly appears that Axiochos has a special privilege beyond that of other Mystai. Had he reached a specially high stage of the ~te/lê~ which was not open to everyone and at which kinship with the gods was first fully assured? Did the family of the ~Eupatri/dai~ undertake some active part in the ~mu/êsis~ which gave them a closer relation to the gods? In any case his claim to be regarded as ~gennê/tês tô=n theô=n~ must have depended on his having been initiated at Eleusis.

Now this kinship with the gods to which he thus attains can only be made intelligible, if, in accordance with the analogies adduced above, we regard the ~mu/êsis~ (or perhaps only its highest stages) as a symbolic adoption by the divinities, suggesting or representing entrance into the divine ~ge/nos~. No one will maintain that ~gennê/tês tô=n theô=n~ is a "very unnatural phrase" (Wil.) for one who has been "adopted" by the gods, who will recall the fact that at Athens the adopted person was inscribed ~eis tou\s _gennê/tas_~ of the adopter (Is. 7, 13; 15; 17; 43), or, which is precisely the same thing, ~eis tou\s suggenei=s~ of the adopter (Is. 7, 27; 1). Thereby he becomes himself ~gennê/tês~ of the members of the ~ge/nos~ into which he thus enters; he is now their ~gennê/tês~, or, as it is once expressed in an absolutely equivalent phrase, their ~_suggenê\s_ kata\ tê\n poi/êsin~ ([Dem.] 44, 32).

Thus the fully initiated is ~gennê/tês~ of the divine family, ~kata\ tê\n poi/êsin~.