The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

THE MYSTERIES OF BACCHUS. 99
alarmed by a crash resembling the rush of waters bursting
with sudden impetuosity from a deep abyss, or the
for now was the
deafening fall of a tremendous cataract ;
representation displayed of the waters of the Deluge
breaking forth from Hades to inundate the globe. The
21
monstrous Typhon, raging in quest of Osiris, 22 discovered
the ark in which he had been secreted, and violently
rending it asunder, 23 scattered the limbs of his victim
over the face of the earth amidst the din of dissolving
nature. 24 The aspirant heard the lamentations which
were instituted for the death of their god, whose repre-
: sentative he was, accompanied with doleful cries and
howlings of men, women, and animals, to symbolise the
death-shrieks and exclamations of terror, consternation,
and despair, which prevailed throughout the world at the
universal destruction of animated nature, and which would
unquestionably salute the ears of Noah while enclosed
within the vessel of safety. Then commenced the wan-
derings of Rhea in search of the remains of Bacchus,
her body begirt with a serpent, and a flaming torch in
her hand, 25 with lamentations 26 for the loss ; accompanied
with frantic shrieks and furious gesticulations ; which
continued, accompanied by many minute ceremonies, 27
21
Typhon was a personification of the sea, (Plut. de Isid. and Osir.,
p. 363,) or the Deluge, as Osiris was of the patriarch Noah (Fab. Mys.
Cab., vol.
i.,p. 151,) and hence the propriety of the fable, however enveloped
in mystery by the ritual of initiation.
22 Jambl. de Myst., s. vi., c. 5. Plut. ut supra, p. 354.
24 In this Allegory we must view Osiris as the ark itself rather than
the diluvian patriarch, and his scattered limbs, its contents, which
supplied the whole earth with men and animals after the waters had
subsided. The ceremonies, however, were, in many respects, so con-
tradictory to each other, that there exists much difficulty in reducing
them to order.
25 Minuc. Fel., p. 158. A torch was a symbol of Diana. Upright,
of the Sun in the east; reversed, of the same luminary in the west.
26 These lamentations were figuratively said to continue forty days,
in commemoration, probably, of the period in which the waters of the
Deluge actually increased upon the earth. (Gen. vii., 12.)
27 The following account of a disgusting ceremony, quoted by Mr.
Taylor from Arnobius, will show one of the practices used both in
Egypt and Greece, at the period of initiation.
" The goddess Ceres,
when searching through the earth for her daughter, in the course of
her wanderings arrived at the boundaries of Eleusis, in the Attic
region, a place which was then inhabited by a race of people called
autochthenes, or descended from the earth, whose names were as follows
; Baubo and Triptolemus ; Dysaules, a goatherd ; Eubulus, a