THE ARCANE SCHOOLS - Fort Myers Beach Masonic Lodge No. 362

[14] Dissert. on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, in the
Pamphleteer,
vol. viii. p. 53.
[15] Symbol. und Mythol. der Alt. Voelk.
[16] In these Mysteries, after the people had for a long time bewailed
the
loss of a particular person, he was at last supposed to be restored to
life.--BRYANT, _Anal. of Anc. Mythology_, vol. iii. p. 176.
[17] Herod. Hist., lib. iii. c. clxxi.
[18] The legend says it was cut into _fourteen_ pieces. Compare this
with
the _fourteen_ days of burial in the masonic legend of the third
degree.
Why the particular number in each? It has been thought by some, that in
the latter legend there was a reference to the half of the moon's age,
or
its dark period, symbolic of the darkness of death, followed by the
fourteen days of bright moon, or restoration to life.
[19] Mysteres du Paganisme, tom. i. p. 6.
[20] Notes to Rawlinson's Herodotus, b. ii. ch. clxxi. Mr. Bryant
expresses the same opinion: "The principal rites in Egypt were
confessedly
for a person lost and consigned for a time to darkness, who was at last
found. This person I have mentioned to have been described under the
character of Osiris."--_Analysis of Ancient Mythology_, vol. iii. p.
177.
[21] Spirit of Masonry, p. 100.
[22] Varro, according to St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, vi. 5), says that
among the ancients there were three kinds of theology--a _mythical_,
which
was used by the poets; a _physical_, by the philosophers, and a
_civil_,
by the people.
[23] "Tous les ans," says Sainte Croix, "pendant les jours consacres au
souvenir de sa mort, tout etoit plonge dans la tristesse: on ne cessoit
de
pousser des gemissemens; on alloit meme jusqu'a se flageller et se
donner
des coups. Le dernier jour de ce deuil, on faisoit des sacrifices
funebres
en l'honneur de ce dieu. Le jour suivant, on recevoit la nouvelle
qu'Adonis venoit d'etre rappele a la vie, qui mettoit fin a leur
deuil."--_Recherches sur les Myst. du Paganisme_, tom. ii. p. 105.
[24] Clement of Alexandria calls them [Greek: myste/ria ta\ pro\
mysteri/on], "the mysteries before the mysteries."