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

[25] Les petits mysteres ne consistoient qu'en ceremonies
preparatoires.--_Sainte Croix_, i. 297.--As to the oath of secrecy,
Bryant
says, "The first thing at these awful meetings was to offer an oath of
secrecy to all who were to be initiated, after which they proceeded to
the
ceremonies."--_Anal. of Anc. Myth._, vol. iii. p. 174.--The Orphic
Argonautics allude to the oath: [Greek: meta\ d' o(rkia My/si~ais,
k. t. l.], "after the oath was administered to the mystes," &c.--_Orph.
Argon._, v. 11.
[26] The satirical pen of Aristophanes has not spared the Dionysiac
festivals. But the raillery and sarcasm of a comic writer must always
be
received with many grains of allowance. He has, at least, been candid
enough to confess that no one could be initiated who had been guilty of
any crime against his country or the public security.--_Ranae_, v.
360-365.--Euripides makes the chorus in his Bacchae proclaim that the
Mysteries were practised only for virtuous purposes. In Rome, however,
there can be little doubt that the initiations partook at length of a
licentious character. "On ne peut douter," says Ste. Croix, "que
l'introduction des fetes de Bacchus en Italie n'ait accelere les
progres
du libertinage et de la debauche dans cette contree."--_Myst. du Pag._,
tom. ii. p. 91.--St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. vii. c. xxi.)
inveighs
against the impurity of the ceremonies in Italy of the sacred rites of
Bacchus. But even he does not deny that the motive with which they were
performed was of a religious, or at least superstitious nature--"Sic
videlicet Liber deus placandus fuerat." The propitiation of a deity was
certainly a religious act.
[27] Hist. Greece, vol. ii. p. 140.
[28] This language is quoted from Robison (_Proofs of a Conspiracy_, p.
20, Lond. edit. 1797), whom none will suspect or accuse of an undue
veneration for the antiquity or the morality of the masonic order.
[29] We must not confound these Asiatic builders with the play-actors,
who
were subsequently called by the Greeks, as we learn from Aulus Gellius
(lib. xx. cap. 4), "artificers of Dionysus"--[Greek: Dionysiakoi
technitai\].
[30] There is abundant evidence, among ancient authors, of the
existence
of signs and passwords in the Mysteries. Thus Apuleius, in his Apology,
says, "Si qui forte adest eorundem Solemnium mihi particeps, signum
dato,"
etc.; that is, "If any one happens to be present who has been initiated
into the same rites as myself, if he will give me the sign, he shall
then
be at liberty to hear what it is that I keep with so much care."
Plautus
also alludes to this usage, when, in his "Miles Gloriosus," act iv. sc.
2,
he makes Milphidippa say to Pyrgopolonices, "Cedo signum, si harunc