Clement of Alexandria: EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 15

Then there are the mysteries of Demeter, and Zeus's wanton embraces of his mother, and the wrath of Demeter; I know not what for the future I shall call her, mother or wife, on which account it is that she is called Brimo, as is said; also the entreaties of Zeus, and the drink of gall, the plucking out of the hearts of sacrifices, and deeds that we dare not name. Such rites the Phrygians perform in honour of Attis and Cybele and the Corybantes. And the story goes, that Zeus, having torn away the orchites of a ram, brought them out and cast them at the breasts of Demeter, paying thus a fraudulent penalty for his violent embrace, pretending to have cut out his own. The symbols of initiation into these rites, when set before you in a vacant hour, I know will excite your laughter, although on account of the exposure by no means inclined to laugh. "I have eaten out of the drum, I have drunk out of the cymbal, I have carried the Cernos, [880] I have slipped into the bedroom." Are not these tokens a disgrace? Are not the mysteries absurdity?

[880] The cernos some take to be a vessel containing poppy, etc., carried in sacrificial processions. The scholiast says that it is a fan. [I have marked this as a quotation. See below: Eleusinian rites.]

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