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)-ΘέμιςPublished online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
In his Protreptikos (2,22) Clement of Alexandria rages against the contents of the mystic chests used in the rites of the mystery religions. Among other items he lists such things as cakes, salt balls, the serpent, and adds as though an afterthought, “the ἀπόῤῥητα σύμβολα of (Γ)-Θἐμις, ὀρίγανον a lamp, a sword, and a κτεὶς γυναικεῖος, which is a euphemism used in the mysteries for the female parts.” What was the association of these objects with (Γ)-Θέμις? What evidence might Clement have had for such an association?
1 Farnell, Lewis Richard, The Cults of the Greek States (Chicago: Aegean, 1971) 3, 13, 14.Google Scholar Farnell continues, “If this view is correct, the ancient oracular cult of Ge-Themis acquires a special importance: for it will have given rise to the worship of a higher ethical goddess, who, having broken the shell and escaped the limitations of Gaia, could take on the more universal character of a goddess of righteousness, the common term Θέμις having always meant more than the mere righteous decision of the oracle.”
2 Ehrenburg, Victor, Die Rechtsidee im Frühen Griechentum (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966) 33.Google Scholar
3 Plutarch 2, 61 ID: τὰ μύστικα σύμβολα τῶν περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον ὀργιασμῶν, ἂ σύνισμεν ἀλλήλοις οἱ κοινωνοῦντες. Cf. Orphic Fr. 31. 23.
4 For example cf. LSJ 1676B, 1677A; Cod. Just. 1.1.7, 11.
5 Cf. Firth, Raymond, Symbols Public and Private (Ithaca: Cornell, 1965) 62–65.Google Scholar
6 Cf. Strom. 1,14: ἐπαγγέλλεται δὲ οὐχ ὥστε ἑρμηνεῦσαι τὰ ἀπόῤῥητα ικανῶς….
7 Cf. Protrep. 4,1: εὑρήσετε τὴν συνήθειαν, ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων
8 Cf. ibid., 4,54: πάνυ γοῦν έμϕανῶς καὶ συντόμως ὁ προϕητικὸς ἐλέγχει τὴν συνήθειαν λόγος ὅτι Πάντες οἱ θεοὶ τῶν ἔθνων δαιμονίων εἰσὶν εἴδωλα, ὁ δὲ θεὸς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἐποίησεν. …
9 Cf. ibid., 10,82: οὐ δὲ ἄῤῥητος ἡ ϕιλανθρωπία, τούτου ἀχώρητος ἡ μισοπονηρία; PG 37 (956P): καὶ τὸ μὲν ἄῤῥητον αὐτοῦ πατήρ, τὸ δὲ εἰς ἡμᾶς συμπάθες γέγονε μήτηρ. PG 5 (939P): ἀλλὰ καθιέντος τὸν νοῦν ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ σωτῆρος καὶ τὸ τῆς γνώμης ἀπόῤῥητον.
10 Cf. Kerenyi, Karl, Eleusis (New York: Pantheon, 1967) 118, 119Google Scholar: “In Alexandria the rites were not even protected by a rule of secrecy — that is why the Christians knew so much about them. Anyone who wished to could attend and ask questions concerning what happened in the darkness and what in the light. … In Attic Eleusis anthropomorphism remained predominant; in Alexandria the emphasis was designedly erotomorphic. No attempt whatever was made to conceal it, and it was far from being the Mystery secret.” There does not seem to be much evidence to support this conclusion, and Callimachos (Dem. Hymn) is a counter example.
11 Mylonas, George, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton: Princeton, 1961) 291.Google Scholar
12 In the Plutos (101) of Aristophanes a comic old woman boasts of having figured at the bridge in a cart. Kerenyi (Eleusis, 65) believes she was playing the role of Iambe or Baubo, who with her jokes and obscene gestures moved Demeter to laughter.
13 Mylonas (Eleusis, 292) observes, “The placing of the story at Eleusis; the stay of Demeter by the well in deep sorrow; her sojourn with the mortal rulers; her initial refusal to drink the draught presented to her; her final acceptance. … all these details reflect the tradition of Eleusis well-known to all because of the Homeric hymn.”
14 Cf. Farnell, Cults, 47.
15 See ibid., 48; Strom. 5,11; Protrep. 2,18.
16 The small baskets were also represented in use at Attic Eleusis. They are found portrayed on Caryatids of Pentelic marble. Each of these baskets was cylindrical in form and was decorated with the emblems of the cult of Demeter: a head of wheat, the poppy, the lidded kernos (an earthenware vessel holding a number of small cups cemented together), flanked by small flower rosettes, and a molding which Mylonas believes was meant to represent the Bacchos. Cistae of this proportional size could have been carried on the head and would seem to have been adequate for the Hiera. They would certainly hold the items mentioned by Clement.
17 Cf. Harpokration, s.v. Λικνοϕόρος τ λίκνον πρς πάσαν τελετν κα θυσίαν πιτήδειόν στιν.
18 The chief manuscript is Parisinus Graecus 451. A description may be found in GCS 52 (15).
19 Mondésert, Claude, Clément d'AIexandrie, Le Protreptique (Paris: Cerf, 1949).Google Scholar
20 These probabilities are founded on a study of manuscript errors in the textual tradition of Aeschylos.
21 For some of these suggestions see Ehrenburg, Rechisidee, 33–36.
22 Aeschylos (Prometheus, 211) refers to the union of Ge and Themis:
ἐμοὶ δὲ μήτηρ οὐχ ἅπαξ μόνον Θέμις καὶ Γαῖα, πολλῶν ὁνομάτων μορϕὴ μία.
23 Cf. Kerenyi, Karl, Zeus und Hera (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 88, 95.Google Scholar
24 Protrep. 4,50; 5,56.
25 Hesiod in the Theogony pictures Demeter as daughter and mother standing between Rhea and Persephone. An Orphic genealogy shows how later theologians may have tried to combine different traditions. According to one tradition Rhea was the mother of Persephone; according to another, it is Demeter. Following the first tradition Persephone bore by her own father the subterranean child Dionysos as a second, subterranean Zeus.
26 The names of both Demeter and Persephone are used for the mother of the child. Orphic Fragment 145 reads: “After becoming the mother of Zeus, she who had formerly been Rhea became Demeter.” This tradition would be “unutterable” for Clement.
27 Calder, , Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiquae (Manchester: University, 1963) 6, 53, 299.Google Scholar
28 Pfeiffer, Rudolf, Callimachus (Cambridge: Oxford, 1949) 1. 292.Google Scholar
29 Cf. ibid., 292, 293 for references to other texts.
30 Callimachos (Dem. Hymn 18) cites as first point in praise of the goddess how she gave τέθμια to cities. This Hymn begins with the phrase, “When the kalathos passes.” Callimachos in Fragment 63 associates Demeter (Deo) with the Thesmophoria and explains by the anger of the goddess why some things must not be revealed. The end of the Hymn prays to the goddess for two gifts: justice and fertility. Pausanias (5, 14, 30) stresses that at Olympia the altar of Ge was named the “Mouth of Themis,” and the Orphic Hymn to Demeter (40, 18–23) unites the functions of fertility and justice.