The Closing of The Rites of Eleusis in Antiquity
If you read my previous post about gender essentialism in The Rites of Eleusis, you may have gotten the opinion that I have some pretty liberal ideas about sex and gender. You would be right.
I can cite many events, many ideas and observations, many philosophical points that support my view that the intimate lives of our neighbors should never be our business, and never be politicized, but I think this story tells it best. I discovered it while researching the morality laws in antiquity, and it is a heartbreaking tale of loss, discrimination and religious politics that also happens to be the singular turning point for the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, and why and how they ended.
I should note here at the outset that my “mind your own business” attitude is not intended to say we should ever ignore those in distress, those who are being hurt, exploited, manipulated or coerced. Rather, we should refrain from torturing those who are enthusiastically happy with their consensual relationships, however they manifest. The glory of the world is in diversity.
Returning to the main point, much as our documentary started out with the question: “Who started staging The Rites of Eleusis after Crowley presented them, and why?”, this post started with the question: “When did the cult of Demeter at Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries in antiquity end, and why?”
The short version is that, after 2 millennia of nearly uninterrupted operation, Roman Emperor Theodosius closed all the Pagan shrines between 389 and 391 c.e., and the Telesterion at Eleusis was among them. That would have gotten you the point as answer “B)” on a multiple choice quiz in Western Civilization 101, if the other options were: “A) Ronald McDonald outlawed the Eleusinian Mysteries after the Grimace Affair in 1977.”, and “C) Nero burned downed ALL the shrines, like the pyromaniac he was.”
But the date isn’t the story. I included it a few times over the years in presentations, and I mention it in the voice-over in our Rites of Eleusis documentary, because it was interesting to me. Then, during some unrelated research, I stumbled upon the story behind the date, and that is what I want to share with you.
I was reading “Sex and Punishment” by Eric Berkowitz, and his research added the missing piece of the puzzle. I am including a link here to a good review of the book from The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/08/sex-and-punishment-eric-berkowitz-review
In the book, Berkowitz, a lawyer, traces the history of sexual laws and crimes via the case laws associated with a variety of cultures starting with Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets through the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde for “gross indecency”. It is an engaging and often disturbing account of how sexuality was (and is) categorized into the “acceptable” and “unacceptable” realms of human culture, and the even more disturbing practice of the implementation of sexual punishment (not punishment for sexual conduct, but the use of sexual assault as state sanctioned punishment) that humanity has employed through the several thousand years of recorded history.
I found the book to be as well written as it was disturbing, and I find myself returning to it regularly when discussing common sexual morality with common people, as it affords many examples of just how arbitrary our morality is, how contrived, and ultimately how manipulative. It is a panorama of how humans cannot seem to stay out of each others personal lives, and the cruel lengths we can go to when we are trying to correct what is not our business.
Within this book, Berkowitz included an account of The Massacre at Thessalonica. And because he did his homework, he included a few details that my Western Civilization textbooks tended to gloss over.
Sex between men was common in the Ancient world, and while there were some political ramifications regarding who was “on top”, the populous at large accepted the practice. Not so much a Goth garrison that was policing the Greek city of Thessalonica, and homosexual sex was especially repugnant to their commander, Butheric.
A half century after the rule of Emperor Constantine, Christian inspired laws that regard all sex as obscene, but allowed that sex within marriage was a necessary evil, gave no license to homosexual practice. This was convenient for Butheric, who used these laws to strike out against the local practice, and one of those he arrested was a chariot racer who was a local favorite. (For modern context, imagine a sheriff in a rural area arresting a flamboyant professional wrestler.)
The Goths had not counted on the 100,000 spectators from the Hippodrome in Thessalonica descending upon the garrison, demanding his release. When they refused to free the aforementioned charioteer, a mob murdered the Goths in a full on fan-boy riot. To add insult, they mutilated Butheric and dragged his remains around the city.
When news of the revolt reached the Emperor in Rome, in a fit of rage he ordered a savage retaliation. Just before the start of the next games, a reinforced garrison locked the gates of the Hippodrome and proceeded to ruthlessly butcher every man, woman and child in attendance, regardless of whether they have been involved in the previous riot.
At least 7,000 killings later the massacre was over. This did not sit well with Thedosius reputation as an Emperor given to Christian Mercy, and either through genuine remorse, or political savvy, Theodosius reached out to Ambrose, later a Saint, and at that time the Bishop of Milan, to receive absolution for this crime.
He was denied.
Instead of receiving the Emperor to hear his confession, Ambrose sent a letter threatening to deny the Eucharist, and withhold the blessing of the Church until Theodosius did penance.
This was the first time the Church had taken any action of this kind, and Ambrose withheld the sacrament for eight months despite the Emperors pleas. The penance that Saint Ambrose finally managed to extort from Theodosius was the closing of all the pagan shrines throughout the Roman Empire.
That’s how it happened. That is how pagan practice in Rome ended. The vestal fires were extinguished. The sanctuaries were closed. Traditions that were already thousands of years old when Christ was wandering around Galilee were outlawed.
In just over a century, all male-male sex was to be legally seen as an offense to the Christian God, and punishable by death within Rome. What started as the arrest of a chariot racer in a province of the Empire, ended with the Church seizing political control of that Empire, and thousands of years of mystery tradition was wiped out through a type of spiritual extortion.
This is why we can’t have nice things.