The Sun.
London, England, 1824-12-29 00:00:00

ON THE WORSHIP OF BACCHUS.

Considerable uncertainty exists respecting the
'nature of the god BACCHUS, in honour of whom
the mysteries were celebrated, and respecting
the different mythological personages counfound-
.ed under the name of that deity. '.►his desi-
deratum, in this branch of the science of anti-
quity, had already occupied the attention of two
teamed French Antiquarians, M. Visconti and
M. de Sacy, when the French Academy of In•
scriplions made it the subject of a prize, which
bas been awarded to M. Rolle, whose work has
recently been published at Paris.*
The mysteries of Bacchus and of Ceres were
instituted by the Egyptian colonists. They are
a copy of the mysteries of Osiris and of Isis.
Its Greece tilt mythos of Bacchus, like that of
Osiris in Egypt, was the symbol of the principle
which gives motion to nature and its operations.
From this common source arise those numerous
festivals, of which antiquity has left a few tradi-
tions, without communicating any certain intelli-
gence as to their nature, their object, and their
.usigin. The author states, that all these festivals
are comprised in the three great divisions of the
worship of Bacchus, or of the great generative
principle. Ist, Those which have relation to the
worship of Eleusis, and which are common to
:Bacchus and to Ceres; their object was the ado.
ration of the universal active principle, and of
the passive principle., the conjunction of which,
according to the system of the Egyptians, pro.
duced the Cosmos, that is to say, all the beings
which compose the Universe. 2d, The Triete-
rice in which the power of productiveness was
celebrated, and was considered in its particular
applications to the productions of the earth, and
especially as the god of wine. 3d, The Diony-
.sia which had been formed by a blending of the
worship of Eleusis with that of the Theban Bac-
chus, when Pegasus of Eleuthera) brought to
Athens the worship of Bacchus, the son of Se-
auele, long after the mysteries of Eleusis had
-been established there. The Dionysia repre-
sented particularly the worship of Bacchus or
Dionysius, the symbol of the reproductive force
of nature, in its application to the cultivation of
the mind, and to the genius of inventions; thence
_tho►se pumps, those festivals so celebrated at•
Athens, those dramatic contests which contribute'
ed so powerfully in exciting the genius of those '
illustrious men whose chefs-d'oeuvre we yet pos.
sets; thence, the chorusses, the dance, the music,
and all the rites relating to education, the arts
and sciences, which belonged to the rnythos of
Dionysius, and which were known under the
name of Bacchic Institutions.

One may easily imagine how extensive must
have been the researches of M. Rolle to have en-
abled hhn to form a collection of these various

notions on the two great gods of antiquity. He
has thrown great light and given sound informa-
Aion on the doctrines and the creeds of the an-
fleets ; he has made known curious facts, of which
•we were hitherto ignorant ; his reasonings are per 7
spicuous, his Ideas ingenious, and his distinctions
important : -and the result of his studies has
`brought him to the same_ conclusions as Beausobre.
,The Author of the history Nanicheism,
• and the Author of Researches on the Worship
.-. of Bacchus, concur in opinion that all the reli-
gions of paganism may be divided into two
. classes, because their foundation rests upon two
very distinct :opinions, on what Beausobre calls
principles, that is to say, on the eternal beings
which exist necessarily, and which are the causes
of all existing things. The first is that which
.acknowledged.in :the world two eternal beings,
one active,-the other passive, the agent and the
object on which he displays his action. Accord-
ing to the other, there is but one substance in the
Universe, which contains within itself all per-
feetion, and which, by virtue of its constant self-
motion, receives an infinitude of different modifi-
cations, and forms, by emanations, the various
bodies of which the world is composed. " Before
Christianity," says Beausohre, " there were no
sitter systems than these two."
M. Rolle thinks that the first of these religious"
systems had its origin from the Egyptians, whose
...worship was detertnined by the natural objects
• before their eyes,--n beneficent sun, the sky
which covered the:earth, and gave them the pro-
ductions necessary for their subsistence.
The-other religious system belonged •to ,the
• Persians and • the other nations of Upper Asia.
M•Rolle has developed . the first system in his
Researches, and he has..made a learned and judi.
••cious application of it to the -worship of -Bacchus,
of :Ceres, and of lacchus in Greece, of Osiris,
• -of fats, and of Mortis in Egypt.
But in order to prove that the Egyptian
,and
_Hellenic religions have their foundation in this
.irilheism, it should be demonstrated that it is
-equally applicable-to the worship of each of the
great Divinities of 'Greece. By applying him-
self to this work, by searching into the nature
and the origin of the worship of each of
these divinities ..with the candour, the good
sense, and the erudition which distinguish his
present production, M. Rolle would determine
perhaps our opinions on that fanciful chaos of
extravagant fictions, .which are presented to us
as the religion of the Ancients. Indeed, if that
which belongs •to • the .religion of the Ancients
could be separated from the monstrous mass of
. fictions and absurdities, which are the offspring
of the imagination: of poets, the dreams of-phi.
:losophers, of the superstition of the. people, and
of the impostures of priests, we should
.probably
arrive -at a knowledge of that theological religion
. acknowledged by the sages of Paganism, who
~load formed perhaps as correct an idea of the divi-
nity, as can.be expected of man abandoned to his
• own --weak---senses, by contemplating nature, its
111110_1e ,atl its•.phenomena.
With-regard,to the religious system which ap.
pears to belong to the people of Upper Asia, it
would be reudering an eminent service to science,
if the thick veil, which yet conceals the•religion
• and the philosophy of those nations,- could be
removed.
• Riebarcees-nur le Cubs 4ta Ilscehes, timbale do la force
rePro
cone d4r4 sacs aes rapports OM-
rave dan ductivo de la Nature; s
Mysteres d seas se' „siva, nuth
::_eallers dans has Dyonisiaqu es et rphtdeesu 4 Par N. Rolle,
.43aservateur fif Is Bibliotbbitte eel ans,,a 'v is, avg.