The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860. Various
of human life, so at the source of those vast movements by which she buries in oblivion her own works and the works of man there is hidden the type of human suffering, both for the race and the individual. And hence it is, that, over against the eternal solitude within us, there ever waits without us a second solitude, into which, sooner or later, we pass with restless flight,—a solitude vast, shadowy, and unfamiliar in its outline, but inevitable in its reality,—haunting, bewildering, overshadowing us!
"Who is it that shall interpret this intricate evolution of human footsteps, in its meaning of sorrow?—who is it that shall give us rest?" Such is the half-conscious prayer of all these fugitives,—of our Lady and all her children. This it is which gives meaning to the torch-light procession on the fifth night of the Festival; but to-morrow it shall find an answer in the Saviour Dionysus, who shall change the flight of search into the pomp of triumph.
But let us pause a moment. It is Palm Sunday! We are not, indeed, in Syria, the land of palms. Yet, even here,—lost in some far-reaching avenue of pines, where one could hardly walk upon a summer Sunday without such sense of joy as would move him to tears,—even here all the movements of the earth and the heavens hint of most jubilant triumph. Thus, the green grass rises above the dead grass at our feet; the leaf-buds new-born upon the tree, like lotos-buds springing up from Ethiopian marble, give token of resurrection; the trees themselves tower heavenward; and in victorious ascension the clouds unite in the vast procession, dissolving in exhalation at the "gates of the sun"; while from unnumbered choirs arise songs of exultant victory from the hearts of men to the throne of God!
But whither, in divine remembrance,—whither is it that upon this Sunday of all Sundays the thoughts of Christendom point? Back through eighteen hundred years to the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, followed by the children crying, "Hosanna in the highest heavens!" Of this it is that the processions of Nature, in the resurrections of birth and the aërial ascension of clouds,—of this that the upward processions of our thoughts are commemorative!
Thus was the sixth day of the Eleusinia,—when the ivy-crowned Dionysus was borne in triumph through the mystic entrance of Eleusis, and from the Eleusinian plains, as from our choirs to-day, ascended the jubilant Hosannas of the countless multitude;—this was the Palm Sunday of Greece.
Close upon the chariot-wheels of the Saviour Dionysus followed, in the faith of Greece, Aesculapius and Hercules: the former the Divine Physician, whose very name was healing, and who had power over death, as the child of the Sun; and the latter, who by his saving strength delivered the earth from its Augean impurities, and, arrayed in celestial panoply, subdued the monsters of the earth, and at last, descending to Hades, slew the three-headed Cerberus and took away from men much of the fear of death. Such was the train of the Eleusinian Dionysus. If Demeter was the wanderer, he was the conqueror and centre of all triumph.
And this reminds us of his Indian conquest. What did it mean? Admit that it may have been only the fabulous march in triumph of some forgotten king of mortal birth to the farthest limits of the East. Still the fact of its association with Dionysus stands as evidence of the connection of human faith with human victory. Let it be that Dionysus himself was only the apotheosis of victorious humanity. In strict logic this is more than probable. Yet why apotheosize conquerors at all? Why exalt all heroes to the rank of gods?
The reason is, that men are unwilling to draw a limited meaning from any human act. How could they, then, connecting, as they did, all victory with hope,—how could they fall short of the most exalted hope, of the most excellent victory; especially in instances like the one now under our notice, where the material circumstances of the conquest as well as of the conqueror's life have passed out of remembrance; when for generations men have dwelt upon the dim tradition in their thoughts, and it has had time to grow into its fullest significance,—even finding an elaborate expression in sacred writings, in symbolic ritual, and monumental entablature? Osiris, who subjected men to his reign of peace, was also held to be the Preserver of their souls. Even Caesar, had he lived two thousand years before, might have been worshipped as Saviour. All extended power, measured by duration in time or vast areas of space, becomes an incarnate Presence in the world, which awes to the dust all who resist it, and exalts with its own glory all who trust in it. Achtheia mourns all failures; and here it is that the human touches the earth. But they who conquer, these are our Saviours; they shall follow in the train of Dionysus; they shall lift us to the heavens, and sanctify in our remembrance the Sunday of Palms!
But Dionysus not only looks back with triumphant remembrance to ancient conquest, but has his victories in the present, also, and in the great Hereafter. For triumph was connected with all Dionysiac symbols, hints of which are preserved to us in representations found upon ancient vases: such, for instance, as the figure of Victory surmounting the heads of the ivy-crowned Bacchantes in their mystic orgies; or the winged serpents which bear the chariot of the victor-god,—as if in this connection even the reptiles, whose very name (serpentes) is a synonyme for what creeps, are to be made the ministrants of his conquering flight. The tombs of the ancients from Egypt to Etruria are full of these symbols. Many of them have become dim as to their meaning by oblivious time; but enough is evident to indicate the prominence of hope in ancient faith. This appears in the very multiplicity of Dionysiac symbols as compared with any other class. Thus, out of sixty-six vases at Polignano, all but one or two were found to be Dionysiac in their symbolism. And this instance stands for many others. The character of the scenes represented indicates the same prominence of hope, sometimes as connected with the relations of life,—as, for example, the representation, found upon a sepulchral cone, of a husband and wife uniting with each other in prayer to the Sun. Frequent inscriptions—such as those in which the deceased is carefully committed to Osiris, the Egyptian Dionysus—point in the same direction; as also the genii who presided over the embalmed dead, a belief in whose existence surely indicated a hopeful trust in some divine care which would not leave them even in the grave. Statues of Osiris are found among the ruins of palaces and temples; but it was in the monuments associated with death that they dwelt most upon his name and expressed their faith in most frequent incarnation and inscription.
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