Note 18 — Chapter VI · THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

ὅσιοι μύσται, Ar., Ran. 336. (So, too, the Mystai of the Orphic mysteries are called οἱ ὅσιοι: Pl., Rp. 363 C; Orph., H. 84, 3.) ὅσιος is probably here used in its primitive sense = “clean” (ὅσιαι χεῖρες, etc.). [Pl.] Axioch. 371 D refers to τὰς ὁσίους ἀγχιστείας of the Eleus. Mystai. In the same way ὁσιοῦν was used of ritual purification and expiation: φυγαῖσιν ὁσιοῦν the murder, E., Or. 515; ὁσιοῦν the returned homicide, D. 23, 73; (of the Bacchic mysteries βάκχος ἐκλήθην ὁσιωθείς, E. fr. 472, 15). Thus the ὅσιοι are identical with the κεκαθαρμένοι as the initiated are called: Pl. Phd. 69 C, and frequently. It would be hazardous to suppose that the Mystai called themselves ὅσιοι as the only pious and righteous people (though that is what ὅσιος ἄνθρωπος and the like mean elsewhere). Their spiritual self-satisfaction hardly went as far as that, and indeed they did not ascribe so much personal merit to themselves at all.