Note 34 — Chapter VI · THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

No one says anything of any kind of moral obligation undertaken by the Mystai or of any consequent moral influence of the festival: not even Andokides in whose warnings addressed to the college of judges composed of Mystai (Myst. 31) the words ἵνα τιμωρήσητε μὲν τοὺς ἀσεβοῦντας κτλ. are not to be taken with the previous μεμύησθε καὶ ἑωράκατε τοῖν θεοῖν τὰ ἱερά but with οἵτινες ὅρκους μεγάλους κτλ., καὶ ἀρασάμενοι κτλ. He speaks, in fact, of the moral obligation of the jury who have taken the oath, as judges not as Mystai. In Ar., Ran., 455 ff., the words ὅσοι μεμυήμεθα stand loosely side by side with εὐσεβῆ διήγομεν τρόπον περὶ τοὺς ξένους καὶ τοὺς ἰδιώτας. (Of the Samothrakian mysteries Diodoros says, 5, 49, 6: γίνεσθαι δέ φασι καὶ εὐσεβεστέρους καὶ δικαιοτέρους καὶ κατὰ πᾶν βελτίονας ἑαυτῶν τοὺς τῶν μυστηρίων κοινωνήσαντας—as it seems without effort on their part by a pure act of grace.)