Note 35 — Chapter VI · THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES

Formal or verbal instruction of a theological or moral kind was not supplied at Eleusis; so much may be stated without fear of contradiction since the work of Lobeck. Thus, the three commandments of Triptolemos, which acc. to Xenokrates διαμένουσι Ἐλευσῖνι (Porph., Abs. 4, 22) cannot be regarded as moral precepts proclaimed at the mysteries: indeed, there is nothing to lead one to conclude that they had anything to do with the mystery festival at Eleusis. In character these very simple precepts seem related to the laws of Bouzyges, with whom Triptolemos is sometimes confused (Haupt, Opusc. iii, 505) and were very likely, like them, recited at some agricultural festival. Supposing further that the third “law” of Triptolemos: ζῷα μὴ σίνεσθαι was really (as Xenokr. seems to have understood it) intended to recommend a complete ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων, then it certainly cannot have been proclaimed at the Eleusinia (though this is what Dieterich thinks happened, Nekyia, 165). It is surely unthinkable that the Mystai at Eleusis were, after the Orphic model, absolutely forbidden to eat flesh for the rest of their lives. It remains a possibility that the precept had quite a different meaning—it does not definitely speak of the killing of animals—and that it belongs to some simple farmer’s festival (not to the great festival of Eleusis, but rather, e.g. the Haloa) at which the farmer was recommended to spare his live stock (just as the third of the three laws of Demonassa at Cyprus forbade the farmer μὴ ἀποκτεῖναι βοῦν ἀρότριον, D. Chr. 64, 3 [329 R., 148 Arn.]; Attic law ap. Ael. VH. 5, 14, etc.).—In any case to bring all this into connexion with the mystery festival of Eleusis is absolutely without justification.