“From Greece the custom came, for Greece esteems Those free from guilt who bathe in sacred streams. Thus did old Pelius once Patroclus lave, And free from stain in the Hæmonian wave: As, in that same Hæmonian stream before, Acastus, Pelius freed from Phocus’ gore. The Phasian sorceress, in her fiery car, Borne by yoked dragons through the liquid air, To credulous Ægeus supplication made, And from him won an undeservèd aid. In Naupactoan Achelous’ flood, His horrid hands stained with his mother’s blood, Alcæmon bathed; ‘Cleanse me from crime,’ he cried, Nor by the stream was his request denied. Ah, vain the hope, and far too easy they, Who think the water takes such guilt away.” _Fasti_, book ii., line 58 ff. Influence of the “Greek Mysteries.” The influence of the Greek mysteries in corrupting Christian baptism is more plainly seen than that of any other specific department of the pagan cult. These mysteries were the remnant of the oldest religion known to the Greeks. They embodied the worship of the gods of the productive forces in nature, and of the gods of death. The most important centre of this cult was at Eleusis, where the worship was celebrated in the largest temple in Greece. The chief elements in the cult were initiation, sacrifice, and scenic representations of the great facts in the processes of nature and in human life. The main conception in the initiation was that the candidate must be purified before he could approach God. The initiated, being thus purified, were inducted to a divine life and to the hope of a resurrection. The ceremonial began with the proclamation: “Let no one enter whose hands are not clean, and whose tongue is not prudent.”[106] Confession was followed by a kind of baptism.[107] The candidates for initiation bathed in the pure waters of the sea. The manner of bathing and the number of immersions varied with the degree of guilt which they had confessed. They came from the bath new men. It was a κάθαρσις, a λουτρὸν, a “laver of regeneration.” Certain forms of abstinence were imposed; they had to fast; and when they ate they had to abstain from certain kinds of food.[108]