Of them all the oldest and most celebrated were those instituted at Eleusis, in Attica, in honor of the Goddess Demeter (Latin Ceres), and her daughter Persephone (Latin Proserpina). To these were added later a masculine deity, known at first as Iacchos, whose name is probably related to Jao, which appears in Jovispater or Jupiter, and to the Hebrew Yahve or Jehovah. Later, however, B was substituted for I and Iacchos was made to read Bacchus. Jao was the Harvest God, and consequently God of the grape, hence the close relation to Bacchus. The Greek word Eleusis means _advent_, and commemorates the visit of Demeter while wandering in search of her daughter,--which reminds one of the Egyptian story of Isis. Moved by gratitude, Demeter bestowed upon the people of Eleusis the bread-grain and the mysteries. From this city the cult of these two deities spread over all Greece and most of Asia Minor, passed into Italy in modified form, and thus became widely accepted. The people built at Eleusis a temple in pure Doric style and a Mystic House in which the secret festivals were held. The city was connected with Athens by a Sacred Way, which was flanked with temples and sanctuaries, while in Athens itself was a building, the Eleusinion, in which a portion of the mysteries were celebrated. The buildings at Eleusis were in good preservation until the fourth century A. D., when they were destroyed by the Goths under Alaric, and at the instigation of monkish fanatics. You will see, then, that the mysteries were widely observed in Asia Minor, and at a time when they must have deeply tinged the religious views and habits of a large portion of the population prior to the beginning of the Christian Era. The Eleusinian mysteries were always under the direction of the Athenian government, and the report of their celebration was always rendered to the grand council of Athens. The function of the priests was an hereditary and exclusive privilege and the mysteries as a whole were under the immediate care of a sacred council. The people contented themselves mainly with honoring the Gods, while in these mysteries the original endeavor was to emphasize the preëminence of the divine over the human, hence their careful guardianship by the authorities of the state. Both were offshoots of pantheism, one seeing the divine in all earthly things, the other constantly searching for it there, and striving to unite with it. Monotheism, that is absolute separation of the human from the divine without hope of union, is a purely Oriental conception, quite incomprehensible to the Greek mind. No ancient Greek ever conceived of a creative deity in the Egyptians' sense, nor of a vengeful Jehovah like that of the Hebrews.