Plato in the _Phaedo_ says that 'those who established our mysteries declare that all who come to Hades uninitiated will lie in the mud; while he who has been purified and initiated will dwell with the gods'. For, as they say in the mysteries, 'Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the inspired'. This sacramentalism was not unchallenged, as we have already seen from Plato himself. Diogenes is said to have asked whether the robber Pataecion was better off in the other world than the hero Epaminondas, because the former had been initiated, and the latter had not. But Orphism, though liable to degradation, purified and elevated the old Bacchic rites. As Miss Harrison says, the Bacchanals hoped to attain unity with God by intoxication, the Orphics by abstinence. The way to salvation was now through 'holiness' (ὁσιοτης {hosiotês}). To the initiated the assurance was given, 'Happy and blessed one! Thou shalt be a god instead of a mortal.' To be a god meant for a Greek simply to be immortal; the Orphic saint was delivered from the painful cycle of recurring births and deaths. And Orphic purity was mainly, though not entirely, the result of moral discipline. Cumont says that the mystery-cults brought with them two new things--mysterious means of purification by which they proposed to cleanse away the defilements of the soul, and the assurance that an immortality of bliss would be the reward of piety. The truth, says Mr. H. A. Kennedy, was presented to them in the guise of divine revelations, esoteric doctrines to be carefully concealed from the gaze of the profane, doctrines which placed in their hands a powerful apparatus for gaining deliverance from the assaults of malicious demonic influences, and above all for overcoming the relentless tyranny of fate. This demonology was believed everywhere under the Roman empire, the period of which Mr. Kennedy is thinking in this sentence, and it has unfortunately left more traces in St. Paul's epistles than we like to allow. The formation of brotherhoods for mystic worship was also an important step in the development of Greek religion. These brotherhoods were cosmopolitan, and seem to have flourished especially at great seaports. They were thoroughly popular, drawing most of their support from the lower classes, and within them national and social distinctions were ignored. Their ultimate aim cannot be summed up better than in Mr. Kennedy's words--'to raise the soul above the transiency of perishable matter through actual union with the Divine'. It has been usual to distinguish between the dignified and officially recognized mysteries, like those of Eleusis, and the independent voluntary associations, some of which became important. But there was probably no essential difference between them. In neither case was there much definite teaching; the aim, as Aristotle says, was to produce a certain emotional state (ου μαθειν τι δειν αλλα παθειν {ou mathein ti dein alla pathein}).