Eleusis and Enlightenment

Download or read book Eleusis and Enlightenment written by Ferdinand Saumarez Smith and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-03-21 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The age of Enlightenment – the so-called age of reason – was also, paradoxically, the age of the Eleusinian mysteries. By attempting to reveal Demeter's secret cult, British, French, and German thinkers and freemasons of the eighteenth century revealed more than they bargained for: the pagan origins of Christian doctrines such as the Trinity and the afterlife, and through the mythical gift of law and agriculture to Eleusis an alternative narrative of the origins of civilisation to that found in the Bible.