Love and Death: Orfico-Christian parallels

Much has been written about Eleusis and its mysteries. It's not my intent to rehash any of the scholarly points, a task to which I am inadequate. Suffice it to say that we no longer have access to these mysteries (although the Homeric hymn to Demeter is highly suggestive). They are the Moon to the Sun of the Christian mystery...the latter being the only one we have direct access to these days in the West, and to which, I would argue, there are some intriguing lines of symmetry that warrant scrutiny.

Love and death. Both of these mysteries involve a descent to—and a return from—Hades. In one case, a Father loses a Son. In the other, a Mother loses a Daughter. Critically, both of these traditions celebrate the potential for regeneration—whether of the terrestrial world, as season gives way to season, or in the supercelestial world beyond time's end.

A 'silent' spouse: Though the crux of the relationships are the above, both entail an opposite number whose role is crucial to the mystery. The Blessed Mother, as Mater, is the vessel whereby the eternal Word becomes incarnate—literally making the will of Heaven manifest on Earth, on the material plane. As above, so below.

Conversely, it is Father Jove who both consents to the marital abduction of his daughter, a union of the divinities of Heaven and the Netherworld, and ultimately also commands her release, sending word by way of his trusted Messenger.

The wheel of seasons: The main feasts of the Christian mystery cluster around Christmas and Easter, the winter solstice and the spring equinox, the Lesser and Greater mysteries, with sparse representation through the rest of the year. The Eleusinian mysteries are thought to have been conducted roughly around the springtime (the Lesser) and then autumn (the Greater). It is not too much of a stretch, I would suggest, to imagine these as complementing each other—the return of Persephone, roughly at the same time of the resurrection of Christ, as a prelude to summer, after which her capture and return to Hades, culminating in the delivery of Zeus's message to his brother at the winter solstice, and thence her return once again.

What of Orpheus, then? For that acolyte of Apollo's own descent into Hades, and his charming of the rulers thereof, and his almost-successful return with his beloved, hint at a theme made explicit in the Christian mystery—that of those two human constants, love and death, procession and return, and the ultimate triumph of Love over all.