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Updated: May 23, 2025
In the Mysteries of every nation, the candidate was made to pass, during his initiation, through scenes of utter darkness, and at length terminated his trials by an admission to the splendidly-illuminated sacellum, or sanctuary, where he was said to have attained pure and perfect light, and where he received the necessary instructions which were to invest him with that knowledge of the divine truth which it had been the object of all his labors to gain, and the design of the institution, into which he had been initiated, to bestow.
The gens had its own sacellum or chapel, and its own sacra or religious rites. The whole gens occasionally went into mourning when one of its members was unfortunate. It would be interesting if it could be shown that the sacra were usually examples of ancestor-worship, but the faint indications on the subject scarcely permit us to assert this.
The whiteness of the small sacellum in the centre of the grove, amidst the dark foliage, had in it something abrupt and startling; it recalled at once the purpose to which the wood was consecrated its holiness and solemnity.
It happened that the latter part of this conference had been held near the sacellum, or small chapel, which I have described in the early part of this work; and so soon as the forms of the Christian and the priest had disappeared from the grove, a dark and ungainly figure emerged from behind the chapel.
Inter pullos et porcos latitabat: the song of the rural deity had found its way into the haunts of the humble creatures whom she protected. A discovery even more fortunate, in 1857, led Sir Charles Newton to a little sacellum, or family chapel, near Cnidos.
Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius, a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth.
Thus Varro derives -facere- from -facies-, because he who makes anything gives to it an appearance, -volpes-, the fox, after Stilo from -volare pedibus- as the flying-footed; Gaius Trebatius, a philosophical jurist of this age, derives -sacellum- from -sacra cella-, Figulus -frater- from -fere alter- and so forth.
It was practised in Persia, Chaldea, India, and other Oriental countries, at an early period of the world's history. Sun-worship has had a powerful influence on subsequent and more rational religions, and relics of it are to be found even in the symbolism of Freemasonry. SACELLUM. A sacred place consecrated to a god, and containing an altar.
The complete communication of the secrets in the ancient Mysteries, when the aspirant was admitted into the sacellum, or most sacred place, and was invested by the Hierophant with all the aporrheta, or sacred things, which constituted the perfect knowledge of the initiate. A similar ceremony in Freemasonry is called the Rite of Intrusting.
'Swear then by yon fane, yon statue of Cybele, by yon most ancient sacellum in Pompeii, that the dead man embraced your faith! 'Vain man! I disown your idols! I abhor your temples! How can I swear by Cybele then? 'Away, away with the Atheist! away! the earth will swallow us, if we suffer these blasphemers in a sacred grove away with him to death!
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