The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism Part 3

People flattered themselves that by performing the rites they would attain a condition of felicity after death. All barbarian mysteries pretended to reveal to their adherents the secret of blessed immortality. Partic.i.p.ation in the occult ceremonies of the sect was a {43} chief means of salvation.[36] The vague and disheartening beliefs of ancient paganism in regard to life after death were transformed into the firm hope of a well-defined form of happiness.[37]

This faith in a personal survival of the soul and even of the body was based upon a strong instinct of human nature, the instinct of self-preservation. Social and moral conditions in the empire during its decline gave it greater strength than it had ever possessed before.[38] The third century saw so much suffering, anguish and violence, so much unnecessary ruin and so many unpunished crimes, that the Roman world took refuge in the expectation of a better existence in which all the iniquity of this world would be retrieved. No earthly hope brightened life. The tyranny of a corrupt bureaucracy choked all disposition for political progress. Science stagnated and revealed no more unknown truths. Growing poverty discouraged the spirit of enterprise. The idea gained ground that humanity was afflicted with incurable decay, that nature was approaching her doom and that the end of world was near.[39] We must remember all these causes of discouragement and despondency to understand the power of the idea, expressed so frequently, that the spirit animating man was forced by bitter necessity to imprison itself in matter and that it was delivered from its carnal captivity by death. In the heavy atmosphere of a period of oppression and impotence the dejected soul longed with incredible ardor to fly to the radiant abode of heaven.

To recapitulate, the Oriental religions acted upon the senses, the intellect and the conscience at the same time, and therefore gained a hold on the entire man. {44} Compared with the ancient creeds, they appear to have offered greater beauty of ritual, greater truth of doctrine and a far superior morality. The imposing ceremonial of their festivities and the alternating pomp and sensuality, gloom and exaltation of their services appealed especially to the simple and the humble, while the progressive revelation of ancient wisdom, inherited from the old and distant Orient, captivated the cultured mind. The emotions excited by these religions and the consolations offered strongly attracted the women, who were the most fervent and generous followers and most pa.s.sionate propagandists[40] of the religions of Isis and Cybele. Mithra was wors.h.i.+ped almost exclusively by men, whom he subjected to a rigid moral discipline. Thus souls were gained by the promise of spiritual purification and the prospect of eternal happiness.

The wors.h.i.+p of the Roman G.o.ds was a civic duty, the wors.h.i.+p of the foreign G.o.ds the expression of a personal belief. The latter were the objects of the thoughts, feelings and intimate aspirations of the individual, not merely of the traditional and, one might say, functional adoration of the citizen. The ancient munic.i.p.al devotions were connected with a number of earthly interests that helped to support each other. They were one of various forms of family spirit and patriotism and guaranteed the prosperity of the community. The Oriental mysteries, directing the will toward an ideal goal and exalting the inner spirit, were less mindful of economic utility, but they could produce that vibration of the moral being that caused emotions, stronger than any rational faculty, to gush forth from the depths of the soul. Through a sudden illumination {45} they furnished the intuition of a spiritual life whose intensity made all material happiness appear insipid and contemptible. This stirring appeal of supernatural life made the propaganda irresistible. The same ardent enthusiasm guaranteed at the same time the uncontested domination of neo-Platonism among the philosophers. Antiquity expired and a new era was born.

{46}

ASIA MINOR.

The first Oriental religion adopted by the Romans was that of the G.o.ddess of Phrygia, whom the people of Pessinus and Mount Ida wors.h.i.+ped, and who received the name of _Magna Mater deum Idea_ in the Occident. Its history in Italy covers six centuries, and we can trace each phase of the transformation that changed it in the course of time from a collection of very primitive nature beliefs into a system of spiritualized mysteries used by some as a weapon against Christianity. We shall now endeavor to outline the successive phases of that slow metamorphosis.

This religion is the only one whose success in the Latin world was caused originally by a mere chance circ.u.mstance. In 205 B. C, when Hannibal, vanquished but still threatening, made his last stand in the mountains of Bruttium, repeated torrents of stones frightened the Roman people. When the books were officially consulted in regard to this prodigy they promised that the enemy would be driven from Italy if the Great Mother of Ida could be brought to Rome. n.o.body but the Sibyls themselves had the power of averting the evils prophesied by them. They had come to Italy from Asia Minor, and in this critical situation their sacred poem recommended the practice of their native religion as a remedy. In token of his {47} friends.h.i.+p, King Attalus presented the amba.s.sadors of the senate with the black aerolite, supposed to be the abode of the G.o.ddess, that this ruler had shortly before transferred from Pessinus to Pergamum. According to the mandate of the oracle the stone was received at Ostia by the best citizen of the land, an honor accorded to Scipio Nasica--and carried by the most esteemed matrons to the Palatine, where, hailed by the cheers of the mult.i.tude and surrounded by fumes of incense, it was solemnly installed (Nones of April, 204). This triumphal entry was later glorified by marvelous legends, and the poets told of edifying miracles that had occurred during Cybele's voyage. In the same year Scipio transferred the seat of war to Africa, and Hannibal, compelled to meet him there, was beaten at Zama. The prediction of the Sybils had come true and Rome was rid of the long Punic terror. The foreign G.o.ddess was honored in recognition of the service she had rendered. A temple was erected to her on the summit of the Palatine, and every year a celebration enhanced by scenic plays, the _ludi Megalenses_, commemorated the date of dedication of the sanctuary and the arrival of the G.o.ddess (April 4th-10th).

What was this Asiatic religion that had suddenly been transferred into the heart of Rome by an extraordinary circ.u.mstance? Even then it could look back upon a long period of development. It combined beliefs of various origin. It contained primitive usages of the religion of Anatolia, some of which have survived to this day in spite of Christianity and Islam. Like the Kizil-Bash peasants of to-day, the ancient inhabitants of the peninsula met on the summits of mountains covered with woods no ax had desecrated, and {48} celebrated their festal days.[1] They believed that Cybele resided on the high summits of Ida and Berecyntus, and the perennial pines, in conjunction with the prolific and early maturing almond tree, were the sacred trees of Attis. Besides trees, the country people wors.h.i.+ped stones, rocks or meteors that had fallen from the sky like the one taken from Pessinus to Pergamum and thence to Rome. They also venerated certain animals, especially the most powerful of them all, the lion, who may at one time have been the totem of savage tribes.[2] In mythology as well as in art the lion remained the riding or driving animal of the Great Mother.

Their conception of the divinity was indistinct and impersonal. A G.o.ddess of the earth, called Ma or Cybele, was revered as the fecund mother of all things, the "mistress of the wild beasts"[3] that inhabit the woods. A G.o.d Attis, or Papas, was regarded as her husband, but the first place in this divine household belonged to the woman, a reminiscence of the period of matriarchy.[4]

When the Phrygians at a very early period came from Thrace and inserted themselves like a wedge in the old Anatolian races, they adopted the vague deities of their new country by identifying them with their own, after the habit of pagan nations. Thus Attis became one with the Dionysus-Sabazius of the conquerors, or at least a.s.sumed some of his characteristics. This Thracian Dionysus was a G.o.d of vegetation. Foucart has thus admirably pictured his savage nature: "Wooded summits, deep oak and pine forests, ivy-clad caverns were at all times his favorite haunts. Mortals who were anxious to know the powerful divinity ruling these solitudes had to observe the life of his kingdom, {49} and to guess the G.o.d's nature from the phenomena through which he manifested his power. Seeing the creeks descend in noisy foaming cascades, or hearing the roaring of steers in the uplands and the strange sounds of the wind-beaten forests, the Thracians thought they heard the voice and the calls of the lord of that empire, and imagined a G.o.d who was fond of extravagant leaps and of wild roaming over the wooded mountains. This conception inspired their religion, for the surest way for mortals to ingratiate themselves with a divinity was to imitate him, and as far as possible to make their lives resemble his. For this reason the Thracians endeavored to attain the divine delirium that transported their Dionysus, and hoped to realize their purpose by following their invisible yet ever-present lord in his chase over the mountains."[5]

In the Phrygian religion we find the same beliefs and rites, scarcely modified at all, with the one difference that Attis, the G.o.d of vegetation, was united to the G.o.ddess of the earth instead of living "in sullen loneliness." When the tempest was beating the forests of the Berecyntus or Ida, it was Cybele traveling about in her car drawn by roaring lions mourning her lover's death. A crowd of wors.h.i.+pers followed her through woods and thickets, mingling their shouts with the shrill sound of flutes, with the dull beat of tambourines, with the rattling of castanets and the dissonance of bra.s.s cymbals. Intoxicated with shouting and with uproar of the instruments, excited by their impetuous advance, breathless and panting, they surrendered to the raptures of a sacred enthusiasm. Catullus has left us a dramatic description of this divine ecstasy.[6] {50}

The religion of Phrygia was perhaps even more violent than that of Thrace.

The climate of the Anatolian uplands is one of extremes. Its winters are rough, long and cold, the spring rains suddenly develop a vigorous vegetation that is scorched by the hot summer sun. The abrupt contrasts of a nature generous and sterile, radiant and bleak in turn, caused excesses of sadness and joy that were unknown in temperate and smiling regions, where the ground was never buried under snow nor scorched by the sun. The Phrygians mourned the long agony and death of the vegetation, but when the verdure reappeared in March they surrendered to the excitement of a tumultuous joy. In Asia savage rites that had been unknown in Thrace or practiced in milder form expressed the vehemence of those opposing feelings. In the midst of their orgies, and after wild dances, some of the wors.h.i.+pers voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxicated with the view of the blood, with which they besprinkled their altars, they believed they were uniting themselves with their divinity. Or else, arriving at a paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the G.o.ds as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These men became priests of Cybele and were called Galli. Violent ecstasis was always an endemic disease in Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist prophets that arose in that country attempted to introduce it into Christianity.

All these excessive and degrading demonstrations of an extreme wors.h.i.+p must not cause us to slight the power of the feeling that inspired it. The sacred ecstasy, the voluntary mutilations and the eagerly sought sufferings manifested an ardent longing for {51} deliverance from subjection to carnal instincts, and a fervent desire to free the soul from the bonds of matter.

The ascetic tendencies went so far as to create a kind of begging monachism--the _metragyrtes_. They also harmonized with some of the ideas of renunciation taught by Greek philosophy, and at an early period h.e.l.lenic theologians took an interest in this devotion that attracted and repelled them at the same time. Timotheus the Eumolpid, who was one of the founders of the Alexandrian religion of Serapis, derived the inspiration for his essays on religious reform, among other sources, from the ancient Phrygian myths. Those thinkers undoubtedly succeeded in making the priests of Pessinus themselves admit many speculations quite foreign to the old Anatolian nature wors.h.i.+p. The votaries of Cybele began at a very remote period to practise "mysteries"[7] in which the initiates were made acquainted, by degrees, with a wisdom that was always considered divine, but underwent peculiar variations in the course of time.

Such is the religion which the rough Romans of the Punic wars accepted and adopted. Hidden under theological and cosmological doctrines it contained an ancient stock of very primitive and coa.r.s.e religious ideas, such as the wors.h.i.+p of trees, stones and animals. Besides this superst.i.tious fetichism it involved ceremonies that were both sensual and ribald, including all the wild and mystic rites of the baccha.n.a.lia which the public authorities were to prohibit a few years later.

When the senate became better acquainted with the divinity imposed upon it by the Sibyls, it must have been quite embarra.s.sed by the present of King Attalus. {52} The enthusiastic transports and the somber fanaticism of the Phrygian wors.h.i.+p contrasted violently with the calm dignity and respectable reserve of the official religion, and excited the minds of the people to a dangerous degree. The emasculated Galli were the objects of contempt and disgust and what in their own eyes was a meritorious act was made a crime punishable by law, at least under the empire.[8] The authorities hesitated between the respect due to the powerful G.o.ddess that had delivered Rome from the Carthaginians and the reverence for the _mos maiorum_. They solved the difficulty by completely isolating the new religion in order to prevent its contagion. All citizens were forbidden to join the priesthood of the foreign G.o.ddess or to partic.i.p.ate in her sacred orgies. The barbarous rites according to which the Great Mother was to be wors.h.i.+ped were performed by Phrygian priests and priestesses. The holidays celebrated in her honor by the entire nation, the _Megalensia_, contained no Oriental feature and were organized in conformity with Roman traditions.

A characteristic anecdote told by Diodorus[9] shows what the public feeling was towards this Asiatic wors.h.i.+p at the end of the republic. In Pompey's time a high priest from Pessinus came to Rome, presented himself at the forum in his sacerdotal garb, a golden diadem and a long embroidered robe--and pretending that the statue of his G.o.ddess had been profaned demanded public expiation. But a tribune forbade him to wear the royal crown, and the populace rose against him in a mob and compelled him to seek refuge in his house. Although apologies were made later, this story shows how little the people of that period felt {53} the veneration that attached to Cybele and her clergy after a century had pa.s.sed.

Kept closely under control, the Phrygian wors.h.i.+p led an obscure existence until the establishment of the empire. That closed the first period of its history at Rome. It attracted attention only on certain holidays, when its priests marched the streets in procession, dressed in motley costumes, loaded with heavy jewelry, and beating tambourines. On those days the senate granted them the right to go from house to house to collect funds for their temples. The remainder of the year they confined themselves to the sacred enclosure of the Palatine, celebrating foreign ceremonies in a foreign language. They aroused so little notice during this period that almost nothing is known of their practices or of their creed. It has even been maintained that Attis was not wors.h.i.+ped together with his companion, the Great Mother, during the times of the republic, but this is undoubtedly wrong, because the two persons of this divine couple must have been as inseparable in the ritual as they were in the myths.[10]

But the Phrygian religion kept alive in spite of police surveillance, in spite of precautions and prejudices; a breach had been made in the cracked wall of the old Roman principles, through which the entire Orient finally gained ingress.

Directly after the fall of the republic a second divinity from Asia Minor, closely related to the Great Mother, became established in the capital.

During the wars against Mithridates the Roman soldiers learned to revere Ma, the great G.o.ddess of the two Comanas, who was wors.h.i.+ped by a whole people of hierodules in the ravines of the Taurus and along the banks of the {54} Iris. Like Cybele she was an ancient Anatolian divinity and personified fertile nature. Her wors.h.i.+p, however, had not felt the influence of Thrace, but rather that of the Semites and the Persians,[11]

like the entire religion of Cappadocia. It is certain that she was identical with the Anahita of the Mazdeans, who was of much the same nature.

The rites of her cult were even more sanguinary and savage than those of Pessinus, and she had a.s.sumed or preserved a warlike character that gave her a resemblance to the Italian Bellona. The dictator Sulla, to whom this invincible G.o.ddess of combats had appeared in a dream, was prompted by his superst.i.tion to introduce her wors.h.i.+p into Rome. The terrible ceremonies connected with it produced a deep impression. Clad in black robes, her "fanatics," as they were called, would turn round and round to the sound of drums and trumpets, with their long, loose hair streaming, and when vertigo seized them and a state of anesthesia was attained, they would strike their arms and bodies great blows with swords and axes. The view of the running blood excited them, and they besprinkled the statue of the G.o.ddess and her votaries with it, or even drank it. Finally a prophetic delirium would overcome them, and they foretold the future.

This ferocious wors.h.i.+p aroused curiosity at first, but it never gained great consideration. It appears that the Cappadocian Bellona joined the number of divinities that were subordinated to the _Magna Mater_ and, as the texts put it, became her follower (_pedisequa_).[12] The brief popularity enjoyed by this exotic _Ma_ at the beginning of our era shows, nevertheless, the growing {55} influence of the Orient, and of the religions of Asia Minor in particular.

After the establishment of the empire the apprehensive distrust in which the wors.h.i.+p of Cybele and Attis had been held gave way to marked favor and the original restrictions were withdrawn. Thereafter Roman citizens were chosen for _archigalli_, and the holidays of the Phrygian deities were solemnly and officially celebrated in Italy with even more pomp than had been displayed at Pessinus.

According to Johannes Lydus, the Emperor Claudius was the author of this change. Doubts have been expressed as to the correctness of the statement made by this second-rate compiler, and it has been claimed that the transformation in question took place under the Antonines. This is erroneous. The testimony of inscriptions corroborates that of the Byzantine writer.[13] In spite of his love of archaism, it was Claudius who permitted this innovation to be made, and we believe that we can divine the motives of his action.

Under his predecessor, Caligula, the wors.h.i.+p of Isis had been authorized after a long resistance. Its stirring festivities and imposing processions gained considerable popularity. This compet.i.tion must have been disastrous to the priests of the _Magna Mater_, who were secluded in their temple on the Palatine, and Caligula's successor could not but grant to the Phrygian G.o.ddess, so long established in the city, the favor accorded the Egyptian divinity who had been admitted into Rome but very recently. In this way Claudius prevented too great an ascendency in Italy of this second stranger and supplied a distributary to the current of popular superst.i.tion. Isis must have been held under great {56} suspicion by a ruler who clung to old national inst.i.tutions.[14]

The Emperor Claudius introduced a new cycle of holidays that were celebrated from March 15th to March 27th, the beginning of spring at the time of the revival of vegetation, personified in Attis. The various acts of this grand mystic drama are tolerably well known. The prelude was a procession of _cannophori_ or reed-bearers on the fifteenth; undoubtedly they commemorated Cybele's discovery of Attis, who, according to the legends, had been exposed while a child on the banks of the Sangarius, the largest river of Phrygia, or else this ceremony may have been the transformation of an ancient phallephory intended to guarantee the fertility of the fields.[15] The ceremonies proper began with the equinox.

A pine was felled and transferred to the temple of the Palatine by a brotherhood that owed to this function its name of "tree-bearers"

(_dendrophori_). Wrapped like a corpse in woolen bands and garlands of violets, this pine represented Attis dead. This G.o.d was originally only the spirit of the plants, and the honors given to the "March-tree"[16] in front of the imperial palace perpetuated a very ancient agrarian rite of the Phrygian peasants. The next day was a day of sadness and abstinence on which the believers fasted and mourned the defunct G.o.d. The twenty-fourth bore the significant name of _Sanguis_ in the calendars. We know that it was the celebration of the funeral of Attis, whose manes were appeased by means of libations of blood, as was done for any mortal. Mingling their piercing cries with the shrill sound of flutes, the Galli flagellated themselves and cut their flesh, and neophytes performed the supreme {57} sacrifice with the aid of a sharp stone, being insensible to pain in their frenzy.[17] Then followed a mysterious vigil during which the mystic was supposed to be united as a new Attis with the great G.o.ddess.[18] On March 25th there was a sudden transition from the shouts of despair to a delirious jubilation, the _Hilaria_. With springtime Attis awoke from his sleep of death, and the joy created by his resurrection burst out in wild merry-making, wanton masquerades, and luxurious banquets. After twenty-four hours of an indispensable rest (_requietio_), the festivities wound up, on the twenty-seventh, with a long and gorgeous procession through the streets of Rome and surrounding country districts. Under a constant rain of flowers the silver statue of Cybele was taken to the river Almo and bathed and purified according to an ancient rite (_lavatio_).

The wors.h.i.+p of the Mother of the G.o.ds had penetrated into the h.e.l.lenic countries long before it was received at Rome, but in Greece it a.s.sumed a peculiar form and lost most of its barbarous character. The Greek mind felt an unconquerable aversion to the dubious nature of Attis. The _Magna Mater_, who is thoroughly different from her h.e.l.lenized sister, penetrated into all Latin provinces and imposed herself upon them with the Roman religion. This was the case in Spain, Brittany, the Danubian countries, Africa and especially in Gaul.[19] As late as the fourth century the car of the G.o.ddess drawn by steers was led in great state through the fields and vineyards of Autun in order to stimulate their fertility.[20] In the provinces the _dendrophori_, who carried the sacred pine in the spring festivities, formed a.s.sociations recognized by the state. These a.s.sociations had charge of the work of our {58} modern fire departments, besides their religious mission. In case of necessity these woodcutters and carpenters, who knew how to fell the divine tree of Attis, were also able to cut down the timbers of burning buildings. All over the empire religion and the brotherhoods connected with it were under the high supervision of the quindecimvirs of the capital, who gave the priests their insignia. The sacerdotal hierarchy and the rights granted to the priesthood and believers were minutely defined in a series of senate decrees. These Phrygian divinities who had achieved full naturalization and had been placed on the official list of G.o.ds, were adopted by the populations of the Occident as Roman G.o.ds together with the rest. This propagation was clearly different from that of any other Oriental religion, for here the action of the government aided the tendencies that attracted the devout ma.s.ses to these Asiatic divinities.

This popular zeal was the result of various causes. Ancient authors describe the impression produced upon the ma.s.ses by those magnificent processions in which Cybele pa.s.sed along on her car, preceded by musicians playing captivating melodies, by priests wearing gorgeous costumes covered with amulets, and by the long line of votaries and members of the fraternities, all barefoot and wearing their insignia. All this, however, created only a fleeting and exterior impression upon the neophyte, but as soon as he entered the temple a deeper sensation took hold of him. He heard the pathetic story of the G.o.ddess seeking the body of her lover cut down in the prime of his life like the gra.s.s of the fields. He saw the b.l.o.o.d.y funeral services in which the cruel death of the young man was mourned, {59} and heard the joyful hymns of triumph, and the gay songs that greeted his return to life. By a skilfully arranged gradation of feelings the onlookers were uplifted to a state of rapturous ecstasy. Feminine devotion in particular found encouragement and enjoyment in these ceremonies, and the Great Mother, the fecund and generous G.o.ddess, was always especially wors.h.i.+ped by the women.

Moreover, people founded great hopes on the pious practice of this religion. Like the Thracians, the Phrygians began very early to believe in the immortality of the soul. Just as Attis died and came to life again every year, these believers were to be born to new life after their death.

One of the sacred hymns said: "Take courage, oh mystics, because the G.o.d is saved; and for you also will come salvation from your trials."[21] Even the funeral ceremonies were affected by the strength of that belief. In some cities, especially at Amphipolis in Macedonia, graves have been found adorned with earthenware statuettes representing the shepherd Attis;[22]

and even in Germany the gravestones are frequently decorated with the figure of a young man in Oriental costume, leaning dejectedly upon a knotted stick (_pedum_), who represented the same Attis. We are ignorant of the conception of immortality held by the Oriental disciples of the Phrygian priests. Maybe, like the votaries of Sabazius, they believed that the blessed ones were permitted to partic.i.p.ate with Hermes Psychopompos in a great celestial feast, for which they were prepared by the sacred repasts of the mysteries.[23] {60}

Another agent in favor of this imported religion was, as we have stated above, the fact of its official recognition. This placed it in a privileged position among Oriental religions, at least at the beginning of the imperial regime. It enjoyed a toleration that was neither precarious nor limited; it was not subjected to arbitrary police measures nor to coercion on the part of magistrates; its fraternities were not continually threatened with dissolution, nor its priests with expulsion. It was publicly authorized and endowed, its holidays were marked in the calendars of the pontiffs, its a.s.sociations of dendrophori were organs of munic.i.p.al life in Italy and in the provinces, and had a corporate ent.i.ty.

Therefore it is not surprising that other foreign religions, after being transferred to Rome, sought to avert the dangers of an illicit existence by an alliance with the Great Mother. The religion of the latter frequently consented to agreements and compromises, from which it gained in reality as much as it gave up. In exchange for material advantages it acquired complete moral authority over the G.o.ds that accepted its protection. Thus Cybele and Attis absorbed a majority of the divinities from Asia Minor that had crossed the Ionian Sea. Their clergy undoubtedly intended to establish a religion complex enough to enable the emigrants from every part of the vast peninsula, slaves, merchants, soldiers, functionaries, scholars, in short, people of all cla.s.ses of society, to find their national and favorite devotions in it. As a matter of fact no other Anatolian G.o.d could maintain his independence side by side with the deities of Pessinus.[24]

We do not know the internal development of the {61} Phrygian mysteries sufficiently to give details of the addition of each individual part. But we can prove that in the course of time certain religions were added to the one that had been practised in the temple of the Palatine ever since the republic.

In the inscriptions of the fourth century, Attis bears the cognomen of _menotyrannus_. At that time this name was undoubtedly understood to mean "lord of the months," because Attis represented the sun who entered a new sign of the zodiac every month.[25] But that was not the original meaning of the term. "_Men tyrannus_" appears with quite a different meaning in many inscriptions found in Asia Minor. _Tyrannos_ ([Greek: Turannos]), "lord," is a word taken by the Greeks from the Lydian, and the honorable t.i.tle of "tyrant" was given to Men, an old barbarian divinity wors.h.i.+ped by all Phrygia and surrounding regions.[26] The Anatolian tribes from Caria to the remotest mountains of Pontus wors.h.i.+ped a lunar G.o.d under that name who was supposed to rule not only the heavens but also the underworld, because the moon was frequently brought into connection with the somber kingdom of the dead. The growth of plants and the increase of cattle and poultry were ascribed to his celestial influence, and the villagers invoked his protection for their farms and their district. They also placed their rural burial grounds under the safeguard of this king of shadows. No G.o.d enjoyed greater popularity in the country districts.

This powerful divinity penetrated into Greece at an early period. Among the mixed populations of the aegean seaports, in the Piraeus, at Rhodes, Delos and Thasos, religious a.s.sociations for his wors.h.i.+p were {62} founded. In Attica the presence of the cult can be traced back to the fourth century, and its monuments rival those of Cybele in number and variety. In the Latin Occident, however, no trace of it can be found, because it had been absorbed by the wors.h.i.+p of _Magna Mater_. In Asia itself, Attis and Men were sometimes considered identical, and this involved the Roman world in a complete confusion of those two persons, who in reality were very different. A marble statue discovered at Ostia represents Attis holding the lunar crescent, which was the characteristic emblem of Men. His a.s.similation to the "tyrant" of the infernal regions transformed the shepherd of Ida into a master of the underworld, an office that he combined with his former one as author of resurrection.

A second t.i.tle that was given to him reveals another influence. A certain Roman inscription is dedicated to Attis the Supreme ([Greek: Attei hupsistoi]).[27] This epithet is very significant. In Asia Minor "Hypsistos" was the appellation used to designate the G.o.d of Israel.[28] A number of pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly submitting to the practice of the synagogue, yet wors.h.i.+ped none but the Most High, the Supreme G.o.d, the Eternal G.o.d, G.o.d the Creator, to whom every mortal owed service. These must have been the attributes ascribed to Cybele's companion by the author of the inscription, because the verse continues: ([Greek: kai sunechonti to pan]) "To thee, who containest and maintainest all things."[29] Must we then believe that Hebraic monotheism had some influence upon the mysteries of the Great Mother? This is not at all improbable. We know that numerous Jewish colonies were established in Phrygia by the Seleucides, and that {63} these expatriated Jews agreed to certain compromises in order to conciliate their hereditary faith with that of the pagans in whose midst they lived. It is also possible that the clergy of Pessinus suffered the ascendancy of the Biblical theology. Under the empire Attis and Cybele became the "almighty G.o.ds" (_omnipotentes_) _par excellence_, and it is easy to see in this new conception a leaning upon Semitic or Christian doctrines, more probably upon Semitic ones.[30]

We shall now take up the difficult question of the influence of Judaism upon the mysteries during the Alexandrian period and at the beginning of the empire. Many scholars have endeavored to define the influence exercised by the pagan beliefs on those of the Jews; it has been shown how the Israelitic monotheism became h.e.l.lenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish propaganda attracted proselytes who revered the one G.o.d, without, however, observing all the prescriptions of the Mosaic law. But no successful researches have been made to ascertain how far paganism was modified through an infiltration of Biblical ideas. Such a modification must necessarily have taken place to some extent. A great number of Jewish colonies were scattered everywhere on the Mediterranean, and these were long animated with such an ardent spirit of proselytism that they were bound to impose some of their conceptions on the pagans that surrounded them. The magical texts which are almost the only original literary doc.u.ments of paganism we possess, clearly reveal this mixture of Israelitic theology with that of other peoples. In them we frequently find names like Iao (Yahveh), Sabaoth, or the names of angels side by side with those of Egyptian or Greek divinities. Especially in Asia {64} Minor, where the Israelites formed a considerable and influential element of the population, an intermingling of the old native traditions and the religion of the strangers from the other side of the Taurus must have occurred.

This mixture certainly took place in the mysteries of Sabazius, the Phrygian Jupiter or Dionysus.[31] They were very similar to those of Attis, with whom he was frequently confounded. By means of an audacious etymology that dates back to the h.e.l.lenistic period, this old Thraco-Phrygian divinity has been identified with "Yahveh Zebaoth," the Biblical "Lord of Hosts." The corresponding expression ([Greek: kurios Sabaoth]) in the Septuagint has been regarded as the equivalent of the _kurios Sabazios_ ([Greek: kurios Sabazios]) of the barbarians. The latter was wors.h.i.+ped as the supreme, almighty and holy Lord. In the light of a new interpretation the purifications practised in the mysteries were believed to wipe out the hereditary impurity of a guilty ancestor who had aroused the wrath of heaven against his posterity, much as the original sin with which Adam's disobedience had stained the human race was to be wiped out. The custom observed by the votaries of Sabazius of dedicating votive hands which made the liturgic sign of benediction with the first three fingers extended (the _benedictio latina_ of the church) was probably taken from the ritual of the Semitic temples through the agency of the Jews. The initiates believed, again like the Jews, that after death their good angel (_angelus bonus_) would lead them to the banquet of the eternally happy, and the everlasting joys of these banquets were antic.i.p.ated on earth by the liturgic repasts.

This celestial feast can {65} be seen in a fresco painting on the grave of a priest of Sabazius called Vincentius, who was buried in the Christian catacomb of Praetextatus, a strange fact for which no satisfactory explanation has as yet been furnished. Undoubtedly he belonged to a Jewish-pagan sect that admitted neophytes of every race to its mystic ceremonies. In fact, the church itself formed a kind of secret society sprung from the synagogue but distinct from it, in which Gentiles and the Children of Israel joined in a common adoration.

If it is a fact, then, that Judaism influenced the wors.h.i.+p of Sabazius, it is very probable that it influenced the cult of Cybele also, although in this case the influence cannot be discerned with the same degree of certainty. The religion of the Great Mother did not receive rejuvenating germs from Palestine only, but it was greatly changed after the G.o.ds of more distant Persia came and joined it. In the ancient religion of the Achemenides, Mithra, the genius of light, was coupled with Anahita, the G.o.ddess of the fertilizing waters. In Asia Minor the latter was a.s.similated with the fecund Great Mother, wors.h.i.+ped all over the peninsula,[32] and when at the end of the first century of our era the mysteries of Mithra spread over the Latin provinces, its votaries built their sacred crypts in the shadow of the temples of the _Magna Mater_.

Everywhere in the empire the two religions lived in intimate communion. By ingratiating themselves with the Phrygian priests, the priests of Mithra obtained the support of an official inst.i.tution and shared in the protection granted by the state. Moreover, men alone could partic.i.p.ate in the secret ceremonies of the Persian liturgy, at least in the Occident.

Other {66} mysteries, to which women could be admitted, had therefore to be added in order to complete them, and so the mysteries of Cybele received the wives and daughters of the Mithraists.

This union had even more important consequences for the old religion of Pessinus than the partial infusion of Judaic beliefs had had. Its theology gained a deeper meaning and an elevation hitherto unknown, after it had adopted some of the conceptions of Mazdaism.

The introduction of the taurobolium in the ritual of the _Magna Mater_, where it appeared after the middle of the first century, was probably connected with this transformation. We know the nature of this sacrifice, of which Prudentius gives a stirring description based on personal recollection of the proceeding. On an open platform a steer was killed, and the blood dropped down upon the mystic, who was standing in an excavation below. "Through the thousand crevices in the wood," says the poet, "the b.l.o.o.d.y dew runs down into the pit. The neophyte receives the falling drops on his head, clothes and body. He leans backward to have his cheeks, his ears, his lips and his nostrils wetted; he pours the liquid over his eyes, and does not even spare his palate, for he moistens his tongue with blood and drinks it eagerly."[33] After submitting to this repulsive sprinkling he offered himself to the veneration of the crowd. They believed that he was purified of his faults, and had become the equal of the deity through his red baptism.

Although the origin of this sacrifice that took place in the mysteries of Cybele at Rome is as yet shrouded in obscurity, recent discoveries enable us to trace back {67} very closely the various phases of its development.

In accordance with a custom prevalent in the entire Orient at the beginning of history, the Anatolian lords were fond of pursuing and la.s.soing wild buffalos, which they afterwards sacrificed to the G.o.ds. Beasts caught during a hunt were immolated, and frequently also prisoners of war.

Gradually the savagery of this primitive rite was modified until finally nothing but a circus play was left. During the Alexandrian period people were satisfied with organizing a _corrida_ in the arena, in the course of which the victim intended for immolation was seized. This is the proper meaning of the terms taurobolium and criobolium ([Greek: taurobolion, kriobolion.]), which had long been enigmas,[34] and which denoted the act of catching a steer or a ram by means of a hurled weapon, probably the thong of a la.s.so. Without doubt even this act was finally reduced to a mere sham under the Roman empire, but the weapon with which the animal was slain always remained a hunting weapon, a sacred boar spear.[35]