Part 21

The story of Attis has many forms in detail, due no doubt to original local differences and to the influences of later environment. The kernel of the literary myth is as follows: Attis, a beautiful shepherd, was loved by the Great Goddess; when he refused her advances, he was driven mad by her, and in his frenzy mutilated himself at the foot of a pine tree, into which his spirit departed, while from his blood sprang violets. But in answer to the prayers of the mourning goddess Attis was presently restored to life. The primitive elements from which this myth developed we need not now discuss, but it will be sufficient to note that in Attis, as in Adonis, we have an eastern vegetation-divinity, a god who dies and lives again, thus becoming a symbol of man’s resurrection into immortality and an earnest of his hope. The parallel cases of Osiris, Dionysus, and Persephone will also occur to all.

In honor of Attis a spring festival was held in which the drama of the myth was repeated by the priests and devotees. This festival was introduced at Rome during the reign of Claudius (41-54 A.D.), from which time the god’s importance there may be dated.[293] The celebration began on March 15, which is designated in a calendar of the fourth century by _Canna intrat_. These obscure words must be brought into connection with the colleges of the Cannophori, “reed-bearers,” which are known to us from inscriptions, but the significance of the day is not clear; apparently it is to be connected with the story of the discovery of the infant Attis, who had been exposed among the reeds by the banks of the river Gallus. On March 22, _Arbor intrat_, the dendrophori, “tree-bearers,” cut down a pine tree and in solemn procession brought its trunk, decorated with violets and woolen fillets, to the temple of the Great Mother on the Palatine. This act was obviously in memory of the pine tree into which the spirit of Attis passed at his death. Two days later came the “day of blood,” _Sanguen, dies Sanguinis_, which marked the height of the mourning for Attis. Stimulated by wild music and dances, the Galli scourged themselves with whips loaded with pieces of bone or metal, slashed their arms with knives, offering their blood on the altar of the goddess, while the would-be Galli mutilated themselves. The whole period from the first day was a time of sorrow, during which fasting and continence were required; it was followed on March 25th, _Hilaria_, “rejoicing,” by the wildest outbursts of joy in celebration of the resurrection of Attis.[294] The next day was that of “rest,” _Requietio_; and on the 27th, the festival closed with the solemn bathing in the brook Almo of the sacred meteoric stone, which was the symbol of the Great Mother. It is clear that this festival, centering in the spring equinox, had its origin in rites which were intended to recall the vegetation from its winter’s death into vernal life again, but like other similar festivals it had long had a deeper meaning before it came to Rome. As the Orphic devotee by participation in the holy rites became a Bacchus, the Isiac an Osiris, so here the orgiastic participant became an Attis and received assurance of his own resurrection. The result was identical in all essentials with that in other mysteries.

But from the second century of our era there was celebrated in the western part of the Roman Empire another mystic rite in the worship of the Great Mother to which we must now turn our attention for a moment. I mean that ritual of purification and regeneration by means of the blood of a slain bull which the ancients called the _taurobolium_. Without much doubt this rite developed from the sacrifice of a bull to the Great Mother, such as was made annually on March 15 at Rome. But the taurobolium was no ordinary sacrifice. It is first mentioned in the west in an inscription from Puteoli of 134 A.D.;[295] thence it quickly spread to Rome, from there to Lyons; and it was celebrated in many parts of the western provinces during the second and third centuries. Like the other oriental rites it lived on at Rome long after it had died in the provinces, the last celebration being near the close of the fourth century. One of the earliest places at Rome for the performance of the taurobolium was in the Vatican district close by the circus erected by the Emperor Caligula and enlarged by Nero. There, certainly from the time of Antoninus Pius to the end of the fourth century, this purifying and regenerating ritual was performed, never with more passionate hope of its efficacy than during the fourth century, when for some seventy years this pagan shrine and St. Peter’s first basilica stood side by side, fanes of the dying faith and of the triumphing religion. It stirs the imagination to recall that when in the early seventeenth century certain changes were being made in the present St. Peter’s, a considerable number of inscriptions were discovered buried in the ground, recording the celebration of the taurobolium by members of the nobility after the first St. Peter’s had been built.[296] So side by side the two rival religions contended for the mastery.

The two descriptions of the ritual we have date from the fourth century.[297] The one who was to be purified, after first laying aside his ordinary garments and dressing himself in rags as a suppliant and beggar, descended into a pit. This was covered with planks pierced with holes; then the sacred bull was slain over the planks that his blood, falling on the devotee, might cleanse him and give him freedom from his sin. The recipient endeavored to have every part of his person—especially his eyes, nose, and ears—washed by the cleansing streams; he opened his mouth to catch the falling blood and swallowed it. When he issued forth from the pit, dripping with his horrible purification, he was greeted by his fellow consecrates as one who had been born again. Usually the efficacy of the new birth given by the taurobolium was thought to last only twenty years (renatus in XX annos), at the expiration of which time the ritual was apparently repeated;[298] once, however, we have the confident assertion that the devotee was “born again for eternity.”[299]

In all these mystic rites there were many common elements. First, all gave assurance of the salvation of the soul through the exact performance of the rites of initiation and through the ritual of service. As we have earlier seen, philosophy, especially Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism, aimed at the same object as these oriental faiths; the means were different but the end was one. The devotee of Mithras, of Isis, of Cybele and Attis,—whatever the god might be—believed that by initiation he had been born into a new life, that the rites which he celebrated had a purifying power, and that they protected him against the assaults of evil spirits. Furthermore his religious life was constantly fed and nourished by membership in a brotherhood which was consecrated and set apart from the rest of the world, as well as by regular services within the shrine of his divinity. Again the gods of Greece and Rome required only occasional and rare service; the Orientals claimed the whole of a man’s life: not only at the great festivals but apparently at daily matins and vespers they received the praise and worship of their followers. The priests were no longer civilians, sharing in the ordinary life of their communities, but persons withdrawn for the divine service, distinguished by their dress and other signs. Moreover these oriental mystic religions were practically universal, in spite of the fact that only men were admitted to the mysteries of Mithras; membership in the sacred associations did not depend on birth, wealth, or learning, but on devotion. Advance in religious proficiency was usually marked by different grades, to which the devotee received a divine call. In these initiations the individual obtained direct revelations which gave him knowledge and freedom. He was made to feel his relation to the universe both visible and invisible, and to find himself in unity with it. Rebirth into a new life, constant support of faith through membership in a sacred community and by religious services, confident assurance of salvation—these were the common characteristics of the oriental religions which go far to explain their hold on the Roman world in the early centuries of our era.

The question may well be asked how far these religions inculcated morality and what their ethical characters were. It is certainly true that originally they were not moral or concerned with morality any more than most other religions have been; indeed in the stories of Cybele and Attis, of Isis and Osiris, and of many other gods, there were obscene elements almost as offensive to the enlightened ancient as to us. Mithraism on the other hand was singularly free from coarse myths. In time the baser tales were allegorized and their symbolism universally accepted, so that, as St. Augustine tells us, the ancient stories were interpreted to the people for their moral edification. Isis became the everpresent divine mother and kind providence; Serapis was a god of gracious pity toward men; the Great Mother laid aside her wild Phrygian character and changed into the beneficent mother of all Nature, while Attis became the Sun-god, the common symbol of all-embracing divinity. With such changes as these came a response to what we may call secular ethics, and there can be no question that from the second century of our era at least the oriental faiths taught a morality which would win our approval in large measure today. There were indeed many elements in them which made for righteousness. The concept of divinity as a kindly providence which cared for the individual and exacted the same good qualities from man, the unremitting devotion demanded of the devotees, the sense of moral pollution and the longing for moral purification, the shifting of men’s eyes from the material gains of this world to the ideal rewards of the next—all these and many other things gave to the oriental cults distinct and positive ethical and spiritual values. Furthermore, the self-restraint, the gentle asceticism, the obligation to strive unceasingly on the side of righteousness against the evil powers, which these religions imposed, are not to be neglected. Within the religious bodies, whose members were brothers (fratres, consecranei) the individual learned submission to the head of the society (pater), gained self-control and courage for his struggle against the evils of life. No one can read the evidence we possess and not be impressed by the earnestness and devotion of the faithful. That the oriental religions actually contributed to the higher moral and spiritual life of the Roman Empire during the second, third, and fourth centuries is certain.

It is very true that these pagan religions from the East had their charlatans and quacks in abundance, that their noblest elements were often entangled in a mesh of magic, superstitions, and false beliefs; but Christianity too suffered from the same evils. Christianity triumphed because of its own inherent superiority to the other religions, not because its rivals were wholly evil and degrading. To fail to recognize the real moral value of oriental Paganism is to fail to understand the first centuries of our era, and so to remain blind to the true nature of the world in which Christianity established its greater worth.

Yet even if we were inclined to doubt the value of these religions from our present point of view, there could be no question of their effect upon their devotees. No one who reads the prayer of praise to Isis which Lucius offered before leaving Corinth for Rome, can mistake its sincerity: “O thou holy and eternal protectress of the human race, thou who art ever kind to care for mortals and who showest unceasingly the sweet affection of a mother for the misfortunes of wretched men, neither day nor any night, nor even the slightest moment of time passes without thy blessings; thou carest for men on land and sea, thou drivest from them the storms of life and ever extendest a saving hand, wherewith thou unravellest even the inextricable web of Fate; thou assuagest the tempests of Fortune, and thou holdest in restraint the baneful courses of the stars. Thee the gods of heaven above adore, the gods of the world below obey; thou spinnest the sphere of heaven, thou lightest the sun, guidest the universe, and tramplest Tartarus beneath thy feet. To thee the stars make answer, the seasons return, the divinities show their joy, the elements do their service. At thy nod the breezes blow, the clouds send their nourishing rains, seeds swell, and buds increase. Before thy majesty the birds who traverse the heavens are in awe, the beasts that roam the mountains, the serpents that lurk beneath the ground, the monsters that swim the deep. But I am all too weak in wit to render thy praises, too poor in purse to offer thee due sacrifice; my voice has not the eloquence to express all that I feel concerning thy majesty. Nay, had I a thousand mouths and tongues or eternal continuance of speech unbroken, it were not enough. Therefore will I try to do that which alone a devotee faithful, but poor withal, can accomplish. I will guard the memory of thy divine features and thy most holy god-head deep within my heart’s secret shrine and there keep that image forever.”[300]

It may have seemed strange to some of you that in this course of lectures we should be considering matters which at first sight appear so alien to Greek thinking as these oriental mysteries. The reason is to be found in the goal toward which we are aiming, for it has been our purpose from the beginning to trace the history of Greek religious thought through to the time when it had in large measure determined the form of Christian thought and had provided the means by which the latter could be made intelligible to the contemporary world. It is necessary therefore to examine the several elements which made up the sum total of the religious thought of the earlier Christian centuries. Moreover, as we have now seen, the purpose of the oriental mysteries was one with the aim of the Greek mysteries and with the object of the Greek mystic philosophies. Therefore we have been obliged to bring into our plan these eastern religions.

But I need not remind you that at this time there was another oriental religion spreading over the world which we have not yet considered. When Christianity was introduced to the West, it must have presented itself as a new eastern mystery. Men had long been accustomed to such religions; for centuries they had sought either through mysteries such as were celebrated at Eleusis or like those brought in from the East, to find the satisfaction of their hopes for a happy immortality. In these mysteries, as in the mystic philosophies, one of the central ideas was that of the direct vision of the divine which was a revelation of God to man. This act of grace had supplanted, or rather had been added to, the use of the reason or of the will which the philosophers had urged as the means of man’s salvation. Through a long course of centuries men had been trained by philosophy, by mystery, and by political events, until an environment had been created which was favorable to the ideas of Christianity—an environment also which was destined to influence profoundly this new religion in its earlier centuries, so that it ultimately received a form different from that foreshadowed in the teachings of its founder. The relation of Christianity to the world into which it entered and some of the reasons for its triumph will be the subject of our final lectures.

FOOTNOTES:

[287] _CIL._ III, 4413. III, 4796 from Tanzenberg in southern Austria, is an important witness here, for it records the restoration in 311 by the governor of the province of a Mithraic shrine which had been deserted for over fifty years.

[288] Apuleius, _Met._ XI, 5.

[289] Plutarch, _de Is. et Osir._, 67.

[290] Apuleius, _Met._ XI, 23.

[291] Apuleius, _Met._ XI, 19-30.

[292] Published by Cumont, _Mystères de Mithra_^2, p. 132, fig. 18.

[293] Lydus, _de mens._ IV, 59. Cf. Cumont, _The Oriental Religions_, pp. 55 ff. Some scholars doubt the evidence and would place the introduction of the festivals in the time of the Antonines; so Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_^2, p. 322.

[294] The same name was used in the festival of Isis. Cf. p. 273.

[295] _CIL._ X, 1596.

[296] _Ibid._ VI, 497-504; cf. _IGSI._ 1019, 1020.

[297] Prudentius, _Persiteph._ 10, 1011 ff.; Anon., _Carmen contra Paganos_ 57 ff.

[298] _CIL._ VI, 512, iterato viginti annis expletis taurobolii sui. Probably we should read taurobolio suo.

[299] _Ibid._ VI, 510.

[300] Apuleius, _Met._ XI, 25.

IX

CHRISTIANITY

In the previous lectures we have traced the development of Greek religious thought from the Homeric poems to the third century of our era; we have seen how Greece extended her intellectual dominion over the entire Mediterranean world which the military and political genius of Rome bound into one empire; and we have examined the chief oriental mysteries which spread throughout the same area. We now turn to Christianity. In dealing with this it will be necessary to review at some length the work of Jesus and the doctrines of Paul, that we may have in mind the material which was later brought into accord with the philosophic thought and the intellectual habits of the Roman Empire outside that district in which Christianity had its birth. But before we do this we should recall some characteristics of the ancient world in the earliest centuries of our era.

In the first place we must realize that it was a Greco-Roman world, one in which the civilizations of two great peoples—the one intellectual, the other political—had been compounded. In the eastern half of the Empire Greek influence dominated. Alexander’s conquests had made Greek the common language of a great area with the result that in the East Greek thought and Greek habits of expression—that is to say, Greek philosophy and Greek rhetoric—were practically native. The West also, as I have earlier tried to show, had received Greek philosophy and Greek rhetoric more than a century and a half before our era, so that indeed over all the Roman Empire common habits of thought and universal modes of expression prevailed. The eastern half of the Empire contained Alexandria, which had been the chief intellectual center from the third century before our era; in the West was Rome, the center of that imperial power which made the world a political unit; yet western thought owed not merely its form but almost its existence to Greek influences.

In the second place the East was the home of the learning of the world. The Greeks furnished the West not only philosophy and rhetoric but the sciences as well. Building on the mathematics and astronomy which they had learned from their Eastern neighbors and the Egyptians they soon developed these two sister sciences. Tradition says that in the sixth century B.C. the philosopher Thales predicted an eclipse of the sun; certainly a century later the Greeks had made great advances; and such were their attainments by the opening of our era that only in comparatively modern times has a new period in the history of astronomy and mathematics begun. In the descriptive sciences of botany and zoölogy especially the Greeks had reached a high position by the fourth century B.C. The work of Aristotle, of Theophrastus, and of others still holds the profound respect of all modern scientists who are familiar with the history of their subjects. In geography and mineralogy also their accomplishments were not inconsiderable; likewise in many branches of physics they did notable work; while Greek scientific medicine, already highly developed in Hippocrates’ day (c. 460-377 B.C.), was further advanced in the succeeding centuries. The works of Galen (129-c. 199 A.D.) remained the authoritative treatises for more than fourteen hundred years. All these sciences the Romans learned from the Greeks, and although in some fields they made notable application of their lessons, they never surpassed their teachers.

Moreover Greece and Hellenized Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt had a knowledge of the conduct of business, of banking, and of the details of administration which they gave to the western half of the Empire. Indeed Roman history between the battle of Actium and the reign of Diocletian from one point of view is the history of the spread of eastern ideas to the West and of their absorption there. Not only did captive Greece take her captor captive, but in a sense Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor won their conquests as well. Many causes operated to further this intellectual domination of the Hellenized East over the Roman West. The eastern provinces had not suffered in the civil wars at the end of the Republic as had many parts of the West; their wealth was not wasted, and in general their social and economic relations were comparatively undisturbed. Under the wise administration of the Emperors these provinces grew richer; their inhabitants, especially the Greeks among them, gained a consciousness of their own intellectual superiority which they had not had in the last two centuries before our era. The influence of the East, therefore, was in many ways consciously exerted.

Thirdly we must bear in mind that the world was cosmopolitan. For centuries traders had carried not only wares but ideas from one part of the ancient world to another, slaves had done their part, which was not small, since many of them were educated; and from the time of Augustus the soldiers drawn from every province of the Empire exerted a great influence in breaking down the barriers between the nations. For the idea of a cosmopolitan world Stoicism had furnished a philosophic basis; the actuality was realized in large measure by the natural developments under Roman imperial rule. Separate nations had ceased to exist; and in the universal levelling which a growing autocracy produced, the differences between citizens, provincials, and slaves were diminished and an approach was made to a cosmopolitan equality.

Furthermore the Roman world of the first three centuries was virtually a world of peace. Merchants and traders, tourists and missionaries moved freely from one end of the Empire to the other. The value of this Roman peace was recognized by the Christians; near the end of the second century the Christian writer Irenaeus declared: “The Romans have given the world peace and we travel without fear along the roads and across the sea wherever we will.”[301]