Part 7

A second title that was given to him reveals another influence. A certain Roman inscription is dedicated to Attis the Supreme ([Greek: Attei hupsistôi]).[27] This epithet is very significant. In Asia Minor "Hypsistos" was the appellation used to designate the god of Israel.[28] A number of pagan thiasi had arisen who, though not exactly submitting to the practice of the synagogue, yet worshiped none but the Most High, the Supreme God, the Eternal God, God 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 gods" (_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 Hellenized at Alexandria and how the Jewish propaganda attracted proselytes who revered the one God, 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 documents 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 Hellenistic period, this old Thraco-Phrygian divinity has been identified with "Yahveh Zebaoth," the Biblical "Lord of Hosts." The corresponding expression ([Greek: kurios Sabaôth]) in the Septuagint has been regarded as the equivalent of the _kurios Sabazios_ ([Greek: kurios Sabazios]) of the barbarians. The latter was worshiped 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 anticipated 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 Prætextatus, 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 worship 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 gods of more distant Persia came and joined it. In the ancient religion of the Achemenides, Mithra, the genius of light, was coupled with Anâhita, the goddess of the fertilizing waters. In Asia Minor the latter was assimilated with the fecund Great Mother, worshiped 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 institution and shared in the protection granted by the state. Moreover, men alone could participate 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 bloody 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 lassoing wild buffalos, which they afterwards sacrificed to the gods. 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 lasso. 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]

The ideas on which the immolation was based were originally just as barbarous as the sacrifice itself. It is a matter of general belief among savage peoples that one acquires the qualities of an enemy slain in battle or of a beast killed in the chase by drinking or washing in the blood, or by eating some of the viscera of the body. The blood especially has often been considered as the seat of vital energy. By moistening his body with the blood of the slaughtered steer, the neophyte believed that he was transfusing the strength of the formidable beast into his own limbs.

This naive and purely material conception was soon {68} modified and refined. The Thracians brought into Phrygia, and the Persian magi into Cappadocia, the fast spreading belief in the immortality of mankind. Under their influence, especially under that of Mazdaism, which made the mythical steer the author of creation and of resurrection, the old savage practice assumed a more spiritual and more elevated meaning. By complying with it, people no longer thought they were acquiring the buffalo's strength; the blood, as the principle of life, was no longer supposed to renew physical energy, but to cause a temporary or even an eternal rebirth of the soul. The descent into the pit was regarded as burial, a melancholy dirge accompanied the burial of the old man who had died. When he emerged purified of all his crimes by the sprinkling of blood and raised to a new life, he was regarded as the equal of a god, and the crowd worshiped him from a respectful distance.[36]

The vogue obtained in the Roman empire by the practice of this repugnant rite can only be explained by the extraordinary power ascribed to it. He who submitted to it was _in aeternum renatus_,[37] according to the inscriptions.

We could also outline the transformation of other Phrygian ceremonies, of which the spirit and sometimes the letter slowly changed under the influence of more advanced moral ideas. This is true of the sacred feasts attended by the initiates. One of the few liturgic formulas antiquity has left us refers to these Phrygian banquets. One hymn says: "I have eaten from the tambourine, I have drunk from the cymbal, I have become a mystic of Attis." The banquet, which is found in several Oriental religions, was sometimes simply the {69} external sign indicating that the votaries of the same divinity formed one large family. Admitted to the sacred table, the neophyte was received as the guest of the community and became a brother among brothers. The religious bond of the thiasus or _sodalicium_ took the place of the natural relationship of the family, the gens or the clan, just as the foreign religion replaced the worship of the domestic hearth.

Sometimes other effects were expected of the food eaten in common. When the flesh of some animal supposed to be of a divine nature was eaten, the votary believed that he became identified with the god and that he shared in his substance and qualities. In the beginning the Phrygian priests probably attributed the first of these two meanings to their barbarous communions.[38] Towards the end of the empire, moral ideas were particularly connected with the assimilation of sacred liquor and meats taken from the tambourine and cymbal of Attis. They became the staff of the spiritual life and were to sustain the votary in his trials; at that period he considered the gods as especially "the guardians of his soul and thoughts."[39]

As we see, every modification of the conception of the world and of man in the society of the empire had its reflection in the doctrine of the mysteries. Even the conception of the old deities of Pessinus was constantly changing. When astrology and the Semitic religions caused the establishment of a solar henotheism as the leading religion at Rome, Attis was considered as the sun, "the shepherd of the twinkling stars." He was identified with Adonis, Bacchus, Pan, Osiris and Mithra; he was made a "polymorphous"[40] being in which all celestial powers manifested {70} themselves in turn; a _pantheos_ who wore the crown of rays and the lunar crescent at the same time, and whose various emblems expressed an infinite multiplicity of functions.

When neo-Platonism was triumphing, the Phrygian fable became the traditional mould into which subtle exegetists boldly poured their philosophic speculations on the creative and stimulating forces that were the principles of all material forms, and on the deliverance of the divine soul that was submerged in the corruption of this earthly world. In his hazy oration on the Mother of the Gods, Julian lost all notion of reality on account of his excessive use of allegory and was swept away by an extravagant symbolism.[41]

Any religion as susceptible to outside influences as this one was bound to yield to the ascendancy of Christianity. From the explicit testimony of ecclesiastical writers we know that attempts were made to oppose the Phrygian mysteries to those of the church. It was maintained that the sanguinary purification imparted by the taurobolium was more efficacious than baptism. The food that was taken during the mystic feasts was likened to the bread and wine of the communion; the Mother of the Gods was undoubtedly placed above the Mother of God, whose son also had risen again. A Christian author, writing at Rome about the year 375, furnishes some remarkable information on this subject. As we have seen, a mournful ceremony was celebrated on March 24th, the _dies sanguinis_ in the course of which the _galli_ shed their blood and sometimes mutilated themselves in commemoration of the wound that had caused Attis's death, ascribing an expiatory and atoning power to the blood thus shed. The pagans {71} claimed that the church had copied their most sacred rites by placing her Holy Week at the vernal equinox in commemoration of the sacrifice of the cross on which the divine Lamb, according to the church, had redeemed the human race. Indignant at these blasphemous pretensions, St. Augustine tells of having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: _Et ipse Pileatus christianus est_--"and even the god with the Phrygian cap [i. e., Attis] is a Christian."[42]

But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last taurobolia took place at the end of the fourth century, in the _Phrygianum_, stands to-day the basilica of the Vatican.

* * * * *

There is no Oriental religion whose progressive evolution we could follow at Rome so closely as the cult of Cybele and Attis, none that shows so plainly one of the reasons that caused their common decay and disappearance. They all dated back to a remote period of barbarism, and from that savage past they inherited a number of myths the odium of which could be masked but not eradicated by philosophical symbolism, and practices whose fundamental coarseness had survived from a period of rude nature worship, and could never be completely disguised by means of mystic interpretations. Never was the lack of harmony greater between the moralizing tendencies of theologians and the cruel shamelessness of tradition. A god held up as the august lord of the universe was the pitiful and abject hero of an obscene love affair; the taurobolium, performed to satisfy man's most exalted aspirations for spiritual purification and immortality, looked like a {72} shower bath of blood and recalled cannibalistic orgies. The men of letters and senators attending those mysteries saw them performed by painted eunuchs, ill reputed for their infamous morals, who went through dizzy dances similar to those of the dancing dervishes and the Aissaouas. We can imagine the repugnance these ceremonies caused in everybody whose judgment had not been destroyed by a fanatical devotion. Of no other pagan superstition do the Christian polemicists speak with such profound contempt, and there is undoubtedly a reason for their attitude. But they were in a more fortunate position than their pagan antagonists; their doctrine was not burdened with barbarous traditions dating back to times of savagery; and all the ignominies that stained the old Phrygian religion must not prejudice us against it nor cause us to slight the long continued efforts that were made to refine it gradually and to mould it into a form that would fulfil the new demands of morality and enable it to follow the laborious march of Roman society on the road of religious progress.

* * * * *

{73}

EGYPT.

We know more about the religion of the early Egyptians than about any other ancient religion. Its development can be traced back three or four thousand years; we can read its sacred texts, mythical narratives, hymns, rituals, and the Book of the Dead in the original, and we can ascertain its various ideas as to the nature of the divine powers and of future life. A great number of monuments have preserved for our inspection the pictures of divinities and representations of liturgic scenes, while numerous inscriptions and papyri enlighten us in regard to the sacerdotal organization of the principal temples. It would seem that the enormous quantity of documents of all kinds that have been deciphered in the course of nearly an entire century should have dispelled every uncertainty about the creed of ancient Egypt, and should have furnished exact information with regard to the sources and original character of the worship which the Greeks and the Romans borrowed from the subjects of the Ptolemies.

And yet, this is not the case. While of the four great Oriental religions which were transplanted into the Occident, the religion of Isis and Serapis is the one whose relation to the ancient belief of the mother country we can establish with greatest accuracy, we {74} know very little of its first form and of its nature before the imperial period, when it was held in high esteem.

One fact, however, appears to be certain. The Egyptian worship that spread over the Greco-Roman world came from the Serapeum founded at Alexandria by Ptolemy Soter, somewhat in the manner of Judaism that emanated from the temple of Jerusalem. But the earliest history of that famous sanctuary is surrounded by such a thick growth of pious legends, that the most sagacious investigators have lost their way in it. Was Serapis of native origin, or was he imported from Sinope or Seleucia, or even from Babylon? Each of these opinions has found supporters very recently. Is his name derived from that of the Egyptian god Osiris-Apis, or from that of the Chaldean deity Sar-Apsi? _Grammatici certant_.[1]

Whichever solution we may adopt, one fact remains, namely, that Serapis and Osiris were either immediately identified or else were identical from the beginning. The divinity whose worship was started at Alexandria by Ptolemy was the god that ruled the dead and shared his immortality with them. He was fundamentally an Egyptian god, and the most popular of the deities of the Nile. Herodotus says that Isis and Osiris were revered by every inhabitant of the country, and their traditional holidays involved secret ceremonies whose sacred meaning the Greek writer dared not reveal.[2]

Recognizing their Osiris in Serapis, the Egyptians readily accepted the new cult. There was a tradition that a new dynasty should introduce a new god or give a sort of preeminence to the god of its own district. From time immemorial politics had changed the {75} government of heaven when changing that of earth. Under the Ptolemies the Serapis of Alexandria naturally became one of the principal divinities of the country, just as the Ammon of Thebes had been the chief of the celestial hierarchy under the Pharaohs of that city, or as, under the sovereigns from Sais, the local Neith had the primacy. At the time of the Antonines there were forty-two Serapeums in Egypt.[3]

But the purpose of the Ptolemies was not to add one more Egyptian god to the countless number already worshiped by their subjects. They wanted this god to unite in one common worship the two races inhabiting the kingdom, and thus to further a complete fusion. The Greeks were obliged to worship him side by side with the natives. It was a clever political idea to institute a Hellenized Egyptian religion at Alexandria. A tradition mentioned by Plutarch[4] has it that Manetho, a priest from Heliopolis, a man of advanced ideas, together with Timotheus, a Eumolpid from Eleusis, thought out the character that would best suit the newcomer. The result was that the composite religion founded by the Lagides became a combination of the old creed of the Pharaohs and the Greek mysteries.

First of all, the liturgic language was no longer the native idiom but Greek. This was a radical change. The philosopher Demetrius of Phalerum, who had been cured of blindness by Serapis, composed poems in honor of the god that were still sung under the Cæsars several centuries later.[5] We can easily imagine that the poets, who lived on the bounty of the Ptolemies, vied with each other in their efforts to celebrate their benefactors' god, and the old rituals that were translated from the Egyptian were also enriched with {76} edifying bits of original inspiration. A hymn to Isis, found on a marble monument in the island of Andros,[6] gives us some idea of these sacred compositions, although it is of more recent date.

In the second place, the artists replaced the old hieratic idols by more attractive images and gave them the beauty of the immortals. It is not known who created the figure of Isis draped in a linen gown with a fringed cloak fastened over the breast, whose sweet meditative, graciously maternal face is a combination of the ideals imagined for Hera and Aphrodite. But we know the sculptor of the first statue of Serapis that stood in the great sanctuary of Alexandria until the end of paganism. This statue, the prototype of all the copies that have been preserved, is a colossal work of art made of precious materials by a famous Athenian sculptor named Bryaxis, a contemporary of Scopas. It was one of the last divine creations of Hellenic genius. The majestic head, with its somber and yet benevolent expression, with its abundance of hair, and with a crown in the shape of a bushel, bespoke the double character of a god ruling at the same time both the fertile earth and the dismal realm of the dead.[7]