The first Oriental religion adopted by the Romans was that of the goddess
of Phrygia, whom the people of Pessinus and Mount Ida worshiped, 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 circumstance. 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. Nobody 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}
friendship, King Attalus presented the ambassadors of the senate with the
black aerolite, supposed to be the abode of the goddess, 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
multitude 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 goddess 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 goddess (April 4th-10th).
What was this Asiatic religion that had suddenly been transferred into the
heart of Rome by an extraordinary circumstance? 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 worshiped 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 goddess
of the earth, called Mâ or Cybele, was revered as the fecund mother of all
things, the "mistress of the wild beasts"[3] that inhabit the woods. A god
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 assumed some of his characteristics. This
Thracian Dionysus was a god 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 god'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 god 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 god of vegetation,
was united to the goddess 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 worshipers 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 brass 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
worshipers 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
gods 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 worship 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 _métragyrtes_. They also harmonized with some of the ideas
of renunciation taught by Greek philosophy, and at an early period Hellenic
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 worship. 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 coarse religious ideas, such as the
worship of trees, stones and animals. Besides this superstitious fetichism
it involved ceremonies that were both sensual and ribald, including all the
wild and mystic rites of the bacchanalia 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 embarrassed by the present of King
Attalus. {52} The enthusiastic transports and the somber fanaticism of the
Phrygian worship 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 goddess 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 goddess or to participate in her sacred orgies. The barbarous rites
according to which the Great Mother was to be worshiped 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 worship 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 goddess 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 passed.
Kept closely under control, the Phrygian worship 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 worshiped 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
Mâ, the great goddess of the two Comanas, who was worshiped 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 worship, 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 Anâhita 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 assumed or preserved a warlike character that gave
her a resemblance to the Italian Bellona. The dictator Sulla, to whom this
invincible goddess of combats had appeared in a dream, was prompted by his
superstition to introduce her worship 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 goddess and her
votaries with it, or even drank it. Finally a prophetic delirium would
overcome them, and they foretold the future.
This ferocious worship 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 _Mâ_ 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 worship 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 worship of Isis had been authorized
after a long resistance. Its stirring festivities and imposing processions
gained considerable popularity. This competition 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
goddess, 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 superstition. Isis
must have been held under great {56} suspicion by a ruler who clung to old
national institutions.[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 god 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 god. 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 goddess.[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 worship of the Mother of the Gods had penetrated into the Hellenic
countries long before it was received at Rome, but in Greece it assumed 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 Hellenized 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 goddess 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 associations recognized by the state. These
associations 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 gods, were adopted by the populations of the Occident as
Roman gods 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 masses to these
Asiatic divinities.
This popular zeal was the result of various causes. Ancient authors
describe the impression produced upon the masses by those magnificent
processions in which Cybele passed 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 goddess seeking the body of her lover cut down in
the prime of his life like the grass of the fields. He saw the bloody
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 goddess, was always especially
worshiped 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 god 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 participate 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 régime. 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 associations of dendrophori were organs of municipal
life in Italy and in the provinces, and had a corporate entity.
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 gods 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 classes of society, to find their national and
favorite devotions in it. As a matter of fact no other Anatolian god 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. "_Mèn 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
title of "tyrant" was given to Mèn, an old barbarian divinity worshiped by
all Phrygia and surrounding regions.[26] The Anatolian tribes from Caria to
the remotest mountains of Pontus worshiped a lunar god 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 god enjoyed
greater popularity in the country districts.
This powerful divinity penetrated into Greece at an early period. Among the
mixed populations of the Ægean seaports, in the Piræus, at Rhodes, Delos
and Thasos, religious associations for his worship 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 worship of _Magna Mater_. In Asia itself, Attis and Mèn
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 Mèn. His
assimilation 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 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.
* * * * *
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