Hymn to the Mother of the Gods

Must I then speak of these matters too? Shall I write of things unspeakable, and divulge what may not be divulged, and utter what may not be uttered? Who is Attis, or Gallus; who is the Mother of the gods; and what is the manner of this purity of ours; and, moreover, for what cause this rite was from the beginning revealed to us in such a form — handed down by the most ancient of the Phrygians, and first received by the Greeks, and these not of the common sort but Athenians, taught by deeds that they had done ill to mock the man who performed the orgies of the Mother? For these men are said to have grievously insulted and driven out the Gallus as one introducing novelties in religion, not understanding what manner of thing the goddess is, and that she is the Deo and Rhea and Demeter honoured among themselves. Then came thereupon the wrath of the goddess, and the propitiation of that wrath. For she who became leader of the Greeks in all things noble, the prophetess of the Pythian god, bade them appease the wrath of the Mother of the gods; and on this account, they say, the Metroön was raised, where the Athenians publicly kept guarded all their state records. After the Greeks the Romans too received these rites, the Pythian having counselled them also to bring from Phrygia the goddess as an ally for the war against the Carthaginians. And perhaps nothing forbids us to add here a brief history.

Having learned the oracle, the inhabitants of god-beloved Rome sent an embassy to ask of the kings of Pergamum, who then ruled over Phrygia, and of the Phrygians themselves, the most holy image of the goddess. Having received it, they bore the sacred freight, placing it in a broad merchant vessel able to sail easily over so many seas. And having crossed the Aegean and the Ionian, then sailed round Sicily and the Tyrrhenian sea, she came to the mouths of the Tiber; and the people poured out of the city together with the senate, while before all the rest there came to meet her the priests and all the priestesses, and all in the fitting array according to ancestral custom, gazing eagerly toward the ship as it ran before the wind, and watching about the keel the surge of the waves cleaving asunder. Then, as she sailed in, they welcomed the ship, each making obeisance as he chanced to stand, far off. But she, as though wishing to show the Roman people that they were not bringing a lifeless wooden image from Phrygia, but that what they bore, having received it from the Phrygians, possessed some greater and more divine power, when she touched the Tiber, brought the ship to a stand, as though it had suddenly taken root upon the Tiber. They drew it, then, against the current, but it did not follow. And when, having met with shallows, they tried to push the ship along, it would not yield to their pushing. Every device was thereafter applied, but it was no less immovable; so that there fell upon the virgin consecrated to the most holy priesthood a dreadful and unjust suspicion, and they accused Clodia — for this was the name of the august virgin — of not keeping herself altogether undefiled and pure for the goddess, and that therefore she was angry and manifestly wrathful; for now it seemed to all that the affair was more than human. But she at first was filled with shame at the very name and the suspicion — so very far was she from the shameful and lawless deed. But when she saw the accusation already prevailing against her, she took off her girdle and fastened it about the prow of the ship, and, as though by some inspiration, bade all withdraw; then she besought the goddess not to suffer her to be held fast by unjust slanders. And crying aloud, as it were some sailor's command, "Lady Mother," she said, "if I am chaste, follow me." And indeed she not only moved the ship, but drew it a great way against the current; and the goddess thereby showed the Romans, I think, two things on that day: that it was no freight of small worth that they were bringing from Phrygia, but one worth everything; and that it was no human thing, but truly divine; and no lifeless earth, but a thing breathing and divine. This one thing the goddess showed them; and another — that not a single one of the citizens, whether good or base, could escape her notice. Indeed the war too was straightway brought to a happy issue for the Romans against the Carthaginians, so that the third was waged only over the walls of Carthage itself. As for the matter of the history, even if to some it seem incredible and to befit neither philosopher nor theologian, let it be told none the less, recorded in common by very many historiographers and preserved even upon bronze images in mightiest and god-beloved Rome. And yet it has not escaped me that some of the over-clever will say these things are old wives' tales not to be endured. But it seems to me better to trust cities in such matters than these dainty fellows, whose little soul is sharp but sees nothing sound.

Concerning the matters of which it came into my mind to speak at this very season of the consecration: I hear indeed that Porphyry too has philosophized somewhat about them, yet I do not know it, for I have not met with it, even if it should chance to agree somewhere with my account. As for this Gallus and Attis, I myself conceive, out of my own resources, that he is that substance of the generative and creative mind which begets all things down to the lowest matter, and which contains in itself all the principles and causes of the material forms. For not all forms are in all things, nor in the highest and first causes are the forms of the lowest and last, after which there is nothing save the name of privation together with a dim conception. There being, then, many substances and very many creators, the last nature, which descends even unto earth from the third creator — who holds the principles of the material forms separately and their causes in unbroken sequence — descending through the abundance of the generative power from above, from the stars, is the Attis we seek. And perhaps it is necessary to define more clearly what I mean. We say that there is a thing, matter, and also material form. But if no cause be set before these, we should be introducing, without perceiving it, the Epicurean doctrine. For if nothing is older than two first principles, then some spontaneous movement and chance has allotted them together. "But we see," says some sharp-witted Peripatetic such as Xenarchus, "that the cause of these is the fifth and circular body." And Aristotle is ridiculous, inquiring and busying himself about these matters, and likewise Theophrastus; for he was at least ignorant of his own utterance. For just as, when he had come to the incorporeal and intelligible substance, he stood still and busied himself no further about the cause, but said that these things are by nature so — he ought surely, in the case of the fifth body too, taking the "being so by nature," to inquire no further after the causes, but to stand upon them and not to fall away toward the intelligible, which is in itself nothing by nature, but otherwise holds an empty surmise. For such things I remember to have heard Xenarchus say. Whether, then, he said these things rightly or not, let it be left to the over-zealous Peripatetics to split hairs over; but that he did not speak agreeably to me is, I suppose, plain to everyone, since I hold even the Aristotelian hypotheses to be somewhat deficient, unless one bring them into the same view as Plato's — or rather, bring these too into accord with the prophecies given by the gods.

But this perhaps is worth inquiring: how the circular body can hold the incorporeal causes of the material forms. For that without these no generation can subsist is, I suppose, plain and clear. For to what end are the things that come to be so many? Whence male and female? Whence the difference, according to genus, of existing things in defined forms, unless there be certain pre-existing and pre-subsisting principles and causes pre-subsisting in the manner of a paradigm? Toward which, if we are dim-sighted, let us further purify the eyes of the soul. And the right purification is to turn back upon oneself and consider how the soul and the material mind are, as it were, a mould and an image of the material forms. For there is not one of the bodies, nor of the incorporeal things that come to be and are contemplated about bodies, of which the mind cannot receive the image incorporeally — which it would never do, had it not some natural kinship with them. Wherefore Aristotle too said that the soul is the place of forms, save that not in actuality but in potentiality. Such a soul, then, and one turned toward the body, must hold these in potentiality; but if a soul be unattached and unmingled with the body, its principles must be reckoned no longer in potentiality, but all in actuality. Let us grasp this more clearly by the illustration which Plato in the Sophist used, indeed toward another argument, but used none the less. I bring the illustration not as a proof of the argument; for one ought not to grasp this matter by proof, but by intuition alone, since it concerns the first causes, or at least those of the same rank as the first — if indeed Attis too is for us, as it is worthy to believe, a god. What, and of what sort, is the illustration? Plato says somewhere that, of those who busy themselves about imitation, if one should wish to imitate so as to give substance to the things imitated, it is laborious and difficult and, by Zeus, rather close to the impossible; but easy and ready and very possible is the imitation that imitates existing things through mere appearance. When, then, we take a mirror and carry it about, easily catching the reflections from all existing things, we display the impressions of each. From this illustration let us transfer the likeness to what was said, that the mirror may be the place of forms called by Aristotle "in potentiality." But the forms themselves must first wholly subsist in actuality before that which is in potentiality. Since, then, the soul in us, as Aristotle too holds, possesses the forms of existing things in potentiality, where shall we first set these in actuality? In the material things? But these are plainly the last. It remains, then, to seek immaterial causes set in actuality before the material, beside which our soul, having subsisted and come forth together with them, must of necessity receive from thence — as mirrors receive from existing things — the principles of the forms, and impart them through nature to matter and to these material bodies. For that nature is the creator of bodies we know — as being, on the one hand, the universal nature of the whole, and on the other, the particular nature of each one of the parts — this is, I suppose, plain and clear. But nature in us is in actuality without imagination, while the soul that is above nature has taken on imagination also. If, then, it is agreed that nature holds the cause even of things of which it has no imagination, why, before the gods, shall we not give this very thing still more, and as more primary, to the soul, where we already know it imaginatively and grasp it by reason? Then who is so contentious as to agree that the material principles belong to nature — if not all and at once in actuality, yet all in potentiality — but to refuse this very thing to the soul? Therefore, if the forms are in nature in potentiality and not in actuality, and still in potentiality in the soul, but more purely and more distinctly, so as to be grasped and known, yet nowhere in actuality, whence shall we hang the cables of eternal becoming? Where shall we ground the arguments concerning the everlastingness of the cosmos? For the circular body too is composed of a substrate and a form. It is necessary, then, even if these never exist in actuality apart from one another, that in conception at least those former things, being primary, should both be and be reckoned more ancient.

Since, then, there has been granted a leading cause, wholly immaterial, of the material forms also, under the third creator, who is for us father and master not of these alone but also of the visible and fifth body, having separated from him Attis, the cause that descends even unto matter, we have believed Attis and Gallus to be a generative god — he whom the myth says blossomed, when he was exposed by the eddies of the river Gallus, and then, appearing fair and great, was beloved by the Mother of the gods; and that she entrusted to him all things besides, and set upon his head the starred cap. But if this visible heaven covers the crown of Attis, must not the river Gallus, then, perhaps hint at the Milky Way? For there, they say, the passible body mingles with the impassible revolution of the fifth element. Up to this point, then, the Mother of the gods permitted this fair one — like to the sun's rays, the intellectual god, Attis — to leap and to dance. But when, going forward, he came down to the lowest parts, the myth says he descended into the cave and lay with the nymph, hinting at the moistness of matter; and it called not matter itself the nymph, but the last incorporeal cause, which pre-subsists before matter. For it is said by Heraclitus, "for souls it is death to become moist." This Gallus, then, the intellectual god, the holder-together of the material forms beneath the moon, coming together with the cause set before matter — coming together not as one thing with another, but as we say a thing is borne down into itself.

Who, then, is the Mother of the gods? She is the source of the intellectual and creative gods, who in turn govern the visible gods; she who both bore and dwells with the great Zeus, having come into being as a great goddess after the great one and together with the great creator; she who is mistress of all life and cause of all generation; she who most easily brings to completion what is made, and begets without passion, and, together with the father, creates existing things. She is both a motherless virgin and the throne-sharer of Zeus, and truly the mother of all the gods. For having received in herself the causes of all the intelligible and supramundane gods, she became a source to the intellectual gods. And upon this goddess, being also Providence, there came a passionless love of Attis; for not only the material forms, but far more their causes, are willed by her and according to her purpose. The providence, then, that preserves the things that come to be and pass away, the myth said, loved the creative and generative cause of these; and it bade her rather to beget in the intelligible realm, and to wish to be turned toward herself and to dwell with herself, and to make it a command — to no other of the rest — at once pursuing the unified and saving, and at once fleeing the inclination toward matter. And it bade her look toward herself, being a source of the creative gods, but not dragged down into generation nor beguiled; for thus the great Attis was destined to be even a mightier creator, since in all things the turning toward the better is more effective than the inclination toward the worse. For even the fifth body is more creative and more divine than the things here, by being more turned toward the gods; since, as for the body, even were it of the purest ether, of a soul undefiled and pure such as the creator sent forth for Heracles, no one would dare to say it was better. Yet then she was, and seemed, more effective than when she gave herself to a body. For even now, when Heracles whole has departed to the father whole, the care of these things has become easier for him than it was before, when he went about among men wearing flesh. So in all things the withdrawal toward the better is more effective than the turning toward the worse. And this the myth, wishing to teach, says that the Mother of the gods exhorted Attis to serve her and neither to withdraw nor to love another.

But he went forward, descending even unto the lowest parts of matter. And when at length the infinity had to cease and stand still, Corybas — the great Helios, who shares the throne with the Mother and creates all things together with her, and provides together with her, and does nothing apart from her — persuaded the lion to become an informer. And who is the lion? We hear that he is fiery; the cause, then, that pre-subsists, of the hot and fiery — which was destined to war against the nymph and to be jealous of her communion with Attis. (We have already said who the nymph is.) The myth says that he ministered to the creative providence of existing things — that is, to the Mother of the gods; and then, having detected and become an informer, he became the cause of the youth's emasculation. And what is the emasculation? The checking of the infinity. For the things of generation stood still in defined forms, held back by the creative providence, not without the so-called madness of Attis — which, departing from the moderate and overstepping it, and therefore as it were growing faint and no longer able to be itself; which it is not unreasonable should subsist about the last cause of the gods. Consider, then, beholding the fifth body unaltered through every alteration about the illuminations of the moon, so that thereafter the world, continually coming to be and perishing, is neighbour to the fifth body; about its illuminations we behold a certain alteration and passions befalling.

It is not absurd, then, that this Attis too should be a kind of demigod — for indeed the myth wishes this; or rather a god to the universe, for he comes forth from the third creator and is led back again to the Mother of the gods after the emasculation; but since he wholly seems to incline and lean toward matter, one would not err in supposing him the last of the gods, yet the leader of all the divine kinds. And the myth calls him a demigod for this reason, indicating his difference from the unchanging gods. For the Corybantes, given by the Mother, attend him as a bodyguard — the three ruling hypostases of the kinds higher than the gods. And he rules also over the lions, who, having distributed among themselves the warm and fiery substance together with their leader the lion, are causes first to the fire, and through the heat thence are causes of motive activity and of preservation to the rest. And he wears the heaven instead of a tiara, setting out thence, as it were, toward earth.

This is for us the great god Attis. These are the flights and concealments and vanishings of King Attis, which for a while are mourned, and the settings into the cave. And let the season in which it comes to pass be a proof of this for me. For they say that the sacred tree is cut on the day on which the sun comes to the summit of the equinoctial arc; then, next, the blowing of trumpets is taken up; and on the third day is cut the sacred and unspeakable harvest of the god Gallus; and upon these follow, they say, the Hilaria and festivals. That the emasculation bruited about among the many is the standing-still of the infinity is plain from this: that when the great Helios, having touched the equinoctial circle — where is that which is most of all defined (for the equal is defined, but the unequal is infinite and untraversable) — according to this reasoning the tree is straightway cut; then, next, the rest comes to pass, some things on account of the mystic and secret ordinances, and some things able to be spoken to all. The cutting of the tree — this belongs to the history concerning the Gallus, but in no way to the mysteries to which it is attached; the gods teaching us, I think, symbolically, that having plucked the fairest thing from earth, virtue together with piety, we must bear it away to the goddess, to be a symbol of good citizenship here. For the tree grows from earth, but presses, as it were, toward the ether, and is fair to behold and gives shade in the stifling heat, and already even puts forth fruit from itself and bestows it; so great an abundance of the generative power is in it. The ordinance, then, exhorts us — who are by nature heavenly, but have been borne down to earth — having reaped virtue together with piety from our citizenship on earth, to press toward the ancestral and life-giving goddess. Straightway, then, after the emasculation, the trumpet sounds the recall to Attis and to all of us who once flew down from heaven to earth and fell. And after this symbol, when King Attis stays the infinity by the emasculation, the gods bid us too cut off the infinity in ourselves and imitate our leaders, and run back to the defined and the unified and, if it be possible, to the One itself; upon which, when it has come to pass, the Hilaria must wholly follow. For what could be more cheerful, what more glad, than a soul that has escaped infinity and generation and the surge within it, and been led up to the gods themselves? Of whom Attis too is one, whom the Mother of the gods in no way suffered to walk farther forward than was right, but turned him toward herself, commanding him to stay the infinity.

And let no one suppose me to say that these things were once done and came to pass, as though the gods themselves did not know what they would do, or were correcting their own faults. But the ancients, ever seeking the causes of existing things — whether under the guidance of the gods or searching out by themselves, or better perhaps to say seeking under the gods as leaders — then, having found them, veiled them in paradoxical myths, that through the paradoxical and incongruous the fiction, being detected, might urge us on to the search for the truth; the irrational benefit through the symbols alone sufficing, I think, for the common sort, but for those of surpassing prudence the truth concerning the gods being beneficial only thus, if a man, examining it under the gods as leaders, should find and grasp it — reminded through the riddles that he must seek something concerning them, and at last, having found through inquiry as it were the crown of the matter, should go his way, not through reverence and trust in another's opinion rather than through his own activity according to mind.

What, then, do we say it is, in sum? Having understood, up to the fifth body, that not only the intelligible but also these visible bodies belong to the impassible and divine portion, up to this point they reckoned the gods to be unmixed. But to the generative substance of the gods, of the things here subsisting beside them — matter having come forth together with the gods from eternity, and from them and through them, through the superabundance of their generative and creative cause — the providence of existing things, made consubstantial with the gods from eternity, and being throne-sharer with King Zeus, and a source of the intellectual gods; and that which seems lifeless and barren and refuse, and, as one might say, the offscouring and dregs and sediment of existing things, through the last cause of the gods — into which the substances of all the gods come to an end — it adorned and set right and translated toward the better. For this Attis, who has the tiara spangled with stars, plainly made the visibly-seen allotments of all the gods in the visible cosmos the beginnings of his own kingdom; in him the unmixed and pure extended as far as the Milky Way; but about this place, the passible now being mingled with the impassible and matter subsisting beside it thence, the communion with this is the descent into the cave — coming to pass not unwillingly for the gods and their Mother, but said to come to pass unwillingly. For the better things, the gods being by nature in a higher state, do not wish to drag down the worse from thence to here, but, through the condescension of the higher, to lead these up too to the better and more god-beloved allotment. So too the Mother is said not to bear enmity toward Attis after the emasculation, but she is no longer angry; yet she is said to be angry on account of the condescension, because, being higher and a god, he gave himself to the inferior. But when he had stayed the procession of the infinity and adorned this unadorned thing through his sympathy with the equinoctial circle — that the great Helios might govern the most perfect measure of the defined motion — the goddess gladly leads him back to herself, or rather keeps him with herself. And there never was a time when these things were not in the manner in which they now are, but always is Attis the minister and charioteer of the Mother, and always does he yearn toward generation, and always does he cut off the infinity through the defined cause of the forms. And, being led up as it were from earth, he is again said to wield his ancient sceptres — having never fallen from them, nor falling, but said to have fallen from them on account of his commingling with the passible.

But this perhaps is worth raising as a further difficulty: there being two equinoxes, they prefer not that in the Claws but that in the Ram. What, then, is the cause of this? It is plain, no doubt. Since the sun then begins to draw near to us from the equinox, the day, I think, increasing, this season seemed the more fitting. For apart from the cause which says that light is concurrent with the gods, one must believe that the up-leading rays of the sun are appropriate to those who hasten to be released from generation. Consider it clearly: he draws all things from the earth and calls them forth and makes them sprout by his vivifying and wondrous heat, separating the bodies, I think, to the utmost fineness, and lightens the things that by nature are borne downward. Such things, then, must be made proofs of his unseen powers. For he who in the bodies, through corporeal heat, thus accomplishes this — how shall he not, through the unseen and wholly incorporeal and divine and pure substance established in his rays, draw and lead up the fortunate souls? Since, then, this light has appeared appropriate to the gods and to those who hasten to be led up, and such a thing increases in our cosmos, so that the day becomes greater than the night when King Helios begins to traverse the Ram — it has been shown that the nature of the god's rays is by nature up-leading, both through its manifest activity and through its unseen, by which great multitudes of souls have been led up, having followed the senses' brightest and most sun-like. For such perception of the eyes the divine Plato hymned as not only welcome and useful for life, but also a guide toward wisdom. But if I should touch upon the unspeakable initiation, which the Chaldaean held forth in frenzy concerning the seven-rayed god, leading up the souls through him, I should be telling things unknown — and very unknown indeed to the rabble, but known to the blessed theurgists. Wherefore I will be silent about them now.

As I was saying, that the season too must be supposed to have been added to the ordinance by the ancients not without reason, but, so far as may be, with probable and true reasoning — a sign of this is that the goddess herself distributed the equinoctial circle. For about the Balance the august and unspeakable mysteries are celebrated to Deo and Kore. And this comes to pass reasonably. For when the god departs, one must again be initiated, that we may suffer nothing grievous from the godless and dark power that then prevails. The Athenians, at any rate, celebrate twice the mysteries to Deo: in the Ram itself the lesser mysteries, they say, and the greater when the sun is about the Claws, for the causes I lately mentioned. And I think they were named greater and lesser for other reasons too, but chiefly, as is likely, because the latter belong to the god when he departs rather than when he approaches; wherefore in these latter there is only so much as serves for remembrance. Since, then, the saving and up-leading god is present, the preliminary rites of the celebration were laid down; then a little later continual purifications and consecrations of the priests. But when at last the god departs toward the counter-earthly zone, both for guarding and for salvation the very chief part of the mysteries is performed. And observe: just as here the cause of generation is cut off, so too among the Athenians those who handle the unspeakable things are wholly pure, and their leader, the hierophant, has turned away from all generation, as having no part in the procession toward infinity, but in the defined and ever-abiding substance, contained in the One, undefiled and pure. Concerning these matters, then, this much suffices.

It remains, as is fitting, to go through the matter of the consecration itself and the purity, that hence too we may take what may contribute to our subject. And this straightway appears ridiculous to all: the sacred law gives leave to touch flesh, but forbids the seeds. Are not the former lifeless, and the latter living? Are not the former pure, and the latter full of blood and of many other things not easy for sight and hearing? Is it not, the greatest point, that with the former no one is wronged by the eating, but with the latter the animals are sacrificed and slaughtered, suffering, as is likely, and tormented? These things many even of the over-clever might say; but those former things even the most impious of men already mock. They say that the shoots of vegetables are eaten, but the roots, such as turnips, are declined; and that figs are eaten, but not pomegranates, and apples besides. Having heard these things often muttered by many, and indeed having said them myself before, I seem alone of all to be about to render great thanks to the lord gods — most of all to all, but before the rest to the Mother of the gods — as in all other things, so also in this: that she did not overlook me wandering as it were in darkness, but first bade me cut off — not in respect of the body, but in respect of the soul's irrational impulses and motions — the superfluous and vain things, with the intellectual and pre-subsisting cause of our souls. And she put into my mind certain arguments not altogether discordant from the true and holy science concerning the gods. But I seem, as though not knowing what to say, to be running round in a circle. Yet it is in my power, going through each point, to render clear and far-shining causes why it is not lawful for us to partake of these things, which the divine ordinance forbids; and I will do this a little later. But it is better now to set forth, as it were, certain types and canons, following which, even if often through eagerness something escapes our argument, we shall be able to judge concerning these matters.

It is fitting first to recall briefly what we said Attis is, and what the emasculation is, and of what the things done after the emasculation up to the Hilaria are symbols, and what the purity means. Attis, then, was said to be a certain cause and a god, who immediately creates the material cosmos, who, descending unto the lowest parts, is stayed by the creative motion of the sun, when the god comes to be at the most extremely defined circumference of the universe, which has by its work the name of the equinox. And we said the emasculation is the checking of the infinity, which comes to pass not otherwise than through the recall to, and re-emergence toward, the more ancient and original causes. And of the purity itself we say the aim is the ascent of the souls.

Therefore she does not first permit us to eat the seeds that sink beneath the earth; for earth is the lowest of existing things. And Plato says that here the evils, having been driven away, revolve; and through the oracles the gods often call it refuse, and exhort us to flee from thence. First, then, the life-giving and provident goddess does not permit us to use the things that sink beneath the earth even for the body's nourishment, exhorting us to look toward heaven, or rather even above heaven. Some use one seed, the pods, reckoning it rather a vegetable than a seed, because it is somehow upward-tending and erect and not rooted in the earth; but it is rooted as fruit hangs from a tree, an ivy or a vine, and a stalk. We are forbidden, then, to use the seed of plants for this cause, but permitted to use fruits and vegetables — not the ground-loving, but those raised aloft from the earth on high. So too of the turnip she enjoins us to decline the part that loves the earth, as earthy, but gives us leave to partake of the part that emerges above and is raised to a height, as being for that very reason pure. Of vegetables, at any rate, she allows us to use the shoots, but forbids the roots, and especially those nurtured in and sympathetic with the earth. And indeed of the trees she did not permit us to destroy and consume apples, as sacred and golden and images of unspeakable and consecrating prizes, being worthy of their archetypes, for the sake of being revered and worshipped; but she declined the pomegranate as an earthy plant. As for the fruit of the palm, one might perhaps say it is because it does not grow about Phrygia, where the ordinance was first established; but to me it seems rather that, as sacred to the sun and ageless, she did not allow it to be consumed in the consecrations for the body's nourishment. Besides these, it is forbidden to use any fishes. And this prohibition is common to us with the Egyptians.

It seems to me that one might abstain from fishes for two reasons — most of all always, but assuredly in the consecrations: one, that of these things which we do not sacrifice to the gods, it is not fitting even to eat. And perhaps there is no fear lest here some greedy and gluttonous fellow lay hold of me, as I remember having suffered before, when one said, on hearing me, "Why so? Do we not often sacrifice of them to the gods?" But we had something to say even to this. "And we do sacrifice them," I said, "blessed friend, in certain consecratory sacrifices — as the Romans a horse, as many other beasts and animals, and dogs perhaps the Greeks to Hecate, and the Romans too; and among others there are many consecratory offerings, and publicly the cities offer such victims once or twice a year — but not in the honorific sacrifices, of which alone it is worthy to partake and to set at table with the gods. But the fishes we do not sacrifice in the honorific sacrifices, because we neither pasture them, nor care for their generation, nor have herds of them as of sheep and oxen. For these animals, helped by us and multiplied on this account, would justly aid us both for our other needs and, before the rest, for the honorific sacrifices." This, then, is one argument, on account of which I think one ought not to take fish for food in the season of purity. And another, which I hold to fit the foregoing still more: that in a certain way the fishes themselves, having sunk to the bottom of the deep, would be more earthy than the seeds; whereas he who desires to fly up and, raised aloft above the air, to soar to the very summits of heaven, would justly turn away from all such things, and would pursue and run after the things that stretch toward the air and hasten upward and — to say it more poetically — look toward heaven. Birds, therefore, she permits us to use, except a few which happen to be wholly sacred, and of the four-footed the customary ones, save the pig. This she renounces from the sacred food as wholly earthy in form and in life and in the very principle of its substance; for it is full of excrement and gross in flesh; for it is believed, not unreasonably, to be a victim dear to the earthly gods. For this animal is one that does not behold heaven — not only not wishing to, but not even by nature able ever to look up. Such, then, are the causes that the divine ordinance has set forth concerning abstinence from the things from which one must abstain; and we who understand share them with those who know the gods.

Concerning the things she permits us to use, we say only so much: that all things are not for all, but the divine law, considering what is possible for human nature, permitted these many to use them — not that we all should of necessity use all things (for this perhaps is not easy), but in order that he for whom, first, the body's strength allows, then, an abundance concurs, and third, the moral choice, which in the sacred matters it is worth so to intensify that one should set out even beyond the body's strength and be eager to follow the divine ordinances. For this is most of all more effective for the very salvation of the soul, if it should make a greater account of itself than of the body's security; and besides, the body itself appears secretly to share in a greater and more wondrous benefit. For when the soul gives itself wholly to the gods, having entrusted all its own affairs to the higher powers — the consecration following, I think, and before it the divine ordinances leading the way — there being thenceforth nothing to ward off and hinder (for all things are in the gods, and all things subsist about them, and all things are full of the gods), straightway the divine light shines upon them, and they, being deified, set a certain tension and strength upon the connatural spirit; and this, being tempered as it were and strengthened by them, becomes the cause of salvation to the whole body. For that most of all diseases — if not all, yet the most and greatest — come to pass from the turning and derangement of the spirit, no one, I think, of the sons of Asclepius will deny. For some say all, and some the most and greatest and hardest to heal; and the oracles of the gods bear witness to these, I mean that through the consecration not only the soul but also the bodies are deemed worthy of much help and salvation. For the gods, exhorting the supremely pure of the theurgists, announce that even the mortal vesture of bitter matter is preserved for them.

What argument, then, is left us — especially when we have been permitted to string these things together at a breath in a brief part of the night, having neither read beforehand nor considered concerning them, nor even resolved to speak of these matters before asking for these tablets? And the goddess is my witness in this argument. But, as I said, what is left for us save to hymn the goddess together with Athena and Dionysus, whose festivals too the law set in these consecrations? I behold the kinship of Athena toward the Mother of the gods through the providential likeness in both their substances; and I survey also the divided creation of Dionysus, which the great Dionysus, having received from the unified and abiding life of the great Zeus — inasmuch as he came forth from him — distributed among all visible things, governing and reigning over all the divided creation. And it is fitting, together with these, to hymn also Hermes Epaphroditus; for so is this god called by the initiates, all who say they kindle torches to the wise Attis. Who, then, is so gross in soul as not to understand that through Hermes and Aphrodite all things of generation everywhere are recalled, having altogether and in every way the "for the sake of something," which is most proper to reason? And is not this Attis the one who a little before was foolish, but now is called wise on account of the emasculation? Foolish, because he chose matter and governs generation; wise, because he adorned this refuse into so great a beauty and translated it so far as no art or understanding of men could imitate. But what end shall there be of my words? Or is it plain that it is the hymn of the great goddess?

O Mother of gods and men, O throne-sharer and enthroned with the great Zeus, O source of the intellectual gods, O thou who didst run together with the undefiled substances of the intelligibles, and didst receive the common cause from all and impart it to the intellectual ones — life-giving goddess, and counsel, and providence, and creator of our souls; O thou who lovest the great Dionysus, and didst preserve Attis when he was exposed, and dost lead him back again when he sinks into the cave of earth; O thou who leadest all good things to the intellectual gods, and fillest the sensible cosmos with all things, and hast graciously bestowed on us all good things in all — grant to all men happiness, of which the chief part is the knowledge of the gods; and to the Roman people in common, most of all to wipe away the stain of godlessness, and besides this a gracious fortune, helping it govern its empire for many thousands of years; and to me, grant that the fruit of my worship of thee be truth in the doctrines concerning the gods, perfection in theurgy, and, in all the works to which we approach in political and military affairs, virtue together with good fortune, and an end of life painless and of good repute, with the good hope of the journey to you.