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| Further Use Made of the System of the Phrygians; Mode of Celebrating the Mysteries; The Mystery of the “Great Mother;” These Mysteries Have a Joint Object of Worship with the Naasseni; The Naasseni Allegorize the Scriptural Account of the Garden of Eden; The Allegory Applied to the Life of Jesus.
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Chapter IV.—Further Use Made of the System of the Phrygians;
Mode of Celebrating the Mysteries; The Mystery of the “Great
Mother;” These Mysteries Have a Joint Object of Worship with the
Naasseni; The Naasseni Allegorize the Scriptural Account of the Garden
of Eden; The Allegory Applied to the Life of Jesus.
The Phrygians, however, further assert that the
father of the universe is “Amygdalus,” not a tree, he says,
but that he is “Amygdalus” who previously existed; and he
having in himself the perfect fruit, as it were, throbbing and moving
in the depth, rent his breasts, and produced his now invisible, and
nameless, and ineffable child, respecting whom we shall speak.
For the word “Amyxai” signifies, as it were, to burst and
sever through, as he says (happens) in the case of inflamed bodies, and
which have in themselves any tumour; and when doctors have cut this,
they call it “Amychai.” In this way, he says, the
Phrygians call him “Amygdalus,” from which proceeded and
was born the Invisible (One), “by whom all things were made, and
nothing was made without Him.”435
And the Phrygians say that what has
been thence produced is “Syrictas” (piper), because the
Spirit that is born is harmonious. “For God,” he
says, “is Spirit; wherefore,” he affirms, “neither in
this mountain do the true worshippers worship, nor in
Jerusalem, but in spirit. For the adoration of the perfect
ones,” he says, “is spiritual, not carnal.”436
The Spirit, however, he says, is
there where likewise the Father is named, and the Son is there born
from this Father. This, he says, is the many-named, thousand-eyed
Incomprehensible One, of whom every nature—each, however,
differently—is desirous. This, he says, is the word of God,
which, he says, is a word of revelation of the Great Power.
Wherefore it will be sealed, and hid, and concealed, lying in the
habitation where lies the basis of the root of the universe, viz.
Æons, Powers, Intelligences, Gods, Angels, delegated Spirits,
Entities, Nonentities, Generables, Ingenerables, Incomprehensibles,
Comprehensibles, Years, Months, Days, Hours, (and) Invisible Point from
which437
| 437
ἐξ ἧς or ἑξῆς, i.e., next. | what is least
begins to increase gradually. That which is, he says, nothing,
and which consists of nothing, inasmuch as it is indivisible—(I
mean) a point—will become through its own reflective power a
certain incomprehensible magnitude. This, he says, is the kingdom
of heaven, the grain of mustard seed,438
| 438
Matt. xiii. 31, 32; Mark iv.
31, 32; Luke xiii. 19. | the point which is indivisible in the
body; and, he says, no one knows this (point) save the spiritual
only. This, he says, is what has been spoken: “There
is no speech nor language where their voice is not
heard.”439
They rashly assume in this manner, that whatsoever
things have been said and done by all men, (may be made to harmonize)
with their own particular mental view, alleging that all things become
spiritual. Whence likewise they assert, that those exhibiting
themselves in theatres,—not even these say or do anything without
premeditation. Therefore, he says, when, on the people assembling
in the theatres, any one enters clad in a remarkable robe, carrying a
harp and playing a tune (upon it, accompanying it) with a song of the
great mysteries, he speaks as follows, not knowing what he says:
“Whether (thou art) the race of Saturn or happy Jupiter,440
| 440 The
passage following obviously was in verse originally. It has been
restored to its poetic form by Schneidewin. | or mighty Rhea, Hail, Attis, gloomy
mutilation of Rhea. Assyrians style thee thrice-longed-for
Adonis, and the whole of Egypt (calls thee) Osiris, celestial horn of
the moon; Greeks denominate (thee) Wisdom; Samothracians, venerable
Adam; Hæmonians, Corybas; and them Phrygians (name thee) at one
time Papa, at another time Corpse, or God, or Fruitless, or Aipolos, or
green Ear of Corn that has been reaped, or whom the very fertile
Amygdalus produced—a man, a musician.” This, he says,
is multiform Attis, whom while they celebrate in a hymn, they utter
these words: “I will hymn Attis, son of Rhea, not with the
buzzing sounds of trumpets, or of Idæan pipers, which accord with
(the voices of) the Curetes; but I will mingle (my song) with Apollo’s
music of harps, ‘evoe, evan,’ inasmuch as thou art Pan, as
thou art Bacchus, as thou art shepherd of brilliant stars.”
On account of these and such like reasons, these
constantly attend the mysteries called those of the “Great
Mother,” supposing especially that they behold by means of the
ceremonies performed there the entire mystery. For these have
nothing more than the ceremonies that are performed there, except that
they are not emasculated: they merely complete the work of the
emasculated. For with the utmost severity and vigilance they
enjoin (on their votaries) to abstain, as if they were emasculated,
from intercourse with a woman. The rest, however, of the
proceeding (observed in these mysteries), as we have declared at some
length, (they follow) just as (if they were) emasculated persons.
And they do not worship any other object but Naas, (from thence) being
styled Naasseni. But Naas is the serpent from whom, i.e., from
the word Naas, (the Naassene) says, are all that under heaven are
denominated temples (Naous). And (he states) that to him
alone—that is, Naas—is dedicated every shrine and every
initiatory rite, and every mystery; and, in general, that a religious
ceremony could not be discovered under heaven, in which a temple (Naos)
has no existence; and in the temple itself is Naas, from whom it has
received its denomination of temple (Naos). And these affirm that
the serpent is a moist substance, just as Thales also, the Milesian,
(spoke of water as an originating principle,) and that nothing of
existing things, immortal or mortal, animate or inanimate, could
consist at all without him. And that all things are subject unto
him, and that he is good, and that he has all things in himself, as in
the horn of the one-horned bull;441
so as that he imparts beauty and bloom to
all things that exist according to their own nature and peculiarity, as
if passing through all, just as (“the river) proceeding forth
from Edem, and dividing itself into four heads.”442
They assert, however, that Edem is the brain, as
it were, bound and tightly fastened in encircling robes, as if (in)
heaven. But they suppose that man, as far as the head only, is
Paradise, therefore that “this river, which proceeds out of
Edem,” that is, from the brain, “is divided into four
heads,443
and that the name
of the first river is called Phison; this is that which encompasseth
all the land of Havilath: there is gold, and the gold of that
land is excellent, and there is bdellium and the onyx
stone.” This, he says, is the eye, which, by its honour
(among the rest of the bodily organs), and its colours, furnishes
testimony to what is spoken. “But the name of the second
river is Gihon: this is that which compasseth the land of
Ethiopia.” This, he says, is hearing, since Gihon is (a
tortuous stream), resembling a sort of labyrinth. “And the
name of the third is Tigris. This is that which floweth
over against (the country of) the Assyrians.” This, he
says,444
is smelling,
employing the exceedingly rapid current of the stream (as an analogy of
this sense). But it flows over against (the country of) the
Assyrians, because in every act of respiration following upon
expiration, the breath drawn in from the external atmosphere enters
with swifter motion and greater force. For this, he says, is the
nature of respiration. “But the fourth river is
Euphrates.” This, they assert, is the mouth, through
which are the passage outwards of prayer, and the passage inwards of
nourishment. (The mouth) makes glad, and nurtures and fashions
the Spiritual Perfect Man. This, he says, is “the water
that is above the firmament,”445
concerning which, he says, the Saviour has
declared, “If thou knewest who it is that asks, thou wouldst have
asked from Him, and He would have given you to drink living, bubbling
water.”446
Into this
water, he says, every nature enters, choosing its own substances; and
its peculiar quality comes to each nature from this water, he says,
more than iron does to the magnet, and the gold to the
backbone447
| 447
κερκίς. This word
literally means the rod; or, in later times, the comb fixed into the
ἱστός (i.e., the upright loom), for
the purpose of driving the threads of the woof home, thus making the
web even and close. It is, among other significations, applied to
bones in the leg or arm. Cruice and Schneidewin translate
κερκίς by spina, a rendering adopted above. The allusion is
made again in chap. xii. and chap. xvi. In the last passage,
κέντρον (spur) is used
instead of κερκίς | of the sea
falcon, and the chaff to the amber.
But if any one, he says, is blind from birth, and
has never beheld the true light, “which lighteneth every man that
cometh into the world,”448
by us let him recover his sight, and behold, as it were, through some
paradise planted with every description of tree, and supplied with
abundance of fruits, water coursing its way through all the trees and
fruits; and he will see that from one and the same water the olive
chooses for itself and draws the oil, and the vine the wine; and (so is
it with) the rest of plants, according to each genus. That
Man, however, he says, is of no reputation in the world, but of
illustrious fame in heaven, being betrayed by those who are ignorant
(of his perfections) to those who know him not, being accounted as a
drop from a cask.449
We,
however, he says, are spiritual, who, from the life-giving water of
Euphrates, which flows
through the midst of Babylon, choose our own peculiar quality as
we pass through the true gate, which is the blessed Jesus. And of
all men, we Christians alone are those who in the third gate celebrate
the mystery, and are anointed there with the unspeakable chrism from a
horn, as David (was anointed), not from an earthen vessel,450
he says, as (was) Saul, who held converse
with the evil demon451
of carnal
concupiscence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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