"[9]
In a note to this Mr Mead quotes from The Life of Isidorus: "I fell
asleep and in a vision Attis seemed to appear to me, and on behalf
of the Mother of gods to initiate me into the feast called Hilario,
a mystery which discloses the way of our salvation from Hades."
Throughout the document reference is continually made to the Phrygians
and their doctrine of Man. The Eleusinian Mysteries are then treated
of as subsequent to the Phrygian, "after the Phrygians, the
Athenians," but the teaching is represented as being essentially
identical.
We have then a passage of great interest for our investigation, in
which the Mysteries are sharply divided into two classes, and their
separate content clearly defined. There are--"the little Mysteries,
those of the Fleshly Generation, and after men have been initiated
into them they should cease for a while and become initiated in the
Great, Heavenly, Mysteries--for this is the Gate of Heaven, and
this is the House of God, where the Good God dwells alone, into
which House no impure man shall come."[10] Hippolytus remarks that
"these Naassenes say that the performers in theatres, they too,
neither say nor do anything without design--for example, when the
people assemble in the theatre, and a man comes on the stage clad
in a robe different from all others, with lute in hand on which he
plays, and thus chants the Great Mysteries, not knowing what he says:
'Whether blest Child of Kronos, or of Zeus, or of Great Rhea,
Hail Attis, thou mournful song of Rhea!
Assyrians call thee thrice-longed-for Adonis;
All Egypt calls thee Osiris;
The Wisdom of Hellas names thee Men's Heavenly Horn;
The Samothracians call thee august Adama;
The Haemonians, Korybas;
The Phrygians name thee Papa sometimes;
At times again Dead, or God, or Unfruitful, or Aipolos;
Or Green Reaped Wheat-ear;
Or the Fruitful that Amygdalas brought forth,
Man, Piper--Attis!'
This is the Attis of many forms, of whom they sing as follows:
'Of Attis will I sing, of Rhea's Beloved,
Not with the booming of bells,
Nor with the deep-toned pipe of Idaean Kuretes;
But I will blend my song with Phoebus' music of the lyre;
Evoi, Evan,--for thou art Pan, thou Bacchus art, and Shepherd of
bright stars!'"[11]
On this Hippolytus comments: "For these and suchlike reasons these
Naassenes frequent what are called the Mysteries of the Great Mother,
believing that they obtain the clearest view of the universal Mystery
from the things done in them.
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