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 Anahita, 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 dei