Thus they hastily declare that the things which are said and are done by all men are to be understood in their way, imagining that all things become spiritual. Whence they also say that not even they who exhibit (in the) theatres say or do anything not comprehended in advance.[157] So for example, he says, when the populace have assembled in the theatres[158] some one makes entrance clad in a notable robe bearing a cithara and singing to it. Thus he speaks chanting the Great Mysteries[159] (but) not knowing what he is saying:--
“Whether thou art the offspring of Kronos, or of blessed Zeus, Or of mighty Rhea, Hail Attis, the sad mutilation of Rhea.[160] The Assyrians call thee the much-longed-for Adonis, [Sidenote: p. 177.] Egypt names thee Osiris, heavenly horn of the Moon.[161] The Greeks Sophia,[162] the Samothracians, the revered Adamna, The Thessalians, Corybas, and the Phrygians Sometimes Papas, now the dead, or a god, Or the unfruitful one, or goatherd, Or the green ear of corn reaped, Or he to whom the flowering almond-tree gave birth As a pipe-playing man.”[163]
This, he says, is the many-formed Attis to whom they sing praises, saying:--
“I will hymn Attis, son of Rhea, not making quiver with a buzzing sound, nor with the cadence of the Idæan Curetes’ flutes, but I will mingle (with the hymn) the Phœbun music of the lyre. Evohe, Evan, for (thou art) Bacchus, (thou art) Pan, (thou art the) shepherd of white stars.”
For such and such-like words they frequent the so-called Mysteries of the great Mother, thinking especially that by means of what is enacted there, they perceive the whole mystery. For they get no advantage from what is acted there except that they are not castrated. They merely perfect the work of the castrated;[164] for they give most pointed and careful instructions to abstain as if castrated from intercourse with women. But the rest of the work as [Sidenote: p. 178.] we have said many times, they perform like the castrated.
But they worship none other than the Naas, calling themselves Naassenes. But Naas is the serpent, from whom he says, all temples under heaven are called _naos_ from the Naas; and that to that Naas alone is dedicated every holy place and every initiation and every mystery, and generally that no initiation can be found under heaven in which there is not a _naos_ and the Naas within it, whence it has come to be called a _naos_. But they say that the serpent is the watery substance, as did Thales of Miletos[165] and that no being, in short, of immortals or mortals, of those with souls or of those without souls, can be made without him. And that all things are set under him, and that he is good and contains all things within him as in the horn of the one-horned bull[166] (so as) to contribute beauty and bloom to all things according to their own nature and kind, as if he had passed through all “as if he went forth from Edem and cut himself into four heads.”[167]
