We have still to visit the chambers of Aphrodite herself. Here all may come, for she is goddess to all. She is the goddess universal, bringing life and blessing to all creatures upon earth. The walls are bare in the holiest of the chambers, and the room contains only a square bench, an altar, and the statue of the goddess, nude and sexual, upon a pedestal of rose stone. The bench is bare and cold now, yet once a year, in early spring; it is draped with white silk and sprinkled at each corner with the blood of doves. A cluster of almonds and a bunch of fig leaves are put up for a pillow, and upon the bench a hierophant and a virgin perform the great act of unity which the goddess herself performed with the father of gods and men. After the act, the sheet is burned upon the altar, and the maiden retires to the quarters of the priestesses. Now the bench is bare, Aphrodite is in no mood for such sacrifice. She is more concerned with her son Attis whom she holds upon her hand. For while Aphrodite is a virgin, she is also a mother, she placed a pomegranate between her breasts and became pregnant. This was in the month of April. Nine months later her child was born out of her side so that it might not injure her virginity. Aphrodite is the Virgin Mother, deified by all people and worshipped to this very day in every part of the world.
The virgin goddess was immortal, living ever so long as there was love in the world and birth and life. But her son was not so fortunate. Attis felt the mystic urge to break away from the living. So, one day he came to a palm tree, the very symbol of virility and regeneration, and mutilated himself. Attis bled to death, in his very lifeblood, in the force of regeneration, this son of the goddess of life came to find his end. Attis died with the leaf upon the tree, with the blades of grass in the field, with all that moves and creeps upon the earth. Like the corn in the field, the son of Aphrodite was annually interred in the dark, cold, infernal region. This was a period of mourning for Aphrodite when she failed in her function of arousing passion and inducing love. It was the time when nature was dead, lying fallow in wait for the rebirth of Attis and spring. As the days of Aphrodite’s mourning progressed, her devoted worshippers joined her in sadness and sorrow. They touched neither food nor drink and abstained from sexual intercourse. They wailed and mourned and cut their hair; they went about the hills and valleys playing their flutes and searching for the son of their goddess who was to rise again.
The god who holds the dead in his sway was moved by this mourning of goddess and humankind.
So, upon the promise that the son of Aphrodite would return to his kingdom as the year went by, he raised the bars that separate the lower world from the one above. Meanwhile, the priests of Aphrodite were preparing for the return of Attis and life and love. A palm tree was cut in the woods and brought into the sacred chamber. The trunk of the tree was swathed like a corpse with Woolen bands and decked with wreaths of violets, for it was the violets that first sprang forth out of the blood of Attis. Then a young priest, a youthful servant of the Goddess resembling her son, was tied to the tree, and left for the night. In the morning he was found stabbed, still tied to the tree. This was the Day of the Blood. The sight of the dead priest, swathed in blood upon the sacred tree, aroused others to give of their own life fluid for the sake of the son of their goddess. The high priest drew blood from his arms and presented it as an offering. And the inferior priests, wrought to the height of passion by the wild, barbaric music of cymbal, drum, and flute and by the profusion of blood around them, whirled about in furious dance. Finally, overcome by excitement, frenzied, and insensible to pain, they savagely thrust the knives into their bodies, gashing themselves in violence to bespatter the altar with their spurting blood.
The frenzy and hysteria of the priests spread to the worshippers, and many a would-be priest fell into the wave of religious excitement. He sacrificed his virility to the goddess, dashing the severed portions of himself against her blood smeared statue. There were men who had come to the festival out of curiosity rather than devotion, and numbers of them were caught in the raging fury. With throbbing veins and burning eyes, they flung their garments from them and with wild shouts seized the knives of the priests to castrate themselves upon the very spot. Then, insensible to pain and oblivious of everything, they ran through the streets of the Sacred Ring, waving the bloody pieces and finally throwing them into a house they passed. It became the duty of the households thus honoured to furnish these men with female clothes, and they, made eunuchs in the heat of religious passion, were to serve their goddess for the rest of their lives. Their virility was destroyed in a moment in the tumult of emotion; but their sacrifice was to be lifelong and irrevocable. As the night progressed, the fury of the worshippers was turned into joy. Suddenly a light shone in the darkness. The tree was erected, the dead priest no longer upon it. Another one resembling him was sacrificing at the altar. Elsewhere a tomb had been opened; the son of Aphrodite had risen from the dead, and, as the priest touched the lips of the weeping mourners with balm, he softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation.
The morning was greeted with boundless glee. Universal license prevailed. Every man might say and do what he pleased. To facilitate the breaking of all bonds, people went about in disguise. Then the tree was taken out of the sanctuary of the goddess and carried down the hill to the brook where the virgins bathed before they entered the temple. There it was washed of its blood, decorated with roses, and slowly brought back in a procession of ease and serenity. The blood scenes were forgotten. Even the eunuch priests were unmindful of their wounds. The moments of extreme passion were spent. The “erotic bloodletting” had been accomplished. Having returned to his former freedom in love, man became himself again.
