[88]. Compare Reitzenstein (“Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen,” Leipzig and Berlin 1910, p. 20): “Among the various forms with which a primitive people have represented the highest religious consecration, union with God, belongs necessarily that of the sexual union, in which man attributes to his semen the innermost nature and power of God. That which was in the first instance wholly a sensual act becomes in the most widely separated places, independently, a sacred act, in which the god is represented by a human deputy or his symbol the Phallus.”
[89]. Take as an example among many others the striking psychologic description of the fate of Alypius, in the “Confessions” of St. Augustine (Bk. VI, Ch. 7): “Only the moral iniquity of Carthage, expressed in the absolute wildness of its worthless spectacles, had drawn him down into the whirlpool of this misery. [Augustine, at that time a teacher of Logic, through his wisdom had converted Alypius.] He rose up after those words from the depths of the mire, into which he had willingly let himself be submerged, and which had blinded him with fatal pleasure. He stripped the filth from off his soul with courageous abstemiousness. All the snares of the Hippodrome no longer perplexed him. Thereupon Alypius went to Rome in order to study law; there he became a backslider. He was transported to an unbelievable degree by an unfortunate passion for gladiatorial shows. Although in the beginning he abominated and cursed these shows, one evening some of his friends and fellow-students, whom he met after they had dined, in spite of his passionate refusals and the exertion of all the power of his resistance, dragged him with friendly violence to the Amphitheatre on the occasion of a cruel and murderous exhibition. At the time he said to them, ‘If you drag my body to that place and hold it there, can you turn my mind and my eyes to that spectacle?’ In spite of his supplications they dragged him with them, eager to know if he would be able to resist the spectacle. When they arrived they sat down where place was still left, and all glowed with inhuman delight. He closed his eyes and forbade his soul to expose itself to such danger. O, if he had also stopped up his ears! When some one fell in combat and all the people set up a mighty shout, he stifled his curiosity and prepared proudly to scorn the sight, confident that he could view the spectacle if he so desired. And his soul was overcome with terrible wounds, like the wounds of the body which he desired to see, and souls more miserable than the one whose fall had caused the outcry, which pressing through his ears, had opened his eyes, so that his weakness had been bared. Through this he could be struck and thrown down, for he had the feeling of confidence more than strength, and he was the weaker because he trusted himself to this and not to Thee. When he saw the blood, then at the same time he drew in the desire for blood, and no longer turned away but directed his looks thither. The fury took possession of him and yet he did not know it; he took delight in the wicked combat and was intoxicated by the bloody pleasure. Now he was no longer the same as when he had come, and he was the true accomplice of those who first had dragged him there. What more is there to say? He saw, he cried out, he was inflamed, and he carried away with him the insane longing, which enticed him again to return, not only in the company of those who first had dragged him with them, but going ahead of all and leading others.”
[90]. Destiny.
[91]. Compare the prayer of the so-called Mithraic Liturgy (pub. by Dieterich). There, characteristic places are to be found, such for instance as: τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης μου ψυχικῆς δυνάμεως ἤν ἐγὼ πάλιν μεταπαραλήμψομαι μετὰ τὴν ἐνεστῶσαν καὶ κατεπείγουσάν με πικρὰν ἀνάγκην ἁχρεοκόπητον (The human soul force which I, weighed down by guilt, would again attain, because of the present bitter need oppressing me), ἐπικαλοῦμαι ἕνεκα τῆς κατεπειγούσης καὶ πικρᾶς ἀπαραιτήτου ἀνάγκης (On account of the oppressing bitter and inexorable need).
From the speech of the High Priest (Apuleius: “Metamorphoses,” lib. XI, 248) a similar train of thought may be gathered. The young philosopher Lucius was changed into an ass, that continuously rutting animal which Isis hated. Later he was released from the enchantment and initiated into the mysteries of Isis. When he was freed from the spell the priest speaks as follows: “Lubrico virentis aetatulae, ad serviles delapsus voluptates, curiositatis improsperae sinistrum praemium reportasti.—Nam in eos, quorum sibi vitas servitium Deae nostrae majestas vindicavit, non habet locum casus infestus—in tutelam jam receptus es Fortunae, sed videntis” (But falling into the slavery of pleasure, in the wantonness of buxom youth, you have reaped the inauspicious reward of your ill-fated curiosity—for direful calamity has no power over those whose lives the majesty of our Goddess has claimed for her own service.—You are now received under the guardianship of fortune, but of a fortune who can see). In the prayer to the Queen of Heaven, Isis, Lucius says: “Qua fatorum etiam inextricabiliter contorta retractas licia et Fortunae tempestates mitigas, et stellarum noxios meatus cohibes” (By which thou dost unravel the inextricably entangled threads of the fates, and dost assuage the tempests of fortune and restrain the malignant influences of the stars).—Generally it was the purpose of the rite to destroy the “evil compulsion of the star” by magic power.
The power of fate makes itself felt unpleasantly only when everything goes against our will; that is to say when we no longer find ourselves in harmony with ourselves. As I endeavored to show in my article, “Die Bedeutung des Vaters,” etc., the most dangerous power of fate lies in the infantile libido fixation, localized in the unconscious. The power of fate reveals itself at closer range as a compulsion of the libido; wherefore Maeterlinck justly says that a Socrates could not possibly be a tragic hero of the type of Hamlet. In accordance with this conception the ancients had already placed εἱμαρμένη (destiny) in relation to “Primal Light,” or “Primal Fire.” In the Stoic conception of the primal cause, the warmth spread everywhere, which has created everything and which is therefore Destiny. (Compare Cumont: “Mysterien des Mithra,” p. 83.) This warmth is, as will later be shown, a symbol of the libido. Another conception of the Ananke (necessity) is, according to the Book of Zoroaster, περὶ φύσεως (concerning nature), that the air as wind had once a connection with fertility. I am indebted to Rev. Dr. Keller of Zurich for calling my attention to Bergson’s conception of the “durée créatrice.”
[92]. Power for putting in motion.
[93]. Schiller says in “Wallenstein”: “In your breast lie the constellations of your fate.” “Our fates are the result of our personality,” says Emerson in his “Essays.” Compare with this my remarks in “Die Bedeutung des Vaters.”
[94]. The ascent to the “Idea” is described with unusual beauty in Augustine (Bk. X, Ch. 8). The beginning of Ch. 8 reads: “I will raise myself over this force of my nature, step by step ascending to Him who has made me. I will come to the fields and the spacious palaces of my memory.”
[95]. The followers of Mithra also called themselves Brothers. In philosophical speech Mithra was Logos emanating from God. (Cumont: “Myst. des Mithra,” p. 102.)