that Attis, the god of vegetation,
was united to the goddess of the earth instead of living "in sullen
loneliness." When the tempest was beating the forests of the Berecyntus or
Ida, it was Cybele traveling about in her car drawn by roaring lions
mourning her lover's death. A crowd of worshipers followed her through
woods and thickets, mingling their shouts with the shrill sound of flutes,
with the dull beat of tambourines, with the rattling of castanets and the
dissonance of brass cymbals. Intoxicated with shouting and with uproar of
the instruments, excited by their impetuous advance, breathless and
panting, they surrendered to the raptures of a sacred enthusiasm. Catullus
has left us a dramatic description of this divine ecstasy.[6] {50}

The religion of Phrygia was perhaps even more violent than that of Thrace.
The climate of the Anatolian uplands is one of extremes. Its winters are
rough, long and cold, the spring rains suddenly develop a vigorous
vegetation that is scorched by the hot summer sun. The abrupt contrasts of
a nature generous and sterile, radiant and bleak in turn, caused excesses
of sadness and joy that were unknown in temperate and smiling regions,
where the ground was never buried under snow nor scorched by the sun. The
Phrygians mourned the long agony and death of the vegetation, but when the
verdure reappeared in March they surrendered to the excitement of a
tumultuous joy. In Asia savage rites that had been unknown in Thrace or
practiced in milder form expressed the vehemence of those opposing
feelings. In the midst of their orgies, and after wild dances, some of the
worshipers voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxicated with
the view of the blood, with which they besprinkled their altars, they
believed they were uniting themselves with their divinity. Or else,
arriving at a paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the
gods as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These men became
priests of Cybele and were called Galli. Violent ecstasis was always an
endemic disease in Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist prophets
that arose in that country attempted to introduce it into Christianity.

All these excessive and degrading demonstrations of an extreme worship must
not cause us to slight the power of the feeling that inspired it. The
sacred ecstasy, the voluntary mutilations and the eagerly sought sufferings
manifested an ardent longing for {51} deliverance fro