Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/439

 longing for the mother also includes the producing mother (first devouring, then birth-giving). Concerning the real contents of the mysteries, we learn through the testimony of Bishop Asterius, about 390 A.D., the following:

"Is not there (in Eleusis) the gloomiest descent, and the most solemn communion of the hierophant and the priestess; between him and her alone? Are the torches not extinguished, and does not the vast multitude regard as their salvation that which takes place between the two in the darkness?"[36]

That points undoubtedly to a ritual marriage, which was celebrated subterraneously in mother earth. The Priestess of Demeter seems to be the representative of the earth goddess, perhaps the furrow of the field.[37] The descent into the earth is also the symbol of the mother's womb, and was a widespread conception under the form of cave worship. Plutarch relates of the Magi that they sacrificed to Ahriman, [Greek: ei)s to/pon a)nê/lion]. Lukian lets the magician Mithrobarzanes [Greek: ei)s chôri/on e)/rêmon kai\ y(lô~des kai\ a)nê/lion], descend into the bowels of the earth. According to the testimony of Moses of the Koran, the sister Fire and the brother Spring were worshipped in Armenia in a cave. Julian gave an account from the Attis legend of a [Greek: kata/basis ei)s a)/ntron], from whence Cybele brings up her son lover, that is to say, gives birth to him.[38] The cave of Christ's birth, in Bethlehem ('House of Bread'), is said to have been an Attis spelæum.