The transformation into the pine tree is evidently a burial in the mother, just as Osiris was overgrown by the heather. Upon the Attis bas-relief of Coblenz Attis appears growing out of a tree, which is interpreted by Mannhardt as the “life-principle” of vegetation inherent in the tree. It is probably a tree birth, just as with Mithra. (Relief of Heddernheim.) As Firmicus observes, in the Isis and Osiris cult and also in the cult of the virgin Persephone, tree and image had played a rôle.^[824] Dionysus had the surname Dendrites, and in Boeotia he is said to have been called ἔνδενδρος, meaning “in a tree.” (At the birth of Dionysus, Megaira planted the pine tree on the Kithairon.) The Pentheus myth bound up with the Dionysus legend furnishes the remarkable and supplementary counterpart to the death of Attis, and the subsequent lamentation. Pentheus,^[825] curious to espy the orgies of the Maenades, climbed upon a pine tree, but he was observed by his mother; the Maenades cut down the tree, and Pentheus, taken for an animal, was torn by them in frenzy,^[826] his own mother being the first to rush upon him. In this myth the phallic meaning of the tree (cutting down, castration) and its maternal significance (mounting and the sacrificial death of the son) is present; at the same time the supplementary counterpart to the Pietà is apparent, the “terrible mother.” The feast of Attis was celebrated as a lamentation and then as a joy in the spring. (Good Friday and Easter.) The priests of Attis-Cybele worship were often eunuchs, and were called Galloi.^[827] The archigallus was called Atys (Attis).^[828] Instead of the animal castration, the priests merely scratched their arms until they bled. (Arm in place of phallus, “the twisting of arms.”) A similar symbolism of the sacrificial impulse is met in the Mithraic religion, where essential parts of the mysteries consist in the catching and the subduing of the bull.

A parallel figure to Mithra is the primitive man Gayomard. He was created together with his bull, and the two lived for six thousand years in a blissful state. But when the world came into the cycle of the seventh sign of the Zodiac (Libra) the evil principle entered. Libra is astrologically the so-called positive domicile of Venus; the evil principle, therefore, came under the dominion of the goddess of love (destruction of the sun-hero through the mother-wife—snake, whore, etc). As a result, after thirty years, Gayomard and his bull died. (The trials of Zartusht lasted also thirty years; compare the span of Christ’s life.) Fifty-five species of grain came from the dead bull, twelve kinds of salubrious plants, etc. The sperma of the bull entered into the moon for purification, but the sperma of Gayomard entered into the sun. This circumstance possibly suggests a rather feminine meaning of bull. Gosh or Drvâçpa is the soul of the bull, and was worshipped as a female divinity. She would not, at first, from diffidence, become the goddess of the herds, until the coming of Zarathustra was announced to her as consolation. This has its parallel in the Hindoo Purâna, where the coming of Krishna was promised the earth. (A complete analogy to Christ.^[829]) She, too, travels in her chariot, like Ardvîçûra, the goddess of love. The soul of the bull is, therefore, decidedly feminine. This myth of Gayomard repeats only in an altered form the primitive conception of the closed ring of a male-female divinity, self-begetting and forth-bringing.

Like the sacrificial bull, the fire, the sacrifice of which we have already discussed in Chapter III, has a feminine nature among the Chinese, according to the commentaries^[830] of the philosopher Tschwang-Tse:

“The spirit of the hearth is called Ki. He is clad in bright red, which resembles fire, and appears as a lovely, attractive maiden.”

In the “Book of Rites” it is said:

“Wood is burned in the flames for the spirit of Au. This sacrifice to Au is a sacrifice to old departed women.”

These spirits of the hearth and fire are the souls of departed cooks and, therefore, are called “old women.” The kitchen god develops from this pre-Buddhistic tradition and becomes later (male sex) the ruler of the family and the mediator between family and god. Thus the old feminine fire spirit becomes a species of Logos. (Compare with this the remarks in Chapter III.)

From the bull’s sperma the progenitors of the cattle came, as well as two hundred and seventy-two species of useful animals. According to Mînôkhired, Gayomard had destroyed the Dév Azûr, who was considered the demon of evil appetites.^[831] In spite of the efforts of Zarathustra, this demon remained longest on the earth. He was destroyed at last at the resurrection, like Satan in the Apocalypse of John. In another version it is said that Angromainyus and the serpent were left until the last, so as to be destroyed by Ahuramazda himself. According to a surmise by Kern, Zarathustra may mean “golden-star” and be identical with Mithra. Mithra’s name is connected with neo-Persian Mihr, which means “sun and love.”

In Zagreus we see that the bull is also identical with the god; hence the bull sacrifice is a god sacrifice, but on a primitive stage. The animal symbol is, so to speak, only a part of the hero; he sacrifices only his animal; therefore, symbolically, renounces only his animal nature. The internal participation in the sacrifice^[832] is expressed excellently in the anguished ecstatic countenance of the bull-slaying Mithra. He does it willingly and unwillingly^[833] hence the somewhat hysterical expression which has some similarity to the well-known mawkish countenance of the Crucified of Guido Reni. Benndorf says:^[834]

“The features, which, especially in the upper portion, bear an absolutely ideal character, have an extremely morbid expression.”

Cumont^[835] himself says of the facial expression of the Tauroctonos:

“The countenance, which may be seen in the best reproductions, is that of a young man of an almost feminine beauty; the head has a quantity of curly hair, which, rising up from the forehead, surrounds him as with a halo; the head is slightly tilted backwards, so that the glance is directed towards the heavens, and the contraction of the brows and the lips give a strange expression of sorrow to the face.”^[836]

The Ostian head of Mithra Tauroctonos, illustrated in Cumont, has, indeed, an expression which we recognize in our patients as one of sentimental resignation. Sentimentality is repressed brutality. Hence the exceedingly sentimental pose, which had its counterpart in the symbolism of the shepherd and the lamb of contemporaneous Christianity, with the addition of infantilism.^[837]

Meanwhile, it is only his animal nature which the god sacrifices; that is to say, his sexuality,^[838] always in close analogy to the course of the sun. We have learned in the course of this investigation that the part of the libido which erects religious structures is in the last analysis fixed in the mother, and really represents that tie through which we are permanently connected with our origin. Briefly, we may designate this amount of libido as “Mother Libido.” As we have seen, this libido conceals itself in countless and very heterogeneous symbols, also in animal images, no matter whether of masculine or feminine nature—differences of sex are at bottom of a secondary value and psychologically do not play the part which might be expected from a superficial observation.

The annual sacrifice of the maiden to the dragon probably represented the most ideal symbolic situation. In order to pacify the anger of the “terrible mother” the most beautiful woman was sacrificed as symbol of man’s libido. Less vivid examples are the sacrifice of the first-born and various valuable domestic animals. A second ideal case is the self-castration in the service of the mother (Dea Syria, etc.), a less obvious form of which is circumcision. By that at least only a portion is sacrificed.^[839] With these sacrifices, the object of which in ideal cases is to symbolize the libido drawing away from the mother, life is symbolically renounced in order to regain it. By the sacrifice man ransoms himself from the fear of death and reconciles the destroying mother. In those later religions, where the hero, who in olden times overcomes all evil and death through his labors, has become the divine chief figure, he becomes the priestly sacrificer and the regenerator of life. But as the hero is an imaginary figure and his sacrifice is a transcendental mystery, the significance of which far exceeds the value of an ordinary sacrificial gift, this deepening of the sacrificial symbolism regressively resumes the idea of the human sacrifice. This is partly due to the preponderance of phantastic additions, which always take their subject-matter from greater depths, and partly due to the higher religious occupation of the libido, which demanded a more complete and equivalent expression. Thus the relation between Mithra and his bull is very close. It is the hero himself in the Christian mysteries who sacrifices himself voluntarily. The hero, as we have sufficiently shown, is the infantile personality longing for the mother, who as Mithra sacrifices the wish (the libido), and as Christ gives himself to death both willingly and unwillingly. Upon the monuments of the Mithraic religion we often meet a strange symbol: a crater (mixing bowl) encoiled by a serpent, sometimes with a lion, who as antagonist opposes the serpent.^[840] It appears as if the two were fighting for the crater. The crater symbolizes, as we have seen, the mother, the serpent the resistance defending her, and the lion the greatest strength and strongest will.^[841] The struggle is for the mother. The serpent takes part almost regularly in the Mithraic sacrifice of the bull, moving towards the blood flowing from the wound. It seems to follow from that that the life of the bull (blood) is sacrificed to the serpent. Previously we have pointed out the mutual relationship between serpent and bull, and found there that the bull symbolizes the living hero, the shining sun, but that the serpent symbolizes the dead, buried or chthonic hero, the invisible sun. As the hero is in the mother in the state of death, the serpent is also, as the symbol of the fear of death, the sign of the devouring mother. The sacrifice of the bull to the serpent, therefore, signifies a willing renunciation of life, in order to win it from death. Therefore, after the sacrifice of the bull, wonderful fertility results. The antagonism between serpent and lion over the crater is to be interpreted as a battle over the fruitful mother’s womb, somewhat comparable to the more simple symbolism of the Tishtriya song, where the demon Apaosha, the black horse, has possession of the rain lake, and the white horse, Tishtriya, must banish him from it. Death from time to time lays its destroying hand upon life and fertility and the libido disappears, by entering into the mother, from whose womb it will be born renewed. It, therefore, seems very probable that the significance of the Mithraic bull sacrifice is also that of the sacrifice of the mother who sends the fear of death. As the contrary of the Occide moriturus is also intended here, so is the act of sacrifice an impregnating of the mother; the chthonic snake demon drinks the blood; that is to say, the libido (sperma) of the hero committing incest. Life is thus immortalized for the hero because, like the sun, he generates himself anew. After all the preceding materials, it can no longer be difficult to recognize in the Christian mysteries the human sacrifice, or the sacrifice of the son to the mother.^[842] Just as Attis emasculates himself on account of the mother, so does Christ himself hang upon the tree of life,^[843] the wood of martyrdom, the ἑκάτη,^[844] the chthonic mother, and by that redeems creation from death. By entering again into the mother’s womb (Matuta, Pietà of Michelangelo) he redeems in death the sin in life of the primitive man, Adam, in order symbolically through his deed^[845] to procure for the innermost and most hidden meaning of the religious libido its highest satisfaction and most pronounced expression. The martyrdom of Christ has in Augustine as well actually the meaning of a Hierosgamos with the mother (corresponding to the Adonis festival, where Venus and Adonis were laid upon the nuptial couch):

“Procedit Christus quasi sponsus de thalamo suo, præsagio nuptiarum exiit ad campum sæculi; pervenit usque ad crucis torum (torus has the meaning of bed, pillow, concubine, bier) et ibi firmavit ascendendo conjugium: ubi cum sentiret anhelantem in suspiriis creaturam commercio pietatis se pro conjuge dedit ad pœnam et copulavit sibi perpetuo iure matronam.”

This passage is perfectly clear. A similar death overtakes the Syrian Melcarth, who, riding upon a sea horse, was annually burned. Among the Greeks he is called Melicertes, and was represented riding upon a dolphin. The dolphin is also the steed of Arion. We have learned to recognize previously the maternal significance of dolphin, so that in the death of Melcarth we can once more recognize the negatively expressed Hierosgamos with the mother. (Compare Frazer “Golden Bough,” IV, p. 87.) This figurative expression is of the greatest teleological significance. Through its symbol it leads that libido which inclines backward into the original, primitive and impulsive upwards to the spiritual by investing it with a mysterious but fruitful function. It is superfluous to speak of the effect of this symbol upon the unconscious of Occidental humanity. A glance over history shows what creative forces were released in this symbol.^[846]

The comparison of the Mithraic and the Christian sacrifice plainly shows wherein lies the superiority of the Christian symbol; it is the frank admission that not only are the lower wishes to be sacrificed, but the whole personality. The Christian symbol demands complete devotion; it compels a veritable self-sacrifice to a higher purpose, while the Sacrificium Mithriacum, remaining fixed on a primitive symbolic stage, is contented with an animal sacrifice. The religious effect of these symbols must be considered as an orientation of the unconscious by means of imitation.

In Miss Miller’s phantasy there is internal compulsion, in that she passes from the horse sacrifice to the self-sacrifice of the hero. Whereas the first symbolizes renunciation of the sexual wishes, the second has the deeper and ethically more valuable meaning of the sacrifice of the infantile personality. The object of psychoanalysis has frequently been wrongly understood to mean the renunciation or the gratification of the ordinary sexual wish, while, in reality, the problem is the sublimation of the infantile personality, or, expressed mythologically, a sacrifice and rebirth of the infantile hero.^[847] In the Christian mysteries, however, the resurrected one becomes a supermundane spirit, and the invisible kingdom of God, with its mysterious gifts, are obtained by his believers through the sacrifice of himself on the mother. In psychoanalysis the infantile personality is deprived of its libido fixations in a rational manner; the libido which is thus set free serves for the building up of a personality matured and adapted to reality, who does willingly and without complaint everything required by necessity. (It is, so to speak, the chief endeavor of the infantile personality to struggle against all necessities and to create coercions for itself where none exist in reality.)

The serpent as an instrument of sacrifice has already been abundantly illustrated. (Legend of St. Silvester, trial of the virgins, wounding of Rê and Philoctetes, symbolism of the lance and arrow.) It is the destroying knife; but, according to the principle of the “Occide moriturus” also the phallus, the sacrificial act represents a coitus act as well.^[848] The religious significance of the serpent as a cave-dwelling, chthonic animal points to a further thought; namely, to the creeping into the mother’s womb in the form of a serpent.^[849] As the horse is the brother, so the serpent is the sister of Chiwantopel. This close relation refers to a fellowship of these animals and their characters with the hero. We know of the horse that, as a rule, he is not an animal of fear, although, mythologically, he has at times this meaning. He signifies much more the living, positive part of the libido, the striving towards continual renewal, whereas the serpent, as a rule, represents the fear, the fear of death,^[850] and is thought of as the antithesis to the phallus. This antithesis between horse and serpent, mythologically between bull and serpent, represents an opposition of the libido within itself, a striving forwards and a striving backwards at one and the same time.^[851] It is not only as if the libido might be an irresistible striving forward, an endless life and will for construction, such as Schopenhauer has formulated in his world will, death and every end being some malignancy or fatality coming from without, but the libido, corresponding to the sun, also wills the destruction of its creation. In the first half of life its will is for growth, in the second half of life it hints, softly at first, and then audibly, at its will for death. And just as in youth the impulse to unlimited growth often lies under the enveloping covering of a resistance against life, so also does the will of the old to die frequently lie under the covering of a stubborn resistance against the end.

This apparent contrast in the nature of the libido is strikingly illustrated by a Priapic statuette in the antique collection at Verona.^[852] Priapus smilingly points with his finger to a snake biting off his “membrum.” He carries a basket on his arm, filled with oblong objects, probably phalli, evidently prepared as substitutes.

A similar motive is found in the “Deluge” of Rubens (in the Munich Art Gallery), where a serpent emasculates a man. This motive explains the meaning of the “Deluge”; the maternal sea is also the devouring mother.^[853] The phantasy of the world conflagration, of the cataclysmic end of the world in general, is nothing but a mythological projection of a personal individual will for death; therefore, Rubens could represent the essence of the “Deluge” phantasy in the emasculation by the serpent; for the serpent is our own repressed will for the end, for which we find an explanation only with the greatest difficulty.

Concerning the symbolism of the serpent in general, its significance is very dependent upon the time of life and circumstances. The repressed sexuality of youth is symbolized by the serpent, because the arrival of sexuality puts an end to childhood. To age, on the contrary, the serpent signifies the repressed thought of death. With our author it is the insufficiently expressed sexuality which as serpent assumes the rôle of sacrificer and delivers the hero over to death and rebirth.

As in the beginning of our investigation the hero’s name forced us to speak of the symbolism of Popocatepetl as belonging to the creating part of the human body, so at the end does the Miller drama again give us an opportunity of seeing how the volcano assists in the death of the hero and causes him to disappear by means of an earthquake into the depths of the earth. As the volcano gave birth and name to the hero, so at the end of the day it devours him again.^[854] We learn from the last words of the hero that his longed-for beloved, she who alone understands him, is called Ja-ni-wa-ma. We find in this name those lisped syllables familiar to us from the early childhood of the hero, Hiawatha, Wawa, wama, mama. The only one who really understands us is the mother. For verstehen, “to understand” (Old High German firstân), is probably derived from a primitive Germanic prefix fri, identical with περὶ, meaning “roundabout.” The Old High German antfristôn, “to interpret,” is considered as identical with firstân. From that results a fundamental significance of the verb verstehen, “to understand,” as “standing round about something.”^[855] Comprehendere and κατασυλλαμβάνειν express a similar idea as the German erfassen, “to grasp, to comprehend.” The thing common to these expressions is the surrounding, the enfolding. And there is no doubt that there is nothing in the world which so completely enfolds us as the mother. When the neurotic complains that the world has no understanding, he says indirectly that he misses the mother. Paul Verlaine has expressed this thought most beautifully in his poem, “Mon Rêve Familier”: