Psychology of the Unconscious A Study of the...

723. Attribute of the “terrible mother”: Ishtar has “tormented the horse with goad and whip and tortured him to death.” (Jensen: “Gilgamesh Epic,” p. 18.) Also an attribute of Helios.

724. Phallic symbol of fear.

725. Murderous weapon as symbol of the fructifying phallus.

726. Plato has already testified to this as a phallic symbol, as is mentioned above.

727. White-leaved.

728. Far-shooting Hecate.

729. Far-shooting, the far-darting.

730. Goddess of birth.

731. Cited by Roscher: I, 2, Sp. 1909.

732. Hecate.

733. Compare the symbolism in the hymn to Mary of Melk (12th century).

“Santa Maria,

Closed gate

Opened to God’s command—

Sealed fountain,

Barred garden,

Gate of Paradise.”

The same symbolism occurs in an erotic verse:

“Maiden, may I enter with you

Into your rose garden,

There, where the little red roses grow,

Those delicate and tender roses,

With a tree close by,

Whose leaves sway to and fro,

And a cool little brook

Which lies directly beneath it.”

734. Sacrificial cakes offered to the gods.

735. Herzog: “Aus dem Asklepieion von Kos.” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, Vol. X, H. 2, p. 219 ff.

736. A Mithraic sanctuary was, when at all possible, a subterranean grotto; often the cavern was merely an artificial one. It is conceivable that the Christian crypts and subterranean churches are of similar meaning.

737. Compare Schultze: “Die Katakomben,” 1882, p. 9.

738. In the Taurobolia a bull was sacrificed over a grave, in which lay the one to be consecrated. His initiation consisted in being covered with the blood of the sacrifice. Also a regeneration and rebirth, baptism. The baptized one was called Renatus.

739. Additional proof in Herzog: Ibid., p. 224.

740. Ibid., p. 225.

741. Ritual sacrificial food offered to the gods.

742. Indeed sacred serpents were kept for display and other purposes.

743. Ritual sacrificial food offered to the gods.

744. Rohde: “Psyche,” chap. 1, p. 244.

745. Vol. I, p. 28.

746. Fick. Compare “Wörterbuch,” I, p. 424.

747. Compare the stable cleaning of Hercules. The stable, like the cavern, is a place of birth. We find stable and cavern in Mithracism combined with the bull symbolism, as in Christianity. (See Robertson: “Christ and Krishna.”) In a Basuto myth, the stable birth also occurs. (Frobenius.) The stable birth belongs to the mythologic animal fable; therefore the legend of the conceptio immaculata, allied to the history of the impregnation of the barren Sarah, appears very early in Egypt as an animal fable. Herodotus, III, 28, relates: “This Apis or Epaphos is a calf whose mother was unable to become impregnated, but the Egyptians said that a ray from heaven fell upon the cow, and from that she brought forth Apis.” Apis symbolizes the sun, therefore his signs: upon the forehead a white spot, upon his back a figure of an eagle, upon his tongue a beetle.