Out of these facts a very elaborate theory that men abstained from the sacred animal as being holy can be spun. But the abstaining from swine’s flesh in the ritual of Men Tyrannos was merely a very brief temporary act of purificatory prepara- tion, as is obvious from the context,* and did not amount to a permanent rule of avoidance, such as obtained in Egypt and Palestine. The rules of preparatory purification in the later period (our authority belongs to the time of the empire) were much influenced by analogy ; and this case proves nothing as to the real and original theory ruling in the worship of Men Tyrannos.
The abstinence from swine’s flesh, said to have been practised at Pessinus in Phrygia, was, per- haps, a much more serious and real fact. It would hardly have been mentioned by Pausanias had it been a mere act of brief occasional purification : he records it, evidently, as standing in marked con- trast to the ordinary usage of Western Anatolia (of which he was a native, and whose people he had chiefly in view as his readers). The custom of Pessinus is to be explained as due to Semitic influence gradually spreading westwards over Asia Minor.
The sacred character of the swine in early Ana- tolian and Greek ritual was due, beyond all doubt, to its being considered as a symbol and representa- tive of the Great Mother. It was the domesticated sow, with her teeming litters of young, that sug- vested its holy character. Thus the holiness was founded on similar grounds to that of the bull or cow and the sheep and the goat: the animals which were most useful to man were esteemed sacred, as the gifts of God. There can hardly be any doubt that the method of domesticating and caring for these animals was considered to have been revealed by the god, who continues to be their patron, and whose beneficent power towards man is manifested in them : see (8).
The wild boar, which is sometimes connected in mythology with the Divine nature, would derive his sacredness from a different cause, for he must be classed with the wild animals which are imper- sonations of the Divine strength and swiftness and might: see (10).
(7) The bee.—Most instructive of all in regard to the Divine nature is the bee. The bee was the sacred symbol at Ephesus, te. the bee was the type of the goddess. A large body of subordinate priestesses connected with her worship were called melissat, the working bees; and a body of officials (who were originally of priestly character) + were called essenes. Now there was a mistake, common in Greece, with regard to the sex of bees; the queen bee was thought to be a male, and called essen or Bagide’s. But, when we look at the Ephesian cult, we find that it was founded on
*The authority is a pair of almost identical inscriptions frequently published: Dittenberger, Syiloge, No. 3879, CIA ili. 73, 74 Foucart, Assoc. Relig. p. 219. The worshipper must purify himself 220 cxépdav zeet yoipiwv xo} yovoizes, but the purifi- cation was a matter of a day, and after washing from head to toot the worshipper could enter the god’s presence the same day : the eating of garlic and swine’s flesh, like the third fact, is implied to be the habitual and ordinary way oi life of the worshippers.
+ See, ¢.g., Pausanias, vill. 18, 1.
en ania cETEnEEE TERETE EREITER EERO cte a
RELIGION OF GREECE
RELIGION OF GREECE Lines
a true knowledge. The goddess was the queen bee ; and her image makes this plain. Her body has only the slightest resemblance to a human body, but has the outline of the body of a bee. What are ordinarily called mamme on her body are not so, for no nipple is indicated: they really represent eges, and the mass of the body is simply a great ovary or skin filled with ova. The goddess is literally indicated as the one great mother of all life in the community. The essenes are the male bees or drones, who do no work. The melissat are the female and working bees, in whom the sexual character is undeveloped (see § VI (3)). The resemblance between the constitution of the swarm or community of bees and that of the primitive Anatolian community, as described in § VIII (8), (7), is striking.
The resemblance is even more striking in re- spect of the life-history of the Mother-Goddess and of the queen bee; but this will be treated in § VI (3). Taking this in conjunction with the pre- ceding remarks about the Divine power and life under the bee form, we see clearly that the place of the bee in the cultus implies such knowledge of its habits as would be impossible without careful observation and intelligent methods of treatment. This is merely one example of the wisdom and skill applied to the utilization and domestication of animals in the ancient Anatolian theocratic system. The arts of domestication were rooted in religion. The remarkable practice of self-mutila- tion as a religious act, characteristic of Phrygian worship (§ VIII (4)), seems clearly to have origin- ated from the rule (divinely given, as was sup- posed) of mutilating in the same way oxen and other domesticated animals, and from the natural mutilation of the bee (§ VI (8)).