C. — and divorced from all fleshly generation —

S. — ^in the night, at Eleusis, solemnising the Great Ineffable Mysteries, when the bright light streams forth,^ shouts and cries aloud, saying:
especially from the spinal marrow, of the slain bull. Sometimes the wheat-ears are represented as flowing like blood from the wound above the heart inflicted by the dagger of Mithras, the Bull-slayer (op. cU,, i. 186, 187). The constellation of the Wheat- ear in the Virgin, which was supposed to give good harvests, presumably refers to the same idea {cf, Eratosth., Cakuter., 9). See op, at., i. 202, 205, n. 2. The wheat-ear, therefore, symbolised in one aspect the ** generative seed " — in animals and men-animals the spermatozoa, in man a mystery. Mithraicism had the closest connection with the Phrygian Mystery Cult ; indeed, the Magna Mater Mysteries were used by it for the initiation of women, who were excluded from the Mithriaca proper.
' The Light-spark of Pitiis Sophia nomenclature.
^ That is, the hierophant initiate of the Great Mother.
3 &irh voAA^ «^pi, lit., *' to the accompaniment of much fire.'' This refers, I believe, to the brilliant illumination of the Temple, or, as it was variously called, the Initiation Hall (rfXtcrr^pcoy), the Mystic Enclosure {fivtrruchs fffiic6s) — though this was probably the inner court surrounding the Temple proper— the Great Hall (jtdyapop)y OT Palace (iydieropow). As Hatch says, in the tenth of Ids famous Hibbert Lectures for 1888 : "And at night there were the mystic plays : the scenic representations, the drama in symbol and for sight. The torches were extinguished ; they stood outside the Temple [in the Mystic Enclosure, presumably] in the silence and darkness. The door opened — there was a blaze of light — before them was enacted the drama." — Hatch (£.), Tke If^fkience of Oreek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church (4th ed., London, 1892). See also my ** Notes on the Eleusinian Mysteries," in The Theosoph. Rev. (April 1898X xxii. p. 151.
180 THRIC8-ORBATB8T HKRMK8
** [Oar] Lady hatib brought forth a Holy Son : Brimo [hath given birth] to Brimos " —
— that is, the Strong to the Strong.
(27) J. And "[Our] Lady" (H. he says) is the Genesis —