Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

396 The Ram and the Sun in Phrygia

conviction that the initiate actually posed as the divine consort of
the mother-goddess. Nevertheless, as A. Dieterich has pointed
out1, the culminating rite of Sabdzios was a sacred marriage in
which the god, represented by the golden adder, was drawn through
the bosom of his worshipper ; and here the worshipper, whether
man or woman, is conceived as female, being none other than the
bride of the god. We have, then, in this difficult and complex
cult to reckon with the amazing fact that the mystic was identified
first with the god, and then with the goddess! Two ways of
escape from this improbable situation present themselves. Either
we must fall back after all on Dr Farnell's explanation ; or—and
this I should prefer—we must assume that in course of time,
perhaps with the shift from mother-kin to father-kin, the ritual had
altered. The old rite, in which the initiate played the part of the
god, was indeed retained, at least in a mitigated form ; but its
meaning was forgotten2, and it was supplemented by a new rite, in
which the initiate played the part of the goddess.

That development of some sort had taken place within the cult
seems clear. Originally, as we have said, Sabdzios appears to have
been a ram-god. But in later times it was the snake not the ram
that characterised him in the eyes of the multitude. Agreeably
with this, the ram figures in the relations of Zeus Sabdzios to the
older goddess Deo or Demeter, the snake in his relations to the
younger goddess Kore or Pherephatta. Behind both goddesses looms
the venerable form of the earth-mother, from whom they were alike
differentiated. For most scholars will certainly accept the well-
considered verdict of Dr Farnell, who insists that in Demeter and
Kore ' the single personality of the earth-goddess is dualized into

Saboi. Broadly speaking, we may say that the former is the ancient and the latter the
modern interpretation.

1 A. Dieterich de hymnis Orphicis Marpurgi Cattorum T891 p. 38 f. ( = Kleme
Schriften Leipzig and Berlin 1911 p. 98 f.), id. Mutter Erde Leipzig and Berlin 1905
p. noff., id. Eine Mithrasliturgie2 Leipzig and Berlin 1910 p. 123 ff. : ' Der Ritus der
durch den Schoss des Mysten gezogenen Schlange kann gar nichts anderes bedeuten
sollen als die geschlechtliche Vereinigung des Gottes mit dem Einzuweihenden. Dem
Sinne des rituellen Symbols ist es kein Anstoss, dass das Bild real unvorstellbar wird,
wenn der Myste ein Mann ist. Dem Gotte gegeniiber sind sie weiblich, wie das bei
analogen Brauchen gerade auch in jener spaten Zeit die Gnostiker deutlich aussprechen.
Der Gott ist immer das Mannliche gegeniiber dem Menschen, der sich ihm leiblich eint,
mag man nun die als weiblich in Auffassung und Deutung des Rituals ausdrucklich
gemeint haben oder nicht.'

On the snake as phallic see F. L. W. Schwartz Die altgriechische Schlangengottheiten'1
Berlin 1897 p. 31, Gruppe Gr. Myth. Rel. p. 866 n. 1, R. Eisler Weltenmantel und
Himmelszelt Miinchen 1910 i. 123 n. 4. J. Maehly Die Schlange im Mythns und Cultus
der classischen Volker Basel 1867 p. 26 misses the point.

2 See Varro ap. Aug. de civ. Dei 7. 24, Lucr. 2. 6x4 ff.