actual blood of a sacrificial bull or ram."[5] For the
POPULARITY of the rite we may quote Franz Cumont, who
says:--"Cette douche sacree (taurobolium) pareit avoir ete
administree en Cappadoce dans un grand nombre de sanctuaires, et
en particulier dans ceux de Ma la grande divinite
indigene, et dans ceux: de Anahita."

[1] See vol. i, pp. 334 ff.

[2] Adonis, Attis and Osiris, p. 229. References to Prudentius,
and to Firmicus Maternus, De errore 28. 8.

[3] That is, "By the slaughter of the bull and the slaughter of
the ram born again into eternity."

[4] Pagan Christs, p. 315.

[5] Mysteres de Mithra, Bruxelles, 1902, p. 153.


Whether Mr. Robertson is right in ascribing to the priests
(as he appears to do) so materialistic a view of the
potency of the actual blood is, I should say, doubtful. I
do not myself see that there is any reason for supposing that
the priests of Mithra or Attis regarded baptism by
blood very differently from the way in which the Christian
Church has generally regarded baptism by water--namely,
as a SYMBOL of some inner regeneration. There may certainly
have been a little more of the MAGICAL view and a little
less of the symbolic, in the older religions; but the