Originally Posted by Julian the Apostate

Who then is the Mother of the Gods? She is the Source of the Intelligible and Creative Powers, which direct the visible ones; she that gave birth to and copulated with the mighty Jupiter: she that exists as a great goddess next to the Great One, and in union with the Great Creator; she that is dispenser of all life; cause of all birth; most easily accomplishing all that is made; generating without passion; creating all that exists in concert with the Father; herself a virgin, without mother, sharing the throne of Jupiter, the mother in very truth of all the gods; for by receiving within herself the causes of all the intelligible deities that be above the world, she became the source to things the objects of intellect.

Now this goddess, who is also the same as Providence, was seized with a love without passion for Attis. ... And this the legend aims at teaching when it makes the Mother of the Gods enjoin upon Attis to be her servant, and not to stray from her, and not fall in love with another woman. But he went forward, and descended as far as the boundaries of Matter.

But when it became necessary for this ignorance to cease and be stopped----then Corybas, the mighty Sun, the colleague of the Mother of the Gods ... persuades the lion to turn informer. Who then is this lion? We hear him styled "blazing"----he must, therefore, I think, be the cause presiding over the hot and fiery element; that which was about to wage war against the Nymph, and to make her jealous of her intercourse with Attis; and who this Nymph is we have already stated.

This lion, the fable tells, lent his aid to the Mother of the Gods ... and by his detecting the offence and turning informer, became the author of the castration of the youth. ... not without the intervention of the fabled madness of Attis...

It is not therefore unreasonable to suppose this Attis a sixper-natural personage (in fact the fable implies as much), or rather in all respects, a deity, seeing that he comes forth out of the Third Creator, and returns again after his castration, to the Mother of the Gods... the fable styles him a "demi-god," ... The Corybantes... are assigned by the Great Mother to act as his bodyguard...

This great god of ours is Attis; this is the meaning of the "Flight of King Attis" that we have just been lamenting; his "Concealments," his "Vanishings," his "Descents into the Cave." Let my evidence be the time of year when all these ceremonies take place; for it is said that the Sacred Tree is cut down at the moment when the Sun arrives at the extreme point of the equinoctial arc: next in order follows the Sounding of the trumpets, and lastly is cut down the sacred and ineffable Harvest of the god Gallos: after these come, as they say, the Hilaria and festivities.

Now that a "cessation of Indefinity" is meant by the castration so much talked of by the vulgar, is self-evident from the fact that when the Sun touches the equinoctial circle, where that which is most definite is placed (for equality is definite, but inequality indefinite and inexplicable); at that very moment (according to the report), the Sacred Tree is cut down; then come the other rites in their order; whereof some are done in compliance with rules that be holy and not to be divulged; others for reasons allowable to be discussed.

The "Cutting of the Tree;" this part refers to the legend about the Gallos, and has nothing to do with the rites which it accompanies... The rite, therefore, enjoins upon us who are celestial by our nature, but who have been carried down to earth, to reap virtue joined with piety from our conduct upon earth, and to aspire upwards unto the deity, the primal source of being and the fount of life. Then immediately after the cutting does the trumpet give out the invocation to Attis and to those that be of heaven, whence we took our flight, and fell down to earth.

And after this, when King Attis checks the Indefinity by the means of castration, the gods thereby warn us to extirpate in ourselves all incontinence, and to imitate the example, and to run upwards unto the Definite, and the Uniform, and if it be possible, to the One itself; which being accomplished the "Hilaria" must by all means follow. For what could be more contented, what more hilarious than the soul that has escaped from uncertainty, and generation, and the tumult that reigns therein, and hastens upwards to the gods? Of whose number was this Attis, whom the Mother of the Gods would not suffer to advance farther than was proper for him, but turned him towards herself, and enjoined him to check all indefinity.

Originally Posted by Lucian

50. On certain days a multitude flocks into the temple, and the Galli in great numbers, sacred as they are, perform the ceremonies of the men and gash their arms and turn their backs to be lashed. Many bystanders play on the pipes the while many beat drums; others sing divine and sacred songs. All this performance takes place outside the temple, and those engaged in the ceremony enter not into the temple.

51. During these days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his hands what he has cut off. He casts it into any house at will, and from this house he receives women's raiment and ornaments. Thus they act during their ceremonies of castration.

52. The Galli, when dead, are not buried like other men, but when a Gallus dies his companions carry him out into the suburbs, and laying him out on the bier on which they had carried him they cover him with stones, and after this return home. They wait then for seven days, after which they enter the temple. Should they enter before this they would be guilty of blasphemy.

Originally Posted by Sallustius

To take another myth, they say that the Mother of the Gods seeing Attis lying by the river Gallus fell in love with him, took him, crowned him with her cap of stars, and thereafter kept him with her. He fell in love with a nymph and left the Mother to live with her. For this the Mother of the Gods made Attis go mad and cut off his genital organs and leave them with the nymph, and then return and dwell with her.

Now the Mother of the Gods is the principle that generates life; that is why she is called Mother. Attis is the creator of all things which are born and die; that is why he is said to have been found by the river Gallus. For Gallus signifies the Galaxy, or Milky Way, the point at which body subject to passion begins. Now as the primary gods make perfect the secondary, the Mother loves Attis and gives him celestial powers. That is what the cap means. Attis loves a nymph: the nymphs preside over generation, since all that is generated is fluid. But since the process of generation must be stopped somewhere, and not allowed to generate something worse than the worst, the creator who makes these things casts away his generative powers into the creation and is joined to the Gods again. Now these things never happened, but always are. And mind sees all things at once, but reason (or speech) expresses some first and others after. Thus, as the myth is in accord with the cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the cosmos, for how could we attain higher order?

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

The Julian reference to Oratio 5, ... Libanius says that Julian wrote it in a single night, while staying at Pessinus on his march to Persia.

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I've tried to condense a large chunk of this to the bits which give concrete information, and paragraphed it for readability:

Originally Posted by Julian

This great god of ours is Attis; this is the meaning of the "Flight of King Attis" that we have just been lamenting; his "Concealments," his "Vanishings," his "Descents into the Cave."

Originally Posted by Julian

Let my evidence be the time of year when all these ceremonies take place; for it is said that the Sacred Tree is cut down at the moment when the Sun arrives at the extreme point of the equinoctial arc: next in order follows the Sounding of the trumpets, and lastly is cut down the sacred and ineffable Harvest of the god Gallos: after these come, as they say, the Hilaria and festivities.

Originally Posted by Julian

Now that a "cessation of Indefinity" is meant by the castration so much talked of by the vulgar, is self-evident from the fact that when the Sun touches the equinoctial circle, where that which is most definite is placed (for equality is definite, but inequality indefinite and inexplicable); at that very moment (according to the report), the Sacred Tree is cut down; then come the other rites in their order; whereof some are done in compliance with rules that be holy and not to be divulged; others for reasons allowable to be discussed.

Originally Posted by Julian

The "Cutting of the Tree;" this part refers to the legend about the Gallos, and has nothing to do with the rites which it accompanies... The rite, therefore, enjoins upon us who are celestial by our nature, but who have been carried down to earth, to reap virtue joined with piety from our conduct upon earth, and to aspire upwards unto the deity, the primal source of being and the fount of life. Then immediately after the cutting does the trumpet give out the invocation to Attis and to those that be of heaven, whence we took our flight, and fell down to earth.

And after this, when King Attis checks the Indefinity by the means of castration, the gods thereby warn us to extirpate in ourselves all incontinence, and to imitate the example, and to run upwards unto the Definite, and the Uniform, and if it be possible, to the One itself; which being accomplished the "Hilaria" must by all means follow. For what could be more contented, what more hilarious than the soul that has escaped from uncertainty, and generation, and the tumult that reigns therein, and hastens upwards to the gods? Of whose number was this Attis, whom the Mother of the Gods would not suffer to advance farther than was proper for him, but turned him towards herself, and enjoined him to check all indefinity.

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

I did a search for 'life', 'resurr', 'reviv', 'hilaria' and could find nothing about Attis coming back to life.

Originally Posted by spin

Two points:
1) Actually Pessinus is in Phrygia and was a stop on Julian's route to Antioch, ie it was written circa May/June 362. Perhaps Libanius considered the trip to Antioch, where Julian stayed for nine months, part of the march to Persia, though this is erroneous.

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse I did a search for 'life', 'resurr', 'reviv', 'hilaria' and could find nothing about Attis coming back to life.

Originally Posted by Catullus

Borne in his swift bark over deep seas,
Attis, when eagerly with speedy foot he reached the Phrygian woodland,
and entered the goddess' abodes, shadowy, forest-crowned;
there, goaded by raging madness, bewildered in mind,
he cast down from him with sharp flint-stone the burden of his member.
So when she felt her limbs to have lost their manbood,
still with fresh blood dabbling the face of the ground,
swiftly with snowy bands she seized the light timbrel,
your timbrel, Cybele, thy mysteries, Mother,
and shaking with soft fingers the hollow oxhide
thus began she to sing to her companions tremulously:
"Come away, ye Gallae, go to the mountain forests of Cybele together,
together go, wandering herd of the lady of Dindymus,
who swiftly seeking alien homes as exiles,
followed my rule as I led you in my train,
endured the fast-flowing brine and the savage seas,
and unmanned your bodies from utter abhorrence of love,
cheer ye your Lady's heart with swift wanderings.
Let dull delay depart from your mind; go together, follow
to the Phrygian house of Cybele, to the Phrygian forests of the goddess,
where the noise of cymbals sounds, where timbrels re-echo,
where the Phrygian flute-player blows a deep note on his curved reed,
where the Maenads ivy-crowned toss their heads violently,
where with shrill yells they shake the holy emblems,
where that wandering company of the goddess is wont to rove,
whither for us 'tis meet to hasten with rapid dances."
So soon as Attis, woman yet no true one, chanted thus to her companions,
the revellers suddenly with quivering tongues yell aloud,
the light timbrel rings again, clash again the hollow cymbals,
swiftly to green Ida goes the rout with hurrying foot.
Then too frenzied, panting, uncertain, wanders, gasping for breath,
attended by the timbrel, Attis, through the dark forests their leader,
as a heifer unbroken starting aside from the burden of the yoke.
Fast follow the Gallae their swift-footed leader.
So when they gained the house of Cybele, faint and weary,
after much toil they take their rest without bread;
heavy sleep covers their eyes with drooping weariness,
the delirious madness of their mind departs in soft slumber.
But when the sun with the flashing eyes of his golden face
lightened the clear heaven, the firm lands, the wild sea,
and chased away the shades of night with eager tramping steeds refreshed,
then Sleep fled from wakened Attis and quickly was gone;
him the goddess Pasithea received in her fluttering bosom.
So after soft slumber, freed from violent madness,
as soon as Attis himself in his heart reviewed his own deed,
and saw with clear mind what lie had lost and where he was,
with surging mind again he sped back to the waves.
There, looking out upon the waste seas with streaming eyes,
thus did she piteously address her country with tearful voice:
" O my country that gavest me life! O my country that barest me!
leaving whom, all wretch! as runaway servants leave their masters,
I have borne my foot to the forests of Ida,
to live among snows and frozen lairs of wild beasts,
and visit in my frenzy all their lurking-dens,
-- where then or in what region do I think thy place to be, O my country?
Mine eyeballs unbidden long to turn their gaze to thee
while for a short space my mind is free from wild frenzy.
I, shall I from my own home be borne far away into these forests?
from my country, my possessions, my friends, my parents, shall I be?
absent from the market, the wrestling-place, the racecourse, the playground?
unhappy, all unhappy heart, again, again must thou complain.
For what form of human figure is there which I had not?
I, to be a woman--who was a stripling, I a youth, I a boy,
I was the flower of the playground, I was once the glory of the palaestra:
mine were the crowded doorways, mine the warm thresholds,
mine the flowery garlands to deck my house
when I was to leave my chamber at sunrise.
I, shall I now be called--what? a handmaid of the gods, a ministress of Cybele?
I a Maenad, I part of myself, a barren man shall I be?
I, shall I dwell in icy snow-clad regions of verdant Ida,
I pass my life under the high summits of Phrygia,
with the hind that haunts the woodland, with the boar that ranges the forest?
now, now I rue my deed, now, now I would it were undone."
From his rosy lips as these words issued forth,
bringing a new message to both ears of the gods,
then Cybele, loosening the fastened yoke from her lions,
and goading that foe of the herd who drew on the left, thus speaks:
"Come now," she says, "come, go fiercely, let madness hunt him hence
bid him hence by stroke of madness hie him to the forests again,
him who would be too free, and run away from my sovereignty.
Come, lash back with tail, endure thy own scourging,
make all around resound with bellowing roar,
shake fiercely on brawny neck thy ruddy mane."
Thus says wrathful Cybele, and with her hand unbinds the yoke.
The monster stirs his courage and rouses him to fury of heart;
he speeds away, he roars, with ranging foot he breaks the brushwood.
But when he came to the watery stretches of the white-gleaming shore,
and saw tender Attis by the smooth spaces of the sea,
he rushes at him--madly flies Attis to the wild woodland.
There always for all his lifetime was he a handmaid.
Goddess, great goddess, Cybele, goddess, lady of Dindymus
far from my house be all thy fury, O my queen
others drive thou in frenzy, others drive thou to madness.