Chapter III. Attis As The Father God.

(M208) The name Attis appears to mean simply “father.”(839) This explanation, suggested by etymology, is confirmed by the observation that another name for Attis was Papas;(840) for Papas has all the appearance of being a common form of that word for “father” which occurs independently in many distinct families of speech all the world over. Similarly the mother of Attis was named Nana,(841) which is itself a form of the world-wide word for “mother.” “The immense list of such words collected by Buschmann shows that the types _pa_ and _ta_, with the similar forms _ap_ and _at_, preponderate in the world as names for ‘father,’ while _ma_ and _na_, _am_ and _an_, preponderate as names for ‘mother.’ ”(842)

(M209) Thus the mother of Attis is only another form of his divine mistress the great Mother Goddess,(843) and we are brought back to the myth that the lovers were mother and son. The story that Nana conceived miraculously without commerce with the other sex shows that the Mother Goddess of Phrygia herself was viewed, like other goddesses of the same primitive type, as a Virgin Mother.(844) That view of her character does not rest on a perverse and mischievous theory that virginity is more honourable than matrimony. It is derived, as I have already indicated, from a state of savagery in which the mere fact of paternity was unknown. That explains why in later times, long after the true nature of paternity had been ascertained, the Father God was often a much less important personage in mythology than his divine partner the Mother Goddess. With regard to Attis in his paternal character it deserves to be noticed that the Bithynians used to ascend to the tops of the mountains and there call upon him under the name of Papas. The custom is attested by Arrian,(845) who as a native of Bithynia must have had good opportunities of observing it. We may perhaps infer from it that the Bithynians conceived Attis as a sky-god or heavenly father, like Zeus, with whom indeed Arrian identifies him. If that were so, the story of the loves of Attis and Cybele, the Father God and the Mother Goddess, might be in one of its aspects a particular version of the widespread myth which represents Mother Earth fertilized by Father Sky;(846) and, further, the story of the emasculation of Attis would be parallel to the Greek legend that Cronus castrated his father, the old sky-god Uranus,(847) and was himself in turn castrated by his own son, the younger sky-god Zeus.(848) The tale of the mutilation of the sky-god by his son has been plausibly explained as a myth of the violent separation of the earth and sky, which some races, for example the Polynesians, suppose to have originally clasped each other in a close embrace.(849) Yet it seems unlikely that an order of eunuch priests like the Galli should have been based on a purely cosmogonic myth: why should they continue for all time to be mutilated because the sky-god was so in the beginning? The custom of castration must surely have been designed to meet a constantly recurring need, not merely to reflect a mythical event which happened at the creation of the world. Such a need is the maintenance of the fruitfulness of the earth, annually imperilled by the changes of the seasons. Yet the theory that the mutilation of the priests of Attis and the burial of the severed parts were designed to fertilize the ground may perhaps be reconciled with the cosmogonic myth if we remember the old opinion, held apparently by many peoples, that the creation of the world is year by year repeated in that great transformation which depends ultimately on the annual increase of the sun’s heat.(850) However, the evidence for the celestial aspect of Attis is too slight to allow us to speak with any confidence on this subject. A trace of that aspect appears to survive in the star-spangled cap which he is said to have received from Cybele,(851) and which is figured on some monuments supposed to represent him.(852) His identification with the Phrygian moon-god Men Tyrannus(853) points in the same direction, but is probably due rather to the religious speculation of a later age than to genuine popular tradition.(854)