Says Hermas: “And, in the middle of the plain, he showed me a great _white_ rock, which had risen out of the plain, and the rock was higher than the mountains, rectangular, so as to be able to hold the whole world; but that rock was old, having a gate hewn out of it, and the hewing out of the gate seemed to me to be recent.” In the _Sohar_, we find: “To 40,000 superior worlds the _white_ of the skull of His Head (of the most Sacred Ancient _in absconditus_) is extended.[496]... When _Seir_ (the first reflection and image of his Father, the Ancient of the Ancient) will, through the mystery of the seventy names of Metatron, descend into Iezirah (the third world), he will open a new gate.... The Spiritus Decisorius will cut and divide the garment (Shekinah) into two parts.[497]... At the coming of King Messiah, from the sacred cubical stone of the Temple a _white light_ will be arising during forty days. This will expand, until _it encloses the whole world_.... At that time King Messiah will allow himself to be revealed, and will be seen coming out of the gate of the garden of Odan (Eden). ‘He will be revealed in the land Galil.’[498]... When ‘he has made satisfaction for the sins of Israel, he will lead them on through a _new gate_ to the seat of judgment.’[499] At the _Gate of the House of Life_, the throne is prepared for the Lord of Splendor.”[500] Further on, the commentator introduces the following quotation: “This _rock_ and this _gate_ are the Son of God. ‘How, Lord,’ I said, ‘is the rock old and the gate new?’ ‘Listen,’ He said, ‘and understand, thou ignorant man. The _Son of God is older than all of his creation_, so that he was a Councillor with the Father in His works of creation; and for this is he old.’”[501] Now, these two assertions are not only purely kabalistic, without even so much as a change of expression, but Brahmanical and Pagan likewise. “_Vidi virum excellentem cœli terræque conditore natu majorem._... I have seen the most excellent (superior) MAN, who is older by birth than the maker of heaven and earth,” says the kabalistic _Codex_.[502] The Eleusinian Dionysus, whose particular name was _Iacchos_ (Iaccho, Iahoh)[503]--the God from whom the liberation of souls was expected--was considered older than the Demiurge. At the mysteries of the Anthesteria at the lakes (the Limnæ), after the usual baptism by purification of water, the _Mystæ_ were made to pass through to another door (gate), and one particularly for that purpose, which was called “the gate of Dionysus,” and that of “the _purified_.”