“Thou goest, O Lord, our chief, To heaven through thy sorrows, And guide him who believes In thee on the same path. Then take us all equally To share in thy sorrows and kingdoms, Guide us through thy gate of death, Bring thy world into the light.” Firmicus relates concerning the Attis mysteries: “Nocte quadam simulacrum in lectica supinum ponitur et per numeros digestis fletibus plangitur; deinde cum se ficta lamentatione satiaverint, lumen infertur: tunc a sacerdote omnium qui flebant fauces unguentur, quibus perunctis sacerdos hoc lento murmure susurrat: ‘Θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ Θεοῦ σεσωσμένου ἔσται γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐκ πόνου σωτηρία.’”[683] Such parallels show how little human personality and how much divine, that is to say, universally human, is found in the Christ mystery. No man is or, indeed, ever was, a hero, for the hero is a god, and, therefore, impersonal and generally applicable to all. Christ is a “spirit,” as is shown in the very early Christian interpretation. In different places of the earth, and in the most varied forms and in the coloring of various periods, the Savior-hero appears as a fruit of the entrance of the libido into the personal maternal depths. The Bacchian consecrations represented upon the Farnese relief contain a scene where a mystic wrapped in a mantle, drawn over his head, was led to Silen, who holds the “λῖχνον” (chalice), covered with a cloth. The covering of the head signifies death. The mystic dies, figuratively, like the seed corn, grows again and comes to the corn harvest. Proclus relates that the mystics were buried up to their necks. The Christian church as a place of religious ceremony is really nothing but the grave of a hero (catacombs). The believer descends into the grave, in order to rise from the dead with the hero. That the meaning underlying the church is that of the mother’s womb can scarcely be doubted. The symbols of Mass are so distinct that the mythology of the sacred act peeps out everywhere. It is the magic charm of rebirth. The veneration of the Holy Sepulchre is most plain in this respect. A striking example is the Holy Sepulchre of St. Stefano in Bologna. The church itself, a very old polygonal building, consists of the remains of a temple to Isis. The interior contains an artificial spelæum, a so-called Holy Sepulchre, into which one creeps through a very little door. After a long sojourn, the believer reappears reborn from this mother’s womb. An Etruscan ossuarium in the archeological museum in Florence is at the same time a statue of Matuta, the goddess of death; the clay figure of the goddess is hollowed within as a receptacle for the ashes. The representations indicate that Matuta is the mother. Her chair is adorned with sphinxes, as a fitting symbol for the mother of death.