[Sidenote: p. 171.] The Phrygians also say, however, that he is a “green ear of corn reaped”; and following the Phrygians, the Athenians when initiating (any one) into the Eleusinian (Mysteries) also show to those who have been made epopts the mighty and wonderful and most perfect mystery for an epopt[135] there--a green ear of corn reaped in silence.[136] And this ear of corn is also for the Athenians the great and perfect spark of light from the Unportrayable One; just as the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated like Attis, but rendered a eunuch by hemlock, and cut off from all fleshly generation, celebrating by night at Eleusis the great and ineffable mysteries beside a huge fire, cries aloud and makes proclamation, saying: “August Brimo has brought forth a holy son, Brimos,” that is, the strong (has given birth) to the strong.[137] For august is, he says, the generation which is spiritual or heavenly or sublime, and strong is that which is thus generated. For the mystery is called Eleusis or Anacterion: “Eleusis,” he says, because we spiritual ones [Sidenote: p. 172.] came on high rushing from the Adamas below.[138] For _eleusesthai_, he says is to come, but _anactoreion_ the return on high. This, he says, is what they who have been initiated into the mysteries of the Eleusinians say. But it is a regulation that those who have been initiated into the Lesser Mysteries should moreover be initiated into the Great. For greater destinies obtain greater portions.[139] But the Lesser Mysteries, he says, are those of Persephone below and of the way leading thither, which is wide and broad and bears the dead to Persephone, and the poet says:-- “But under her is a straight and rugged road Hollow and muddy, but the best to lead To the delightful grove of much-reverenced Aphrodite.”[140] These, he says, are the Lesser Mysteries, those of fleshly generation, after being initiated into which men ought to [Sidenote: p. 173.] cease (from the small) and be initiated into the great and heavenly ones. For those who have obtained greater destinies, he says, receive greater portions. For this, he says, is the gate of heaven and this the house of God where the good God dwells alone,[141] into which will not enter, he says, any unpurified, any psychic or fleshly one; but it is kept for the spiritual only, where those who are must cast aside[142] their garments and all become bridegrooms, having come to maturity through the virgin spirit.[143] For this is the virgin who bears in her womb and conceives and gives birth to a son not psychic or corporeal, but the blessed Aeon of Aeons. Concerning these things, he says, the Saviour expressly spake: “Narrow and straitened is the way that leads to life and few are those who enter into it; but wide and broad is the way leading to destruction and many are they who pass along it.”[144]