the only means of getting rid of deep-seated illnesses
and enabling a patient's organism to make a completely new
start in life.

[1] Sallustius philosophus. See Adonis, Attis and Osiris, note,
p. 229.


"At Rome," he further says (p. 230), "the new birth and
the remission of sins by the shedding of bull's blood appear
to have been carried out above all at the sanctuary of the
Phrygian Goddess (Cybele) on the Vatican Hill, at or near
the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter's now stands;
for many inscriptions relating to the rites were found when
the church was being enlarged in 1608 or 1609. From
the Vatican as a centre," he continues, "this barbarous system
of superstition seems to have spread to other parts of
the Roman empire. Inscriptions found in Gaul and Germany
prove that provincial sanctuaries modelled their ritual on that
of the Vatican."

It would appear then that at Rome in the quiet early
days of the Christian Church, the rites and ceremonials
of Mithra and Cybele, probably much intermingled and
blended, were exceedingly popular. Both religions had been
recognized by the Roman State, and the Christians, persecuted
and despised as they were, found it hard to make any
headway against them--the more so perhaps because the
Christian doctrines appeared in many respects to be merely
faint replicas and copies of the older creeds. Robertson