good taste
and
humanity
of the
Greeks,
who seem
to have
preferred
the
kindred
but
gentler
rites of
Adonis.
Yet the
same
features
which
shocked
and
repelled
the Greeks
may have
positively
attracted
the less
refined
Romans and
barbarians
of the
West. The
ecstatic
frenzies,
which were
mistaken
for divine
inspiration,
the
mangling
of the
body, the
theory of
a new
birth and
the
remission
of sins
through
the
shedding
