Attis converts would be swept up in the ecstatic dances of the devotees and would feel impelled to castrate themselves, pitching the testicles into the lap of a silver image of Cybele. General mourning, both for Attis and for their own manhood, would follow, culminating in the ritual interment of an effigy of Attis crucified to a pine trunk. On the third day he would be proclaimed gloriously risen from the dead: "Rejoice, you of the mystery! For your god is saved! And we, too, shall be saved!" (Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions 22:1)Appended to this passage is endnote 16, found on page 94:
16. Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions, trans. Clarence A. Forbes. Ancient Christian Writers no. 37 (New York: Paulist Press, 1970), p. 93.We shall ignore for the moment some other problematic issues of interpretation evidenced in the passage above and focus on the last line, attributed to the followers of Attis and ascribed to Firmicus Maternus. In full this reads (pg. 93):
The Ointment of Osiris vs. the Ointment of Christian Confirmation
Ch. 22] We adduce also another symbol, in order to lay bare the crimes of polluted thought. It is needful to give a complete and systematic account of it, so that all may be led to agree that the law of the divine dispensation has been corrupted by the devil's crooked imitation. On a certain night a statue is laid flat on its back on a bier, where it is bemoaned in cadenced plaints. Then when the worshipers have had their fill of feigned lamentation, a light is brought in. Next a priest anoints the throats of all who were mourning, and once that is done he whispers in a low murmur:
Θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ θεοῦ σεσωσμένου ἔσται γὰρ ἡμῖν ἐκ πόνων σωτηρία.
("Rejoice, O Mystai! Lo, our god appears as saved! And we shall find salvation, springing from our woes") 2. Why do you exhort unfortunate wretches to rejoice? Why do you drive deluded dupes to exult? What hope, what salvation do you promise them, convincing them to their own ruination? Why do you woo them with a false promise? The death of your god is known, but his life is not apparent, nor has a divine prophecy ever issued a statement about his resurrection, nor has he manifested himself to men after his death to cause himself to be believed. He has provided no advance tokens of this action, nor did he show by prefiguring symbolic acts that he would do this. 3. You bury an idol, you lament an idol, you bring forth from its sepulture an idol, and having done this, unfortunate wretch, you rejoice.
You rescue your god, you put together the stony limbs that lie there, you set in position an insensible stone. Your god should thank you, should repay you with equivalent gifts, should be willing to make you his partner, So you should die has he dies, and you should live as he lives!
A couple things are immediately obvious. First, nowhere in the passage does Firmicus explicitly identify the god to which the devotions are directed. If it is indeed Attis, this needs to be argued, not assumed. Second, Forbes himself identifies the god with Osiris, not Attis. This is evident from the chapter title ("The Ointment of Osiris...") as well as endnote 421 (pg. 206-7):
Since the formula is found only here and Firmicus does not identify the god in question, controversy has arisen: Adonis, Attis or Osiris? See the history of the discussion in Pastorino's note. Though Heuten and several others have argued for Attis, the authority of Loisy, Lagrange, Cumont, Nilsson, and Ziegler favors Osiris. Lagrange, "Attis et le christianisme," Rev. bibl. 28 (1919) 419-80 at 448, wrote as follows: Le dieu sauvé n'est pas Attis mais surement Osiris. Et effet, à partir du chap. xviii, l'apologiste expose tous les symbola des mystères. Les mystes d'Attis paraissent dès le debut du ch. xviii; d'autres suivent, et le ch. xxii se rapporte au dieu égyptien comme le prouve le detail de la lumière, qui rappelle l'exhortation quaere exordium lucis (2.9), à propos d'Osiris. Cette statue qu'on apporte dans une litière et dont on rassembles les membres gisants et sans doute épars (22.3) représente beaucoup mieux Osiris qu'Attis, comme M. Loisy l'a très bien vu." Cf. Cumont 226 n. 46; Nilsson 2.612f.; Ziegler trans. p.61. Nilsson observed that to have a god's stone image dismembered and then put together again (22.3) was a cult action appropriate to Osiris and not to Attis.
Thirdly (and though I did not mention this in my question), it is also clear that Price's rendering of the proclaimation significantly diverges from the one found in Forbes (which he claims to rely on). It is unclear why this is. Did Price use another English translation of Firmicus' Latin and miscite his source? Did he supply his own translation of the Greek or the Latin? Did he simply alter the English?
So given all of this the question is, on what grounds does Price flatly attribute the saying to the followers of Attis, particularly in light of the interpreative issues involved? Why are Forbes and the sources he cites ignored? Why is none of this ever mentioned in Deconstructing Jesus?
