62 THE APOSTLE PAUL Babylonian theology. Subsequently, after its diffusion over Syria and Asia Minor, it received a further admixture from the cults of Sun-deities which prevailed in those regions, in particular in Phrygia and Lydia; it took over from the orgiastic religion of Attis or Sabazios and of Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, certain ritual usages such as the expiatory blood-baptism, the Taurobolium or Kriobolium.' In the bas-relief which we find on many monuments representing Mithras himself sacrificing a bull for the salvation of the world, he is always shown with the Phrygian cap, from which we may conclude that the cultus-myth thus re- presented and, consequently, the corresponding ritual, viz. the Taurobolium itself, is of Phrygian origin. From the proximity of Phrygia and Cilicia we may infer that in the cult of Mithras as established in Tarsus also, the Taurobolium, conceived as communicating an expiatory and lifegiving influence through the sacred blood of the sacrifice, formed a main feature of the ceremony of initiation. Besides this, their sacraments included a sacred meal at which the symbols of the life which Mithras had communicated to the faithful stood on the table in the form of consecrated bread and a cup (of water or wine), as may be recognised from many representa- tions of the ceremony. At one side stand the initiated of various grades, in animal masks which \The person who was to be initiated stood in a pit covered with boards in which holes had been pierced. Over this the sacrifice of the bull or ram was performed in such a way that the blood of the sacrifice, streaming down, poured over the man’s whole body as an effectual means of expiation, purification, and new life.