But since this apparent heaven thus covers the head of Attis, is it proper to interpret the river Gallus as signifying the Gallaxy? For here a passive body is said to be mingled with the impassive circulation of the fifth body. And thus far the mother of the gods permitted this beautiful and intellectual god Attis, who is similar to the solar rays, to leap and dance. But when, in the course of his progression, he arrived at the extremity of things, the fable relates that he came into a cavern, and had connection with a nymph, obscurely signifying by this, the humid nature of matter; though indeed matter is not so much signified here, as that last incorporeal cause which presides over matter; for, according to Heraclitus,
"Death is the portion of the humid soul."
Such, then, is the intellectual god Gallus, i.e. a deity who contains in himself material and sublunary forms, and who associates with the cause presiding over the fluctuating nature of matter. But he does not associate with the nymph as one with another of the same dignity and rank, but after the manner of one falling into matter. Who then is the mother of the gods? She is indeed the fountain of the intellectual and demiurgic gods who govern the apparent series of things: or certainly a deity producing things, and at the same time subsisting with the mighty Jupiter; a goddess mighty, after one mighty, and conjoined with the mighty demiurgus of the world.
It's interesting when Julian says
:
though indeed matter is not so much signified here, as that last incorporeal cause which presides over matter;
Is the ''air'' what presides over ''matter'' ?
And then we have the following analogy of the pauline ''archontes of this age'' in the figure of a ''lion'' who provoked the castration of Attis precisely (
it's beyond any doubt) in the
''lowest matter'':
But the fable, desirous to signify this, says, that the mother of the gods exhorted Attis to take care of himself, and neither depart any where else, nor be captivated with any other. but Attis, departing from the mother of the gods, descended even to the very extremity of matter. Hence, since it was necessary that infinity should, some time or other, be restrained and stop in its progression, Corybas, or the mighty sun, who has the same establishment as the mother of the gods, who fabricated, and providentially governs, all things in conjunction with her, and who performs nothing without her, persuaded the lion to announce the descent of Attis into the lowest matter. Who then is the lion? We are told for a certainty that he was yellow: he is therefore a cause presiding over a hot and fiery nature; which cause was hereafter to contend with a nymph and emulate her association with Attis.But who the nymph is, we have already explained: and the lion is said to be subservient to the demiurgic providence of things, i.e. without doubt, to the mother of the gods; and afterwards by his detecting and betraying Attis, to have been the cause of his castration.
Here I wonder if the ''lowest matter'' (of which above) coincides with the ''extreme bounded circumference of the universe'' touched by the ''solar god'' (probably not, since what marks the
boundaries of the sublunar realm is the moon, not the Sun).
and, in the first place, it is necessary briefly to call to mind the account which we have given of Attis and his castration, and the meaning of the symbols which take place after his castration as far as to the hilaria, together with the intention of the sacred lustrations. Attis, then, has been said by us to be a certain cause and divinity who proximately fabricates the material world, and who, descending even to the extremity of things, is at length stopt by the demiurgic motion of the sun, when the solar god arrives at the extreme bounded circumference of the universe, and which, from its effect, is called the equinoctial circle. But we have said that castration is the restraining of infinity, which takes place no otherwise than by a revocation and emersion to a more antient and primary cause; but we consider the elevation of souls as the ultimate design of lustration.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/toj/toj04.htm