the sun is reached, not through the perpetration of incest, but through the sacrifice of the incest wish. This important change expressed in the Mithraic mystery finds its full expression for the first time in the symbol of the crucified God. A bleeding human sacrifice was hung on the tree of life for Adam's sins.[117] The first-born sacrifices its life to the mother when he suffers, hanging on the branch, a disgraceful and painful death, a mode of death which belongs to the most ignominious forms of execution, which Roman antiquity had reserved for only the lowest criminal. Thus the hero dies, as if he had committed the most shameful crime; he does this by returning into the birth-giving branch of the tree of life, at the same time paying for his guilt with the pangs of death. The animal nature is repressed most powerfully in this deed of the highest courage and the greatest renunciation; therefore, a greater salvation is to be expected for humanity, because such a deed alone seems appropriate to expiate Adam's guilt.
As has already been mentioned, the hanging of the sacrifice on the tree is a generally widespread ritual custom, Germanic examples being especially abundant. The ritual consists in the sacrifice being pierced by a spear.[118] Thus it is said of Odin (Edda, Havamal):
"I know that I hung on the windswept tree
Nine nights through,
Wounded by a spear, dedicated to Odin
I myself to myself."
The hanging of the sacrifice to the cross also occurred in America prior to its discovery. Müller[119] mentions the
