agdistis

Updated: May 7, 2025

Such avowedly were Mithras, Janus, Melitta, Cybele, Aphrodite, Agdistis; indeed nearly all the Syrian, Egyptian, and Italic gods, as well as Brahma, and, in the esoteric doctrine of the Cabala, even Jehovah, whose female aspect is represented by the “Shekinah.” To this abnormal condition the learned have applied the adjectives epicene, androgynous, hermaphrodite, arrenothele.

Daniel Garrison Brinton - The Religious Sentiment: Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and: Philosophy of Religion

The myths identify Agdistis on the one hand with Kybele, on the other hand with Attis he represents in his own person the combination of the two generative powers. But it is doubtful whether this was his significance in the actual worship, in which he hardly appears; he was probably a divine figure of the same character as Kybele and Attis, worked up by myth-makers and woven into the larger myth.

Crawford Howell Toy - Introduction to the History of Religions: Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV