FRANZ CUMONT
PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GHENT, BELGIUM
Translated from the Second Revised French Edition
BY
THOMAS J. McCORMACK
PRINCIPAL OF THE LA SALLE AND PERU TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL
With a Frontispiece, Map, and Fifty Cuts and Illustrations
CHICAGO
The OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMP NY
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
1903
TRANSLATION COPYRIGHTED
BY
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO
1903
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION
THE present work, in which we purpose to treat
of the origin and history of the Mithraic
religion, does not pretend to offer a picture of the
downfall of paganism. We shall not attempt, even
in a general way, to seek for the causes which
explain the establishment of the Oriental religions
in Italy; nor shall we endeavor to show how their
doctrines, which were far more active as fermenting
agents than the theories of the philosophers, decom
posed the national beliefs on which the Roman
state and the entire life of antiquity rested, and
how the destruction of the edifice which they had
disintegrated was ultimately accomplished by Chris
tianity. We shall not undertake to trace here the
various phases of the battle waged between idol
atry and the growing Church; this vast subject,
which we hope some day to approach, lies beyond
the scope of the present work. We are concerned
here with one epoch only of this decisive revolu
tion, it being our purpose to show with all the
distinctness in our power how and why a certain
Mazdean sect failed under the Caesars to become
the dominant religion of the empire.
The civilization of the Greeks had never suc
ceeded in establishing itself among the Persians, and
the Remaps were no more successful in subjecting
the Parthians to their sway. The significant fact
which dominates the entire history of Hither Asia
is that the Iranian world and the Graeco-Latin world
in
IV PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION
remained forever unamenable to reciprocal assimi
lation, forever sundered as much by a mutual repul
sion, deep and instinctive, as by their hereditary
hostility.
Nevertheless, the religion of the Magi, which
was the highest blossom of the genius of Iran,
exercised a deep influence on Occidental culture at
three different periods. In the first place, Parsee-
ism had made a very distinct impression on Judaism
in its formative stage, and several of its cardinal
doctrines were disseminated by Jewish colonists
throughout the entire basin of the Mediterranean,
and subsequently even forced themselves on ortho
dox Catholicism.
The influence of Mazdaism on European thought
was still more direct, when Asia Minor was con
quered by the Romans. Here, from time imme
morial, colonies of Magi who had migrated from
Babylon lived in obscurity, and, welding together
their traditional beliefs and the doctrines of the
Grecian thinkers, had elaborated little by little in
these barbaric regions a religion original despite its
complexity. At the beginning of our era, we see
this religion suddenly emerging from the darkness,
and pressing forward, rapidly and simultaneously,
into the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine, and
even into the heart of Italy. The nations of the
Occident felt vividly the superiority of the Mazdean
faith over their ancient national creeds, and the
populace thronged to the altars of the exotic god.
But the progress of the conquering religion was
checked when it came in contact with Christianity.
The two adversaries discovered with amazement,
but with no inkling of their origin, the similarities
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION V
which united them; and they severally accused the
Spirit of Deception of having endeavored to carica
ture the sacredness of their religious rites. The
conflict between the two was inevitable, a ferocious
and implacable duel: for the stake was the dominion
of the world. No one has told the tale of its chang
ing fortunes, and our imagination alone is left to
picture the forgotten dramas that agitated the souls
of the multitudes when they were called upon to
choose between Ormadz and the Trinity. We know
the result of the battle only: Mithraism was van
quished, as without doubt it should have been. The -
defeat which it suffered was not due entirely to the
superiority of the evangelical ethics, nor to that of
the apostolic doctrine regarding the teaching of the
Mysteries; it perished, not only because it was/
encumbered with the onerous heritage of a superan-;
nuated past, but also because its liturgy and its/
theology had retained too much of its Asiatic color-\
ing to be accepted by the Latin spirit without
repugnance. For a converse reason, the same
battle, waged in the same epoch in Persia between
these same two rivals, was without success, if not
without honor, for the Christians; and in the realms
of the Sassanids, Zoroastrianism never once was in
serious danger of being overthrown.
The defeat of Mithraism did not, however, utterly
annihilate its power. It had prepared the minds
of the Occident for the reception of a new faith,
which, like itself, came also from the banks of the
Euphrates, and which resumed hostilities with
entirely different tactics. Manichaeism appeared
as its successor and continuator. This was the final
assault made by Persia on the Occident, an assault
VI PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION
more sanguinary than the preceding, but one which
was ultimately destined to be repulsed by the pow
erful resistance offered to it by the Christian empire.
* * * * #
The foregoing rapid sketch will, I hope, give
some idea of the great importance which the his
tory of Mithraism possesses. A branch torn from
the ancient Mazdean trunk, it has preserved in
many respects the characteristics of the ancient
worship of the Iranian tribes; and it will enable us
by comparison to understand the extent, so much
disputed, of the Avestan reformation. Again, if it
has not inspired, it has at least contributed to give
precise form to, certain doctrines of the Church,
as the ideas relative to the powers of hell and to
meenaof tneworld. And thus boIH^its rise and
its decadence combine in explaining to us the
formation of two great religions. In the heyday of
its vigor, it exercised no less remarkable an influ
ence on the society and government of Rome.
Never, perhaps, not even in the epoch of the Mus
sulman invasion, was Europe in greater danger of
being Asiaticized than in the third century of our
era, and there was a moment in this period when
Caesarism was apparently on the point of being
transformed into a Caliphate. The resemblances
which the court of Diocletian bore to that of Chos-
roes have been frequently emphasized. ^ It was the
worship of the sun, and in particular the Mazdean
theories, that disseminated the ideas upon which
the deified sovereigns of the West endeavored to
rear their monarchical absolutism. The rapid spread
of the Persian Mysteries among all classes of the
population served admirably the political ambitions
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION VII
of the emperors. A sudden inundation of Iranian
and Semitic conceptions swept over the Occident,
threatening to submerge everything that the genius
of Greece and Rome had so laboriously erected,
and when the flood subsided it left behind in the
conscience of the people a deep sediment of Ori
ental beliefs, which have never been completely
obliterated.
I believe I have said sufficient to show that the
subject of which I am about to treat is deserving of
exhaustive and profound study. Although my
investigations have carried me, on many sides,
much farther than I had at the outset intended to
go, I still do not regret the years of labor and of
travel which they have caused me. The work which
I have undertaken could not have been other than
difficult. On the one hand, we do not know to what
precise degree the Avesta and the other sacred
books of the Parsees represent the ideas of the
Mazdeans of the Occident; on the other, these
books constitute the sole material in our possession
for interpreting the great mass of figured monu
ments which have gradually been collected. The
inscriptions by themselves are always a sure guide,
but their contents are upon the whole very meager.
Our predicament is somewhat similar to that in
which we should find ourselves if we were called
upon to write the history of the Church of the
Middle Ages with no other sources at our command
than the Hebrew Bible and the sculptured debris of
Roman and Gothic portals. For this reason, our
explanations of the Mithraic imagery will frequently
possess nothing more than a greater or less degree
of probability. I make no pretension to having
VIII PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION
reached in all cases a rigorously exact decipherment
of these hieroglyphics, and I am anxious to ascribe
to my opinions nothing but the value of the argu
ments which support them. I hope nevertheless to
have established with certainty the general signifi
cation of the sacred images which adorned the
Mithraic crypts. On the details of their recondite
symbolism it is difficult to throw much light. We
are frequently forced to take refuge here in the ars
nesciendi.
The following pages reproduce the "Conclusions"
printed at the end of the first volume of my large
work, Textes ct monuments figures relatifs aux mystcres
de Mithra (Brussels: H. Lamertin).* Stripped of
the notes and references which there served to
establish them, they are confined to epitomizing and
co-ordinating the sum-total of the knowledge we
possess concerning the origin and the characteristic
features of the Mithraic religion. They will fur
nish, in fact, all the material necessary for read
ers desirous of general information on this subject.
To impart the same solidity to all the various por
tions of the edifice we have been reconstructing has
been impossible. The uncertainties and discontinu
ity of the tradition do not permit this. Persons
desirous of examining the stability of the founda
tions upon which my expositions rest, should consult
the critical discussions of the "Introduction" to my
larger work, the purpose of which is to ascertain
* Large octavo, 931 pages, 507 illustrations and 9 photo
gravure plates. This work, which is a monument of scholarship
and industry, is a complete descriptive and critical collection
of all the Mithraic texts, inscriptions, references, and monu
ments that have been recovered from antiquity. T. J. McC.
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION IX
the meaning and value of the written documents,
and especially of the figured monuments, there
described.
During the long period in which this work has been
in preparation I have been frequently obliged to
resort to that community of interest and sentiment
which unites men of science throughout the world,
and I may say I have rarely appealed to it in vain.
The courtesy of devoted friends, several of whom are
now no more, has often anticipated the expression
of my wishes, and has spontaneously placed at my
disposal things which I could scarcely have dared
to request. I have endeavored in my large work to
make due acknowledgment to each one of them. It
would not be fitting to give in this place a mere
mechanical list of the names of my collaborators,
and by bestowing upon them commonplace thanks
to appear in the light of cancelling the indebtedness
which I owe them. But it is with a feeling of pro
found gratitude that I recall to mind the services
which have been lavished upon me, and that, having
now reached the end of my task, after more than
ten years, I still think of all who have aided me in
completing it.
The first edition of the present work appeared
in 1900, and a second was called for not long after
wards. Few changes have been made. We have
added a few notes, made a few references to recent
articles, and adorned the pages with a considerable
number of illustrations.* The most important addi
tion is the chapter on Mithraic sculpture, which,
* The illustrations of the French edition numbered twenty-
two. The present English edition contains more than double
that number. T. J. McC.
X PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION
in view of the extensive researches now being
made as to the Oriental origins of Roman art, can
not fail to be of interest.
We have also to thank the many critics who have
so kindly reviewed our Mysteries of Mithra, and have
generously acknowledged that our reconstruction of
this vanished creed rests upon an objective and
complete interpretation of the sources. In a matter
which is still so obscure, it was inevitable that
certain divergences of opinion should have come to
light, and our conclusions, at times bold, may, in
certain points, have appeared to some erroneous.
We have had regard for these expressions of doubt in
our revision. If we have not always felt obliged to
modify our opinion, it is not because we have not
weighed the arguments of our critics, but because in
so small a volume as the present, from which all
discussions mustbe excluded, we had not the space to
substantiate our conclusions. It is a delicate matter,
we grant, to publish a text without the notes which
support, explain, and modify it; but we trust that
the reader will not feel too keenly this inevitable
omission.
FRANZ CUMONT.
GHENT, May ist, 1902.
Table of Contents
PAGE
PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION . . . iii
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM .... i
THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN
EMPIRE - .33
MlTHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF ROME . 86
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES . 104
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY, CLERGY AND DEVOTEES 150 x
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 175
v MITHRAIC ART 209
INDEX 229
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece. Bas-relief of Aquileia.
FIGURE PAGE
1. King Antiochus and Mithra. Bas-relief of Nemrood Dagh 14
2. Imperial Coins of Trapezus (Trebizond) . . . .18
3. Bactrian Coins ........ 19
4. Tauroctonous, or Bull-slaying, Mithra. Typical Repre
sentation. (Borghesi Bas-relief from the Capitol.
Now in the Louvre) . . . . . . .21
5. Tauroctonous Mithra. Artistic Type. (St. Petersburg) 22
6. Tauroctonous Mithra. Artistic Type. (Vatican) . 23
7. Tauroctonous Mithra. Early Artistic Type. (Boston) 24
8. King Antiochus and Ahura-Mazda. Bas-relief of Nem
rood Dagh 27
9. Mithraic Medallion from Tarsus, Cilicia . . 32
10. Tauroctonous Mithra. (British Museum) - . . -39
n. Sun-God. Fragment of the Bas-relief of Virunum . 50
12. Bas-relief of Osterburken 51
13. Plan of the Mithrseum of Heddernheim . . . 53
14. Reverse of the Bas-relief of Heddernheim . 54
15. Bas-relief of Neuenheim . ... 55
1 6. Plan of a Mithrseum in Ostia 65
17. Silvanus 66
18. Statues of Torch-bearers. (Lateran) . . . .68
19. Pedestal Found at Carnuntum . . . . . 88
20. Mithraic Kronos Found in Ostia ..... 105
21. Mithraic Kronos of Florence . . . . . 106
22. Mithraic Kronos of Rome . . . . . . . . 108
23. Mithraic Kronos Found in Ostia . . . . . no
24. Fragment of a Bas-relief Found in Virunum. (Klagenfurt) 113
25. Bas-relief of Heddernheim ...... 117
26. Bas-relief of London 122
27. Mithraic Cameo . 123
28. Mithraic Cameo, Showing Mithra and the Dioscuri . 124
29. Statues of Torch-bearers. (Palermo) .... 128
30. Mithra Born from the Rock ... . . 130
xiii
XIV LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIGURE PAGE
31. Mithra Born from the Rock . . . . . . 131
32. Fragment of Bas-relief of Virunum . . ... .133
33. Tauroctonous and Taurophorous (Bull-bearing) Mithra.
Clay Cup of Lanuvium . . . . . . 134
34. Two Bronze Mithraic Plaques. (Vatican) . . .136
35. Bas-relief of Apulum . . . . .. 139
36. Inscription to Mithra Nabarze. (Sarmizegetusa) . . 142
37. Tauroctonous Mithra. Bas-relief of Bologna . . 151
38. Mithraic Communion. Bas-relief of Konjica . . .159
39. Restoration of a Mithrseum at Carnuntum . . . 163
40. Tauroctonous Mithra of Toronto . . . . .176
41. Mithraic Gems. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
City) . . . .183
42. Mithraic Cameo ..... . . . .185
43. Sol, the Sun-God 186
44. The Passion of the God. Head of the So-called Dying
Alexander of the Uffizi Gallery . . . . 192
45. Bas-relief of Mayence. Mithra Drawing His Bow . 196
46. Chained Skeleton Discovered at Saarebourg . . . 204
47. Mithraic Dadophorus. Wrongly Restored as Paris . 212
48. Counterpart of the Preceding . . . . .213
49. Mithraic Kronos of Modena . > " . . . . 222
50. Birth of Erichthonios. Greek Vase . . . . .225
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM
IN THAT unknown epoch when the ances
tors of the Persians were still united with
those of the Hindus, they were already wor
shippers of Mithra. The hymns of the Vedas
celebrated his name, as did those of the
Avesta, and despite the differences obtaining
between the two theological systems of which
these books were the expression, the Vedic
Mitra and the Iranian Mithra have preserved
so many traits of resemblance that it is impos
sible to entertain any doubt concerning their
common origin. Both religions saw in hini_a
god of light, invoked together with Heaven,
.bearing in the one case the name of Varuna
. and in the other that pf_Ahura; in ethics he
was recognized as the pr(k^fff of truth, the
antagonist of falsehood and error. But the
sacred poetry of India has preserved of him an
obscured memory only. A single fragment,
and even that partially effaced, is all that
has been specially dedicated to him. He
appears mainly in incidental allusions, the
silent witnesses of his ancient grandeur. Still,
though his physiognomy is not so distinctly
2 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
limned in the Sanskrit literature as it is in the
Zend writings, the faintness of its outlines is
not sufficient to disguise the primitive identity
of his character.
According to a recent theory, this god, with
whom the peoples of Europe were unac
quainted, was not a member of the ancient
Aryan pantheon. Mitra-Varuna, and the five
other Adityas celebrated by the Vedas, like
wise Mithra-Ahura and the Amshaspands, who,
according to the Avestan conception surround
the Creator, are on this theory nothing but the
sun, the moon, and the planets, the worship
of which was adopted by the Indo-Iranians
"from a neighboring people, their superiors
in the knowledge of the starry firmament,"
who could be none other than the Accadian or
Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia.* But this
hypothetical adoption, if it really took place,
must have occurred in a prehistoric epoch,
and, without attempting to dissipate the ob
scurity of these primitive times, it will be
sufficient for us to state that thejribes of Iran
never ceased to worship Mithra from their
first assumption of worldly power till the day
of their conversion to Islam.
In the Avesta, Mi Jhra is the genius of the
celestial light. He appears before sunrise on
the rocky summits of the mountains; during
the day he traverses the wide firmament in his
chariot drawn by four white horses, and when
* Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 1894, p. 185.
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 3
night falls he still illumines with flickering
glow the surface of the earth, "ever waking,
ever watchful." He is neither sun, nor moon,
nor stars, but with "his .hundred ears and his
hundred eyes" watches constantly the worlo^. / /jt/9
Mithra hears all, sees all, knows all: none can
deceive him. By a natural transition he be
came for ethics the god of truth and integ
rity, the one that was invoked in solemn oaths,
that pledged the fulfilment of contracts, that
punished perjurers.
The light that dissipates darkness restores
happiness and life on earth; the heat that
accompanies it fecundates nature. Mithra is
"the lord of wide pastures," the one that ren
ders them fertile. "He giveth increase, he
giveth abundance, he giveth cattle, he giveth
progeny and life." He scatters the waters of
the heavens and causes the plants to spring
forth from the ground; on them that honor
him, he bestows health of body, abundance
of riches, and talented posterity. For he is
the dispenser not only of material blessings j
but of spiritual advantages as well. His is the
beneficent genius that accords peace of con
science, wisdom, and honor along with pros
perity, and causes harmony to reign among all
his votaries^k" The devas, who inhabit the
places of darkness, disseminate on earth along
with barrenness and suffering all manner of
vice and impurity. Mithra^ wakeful and-sleep-
less,protects the creation of Mazda" against
4 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
their machinations. He combats unceasingly
the spirits of evil; and the iniquitous that
serve them feel also the terrible visitations of
his wrath. From his celestial eyrie he spies
out his enemies; armed in fullest panoply he
swoops down upon them, scatters and slaugh
ters them. He desolates and lays waste the
homes of the wicked, he annihilates the tribes
and the nations that are hostile to him. On
the other hand he is the puissant ally of the
faithful in their warlike expeditions. The
blows of their enemies "miss their mark, for
Mithra, sore incensed, receives them"; and
he assures victory unto them that "have had
fit instruction in the Good, that honor him
and offer him the sacrificial libations."*
This character of jrod ojMiosts, which has
been the predominating trait of Mithra from
the days of the Achaemenides, undoubtedly-
became accentuated in the period of confusion
during which the Iranian tribes were still at
war with one another; but it is after all only;
the development of the ancient conception of j
struggle between day and night. In general, j
the picture that the Avesta offers us of the
old Aryan deity, is, as we have already said,
similar to that which the Vedas have drawn
in less marked outlines, and it hence follows
that Mazdaism left its main primitive founda
tion unaltered.
Still, though the Avestan hymns furnish the
* Zend-Avesta, Yasht, X., passim.
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 5
distinctest glimpses of the true physiognomy
of the ancient god of light, the-^Zajcaaslrian
system, in adopting his worship, has singularly
lessened his importance. As the price of his
admission to the Avestan Heaven, he was
compelled to submit to its laws. Theology
had placed Ahura-Mazda on the pinnacle of
the celestial hierarchy, and thenceforward it
could recognize none as his peer. Mithra was
not even made one of the six Amshaspands
that aided the Supreme Deity in governing /
the universe. Re was relegated, with the/
majority of the ancient divinities of nature, to!
the host of lesser genii or yazatas created by\
Mazda. He was associated with some of the\
deified abstractions which the Persians had \
learned to worship. As protector of warriors, /
he received for his companion, Verethraghna,
or Victory; as the defender of the truth, he
was associated with the pious Sraosha, or
Obedience to divine law, with Rashnu, Justice,
with Arshtat, Rectitude. As the tutelar gen
ius of prosperity, he is invoked with Ashi-
Vanuhi, Riches, and with Parendi, Abundance.
In company with Sraosha and Rashnu,___he
protects the soul of the just against the
demons that seek to drag it down to Hell, and
under their guardianship it soars aloft to Par
adise. This Iranian belief gave birth to th
doctrine of redemption by Mithra, which w
find developed in the Occident.
At the same time, his cult was subjected to
6 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
a rigorous ceremonial, conforming to the
Mazdean liturgy. _ Sacrificial offerings were
made to him of "small cattle and large, and of
flying birds." These immolations were pre
ceded or accompanied with the usual libations
of the juice^of Haoma, and with the recitation
of ritual prayers, the bundle, of sacred twigs
(baresman) always in the hand. But before
daring to approach the altar, the votary was
obliged to purify himself by repeated ablutions
and flagellations. These rigorous prescrip
tions recall the rite of baptism and the cor
poreal tests imposed on the Roman neophytes
before initiation.
Mithra, thus, was adopted in the theological
system of Zoroastrianism; a convenient place
was assigned to him in the divine hierarchy;
he was associated with companions of unim
peachable orthodoxy; homage was rendered
to him on the same footing with the other
genii. But his puissant personality had not
bent lightly to the rigorous restrictions that
had been imposed upon him, and there are to
be found in the sacred text vestiges of a more
ancient conception, according to which he
occupied in the Iranian pantheon a much
more elevated position. Several times he is
invoked in company with Ahura: the two gods
form a pair, for the light of Heaven and
Heaven itself are in their nature inseparable.
Furthermore, if it is said that Ahura created
Mithra as he did all things, it is likewise said
THE ORIGINS OF MITHKAISM 7
that he made him just as great and worthy as
himself. Mithra is indeed a yazata, but he is
also the most potent and most glorious of the
yazatas. "Ahura-Mazda established him to
maintain and watch over all this moving
world." * It is through the agency of this
ever-victorious warrior that the Supreme
Being destroys the demons and causes even
the Spirit of Evil, Ahriman himself, to tremble.
Compare these texts with the celebrated
passage in which Plutarchf expounds the dual-
istic doctrine of the Persians: Oromazes
dwells in the domain of eternal light "as far
above the sun as the sun is distant from the
earth"; Ahriman reigns in the realm of dark
ness, and Mithra occupies an intermediary
place between them. The beginning of the
Bundahisht expounds a quite similar theory,
save that in place of Mifhra it is the air
(Vayu} that is placed between Ormazd and
Ahriman. The contradiction is only one of
terms, for accoiding to Iranian ideas die air
is indissolubly conjoined with the light, which
it is thought to support. In fine, a supreme
god, enthroned in the empyrean above the
stars, where a perpetual serenity exists; below
him an active deity, his emissary and chief of
the celestial armies in their ceaseless combat
*Yasht, X., 103.
fPlutarch, De Iside et Osiride, 46-47 ; Textes et monuments,
Vol. II., p. 33-
{West, Pahlavi Texts, I. (also, Sacred Books of the East,
V.), 1880, p. 3, et seq.
8 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
with the Spirit of Darkness, who from the
bowels of Hell sends forth his devas to the
surface of the earth, this is the religious con
ception, far simpler than that of Zoroastrianism,
which appears to have been generally accepted
among the subjects of the Achaemenides.
The conspicuous role that the religion of
\ the ancient Persians accorded to Mithra is
| attested by a multitude of proofs. He alone,
with the goddess Anahita, is invoked in the
1 inscriptions of Artaxerxes alongside of Ahura-
| Mazda. The "great kings" were certainly
| ( very closely attached to him, and looked upon
1 him as their special protector. It is he whom
1 they call to bear witness to the truth of their
Iwords, and whom they invoke on the eve of
battle. They unquestionably regarded him as
[the god that brought victory to monarchs; he
t was, they thought, who caused that mysteri-
us light to descend upon them which, accord-
ng to the Mazdean belief, is a guaranty of
perpetual success to princes, wnuse authority
t consecrates.
The nobility followed the example of the
sovereign. The great number of theophorous,
or god-bearing, names, compounded with that
of Mithra, which were borne by their members
from remotest antiquity, is proof of the fact
that the reverence for this god was general
among them.
Mithra occupied a large place in the official
cult. In the calendar the seventh month was
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM
dedicatecLto him and also doubtless the
teenth day of each month. At the time of his
festival, tKeTung, if we may believe Ctesias,*
was permitted to indulge in copious libations
in his honor and to execute the sacred dances.
Certainly this festival was the occasion of
solemn sacrifices and stately ceremonies. The
Mithrakana were famed throughout all Hither
Asia, and in their form Mihragdn were des
tined, in modern times, to be celebrated at
the commencement of winter by Mussulman
Persia. TJie fame of Mithra extended to theg
borders of the ^gean Sea; he_ Is the~onlyj
Iranian god whose name was popular in ;
ancient Greece, and this fact alone proves how;\
deeply he was venerated by the nations of
the great neighboring empire.
The religion observed by the monarch and
by the entire aristocracy that aided him in
governing his vast territories could not pos
sibly remain confined to a few provinces of his
empire. We know that Artaxerxes Ochus
had caused statues of the goddess Anahita
to be erected in his different capitals, at Baby
lon, Damascus, and Sardis, as well as at Susa,
Ecbatana, and Persepolis. Babylon, in par
ticular, being the winter residence of the
sovereigns, was the seat of a numerous body
of official clergy, called Magi, who sat in \
authority over the indigenous priests. The
* Ctesias apud A then., X., 45 ( Textes et monuments, here
after cited as " T. et M." Vol. II., p. 10).
\
10 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
prerogatives that the imperial protocol guar
anteed to this official clergy could not render
them exempt from the influence of the power
ful sacerdotal caste that flourished beside them.
The erudite and refined theology of the Chal
deans was thus superposed on the primitive-
Mazdean belief, which was rather a congeries""
of traditions than a well-established body of -
definite dogmas. The legends of the two relig-_
ions were assimilated, their divinities were
identified, and the Semitic worship of the stars
fastrolatry), the monstrous fruit of long-con-
i tinued scientific observations, became amalga-
I mated with the nature-myths of the Iranians.
Ahura-Mazda was confounded with Bel, who
reigned over the heavens; Anahita was
likened to Ishtar, who presided over the
planet Venus; while MLthra_Jbe-afi^e--thre Sun,
Shamash. As Mithra in Persia, so Shamash
in Babylon is the god of justice; like him, he
also appears in the east, on the summits of
mountains, and pursues his daily course across
the heavens in a resplendent chariot; like
him, finally, he too gives victory to the arms
of warriors, and is the protector of kings.
The transformation wrought by Semitic theo
ries in the beliefs of the Persians was of so
profound a character that, centuries after, in
"Rome, the original home of Mithra was not
infrequently placed on the banks of the
Euphrates. According to Ptolemseus,* this
*Ptol., Tetrabibl., II., 2.
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM II
potent solar deity was worshipped in all the
countries that stretched from Irulia to Assyria.
But Babylon was a step only in the propa-
ga v tJO~nr~of M a z d aTs m . \ r ery early the Magi
had crossed Mesopotamia and penetrated to
the heart of Asia Minor. Even under the 1
first of the Achaemenides, it appears, they
established themselves in multitudes in Arme
nia, where the indigenous religion gradually
succumbed to their cult, and also in Cappa-
docia, where their altars still burned in great
numbers in the days of the famous geographer
Strabo. They swarmed, at a very remote
epoch, into distant Pontus, into Galatia, into i
Phrygia_,Jn Lydia even, under the reign of
the Antonines, their descendants still chanted
their barbaric hymns in a sanctuary attrib
uted to Cyrus. These communities, in Cap-
padocia at least, were destined to survive the
triumph of Christianity and to be perpetuated
until the fifth century of our era, faithfully
transmitting from generation to generation
their manners, usages, and modes of worship.
At first blush the fall of the empire of Da
rius would appear to have been necessarily
fatal to these religious colonies, so widely
scattered and henceforward to be severed
from the country of their birth. But in point
of fact it was precisely the contrary that hap
pened, and the Magi found in the Diadochi,
the successors of Alexander the Great, no
less efficient protection than that which they
12 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
enjoyed under the Great King and his satraps.
After the dismemberment of the empire of
Alexander (323 B.C.), there were established
| in Pontus, Cappadocia, Armenia^ and Com--
* magene, dynasties which the complaisant
genealogists of the day feigned to trace back
to the Achsemenian kings. Whether these
royal houses were of Iranian extraction or
not, their supposititious descent nevertheless
imposed upon them the obligation of worship
ping the gods of their fictitious ancestors. In
opposition to the Greek kings of Pergamon
and Antioch, they represented the ancient
traditions in religion and politics. These
princes and the magnates of their entourage
took a sort of aristocratic pride in slavishly
imitating the ancient masters of Asia. While
not evincing outspoken hostility to other
religions practised in their domains, they yet
reserved especial favors for the temples of
the Mazdean divinities. Oromazes (Ahura-
Mazda), Omanos (Vohumano), Artagnes (Ver-
ethraghna), Anaitis (Anahita), and still others
received their homage. But Mithra, above
all, was the object of their predilection. The
monarchs of these nations cherished for him
a devotion that was in some measure per
sonal, as the frequency of the name Mithra-
dates in all their families attests. Evidently
Mithra had remained for them, as he had been
* for Artaxerxes and Darius, the god that
/^Cgranted monarchs victory, the manifestation
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 13
and enduring guaranty of their legitimate
sights. . ..
This reverence for Persian customs, inher
ited from legendary ancestors, this idea that
piety is the bulwark of the throne and the sole
condition of success, is explicitly affirmed in
the pompous inscription* engraved on the
colossal tomb that Antiochus I., Epiphanes,
of Commagene (69-34 B.C.), erected on a spur
of the mountain-range vTaurus, commanding
a distant view of the vailey~of the Euphrates
(Figure i). But, being a descendant by his
mother of the Seleucidse of Syria, and sup
posedly by his father of Darius, son of
Hystaspes, the king of Commagene merged
the memories of his double origin, and
blended together the gods and the rites of the
Persians and the Greeks, just as in his own
dynasty the name of Antiochus alternated
with that of Mithridates.
Similarly in the neighboring countries, the I
Iranian princes and priests gradually suc
cumbed to the growing power of the Grecian
civilization. Under the Achaemenides, all the
different nations lying between the Pontus
Euxinus and Mount Taurus were suffered by
the tolerance of the central authority to prac
tise their local cults, customs, and languages.
But_ in the great confusion caused by the
collapse of the Persian empire, all political and
*Michel, Recueil inscr. gr. t No. 735. Compare T. et M.,
Vol. II., p. 89, No. i.
14 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
religious barriers were demolished. Hetero
geneous races had suddenly come in contact
with one another, and as a result Hither Asia
passed through a phase of ^syncretism analo-
Fig. i.
KING ANTIOCHUS AND MITHRA.
(Bas-relief of the colossal temple built by Antiochus I. of
Commagene, 69-34 B.C., on the Nemrood Dagh, a
spur of the Taurus Mountains. T. et Af. t p. 188.)
gous to that which is more distinctly observ
able under the Roman empire. The contact
of all the theologies of the Orient and all
the philosophies of Greece produced the most
startling combinations, and the competition
. THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 1 5
between the different creeds became exceed
ingly brisk. Many of the Magi, from Armenia
to Phrygia and Lydia, then doubtless departed
from their traditional reserve to devote them
selves to active propaganda, and like the Jews
of the same epoch they succeeded in gathering
around them numerous proselytes. Later,
when persecuted by the Christian emperors,
they were obliged to revert to their quondam
exclusiveness, and to relapse into a rigorism
that became more and more inaccessible.
It was undoubtedly during the period of
moral and religious fermentation provoked by
the Macedonian conquest that Mithraism
received approximately its definitive form. It
was already thoroughly consolidated when it
spread throughout the Roman empire. Its,
dogmas and its liturgic traditions must have
been firmly established from the beginning of
its diffusion. Bui unfortunately we are unable
to determine precisely either the country or
the period of time in which Mazdaism assumed
the characteristics that distinguished it in Italy.
Our ignorance of the religious movements
that agitated the Orient in the Alexandrian
epoch, the almost complete absence of direct
testimony bearing on the history of the
Iranian sects during the first three centuries
before our era, are our main obstacles in
obtaining certain knowledge of the develop
ment of Parseeism. The most we can do is
to unravel the principal factors that combined
16 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
to transform the religion of the Magi of Asia
Minor, and endeavor to show how in different
regions varying influences variously altered
its original character.
In Armenia, Mazdaism had coalesced with
the national beliefs of the country and also
with a Semitic element imported from Syria.
Mithra remained one of the principal divin
ities of the syncretic theology that issued
from this triple influence. As in the Occident,
some saw in Mithra the genius of fjre^ others
identified him with the =2 jtmj and fantastic
legends were woven about his name. He was
said to have sprung from the incestuous inter
course of Ahura-Mazda with his own mother,
and again to have been the offspring of a
common mortal. We shall refrain from dwell
ing upon these and other singular myths.
Their character is radically different from the
dogmas accepted by the Occidental votaries
of the Persian god. That peculiar admixture
of disparate doctrines which constituted the
religion of the Armenians appears to have
had no other relationship with Mithraism than
that of a partial community of origin.
In the remaining portions of Asia Minor the
changes which Mazdaism underwent were far
from being as profound as in Armenia. The
opposition between the indigenous cults and
the religion whose Iranian origin its votaries
delighted in recalling, never ceased to be felt.
The pure doctrine of which the worshippers
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM I/
of fire were the guardians could not reconcile
itself easily with the orgies celebrated in honor
of the lover of Cybele. Nevertheless, during
the long centuries that the emigrant Magi
lived peacefully among the autochthonous
tribes, certain amalgamations of the concep
tions of the two races could not help being
effected. In Pontus, Mithra is represented
on horseback like Men, the lunar god honored
throughout the entire peninsula. In other
places, he is pictured in broad, slit trousers
(anaxy rides), recalling to mind the mutilation
of Attis. In Lydia, Mithra-Anahita became
Sabazius-Anaitis. Other local divinities like
wise lent themselves to identification with the
powerful yazata. It would appear as if the
priests of these uncultured countries had
endeavored to make their popular gods the
compeers of those whom the princes and
nobility worshipped. But we have too little
knowledge of the religions of these coun
tries to determine the precise features which
they respectively derived from Parseeism or
imparted to it. That there was a reciprocal
influence we definitely know, but its precise
scope we are unable to ascertain. Still, how
ever superficial it may have been,* it certainly
*M. Jean R6ville (Etudes de theologie et d hist. pub I. en
hommage a la faculte de Montauban, Paris 1901, p. 336) 13
inclined to accord a considerable share in the formation of!
Mithraism to the religions of Asia ; but it is impossible in the
present state of our knowledge to form any estimate of the ex
tent of this influence.
18
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Fig. 2.
IMPERIAL COINS OF TRAPEZUS (TREBIZOND),
A CITY OF PONTUS.
Representing a divinity on horseback resembling
both Men and Mithra, and showing that in Pontus the
two were identified.
a. Bronze coins. Obverse: Bust of Alexander
Severus, clad in a paludamentum ; head crowned with
laurel. Reverse : The composite Men-Mithra in Orien
tal costume, wearing a Phrygian cap, and mounted on
a horse that advances toward the right. In front,
a flaming altar. On either side, the characteristic
Mithraic torches, respectively elevated and reversed.
At the right, a tree with branches overspreading the
horseman. In front, a raven bending towards him.
(218 A.D.)
b. A similar coin.
c. Obverse: Alexander Severus. Reverse: Men-
Mithra on horseback advancing towards the right. In
the foreground, a flaming altar; in the rear, a tree
upon which a raven is perched.
d. A similar coin, having on its obverse the bust
of Gordianus III. (T. et M., p. 190.)
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM IQ
did prepare for the intimate union which was
soon to be effected in the West between the
Mysteries of Mithra and those of the Great
Mother.
BACTRIAN COINS.
On the coins of the Scythian kings Kanerkes and
Hooerkes, who reigned over Kabul and the Northwest
of India from 87 to 129 A.D., the image of Mithra is
found in company with those of other Persian, Greek,
and Hindu gods. These coins have little direct con
nection with the Mysteries as they appeared in the
Occident, but they merit our attention as beinytfrp
only representations of Mithra which are found out-
ouares o
Kin Kanerkes. Re
n. Obverse: An image
verse: An image of Mithra.
b. The obverse has a bust of King Hooerkes, and
the reverse an image of Mithra as a goddess.
c. Bust of Hooerkes with a lunar and a solar god
(Mithra) on its reverse side.
d. Bust of Hooerkes, with Mithra alone on its
reverse.
*>/> Similar coins. (T. et M., p. 186.)
2O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
When, as the outcome of the expedition of
Alexander (33.4-323 B.C.), the civilization of
Greece spread throughout all Hither Asia, it
impressed itself upon Mazdaism as far east as
Bactriana. Nevertheless, Iranism, if we may
employ such a designation, never surrendered
to Hellenism. Iran proper soon recovered its
moral autonomy, as well as its political inde-
j pendence; and generally speaking, the power
of resistance offered by Persian traditions to
an assimilation which was elsewhere easily
effected is one of the most salient traits of the
history of the relations of Greece with the
Orient. But the Magi of Asia Minor, being
much nearer to the great foci of Occidental
culture, were more vividly illumined by their
I radiation. Without suffering themselves to be.
absorbed by the religion of the conquering
strangers, they combined their cults with it.
In order to harmonize their barbaric beliefs
with the Hellenic ideas, recourse was had to
the ancknt^racti^Q^ They
strove to demonstrate that the Mazdean
heaven was inhabited by the same denizens
as Olympus: Ahura-Mazda as Supreme Being
was confounded with Zeus; Verethraghna, the
victorious hero, with Heracles; Anahita, to
whom the bull was consecrated, became Arte
mis Tauropolos, and the identification went
so far as to localize in her temples the fable of
Orestes. Mithra, already regarded in Baby
lon as the peer of Shamash, was naturally
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM
21
Fig. 4.
TYPICAL REPRESENTATION OF MITHRA.
(Famous Borghesi bas-relief in white marble, now in
the Louvre, Paris, but originally taken from
the mithraeum of the Capitol.)
Mithra is sacrificing the bull in the cave. The char
acteristic features of the Mithra monuments are all
represented here: the youths with the upright and the
inverted torch, the snake, the dog, the raven, Helios,
the god of the sun, and Selene, the goddess of the moon.
Owing to the Phrygian cap, the resemblance of the
face to that of Alexander, and the imitation of the motif
of the classical Greek group of Nike sacrificing a bull,
all characteristics of the Diadochian epoch, the orig
inal of all the works of this type has been attributed
to an artist of Pergamon. ( 71 et M., p. 194.)
22 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
associated with Helios; but he was not subor
dinated to him, and his Persian name was
never replaced in the liturgy by a translation,
as had been the case with the other divinities
worshipped in the Mysteries.
The synonymy thus speciously established
Fig. 5-
TAUROCTONOUS MITHRA.
Artistic Type.
(Bas-relief, formerly in domo Andrea; Cinquina;, now
in St. Petersburg. T. et M., p. 229.)
between appellations having no relationship
did not remain the exclusive diversion of the
mythologists; it was attended with the grave
consequence that the vague personifications
conceived by the Oriental imagination now
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 23
assumed the precise forms with which the
Greek artists had invested the Olympian gods.
Possibly they had never before been repre
sented in the guise of the human form, or if
images of them existed in imitation of the
Fig. 6.
TAUROCTONOUS M1THRA.
Artistic Type (Second Century).
(Grand group of white marble, now in the Vatican.
T. et M., p. 210)
Assyrian idols they were doubtless both gro
tesque and crude. Iri_thus imparting to the
Mazdean heroes all the seductiveness of the
Hellenic ideal, the conception of their char
acter was necessarily modified; and, pruned
of their exotic features, they were rendered
24 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA .
/ more readily acceptable to the Occidental
/ peoples. One of the indispensable^conditions
for the success of this exotic religion in the
Roman world was fulfilled when towards the
second century before our era a sculptor of
the school of Pergamon composed the pathetic
Fig. 7-
TAUROCTONOUS MITHRA.
Early Artistic Type.
(Bas-relief of white marble, Rome, now in the Museum
of Fine Arts, Boston.)
group of Mithra Tauroctonos, to which uni
versal custom thenceforward reserved the
place of honor in the apse of the spel<za*
But not only did art employ its powers to
soften the repulsive features which these rude
* Compare the Chapter on "Mithraic Art."
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 25
Mysteries might possess for minds formed in
the schools of Greece; philosophy also strove
to reconcile their doctrines with its teachings,
or rather the Asiatic priests pretended to dis
cover in their sacred traditions the theories of
the_philosophic sects. None of these sects so
.readily lent itself to aljjgnrp; "yith th^ popular [
devotion as that of the Stoa, and its influence
on the formation of Mithraism was profound.
An ancient myth sung by the Magi is quoted
by Dion Chrysostomos* on account of its alle
gorical resemblance to the Stoic cosmology;
and many other Persian ideas were similarly
modified by the pantheistic conceptions of the
disciples of Zeno. Thinkers accustomed them
selves more and more to discovering in the
dogmas and liturgic usages of the Orientals
the obscure reflections of an ancient wis
dom, and these tendencies harmonized too
much with the pretensions and the interest of
the Mazdean clergy not to be encouraged by
them with every means in their power.
But if philosophical speculation transformed ,
the character of the beliefs of the Magi, invest
ing them with a scope which they did not
originally possess, its influence was neverthe
less upon the whole conservative rather than
revolutionary. The very fact that it invested
legends which were ofttimes puerile with a
symbolical significance, that it furnished
*Dion Chrys., Or., XXXVI., 39, et seq. (T. et M., Vol.
II., p. 60, No. 461).
26 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
rational explanations for usages which were
apparently absurd, did much towards insuring
their perpetuity. If the theological founda
tion of the religion was sensibly modified, its
liturgic framework remained relatively fixed,
and the changes wrought in the dogma were
in accord with the reverence due to the ritual.
The superstitious formalism of which the
minute prescriptions of the Vendidad were
the expression is certainly prior to the period
of the Sassanids. The sacrifices which the
Magi of Cappadocia offered in the time of
Strabo (circa 63 B.C. 21 A. D.) are reminiscent
of all the peculiarities of the Avestan liturgy.
It was the same psalmodic prayers before the
altar of fire; and the same bundle of sacred
twigs (baresman)\ the same oblations of milk,
oil, and honey; the same precautions lest the
breath of the officiating priest should contami
nate the divine flame. The inscription of
Antiochus of Commagene (69-34 B.C.) in the
rules that it prescribes gives evidence of a like
scrupulous fidelity to the ancient Iranian cus
toms. The king exults in having always
honored the gods of his ancestors according
to the tradition of the Persians and the
Greeks; he expresses the desire that the
priests established in the new temple shall
wear the sacerdotal vestments of the same
Persians, and that they shall officiate con
formably to the ancient sacred custom. The
sixteenth day of each month, which is to be
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 2J7
specially celebrated, is not to be the birthday
of the king alone, but also the day which from
time immemorial was specially consecrated to
Mithra. Many, many years after, another
Fig. 8.
KING ANTIOCHUS AND AHURA-MAZDA.
(Bas-relief of the temple of Antiochus I. of Commagene,
69-34 B.C., on the Nemrood Dagh, a spur of the
Taurus Mountains. Tet M., p. iSS.)
Commagenean, Lucian of Samosata, in a pas
sage apparently inspired by practices he had
witnessed in his own country, could still deride
the repeated purifications, the interminable
chants, and the long Medtan robes of the
28 THE MYSTERIES OF M1THRA
Sectarians of Zoroaster.* Furthermore, he
taunted them with being ignorant even of
Greek and with mumbling an incoherent and
unintelligible gibberish. f
The conservative spirit of the Magi of Cap-
padocia, which bound them to the time-worn
usages that had been handed down from gen
eration to generation, abated not one jot of
its power after the triumph of Christianity;
and St. BasilJ has recorded the fact of its per
sistence as late as the end of the fourth cen
tury. Even in Italy it is certain that the
Iranian Mysteries never ceased to retain a
goodly proportion of the ritual forms that Maz-*
daism had observed in Asia Minor time out of
mind. The principal innovation consisted
in substituting for the Persian as the liturgic
language, the Greek, and later perhaps the
Latin. This reform presupposes the exist
ence of sacred books, and it is probable that
subsequently to the Alexandrian epoch the
prayers and canticles that had been originally
transmitted orally were committed to writing,
lest their memory should fade forever. But
this necessary accommodation to the new en
vironments did not prevent Mithraism from
*Luc., Menipp., c. 6 (T. et M., Vol. II., p. 22).
fLuc., Deorum cone., c. 9, Jup. Trag., c. 8, c. 13 (T. et
M., ibid.)
{Basil., Epist. 238 ad Epiph. ( T. et M., Vol. I., p. 10, No.
3). Compare Priscus, fr. 31 (I. 342 Hist, min., Dind.).
gSee the Chapter on "Liturgy, Clergy, &c."
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 2Q
preserving to the very end a ceremonial which
was essentially Persian.
The Greek name of "Mysteries" which
writers have applied to this religion should
not mislead us. The adepts of Mithraism did
not imitate the Hellenic cults in the organiza
tion of their secret societies, the esoteric
doctrine of which was made known only after
a succession of graduated initiations. In
Persia itself the Magi constituted an exclusive
caste, which appears to have been subdivided
into several subordinate classes. And those
of them who took up their abode in the midst
of foreign nations different in language and
manners were still more jealous in concealing
their hereditary faith from the profane. The
knowledge of their arcana gave them a lofty
consciousness of their moral superiority and
insured their prestige over the ignorant popu
lations that surrounded them. It is probable
that the Mazdean priesthood in Asia Minor
as in Persia was primitively the hereditary
attribute of a tribe, in which it was handed
down from father to son; that afterwards its
incumbents consented, after appropriate cere
monies of initiation, to communicate its secret
dogmas to strangers, and that these proselytes
were then gradually admitted to all the dif
ferent ceremonies of the cult. The Iranian
diaspora is comparable in this respect, as in
many others, with that of the Jews. Usage
soon distinguished between the different
30 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
classes of neophytes, ultimately culminating
in the establishment of a fixed hierarchy. But
the complete revelation of the sacred beliefs
and practices was always reserved for the
privileged few; and this mystic knowledge^
appeared to increase in excellence in propor
tion as it became more occult.
All the original rites that characterized the
Mithraic cult of the Romans unquestionably
go back to Asiatic origins: the animal dis
guises used in certain ceremonies are a sur
vival of a very widely-diffused prehistoric
custom which still survives in our day; the
practice of consecrating mountain caves to
the god is undoubtedly a heritage of the time
when temples were not yet constructed; the
cruel tests imposed on the initiated recall the
bloody mutilations that the servitors of Ma
and of Cybele perpetrated. Similarly, the
legends of which Mithra is the hero cannot
have been invented save in a pastoral epoch.
These antique traditions of a primitive and
crude civilization subsist in the Mysteries
by the side of a subtle theology and a lofty
j \ system of ethics.
"An analysis of the constituent elements of
Mithraism, like a cross-section of a geological
formation, shows the stratifications of this
composite mass in their regular order of depo-
(l / sition. The basal layer of this religion, its
lower and primordial stratum, is the faith of
ancient Iran, from which it took its origin.
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM 3!
Above this Mazdean substratum was depos- j ^
itecTm Babylon a thick sediment of Semitic
doctrines, and afterwards the local beliefs of
Asia Minor added to it their alluvial deposits.
Finally, a luxuriant vegetation of Hellenic
ideas J)urst forth from this fertile soil and
partly concealed from view its true original
nature.
This composite religion, in which so many i
heterogeneous elements were welded together, j
is the adequate expression of the complex
civilization that flourished in the Alexandrian
epoch in Armenia, Cappadocia, and Pontus.
If Mithridates Eupator had realized his ambi
tious dreams, this Hellenized Parseeism would
doubtless have become the state-religion of a
vast Asiatic empire. But the course of its
destinies was changed by the vanquishment of
this great adversary of Rome (66 B.C.). The
ddbris of the Pontic armies and fleets, the
fugitives driven out by the war and flocking
in from all parts of the Orient, disseminated
the Iranian Mysteries among that nation of
pirates that rose to power under the protecting
shelter of the mountains of Cilicia. Mithra
became firmly established in this country, in
which Tarsus continued to worship him until
the downfall of the empire (Figure 9). Sup
ported by its bellicose religion, this republic
of adventurers dared to dispute the supremacy
of the seas with the Roman colossus. Doubt
less they considered themselves the chosen
32 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
nation, destined to carry to victory the religion
of the invincible god. Strong in the conscious
ness of his protection, these audacious mariners
boldly pillaged the most venerated sanctu-
Fig. 9.
MITHRAIC MEDALLION OF BRONZE FROM TARSUS,
CILICIA.
Obverse: Bust of Gordianus III., clad in a palu-
damentum and wearing a rayed crown. Reverse:
Mithra, wearing a rayed crown and clad in a floating
chlamys, a tunic covered by a breast-plate, and anaxy-
rides (trousers), seizes with his left hand the nostrils of
the bull, which he has forced to its knees, while in his
right hand he holds aloft a knife with which he is
about to slay the animal. (T. et M., p. 190.)
aries of Greece and Italy, and the Latin
world rang for the first time with the name of
the barbaric divinity that was soon to impose
upon it his adoration.
THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN
THE ROMAN EMPIRE
IT MAY be said, in a general way, that i
Mithra remained forever excluded from
the Hellenic world. The ancient authors of
Greece speak of him only as a foreign god
worshipped by the kings of Persia. Even
during the Alexandrian epoch he had not
descended from the plateau of Asia Minor to
the shores of Ionia. In all the countries
washed by the ^gean Sea, only a single late
inscription in the Piraeus recalls his existence, =
and we seek in vain for his name among
the numerous exotic divinities worshipped at
Delos in the second century before our era. |
Under the empire, it is true, rnithrseums are
found in divers ports of the coast of Phoenicia
and Egypt, near Aradus, Sidon, and Alexan
dria; but these isolated monuments only throw
into stronger relief the absence of every ves
tige of the Mithraic Mysteries in the interior
of the country. The recent discovery of a
temple of Mithra at Memphis would appear
to be an exception that confirms the rule, for
the Mazdean deity was probably not intro
duced into that ancient city until the time of
the Romans. He has not been mentioned
hitherto in any inscription of Egypt or Assyria,
and there is likewise nothing to show that
altars were erected to him even in the capital
33
34 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
*"N
of the SeleucidcC. In these semi-Oriental em
pires the powerful organization of the indig
enous clergy and the ardent devotion of the
people for their national idols appear to have
arrested the progress of the invader and to
have paralyzed his influence.
One characteristic detail shows that the
Iranian yazata never made many converts in
the Hellenic or Hellenized countries. Greek
onomatology, which furnishes a considerable
series of theophorous or god-bearing names
indicating the popularity which the Phrygian
and Egyptian divinities enjoyed, has no Mith-
rion, MitJirocles, Mithrodorus, or Mithrophilus,
to show as the counterparts of its Menophili,
its Metrodoti, its Isidori, and its Serapions.
All the derivatives of Mithra are of barbaric
formation. Although the Thracian Bendis, the
Asian Cybele, the Serapis of the Alexandrians,
and even the Syrian Baals, were successively
received with favor in the cities of Greece,
that country never extended the hand of hospi
tality to the tutelar deity of its ancient enemies.
His distance from the great centers of
ancient civilization explains the belated arrival
of Mithra in the Occident. Official worship "
was rendered at Rome to the Magna Mater
of Pessinus as early as 204 B.C.; Isis and
Serapis made their appearance there in the
first century before our era, and long before
this they had counted their worshippers in
Italy by multitudes. The Carthaginian Astarte
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 35
had a temple in the capital from the end of
the Punic Wars; the Bellona of Cappadocia
from the period of Sulla; the Dca Syria of
Hierapolis from the beginning of the empire -
when the Persian Mysteries were still totally
unknown there. And yet these deities were
those of a nation or a city only, while^lhe
domain of Mithra extended from the Indus
to the Pontus Euxinus.
But this dbmain, even in the epoch of
Augustus, was still situated almost entirely
beyond the frontiers of the empire; and the
central plateau of Asia Minor, which had
long resisted the Hellenic civilization, remained
even more hostile to the culture ofRome.
This region of steppes, forests, and pastures,
intersected by precipitous declivities, and
having a climate more rigorous than that of
Germany, had no attractions for foreigners,
and the indigenous dynasties which, despite
the state of vassalage to which they had been
reduced, still held their ground under the
early Caesars, encouraged the isolation that
had been their distinction for ages.
jt is true, had been organized as
province in the year 102 B.C., but a few points
only on the coast had been occupied at that
period, and the^oiiaiLest_-ol..tlie_country was
not completed until two centuries later. Cap
padocia was not incorporated until the reign
of Tiberius, the western part of Pontus until
the reign of Nero, and Commagene and Les-
,6 THE MYSTERIES OF M1THRA
ser Armenia not definitively until the reign
of Vespasian. Not until then were regular
and immediate Cations established between
these remote countries and the Occident. 1 h
exigencies of administration and the organiza
tion of defence, the mutations of governors
and officers, the relieving of procurators ; and
revenue officers, the levies of troops of infantry
and cavalry, and .finally the Permanent estab
lishment of thra legions along the frontier ot
the Euphrates, provoked a perpetual inter
change of men, products, and ideas between
thL mountainous districts hitherto closed to
\ the world, and the European provinces. Then
came the great expeditions of 1 rajan, 01
Lucius Verus, of Septimius Seven* the sub
jection of Mesopotamia, and the foundation of
numerous colonies in Osrhoene and as far as
Nineveh, which formed the links of a great
chain binding Iran with the Mediterranean^
These successive annexations of the Caesars
were the first cause of the diffusion of th,
Mithraic religion in the Latin world. _ It be
gan to spread there under the Flavians
and developed under the Antomnes and the
Seven, just" as did another cult practised
alongside of it in Commagene, namely that
of jSpiter Dolichenus* which made at the
same time the tour of the Roman empire.
According to PlutarcWJMithrajva
tPl^rch^* 6 /^ , *l(T. et M., Vol. II., P. 35 d.).
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 37
duced much earlier into Italy. The Romans, I
by this account, are said to have been initiated
into his Mysteries by the Cilician pirates con
quered by Pompey. Plutarch s testimony has
nothing improbable in it., We know that
the first Jewish community established trans
Tiberim (across the Tiber) was composed of
captives that the same Pompey had brought
back from the capture of Jerusalem (63 B.C.)/ V
Qwing to this particular event, it is possible
that towards the end of the republic the Persian
god actually had found a few faithful devotees
in the mixed populace of the capital. "But
mingled with the multitudes of fellow wor
shippers that practised foreign rites, his little
group of votaries did not attract attention.
The yazata was the object of the same distrust
as the Asiatics that worshipped him. The
influence of this small band of sectaries on
the great mass of the Roman population was
virtually as infinitesimal as is to-day the influ
ence of Buddhistic societies on modern Europe.
It was not until the end of .the first centuryj
that the name of Mithra began to be gener-l
airy bruited abroad in Rome. When Statius
wrote the first canto of the Thebaid, about
eighty years after Christ, he had already seen
typical representations of the tauroctonous
hero,* and it appears from foe testimony of
Plutarch that in his time (46-125 A.D.) the
*Statius, TJicb., I., 717: Per set sub rupibus antri Indig-
nata sequi torquentem cornua Mit/iram.
38 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Mazdean sect already enjoyed a certain noto
riety in the Occident.* This conclusion is
confirmed by epigraphic documents. The
most ancient inscription to Mithra which we
possess is a bilingual inscription of a freed-
man of the Elavians (69-96 A.D.). Not long
after, a marble group is consecrated to him
by a slave of T. Claudius Livianus who was
pretorian prefect under Trajan (102 A.D.)
(Figure 10). The invincible god must also have
penetrated about the same time into central
Italy, at Nersae, in the country of the /Equi; a
text of the year 172 A.D. has been discovered
which speaks of a mithraeum that had "crum
bled to pieces from old age." The appear
ance of the invader in the northern part of
the empire is almost simultaneous. It is
undoubted that the fifteenth legion brought
the Mysteries to Carnuntum on the Danube
, about the beginning of the reign of Vespasian,
if and we also know that about 148 A.D. they
Were practised by the troops in Germany.
Under the Antonines, especially from the
beginning of the reign of Commodus, the
proofs of their presence abound in all coun-
( tries. At the end of the second century, the
Mysteries were celebrated at Ostia in at least
four temples.
We cannot think of enumerating all the
cities in which our Asiatic cult was estab
lished, nor of stating in each case the reasons
*Plut, /. c.
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
39
why it was introduced. Despite their fre
quency, the epigraphic texts and sculptured
monuments throw but very imperfect light on j
Fig. 10.
TAUROCTONOUS MITHRA.
(Marble group of the second century, British Museum.)
The remarkable feature of this group is that not
blood, but three spikes of wheat, issue from the wound
of the bull. According to the Mithraic theory, wheat
and the vine sprang from the spinal cord and the blood
of the sacrificed animal (see the Chapter on "The
Doctrine of the Mithraic Mysteries"). T. ct M., p. 228.
the local history of Mithraism. It is impos
sible for us to follow the detailed steps in its
advancement, to distinguish the concurrent
influences exercised by the different churches,
40 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
to draw up a picture of the work of conver
sion, pursuing its course from city to city and
province to province. All that we can do is
to indicate in large outlines in what countries
the new faith was propagated and who were
in general the champions that advocated it.
The principal agent of its diffusion was
undoubtedly the army. The Mithraic religion
is predominantly a religion of soldiers, and it
was not without good reason that the name
of milites was given to a certain grade of
initiates. The influence of the army may
appear less capable of affording an explana
tion when one reflects that under the emper
ors the legions were quartered in stationary
encampments, and from the time of Hadrian
at least (117-138 A.D.) they were severally
recruited from the provinces in which they
were stationed. But this general rule was
subject to numerous exceptions. Thus, for
example, the Asiatics contributed for a long
time the bulk of the effective troops in Dal-
matia and Mcesia, and for a certain period in
Africa also. Furthermore, the soldier who
after several years of service in his native
country had been promoted to the rank of
centurion was as a rule transferred to some
foreign station; and after he had passed
through the different stages of his second
charge he was often assigned to a new garri
son, so that the entire body of centurions of
any one legion constituted "a sort of micro-
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 4!
cosm of the empire."* These officers were a
potent source of influence, for their very posi
tion insured to them a considerable moral
influence over the conscripts whom it was/
their vocation to instruct. In addition to this
individual propaganda, which is almost totally
withdrawn from our ken, the temporary or
permanent transfers of single detachments,
and sometimes of entire regiments, to remotely
situated fortresses or camps brought together
people of all races and beliefs. Finally, there
were to be found side by side with the legion
aries who were Roman citizens, an equal, if
not a greater, number of foreign auxilia, who
did not, like their comrades, enjoy the privi
lege of serving in their native country. Indeed,
in order to forestall local uprisings, it was a
set part of the imperial policy to remove
these foreign troops as far as possible from
the country of their origin. Thus, under
the Flavians, the indigenous ales or cohorts
formed but a minimal fraction of the auxil
iaries that guarded the frontiers of the Rhine
and the Danube.
Among the recruits summoned from abroad \
to take the place of the national troops sent
to distant parts were numerous Asiatics, and
perhaps no country of the Orient furnished, i
relatively to the extent of its territory, a
greater number of Roman soldiers than Com-
magene, where Mithraism had struck deepest
*Jung, Fasten der Provinz Dacien, 1894, p. xiv.
42 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
, root. In addition to horsemen and legion
aries, there were levied in this country, prob
ably at the time of its union with the empire,
at least six cohorts of allies (auxilid). .Nurnejr-
ous also were the native soldiers of Cappa-
docia, Pontus, and Cilicia, not to speak of
Syrians of all classes; and the Caesars did not
scruple even to enroll those agile squadrons
of Parthian cavalry with whose warlike quali
ties they had, to their own cost, but too often
been made acquainted.
The Roman soldier was, as a rule, pious and
I even superstitious. The many perils to which
he was exposed caused him to seek unremit
tingly the protection of Heaven, and an incal
culable number of dedicatory inscriptions
bears witness both to the vivacity of his faith
and to the variety of his beliefs. T]i_e_._Qt:ienr_.
tals especially, transported for twenty years
and more into countries which were totally
strange to them, piously preserved the mem
ories of their national divinities, and when
ever the opportunity offered, they did not fail
to assemble for the purpose of rendering them
devotion. They had experienced the need of
conciliating the great lord (Baal}, whose
anger as little children they had learned to
fear. Their worship also offered an occasion
for reunion, and for recalling to memory under
the gloomy climates of the North their distant
country. But their brotherhoods were not
exclusive; they gladly admitted to their rites
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 43
those of their companions in arms, of what
ever origin, whose aspirations the official re
ligion of the army failed to satisfy, and who
hoped to obtain from the foreign god more
efficacious succor in their combats, or, in case
of death, a happier lot in the life to come
Afterwards, these neophytes, transferred to
other garrisons according to the exigencies
of the service or the necessities of war, from
converts became converters, and formed abou
them a new nucleus of proselytes. In this
manner, the Mysteries of Mithra, first brough
to Europe by semi-barbarian recruits from
Cappadocia or Commagene, were rapidly dis
seminated to the utmost confines of the an
cient world.
From the banks of the Black Sea to the
mountains of Scotland and to the borders of
the great Sahara Desert, along the entire
length of the Roman frontier, Mithraic mon
uments abound. Lower Mcesia, which was
not explored until very recently, has already
furnished a number of them, a circumstance
which will not excite our astonishment when
it is remembered that Oriental contingents
supplied in this province the deficiency ot
native conscripts. To say nothing of the
port of Tomi, legionaries practised the Per
sian cult at Troesmis, at Durostorum, and at
CEscus, as well as at the Tropaum Traiani,
which the discovery of the monuments of
Adam-Klissi has recently rendered celebrated.
44 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
In the interior of the country, this cult pene
trated to Montana and to Nicopolis; and it is
doubtless from these northern cities that h
crossed the Balkans and spread into the north
ern parts of Thrace, notably above Serdica
(Sofia.) and as far as the environs of Philippop-
olis in the valley of the Hebrus. Ascending
the Danube, it gained a footing at Vimina-
cium, the capital of Upper Mcesia; but we are
ignorant of the extent to which it spread in
this country, which is still imperfectly explored.
The naval flotilla that patrolled the waters of
this mighty river was manned and even com
manded by foreigners, and the fleet undoubt
edly disseminated the Asiatic religion in all the
ports it touched.
We are better informed regarding the cir
cumstances of the introduction of Mithra-
ism into Dacia. When in 107 A.D. Trajan
annexed this barbarous kingdom to the Ro
man empire, the country, exhausted by six
years of obstinate warfare, was little more
than a desert. To repopulate it, the emperor
transported to it, as Eutropius* tells us, mul
titudes of colonists "ex toto orbe Romano! from
all the territories of Rome. The population
of this country was even more mixed in the
second century than it is to-day, where all the
races of Europe are still bickering and battling
with one another. Besides the remnants of
the ancient Dacians, were found here Illyrians
*Eutropius, VIII, 6.
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 45
and Pannonians, Galatians, Carians, and
Asiatics, people from Edessa and Palmyra,
and ^till others besides, all of whom contin
ued to practise the religions of their native
countries. But none of these cults prospered
more than the Mysteries of Mithra, and one
is astounded at the prodigious development
that this religion took during the 150 years
that the Roman domination lasted in this
region. It flourished not only in the capital
of the province, Sarmizegetusa, and in the
cities that sprang up near the Roman camps,
like Potaissa and notably Apulum, but along
the entire extent of the territory occupied bjy*
the Romans. Whereas one cannot find in
Dacia, so far as I know, the slightest vestige
of a Christian community, from the fortress
Szamos Ujvar to the northern frontier and as
far as Romula in Wallachia, multitudes of
inscriptions, of sculptures, and of altars which
have escaped the destruction of mithrseums
have been found. These debris especially
abound in the central portions of the country,
along the great causeway that followed the
course of the valley of the Maros, the princi
pal artery by which the civilization of Rome
spread into the mountains of the surround
ing country. The single colony of Apulum
counted certainly four temples of the Persian
deity, and the spelaum of Sarmizegetusa,
recently excavated, still contains the frag
ments of a round fifty of bas-reliefs and other
46 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
votive tablets which the piety of the faithful
had there consecrated to their god.
Likewise in Pannonia, the Iranian religion
implanted itself in the fortified cities that
formed the chain of Roman defences along
the Danube, in Cusum, Intercisa, Aquincum,
Brigetio, Carnuntum, Vindobona, and even in
the hamlets of the interior. It was especially
powerful in the two principal places of this
double province, in Aquincum and in Carnun
tum; and in both of these cities the causes
of its greatness are easily discovered. The
first-named city, where in the third century
the Mysteries were celebrated in at least five
temples scattered over its entire area, was
the headquarters of the Icgio II adjutrix*
which had been formed in the year 70 A.D.
by Vespasian from sailors of the fleet sta
tioned at Ravenna. Among the freedmen
thus admitted into the regular army, the pro
portion of Asiatics was considerable, and it is
probable that from the very beginning Mithra-
ism counted a number of adepts in this irreg
ular legion. When towards the year 120 A.D.
it was established by Hadrian in Lower Pan
nonia, it undoubtedly brought with it to this
place the Oriental cult to which it appears to
have remained loyal to the day of its dissolu
tion. The Icgio I adjutrix, which had a similar
*One of the legions raised by the proconsuls in the Roman
provinces for the purpose of strengthening the veteran army.
Trans.
MJTHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 4/
origin, probably sowed the fertile seeds of
Mithraism in like manner in Brigetio, when
under Trajan its camp was transferred to that
place.
We can determine with even greater pre
cision the manner in which the Persian god
arrived at Carnuntum. In 71 or 72 A.D., Ves- .
pasian caused this important strategic posi
tion to be occupied by the legio XV Apol-
linaris, which for the preceding eight or nine
years had been warring in the Orient. Sent
in 63 A.D. to the Euphrates to reinforce
the army which Corbulo was leading against
the Parthians, it had taken part during the
years 67 to 70 A.D. in suppressing the upri
sings of the Jews, and had subsequently accom
panied Titus to Alexandria. The losses which
this veteran legion had suffered in these san
guinary campaigns were doubtless made good
with recruits levied in Asia. These conscripts
were for the most part probably natives of
Cappadocia, and it was they that, after their
transportation to the Danube with the old
rank and file of the legion, there first offered
sacrifices to the Iranian god whose name had
been hitherto unknown in the region north
of the Alps. There has been found at Car
nuntum a votive Mithraic inscription due to
a soldier of the Apollinarian legion bearing
the characteristic name of Barbaras. The
first worshippers of the Sol Invictus conse
crated to him on the banks of the river a
48 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
semicircular grotto, which had to be restored
from its ruins in the third century by a
Roman knight, and whose high antiquity is
evidenced in all its details. When, some
forty years after its arrival in the Occident,
Trajan again transported the fifteenth legion
to the Euphrates, the Persian cult had
already struck deep roots in the capital of
Upper Pannonia. Not only the fourteenth
legion, gemina Martia, which replaced that
which had returned to Asia, but also the
sixteenth and the thirteenth gemin& % certain
detachments of which were, as it appears,
connected with the first-mentioned legion,
succumbed to the allurements of the Mys
teries and counted initiates in their own ranks.
Soon the first temple was no longer adequate,
and a second was built, which and this is an
important fact immediately adjoined the
temple of Jupiter Dolichenus of Commagene.
A municipality having developed alongside
the camp and the conversions continuing to
multiply, a third mithrseum was erected, prob
ably towards the beginning of the second cen
tury, and its dimensions surpass those of all
similar structures hitherto discovered. It was
enlarged by Diocletian and the princes asso
ciated with him in 307 A.D., when they held
their conference at Carnuntum. Thus these
princes sought to give public testimony of their
devotion to Mithra in this holy city, which of
all those in the North probably contained the
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 49
, /v
most ancient sanctuaries qf_jlie_ Mazdean
sect.
- ^This warlike post, the most important in the
entire region, seems also to have been the
religious center from which the foreign cult
radiated into the smaller towns of the sur
rounding country. Stix-Neusiedl, where it was
certainly practised from the middle of the
second century, was only a dependent village
of this powerful city. But farther to the south
the temple of Scarbantia was enriched by a
decurio colonicz Carnunti. Towards the east the
territory of /Equinoctium has furnished a vo
tive inscription to the Petrce Genetrici, and still
farther off at Vindobona (Vienna) the soldiers
of the tenth legion had likewise learned,
doubtless from the neighboring camp, to cele
brate the Mysteries. Even in Africa, traces
are found of the influence which the great
Pannonian city exercised on the development
of Mithraism.
Several leagues from Vienna, passing across
the frontier of Noricum, we come upon the
hamlet of CommagentZ) the name of which is
doubtless due to the fact that a squadron of
Commageneans (an ala Commagenorum) was
there quartered. One is not surprised, there
fore, to learn that a bas-relief of the tauroc-
tonous god has been discovered here. Never
theless, in this province, as in Rhsetia, the army
does not seem to have taken, as it did in Pan-
nonia, an active part in the propagation of the
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Asiatic religion. A belated inscription of a
speculator Icgionis I Noricorum is the only one
in these countries that mentions a soldier; and
generally the monuments of the Mysteries are
very sparsely scattered in the valley of the
Upper Danube, where the Roman troops were
concentrated. They are not found in increased
numbers until the other slope of the Alps is
reached, and the epigraphy of this last-named
region forbids us to assign to them a military
origin.
Fig. ii.
SUN-GOD.
(Fragment from the grand bas-relief of Virunum,
in Noricum. 7! et M., p. 336.)
On the other hand, the marvellous extension
that Mithraism took in the two Germanics is
undoubtedly due to the powerful army corps
that defended that perpetually menaced terri
tory. We find here an inscription dedicated
by a centurion to the Soli Invicto Mithrcc about
the year 148 A.D., and it is probable that in
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 51
the middle of the second century this god had
already obtained a goodly number of converts
in the Roman garrisons. All the regiments
appear to have been seized with the contagion:
the legions VIII Augusta, XII Primigenia,
and XXX Ulpia, the cohorts and auxiliary ^/^,
as well as the picked troops of citizen volun-
Fig. 12.
MITHRAIC BAS-RELIEF OF OSTERBURKEN.
(Discovered in 1861 near the ruins of a Roman fort,
in the Odenwald, Hesse. T. et M., Plate VI.)
teers. So general a diffusion prevents us from
telling exactly from what side the foreign
religion entered this country, but it may be
assumed without fear of error that, save pos
sibly at a certain few points, it was not
imported directly from the Orient, but was
transmitted through the agency of the garri
sons on the Danube; and if we wish to assign
52 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
absolutely the circumstances of its origin we
may take it for granted, with every likelihood
of truth, that the eighth legion, which was
transferred from Mcesia to Upper Germany
in the year 70 A.D., first practised there the
religion which was soon destined to become
the preponderating one of this country.
j Of all countries Germany is that in which
| the greatest number of mithrseums, or places
of Mithraic worship, has been discovered.
Germany has given us the bas-reliefs having
the greatest dimensions and furnishing the
most complete representations; and certainly
no god of paganism ever found in this nation
as many enthusiastic devotees as Mithra. The
Agri Decumates, a strip of land lying on
the right bank of the Rhine and forming the
military confines of the empire, together with
the advance posts of the Roman military sys
tem between the river Main and the fortified
walls of the limes, have been marvellously
fertile in discoveries. North of Frankfort,
near the village of Heddernheim, the ancient
civitas Taunensium, three important temples
have been successively exhumed (Figs. 13, 14);
three others existed in Friedberg in Hesse
and three more have been dug out in the sur
rounding country. On the other side, along
the entire course of the Rhine, from Augst
(Raurica) near Basel as far as Xanten (Vetera),
passing through Strassburg, Mayence, Neu-
wied, Bonn, Cologne, and Dormagen, a series
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
53
J> bo
o> o
> 3
ill
PL, co
W Pi *-
! _7^ C
rM ^ fT?
^
W w -3
P C u
Sll
d 7,
r i ?)
^ o
M o -2 ^
; Q 03 C/2
be c/3 _o
S, 3 i ^
g
^ r -
ffi ^
H ^
C bo .
s i n OH
^
O o
2.
_ rf] rQ
* I fi
rt UJ
ll
54
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
of monuments have been found which show
clearly the manner in which the new faith
spread like an epidemic, and was disseminated
Fig. 14.
REVERSE OF THE GRAND MITHRAIC BAS-RELIEF
OF HEDDERNHEIM, GERMANY.
into the very heart of the barbarous tribes of
the Ubians and Batavians.
The influence of Mithraism among the
troops massed along the Rhenish frontier
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
55
Fig. 15-
BAS-RELIEF OF NEUENHEIM, NEAR HEIDELBERG,
GERMANY.
This monument, which escaped mutilation at the
hands of the early fanatics, was discovered in 1838 in
a cave near Neuenheim, a village on the southern
slope of the Heiligenberg, near Heidelberg, by work
men who were laying the foundation of a farmhouse.
It is interesting as distinctly showing in a series of
small bas-reliefs twelve important scenes from the life
of Mithra, including the following: His birth from the
rocks (top of left border), his capture of the bull, which
he carries to the cave (right hand border), his ascent
to Ahura- Mazda (top border). The second scene from
the top of the left border is likewise interesting; it
represents Kronos (Zervan) handing to Zeus (Ahura-
Mazda) the scepter of the government of the world.
is also proved by the extension of this relig
ion into the interior of Gaul. A soldier of the
eighth legion dedicated an altar to the Deo
56 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Invicto at Geneva, which lay on the military
road from Germany to the Mediterranean;
and other traces of the Oriental cult have
been found in modern Switzerland and the
French Jura. In Sarrebourg (Pans Saravi]
at the mouth of the pass leading from the
Vosges Mountains, by which Strassburg com
municated and still communicates with the
basins of the Mosel and the Seine, a spelceum
has recently been exhumed that dates from
the third century; another, of which the
principal bas-relief, carved from the living
rock, still subsists to our day, existed at
Schwarzerden, between Metz and Mayence.
It would be surprising that the great city of
Treves, the regular residence of the Roman
military commanders, has preserved only
some dtbris of inscriptions and statues, did
not the important role which this city played
under the successors of Constantine explain
the almost total disappearance of the monu
ments of paganism. Finally, in the valley of
the Meuse, not far from the route that joins
Cologne with Bavay (Bagacum), some curious
remains of the Mysteries have been discov
ered.
From Bavay, this route leads to Boulogne
(Gesoriacum), the naval base of the classis
Britannica or Britannic fleet. The statues of
the two dadophors, or torch-bearers, which
have been found here and were certainly
chiselled on the spot, were doubtless offered
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 57
to the god by some foreign mariner or officer
of the fleet. It was the object of this impor
tant naval station to keep in daily touch with
the great island that lay opposite, and espe
cially with London, which even at this epoch
was visited by numerous merchants. The
existence of a mithrseum in this principal
commercial and military depot of Britain
should not surprise us. Generally speaking,
the Iranian cult was in no country so com
pletely restricted to fortified places as in
Britain. Outside of York (Eburacum), where
the headquarters of the troops of the prov
ince were situated, it was disseminated only
in the west of the country, at Caerleon (/sea)
and at Chester (Deva), where camps had been
established to repel the inroads of the Gallic
tribes of the Silures and the Ordovices; and
finally in the northern outskirts of the country
along the wall of Hadrian, which protected
the territory of the empire from the incur
sions of the Picts and the Caledonians. All
the stations of this line of ramparts appear to
have had their Mithraic temple, where the
commander of the place (prczfectus) furnished
an example of devotion for his subordinates.
It is evident, therefore, that the Asiatic god
had penetrated in the train of the army to
these northern regions, but it is impossible to
determine precisely the period at which he
reached this place or the troops by whom he
was carried there. But there is reason for
58 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
believing that Mithra was worshipped in these
countries from the middle of the second cen
tury, and that Germany* served as the inter
mediary agent between the far Orient
^ Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos"
At the other extremity of the Roman world
the Mysteries were likewise celebrated by
soldiers. They had their adepts in the third
legion encamped at Lambsese and in the posts
that guarded the defiles of the Aurasian
Mountains or that dotted the frontiers of the
Sahara Desert. Nevertheless, they do not
appear to have been as popular to the south
of the Mediterranean as in the countries to
the north, and their propagation has assumed
here a special character. Their monuments,
nearly all of which date from later epochs,
are due to the officers, or at least to the cen
turions, many of whom were of foreign origin,
rather than to the simple soldiers, nearly all
of whom were levied in the country which they
were charged to defend. The legionaries of
Numidia remained faithful to their indigenous
gods, who were either Punic or Berber in ori
gin, and only rarely adopted the beliefs of the
companions with whom their vocation of arms
had thrown them in contact. Apparently,
therefore, the Persian religion was practised
in Africa almost exclusively by those whom
military service had called to these countries
*See supra, p. ^ So
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 59
from abroad; and the bands of the faithful
were composed for the most part, if not of
Asiatics, at least of recruits drawn from the
Danubian provinces.
Finally, in Spain, the country of the Occi
dent which is poorest in Mithraic monuments,
the_ connection of their presence with that of
the garrisons is no less manifest. Through
out the entire extent of this vast peninsula,
in which so many populous cities were crowded
together, they are almost totally lacking,
even in the largest centers of urban popula
tion. Scarcely the faintest vestige of an
inscription is found in Emerita and Tarraco,
the capitals of Lusitania and Tarraconensis.
But in the uncivilized valleys of Asturias and
Gallsecia the Iranian god had an organized
cult. This fact will be immediately connected
with the prolonged sojourn of a Roman le
gion in this country, which remained so long
unsubjugated. Perhaps the conventicles of
the initiated also included veterans of the
Spanish cohorts who, after having served as
auxiliaries on the Rhine and the Danube,
returned to their native hearths converted to
the Mazdean faith.
The army thus united in the same fold citi-
ns and emigrants from all parts of the
world; kept up an incessant interchange of
officers and centurions and even of entire
one province to another,
according to the varying needs of the day; in
6O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
fine, threw out to the remotest frontiers of
the Roman world a net of perpetual commu
nications. Yet this was not the only way in
which the military system contributed to the
dissemination of Oriental religions. After
the expiration of their term of service, the
soldiers continued in their places of retire
ment the practices to which they had become
accustomed under the standards of the army;
and they soon evoked in their new environ
ment numerous imitators. Frequently they
settled in the neighborhood of their latest
station, in the little towns which had grad
ually replaced in the neighborhood of the
military camps the shops of the sutlers. At
times, too, they would choose their homes in
some large city of the country where they
had served, to pass there with their old com
rades in arms the remainder of their days.
ns always sheltered within its walls a large
number of these veteran legionaries of the
German army, and the only Mithraic inscrip-
1 tion that London has furnished us was written
by a soldier emeritus of the troops of Britain.
It was customary also for the emperor to send
discharged soldiers to some region where a
colony was to be founded; Elusa in Aquitania
was probably made acquainted with the
Asiatic cult by Rhenish veterans whom Sep-
timius Severus (193-211 A.D.) established in
this region. Frequently, the conscripts whom
the military authorities transported to the
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 6l
confines of the empire retained at heart their
love for their native country, with which they
never ceased to sustain relations; but when,
after twenty or twenty-five years of struggle
and combat, they returned to their native
country, they preferred to the gods of their
own city or tribe, the foreign deity whose mys
terious worship some military comrade had
taught them in distant lands.
Nevertheless, the propagation of Mithraism
in the towns and country districts of the prov
inces in which no armies were stationed was
due in great measure to other agencies. B)
her continued conquests in Asia, Rome hac
subjected to her domination numerous Semitic
provinces. After the founding of the empire
had assured peace to the entire Roman world
and permanently insured the safety of com
merce, these new subjects, profiting by the
special aptitudes of their race, could be seen
gradually concentrating in their hands the
entire traffic of the Levant. As the Phoeni
cians and Carthaginians formerly, so now
the Syrians populated with their colonies all
the shores of the Mediterranean. In the
Hellenic epoch they had established them
selves in the commercial centers of Greece, and
notably at Delos. A number of these mer
chants now flocked to the vicinity of Rome,
settling at Pozzuoli and at Ostia. They appear
to have carried on business in all the mari
time cities of the Occident. They are found
62 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
in Italy at Ravenna, Aquileia, and Tergeste;
at Salonac in Dalmatia, and as far distant as
Malaga in Spain. Their mercantile activity
even led them into the distant interior of
these countries at every point where there
was the least prospect of profit. In the valley
of the Danube they penetrated as far as
Sarmizegetusa and Apulum in Dacia, and as
far as Sirmium in Pannonia. In Gaul, this
Oriental population was particularly dense.
They reached Bordeaux by the Gironde and
ascended the Rhone as far as Lyons. After
occupying the banks of this river, they flocked
into the interior of the province, and Treves,
the great capital of the north, attracted them
in hordes. They literally filled the Roman
wjorlcL Even the later invasions of the bar
barians were impotent to dampen their spirit
i of enterprise. Under the Merovingians they
still spoke their Semitic idiom at Orleans.
Their emigration was only checked when the
Saracens destroyed the navigation of the Med
iterranean.
The Syrians were distinguished in all epochs
by their arderUTeaT No people, not even
the Egyptians, defended their idols with such
great pertinacity against the Christians. So,
when they founded a colony, their first care
was to organize their national cults, and the
mother country frequently allowed them gen
erous subsidies towards the performance of
this pious duty. It was in this inanner-tfertt - -.
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 63
the deities of Heliopolis, of Damascus, and
Palmyra first penetrated to Italy.
The word Syrian had in popular usage a
very vague significance. This word, which was
an abbreviation of Assyrian, was frequently
confounded with it, and served to designate
generally all the Semitic populations anciently
subject to the kings of Nineveh, as far east as,
and even beyond, the Euphrates. It embraced,
therefore, the sectaries of Mithra established
in the valley of this river; and as Rome
extended her conquests in this quarter, the
worshippers of the Persian god necessarily
became more and more numerous among the
"Syrians" who dwelt in the Latin cities.
Nevertheless, the majority of the merchants
that founded the commercial houses of the
Occident were servitors of the Semitic Baals, i.
and those who invoked Mithra were generally jt
Asiatics in humbler conditions of life. The/
first temples which this god possessed in the
west of the empire were without doubt mainly]
frequented by slaves. The mangoncs, or slave-
mongers, procured their human merchandise
preferably from the provinces of the Orient.
From the depths of Asia Minor they drove
to Rome hordes of slaves purchased from the
great landed proprietors of Cappadocia and
of Pontus; and this imported population, as
one ancient writer has put it, ultimately earned
to form distinct towns or quarters in the great J
capital. But the supply did not suffice for the
64 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
increasing consumption of depopulated Italy.
War also was a mighty purveyor of human
chattels. When we remember that Titus, in
a single campaign in Judaea (70 A.D.), reduced
to slavery 90,000 Jews, our imagination be
comes appalled at the multitudes of captives
that the incessant struggles with the Par-
thians, and particularly the conquests of Tra
jan, must have thrown on the markets of the
Occident.
But whether taken en masse after some great
victory, or acquired singly by the profes
sional traffickers in human flesh, these slaves
were particularly numerous in the
towns, to which their transportation was cheap
an3 easy. They introduced here, concurrently"
with the Syrian merchants, the Oriental cults
and particularly that of Mithra. This last-
named god has been found established in an
entire series of ports on the Mediterranean.
We signalize above ail nis presence at Sidon
in Phoenicia and at Alexandria in Egypt. In
Italy, if Pozzuoli and its environs, including
Naples, have furnished relatively few monu
ments of the Mysteries, the reason is that
this city had ceased in the second century to
be the great entrepot from which Rome derived
its supplies from the Levant. The Tyrian
colony of Pozzuoli, at one time wealthy and
powerful, complains in the year 172 A.D. of
being reduced to a small settlement. After
the immense structures of Claudius and Tra-
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 65
jan were erected at Ostia, this latter city
inherited the prosperity of its Campanian
rival; and the result was that all the Asiatic
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66 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
religions soon had here their chapels and their
congregations of devotees. Yet none enjoyed
Fig. 17.
SILVANUS.
Mosaic in a niche of the vestibule of the mith-
raeum of Fig. 16, in Ostia, near the Baths of Antoninus.
Silvanus holds in one hand a fir branch, in the other a
hatchet. See the Chapter on "The Doctrine of the
Mithraic Mysteries."
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 6/
greater favor than that of the Iranian god.
In the second century, at least four or five
spelcza had been dedicated to him. One of
them > constructed at the latest in 162 A.D.,
and communicating with the baths of Anto
ninus, was situated on the very spot where the
foreign ships landed (Fig. 16), and another one
adjoined the mctroon, or sanctuary in which
the official cult of the Magna Mater was cele
brated. To the south the little hamlet of An-
tium (Porto d Anzio) had followed the example
of its powerful neighbor; while in Etruria,
Rusellse (Grosseto) and Pisse likewise accorded
a favorable reception to the Mazdean deity.
In the east cf Italy, Aquileia is distinguished
for the number of its Mithraic inscriptions.
As Trieste to-day, so Aquileia in antiquity was
the market in which the Danubian provinces
exchanged their products for those of the
South. Pola, at the extremity of Istria, the
islands of Arba and Brattia, and the sea-ports
of the coast of Dalmatia, Senia, lader, Salonse,
Narona, Epidaurus, including Dyrrachium in
Macedonia, have all preserved more or less
numerous and indubitable vestiges of the in
fluence of the invincible god, and distinctly
mark the path which he followed in his journey
to the commercial metropolis of the Adriatic.
(See Frontispiece.)
His progress may also be followed in the
western Mediterranean. In Sicily at Syracuse
and Palermo, on the coast of Africa at Car-
68
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
thage, Rusicada, Icosium, Caesarea, on the
opposite shores of Spain at Malaga and Tar-
CCAEZ2/LIVS
ERMEROSANT
ISTESHVIVS LO
Cl F EC1TSVA
PEC
CCAEMULIVS
ERMEROSANT
ISTESHVIVSLO
C I FECIT SV A
Fig. 1 8.
STATUES OF TORCH-BEARERS (DADOPHORl)
From the same mithrseum at Ostia, now in the
Lateran. See the Chapter on "The Doctrine of the
Mithraic Mysteries."
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 69
raco, Mithraic associations were successively
formed in the motley population which the
sea had carried to these cities. And farther
to the* north, on the Gulf of Lyons, the proud
Roman colony of Narbonne doffed its exclu-
siveness in his favor.
In Gaul, especially, the correlation which
we have discovered between the spread of the /,
Mysteries and the extension of Oriental traffic y
is ""striking. Both were principally concen
trated between the Alps and the Cevennes, or
to be more precise, in the basin of the Rhone,
the course of which had been the main route
of its penetration. Sextantio, near Montpel-
lier, has given us the epitaph of a pater sacro-
rum, and Aix in the Provence a presumably
Mithraic representation of the sun on his
quadriga. Then, ascending the river, we find
at Aries a statue of the leontocephalous
Kronos who was worshipped in the Mysteries;
at Bourg-Saint-Andeol, near Montelimar, a
representation of the tauroctonous god sculp
tured from the living rock near a spring; at
Vaison, not far from Orange, a dedicatory
inscription made on the occasion of an initia
tion; at Vienne, a spelczum from which, among
other monuments, has been obtained the most
unique bas-relief of the lion-headed god
hitherto discovered. Finally, at Lyons, which
is known from the history of Christianity to
have had direct relations with Asia Minor,
the success of the Persian religion was cer-
7O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
tainly considerable. Farther up the river, its
presence has been proved at Geneva on the
one hand and at Besan^on and Mandeure on
the Doubs, a branch of the Saone, on the
other. An unbroken series of sanctuaries
which were without doubt in constant com
munication with one another thus bound
together the shores of the great inland sea
and the camps of Germany.
Sallying forth from the flourishing cities of
the valley of the Rhone, the foreign cult crept
even into the depths of the mountains of
Dauphiny, Savoy, and Bugey. Labatie near
Gap, Lucey not far from Belley, and Vieu-en-
Val Romey have preserved for us inscriptions,
temples, and statues dedicated by the faithful.
As we have said, the Oriental merchants did
not restrict their activity to establishing agen
cies in the maritime and river ports; the pros
pect of more lucrative trade attracted them to
the villages of the interior, where competition
was less active. The dispersion of the Asiatic
slaves was even more complete. Scarcely had
they disembarked from their ships, when they
were scattered haphazard in every direction
by the auctioneers, and we find them in all
the different countries discharging the most
diverse functions.
In Italy, a country of great estates and
ancient municipalities, either they went to
swell the armies of slaves who were tilling
the vast domains of the Roman aristocracy, or
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE /I
they were afterwards promoted to the rank of
superintendents (actor, villicus] and became
the masters of those whose miserable lot they
had formerly shared. Sometimes they were
acquired by some municipality, and as public
servants (scrvi publici} they carried out the
orders of the magistrates or entered the bu
reaus of the administrations. It is difficult to
realize the rapidity with which the Oriental
religions were in this way able to penetrate
to regions which it would appear they could
never possibly have attained. A double in-
scription at Nersae, in the heart of the Apen
nines, informs us that in the year 172 of our
era a slave, the treasurer of the town, had
restored a mithraeum that had fallen into ruins.
At Venusia, a Greek inscription HXt o) M[0pa
was dedicated by the steward of some wealthy
burgher, and his name Sagaris at once proves
his servile rank and Asiatic origin. The
examples could be multiplied. There is not a
shadow of a doubt that these obscure servitors
of the foreign god were the most active agents
in the propagation of the Mysteries, not only
within the limits of the city of Rome itself, and
in the other great cities of the country, but
throughout the entire extent of Italy, from
Calabria to the Alps. We find the Iranian
cult practised at Grumentum, in the heart of
Lucania; then, as we have already said, at
Venusia in Apulia, and at Nersae in the country
of the /Equi, also at Aveia in the land of the
72 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Vestini; then in Umbria, along the Flaminian
if road, at Interamna, at Spoletum, where one
can visit a spelaum decorated with paintings,
and at Sentinum, where there has been dis
covered a list of the patrons of a collegium of
Mithraists; likewise, in Etruria this religion
followed the Cassian way and established
itself at Sutrium, at Bolsena, and perhaps at
Arretium and at Florence. Its traces are no
less well marked and significant to the north
of the Apennines. They appear only spo
radically in Emilia, where the provinces of
Bologna and Modena alone have preserved
some interesting debris, as they do also in the
^fertile valley of the Po. Here Milan, which
rapidly grew to prosperity under the empire,
/ appears to be the only locality in which the
exotic religion enjoyed great favor and official
\ protection. Some fragments of inscriptions
exhumed at Tortona, Industria, and Novara
are insufficient to prove that it attained in the
remainder of the country any wide-spread
diffusion.
It is certainly remarkable that we have un
earthed far richer booty in the wild defiles
of the Alps than in the opulent plains of
upper Italy. At Introbbio, in the Val Sassina,
to the east of Lake Como, in the Val Cam-
onica, watered by the river Oglio, altars were
dedicated to the invincible god. But the
monuments which were consecrated to him es
pecially abound along the river Adige (Etsch)
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 73
and its tributaries, near the grand causeway
which led in antiquity as it does to-day over
the Brenner pass and Puster-Thal to the
northern slope of the Alps into Rhaetia and
Noricum. At Trent, there is a mithraeum built f
near a cascade; near San-Zeno, bas-reliefs -
have been found in the rocky gorges; at Cas-
tello di Tuenno, fragments of votive tablets
carved on both faces have been unearthed;
on the banks of the Eisack, there has been
found a dedicatory inscription to Mithra and
to the Sun; and Mauls finally has given us the
celebrated sculptured plaque discovered in
the sixteenth century and now in the museum
at Vienna.
The progress of Mithraism in this moun
tainous district was not checked at the fron
tiers of Italy. If, pursuing our way through
the valley of the Drave, we seek for the ves
tiges which it left in this region, we shall
immediately discover them at Teurnia and
especially at Virunum, the largest city of
Noricum, in which in the third century two
temples at least had been opened to the ini
tiated. A third one was erected not far from
the same place in a grotto in the midst of the
forest.
The city of Aquileia* was undoubtedly the
religious metropolis of this Roman colony,
and its important church founded many mis-
sions in the surrounding region. The cities
*Cf. supra, p. 67. See also Frontispiece.
74 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
that sprang up along the routes leading from
this port across Pannonia to the military
strongholds on the Danube almost without
exception favorably received the foreign god:
they were /Emona, the Latobici, Nevio-
dunum, and principally Siscia, on the course
of the Save; and then toward the north
Adrans, Celeia, Poetovio, received him with
equal favor. In this manner, his devotees
who were journeying from the shores of the
Adriatic to Mccsia, on the one hand, or to
Carnuntum on the other, could be received at
every stage of their journey by co-religionists.
/ In these regions, as in the countries south
of the Alps, Oriental slaves acted as the mis
sionaries of Mithra. But the conditions under
which their propaganda was conducted were
L considerably different. These slaves were not
employed in this country, as they were in the
latifundia and the cities of Italy, as agricultural
laborers, or stewards of wealthy land-owners,
or municipal employees. Depopulation had
not created such havoc here as in the coun
tries of the old civilization, and people were
not obliged to employ foreign hands for
the cultivation of their fields or the adminis
tration of their cities. It was not individuals
or municipalities, but the state itself, that was
here the great importer of human beings.
The procurators, the officers of the treasury,
the officers of the imperial domains, or as in
Noricum the governors themselves, had under
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 75
their orders a multitude of collectors of taxes,
of treasurers, and clerks of all kinds, scattered
over the territory which they administered;
and as a rule these subaltern officers were
not of free birth. Likewise, the great entre
preneurs who leased the products of the mines
and quarries, or the customs returns, employed
for the execution of their projects a numerous
staff of functionaries, both hired and slave.
From people of this class, who were either
agents of the emperor or publicans whom he
appointed to represent him, are those whose
titles recur most frequently in the Mithraic in
scriptions of southern Pannonia and Noricum.
-In all the provinces, the lowly employees of
theT imperial service played a considerable
part in the diffusion of foreign religions. Just
as these officers of the central power were
representatives of the political unity of the
empire in contrast with its regional particular
ism, so also they were the apostles of the
universal religions as opposed to the local cults.
They formed, as it were, a second army under
the orders of their prince, and their influence
on the evolution of paganism was analogous
to that of the army proper. LikeJie^ldiers,
they too were recruited in great numbers from
the Asiatic countries; like them, they too were
perpetually changing their residence as they
were promoted in station; and the lists of
their bureaus, like those of the legions, com-/
prised individuals of all nationalities. .._ /
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Thus, the imperial administration trans
ferred from one government to another,
along with its clerks and quartermasters, a
knowledge of the Mithraic Mysteries. In a
characteristic discovery made at Cccsarea in
Cappadocia, a slave, probably of indigenous
origin, an arcarius dispensatoris Augusti (a
clerk of the imperial treasury), dedicates in
very good Latin an image of the Sun to
Mithra, In the interior of Dalmatia, where
the monuments of the Persian god are rather
sparsely scattered for the reason that this
province was early stripped of its legions,
employees of the treasury, the postal and the
customs service, left nevertheless their names
on some inscriptions. In the frontier prov
inces especially, the financial agents of the
Caesars must have been numerous, not only
because the import duties on merchandise had
to be collected here, but because the heaviest
drain on the imperial treasuries was the cost
of maintaining the army. It is therefore nat
ural to find cashiers, tax-gatherers, and reve
nue-collectors (dispensatoreS) exactores, procura-
tores], and other similar titles mentioned in the
Mithraic texts of Dacia and Africa.
Here, therefore, is the second way in which
the Iranian god penetrated to the towns
adjoining the military camps, where, as we
have seen, he was worshipped by the Oriental
soldiers. The general domestic service, as
well as the political functions, of these admin-
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 77
istrators and officers, was the cause of the
transportation of public and private slaves to
all garrisons; while the constantly renewed
needs of the multitudes here assembled
attracted to these points merchants and
traders from all parts of the world. Then
again, as we have pointed out, the veterans
themselves afterwards settled in the ports and
the large cities, where they were thrown in
contact with merchants and slaves. In affirm
ing categorically that Mithra was introduced
in this or that manner in a certain region, our
generalization manifestly cannot lay claim to
absolute exactitude. The concurrent causes
of the spread of the Mysteries are so inter
mingled and intertwined, that it would be a
futile task to attempt to unravel strand by
strand the fibers of this entangled snarl. Hav
ing as our sole guide, as we frequently do,
inscriptions of uncertain date, on which by the
side of the name of the god appears simply
that of an initiate or priest, it is impossible to
determine in each single case the circum
stances which have fostered the progress of
the new religion. The more fleeting influences
are almost absolutely removed from our ken.
On the accession of Vespasian (69 A.D.), did
the prolonged sojourn in Italy of Syrian troops,
who were faithful worshippers of the Sun, have
any lasting results? Did the army which
Alexander Severus (222-235 A.D.) conducted
into Germany, and which, as Lampridius has
78 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
recorded,* was potentissima per Artnenios et
Osrhcenos et Parthos (viz., very largely com
posed of Armenians, Osrhcenians, and Parthi-
ans), impart a new impulse to the Mithraic
propaganda on the banks of the Rhine ? Did
any of the high functionaries that Rome sent
annually to the frontier of the Euphrates
embrace the beliefs of the people over whom
they ruled ? Did priests from Cappadocia or
Pontus ever embark for the Occident after
the manner of the missionaries of the Syrian
goddess, in the expectation of wresting there
a livelihood from the credulity of the masses?
Even under the republic Chaldaean astrolo
gers roamed the great causeways of Italy, and
in the time of Juvenal the soothsayers of Com-
magene and Armenia vended their oracles in
Rome. These subsidiary methods of propa
gation, which were generally resorted to by
the Oriental religions, may also have been put
to profitable use by the disseminators of Mith-
raism; but the most active aorents of its diffii
jsion were undoubtedly the soldiers, the slaves
and the merchants. Apart from the detaile(
prefers "afrefady adduced, the presence o
Mithraic monuments in places where war am
commerce were constantly conducted, and
the countries where the vast current of Asiati
emigration was discharged, is sufficient t
establish our hypothesis.
The absence of these monuments in other
*Lamprid., Alex. Sev., c. 61 ; cf. Capitol., Maximin.,
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE /Q
regions is also clear proof of our position.
Why are no vestiges of the Persian Mysteries
found in Asia Propria, in Bithynia, in Galatia,
in the provinces adjoining those where they
were practised for centuries ? Because the
production of these countries exceeded their
consumption, because their foreign commerce
was in the hands of Greek ship-owners, because
they exported men instead of importing them,
and because from the time of Vespasian at
least no legion was charged with the defence
or surveillance of their territory. Greece was
protected from the invasion of foreign gods by
its national pride, by its worship of its glorious
past, which is the most characteristic trait of
the Grecian spirit under thee mpire. But the
absence of foreign soldiers and slaves also
deprived it of the least occasion of lapsing
from its national religion. Lastly, Mithraic
monuments are almost completely missing in
the central and western parts of Gaul, in the
Spanish peninsula, and in the south of Britain,
and they are rare even in the interior of Dal-
matia. In these places also no permanent
army was stationed; there was consequently
no importation of Asiatics; while there was
also in these countries no great center of
international commerce to attract them.
On the other hand, the city of Rome is espe-
cially rich in discoveries of all kinds, more so
in fact than any of the provinces. In fact
Mithra found in no other part of the empire
8O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
conditions so eminently favorable to the suc
cess of his religion. Rome always had a large
garrison made up of soldiers drawn from all
parts of the empire, and the veterans of the
army, after having been honorably discharged,
flocked thither in great numbers to spend the
remainder of their days. An opulent aristoc
racy resided here, and their palaces, like those
of the emperor, were filled with thousands of
Oriental slaves. It was the seat of the central
imperial administration, the official slaves of
which thronged its bureaus. Finally, all whom
the spirit of adventure, or disaster, had driven
hither in search of fame and fortune flocked
to this "caravansary of the universe," and car
ried thither their customs and their religions.
Collaterally, the presence in Rome of num
bers of Asiatic princelings, who lived there,
either as hostages or fugitives, with their fam
ilies and retinues, also abetted the propagation
of the Mazdean faith.
Like the majority of the foreign gods, Mithra
undoubtedly had his first temples outside of
faz.pomoeriuin, or religious limits. Many of
his monuments have been discovered beyond
these boundaries, especially in the vicinity of
the praetorian camp; but before the year 181
A.D. he had overleaped the sacred barriers
and established himself in the heart of the
city. It is unfortunately impossible to follow
step by step his progress in the vast metrop
olis. Records of exact date and indubitable
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 8l
origin are too scarce to justify us in recon
structing the local history of the Persian relig
ion in Rome. We can only determine in a
general way the high degree of splendor
which it attained there. Its vogue is attested
by a hundred or more inscriptions, by more
than seventy-five fragments of sculpture, and
by a series of temples and chapels situated in
alf parts of the city and its environs. The
most justly celebrated of these spelcca is the
one that still existed during the Renaissance
in a cave of the Capitol, and from which the
grand Borghesi bas-relief now in the Louvre
was taken. (See Fig. 4.) To all appearances,
this monument dates from the end of the sec
ond century.
It was at this period that Mithra emerged
from the partial obscurity in which he had
hitherto lived, to become one of the favorite
jgods of the Roman aristocracy and the impe
rial court. We have seen him arrive from the
Orient a despised deity of the deported or
emigrant Asiatics. It is certain that he
kchieved his first conquests among the lower / . ,.
classes of society, and it is an important fact
that Mithraism long remained the religion of
the lowly. The most ancient inscriptions are
eloquent evidence of the truth of this asser
tion, for they emanated without exception
from slaves or freedmen, from soldiers active
or retired. But the high destinies to which
freedmen were permitted to aspire under the
82 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
/empire are well known; while the sons of vet
erans or of centurions not infrequently became
citizens of wealth and influence. Thus, by a
natural evolution the religion transplanted to
Latin soil was bound to wax great in wealth
as well as in influence, and soon to count
among its sectaries influential functionaries at
the capital, and church and town dignitaries
in the municipalities. Under the Antonines
(138-180 A.D.), literary men and philosophers
began to grow interested in the dogmas and
rites of this Oriental cult. The wit Lucian
parodied their ceremonies*; and in 177 A.D.
Celsus in his True Discourse undoubtedly pits
its doctrines against those of Christianity. f
At about the same period a certain Pallas
devoted to Mithraism a special work, and Por
phyry cites a certain Eubulus who had pub
lished Mithraic Researches** in several books.
If this literature were not irrevocably lost to
us, we should doubtless re-read in its pages
the story of entire Roman squadrons, both
officers and soldiers, passing over to the faith
of the hereditary enemies of the empire, and
of great lords converted by the slaves of their
own establishments. The monuments fre
quently mention the names of slaves beside
*Lucian, Menipp., c. 6 ct seq. Cf. Deor. concil., c. g; Jiip.
tragic. 8, 13 (7: et M., Vol. II, p. 22).
fOrigen, Contra. Ce/s., I. 9 (7: et M., Vol. II, p. 30).
\Porphyr., De antr. nymph., c. 5; De abstin. , II. 56, IV. 16
(cf. T. et M., Vol. II, p. 39 et seq. and I., p. 26 et seq.
MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE 83
those of freedmen, and sometimes it is the,
former that have attained the highest rank,
among the initiates. In these societies, the ^
last frequently became the first, and the first
the last, to all appearances at least.
One capital result emerges from the detailed
facts which we have adduced. It is that^the
spread of the Persian Mysteries must have
taken place with extreme rapidity. With the
suddenness of a flash of gunpowder, they make
their^ appearance almost simultaneously in
countries far removed from one another: in
Rome, at Carnuntum on the Danube, and
in the Agri Dccumates. Manifestly, this
reformed church of Mazdaism exercised on
the society of the second century a powerful
fascination, of which to-day we can only
imperfectly ascertain the causes.
But to the natural allurements which drew .
crowds to the feet of the tauroctonous god w r as
added^an extrinsic element of the highest
efficacy: the imperial favor. Lampridius*
informs us that Com modus (180-192 A.D.) was
initiated into the..JtJystedes and took part in
the bloody ceremonies of its liturgy, and the
inscriptions prove that this condescension of
the^monarch toward the priests of Mithra cre
ated an immense stir in the Roman world,
and told enormously in favor of the Persian
religion. From this moment the exalted dig-
*Lamprid., Commod.^. g ( T. et M., Vol. II, p. 21). See
infra, Chap. Ill, p. 73.
84 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
nitaries of the empire are seen to follow the
example of their sovereign and to become
zealous cultivators of the Iranian cult. Trib
unes, prefects, legates, and later perfectissimi
and clarissimij are frequently mentioned as
authors of the votive inscriptions; and until
the downfall of paganism the aristocracy
remamecT attached to the solar god that had
so long enjoyed the favor of princes. But to
understand the politT^l^ncTlri ofai- motives of
the kindly reception which these dignitaries
accorded to the new faith, it will be necessary
to expound the Mithraic doctrines concerning
the sovereign power and their connection with
the theocratic claims of the Caesars.
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF
ROME.
OWING to the relatively late epoch of
their propagation, the Mysteries of
Mithra escaped the persecutions that had been
the destiny of the other Oriental cults that
had preceded them in Rome, especially that
of Isis. Among the astrologers or "Chaldae-
ans" who had been expelled from Italy at
various times under the first emperors, there
may possibly have been some that rendered
homage to the Persian gods; but these wan
dering soothsayers, who, in spite of the pro-
nunciamentos of the senate, which were as
impotent as they were severe, invariably made
their appearance again in the capital, no more
preached a definite religion than they consti
tuted a regular clergy. When, toward the end -
of the first century, Mithraism began to spread
throughout the Occident, the haughty reserve
or outspoken hostility which had anciently
characterized the attitude of the Roman policy
toward foreign missionaries began to give way
to a spirit of benevolent tolerance, where not
of undisguised favor. Nero (54-68 A.D.) had
already expressed a desire to be initiated into
the ceremonies of Mazdaism by the Magi
whom King Tiridates of Armenia had brought
85
86 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
with him to Rome, and this last-mentioned
prince had worshipped in Nero an emanation
of Mithra himself.
Unfortunately, we have no direct informa
tion regarding the legal status of the associa
tions of the Cultores Solis invicti Mithrcz. No
text tells us whether the existence of these
brotherhoods was at first simply tolerated, or
whether, having been recognized by the State,
they acquired at the outset the right of owning
property and of transacting business. In any
event, it is quite unlikely that a religion that
had always counted so many adherents in the
administration and the army should have been
left by the sovereign for any length of time in
an anomalous condition. Perhaps, in order
to acquire legal standing, these religious soci
eties were organized as burial associations, and
acquired thus the privileges accorded to this
species of corporations. It would appear,
however, that they had resorted to a still more
efficacious expedient. From the moment of
the discovery of traces of the Persian cult in
Italy, we find it intimately associated with that
of the Magna Mater (or Great Mother) of Pes-
sinus, which had been solemnly adopted by the
Roman people three centuries before. Fur
ther, the sanguinary ceremony of the taurobo-
lium, or baptism in the blood of a bull, which
had, under the influence of the old Mazdean
belief, been adopted into the liturgy of the
Phrygian goddess, was encouraged, probably
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 87
from the period of Marcus Aurelius (161-180 ,
A.D.), by grants of civil immunities.* True,
we are still in doubt whether this association
of the two deities was officially confirmed by
the senate or the prince. Had this been done,
the foreign god would at once have acquired
the rights of Italian citizenship and would
have been accorded the same privileges with
Cybele or the Bellona of Comana. But even
lacking all formal declaration on the part of
the public powers, there is every reason to
believe that Mithra, like Attis, whom he had
been made to resemble, was linked in worship
with the Great Mother and participated to the
full in the official protection which the latter
enjoyed. Yet the clergy appear never to have
received a regular donation from the treasury,
although the imperial fiscus and the municipal
coffers were in exceptional cases opened for
their benefit.
Toward the end of the second century, the
more or less circumspect complaisance with
which the Caesars had looked upon the Iran
ian Mysteries was suddenly transformed into /
effective support. Commodus (180-192 A.D.) V
was admitted among their adepts and participa
ted in their secret ceremonies, and the discov
ery of numerous votive inscriptions, either for
the welfare of this prince or bearing the date of
his reign, gives us some inkling of the impetus
which this imperial conversion imparted to the
*See the Chapter "Mithra and the Religions of the Empire."
88
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Mithraic propaganda. After the last of the
Antonine emperors had thus broken with the
ancient prejudice, the protection of his succes
sors appears to have been definitely assured to
r
Fig. 19.
PEDESTAL FOUND AT CARNUNTUM.
The gift of Diocletian, Valerius, and Licinius. (T. et
M., p. 491.)
the new religion. From the first years of the
third century onward it had its chaplain in the
palace of the Augusti, and its votaries are seen
to offer vows and sacrifices for the protection
of Severus and Philippus. Aurelian (270-275
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 89
A.D.), who instituted the official cult of the
Sol invictus, could have had only sentiments of
sympathy with the god that was regarded as
identical with the one whom he caused his
pontiffs to worship. In the year 307 A.D.,
Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius, at their
conference in Carnuntum, dedicated with one
accord a temple to Mithra fautori imperil sui
(Figure 19), and the last pagan that occupied the
throne of the Caesars, Julian the Apostate, was
an ardent votary of this tutelar god, whom he
caused to be worshipped in Constantinople.
Such unremitting favor on the part of mon-
archs of so divergent types and casts of mind
cannot have been the result of a passing
vogue or of individual fancies. It must have
had deeper causes. If for two hundred years
the rulers of the empire show so great a predi
lection for this foreign religion, born among
the enemies whom the Romans never ceased
to combat, they were evidently constrained to
do so by some reason of state. In point of
fact, they found in its doctrines a support for
their personal policy and a staunch advocacy!
of the autocratic pretensions which they were]
so energetically endeavoring to establish.
We know the slow evolution which gradually
transformed the principate that Augustus had
founded into a monarchy existing by the grace
of God. The emperor, whose authority was
theoretically derived from the nation, was at
the outset simply the first magistrate of Rome.
QO THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
As the heir of the tribunes and as supreme pon
tiff, he was, by very virtue of his office, already
inviolable and invested with a sacred charac
ter; but, just as his power, which was originally
limited by law, ended after a succession of
usurpations in complete absolutism, so also
by a parallel development the prince, the
plenipotentiary of the nation, became the rep
resentative of God on earth, nay, even God
himself (ddminus el deus). Immediately after
the battle of Actium (31 B.C.), we see arising
a movement which is diametrically opposed to
the original democratic fiction of Caesarism.
The Asiatic cities forthwith made haste to
erect temples in honor of Augustus and to
render homage to him in a special cult. The
monarchical memories of these peoples had
never faded. They had no understanding for
the subtle distinctions by which the Italians
were endeavoring to overreach themselves.
For them, a sovereign was always a king
(/focriXeu s) and a god (#eog). This transforma
tion of the imperial power was a triumph of
the Oriental genius over the Roman mind,
the triumph of the religious idea over the con
ception of law.
Several historians have studied in detail the
organization of this worship of the emperors
and have shed light on its political importance.
But they have not discerned so clearly perhaps
the nature of its theological foundation. It is
not sufficient to point out that at a certain
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER QI
epoch the princes not only received divine
honors after their death, but were also made
the recipients of this homage during their
reign. It must be explained why this deifica
tion of a living person, how this new species of
apotheosis, which was quite contrary to com
mon sense and to sound Roman tradition, was
in the end almost universally adopted. The
sullen resistance of public opinion was over
come when the religions of Asia vanquished
the masses of the population. These religions
propagated in Italy dogmas which tended to
raise the monarchs above the level of human
kind, and if they won the favor of the Caesars,
and particularly of those who aspired to abso
lute power, it is because they supplied a dog
matic justification of their despotism. In place
of the old principle of popular sovereignty was
substituted a reasoned faith in supernatural
influence. We shall now essay to show what
part Mithraism played in this significant trans
formation, concerning which our historical
sources only imperfectly inform us.
Certain plausible appearances have led some
people to suppose that the Romans drew all
ideas of this class from Egypt. Egypt, whose
institutions in so many directions inspired the
administrative reforms of the empire, was also
in a position to furnish it with a consummate
model of a theocratic government. According
to the ancient beliefs of that country, not only
did the royal race derive its origin from the
\/
Q2 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
sun-god Ra, but the soul of each sovereign
was a double detached from the sun-god
Horus. All the Pharaohs were thus succes
sive incarnations of the great day-star. They
were not only the representatives of divinities,
but living gods worshipped on the same foot
ing with those that traversed the skies, and
their insignia resembled those of this divinity.
The Achsemenides, who became masters of
the valley of the Nile, and after them also the
Ptolemies, inherited the homage which had
been paid to the ancient Egyptian kings, and
it is certain that Augustus and his successors,
who scrupulously respected all the religious
usages of the country as well as its political
constitution, there suffered themselves to be
made the recipients of the same character that
a tradition of thirty centuries had accorded to
the potentates of Egypt.
From Alexandria, where even the Greeks
themselves accepted it, this theocratic doctrine
was propagated to the farthest confines of the
empire. The priests of Isis were its most pop
ular missionaries in Italy. The proselytes
whom they had made in the highest classes of
society became imbued with it; the emperors,
whose secret or avowed ambitions this attri
bute flattered, soon encouraged it openly.
Yet, although their policy would have been
favored by a diffusion of the Egyptian doc
trine, they were still impotent to impose its
tenets at once and unrestrictedly. From the
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 93
first century on they had suffered themselves
to be called deus nosier by their domestic serv
ants and their ministers, who were already
half Oriental, but they had not the audacity
at that period to introduce this name into
their official titles. Certain of the Caesars, a
Caligula or a Nero, could dream of playing on
the stage of the world the role which the
Ptolemies played in their smaller kingdom.
They could persuade themselves that differ
ent gods had taken life in their own persons;
but enlightened Romans were invariably
outraged at their extravagances. The Latin
spirit rebelled against the monstrous fiction
created by the Oriental imagination. The
apotheosis of a reigning prince encountered
obstinate adversaries even in a much later
time, among the last of the pagans. For the
general acceptance of the doctrine a theory
far less crude than that of the Alexandrian
epiphany was needed. And it was the religion
of Mithra that furnished this doctrine.
The Persians, like the Egyptians, prostrated
themselves before their sovereigns, but they
nevertheless did not regard them as gods.
When they rendered homage to the "demon"
of their king, as they did at Rome to the
"genius" of Caesar (genius Ccesaris), they wor
shipped only the divine element that resided in
every man and formed part of his soul. The
majesty of the monarchs was sacred solely
because it descended to them from Ahura-
94 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Mazda, whose divine wish had placed them on
their throne. They ruled "by the grace" of
the creator of heaven and earth. The Iranians
pictured this "grace" as a sort of supernatural
fire, as a dazzling aureole, or nimbus of "glory,"
which belonged especially to the gods, but
which also shed its radiance upon princes and
consecrated their power. The Hvareno, as the
Avesta calls it, illuminated legitimate sover
eigns and withdrew its light from usurpers as
from impious persons, who were soon destined
to lose, along with its possession, both their
crowns and their lives. On the other hand,
those who were deserving of obtaining and
protecting it received as their reward unceas
ing prosperity, great fame, and perpetual vic
tory over their enemies.
This peculiar conception of the Persians had
no counterpart in the other mythologies, and
the foreign nations of antiquity likened the
Mazdean "Glory," not very correctly, to For
tune. The Semites identified it with their
Gadd, the Grecians translated the name by
TI XT;, or Tyche. The different dynasties that
succeeded the fall of the Achsemenides and
endeavored to trace back their genealogy to
some member of the ancient reigning house,
naturally rendered homage to this special
Tyche whose protection was at once the con
sequence and the demonstration of their legiti
macy. We see the Hvareno honored alike,
and for the same motives, by the kings of
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER
95
Cappadocia, Pontus, and Bactriana; and the
Seleucids, who long ruled over Iran, were also
regarded as the proteges of the Fortune who
had been sent by the Supreme God. In his
burial inscription, Antiochus of Commagene
appears to have gone so far as to identify him
self with the goddess. The Mazdean ideas
concerning monarchical power thus spread into
Occidental Asia at the same time with Mithra-
ism. But, like this latter, it was interwoven
with Semitic doctrines. The belief that fatality
gave and took away the crown again made its
appearance even among the Achgemenides.
Now, according to the Chaldaeans, destiny is
necessarily determined by the revolution of
the starry heavens, and the brilliant celestial
body that appears to command all its com
rades was considered as the royal star/>#r ex
cellence. Thus, the invincible Sun f HXiog av i-
KrjTos), identified with Mithra, was during the
Alexandrian period generally considered as the
dispenser of the Hvareno that gives victory.
The monarch upon whom this divine grace de
scended was lifted above ordinary mortals and
revered by his subjects as a peer of the gods.
After the downfall of the Asiatic principalities,
the veneration of which their dynasties had
been the object was transferred to the Roman
emperors. The Orientals forthwith saluted in
the persons of these rulers the elect of God,
to whom the Fortune of kings had given
omnipotent power. According as the Syrian
Q6 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
religions, and especially the Mysteries of
Mithra, were propagated in Rome, the ancient
Mazdean theory, more or less tainted with
Semitism, found increasing numbers of cham
pions in the official Roman world. We see it
making its appearance there, at first timidly
but afterward more and more boldly, in the
sacred institutions and the official titles of the
emperors, the meaning of which it alone ena
bles us to fathom.
Since the republican epoch the "Fortune
of the Roman people" had been worshipped
under different names at Rome. This ancient
national cult soon became impregnated with
the beliefs of the Orient, where not only every
country but every city worshipped its own
divine Destiny. When Plutarch tells us that
Tyche forsook the Assyrians and the Persians,
crossed Egypt and Syria, and took her abode
on the Palatine Hill, his metaphor is true in
quite a different sense from that which he had
in mind. Also the emperors, imitating their
Asiatic predecessors, easily succeeded in caus
ing to be worshipped by the side of this god
dess of the State, that other goddess who was
the special protectress of their own person,
The Fortuna Augusli had appeared on the
coins since Vespasian, and as formerly the
subjects of the Diadochi, so now those of
the Caesars, swore by the Fortune of their
princes. The superstitious devotion of these
rulers to their patron goddess was so great
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 97
that in the second century at least they con
stantly had before them, even during sleep or
on voyages, a golden statue of the goddess,
which on their death they transmitted to their
successor and which they invoked under the
name of Fortuna regia, a translation of Tu^r/
/3ao-iXew5. In fact, when this safeguard aban
doned them they were doomed to destruction
or at least to reverses and calamities; as long
as it abided with them, they knew only suc
cess and prosperity.
After the reign of Commodus (180-192
A. D.), from which the triumph at Rome of the
Oriental cults and especially of the Mithraic
Mysteries dates, we see the emperors offi
cially taking the titles of pius^felix, and in-
victus, which appellations from the third cen
tury on regularly formed part of the imperial
protocols. These epithets were inspired by
the special fatalism which Rome had bor
rowed from the Orient. The monarch is
pius (pious) because his devotion alone can
secure the continuance of the special favor
which Heaven has bestowed on him; he is
felix, happy, or rather fortunate (cvruWs), for
the definite reason that he is illuminated by
the divine Grace; and finally he is "invincible"
because the defeat of the enemies of the
empire is the most signal indication that his
tutelary "Grace" has not ceased to attend
him. Legitimate authority is not given by
heredity or by a vote of the senate, but by the
98 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
gods; and it is manifested in the shape of
victory.
All this conforms to the ancient Mazdean
ideas, and the employment of the last of the
three adjectives mentioned further betrays the
influence of the astrological theories which
were mingled with Parseeism. Invictus, * K.VL-
K-^TOS, is, as we have seen, the ordinary at
tribute of the sidereal gods imported from
the Orient, and especially so of the Sun. The
emperors evidently chose this appellation to
emphasize their resemblance to the celestial
divinity, the idea of whom it immediately
evoked. The doctrine that the fate of states,
like that of individuals, was inseparably con
joined with the course of the stars, was accom
panied with the corollary that the chief of the
planetary bodies was arbiter of the Fortune of
kings. It was he that raised them to their
thrones, or deposed them; it was he that
assured to them their triumphs and visited
upon them their disasters. The Sun is re
garded as the companion (comes) of the
emperor and as his personal saviour (conserva
tor}. We have already seen that Diocletian
revered in Mithra the jautor imperil sui, or
patron of his empire.
In assuming the surname invictiis (invincible),
the Caesars formally announced the intimate
alliance which they had contracted with the
Sun, and they tended more and more to em
phasize their likeness to him. The same rea-
M1THRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 99
son induced them to assume the still more
ambitious epithet of "eternal," which, having
long been employed in ordinary usage, was in
the third century finally introduced into the
official formularies. This epithet, like the first,
is borne especially by the solar divinities of the
Orient, the worship of whom spread in Italy
at the beginning of our era. Applied to the
sovereigns, it reveals more clearly than the
first-named epithet the conviction that from
their intimate companionship with the Sun
they were united to him by an actual identity
of nature.
This conviction is also manifested in the
usages of the court. The celestial fire which
shines eternally among the stars, always victo
rious over darkness, had as its emblem the
inextinguishable fire that burned in the palace
of the Caesars and which was carried before
them in the official ceremonies. This lamp,
constantly lighted, had also served the Persian
kings as an image of the perpetuity of their
power; and it passed with the mystical ideas
of which it was the expression to the Diado-
chi, and from them to the Romans.
Also, the radiate crown which, in imitation
of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, the emper
ors had adopted since Nero as the symbol of
their sovereignty, is fresh evidence of these
politico-religious tendencies. Symbolical of
the splendor of the Sun and of the rays which
he gave forth, it appeared to render the mon-
100 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
arch the simulacrum of the planet-god whose
brilliancy dazzles the eyes.
What was the sacred relation established
between the radiant disc which illuminated the
heavens and the human image which repre
sented it on earth ? The loyalist zeal of the
Orientals knew no bounds in its apotheosis.
The Sassanian kings, as the Pharaohs before
them, proclaimed themselves "brothers of the
sun and the moon"; and the Cxsars were
almost similarly regarded in Asia as the suc
cessive Avatars of Helios. Certain autocrats
approved of being likened to this divinity and
caused statues to be erected that showed them
adorned with his attributes. They suffered
themselves even to be worshipped as emana
tions of Mithra. But these insensate preten
sions were repudiated by the sober sense of
the Latin peoples. As above remarked, the
Occident studiously eschewed such absolute
affirmations; they were content with meta
phors; they were fond of comparing the sover
eign who governed the inhabited world and
whom nothing that occurred in it could
escape, to the celestial luminary that lighted
the universe and controlled its destinies. They
preferred to use obscure expressions which
admitted of all kinds of interpretations. They
conceded that the prince was united with the
immortals by some relation of kinship, but
they were chary of precisely defining its char
acter. Nevertheless, the conception that the
\
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER IOI
Sun had the emperor under his protection and
that supernatural effluvia descended from the
one to the other, gradually led to the notion
of their consubstantiality.
Now, the psychology taught in the Mysteries
furnished a rational explanation of this con-
substantiality and supplied it almost with a
scientific foundation. According to these doc
trines the souls pre-existed in the empyrean,
and when they descended to earth to animate
the bodies in which they were henceforward
to be confined, they traversed the spheres of
the planets and received from each some of
its planetary qualities. For all the astrologers,
the Sun, as before remarked, was the royal
star, and it was consequently he that gave
to his chosen ones the virtues of sovereignty
and called them to kingly dominion.
It will be seen immediately how these theo-J
ries favored the pretensions of the Caesars. ;
They were lords of the world by right of birth * .
(deus et dominus natus], because they had been^
destined to the throne by the stars from their
very advent into the world. They were divine,
for there were in them some of the elements
of the Sun, of which they were in a sense
the passing incarnation. Descended from the
starry heavens, they returned there after their |
death to pass eternity in the company of the
gods, their equals. The common mortal
pictured the emperor after his death, like
Mithra at the end of his career, as borne
102 THE MYSTERIES OF M1THRA
heavenward by Helios in his resplendent
chariot.
Thus, the dogmatology of the Persian Mys
teries combined two theories of different
origin, both of which tended to lift princes
above the level of humankind. On the one
side, the ancient Mazdean conception of
Hvareno had become the "Fortune of the
King," illuminating him with celestial grace
and bringing him victory. On the other hand,
the idea that the soul of the monarch, at the
moment when destiny caused its descent to the
terrestrial spheres, received from the Sun its
dominating power, gave rise to the contention
that its recipient shared in the divinity of that
star, and was its representative on earth.
These beliefs may appear to us to-day as
absurd, or even monstrous, but they controlled
nevertheless for centuries millions of men of
the most different types and nationalities,
and united them under the banner of the same
(monarchical faith. If the educated classes,
who through literary tradition always pre
served some remnant of the ancient republican
spirit, cherished a measure of skepticism in
this regard, the popular sentiment certainly
accepted these theocratical chimeras, and
suffered themselves to be governed by them
as long as paganism lasted. It may even be
said that these conceptions survived the break
ing of the idols, and that the veneration of the
masses as well as the ceremonial of the court
MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER 103
never ceased to consider the person of the
sovereign as endued with essence superhuman.
Aurelian (270-275 A.D.) had essayed to estab
lish an official religion broad enough to em
brace all the cults of his dominions and which
would have served, as it had among the Per
sians, both as the justification and the prop of
imperial absolutism. His hopes, however,
were blasted, mostly by the recalcitrance of
the Christians. But the alliance of the throne
with the altar, of which the Caesars of the
third century had dreamed, was realized under
another form; and by a strange mutation of for
tune the Church itself was called upon to sup
port the edifice whose foundations it had shat
tered. The work for which the priests of
Serapis, of Baal, and of Mithra had paved the
way was achieved without them and in oppo
sition to them. Nevertheless, they had been
the first to preach in Occidental parts the doc
trine of the divine right of kings, and had thus
become the initiators of a movement of which
the echoes were destined to resound even "to
the last syllable of recorded time."
THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC
MYSTERIES
FOR more than three centuries Mithraism
was practised in the remotest provinces
of the Roman empire and under the most
diverse conditions. It is not to be supposed
for a moment that during this long period
its sacred traditions remained unchanged, or
that the philosophies which one after another
swayed the minds of antiquity, or for that
matter the political and social conditions of
the empire, did not exercise upon them some
influence. But undoubted though it be that
the Persian Mysteries underwent some modifi
cation in the Occident, the inadequacy of the
data at our disposal prevents us from following
this evolution in its various phases and from
distinctly defining the local differences which
it may have presented. All that we can do is
to sketch in large outlines the character of the
doctrines which were taught by it, indicating
the additions and revisions which they ap
parently underwent. Besides, the alterations
that it suffered were largely ^superficial. JThe
identity of the images and hieratlcal formulas
of the most remote periods and places, proves
that before the time of its introduction into
the Latin countries reformed Mazdaism had
104
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 105
already consolidated
to the ancient Gnuco
its theology. Contrary /
-Roman paganism, which (
MITHRAIC KROXOS (^ON OR
ZERVAN AKARANA) REP
RESENTING BOUND
LESS TIiME.
The statue here repro
duced was found in the
mithraeum of Ostia before
mentioned, where C. Vale
rius Heracles and his sons
dedicated it in the year 190
A.D. This leontocephalous
figure is entirely nude, the
body being entwined six
times by a serpent, the
head of which rests on the
skull of the god. Four
wings decorated with the
symbols of the seasons issue
from the back. Each hand
holds a key, and the right
in addition a long scepter,
the symbol of authority.
A thunderbolt is engraved
on the breast. On the base
of the statue may be seen
the hammer and tongs of
Vulcan, the cock and the
- pine - cone consecrated to
^sculapius (or possibly to
the Sun and to Attis), and
the wand of Mercur all
Fig. 20.
characteristic adjuncts of the Mithraic Saturn, and sym
bolizing the embodiment in him of the powers of all the
gods. (7". et J/., p. 238.)
was an assemblage of practices and beliefs
without logical bond, Mithraism had a genuine
io6
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Fig. 21.
MITHRAIC KRONOS OF FLORENCE.
(T.etM.^. 259-)
i theology, a dogmatic system, which borrowed
from science its fundamental principles.
The belief appears generally to prevail that
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES IO/
Mithra was the only Iranian god that was
introduced into the Occident, and that every
thing in his religion that does not relate
directly to him was adventitious and recent.
This is a gratuitous and erroneous supposition.
Mithra was accompanied in his migrations by
a large representation from the Mazdean Pan
theon, and if he was in the eyes of his devo
tees the principal hero of the religion to which
he gave his name, he__was nevertheless not its
Supreme God.
Atjhe pinnacle of the_^vme__hiera.rchv and ^
at the origin of things, the Mithraic theology^.
the heir of that of the Zervanitic Magi, placed
boundless Time. Sometimes they would call It
Alajz/ or ^aeculum, Kpovos or Saturnus; but
these appellations were conventional and con
tingent, for he was considered ineffable, bereft j / /
alike of name, sex, and passions. In imita-t
tion of his Oriental prototype, he was repre
sented in the likeness of a human monster
with the head of a lion and his body envel
oped by a serpent. The multiplicity of attri
butes with which his statues are loaded is. in
keeping with the kaleidoscopic nature of his
character. He bears the scepter and the bolts
of divine sovereignty and holds in each hand
a key as the monarch of the heavens whose
portals he opens. His wings are symbolic of -^
the rapidity of his flight. The reptile whose 1
sinuous folds enwrap him, typifies the tortuous )
course of the Sun on the ecliptic; the signs of
io8
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Fig. 22.
MITHRAIC KRONOS (^ON, OR INFINITE TIME).
Nude leontocephalous figure standing upright on a
globe ; in each hand a key ; four wings ; thrice entwined
by a serpent, the head of which passes over the skull
and is about to enter the mouth. Sketched by Bartoli
from a description found in a mithraeum discovered in
the i6th century in Rome, between the Quirinal and
the Viminal. (T. et M., Fig. 21, p. 196.)
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES IOQ
the zodiac engraved on his body and the
emblems of the seasons that accompany them,
are meant to represent the celestial and ter
restrial phenomena that signalize the eternal
flight of the years. He creates and destroys
all things; he is the Lord and master of the
four elements that compose the universe, he
virtually unites in his person the power of all
the gods, whom he alone has begotten. Some
times he is identified with Destiny, at others
with the primitive light or the primitive fire;
while both conceptions rendered it possible
for him to be compared with the Supreme
Cause of the Stoics, the heat which pervades
all things, which has shaped all things, and
which under another aspect was Fatality
(Eijuap^ej^). See Figs. 20-23; also Fig. 49.
The preachers of Mithra sought to resolve
the grand problem of the origin of the world
by the hypothesis of a series of successive
generations. The first prind^lg^ according to
an ancient belief found in India as well as in
Greece, begot a primordial couple, the Heaven
and the Earth; and the latter, impregnated by
her brother, "gavTT birth to the vast Ocean
wrnch~~was~ equal in power to its parents, and
which appears to have formed with them the
supreme triad of the Mithraic Pantheon. The
relation of this triad to Kronos or Time from
which it had sprung, was not clearly defined;
and the starry Heavens of which the revolu
tions determined, as was believed, the course
110
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
MITHRAIC LEONTOCEPHALOUS KRONOS.
Bas-relief of white marble. Found in the same
mithrseum as the statue of Figure 22. Naked to the
waist; the limbs clothed in wide trousers; the arms
extended ; and in each hand a torch. From the back
four wings issue, two pointing upwards and two down
wards, and around each is a~serpent. Before the god
is a circular burning altar, and from his mouth a band
representing his breath extends to the fire of the altar.
(T. et M., Fig. 22, p. 196.)
of all events, appear at times to have been
confounded with the eternal Destiny.
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES III
These three cosmic divinities were personi
fied under other names less transparent. The
Heavens were naught less than Ormazd or
Jupiter, the Earth was identified with Spefita-
Armaiti or Juno, and the Ocean was similarly
called Apam-Napat or Neptune. Like the
Greek theogonies, so the Mithraic traditions
narrated that Zeus succeeded Kronos, the king
of the first ages, in the government of the
world. The bas-reliefs show us this Mazdean
Saturn placing in the hands of his son the
thunderbolts which were the symbol of his
sovereign power. Henceforward Jupiter with
his consort Juno was to reign over all the
other gods, all of whom owe to this couple
their existence.
The Olympian deities were sprung in fact
from the marriage of the celestial Jupiter with
the terrestrial Juno. Their eldest daughter is
Fortune (Fortuna primigenid), who bestows
on her worshippers every grace of body and
every beauty of soul. Her beneficent gener
osity is contrasted with Anangke, which repre
sents the unalterable rigor of fate. Themis
or the Law, the Moirx or the Fates, were
other personifications of Destiny, which mani
fests under various forms a character which
was susceptible of infinite development. The
sovereign couple further gave birth not only
to Neptune who became their peer, but to
a long line of other immortals: Artagnes
or Hercules, whose heroic deeds the sacred
112 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
hymns celebrated; Shahrtvar or Mars, who
was the god of the metals and succored the
pious warrior in his combats; Vulcan or Atar,
the genius of fire; Mercury, the messenger of
Zeus; Bacchus or Haoma, the personification
of the plant that furnished the sacred drink;
Silvanus or Drvaspa, protector of horses and
agriculture; then Anaitis, the goddess of the
fecundating waters, who has been likened to
Venus and Cybele and who, presiding over
war, was also invoked under the name of
Minerva; Diana or Luna, who made the honey
which was used in the purifications; Vanainiti
or Nike, who gave victory to kings; Asha or
Arete, perfect virtue; and others besides.
This innumerable multitude of divinities was
enthroned with Jupiter or Zeus on the sun-
tipped summits of Mt. Olympus and com
posed the celestial court.
Contrasted with this luminous abode, where
dwelt the Most High gods in resplendent radi
ance, was a dark and dismal domain in the
bowels of the earth. Here Ahriman or Pluto,
born like Jupiter of Infinite Time, reigned with
Hecate over the maleficent monsters that had
issued from their impure embraces.
These demoniac confederates of the King of
Hell then ascended to the assault of Heaven
and attempted to dethrone the successor of
Kronos; but, shattered like the Greek giants
by the ruler of the gods, these rebel monsters
were hurled backward into the abyss from
DOCTRINE OF THE M1THRAIC MYSTERIES 113
Fig. 24.
FRAGMENTS OF A BAS-RELIEF IN WHITE ITALIAN MARBLE.
Found at Virunum, in Noricum, and now in the
Historical Museum Rudolfmum, Klagenfurt, Austria.
The central part of the monument is entirely des
troyed; the head of the sun-god from the left-hand
corner alone having been left (see Fig. n). The left
border represents a Hellenized illustration of Ahura-
Mazda s struggle with demons, after the manner of
the gigantomachy." The lower part of the same frag
ment exhibits the birth of Mithra. (T. et M., p. 336.)
114 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
which they had risen (Figure 24). They made
their escape, however, from that place and
wandered about on the surface of the earth,
there to spread misery and to corrupt the
hearts of men, who, in order to ward off the
evils that menaced them, were obliged to ap
pease these perverse spirits by offering them
expiatory sacrifices. The initiate also knew
how by appropriate rites and incantations to
enlist them in his service and to employ them
against the enemies whose destruction he was
meditating.
The gods no longer confined themselves to
the ethereal spheres which were their appa
nage. If theogony represents them as gath
ered in Olympus around their parents and
sovereigns, cosmology exhibits them under
another aspect. Their energy filled the world,
and they were the active principles of its
transformations. Fire, personified in the
name of Vulcan, was the most exalted of these
natural forces, and it was worshipped in all
its manifestations, whether it shone in the stars
or in the lightning, whether it animated liv
ing creatures, stimulated the growth of plants,
or lay dormant in the bowels of the earth. In
the deep recesses of the subterranean crypts it
burned perpetually on the altars, and its vota
ries were fearful to contaminate its purity by
sacrilegious contact.
They opined with primitive artlessness that
fire and water were brother and sister, and
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 115
they entertained the same superstitious respect
for the one as for the other. They wor
shipped alike the saline floods which filled the
deep seas and which were termed indiffer
ently Neptune and Oceanus, the springs that
gurgled from the recesses of the earth, the
rivers that flowed over its surface, and the
placid lakes resplendent in their limpid sheen.
A perpetual spring bubbled in the vicinity of
the temples, and was the recipient of the
homage and the offerings of its visitors. This
font perennial (fons perennis] was alike the
symbolization of the material and moral boons
that the inexhaustible generosity of Infinite
Time scattered throughout the universe, and
that of the spiritual rejuvenation accorded to
wearied souls in the eternity of felicity.
T1j_e_nmitive earth^the nourishing earth,
the mother earth (terra mater], fecundated by
the waters of Heaven, occupied a like impor
tant place, if not in the ritual, at least in the
doctrine of this religion; and the four cardinal
winds which were correlated with the deified
Seasons were invoked as genii to be both feared
and loved: feared because they were the
capricious arbiters of the temperature, which
brought heat or cold, tempests or calms,
which alternately moistened and dried the at
mosphere, which produced the vegetation of the
spring and withered the foliage of the autumn,
and loved as the diverse manifestations of
the air itself, which is the principle of all life.
Il6 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
In other words, Mithraisrn deified the four
simple bodies which, according to the physics
of the ancients, composed the universe. An
allegorical group, often reproduced, in which
a lion represented fire, a cup water, a ser
pent the earth, pictured the struggle of the
opposing elements, which were constantly
devouring one another and whose perpetual
transmutations and infinitely variable combi
nations provoked all the phenomena of nature
(Fig. 25).
Hymns of fantastic symbolism celebrated
the metamorphoses which the antitheses of
these four elements produced in the world.
The Supreme God drives a chariot drawn by
four steeds which turn ceaselessly round in a
fixed circle. The first, which bears on its
shining coat the signs of the planets and con
stellations, is sturdy and agile and traverses
the circumference of the fixed circle with
extreme velocity; the second, less vigorous
and less rapid in its movements, wears a
somber robe, of which one side only is illumi
nated by the rays of the sun; the third pro
ceeds more slowly still; and the fourth turns
slowly in the same spot, champing restlessly
its steel bit, whilst its companions move round
it as round a stationary column in the center.
The quadriga turns slowly and unimpeded, reg
ularly completing its eternal course. But at a
certain -moment the fiery breath of the first
horse falling upon the fourth ignites its mane,
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES Ii;
and its neighbor, exhausted by its efforts, in
undates it with torrents of perspiration. Fi-
Fig. 25.
GRAND MITHRAIC BAS-RELIEF OF HEDDERNHEIM,
GERMANY.
In the center Mithra with the two torch-bearers;
immediately above, the signs of the Zodiac ; immedi
ately above these, Mithra aiming his arrow at the rock
(page 138); below the biiUa group composed of the
lion, the cup, and the servnL For the obverse of this
bas-relief, see supra, p. 54. (T. et M., p. 364.)
nally, a still more remarkable phenomenon
takes place. The appearance of the quartette
Il8 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
is transformed. The steeds interchange na
tures in such wise that the substance of all
passes over to the most robust and ardent of
the group, just as if a sculptor, after having
modelled figures in wax, had borrowed the
attributes of one to complete the others, and
had ended by merging all into a single form.
Then, the conquering steed in this divine
struggle, having become by his triumph om
nipotent, is identified with the charioteer him
self. The first horse is the incarnation of fire
or ether, the second of air, the third of water,
and the fourth of the earth. The accidents
which befall the last-mentioned horse, the
earth, represent the conflagrations and inun
dations which have desolated and will in the
future desolate our world; and the victory of
the first horse is the symbolic image of the
final conflict that shall destroy the existing
order of all things.
The cosmic quadriga, which draws the su-
prasensible Cause, has not been figured in
the sacred iconography. The latter reserved
for a visible god this emblematic group. The
votaries of Mithra, like the ancient Persians,
adored the Sun that traversed each day in its
chariot the spaces of the firmament and sank
at dusk extinguishing its fires in the ocean.
When it appeared again on the horizon, its
brilliant light scattered in flight the spirits of
darkness, and it purified all creation, to which
its radiance restored life. A like worship was
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES I IQ
accorded to the M^oa. which voyaged in the
spheres above on a cart drawn by white bulls.
Thejmimal of reproduction and nf spri mlt-nrg
KaoTnbeen assigned to the goddess that pre
sided over the increase of plants and the
generation of living creatures.
The elements, accordingly, were not the
only natural bodies that were deified in the
Mysteries. The two luminaries that fecun
dated nature were worshipped here the same
as in primitive Mazdaism, but the conceptions
which the Aryas formed of them have been
profoundly transformed by the influences of
Chaldaean theories.
As we have already said,* the ancient belief
of the Persians had been forcibly subjected in
Babylon to the influence of a theology which
was based on the science of its day, and the
majority of the gods of Iran had been likened
to the stars worshipped in the valley of the
Euphrates. They acquired thus a new char
acter entirely different from their original one,
and the name of the same deity thus assumed
and preserved in the Occident a double mean
ing. The Magi were unsuccessful in harmon
izing these new doctrines with their ancient
religion, for the Semitic astrology was as
irreconcilable with the naturalism of Iran as it
was with the paganism of Greece. But look
ing upon these contradictions as simple differ
ences of degree in the perception of one and
*See supra, page 10.
I2O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
the same truth, the clergy reserved for the
tlite exclusively the revelation of the original
Mazdean doctrines concerning the origin and
destiny of man and the world, whilst the mul
titude were forced to remain content with the
brilliant and superficial symbolism inspired by
the speculations of the Chaldseans. The astro
nomical allegories concealed from the curiosity
of the vulgar the real scope of the hieratic rep
resentations, and the promise of complete illu
mination, long withheld, fed the ardor of faith
with the fascinating allurements of mystery.
The most potent of these sidereal deities,
those which were most often invoked and for
which were reserved the richest offerings, were
the Planets. Conformably to astrological the
ories, the planets were endowed with virtues
and qualities for which it is frequently difficult
for us to discover adequate reasons. Each of
the planetary bodies presided over a day of
the week, to each some one metal was conse
crated, each was associated with some one de
gree in the initiation, and their number has
caused a special religious potency to be attrib
uted to the number seven. In descending
from the empyrean to the earth, the souls, it
was thought, successively received from them
their passions and qualities. These planetary
bodies were frequently represented on the
monuments, now by symbols recalling the
elements of which they were formed or the
sacrifices which were offered to them, and now
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 121
under the aspect of the immortal gods throned
on the Greek Olympus: Helios, Selene, Ares,
Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, Kronos. But these
images have here an entirely different signifi
cation from what they possess when they stand
for Ahura-Mazda, Zervan, or the other gods
of Mazdaism. Then the personifications of the
Heavens or of Infinite Time are not seen in
them, but only the luminous stars whose wan
dering course can be followed amid the con
stellations. This double system of interpreta
tion was particularly applied to the Sun,
conceived now as identical with Mithra and
now as distinct from him. In reality there
were two solar divinities in the Mysteries, one
Iranian and the heir of the Persian Hvare,
the other Semitic, the substitute of the Baby
lonian Shamash, identified with Mithra.
By the side of the planetary gods who have
still a double character, purely sidereal divini
ties received their tribute of homage. The
twelve signs of the Zodiac, which in their daily
revolution subject creatures to their adverse
influences, were represented in all of the
mithrseums under their traditional aspect
(Fig. 26). Each of them was without doubt
the object of particular veneration during the
month over which it presided, and they were
customarily grouped by threes according to
the Seasons to which they conformed and with
the worship of which theirs was associated.
(See also Fig. 49.)
122
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
But the signs of the Zodiac were not the
only constellations that were incorporated by
the priests in their theology. The astronom
ical method of interpretation, having been
Fig. 26.
MARBLE BAS-RELIEF FOUND IN LONDON.
In the center the tauroctonous Mithra with the
torch-bearers surrounded by the twelve signs of the
Zodiac. In the lower corners busts of the Winds ; in
the upper corners the Sun on his quadriga and the
Moon on a chariot drawn by bulls. The inscription
reads: Ulptus Silvanus emeritus leg(ionts) II
Aug(ustae) votum solvit. Factus Arausione (that
is, honorably discharged at Orange). ( T. et M., p. 389.)
once adopted in the Mysteries, was freely
extended and made to embrace all possible
figures. There was scarcely any object or
animal that was not in some way conceived as
DOCTRINE OF THE M1THRAIC MYSTERIES 123
the symbolic image of a stellar group. Thus
the raven, the cup, the dog, and the lion, that
ordinarily accompany the group of the tauroc-
tonous Mithra, were readily identified with
the constellations of the same name. The
two celestial hemispheres that alternately pass
above and below the earth were personified
and likened to the Dioscuri, who, according to
Fig. 27.
MITHRAIC CAMEO.
After Chiflet, reproduced from C. W. King.
the Hellenic fable, lived and died by turns.
Mythology and erudition were everywhere
mingled. The hymns described a hero like
the Greek Atlas who bore on his untiring
shoulders the globe of Heaven, and who is
regarded as the inventor of astronomy. But
these demi-gods were relegated to the back
ground; the planets and the signs of the
Zodiac never ceased to preserve their incon
testable primacy, for it was they above all
others, according to the astrologers, that con-
124
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
trolled the existence of men and guided the
course of things.
This was the capital doctrine that Babylon
introduced into Mazdaism: belief in Fatality,
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the conception of an Inevitable Destiny con
trolling the events of this world and insepara
bly conjoined with the revolution of the starry
heavens. This Destiny, identified with Zer-
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 125
van, became the Supreme Being which engen
dered all things "ami ruled the universe. The
JeveloprfTent of the universe is subject to im
mutable laws and its various parts are united
in the most intimate solidarity. The position
of the planets, their mutual relations and ener
gies, at every moment different, produce the
series of terrestrial phenomena. Astrology, of
which these postulates were the dogmas, cer
tainly owes some share of its success to the
Mithraic propaganda, and Mithraism is there
fore partly responsible for the triumph in the
West of this pseudo-science with its long train
of errors and terrors.
The rigorous logic of its deductions assured
to this stupendous chimera a more complete
domination over reflecting minds than the
belief in the infernal powers and in the invo
cation of spirits, although the latter com
manded greater sway over popular credulity.
The independent power attributed by Mazda-
ism to the principle of evil afforded justifica
tion for all manner of occult practices. Necro
mancy, 5en^m1K^y^"ef in the evil eye and
in talismans, in witchcraft and conjurations, in
fine, all the puerile and sinister aberrations of
ancient paganism, found their justification in
the role assigned to demons who incessantly
interfered in the affairs of men. The Persian
Mysteries are not free from the grave re
proach of having condoned, if not of having
really taught, these various superstitions. And
126 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
the title "Magus" became in the popular mind,
not without good reason, a synonym for magi
cian."
Yet neither the conception of an inexorable
necessity unpityingly forcing the human race
toward an unknown goal, nor even the fear of
malevolent spirits bent on its destruction, was
competent to attract the multitudes to the
altars of the Mithraic gods. The rigor of
these somber doctrines was tempered by a
belief in benevolent powers sympathizing with
the sufferings of mortals. Even the planets
were not, as in the didactic works of the the
oretical astrologists, cosmic powers whose fa
vorable or sinister influence waxed great or
diminished conformably to the revolutions of
a circle fixed for all eternity. They were, as in
the doctrine of the old Chaldaean religion,
divinities that saw and heard, that rejoiced or
lamented, whose wrath might be appeased, and
whose favor might be gained by prayers and
by offerings. The faithful reposed their con
fidence in the support of these benevolent
protectors who combated without respite the
powers of evil.
The hymns that celebrated the exploits of
the gods have unfortunately almost all per
ished, and we know these epic traditions only
through the monuments which served to illus
trate them. Nevertheless, the character of
this sacred poetry is recognizable in the debris
which has come down to us. Thus, the labors
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 12?
of Verethraghna, the Mazdean Hercules, were
chanted in Armenia. It is told here how he
strangled the dragons and aided Jupiter in his
triumphant combat with the monstrous giants;
and like the votaries of the Avesta, the
Roman adepts of Mazdaism compared him to
a bellicose and destructive boar.
But the hero that enjoyed the greatest role
in these warlike tales was Mithra. Certain
mighty deeds, which in the books of Zoroas-
trianism were attributed to other divinities,
were associated with his person. He had be
come the center of a cycle of legends which
alone explain the preponderant place that was t
accorded him in this religion. It is because
of the astounding feats accomplished by him
that this god, who did not hold supreme rank
in the celestial hierarchy, has given his name
to the Persian Mysteries that were dissemi
nated in the Occident.
For the ancient Magi, Mithra was, as we t
have seen, the^godjafJight, and as the light is
borne by the air he was thought to inhabit the
Middle Zone between Heaven and Hell, and
for this reason the name of ^eo-trr/? was given
to him. In order to signalize this attribute in
the ritual, the sixteenth or middle day of each
month was consecrated to him^ When he was
identified with Shamash,* his pfiests in invest
ing him with the appellation of "intermediary"
doubtless had in mind the fact that, according
*See supra, page 10.
128
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
to the Chaldaean doctrines, the sun occupied
the middle place in the planetary choir. But
this middle position was not exclusively a
position in space; it was also invested with an
important moral significance. Mithra was the
Fig. 29.
STATUES OF TORCH-BEARERS.
(Museum of Palermo. 7! et M., p. 270.)
"mediator" between the unapproachable and
unknowable god that reigned in the ethereal
spheres and the human race that struggled
and suffered here below. Shamash had al
ready enjoyed analogous functions in Baby-
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 1 29
Ion, and the Greek philosophers also saw in
the glittering globe that poured down upon
this world its light, the ever-present image of
the invisible Being, of whom reason alone
could conceive the existence.
It was_in. this adventitious quality of the /i
genms of the solar light that Mithra was best /
known in the Occident, and his monuments \ljj
frequently suggest this borrowed character.
It was customary to represent him between
two youthful figures, one with an uplifted, the
other with an inverted, torch. These youths
bore the enigmatic epithets of CgM&-and Caii-^
topati, and were naught else than the double
incarnation of his person (Figs. 18 and 29).
These two dadophori, as they were called, and
the tauroctonous hero formed together a triad,
and in this "triple Mithra" was variously seen
either the star of day, whose coming at morn
the cock announced, who passed at midday
triumphantly into the zenith and at night
languorously fell toward the horizon; or the
sun which, as it waxed in strength, entered
the constellation of Taurus and marked the
beginning of spring, the sun whose conquer
ing ardors fecundated nature in the heart
of summer and the sun that afterwards, en
feebled, traversed the sign of the Scorpion
and announced the return of winter. From
another point of view, one of these torch-
bearers was regarded as the emblem of heat
and of life, and the other as the emblem of
130
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
\J
cold and of death. Similarly, the taurocto-
nous group was variously explained with the
aid of an astronomical symbolism more ingen
ious than rational. Yet these sidereal inter
pretations were nothing more than intellectual
diversions designed to amuse the neophytes
Fig. 30.
MITHRA BORN FROM THE ROCK.
Bas-relief found in the crypt of St. Clements at Rome.
(T. et M., p. 202.)
prior to their receiving the revelation of the
esoteric doctrines that constituted the ancient
Iranian legend of Mithra. The story of this
legend is lost, but the bas-reliefs recount
certain episodes of it, and its contents appear
to have been somewhat as follows:
The light bursting from the heavens, which
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES
were conceived as a solid vault, became, in the
mythology of the Magi, Mjthra born from the
rock. ^The tradition ran that the "Generative
Rock," of which a standing image was wor
shipped in the temples, had given birth to
Mithra on the banks of a river, under the
Fig. 31-
MITHRA BORN FROM THE ROCK.
Holding in his hand the Grape which in the West replaced
the Haoma of the Persians. (T. et M., p. 231.)
shade of a sacred tree, and that shepherds
alone,* ensconced in a neighboring mountain,
had witnessed the miracle of his entrance into
the world. They had seen him issue forth
from the rocky mass, his head adorned with a
Phrygian cap, armed with a knife, and carry-;
*See the lower part of Fig. 24.
132 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
ing a torch that had illuminated the somber
depths below (Fig. 30). Worshipfully the shep
herds drew near, offering the divine infant
the first fruits of their flock and their harvests.
But the young hero was naked and exposed to
the winds that blew with violence: he had
concealed himself in the branches of a fig-tree,
and detaching the fruit from the tree with the
aid of his knife, he ate of it, and stripping it of
its leaves he made himself garments. Thus
equipped for the battle, he was able hencefor
ward to measure his strength with the other
powers that peopled the marvellous world
into which he had entered. For although the
shepherds were pasturing their flocks when he
was born, all these things came to pass before
there were men on earth.
The god with whom Mithra first measured
his strength was the Sun. The latter was com
pelled to render homage to the superiority of
his rival and to receive from him his investiture.
His conqueror placed upon his head the radi
ant crown that he has borne in his daily course
ever since his downfall. Then he caused him
to rise again, and extending to him his right
hand concluded with him a solemn covenant
of friendship. And ever after, the two allied
heroes faithfully supported each other in all
their enterprises (Fig. 32).
The most extraordinary of these epic adven
tures was Mithra s combat with the bull, the
first living creature created by Ormazd. This
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 133
0)
134
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
ingenious fable carries us back to the very be
ginnings of civilization. It could never have
risen save among a people of shepherds and
Fig. 33-
THE TAUROCTONOUS (BULL-SLAYING) MITHRA AND
THE TAUROPHOROUS (BULL-BEARING) MITHRA;
BETWEEN THEM THE DOG.
Clay cup found at Lanuvium. (7". et M., Fig. 80, p. 247.)
hunters with whom cattle, the source of all
wealth, had become an object of religious
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 135
veneration. In the eyes of such a people, the
capture of a wild bull was an achievement so
highly fraught with honor as to be apparently
no derogation even for a god.
The redoubtable bull was grazing in a pas
ture on the mountain-side; the hero, resorting
to a bold stratagem, seized it by the horns and
succeeded in mounting it. The infuriated
quadruped, breaking into a gallop, struggled
in vain to free itself from its rider; the latter,
although unseated by the bull s mad rush,
never for a moment relaxed his hold; he
suffered himself to be dragged along, sus
pended from the horns of the animal, which,
finally exhausted by its efforts, was forced to
surrender. Its conqueror then seizing it by its
hind hoofs, dragged it backwards over a road
strewn with obstacles (Fig. 33) into the cave
which served as his home.
This painful Journey (Transitus] of Mithra 1 j
became the symbol of human sufferings. But
the bull, it would appear, succeeded in making
its escape from its prison, and roamed again
at large over the mountain pastures. The
Sun then sent the raven, his messenger, to
carry to his ally the command to slay the
fugitive. Mithra received this cruel mission
much against his will, but submitting to the
decree of Heaven he pursued the truant beast
with his agile dog, succeeded in overtaking it
just at the moment when it was taking refuge
in the cave which it had quitted, and seizing it
136
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
by the nostrils with one hand, with the other
he plunged deep into its flank his hunting-
knife.
Then came an extraordinary prodigy to pass.
Fig. 34-
TWO BRONZE PLAQUES (VATICAN).
The one to the left has the head of Jupiter (Sil-
vanus?). The right hand holds a pine-cone, the left a
branch entwined by a serpent. On the right shoulder
is an eagle, and the breast is decorated with Mithraic
figures in relief: the tauroctonous Mithra, a cup, the
head of a ram, and a five-rayed disc. The right-hand
bust is that of a bearded Oriental with Phrygian cap,
holding in the right hand a pine-cone and in the left a
torch entwined by a serpent a crude piece of work
and probably of Asiatic origin. (7! et M., Figs. 97
and 98, p. 260.)
From the body of the moribund victim sprang
all the useful herbs and plants that cover the
earth with their verdure. From the spinal
cord of the animal sprang the wheat that gives
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 137
us our bread, and from its blood the vine that
produces the sacred drink of the Mysteries.
In vain did the Evil Spirit launch forth his
unclean demons against the anguish-wrung
animal, in order to poison in it the very sources
of life; the scorpion, the ant, the serpent,
strove in vain to consume the genital parts
and to drink the blood of the prolific quad
ruped; but they were powerless to impede the
miracle that was enacting. The seed of the
bull, gathered and purified by the Moon, pro
duced all the different species of useful ani
mals, and its soul, under the protection of the
dog, the faithful companion of Mithra, as
cended into the celestial spheres above, where,
receiving the honors of divinity, it became
under the name of Silvanus the guardian of
herds. Thus, through the sacrifice which he
had so resignedly undertaken, the taurocto-
nous hero became the creator of all the benefi
cent beings on earth; and, from the death
which he had caused, was born a new life,
more rich and more fecund than the old.
Meanwhile, the first human couple had been
called into existence, and Mithra was charged
with keeping a watchful eye over this priv
ileged race. It was in vain the Spirit of Dark
ness invoked his pestilential scourges to des
troy it; the god always knew how to balk his
mortiferous designs. Ahriman first desolated
the land by causing a protracted drought, and
its inhabitants, tortured by thirst, implored the
138 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
aid of his ever-victorious adversary. The di
vine archer discharged his arrows against a
precipitous rock, and there gushed forth from
it a spring of living water to which the sup
pliants thronged to cool their parched palates.*
But a still more terrible cataclysm followed,
which menaced all nature. A universal del-
luge depopulated the earth, which was over
whelmed by the waters of the rivers and the
seas. One man alone, secretly advised by the
gods, had constructed a boat and had saved
A himself, together with his cattle, in an ark
which floated on the broad expanse of waters.
Then a great conflagration ravaged the world
and consumed utterly both the habitations
of men and of beasts. But the creatures of
Ormazd also ultimately escaped this new peril,
thanks to celestial protection, and hencefor
ward the human race was permitted to wax
great and multiply in peace.
The heroic period of history was now closed,
and the terrestrial mission of Mithra accom
plished. In a Last Supper, which the initiated
commemorated by mystical love feasts, he
celebrated with Helios and the other compan
ions of his labors the termination of their com
mon struggles. Then the gods ascended to
the Heavens. Borne by the Sun on his radiant
quadriga, Mithra crossed the Ocean, which
sought in vain to engulf him (Fig. 35), and
took up his habitation with the rest of the im-
*See supra, p. 117, Fig. 25, and infra, p. 196, Fig. 45.
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 139
Fig- 35-
BAS-RELIEF OF APULUM, DACIA.
In the center, the tauroctonous Mithra with the
two torch-bearers ; to the left, Mithra mounted on the
bull, and Mithra taurophorous ; to the right, a lion
stretched lengthwise above a cup (symbols of fire and
water). Upper border: Bust of Luna; new-born
Mithra reclining near the banks of a stream ; shepherd
standing, with lambs; bull in a hut and bull in a boat;
underneath, the seven altars; Mithra drawing a bow;
bust of the Sun. Lower border: Banquet of Mithra
and the Sun ; Mithra mounting the quadriga of the
Sun; the Ocean surrounded by a serpent. (7! et M.,
p. 309.)
I4O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
mortals. But from the heights of Heaven he
never ceased to protect the faithful ones that
piously served him.
This mythical recital of the origin of the
world enables us to understand the importance
which the tauroctonous god enjoyed in his
religion, and to comprehend better what the
pagan theologians endeavored to express by
the title "mediator." Mithra is the creator to
whom Jupiter-Ormazd committed the task of
establishing and of maintaining order in na
ture. He is, to speak in the philosophical lan
guage of the times, the Logos that emanated
from God and shared His omnipotence; who,
after having fashioned the world as demiurge,
continued to watch faithfully over it. The
primal defeat of Ahriman had not reduced him
to absolute impotence; the struggle between
the good and the evil was still conducted on
earth between the emissaries of the sovereign
of Olympus and those of the Prince of Dark
ness; it raged in the celestial spheres in the
opposition of propitious and adverse stars, and
it reverberated in the hearts of men, the epit
omes of the universe.
Life is a battle, and to issue forth from it
victorious the law must be faithfully fulfilled,
that the divinity himself revealed to the an- ,,
cient Magi. What were the obligations that
Mithraism imposed upon its followers? What
were those "commandments" to which its
adepts had to bow in order to be rewarded in
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 14!
the world to come ? Our incertitude on these
points is extreme, for we have not the shadow
of a right to identify the precepts revealed in
the Mysteries with those formulated in the
Avesta. Nevertheless, it would appear certain
that the ethics of the Magi of the Occident
had made no concession to the license of the
Babylonian cults and that it had still preserved
the lofty character of the ethics of the ancient
Persians. Perfect purity had remained for
them the cult toward which the life of the
faithful should tend. Their ritual required
repeated lustrations and ablutions, which were
believed to wash away the stains of the soul.
This catharsis or purification both conformed
to the Mazdean traditions and was in harmony
with the general tendencies of the age. Yield
ing to these tendencies, the Mithraists car
ried their principles even to excess, and their
ideals of perfection verged on asceticism. Ab
stinence from certain foods and absolute con
tinence were regarded as praiseworthy.
Resistance to sensuality was one of the as
pects of the combat with the principle of evil.
To support untiringly this combat with the
followers of Ahriman, who, under multiple
forms, disputed with the gods the empire of
the world, was the duty of the servitors of
Mithra. Their dualistic system was partic
ularly adapted to fostering individual effort
and to developing human energy. They did
not lose themselves, as did the other sects, in
142
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
^ contemplative mysticism; for them, the good
\ dwelt in action. They rated strength higher
\than gentleness, and preferred courage to
lenity. From their long association with bar
baric religions, there was perhaps a residue of
NABARZE
DEO
ROSALAAIPIIAT!
AYG-N-DISP-Er
SVASVORVMQ
OMNIVM
PRQTASVlhAK
EIVS
\
l
Fig. 36.
VOTIVE INSCRIPTION TO MITHRA NABARZE
(VICTORIOUS).
Found at Sarmizegetusa. (T. et M., p. 281.)
cruelty in their ethics. A religion of soldiers,
Mithraism exalted the military virtues above
all others.
In the war which the zealous champion of
piety carries on unceasingly with the malign
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 143
demons, he is assisted by Mithra. Mithra is
the god of help, whom one never invokes in <
vain, an unfailing haven, the anchor of salva- <
tion for mortals in all their trials, the dauntless
champion who sustains his devotees in their
frailty, through all the tribulations of life. As
with the Persians, so here he is still the de
fender of truth and justice, the protector of
holiness, and the intrepid antagonist of the
powers of darkness. Eternally young and
vigorous, he pursues them without mercy;
"always awake, always alert," it is impossible
to surprise him; and from his never-ceasing
combats he always emerges the victor. This
is the idea that unceasingly occurs in the in
scriptions, the idea expressed by the Persian
surname Nabarze (Fig. 36), by the Greek and
Latin epithets of dzn/oyros, invictus, insupera-
bilis. As the god of armies, Mithra caused his
protdgds to triumph over their barbarous ad
versaries, and likewise in the moral realm he
gave them victory over the instincts of evil,
inspired by the Spirit of Falsehood, and he
assured them salvation both in this world and
in that to come.
* Like all the Oriental cults, the Persian Mys
teries mingled with their cosmogonic fables
and their theological speculations, ideas of
deliverance and redemption. NX They believed
in -the conscious survival after death of the
divine essence that dwells within us, and in
punishments and rewards beyond the tomb.
144 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
The souls, of which an infinite multitude
peopled the habitations of the Most High,
descended here below to animate the bodies
of men, either because they were compelled
by bitter necessity to fall into this material
and corrupt world, or because they had
dropped of their own accord upon the earth
to undertake here the battle against the de
mons. When after death the genius of cor
ruption took possession of the body, and the
soul quitted its human prison, the devas of
darkness and the emissaries of Heaven dis
puted for its possession. A special decree
decided whether it was worthy to ascend
again into Paradise. If it was stained by an
impure life, the emissaries of Ahriman dragged
it down to the infernal depths, where they in
flicted upon it a thousand tortures; or perhaps,
as a mark of its fall, it was condemned to take
up its abode in the body of some unclean ani
mal. If, on the contrary, its merits outweighed
its faults, it was borne aloft to the regions on
The heavens were divided into seven spheres,
each of which was conjoined with a planet. A
sort of ladder, composed of eight superposed
gates, the first seven of which were constructed
of different metals, was the symbolic sugges
tion in the temples, of the road to be followed
to reach the supreme region of the fixed stars.
To pass from one story to the next, each time
the wayfarer had to enter a gate guarded by
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 145
an angel of Ormazd. The initiates alone,\
to whom the appropriate formulas had been
taught, knew how to appease these inexorable
guardians. As the soul traversed these differ
ent zones, it rid itself, as one would of gar
ments, of the passions and faculties that it had
received in its descent to the earth. It aban
doned to the Moon its vital and nutritive
energy, to Mercujry its desires, to Venus its
wicked appetites, to the Sun its intellectual
capacities, to Mars its love of war, to Jupiter
its ambitious dreams, to Saturn its inclina
tions. It was naked, stripped of every vice
and every sensibility, when it penetrated the
eighth heaven to enjoy there, as an essence
supreme, and in the eternal light that bathed
the gods, beatitude without end.*
It was Mithra, the protector of truth, that
presided over the judgment of the soul after
its decease. It was he, the mediator, that
served as a guide to his faithful ones in their
courageous ascent to the empyrean; he was
the celestial father that received them in his
resplendent mansion, like children who had
returned from a distant voyage.
The happiness reserved for these quintes-
sentialized monads in a spiritual world is rather
difficult to conceive, and doubtless this doc
trine had but feeble attraction for vulgar
*This Mithraic doctrine has recently been compared with
other analogous beliefs and studied in detail by M. Bossuet.
"Die Himmelreise der Seele" (Archiv fur Religionswissen-
schaft, Vol. IV., 1901, p. 160 ff.)-
146 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
minds. Another belief, which was added to
the first by a sort of superfcetation, offered the
prospect of more material enjoyment. The
doctrine of the immortality of the soul was
rounded off by the doctrine of the resurrection
of the flesh.
The struggle between the principles of good
and evil is not destined to continue into all
eternity. When the age assigned for its dura
tion shall have rolled away, the scourges sent
by Ahriman will compass the destruction of
the world. A marvellous bull, analogous to
the primitive bull, will then again appear on
earth, and Mithra will redescend and reawaken
men to life. All will sally forth from the
tombs, will assume their former appearance,
and recognize one another. Humanity entire
will unite in one grand assembly, and the god
of truth will separate the good from the bad.
Then in a supreme sacrifice he will immolate
the divine bull; will mingle its fat with the
consecrated wine, and will offer to the just this
miraculous beverage which will endow them
all with immortality. Then Jupiter-Ormazd,
yielding to the prayers of the beatified ones,
will cause to fall from the heavens a devour
ing fire which will annihilate all the wicked.
The defeat of the Spirit of Darkness will be
achieved, and in the general conflagration
Ahriman and his impure demons will perish
and the rejuvenated universe enjoy unto all
eternity happiness without end.
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 147
We who have never experienced the Mith-
raic spirit of grace are apt to be disconcerted
by the incoherence and absurdity of this body
of doctrine, such as it has been shown forth in
our reconstruction. A theology at once naive
and artificial here combines primitive myths,
the naturalistic tendency of which is still trans
parent, with an astrological system whose log
ical structure only serves to render its radical
falsity all the more palpable. All the impos
sibilities of the ancient polytheistic fables here
subsist side by side with philosophical specu
lations on the evolution of the universe and
the destiny of man. The discordance between
tradition and reflection is extremely marked
here and it is augmented by the contrariety
between the doctrine of fatalism and that of
the efficacy of prayer and the need of worship.
But this religion, like any other, must not be
estimated by its metaphysical verity. It would
ill become us to-day to dissect the cold corpse
of this faith in order to ascertain its inward
organic vices. The important thing is to r
understand how Mithraism lived and grew \
great, and why it failed to win the empire of I
the world.
Its success was in great part undoubtedly J
due to the vigor of its ethics, which above all ^ j
things favored action. In an epoch of anarchy
and emasculation, its mystics found in its pre
cepts both stimulus and support. The convic
tion that the faithful ones formed part of a
148 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
sacred army charged with sustaining with the
Principle of Good the struggle against the
power of evil, was singularly adapted to pro
voking their most pious efforts and transform
ing them into ardent zealots.
The Mysteries exerted another powerful in
fluence, also, in fostering some of the most
exalted aspirations of the human soul: the
desire for immortality and the expectation of
final justice. The hopes of life beyond the
tomb which this religion instilled in its vota
ries were one of the secrets of its power in
these troublous times, when solicitude for the
\ life to come disturbed all minds.
But several other sects offered to their
adepts just as consoling prospects of a future
life. The special attraction of Mithraism
dwelt, therefore, in other qualities of its doc
trinal system. Mithraism, in fact, satisfied
alike both the intelligence of the educated and
the hearts of the simple-minded. The apothe
osis of Time as First Cause and that of the
Sun, its physical manifestation, which main
tained on earth heat and light, were highly
philosophical conceptions. The worship ren
dered to the Planets and to the Constellations,
the course of which determined terrestrial
events, and to the four Elements, whose infi
nite combinations produced all natural phe-
jf nomena, is ultimately reducible to the worship
of the principles and agents recognized by
ancient science, and the theology of the Mys-
DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES 149
teries was, in this respect, nothing but the re- it
ligious expression of the physics and astronomy |
of the Roman world.
This theoretical conformity of revealed dog
mas with the accepted ideas of science was /
calculated to allure cultivated minds, but it had
no hold whatever upon the ignorant souls of
the populace. These, on the other hand, were
eminently amenable to the allurements of a
doctrine that deified the whole of physical and
tangible reality. The gods were everywhere,
and they mingled in every act of life; the fire
that cooked the food and warmed the bodies
of the faithful, the water that allayed their
thirst and cleansed their persons, the very air
that they breathed, and the light that illumi
nated their paths, were the objects of their
adoration. Perhaps no other religion ever |
offered to its sectaries in a higher degree than j
Mithraism opportunities for prayer and mo- i
tives for veneration. When the initiated be
took himself in the evening to the sacred
grotto concealed in the solitude of the forests,
at every step new sensations awakened in his
heart some mystical emotion. The stars that
shone in the sky, the wind that whispered in
the foliage, the spring or brook that babbled
down the mountain-side, even the earth that
he trod under his feet, were in his eyes divine,
and all surrounding nature provoked in him a
worshipful fear for the infinite forces that
swayed the universe.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY, CLERGY AND
DEVOTEES
IN ALL the religions of classical antiquity
there is one feature which, while formerly
very conspicuous and perhaps the most im
portant of all for the faithful, has to-day al
most totally disappeared. It is their liturgy.
The Mysteries of Mithra form no exception to
this unfortunate rule. The sacred books which
contain the prayers recited or chanted during
the services, the ritual of the initiations, and
the ceremonials of the feasts, have vanished
and left scarce a trace behind. A verse bor
rowed from one unknown hymn is almost all
that has come down to us from the collections
which anciently must have been so abundant.
The old Gathas composed in honor of the
Mazdean gods were translated into Greek
during the Alexandrian epoch, and Greek re
mained for a long time the language of the
Mithraic cult, even in the Occident. Barbaric
words, incomprehensible to the profane, were
interspersed throughout the sacred texts and
augmented the veneration of the worshippers
for the ancient formulary, as well as their con
fidence in its efficacy. Such were the epithets
like Nabarze, "victorious," which has been ap
plied to Mithra, or the obscure invocations
150
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY Igl
like Nama, Nama Sebesio, engraved on our
bas-reliefs, which have never yet been inter-
Fig- 37-
TAUROCTONOUS MITHRA. BAS-RELIEF OF WHITE
MARBLE (BOLOGNA).
Important for its accessory figures. In the center,
the dog, serpent, scorpion, the two torch-bearers, and
above the one to the left the raven. Near each
torch-bearer is a pine-tree (?). On the upper border
are the busts of the seven planets in the following
order from the left: The Sun, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter,
Hermes, Mars, and Luna. The lower border, three
figures at a banquet; infant, or Eros(?); bearded
figure reclining (Oceanus). (T. et M., Fig. 99, p. 261.)
preted. A scrupulous respect for the tradi
tional practices of their sect characterized the
Magi of Asia Minor, and continued to be mani-
152 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
fested with unabated ardor among their Latin
successors. On the downfall of paganism, the
latter still took pride in worshipping the gods
according to the ancient Persian rites which
Zoroaster was said to have instituted. These
rites sharply distinguished their religion from
all the others that were practised at the same
time in Rome, and prevented its Persian origin
from ever being forgotten.
If some piece of good fortune should one
day unearth for us a Mithraic missal, we should
be able to study there these ancient usages
and to participate in imagination in the cele
bration of the services. Deprived as we are of
this indispensable guide, we are excluded
utterly from the sanctuary and know the eso
teric discipline of the Mysteries only from a
few indiscretions. A text of St. Jerome, con
firmed by a series of inscriptions, informs us
that there were seven degrees of initiation and
that the mystic (JHUCTTT/S, sacratus) successively
/assumed the names of Raven (corax], Occult
(crypkius), Soldier (miles), Lion (Ico), Persian
(Perscs), Runner of the Sun (hcliodromus), and
Father (paler). These strange appellations
were not empty epithets with no practical bear
ing. On certain occasions the celebrants
donned garbs suited to the title that had been
accorded them. On the bas-reliefs we see
them carrying the counterfeit heads of ani
mals, of soldiers, and of Persians. (See Fig.
38, p. 159) "Some flap their wings like birds, imi-
I
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 153
tating the cry of crows; others growl like
lions," says a Christian writer of the fourth
century;* "in such manner are they that are
called wise basely travestied."
These sacred masks, of which the ecclesias- f
deal writer exhibits the ridiculous side, were
interpreted by pagan theologians as an allusion
to the signs of the Zodiac, and even to the doc
trine of metempsychosis. Such divergences of
interpretation simply prove that the real mean
ing of these animal disguises was no longer
understood. They are in reality a survival of/
primitive practices which have left their traces
in numerous cults. We find the titles of Bear,
Ox, Colt, and other similar names borne by
the initiates of the different Mysteries in Greece
and Asia Minor. They go back to that pre
historic period where the divinities themselves
were represented under the forms of animals;
and when the worshipper, in taking the name
and semblance of his gods, believed that he
identified himself with them. The lion-headedV
Kronos having become the incarnation of 3 \
Time, was substituted for the lions which the \
forerunners of the Mithraists worshipped; and j V
similarly the cloth and paper masks with which -
the Roman mystics covered their faces were
substitutes for the animal skins with which
their barbarous predecessors originally clothed
themselves, be it that they believed they thus
*Ps. Augustine, Ouaest. vet. ct novi Test., (T. et M., Vol.
II., p. 8).
154 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
^7\ entered into communion with the monstrous
idols which they worshipped, or that, in en-
v v - veloping themselves in the pelts of their flayed
victims, they conceived these bloody tunics
to possess some purifying virtue.
To the primitive titles of Raven and Lion
others were afterward added for the purpose
of attaining the sacred number seven. The
seven degrees of initiation through which the
-mystic was forced to pass in order to acquire
/ / perfect wisdom and purity, answered to the
\s I seven planetary spheres which the soul was
forced to traverse in order to reach the abode
of the blessed.* After having been Raven,
the initiates were promoted to the rank of
Occult (Kpv(f)io<i). The members of this class,
hidden by some veil, probably remained in-
visible to the rest of the congregation. To
exhibit them (pstendere\ constituted a solemn
act. The Soldier (miles) formed part of the
sacred militia of the invincible god and waged
war under his directions on the powers of evil.
The dignity of Persian recalled the first origin
of the Mazdean religion, and he who obtained
it assumed during the sacred ceremonies the
Oriental custom of donning the Phrygian cap,
which had also been bestowed on Mithra. The
latter having been identified with the Sun, his
servitors invested themselves with the name
of Runners of the Sun ( HXioSpojuoi); lastly, the
title " Fathers " was borrowed from the Greek
*See supra, p. 144.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 155
Thiasi, where this honorific appellation fre
quently designated the directors of the com
munity.
In this septuple division of the deities, cer
tain additional distinctions were established. 1
We may conclude from a passage in Porphyry
that the taking _QLlhe_firsL_lhree_ degrees did
not authorize participation in the Mysteries.
These initiates, comparable to the Christian
catechumens, were the Servants (vir-r) perovvres) . t^^
To enter this order it was sufficient to have
been admitted to the Ravens, doubtless so
called because mythology made the raven the
servitor of the Sun. Only the mystics that had
received the Leontics became Participants
(jjLtTtxwres), and it is for this reason that the
grade of Leo is mentioned more frequently in
the inscriptions than any other. Finally, at
the summit of the hierarchy were placed the
Fathers, who appear to have presided over
the sacred ceremonies (pater sacrorum) and to
have commanded the other classes of the
faithful. The head of the Fathers themselves
bore the name of Pater Patrum, sometimes
transformed into Pater patratus, in order to
introduce an official sacerdotal title into a sect
which had become Roman. These grand
masters of the adepts retained until their death
the general direction of the cult. The rever
ence and affection which were entertained for
these venerable dignitaries are indicated by
their name of Father, and the mystics placed
156 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
under their authority were called brethren by
one another, because the fellow-initiates (con-
sacranei) were expected to cherish mutual af
fection.*
Admission (acceptio) to the lower orders could
be accorded even to children. We do not
know whether the initiates were obliged to
remain in any one of the grades for a fixed
length of time. The Fathers probably decided
when the novice was sufficiently prepared to
receive the higher initiation, which they con
ferred in person (trader e).
This ceremony of initiation appears to have
borne the name of sacrament (sacr amentum),
doubtless because of the oath which the neo
phyte took and which was compared to that
made by the conscripts enrolled in the army.
The candidate engaged above all things not to
divulge the doctrines and the rites revealed to
him, but other and more special vows were
exacted of him. Thus, the mystic that aspired
to the title of Miles was presented with a
crown on a sword. He thrust it back with his
hand and caused it to fall on his shoulder, say
ing that Mithra was his only crown. There
after, he never wore one, neither at banquets
nor when it was awarded to him as a military
honor, replying to the person who conferred
it: "It belongs to my^god " ^that is to say, to
the invincible god. ^ X vruJl3fcu/\
^We are as poorly acquainted with the liturgy
*See infra, p. 190, footnote.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 157
of the seven Mithraic sacraments as we are
with the dogmatic instructions that accom
panied them. We know, however, that con
formably to the ancient Iranian rites, repeated
ablutions were prescribed to neophytes as a
kind of baptism designed to wash away their
guilty stains. As with a certain class of Gnos
tics, this lustration doubtless had different
effects at each stage of initiation, and it might
consist according to circumstances either in a
simple sprinkling of holy water, or in an actual
immersion as in the cult of Isis.
Tertullian also compared the confirmation
of his co-religionists to the ceremony in which
they "signed" the forehead of the soldier. It
appears, however, that the sign or seal im
pressed was not, as in the Christian liturgy, an
unction, but a mark burned with a red-hot iron
like that applied in the army to recruits be
fore they were admitted to the oath. This
indelible imprint perpetuated the memory of
the solemn engagement by which the person
under vow contracted to serve in that order of
chivalry which Mithraism constituted. On
reception among the Lions, there were new
purifications. But this animal being the em
blem of the principle of fire, the use of water,
the element hostile to fire, was renounced;
and, in order to preserve the initiate from the
blemish of sin, honey was poured on his hands
and applied to his tongue, as was the custom
with new-born children. It was honey also
158 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
that was presented to the Persian because of
its preservative virtue, as Porphyry tells us;*
in fact, marvellous properties appear to have
been associated with this substance, which was
believed to have been produced under the in
fluence of the moon. According to the ancient
ideas, it was the food of the blessed, and its
absorption by the neophyte made him a peer
of the gods.f
In the Mazdean service, the celebrant con
secrated the bread and the water which he
mingled with the intoxicating juice of the
Haoma prepared by him, and he consumed
these foods during the performance of his sac
rifice. These ancient usages were preserved
in the Mithraic initiations, save that for the
Haoma, a plant unknown in the Occident, was
substituted the juice of the vine. A loaf of
bread and a goblet of water were placed before
the mystic, over which the priest pronounced
the sacred formula. This oblation of bread
and water, with which undoubtedly wine was
afterward mixed, is compared by the apolo
gists to the Christian sacrament of the Lord s
Supper. Like the latter, it was not granted
until after a long novitiate. It is probable
that only those initiates who had attained the
degree of Lions were admitted to it, and that
this is the reason that the name of "Partici-
*Porph., De antro nymph., c. 15 (T. et Af., Vol. II., p. 40).
fThe liturgic use of honey has recently been elucidated by
Usener, "Milch und Honig" {Hermes, LVII), 1902, p. 177 ff.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY
159
I6O THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
pants" was given to them. A curious bas-
relief recently published shows us the spectacle
of this sacred repast (Fig. 38). Before two
persons stretched upon a couch covered with
pillows is placed a tripod bearing four tiny
loaves of bread, each marked with a cross.
Around them are grouped the initiates of the
different orders, and one of them, the Persian,
presents to the two a drinking-horn; whilst a
second vessel is held in the hands of one of
the Participants. These love feasts are evi
dently the ritual commemoration of the ban
quet which Mithra celebrated with the Sun
before his ascension.* From this mystical
banquet, and especially from the imbibing of
the sacred wine, supernatural effects were ex
pected. The intoxicating liquor gave not only
vigor of body and material prosperity, but wis
dom of mind; it communicated to the neo
phyte the power to combat the malignant
spirits, and what is more, conferred upon him
as upon his god a glorious immortality.
The sacramental collation was accompanied,
or rather preceded, by other rites of a differ
ent character. These were genuine trials im
posed upon the candidate. To receive the
sacred ablutions and the consecrated food, the
Participant was obliged to prepare for them by
prolonged abstinence and numerous austeri
ties; he played the role of sufferer in certain
dramatic expiations of strange character and
*See above, p. 138
THE M1THRAIC LITURGY l6l
of which we know neither the number nor
the succession. If we can believe a Christian
writer of the fourth century,"* the eyes of the
neophyte were bandaged, his hands were bound
with the entrails of chickens, and he was com
pelled to leap over a ditch filled with water;
finally, a liberator approached with a sword
and sundered his loathsome bonds. Some
times, the terrified mystic took part, if not as
an actor, at least as a spectator, in a simulated
murder, which in its origin was undoubtedly
real. In late periods, the officiants were con
tented with producing a sword dipped in the
blood of a man who had met a violent death.
The cruelty of these ceremonies, which among
the warlike tribes of the Taurus must have
been downright savage orgies, was softened
by contact with western civilization. In any
event, they had become more fear-inspiring
than fearful, and it was the moral courage of
the initiate that was tried rather than his phys
ical endurance. The idea which was sought
to be attained was the stoic "apathy," the
absence of every sensitive emotion. The
atrocious tortures, the impossible macerations,
to which some too credulous or inventive
authors have condemned the adepts of the
Mysteries, must be relegated to the realm of
fable, as must likewise the pretended human
sacrifices which were said to have been per
petrated in the shades of the sacred crypts.
*See above, p. 153, footnote.
l62 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that
Mithraism exhibited nothing more than the
benignant phantasmagoria of a species of an
cient freemasonry. There had subsisted in
its liturgic drama vestiges of its original bar
barism, of the time when in the forests, in the
depths of some, dark cave, corybantes, envel
oped in the skins of beasts, sprinkled the altars
with their blood. In the Roman towns, the
secluded caverns of the mountains were re
placed by subterranean vaults (spelcza) of far
less imposing aspect (Fig. 39). But even in
these artificial grottos the scenes of initiation
were calculated to produce on the neophyte
a profound impression. When, after having
traversed the approaches of the temple, he
descended the stairs of the crypt, he perceived
before him in the brilliantly decorated and
illuminated sanctuary the venerated image of
the tauroctonous Mithra erected in the apse,
then the monstrous statues of the leonto-
cephalous Kronos, laden with attributes and
mystic symbols, the meaning of which was
still unknown to him. At the two sides, partly
in the shadow, the assistants, kneeling on
stone benches, were seen praying. Lamps
ranged about the choir threw their bright
rays on the images of the gods and the cele
brants, who, robed in strange costumes, re
ceived the new convert. Fitful flashes of light
skillfully manipulated impressed his eyes and
his mind. The sacred emotion with which he
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY
164 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
was seized lent to images which were really
puerile a most formidable appearance; the
vain allurements with which he was con
fronted appeared to him serious dangers over
which his courage triumphed. The fermented
beverage which he imbibed excited his senses
and disturbed his reason to the utmost pitch;
he murmured his mystic formulas, and they
evoked before his distracted imagination di
vine apparitions. In his ecstasy, he believed
himself transported beyond the limits of the
world, and having issued from his trance he
repeated, as did the mystic of Apuleius:* "I
have transcended the boundaries of death, I
have trodden the threshold of Proserpine, and
having traversed all the elements I am re
turned to the earth. In the middle of the
night I have seen the Sun scintillating with a
pure light; I have approached the gods below
and the gods above, and have worshipped
them face to face."
The tradition of all this occult ceremonial
was scrupulously observed by a priesthood in
structed in the divine science and distinct from
all classes of initiates. Its first founders were
certainly the Oriental Magi, but we are almost
entirely ignorant of the manner in which its
ranks were later recruited and organized. Was
it hereditary, named for life, or chosen for a
fixed term ? In the latter event, who had the
*Apuleius, Metam. XI, 23, a propos of the mystics of
I sis.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 165
right of choosing and what conditions did the
candidates have to fulfil ? None of these points
is sufficiently elucidated. We can only state
that the priest, who bore indifferently, as it
seems, the title of sacerdos or that of antistcs,
was often, but not always, a member of the
Fathers. We find one vicar, and sometimes
several, in each temple. There is every
ground for believing that a certain hierarchy
existed in this "sacerdotal order." Tertullian
tells us that the chief pontiff (summus ponti-
fex}* could marry but once; he doubtless des
ignated by this Roman name the "Father of
the Fathers," who appears to have exercised
general jurisdiction over all the initiates resid
ing in the city.t This is the only indication
we possess regarding an organization which
was perhaps as solidly constituted as that of
the Magi in the Sassanian kingdom, or that of
the Manichaeans of the Roman empire. The
same apologist adds that the sectarians of the
Persian god also had, like the Christians, their
"virgins and their continents." The existence
of this kind of Mithraic monachism appears to
be all the more remarkable as the merit at
tached to celibacy is antagonistic to the spirit
of Zoroastrianism. J^"
The role of the clergy was certainly more
extensive than in the ancient Greek and Ro-
*Tertull., De praescr. haeret., XL.
fCf. supra, p. 155. I adopt here the suggestion of M. Wis-
sova, Religion der Romer, 1902, p. 309.
166 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
man religions. The priest was the interme
diary between God and man. His functions
evidently included the administration of the
sacraments and the celebration of the serv
ices. The inscriptions tell us that in addition
he presided at the formal dedications, or at
least represented the faithful one on such an
occasion along with the Fathers; but this was
the least portion only of the duties he had to
perform; the religious service which fell to
his lot appears to have been very exacting.
He doubtless was compelled to see that a per
petual fire burned upon the altars. Three
times a day, at dawn, at noon, and at dusk, he
addressed a prayer to the Sun, turning in the
morning toward the East, at noon toward the
South, at evening toward the West. The daily
liturgy frequently embraced special sacrifices.
The celebrant, garbed in sacerdotal robes
resembling those of the Magi, sacrificed to the
higher and lower gods divers victims, the blood
of which was collected in a trench; or offered
them libations, holding in his hands the bundle
of sacred twigs which we know from the
Avesta. Long psalmodies and chants accom
panied with music were interspersed among
the ritual acts. A solemn moment in the
service, one very probably marked by the
sounding of a bell, was that in which the
image of the tauroctonous Mithra, hitherto
kept veiled, was uncovered before the eyes of
the initiates. In some temples, the sculptured
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 167
slab, like our tabernacles, revolved on a pivot,
and alternately concealed and exposed the
figures that adorned its two faces.
Each day in the week, the Planet to which the
day was sacred was invoked in a fixed spot in
the crypt; and Sunday, over which the Sun
presided, was especially holy. Further, the
liturgic calendar solemnized certain dates by
festivals concerning which we are unfortu
nately very poorly informed. Possibly the
sixteenth or middle day of the month con
tinued (as in Persia) to have Mithra for its
patron. On the other hand, there is never a
word in the Occident concerning the celebra
tion of the Mithrakana, which were so popular
in Asia.* They were doubtless merged in the
celebration of the 25th of December, for a
very wide-spread custom required that the new
birth of the Sun (Natalis invicti), which began
to wax great again on the termination of the
winter solstice, should be celebrated by sacred
festivals. We have good reasons for believing
that the equinoxes were also days of rejoicing,
the return of the deified seasons being inau
gurated by some religious salutation. The
initiations took place preferably at the begin
ning of spring, in March or in April, at the
Paschal period, when Christians likewise ad
mitted their catechumens to the rites of bap
tism. But concerning all these solemnities,
as generally with everything connected with
*See above, p. 9.
l68 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
the heortology* of the Mysteries, our ignorance
is almost absolute.
The Mithraic communities were not only
brotherhoods united by spiritual bonds; they
were also associations possessing juridic exist
ence and enjoying the right of holding prop
erty. For the management of their affairs
and the care of their temporal interests, they
elected officers, who must not be confounded
either with the initiates or the priests. The
titles borne in the descriptions by the mem
bers of these boards of trustees prove to us
that the organization of the colleges of the
worshippers of Mithra did not differ from that
of the other religious sodalicia % which was
based upon the constitutions of the munici
palities or towns. These corporations pub
lished an official list of their members, an
album sacratorum, in which the latter were
ranked according to the importance of their
office. They had at their head a council of
^decurions, a directing committee named most
likely in a general assembly, a sort of minia
ture senate, of which the first ten (decem primi]
possessed, as in the cities, special privileges.
^They had their masters (magistri} or presi
dents, elected annually, their curators (cura-
tores], upon whom fell the task of manag
ing the finances, their attorneys (defensores),
charged with presenting their cause before
*The science of festivals. From eo/or^, festival, holiday.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY l6g
the courts or public bureaus; and finally, their
patrons (patroni), persons of consequence, from
whom they expected not only efficient protec
tion but also pecuniary aid in replenishing
their budget.
As the state granted them no subsidies, their
well-being depended exclusively on private
generosity. Voluntary contributions, the reg
ular revenues of the college, scarcely covered
the expenses of worship, and the least extraor
dinary expenditure was a heavy burden for
the common purse. These associations of
unmoneyed people could not, with their slen
der resources, construct sumptuous temples;
ordinarily they acquired from some favorably
disposed land-holder a piece of ground, on
which they erected, or rather dug, their chapel,
some other benefactor defraying the cost of
the construction. Or, some wealthy burgher
placed at the disposal of the mystics a cellar,
where they installed themselves as best they
could. If the original donor had not the
means to pay for the interior decoration of
the crypt and the modelling of the sacred
images, other Brothers supplied the necessary
sum, and a honorific inscription perpetuated
the memory of their munificence. Three
votive inscriptions found in Rome enable us
to witness the founding of one of these Mith-
raic congregations.* A freedman and a free-
*Corpus mscriptionum latinarum, Vol. VI., Nos. 556, 717,
734=30822 (T.etM.* Vol. II, p. 101, n*47-48 bis ).
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
man contributed a marble altar, two other
initiates consecrated a second one, and a slave
likewise made his modest offering. The
generous protectors obtained in return for
their liberality the highest dignities in the
little church. Through their efforts it was
gradually furnished, and in the end could
allow itself certain luxuries. Marble suc
ceeded common stone, sculpture replaced
plaster, and mosaic was substituted for paint
ing. Finally, when the first temple fell into
decay, the enriched community frequently re
built it with new splendor.
The number of the gifts mentioned in the
epigraphic texts bears witness to the attach
ment of the faithful to the brotherhoods into
which they had been admitted. It was owing
to the constant devotion of the thousands of
zealous disciples that these societies, the or
ganic cells of the great religious body, could
live and flourish. The order was divided into
a multitude of little circles, strongly knit to
gether and practising the same rites in the
same sanctuaries. The size of the temples in
which they worshipped is proof that the num
ber of members was always very limited.
Even supposing that the Participants only
were allowed to enter the subterranean crypt
and that the initiates of inferior rank were
admitted only to the vestibule (pronaos), it is
impossible that these societies should have
counted more than one hundred members.
THE MITHRAIC LITURGY 1^1
When the number increased beyond measure,
a new chapel was constructed and the group
separated. In these compact churches, where
every one knew and aided every one else, pre
vailed the intimacy of a large family. The
clear-cut distinctions of an aristocratic society
were here effaced; the adoption of the same
faith had made the slave the equal, and some
times the superior, of the decurion and the
clarissimus. All bowed to the same rules, all
were equally honored guests at the same festi
vals, and after their death they all doubtless
reposed in one common sepulcher. Although
no Mithraic cemetery has been discovered up
to the present day, the special belief of the
sect regarding the future life and its very defi
nite rites render it quite probable that like the
majority of the Roman sodalicia it formed not
only religious colleges but also funerary asso
ciations. It certainly practised inhumation,
and the liveliest and most ardent desire of its
adepts must have been that of obtaining an
interment that was at once honorable and re
ligious, a "mansion eternal," where they could
await in peace the day of the Resurrection.
If the name of brothers which the initiates
gave themselves was not an empty term, they
were bound to render to one another at least
this last duty.
The very imperfect image that we can frame
of the interior life of the Mithraic conventicles
aids us nevertheless in fathoming the reasons
1^2 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
of their rapid multiplication. The humble
plebeians who first entered its vaults in great
numbers found in the fraternity of these con
gregations succor and solace. In joining
them, they passed from their isolation and
abandonment to become a part of a powerful
organization with a fully developed hierarchy
and having ramifications that spread like a
dense net over the entire empire. Besides,
the titles which were conferred upon them
satisfied the natural desire that dwells in every
man of playing a part in the world and of
enjoying some consideration in the eyes of his
fellows.
With these purely secular reasons were asso
ciated the more powerful motives of faith.
The members of these little societies imagined
themselves in the privileged possession of a
body of ancient wisdom derived from the far
Orient. The secrecy with which these un
fathomable arcana were surrounded increased
the veneration that they inspired: Omrie igno-
ticm pro magnified est. The gradual initiations
kept alive in the heart of the neophyte the
hopes of truth still more sublime, and the
strange rites which accompanied them left in
his ingenuous soul an ineffaceable impression.
The converts believed they found, and, the
suggestion being transformed into reality,
^actually did find, in the mystic ceremonies a
stimulant and a consolation. They believed
themselves purified of their guilt by the ritual
THE M1THRAIC LITURGY 173
ablutions, and this baptism lightened their con
science of the weight of their heavy responsi
bility. They came forth strengthened from
these sacred banquets, which contained the
promise of a better life, where the sufferings
of this world would find their full compensa
tion. The astonishing spread of Mithraism is
due in large measure to these stupendous illu
sions, which would appear ludicrous were they
not so profoundly and thoroughly human.
Nevertheless, in the competition between
the rival churches that disputed under the
Caesars the empire of human souls, one cause
of inferiority rendered the struggle unequal
for the Persian sect. Whilst the majority of
the Oriental cults accorded to women a con
siderable role in their churches, and some
times even a preponderating one, finding in
them ardent supporters of the faith, Mithra
forbade their participation in his Mysteries
and so deprived himself of the incalculable
assistance of these propagandists. The rude
discipline of the order did not permit them to
take the degrees in the sacred cohorts, and,
as among the Mazdeans of the Orient, they
occupied only a secondary place in the society
of the faithful. Among the hundreds of in
scriptions that have come down to us, not one
mentions either a priestess, a woman initiate,
or even a donatress. But a religion which
aspired to become universal could not deny a
knowledge of divine things to one half of the
1/4 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
human race, and in order to afford some op
portunity for feminine devotion it contracted
at Rome an alliance which certainly contrib
uted to its success. The history of Mithraism
in the Occident would not be intelligible if we
neglected to consider its policy toward the
rest of paganism.
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF
THE EMPIRE
THE acts of the Oriental martyrs bear
eloquent testimony to the intolerance
of the national clergy of the Persia of the
Sassanids; and the Magi of the ancient em
pire, if they were not persecutors, at least con
stituted an exclusive caste, and possibly even
a privileged race. The priests of Mithra
afford no evidence of having assumed a like
attitude. Like the Judaism of Alexandria,
Mazdaism had been softened in Asia Minor
by the Hellenic civilization. Transported into
a strange world, it was compelled to accom
modate itself to the usages and ideas there
prevailing; and the favor with which it was/
received encouraged it to persevere in its-
policy of conciliation. The Iranian gods who
accompanied Mithra in his peregrinations
were worshipped in the Occident under Greek
and Latin names; the Avestan yazatas as
sumed there the guise of the immortals en
throned on Olympus, and these facts are in
themselves sufficient to prove that far from
exhibiting hostility toward the ancient Gracco-
Roman beliefs, the Asiatic religion sought to
accommodate itself to them, in appearance at
least. A pious mystic could, without renoun-
175
1 7 6
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
, cing his faith, dedicate a votive inscription to
\ the Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno, and Mi
nerva; he merely invested these divine names
Fig. 40.
TAUROCTONOUS MITHRA
In the possession of Mr. S. H. Janes, Janes Build
ings, Toronto, Canada. With the usual accessories. In
the upper left-hand corner a bust of the Sun, and in
the upper right-hand corner a bust of the Moon. The
left hand of the god, which has been broken off, appar
ently grasps a horn and not the nostrils of the bull.
In all probability partly restored, it being scarcely
possible that the dadophori could both have held
upright torches. (T. et M., Fig. 418, p. 483.)
with a different meaning from their ordinary
acceptation. If the injunction to refrain from
participating in other Mysteries, which is said
to have been imposed upon Mithraic initiates,
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE I/;
was ever obeyed it was not long able to with
stand the syncretic tendencies of imperial
paganism. For in the fourth century the
"Fathers of the Fathers" were found perform
ing the highest offices of the priesthood, in
temples of all sorts.
Everywhere the sect knew how to adapt it-
If with consummate skill to the environment
in which it lived. In the valley of the Danube
it exercised on the indigenous cult an influence
that presupposes a prolonged contact between
them. In the region of the Rhine, the Celtic
divinities were worshipped in the crypts of
the Persian god, or at least alongside of them.
Thus, the Mazdean theology, according to thdl
country in which it flourished, was colored!
with variable tints, the precise gradations of]
which it is now impossible for us to follow.
But these dogmatic shadings merely diversi-.
fied the subordinate details of the religion, i
and never imperilled its fundamental unity.)
There is not the slightest evidence that these
deviations of a flexible doctrine provoked ^
heresies. The concessions which it made!
were matters of pure form. In reality, Mith-
raism having arrived in the Occident in its full
maturity, and even showing signs of decrepi
tude, no longer assimilated the elements that
it borrowed from the surrounding life. The
only influences that profoundly modified its
character were those to which it was subjected
in its youth amidst the populations of Asia.
1/8 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
The close relation in which Mithra stood
to certain gods of this country is explained not
only by the natural affinity which united all
Oriental immigrants in opposition to the
paganism of Greece and Rome. The ancient
religious hostility of the Egyptians and Per
sians persisted even in Rome under the em
perors, and the Iranian Mysteries appear
to have been separated from those of Isis by
secret rivalry if not by open opposition. On
the other hand, they associated readily with
the Syrian cults that had emigrated with them
from Asia and Europe. Their doctrines, thor
oughly imbued with Chaldsean theories, must
have presented a striking resemblance to that
of the Semitic religions. Jupiter Dolichenus,
who was worshipped simultaneously with
Mithra in Commagene, the land of his origin,
and who like the latter remained a preemi
nently military divinity, is found by his side in
all the countries of the Occident. At Carnun-
tum in Pannonia, a mithracum and a doliche-
num* adjoined each other. Baal, the lord of
the heavens, was readily identified with Or-
mazd, who had become Jupiter-Cxlus, and
Mithra was easily likened to the solar god of
the Syrians. Even the rites of the two litur
gies appear to have offered some resemblances.
As in Commagene, so also in Phrygia, Maz-
daism had sought a common ground of under
standing with the religion of the country. In
*A temple of Jupiter Dolichenus. 7X
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 1/9
the union of Mithra and Anahita the counter- |
part was found of the intimacy between the
great indigenous divinities Attis and Cybele,
and this harmony between the two sacred
couples persisted in Italy. The most ancient
mithraeum known to us was contiguous to the
metroon* of Ostia, and we have every reason
to believe that the worship of the Iranian god
and that of the Phrygian goddess were con
ducted in intimate communion with each other
throughout the entire extent of the empire.
Despite the profound differences of their char
acter, political reasons drew them together.
In conciliating the priests of the Mater Magna t >
the sectaries of Mithra obtained the support
of a powerful and officially recognized clergy,
and so shared in some measure in the protec
tion afforded it by the State. Further, since
men only were permitted to take part in the
secret ceremonies of the Persian liturgy, other
Mysteries to which women were admitted must
have formed some species of alliance with the
former, to make them complete. The Great
Mother succeeded thus to the place of Ana
hita; she had her Matres or "Mothers," as
Mithra had his "Fathers"; and her initiates
were known among one another as "Sisters,"
just as the votaries of her associate called
one another "Brothers."
This alliance, fruitful generally in its results,
was especially profitable to the_ancjen^cult_of
* A temple of Cybele. - 7>.
180 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Pessinus, now naturalized at Rome. The loud
pomp of its festivals was a poor mask of the
vacuity of its doctrines, which no longer satis
fied the aspirations of its devotees. Its gross
theology was elevated by the adoption of cer-
i tain Mazdean beliefs. There can be scarcely
any doubt that the practice of the taurobo-
lium, with the ideas of purification and immor
tality appertaining to it, had passed under the
Antonines from the temples of Anahita into
those of the Mater Magna. The barbarous
custom of allowing the blood of a victim
slaughtered on a latticed platform to fall down
upon the mystic lying in a pit beloAv, was prob
ably practised in Asia from time immemorial.
According to a wide-spread notion among
primitive peoples, the blood is the vehicle of
the vital energy, and the person who poured
it upon his body and moistened his tongue
with it, believed that he was thereby endowed
with the courage and strength of the slaugh
tered animal. This sacred bath appears to
have been administered in Cappadocia in a
great number of sanctuaries, and especially in
those of Ma, the great indigenous divinity,
and in those of Anahita. These goddesses, to
whom the bull was consecrated, had been
generally likened by the Greeks to their
Artemis Tauropolos, and the ritualistic bap
tism practised in their cult received the name
of tauropolium (ravpoTrokiov), which was trans
formed by the popular etymology into tauro-
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE l8l
bolium (TavpofioXiov). But under the influence
of the Mazdean beliefs regarding the future
life, a more profound significance was attrib
uted to this baptism of blood. In taking it the
devotees no longer imagined they acquired
the strength of the bull; it was no longer a
renewal of physical strength that the life-sus
taining liquid was now thought to communi
cate, but a renovation, temporary or even
perpetual, of the human soul*
When, under the empire, the taurobolium
was introduced into Italy, it was not quite cer
tain at the outset what Latin name should be
given the goddess in whose honor it was cele
brated. Some saw in her a celestial Venus;
others compared her to Minerva, because of
her warlike character. But the priests of
Cybele soon introduced the ceremony into
their liturgy, evidently with the complicity
of the official authorities, for nothing in the
ritual of this recognized cult could be modified
without the authorization of the quindecem-
virs. Even the emperors are known to have/
granted privileges to those who performed
this hideous sacrifice for their salvation ,
though their motives for this special favor are
not clearly apparent. The efficacy which was
attributed to this bloody purification, the eter
nal new birth that was expected of it, resem-
*These pages summarize the conclusions of a study entitled
Le taurobole et le culte de Heltone, published in the Revue
dhistoire et de litterature religieuses.
182 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
bled the hopes which the mystics of Mithra
attached to the immolation of the mythical
bull.* The similarity of these doctrines is
quite naturally explained by the identity of
their origin. The taurobolium, like many rites
of the Oriental cults, is a survival of a sav
age past which a spiritualistic theology had
adapted to moral ends. It is a characteristic
fact that the first immolations of this kind
that we know to have been performed by the
clergy of the Phrygian goddess took place at
Ostia, where the metroon, as we saw above,
adjoined a Mithraic crypt.
The symbolism of the Mysteries certainly
saw in the Magna Mater the nourishing Earth
which the Heavens yearly fecundated. So
the Grseco-Roman divinities which they
adopted changed in character on entering
their dogmatic system. Sometimes, these
gods were identified with the Mazdean heroes,
and the barbaric legends then celebrated the
new exploits which they had performed.
Sometimes, they were considered the agents
that produced the various transformations of
the universe. Then, in the center of this
pantheon, which had again become natural
istic, as it was at its origin, was placed the Sun,
for he was the supreme lord that governed the
movements of all the planets and even the
revolutions of the heavens themselves, the
one who suffused with his light and his heat
*See above, p. 146.
M1THRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 183
all of life here below. This conception, as
tronomical in its origin, predominated more
and more according as Mithra entered into
more intimate relations with Greek thought
Mithra slaying the bull. On the reverse Cupid
and Psyche (broken).
Obverse: The sun-god standing upright on his
quadriga and holding in his hand the globe on which
the four quarters are indicated. Reverse: Mithra
leading off the bull. (Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.)
Fig. 41.
MITHRAIC GEMS.
Green jasper. ( T. et M. , p. 449- )
and became a more faithful subject of the
Roman state.
The worship of the Sun, the outcome of a
sentiment of recognition for its daily benefac-
1 84 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
tions, augmented by the observation of its tre
mendous role in the cosmic system, was the
logical upshot of paganism. When critical
thought sought to explain the sacred tradi
tions and discovered in the popular gods the
forces and elements of nature, it was obliged
perforce to accord a predominant place to the
star on which the very existence of our globe
depended. "Before religion reached the point
where it proclaimed that God should be sought
in the Absolute and the Ideal, that is to say,
outside the world, one cult only was reason
able and scientific and that was the cult oLthe
Sun."* From the time of Plato and Aris
totle, Greek philosophy regarded the celestial
bodies as animate and divine creatures; Stoi
cism furnished new arguments in favor of this
opinion; while Neo-Pythagorism and Neo-
Platonism insisted still more emphatically on
the sacred character of the luminary which is
the ever-present image of the intelligible God.
These beliefs, approved by the thinkers, were
widely diffused by literature, and particularly
by the works in which romantic fiction served
to envelop genuinely theological teachings.
If heliolatry was in accord with the philo
sophical doctrines of the day, it was not less in
conformity with its political tendencies. We
have essayed to show the connection which
existed between the worship of the emperors
* Renan, Lettre a Berthelot (Dialogues et fragments
philosophiques}, p. 168.
MITHRA1SM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 185
and that of the Sol invictus. When the Caesars
of the third century pretended to be gods de
scended from heaven to the earth, the justifica
tion of their imaginary claims had as its corol;
lary the establishment of a public worship of the
divinity from whom they believed themselves
the emanations. Heliogabalus had claimed
for his Baal of Emesa the supremacy over the
Fig. 42.
MITHRAIC CAMEO (RED JASPER).
Principal face: In the center, the tauroctonous
Mithra, with the dog, the scorpion, the two torch-
bearers, etc. Reverse: A lion with a bee in his
mouth; above, seven stars surrounded by magic
Greek inscriptions. (T. et M., p. 450.)
entire pagan pantheon. The eccentricities
and violences of this unbalanced man resulted
in the lamentable wreck of his undertaking;
but it answered to the needs of the time and
was soon taken up again with better success.
Near the Flaminian Way, to the east of the
Field of Mars, Aurelian consecrated a colossal
edifice to the tutelary god that had granted
him victory in Syria. The religion of state
186 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
that he constituted must not be confounded
with Mithraism. Its imposing temple, its
ostentatious ceremonies, its quadrennial
games, its pontifical clergy, remind us of the
great sanctuaries of the Orient and not of the
dim caves in which the Mysteries were cele-
g- -43-
SOL THE SUN-GOD.
Installed by Mithra as the governor of the world. To the
right the globe of power. (T, et M., p. 202.)
brated. Nevertheless, the Sol invictus, whom
the emperor had intended to honor with a
pomp hitherto unheard of, could well be
claimed as their own by the followers of
Mithra.
The imperial policy gave the first place in
the official religion to the Sun, of which the
sovereign was the emanation, just as in the
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE l8?
Chaldaean speculations propagated by the
Mithraists the royal planet held sway over
the other stars. On both sides, the growing
tendency was to see in the brilliant star that
illuminated the universe the only God, or at
least the sensible image of the only God, and
to establish in the heavens a monotheism in
imitation of the monarchy that ruled on earth.
Macrobius (400 A.D.), in his Saturnalia, has
learnedly set forth that the gods were ulti
mately reducible to a single Being considered
under different aspects, and that the multiple
names by which they were worshipped were
the equivalent of that of Helios (the Sun).
The theologian Vettius Agorius Prsetextatus
who defended this radical syncrasy was not
only one of the highest dignitaries of the em
pire, but one of the last chiefs of the Persian
Mysteries.
Mithraism, at least in the fourth century,
had therefore as its end and aim the union of
all gods and all myths in a vast synthesis,
the foundation of a new religion in harmony
with the prevailing philosophy and political
constitution of the empire. This religion
would have been as far removed from the
ancient Iranian Mazdaism as from Gracco-
Roman paganism, which accorded the sidereal
powers a minimal place only. It had in a
measure traced idolatry back to its origin, and
discovered in the myths that obscured its
comprehension the deification of nature.
1 88 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Breaking with the Roman principle of the na
tionality of worship, it would have established
the universal domination of Mithra, identified
with the invincible Sun. Its adherents hoped,
by concentrating all their devotion upon a
single object, to impart new cohesion to the
disintegrated beliefs. Solar pantheism was
the last refuge of conservative spirits, now
menaced by a revolutionary propaganda that
aimed at the annihilation of the entire ancient
order of things.
At the time when this pagan monotheism
sought to establish its ascendency in Rome,
the struggle between the Mithraic Mysteries
and Christianity had long begun. The propa
gation of the two religions had been almost
contemporaneously conducted, and their diffu
sion had taken place under analogous condi
tions. Both from the Orient, they had spread
because of the same general reasons, viz., the
political unity and the moral anarchy of the
empire. Their diffusion had been accom
plished with like rapidity, and toward the close
of the second century they both numbered
adherents in the most distant parts of the
Roman world. The sectaries of Mithra might
justly lay claim to the hyperbolic utterance of
Tertullian : " Hestemi sumus et vestra omnia im-
plevimus." If we consider the number of the
monuments that the Persian religion has left
us, one may easily ask whether in the epoch
of the Severi its adepts were not more numer-
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 189
ous than the disciples of Christ. Another
point of resemblance between the two antago- .
nistic creeds was that at the outset they drew /
their proselytes chiefly from the inferior/
classes of society; their propaganda was at
the origin essentially popular; unlike the phil
osophical sects, they addressed their endeav
ors less to cultivated minds than to the masses,
and consequently appealed more to sentiment
than to reason.
But by the side of these resemblances con
siderable differences are to be remarked in
the methods of procedure of the two adver
saries. The initial conquests of Christianity
were favored by the Jewish diaspora, and it
first spread in the countries inhabited by
Israelitic colonies. It was therefore chiefly in
the countries washed by the Mediterranean
that its communities developed. They did
not extend their field of action outside the
cities, and their multiplication is due in great
part to missions undertaken with the express
purpose of "instructing the nations." The ex
tension of Mithraism, on the other hand, was
essentially a natural product of social and
political factors; namely, of the importation
of slaves, the transportation of troops, and
the transfer of public functionaries. It was in
government circles and in the army that it
counted its greatest number of votaries, that
is, in circles where very few Christians could
be found because of their aversion to official
IQO THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
paganism. Outside of Italy, it spread prin
cipally along the frontiers and simultaneously
gained a foothold in the cities and in the
country. It found its strongest points of sup
port in the Danubian provinces and in Ger
many, whereas Christianity made most rapid
progress in Asia Minor and Syria. The
spheres of the two religious powers, therefore,
were not coincident, and they could accord
ingly long grow and develop without coming
directly into conflict. It was in the valley of
the Rhone, in Africa, and especially in the
city of Rome, where the two competitors were
most firmly established, that the rivalry, dur
ing the third century) became particularly
brisk between the bands of Mithra s worship
pers and the disciples of Christ.
The struggle between the two rival religions
was the more stubborn as ^h^ir__cJiaracters
were the more alike. The adepts of both
formed secret conventicles, closely united, the
members of which gave themselves the name
of "Brothers."* Tjie^j:ils_which--hey prac
tised offered numerous analogies. The sec
taries of the Persian god, like the Christians,
purified themselves by baptism; received, by
a species of confirmation, the power necessary
to combat the spirits of evil; and expected
*I may remark that even the expression "dearest brothers"
had already been used by the sectaries of Jupiter Dolichenus
(CIL, VI, 406=30758: fratres carissimos et conlegas hon
[esttssimos]) and probably also in the Mithraic associations.
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE IQI
from a Lord s Supper salvation of body and
soul. Like the latter, they also held Sunday
sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on
the 25th of December, the same day on which
Christmas has been celebrated, since the
fourth century at least. Tfce^hoth preached
a categorical system of ethics, regarded ascet
icism as meritorious, and counted among
their principal virtues abstinence and conti
nence, renunciation and self-control. Their
conceptions of the world and of the destiny of
man were similar. They both admitted the
existence of a Heaven inhabited by beatified
ones, situate in the upper regions, and of a
Hell peopled by demons, situate in the bowels
of the earth. They both placed a Flood at
the beginning of history; they both assigned
as the source of their traditions a primitive
revelation; they both, finally, believed in the
immortality of "the soul, in a last judgment,
and in a resurrection of the dead, consequent
upon a final conflagration of the universe.
We have seen that the theology of the Mys
teries made of Mithra a "mediator" equivalent
to the Alexandrian "Logos. LikeThim, Christ
also was a ^ecr 17775, an intermediary between
his celestial father and men, and like him he
also was one of a trinity. These resemblances
were certainly not the only ones that pagan
exegesis established between the two religions,
ancN;he figure of the tauroctonous god reluc
tantly immolating his victim that he might
192
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Fig. 44-
THE PASSION OF THE GOD.
The Dying Alexander, so called. Type of a group
of sculptures from the school of Pergamon, dating
from the second century before Christ. The idealized
portrait of Alexander as solar god has been discovered
in the head of the celebrated Mithraic statue of the
Capitol (see Fig. 4, page 21), and the facial expressions
of dolor, pathos, and compassion which characterize
this work are shared by all the more important repre
sentations of the Mithraic sacrifice. The present
sculpture has been partly restored, and it is therefore
impossible to determine absolutely whether it originally
formed part of an Asiatic group of the tauroctonous
Mithra. (T. et M., Introduction, p. 182.)
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE IQ3
create and save the human race, was certainly
compared to the picture of the redeemer sac
rificing his own person for the salvation of the
world/
On the other hand, the ecclesiastical wri
ters, reviving a metaphor of the prophet Mal-
achi, contrasted the "Sun of justice" with the
"invincible Sun," and consented to see in the
dazzling orb which illuminated men a symbol
of Christ, "the light of the world." Should
we be astonished if the multitudes of devotees
failed always to observe the subtle distinctions
of the doctors, and if in obedience to a pagan
custom they rendered to the radiant star of
day the homage which orthodoxy reserved for
God ? In the fifth century, not only heretics,
but even faithful followers, were still wont to
bow their heads toward its dazzling disc as it
rose above the horizon, and to murmur the
prayer, "Have mercy upon us."
The resemblances between the two hostile
churches were so striking as to impress even
the minds of antiquity. From the third cen
tury, the Greek philosophers were wont to
draw parallels between the Persian Mysteries
and Christianity which were evidently entirely
in favor of the former. The Apologists also
dwelt on the analogies between the two relig
ions, and explained them as a Satanic travesty
of the holiest rites of their religion. If the
polemical works of the Mithraists had been
preserved, we should doubtless have heard the
IQ4 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
same accusation hurled back upon their Chris
tian adversaries.
We cannot presume to unravel to-day a
question which divided contemporaries and
which shall doubtless forever remain insol
uble. We are too imperfectly acquainted
with the dogmas and liturgies of Roman Maz-
daism, as well as with the development of
primitive Christianity, to say definitely what
mutual influences were operative in their
simultaneous evolution. But be this as it
may, resemblances do not necessarily suppose
an imitation. Many correspondences between
the Mithraic doctrine and the Catholic faith
are explicable by their common Oriental
origin. Nevertheless, certain ideas and cer
tain ceremonies must necessarily have passed
from the one cult to the other; but in the
majority of cases we rather suspect this trans
ference than clearly perceive it.
Apparently the attempt was made to dis
cern in the legend of the Iranian hero the
counterpart of the life of Jesus, and the dis
ciples of the Magi probably drew a direct con
trast between the Mithraic worship of the
shepherds, the Mithraic communion and
ascension, and those of the Gospels. The
rock of generation, which had given birth to
the genius of light, was even compared to the
immovable rock, emblem of Christ, upon
which the Church was founded; and the crypt
in which the bull had perished was made the
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE IQ5
counterpart of that in which Christ is said
to have been born at Bethlehem.* But this
strained parallelism could result in nothing
but a caricature/ It was a_stpng sonr^ f>{i
inferiqrityjor Mazdaism that it believed in
only a mythical redeemer. That unfailing
wellspring of religious emotion supplied by
the teachings and the passion of the God
sacrificed on the cross, never flowed for the
disciples of Mithra.
On the other hand, the orthodox and heret
ical liturgies of Christianity, which gradually
sprang up during the first centuries of our era,
could find abundant inspiration in the Mith-
raic Mysteries, which of all the pagan religions
offered the most affinity with Christian insti
tutions. We do not know whether the ritual
of the sacraments and the hopes attaching to
them suffered alteration through the influence
of Mazdean dogmas and practices. Perhaps
the custom of invoking the Sun three times
each day, at dawn, at noon, and at dusk, was
* M. Jelan Reville (Etudes publiees en hommage a la faculty
de theologie de Montauban, 1901, pp. 339 et seq.} thinks that
the Gospel story of the birth of Christ and the adoration of the
Magi was suggested by the Mithraic legend; but he remarks
that we have no proof of the supposition. So also M. A. Die-
terich in a recent article (Zeitschr.f. Neutest. Wiss., 1902, p.
190), in which he has endeavored not without ingenuity to ex
plain the formation of the legend of the Magi kings, admits
that the worship of the shepherds was introduced into Christian
tradition from Mazdaism. But I must remark that the Maz
dean beliefs regarding the advent of Mithra into the world
have strangely varied. (Cf. T. et M., Vol. I. , pp. 160 et seg.)
196
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
reproduced in the daily prayers of the Church,
and it appears certain that the commemora
tion of the Nativity was set for the 25th of
December, because it was at the winter sol
stice that the rebirth of the invincible god,*
the Natalis invicti, was celebrated. In adopt
ing this date, which was universally distin
guished by sacred festivities, the ecclesiastical
Fig- 45-
BAS-RELIEF OF MAYENCE.
Mithra drawing his bow; and the god of the winds.
authority purified in some measure the pro
fane usages which it could not suppress.
The only domain in which we can ascertain
in detail the extent to which Christianity imi
tated Mithraism is that of art. The Mithraic
sculpture, which had been first developed, fur
nished the ancient Christian marble-cutters
with a large number of models, which they
adopted or adapted. For example, they drew
*See above, p. 167.
M1THRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE IQ7
inspiration from the figure of Mithra causing
the living waters to leap forth by the blows of
his arrows,* to create the figure of Moses
smiting with his rod the rock of Horeb x (Fig.
45). Faithful to an inveterate tradition, they
even reproduced the figures of cosmic divini
ties, like the Heavens and the Winds, the
worship of which the new faith had expressly
proscribed; and we find on the sarcophagi, in
miniatures, and even on the portals of the
Romance Churches, evidences of the influence
exerted by the imposing compositions that
adorned the sacred grottos of Mithra.f
It would be wrong, however, to exaggerate
the significance of these likenesses. If Chris
tianity and Mithraism offered profound resem
blances, the principal of which were the belief
in the purification of souls and the hope of a
beatific resurrection, differences no less j^ssjen-
tial separated them.^ The most important was
the contrast of their relations to Roman pa
ganism. The Mazdean Mysteries sought to
"conciliate paganism by a succession of adapta
tions and compromises; they endeavored to
establish monotheism while not combating <
polytheism, whereas the Church was, in point
of principle, if not always in practice, the
unrelenting antagonist of idolatry in any
form. The attitude of Mithraism was appar
ently the wiser; it gave to the Persian relig-
*See above, p. 138.
f See p. 227.
198 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
. ion greater elasticity .and powers of adaptation,
and it attracted toward the tauroctonous god
all who stood in dread of a painful rupture
with ancient traditions and contemporaneous
society. The preference must therefore have
been given by many to dogmas that satisfied
their aspirations for greater purity and a bet
ter world, without compelling them to detest
the faith of their fathers and the State of
which they were citizens. As the Church
grew in power despite its persecutors, this
policy of compromise first assuredj:oJV[ithra-_
ism much tolerance and afterward even the
* favor of the public authorities. But it also
prevented it from freeing itself of the gross
ajid ridiculous superstitions which compli
cated its ritual and its theology: it involved
it, in spite of its austerity, in an equivocal alli
ance with the orgiastic cult of the beloved of
Attis; and it compelled it to carry the entire
weight of a chimerical and odious past. If
Romanized Mazdaism had triumphed, it would
not only have preserved from oblivion all the
aberrations of pagan mysticism, but would also
have perpetuated the erroneous doctrine of
physics on which its dogmatism reposed. The
Christian doctrine, which broke with the
cults of nature, remained exempt from these
impure associations, and its liberation from
every compromising attachment assured it an
immense superiority. Its negative value, its
struggle against deeply-rooted prejudices,
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE IQQ
gained for it as many souls as did the positive
hopes which it promised. It performed the
miraculous feat of triumphing over the an
cient world in spite of legislation and the im
perial policy, and the Mithraic Mysteries were
promptly abolished the moment the protection
of the State was withdrawn and transformed
into hostility.
Mithraism reached the apogee of its power 1
toward the middle of the third century, and it \
appeared for a moment as if the world was on
the verge of becoming Mithraic. But the first
invasions of the barbarians, and especially the
definitive loss of Dacia (275 A.D.), soon after
followed by that of the Agri Decumates, ad- if
ministered a terrible blow to the Mazdean
sect, which was most powerful in the periphery \
of the orbis Romanus. In all Pannonia, and as
far as Virunum, on the frontiers of Italy, its
temples were sacked. , By way of compensa
tion, the authorities, menaced by the rapid
progress of Christianity, renewed their sup
port to the most redoubtable adversary that
they could oppose to it. In the universal
downfall the army was the only institution
that remained standing, and the Caesars cre
ated by the legions were bound perforce t6y |
seek their support in the favored religion ofl
their soldiers. In 273 A.D., Aurelian founded
by the side of the Mysteries of the taurocto-
nous god a public religion, which he richly
endowed, in honor of the Sol invictus. Dio-
2QO THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
cletian, whose court with its complicated hier
archy, its prostrations before its lord, and its
crowds of eunuchs, was, by the admission of
contemporaries, an imitation of the court of
the Sassanids, was naturally inclined to adopt
doctrines of Persian origin, which flattered his
despotic instincts. The emperor and the
princes whom he had associated with himself,
meeting in conference at Carnuntum in 307
A.D., restored there one of the temples of the
celestial protector of their newly-organized
empire.* The Christians believed, not with
out some appearance of reason, that the Mith-
raic clergy were the instigators of the great
persecutions under Galerius. In the Roman
empire as in Iran, a vaguely monistic heliol-
atry appeared on the verge of becoming the
sole, intolerant religion of state. But the con
version of Constantine shattered the hopes
which the policy of his predecessors had held
out to the worshippers of the sun. Although
he did not persecute the beliefs which he him
self had shared,! they ceased to constitute a
recognized cult and were tolerated only. His
successors were outspokenly hostile. To
latent defiance succeeded open persecution.
Christian polemics no longer restricted its
attacks to ridiculing the legends and practices
of the Mazdean Mysteries, nor even to taunt-
*See above, pp. 88-89.
\Cf. Preger, Konstantinos-Helios (Hermes, XXXVI), 1901,
P- 457-
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 201
ing them for having as their founders the irrec
oncilable enemies of Rome; it now stridently
demanded the total destruction of idolatry,
and its exhortations were promptly carried ,
into effect. When a rhetorician* tells us that
under Constantius no one longer dared to look
at the rising or setting sun, that even farmers
and sailors refrained from observing the stars,
and tremblingly held their eyes fixed upon the
ground, we have in these emphatic declara
tions a magnified echo of the fears that then
filled all pagan hearts.
The proclamation of Julian the Apostate j
(331-363 A.D.) suddenly inaugurated an unex- 1
pected turn in affairs. A philosopher, seated
on the throne by the armies of Gaul, Julian
had cherished from childhood a secret devo
tion for Helios. He was firmly convinced thatu
this god had rescued him from the perils thatj
menaced his youth; he believed that he was
entrusted by him with a divine mission, and
regarded himself as his servitor, or rather as
his spiritual son. He dedicated to this celes
tial "king" a discourse in which the ardor of
his faith transforms in places a cold theolog
ical dissertation into an inflamed dithyrambic,
and the fervor of his devotion for the star
that he worshipped never waned to the mo
ment of his death.
The young prince had been presumably
drawn to the Mysteries by his superstitious
*Mamert, Grat. actto in lulian., c. 23.
2O2 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
predilection for the supernatural. Before his
accession, perhaps even from youth, he had
been introduced secretly into a Mithraic con
venticle by the philosopher Maximus of Eph-
esus. The ceremonies of his initiation must
have made a deep impression on his feelings.
He imagined himself thenceforward under the
special patronage of Mithra, in this life and in
that to come. As soon as he had cast aside
his mask and openly proclaimed himself a
pagan, he called Maximus to his side, and
doubtless had recourse to extraordinary ablu
tions and purifications to wipe out the stains
which he had contracted in receiving the bap
tism and the communion of the Christians.
Scarcely had he ascended the throne (361 A.D.)
than he made haste to introduce the Persian cult
at Constantinople;, and almost simultaneously
the first taurobolia were celebrated at Athens.
On all sides the sectaries of the Magi lifted
their heads. At Alexandria the patriarch
George, in attempting to erect a church on the
ruins of a mithraeum, provoked a sanguinary
riot. Arrested by the magistrates, he was
torn from his prison and cruelly slain by the
populace on the 24th of December, 361, the
eve of the Natalis invicti. The emperor con
tented himself with addressing a paternal
remonstrance to the city of Serapis.
But the Apostate soon met his death in the
historic expedition against the Persians, to
which he had possibly been drawn by the
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 203
secret desire to conquer the land which had
given him his faith and by the assurance that
his tutelary god would accept his homage
rather than that of his enemies. Thus per
ished this spasmodic attempt at reaction, and
Christianity, now definitively victor, addressed
itself to the task of extirpating the erroneous
doctrine that had caused it so much anxiety.
Even before the emperors had forbidden the
exercise of idolatry, their edicts against astrol
ogy and magic furnished an indirect means of
attacking the clergy and disciples of Mithra.
In 371 A.D., a number of persons who culti
vated occult practices were implicated in a
pretended conspiracy and put to death. The
mystagogue Maximus himself perished as the
victim of an accusation of this kind.
It was not long before the imperial govern
ment legislated formally and directly against
the disgraced sect. In the provinces, popular
uprisings frequently anticipated the interfer
ence of the magistrates. Mobs sacked the
temples and committed them to the flames,
with the complicity of the authorities. The
ruins of the mithraeums bear witness to the
violence of their devastating fury. Even at
Rome, in 377 A.D., the prefect Gracchus,
seeking the privilege of baptism, offered as a
pledge of the sincerity of his conversion the
"destruction, shattering, and shivering,"* of a
*St. Jerome, Epist. 107 ad Lcztam (T. et M., Vol. IT., p.
18), snbvertit,fregit> excussit.
204
THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
Mithraic crypt, with all the statues that it con
tained. Frequently, in order to protect their
grottoes from pillage by making them inac
cessible, the priests walled up the entrances,
or conveyed their sacred images to well-pro
tected hiding-places, convinced that the tern-
Fig. 4 6.
CHAINED SKELETON.
Discovered in the ruins of a Mithraic temple at
Sarrebourg, in Lorraine. (T. et M., p. 519.)
pest that had burst upon them was momentary
only, and that after their days of trial their
god would cause again to shine forth the light
of final triumph. On the other hand, the
Christians, in order to render places contami
nated by the presence of a dead body ever
afterward unfit for worship, sometimes slew
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 2O$
the refractory priests of Mithra and buried
them in the ruins of their sanctuaries, now
forever profaned (Fig. 46).
The hope of restoration was especially
tenacious at Rome, which remained the cap
ital of paganism. The aristocracy, still faith
ful to the traditions of their ancestors,
supported the religion with their wealth and
prestige. Its members loved to deck them
selves with the titles of "Father and Herald
of Mithra Invincible," and multiplied the
offerings and the foundations. They re
doubled their generosity toward him when
Gratian in 382 A.D. despoiled their temples
of their wealth. A great lord recounts to us
in poor verses how he had restored a splendid
crypt erected by his grandfather near the
Flaminian Way, boasting that he was able to
dispense with public subsidies of any kind.*
The usurpation of Eugenius appeared for a
moment to bring on the expected resurrec
tion. The prefect of the praetorium, Nicoma-
chus Flavianus, celebrated solemn taurobolia
and renewed in a sacred cave the Mysteries
of the "associate god" (deum comiteni) of the
pretender. But the victory of Theodosius,
394 A.D., shattered once and for all the hopes
of these belated partisans of the ancient Maz-
dean belief.
A few clandestine conventicles may, with
stubborn persistence, have been held in the
*CIL, VI, (T. et M., Vol. II, p. 94, No. 13).
2O6 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
subterranean retreats of the palaces. The
cult of the Persian god possibly existed as late
as the fifth century in certain remote cantons
of the Alps and the Vosges. For example,
devotion to the Mithraic rites long persisted
in the tribe of the Anauni, masters of a flour
ishing valley, of which a narrow defile closed
the mouth. But little by little its last disciples
in the Latin countries abandoned a religion
tainted with moral as well as political deca
dence. It maintained its ground with greater
tenacity in the Orient, the land of its birth.
Driven out of the rest of the empire, it found
a refuge in the countries of its origin, where
its light only slowly flickered out.
Nevertheless, the conceptions which Mith-
raism had diffused throughout the empire
during a period of three centuries were not
destined to perish with it. Some of them,
even those most characteristic of it, such as
its ideas concerning Hell, the efficacy of the
sacraments, and the resurrection of the flesh,
were accepted even by its adversaries; "and in
disseminating them it had simply accelerated
their universal domination. ^ Certain of its
sacred practices continued to exist also in the
ritual of Christian festivals and in popular
usage. Its fundamental dogmas, however,
were irreconcilable with orthodox Christian
ity, outside of which only they could maintain
their hold. Its theory of sidereal influences,
alternately condemned and tolerated, was
MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE 207
carried down by astrology to the threshold of
modern times; but it was to a religion more
powerful than this false science that the Per
sian Mysteries were destined to bequeath,
along with their hatred of the Church, their
cardinal ideas and their influence over the
masses.
Manichaeism, although the work of a man
and not the product of a long evolution, was
connected with these Mysteries by numerous
affinities. The tradition according to which
its original founders had conversed in Persia
with the priests of Mithra may be inexact in
form, but it involves nevertheless a profound
truth. Both religions had been formed in the
Orient from a mixture of the ancient Babylon
ian mythology with Persian dualism, and had
afterward absorbed Hellenic elements. The
sect of Manichseus spread throughout the em
pire during the fourth century, at the moment
when Mithraism was expiring, and it was
called to assume the latter s succession. Mys
tics whom the polemics of the Church against
paganism had shaken but not converted were
enraptured with the new conciliatory faith
which suffered Zoroaster and Christ to be
simultaneously worshipped. The wide dif
fusion which the Mazdean beliefs with their
mixture of Chaldaeism had enjoyed, prepared
the minds of the empire for the reception of
the new heresy. The latter found its way
made smooth for it, and this is the secret of
2O8 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
its sudden expansion. Thus renewed, the
Mithraic doctrines were destined to withstand
for centuries all persecutions, and rising again
in a new form in the Middle Ages to shake
once more the ancient Roman world.
MITHRAIC ART*
THE monuments of Mithraism, which have
been found in considerable numbers in
the provinces of the Occident and even in
the Orient, constitute a homogeneous group,
of which it is desirable to characterize the im
portance for the history of Roman art. In
point of fact, their artistic merit is far below
that of their value as historical documents, and
their chief worth is not aesthetic but religious.
The late epoch in which these works were
produced destroys the least hope of finding in
them any expression of true creative power or
of following in them the progress of any orig
inal development. But it would be unjust if,
inspired by a narrow-minded Atticism, we
should cast upon them all a like measure of
reproach. In the absence of inventive genius,
their cleverness in the adaptation of ancient
motifs and the manual skill shown in their ex
ecution, all technical qualities of which they
give evidence, would alone be sufficient to
claim our attention. Some of the groups in
high and low relief, for the paintings and
mosaics which have been preserved are so few
and mediocre as to dispense us from speaking
*In the original this chapter appeared as an Appendix.
We have given it an independent place in this edition. 7>.
209
2IO THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
of them, hold a very honorable place in the
multitude of sculptured works which the im
perial period has left us, and are deserving of
some consideration.
It can be proved* that all our representations
of the tauroctonous Mithra, the hieratic figure
of which was fixed before the propagation of
the Mysteries in the Occident, are more or less
faithful replicas of a type created by a sculptor
of the school of Pergamon, in imitation of the
sacrificing Victory which adorned the balus
trade of the temple of Athena Nike on the
Acropolis. Certain marbles discovered at
Rome and at Ostia (see for example, Figs. 4,
5, 6 and 10), which unquestionably go back to
the beginning of the second century, still
reflect the splendor of the powerful com
positions of the Hellenistic epoch. After an
ardent pursuit, the god captures the bull,
which has fallen to the earth; with one
knee on its croup and his foot on one of its
hoofs, he bears down upon it, pressing it
against the earth; and grasping it by the nos
trils with one hand, with the other he plunges
a knife into its flank. The impetuosity of this
animated scene throws into high relief the
agility and strength of the invincible hero.
On the other hand, the suffering of the mori
bund victim gasping its last, with its limbs con
tracted in the spasms of death, the singular
* Compare my large work, Textes et Monuments figures
relatifs aux My stores de Mithra, Vol. II., pp. 180 et seq.
MITHRAIC ART 211
mixture of exaltation and remorse depicted in
the countenance of its slayer, give prominence
to the pathetic side of this sacred drama, and
even to-day inspire in the heart of the spec
tator an emotion which the faithful of old ex
perienced in all its living power. (See Fie.
44 and also the cover-stamp of this book.)
The traditional type of torch-bearers, or
dadophori, was not susceptible of a similar im
passioned treatment. But one remarks, never
theless, in the best specimens the advantageous
effect which the artist has produced by the
ample Phrygian garments and by emphasizing
the different emotions of hope and sadness
portrayed on the countenances of the two
young men. We possess a remarkable repro
duction of this divine couple in the two statues
discovered near the Tiber, which Zoe ga attrib
uted to the epoch of Hadrian and which were
possibly imported from the Orient to Italy.*
(See Figures 47 and 48.) It will be seen how
their author succeeded in offsetting the
defective symmetry resulting from the fact
that the two figures, which are intended as
counterparts, have both their mantles fastened
at the right shoulder and falling down at the
right side.
The solicitous concern for details which
characterizes the works of the Antonine epoch
was also bestowed with more or less felicity
* T. ct J/., Mon. 27, Plate II, opposite p. 209, Vol. II.
Conmut thinks these statues are prior to Hadrian.
212 , THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
upon the monuments of a slightly more recent
date. Consider the group of Ostia, which
>iA
Fig. 47.
MITHRAIC DADOPHORUS.
Wrongly restored as Paris.
dates from the reign of Commodus, or the bas-
relief of the Villa Albani, which appears to be
MITHRAIC ART
213
contemporaneous with the first.* The artist
delighted in multiplying the folds of the gar-
Fig. 48.
MITHRAIC DADOPHORUS.
Wrongly restored as Paris.
ments and in increasing the undulations of the
hair merely to show his skill in conquering the
* T. et M., Mon. 79, Fig. 67; and Mon. 38, Fig. 45.
214 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
difficulties which he had himself created; yet
even this bizarre mannerism does not atone
for the coldness of the total impression. The
success of this minute execution of details is
more felicitous in fragments of smaller dimen
sions. A small marble recently discovered in
Aquileia, and reproduced in our Frontispiece
is distinguished in this respect by a "bewilder
ing cleverness of technique." The delicately
carved figures are almost entirely severed from
their massive base, to which they are attached
only by the thinnest supports. It is a piece of
artistic braggadocio in which the sculptor
parades his virtuosity by producing with a brit
tle material the same effects that are obtained
by workers in ductile metals.*
But these comparatively perfect composi
tions are rare in Italy and especially so in the
provinces, and it has to be acknowledged that
the great mass of the Mithraic monuments is
of discouraging mediocrity. The hewers and
* M. von Schneider, loc. cit., Vol. II., p. 488, who sees in
this composition li ein verb luff endes technisches Geschick"
compares it with the relief on the base of the Antonine column
(Brunn, Denkmaler gr. u. rom. Skulptur, PI. 210$), and a bas-
relief of the Campo Santo of Pisa (Dutschke, Bildwerke in
Ober-Italien, I., No. 60), and the bust of Commodus in the
Palais des Conservateurs (Helbig, Fuhrer, second ed. , No.
524). The same application of the technique of metal-work
ing to marble may be noticed in two admirably preserved busts
which were discovered at Smyrna and are to-day to be found
in the Museum at Brussels (Catal. des anttquHees acqinses
par les musees royaux depuis le jre janvzer 1900, Bruxelles,
1901, Nos. iio-m).
MITHRAIC ART 215
cutters of stone they deserve no other name
who are responsible for these productions,
were often content with roughly outlining by
a few strokes of the chisel the scene which
they pretended to reproduce. A garish color
ing then emphasized certain details. The
work is sometimes so hastily executed that
the contours alone are distinctly marked, as
in the hieroglyphics. It sufficed, it is true,
merely to outline representations, the meaning
of which every faithful devotee knew and
which he completed in imagination; and it is
our ignorance that feels so vividly the imper
fections of these awkward and vague compo
sitions. Still, some of the smaller bas-reliefs
could never have been more than downright
caricatures bordering on the grotesque, and
their deformities strongly remind us of the
little toy gingerbread men which are sold at
our fairs.
The carelessness with which these tablets
were executed is excused by their places of
destination. The mystics of Mithra were wont
not only to consecrate them in their temples,
but also to adorn with them their modest
dwelling-houses. This domestic consumption
explains the enormous quantity of these monu
ments, which have been found wherever the
cult penetrated. To satisfy the incessant
demand of the faithful for these figures, the
workshops in which they were carved must
have produced them rapidly and in quantities.
2l6 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
The manufacturers of this brummagem sculp
ture had no other thought than that of cheaply
satisfying their clientage of devotees, whose
artistic tastes were far from exacting. The
ancient manufacturers turned out hundreds of
smaller tauroctonous Mithras,* just as our
image-makers multiply in profusion the very
same type of crucifixes and the very same
Virgin Mary. It was the religious imagery
of the epoch, and it was not more xsthetic
than is ours to-day.
These manufacturers did not restrict them
selves to the unceasing production of replicas
of the same traditional type; they sought to
diversify their wares, in order to recommend
them to all tastes and purses. Look only at
the series of ex-votos found in the mithraeum
of Sarmizegetusa in Dacia.f We find here
specimens of all the models that the work
shops of the place reproduced. High reliefs,
which are difficult and costly, are avoided. At
most, the marble was perforated in places, so
as to show forth the group of the taurocto
nous god. But what a wondrous variety in the
small bas-reliefs which were affixed to the
walls of the sanctuaries ! For a mere bagatelle
square tablets could be obtained bearing only
* The absence of machinery naturally excluded any absolute
resemblance, but some of our bas-reliefs are certainly from the
same hand or at least from the same workshop. Cf. T. ct AT.,
Vol. II., Mon. 45 and 46; Figs. 85 and 95, Fig. 87; 192 and 192
bis\ 194 and 195.
f T. et M., Vol. II., Nos. 138 to 183.
MITHRAIC ART 2\"J
the immolation of the bull. Sometimes its
value is enhanced by the addition of a sort of
predella, divided into three or four smaller
scenes. Again, its composition is complicated
by an upper panel decorated with accessory
scenes. These, finally, also occupy the bor
ders of the monuments, and encompass on four
sides the principal representation. Again, the
fancy of the workman taking flight, the tauroc-
tonous god has been enclosed in a circle orna
mented with the signs of the Zodiac, or in a
crown of foliage. Frames were added or
omitted. Considerable ingenuity was exer
cised to give new forms to the sculptured
plaques. They were indiscriminately square,
oblong, semicircular, trapezoidal, or even
round. There are no two of these pieces
which are exactly alike.
If these commercial products of labor for
hire have only the remotest relationship with
art, they nevertheless furnish a valuable com
mentary upon the stone-hewing industry of
antiquity. We have many proofs that a
goodly portion of the sculptures intended for
the provincial cities were executed during the
imperial epoch at Rome.* This is probably
the case with some of the monuments discov
ered in Gaul, and also for those which adorned
a mithrseum in London. f On the other hand,
certain statues discovered in the capital were
* Friedlander, Sittengeschichte, Vol. III., p. 280.
f T. et M., Vol. II., Mon. 267 and the note on p. 390.
2l8 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
presumably imported from Asia Minor." The
beautiful bas-reliefs of Virunum were likewise
brought from abroad, probably by way of
Aquileia. We know by the passion of the
Four Crowned Ones the importance of the
quarries of Pannonia in the third century,t
where marble was not only quarried but
worked. These stone-yards appear to have
been an important center for the manufacture
of Mithraic votive offerings. In any event,
there are several of them, exhumed in the
temples of Germany, which were unquestion
ably sculptured on the banks of the Danube.
These facts cast an interesting light on the
traffic in church ornaments during the days of
paganism.
Yet the majority of the Mithraic monuments
were undoubtedly executed on the spot. The
matter is clear for those which were sculptured
on the walls of natural rocks smoothed for the
purpose, they are unfortunately all greatly
damaged, but the proof of local manufacture
for many others is also forcibly forthcoming
from the nature of the stone employed. The
construction of these fragments likewise
* T. et M., Vol. IT., Mon. 235 and the note on p. 338. Cf.
supra, p. 122, Fig. 26.
f Wattenbach, Passio sanct, quatuor coronat., with the
notes of Benndorf and Max Biidinger, 1870; cf. Friedlander,
op. czt.,p. 282. A new text has been published by Watten
bach, Sitzungsb. Akad., Berlin, XLVII., 1896, p. 1281 et seq.
There still exists of this work an unpublished Greek transla
tion; cf. Analecta Bollandiana, XVI., 1897, p. 337.
MITHRAIC ART
clearly reveals that they are not the handi
work of foreign masters and of some great
center of art, nor even of those nomadic sculp
tors who traversed the land in quest of lucra
tive or honorific employment, but of the
modest stone-cutters of some neighboring
town.
The local origin of the largest monuments
is best established, since their transportation
would have involved both numerous risks and
extravagant expenditures. Our collection of
large Mithraic bas-reliefs thus constitutes a
highly interesting group for the study of the
provincial art of the empire. Like the mass
of votive tablets that have come down to us,
these sculptures, which were exhibited in the
apse of the temples for the adoration of the
faithful, are also far from being masterpieces
of art. But they were nevertheless not exe
cuted with the same carelessness, and we feel
in their presence that their authors bestowed
upon them their best energies. If the artists
afforded no proof of originality in the inven
tion of subjects, they nevertheless give evi
dence of ingenuity in the arrangement of their
figures and of their skill in handling the
material.
It must not be forgotten, further, in judging
of these fragments, that the painter came to
the aid of the sculptor and that the brush
completed what the chisel had only sketched.
On the naked marble or on stone coated with
220 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
plaster, flaring colors were laid: green, blue,
yellow, black, and all shades of red were wan
tonly intermingled. This glaring contrast of
tones accentuated the main contours of the
figures, and made prominent their secondary
parts. In many cases the details were only
indicated with the brush. Gilding, finally,
emphasized certain subsidiary features. In
the penumbral darkness of the subterranean
crypts, the reliefs of these sculptured composi
tions would have been almost invisible without
this brilliant polychromatic vesture. Vivid
variety of coloring, moreover, was one of the
traditions of Oriental art, and Lucian had
already contrasted the simple and graceful
forms of the Hellenic deities with the ostenta
tious gaudery of the gods imported from
Asia.*
The most remarkable of these sculptures
have been brought to light in the north of
Gaul, or, more precisely, on the Rhenish fron
tier. It appears that we must attribute this
entire group of monuments to that interesting
school of sculpture which flourished in Belgium
in the second and third centuries, the produc
tions of which unquestionably surpass those of
the workshops of the south. One cannot con
template the bas-relief of Osterburken, which
is the most complete of the series, without
being impressed with the wealth and the gen
eral harmony of this vast composition. The
* Lucian, Jup. trag., 8.
MITHRAIC ART 221
confused impression resulting from the accu
mulation of personages and groups, a defect
which the Mithraic monuments show with
many others of their epoch, and especially
with the sarcophagi, the composition of which
is generally intricate, is here tempered by the
judicious use of separating bands and frames.
If we were anxious to criticize the details of
these works, it would be easy to point out the
disproportion of certain of their figures, the
awkwardness of certain of their movements,
and sometimes the stiffness of their attitudes
and vestments. But these defects should not
render us oblivious to the delicacy of the work
here performed with a crumbling material,
and especially to the praiseworthy success with
which a conception of real grandeur has been
realized. To attempt to represent on stone
not only the gods but the cosmogony of the
Mysteries and the episodes of the legend of
Mithra, even to the final immolation of the
bull, was an undertaking attended with great
perils and is a meritorious achievement even
in partial success. Even prior to this date,
and particularly on the sarcophagi, instances
occur where the successive moments of the
drama are depicted on superposed or parallel
plates, but we cannot, nevertheless, cite a sin
gle monument of Roman paganism which can
be compared in this respect to our grand bas-
reliefs, and for similar productions we must
wait for the lengthy compositions with which
222 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
the Christian mosaicists decorated the walls
of their churches.
We shall not inquire here into the origin of
each one of the different representations which
are portrayed upon our monuments; we shall
merely observe that in spite of their variety
two or even three clearly marked classes may
be distinguished. Some of the figures have
been borrowed outright from the traditional
types of Grseco-Roman art. Ahura-Mazda
destroying the monsters that had risen
against him is a Hellenic Zeus annihilating
the giants with his bolts; Verethragna is trans
formed into a Hercules; Helios is a young
man with long flowing hair, mounted on the
usual quadriga; Neptune, Venus, Diana, Mer
cury, Mars, Pluto, Saturn, are shown to us in
their ordinary aspect with the garb and at
tributes which are known to have been theirs
from time immemorial. Similarly, the Winds,
the Seasons, and the Planets had been personi
fied long before the propagation of Mithraism,
and the latter cult had only to reproduce in its
temples the models that had long since been
made popular.
On the other hand, one personage at least
is a transformation of an Asiatic archetype;
this is the leontocephalous, or lion-headed,
Kronos. (See Figs. 20-23.) Like the majority
of his compeers, this animal-headed monster
is a creation of the Oriental imagination. His
genealogy would doubtless carry us back to
Fig. 49-
MITHRAIC KRONOS, OR PERSONIFICATION OF INFINITE
TIME.
Surrounded by the signs of the Zodiac (see p. 121). In the
corners the gods of the Winds. Here represented without the
head of a lion, which appears on the breast of the figure.
A Roman beautification of the horrific features of the Oriental
god. (Bas-relief of Modena, Rev. arch., 1902, I., p. i.) 223
224 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
the period of Assyrian sculpture. But the
artists of the Occident, having to represent a
deity entirely strange to the Greek Pantheon,
and being untrammelled by the traditions of
any school, gave free rein to their fancy. The
various transformations to which they sub
jected his figure were in part influenced by
religious considerations, which tended to com
plicate the symbolism of this deified abstrac
tion and to multiply more and more his
attributes, and in part by an aesthetic solicitude
to soften as much as possible the monstrous
character of this barbaric personage, and thus
gradually to humanize it. Ultimately they
suppressed the lion s head, and contented
themselves with representing this animal by
its feet only, or with placing the head of the
beast on the figure s breast. (See Fig. 49.)
The leontocephalous god of Eternity is the
most original creation of Mithraic art, and if it
is totally destitute of the charm of grace, its
unwonted aspect and the suggestive accumu
lation of its attributes awakened curiosity and
provoked reflection. With the exception of
this god of Time, we can establish the Orien
tal origin of certain emblems only, like the
Phrygian bonnet topping a staff, or the sphere
surmounted by an eagle representing the
Heavens. As the Mithra immolating the bull,
so also the other scenes in which this hero
appears as actor, are unquestionably in greater
part the transpositions of motifs popular in the
MITHRA1C ART
225
Hellenistic epoch, although we are unable in
every case to rediscover the original which
the Roman marble-cutter imitated or the ele
ments which he combined in his composition.
As for the rest, the artistic value of these
Fig. 50.
BIRTH OF ERICHTHONIOS.
From a Greek vase. (Baumeister.)
adaptations is generally very slight. We have
only to compare the lifeless group of Mithra
issuing from the rock (Fig. 30) with the ani
mated picture of the birth of Erichthonios as
it is portrayed on Greek vases (see, for exam
ple, Fig. 50) to note the superior artistic effect
which the ancient Hellenic ceramists could
produce from a similar theme. The poverty
226 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
of the innovations which the Mithraic iconog
raphy introduced contrasts painfully with the
importance of the religious movement that pro
voked them. We have, in this, an additional
corroboration of the fact that in the epoch in
which the Persian Mysteries spread through
out the empire, the ancient sculpture was
doomed beyond recall. Whereas, during the
Hellenistic period, sculptors were still able to
conceive new forms felicitously adapted to the
character of the Egyptian divinities, under the
empire, on the other hand, the majority of
the Mazdean gods, despite their very peculiar
nature, were compelled, whether or no, to take
on the form and the garb of the denizens of
Olympus. And if for some of taese strange
subjects new types were actually invented,
they were in every instance distressingly com
monplace. The superabundant wealth in
herited from the ancient generations had
enervated the generative potencies of art;
and, accustomed to draw from these rich
stores, art had grown incapable of all indi
vidual productivity.
But we should be wrong in exacting from
the adepts of Mithraism something which
they never made the pretense of offering.
The religion which they preached was not a
cult of beauty, and love of plastic form would
doubtless have appeared to them a vain, if
not a condemnable, taste. Religious emotion
alone was of consequence in their eyes, and to
MITHRAIC ART 22?
awaken it they addressed themselves mainly
to the reason. In spite of the many appro
priations which it made from the treasury of
types created by Greek sculptors, Mithraic art
rested at heart Asiatic, like the Mysteries of
which it was the expression. Its predomina
ting idea was not to provoke an aesthetic im
pression; it aimed not to fascinate, but to tell
its mission and to instruct, faithful in this
also to the traditions of the ancient Orient.
The jumbled mass of personages and groups
which are presented on some of the bas-
reliefs, the host of attributes with which it
surcharged the eternal Kronos,* show us that
a new ideal was born with the new religion.
These uncou.n and unappealing symbols, the
manifold use of which our monuments exhibit,
did not allure by their elegance or nobility;
they fascinated the mind by the disquieting
attractions of the Unknown, and provoked in
souls reverential fear for an august mystery.
Thus is explained why this art, extremely
refined despite its imperfections, exercised a
lasting influence. It was united to Christian
art by an affinity of nature, and the symbolism
which it had popularized in the Occident did
not perish with it. Even the allegorical fig
ures of the cosmic cycle which the devotees of
the Persian god had reproduced in great
profusion (for nature was for them divine
throughout) were adopted by Christianity,
* Cf. p. 139, Fig. 35, and p. 105 et seq.
228 THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA
although in essence they were diametrically
opposed to its spirit. So with the images of
the Heavens, the Earth, and the Ocean, of the
Sun, the Moon, and the Planets, and of the
signs of the Zodiac, of the Winds, the Seasons,
and the Elements, so frequent on the Chris
tian sarcophagi, the mosaics, and miniatures.
The mediocre compositions which the ar
tists had conceived to represent the episodes
of the legend of Mithra appeared also worthy
of imitation to the Christian ages, which were
even more powerless than their predecessors
to shake off the traditions of the workshops.
When, after the triumph of the Church, Chris
tian sculptors were confronted with subjects
hitherto unattempted, and found themselves
under the embarrassing obligations of depict
ing on stone the personages and stories of the
Bible, they were happy in the opportunity of
being able to draw inspiration from the por
trayals which the Persian Mysteries had popu
larized. A few alterations in costume and
attitude transformed a pagan scene into a
Christian picture. Mithra discharging his
arrows against the rock became Moses causing
the waters of the mountain of Horeb to gush
forth; the Sun, raising his ally out of the
Ocean, served to express the ascension of
Elijah in the chariot of fire; and to the time
of the Middle Ages the type of the taurocto-
nous god was perpetuated in the images of
Samson rending the lion.
INDEX
Absolutism, theory of, go, 103.
Abstinence, 160.
Adam-Klissi, 43.
Adige, river, 73.
Adriatic, Mithraism along the
coasts of the, 67.
JEon, 105 et seq. (See Kronos.)
Agri Decumates, 52, 83, 199.
Ahriman, 7, 112, 137, 140; the
destruction of the world by,
146.
Ahura -Mazda, 5 et seq., 20, 27,
94, 113, 222.
Alexander the Great, 12, 20, 192.
Alexandria, 92.
Alps, Mithraism in denies of
the, 72.
Amshaspands, 2, 5.
Anahita, 8 et seq., 10, 20, 179
et seq.
Anaitis, 112.
Anangke, in.
Anauni, tribe of the, 206.
Animal disguises, 153.
Animals and stars, 122.
Antiochus of Commagene, 13,
14, 26, 27, 95.
Apathy, stoic, 161.
Apotheosis of the emperors, 90
et seq.
Apuleius, 164.
Apulum, 45, 139.
Aquileia, Mithraism in, 67 et
seq., 73, 213.
Aquincum, 46.
Arcana, the secrecy of the, 172.
Archer, the divine, 138, 197,
228.
Arete, 112.
Aristocracy and Mithraism, the
Roman, 81 et seq., 205.
Ark, 138.
Armenia, Mithraism in, 16.
Armenians, religion of the, 16.
Army, the principal agent of
the diffusion of the Mithraic
religion, 40 et seq.
Arshtat, 5.
Artagnes, in.
Artaxerxes, 8, 9.
Artemis Tauropolos, 20.
Art, Mithraic, 24, 209 et seq. ;
intricacy of, 221 ; symbolism
of, 227; its influence on
Christian sculpture, 196;
Christianity adopts symbols
of, 228.
Art of the empire, provincial,
219.
Ascension, Mithraic, 194.
Asceticism, 141.
Asha, 112.
Ashi-Vanuhi, 5.
Asia Minor, Mithraism in, n et
seq. ; resists the civilization
of Rome, 35.
Asia Propria, 79
Asia, religions of, and the
Caesars, 91.
Astarte at Rome, 34.
Astrolatry, 10.
229
230
INDEX
Astrologers, 78, 85.
Astrology, 119, 125, 207.
Atar, 112.
Athena Nike, 210.
Atlas, 123.
Attis, 87, 105, 179, 198.
Aurelian, 88, 103, 185, 199.
Aurelius, Marcus, 87.
Austerities, 160.
Avesta, the, i et seq.
B
Ba al, 42.
Baal of Emesa, 185.
Babylon, Mithraism in, 9, 10,
119.
Bacchus, 112.
Bactrian coins, 19.
Banquets, sacred, 173.
Baptism, 6, 157, 190, 173.
Baresman, 6, 26.
Basil, St., 28.
Bavay, 56.
Bear, title of, 153.
Bee, lion and, 185.
Bel, 10.
Belgium, early school of sculp
ture of, 220.
Bellona, 35, 87.
Bell, sounding of a, 166.
Bethlehem, 195.
Bithynia, 79.
Blood, baptism of, 181.
Bologna, 151.
Bonn, 52.
Borghesi bas-relief, 21.
Boulogne, 56.
Bread and water, consecrated,
158.
Brenner pass, 73.
Britain, Mithraism in, 57 et
seq., 79.
Brotherhoods, Mithraic, organi
zation of, 1 68.
Brothers, 190.
Brunn, 214.
Bull, capture of the wild, 132,
135 et seq., 210; immolation
of the mythical, 182; the Evil
Spirit and the, 137 ; the divine,
146, 194.
Bundahish, 7.
Burial associations, 86.
Caerleon, 57.
Csesarism, democratic fiction
of, 90.
Caesars, intimate alliance of,
with the Sun, 98 et seq. ;
religions of Asia and the, 91 ;
the successive Avatars of
Helios (the Sun), 100;
Mithraism favored the pre
tensions of the, 101.
Caesar, the genius of, 93.
Calabria, 71.
Caligula, 93.
Capitol, bas-relief of, 81.
Cappadocia, Magi and Mith
raism in, 26, 28, 42, 43, 46,
76.
Carnuntum, 38, 46, 47 et seq.,
83, 88, 89, 163, 178, 200.
Catechumens, Christian, 155.
Catharsis, 141.
Cause, the suprasensible, 118.
Cauti, 129.
Cautopati, 129.
Caves, consecrated to the gods,
30.
Celibacy, 165.
Celsus, 82.
Cemetery, Mithraic, 171.
INDEX
2 3 I
Centurions, a microcosm of the
empire, 40, 41.
Ceramists, Hellenic, 225.
Ceremonial, the occult, 162 et
seq.
Chaldseans, theology of the, 10;
as astrologers, 78, 85; theo
ries, influence of their, 119.
Chester, 57.
Chosroes, vi.
Christ, 193, 195.
Christianity, battle between
idolatry " and, iii et seq. ;
struggle between Mithraism
and, 188 et seq. ; resemblances
between Mithraism and, 193 ;
differences between Mithra
ism and, 197; adopts symbols
of Mithraic art, 228.
Christians, persecutions of, 200.
Christmas, 167, 191, 196, 202.
Chrysostomos, Dion, 25.
Church ornaments during the
days of paganism, 218.
Cilicia, pirates of, 31, 35, 37, 42.
Clergy, Mithraic, 150 et seq.,
165.
Cologne, 52.
Coloring of Mithraic statues,
219.
Colt, title of, 153.
Commagene, 41, 43, 178.
Commandments of Mithraism,
140.
Commerce, international, 79.
Commodus, 38, 83, 87, 97, 212.
Communion, the Mithraic, 158
et seq., 194.
Compromise, Mithraic policy of,
198.
Conflagration, 138.
Congregations, Mithraic, 169.
Constantine, 200.
Constantius, 201.
Constellations, worship of the
Planets and the, 148.
Continence, 141.
Conventicles, the Mithraic, 171.
Corbulo, 47.
Creator, Mithra the, 137.
Crown, the, 156.
Ctesias, 9.
Cybele, 17, 30, 87, 112, 179.
D
Dacia, Mithraism in, 44 et seq.,
139, 199-
Dadophori, 57. (See Torch-
bearers. ]
Dalmatia, 40, 76.
Danube, 44, 51.
Darkness, the Spirit of, and his
pestilential scourges, 137.
Day and night, struggle be
tween, 4.
Dead, resurrection of the, 191.
Dea Syria at Rome, 35.
Deities, sidereal, 120; septuple
division of the, 155.
Deliverance, 143.
Deluge, 138.
Despotism, 90, 91 et seq
Destiny, 95, 109, no, 124.
Devotees, Mithraic, 150 et seq.
Diadochi, Mithraism and the,
ii et seq.
Diana, 112.
Diocletian, vi, 48, 89, 98,
200.
Dioscuri, the, 123 et seq.
Disc, the radiant, 100.
Divine flame, 26.
Dog of Mithra, the, 135, 137.
Dolichenuui, 178.
232
INDEX
Dolichenus, Jupiter, 36, 48,
178, 190.
Dormagen, 52.
Drave, Mithraism in valley of
the, 73-
Drvaspa, 112.
Dualism, advantages of, 141.
E
Earth, mother, 115.
Ecliptic, 107.
Egypt, a theocratic govern
ment, 91.
Eisack, 73.
Elements, the four, 116 et seq. ,
148.
Elijah, 228.
Emperors, titles of, 97 ; wor
ship of the, 90 et seq., 184.
Equinoxes, 167.
Erichthonios, birth of, 225.
Eternity, leontocephalous god
of, the most original creation
of Mithraic art, 224.
Etruria, 67, 72.
Eubulus, 82.
Eugenius, 205.
Europe, in danger of being
Asiaticized, vi.
Eutropius, 44.
Evil Spirit and the Bull, the,
137-
F
Fatalism, 97, 147.
Fatality, 95, 109; belief in, 124.
Fates, in.
Father, degree of, 152 et seq.
Father of the Fathers, 165, 177.
Festivals, Mithraic, 167.
Fire, 114; the inextinguishable,
99.
Flavianus, Nicomachus, 205.
Fleet at Ravenna, 46.
Flood, 191. (See Deluge.}
For tuna regia, 97.
Fortune, g4etseq., 102, in.
Four Crowned Ones, passion of
the, 218.
France, Mithraism in, 69.
Freemasonry, 162.
Friedberg, 52.
Friedlander, 217.
Future life, 144.
Galatia, 79.
Galerius, 89, 200.
Gathas, 150.
Gaul, Mithraism in, 69 et seq. ,
79-
Generative Rock, the, 131 et
seq., 194.
Geneva, 56, 70.
Genius of Caesar, the, 93.
George the patriarch, 202.
Germanies, Mithraism in the
two, 50 et seq., 52 et seq., 78.
Gigantomachy, 112, 113, 127.
Gilding, 220.
Glory, 94 et seq.
God, 187.
God, the passion of the, 192.
Gods, Iranian, worshipped un
der Greek and Latin names,
175-
Good and evil, the struggle be
tween the principles of, 146.
Good, principle of, 148.
Gordianus III., 18, 32.
Gracchus, the prefect, 203.
Grace (halo), 94 et seq. ; the
Mithraic spirit of, 147.
Gratian, 205.
Greeks and Persians, iii.
INDEX
233
H
Hadrian, 40, 46; wall of, 57.
Haoma, 6, 112, 131, 158.
Heaven, 109, 191, 197.
Heavens, the, 121, 138.
Heddernheim, 53 et seq., 117.
Heidelberg, 55.
Helbig, 214.
Heliogabalus, 185.
Heliolatry, 184 et seq., 200.
Helios, 22, 138, 222.
Hell, 191, 206.
Hellenism, Iranism and, 20.
Heracles, C. Valerius, 105.
Hercules, 20, in, 127, 222.
Hierarchy, the, 165.
Holy water, 157.
Honey, 157.
Hooerkes, 19.
Horeb, rock of, 197.
Horses, the four, 116 et seq.
Human couple, the first, 137.
Hvarend, 94 et seq., 102.
I
Iconography, Mithraic, 226.
Idolatry, destruction of, 201.
Imagery, religious, 216.
Immortality, 143.
Initiates, the Mithraic, 155.
Initiation, 6; seven degrees of,
152 ; cruelty of the ceremonies
of, 161.
Invictus, the epithet, 98.
Invincible, the epithet, 97 et
seq., 143.
Iranism and Hellenism, 20.
Iran, naturalism of, 119.
Ishtar, 10.
Isis, Mysteries of, 178; at
Rome, 34.
Italy, depopulated, 64; Mithra-
ism in, 38, 70 et seq.
J
Janes, S. H., 176.
Jerome, St., 152.
Jerusalem, capture of, 37.
Jesus, life of, 194.
Jewish community trans Tibe-
rim, 37.
Journey, the, 135.
Judaism, iv.
Julian the Apostate, 89, 201 et
seq.
Juno, in.
Jupiter, no, 136.
Jupiter-Ormazd, 140, 146.
K
Kanerkes, 19.
Klagenfurt, 113.
Kronos, 105 et seq., 153, 162,
222, 223, 227.
Lambaese, 58.
Lampridius, 78, 83.
Last Supper, the, 138.
Latin world, diffusion of the
Mithraic religion in the, 36.
Legio II. adjutrtx, 46.
Legion, fifteenth, 47 et seq.
Leontocephalous Kronos. (See
Kronos.)
Licinius, 89.
Life, a battle, 140; beyond the
tomb, 148.
Lion and bee, 185.
Lion, degree of, 152.
Lion-headed Kronos. (See
Kronos.)
Liturgy Mazdean and Mithraic,
6, 150 et seq.
234
INDEX
Livianus, slave of T. Claudius,
38.
Logos, the, 140, 191.
London, 57, 217.
Lord s Supper, the, 138, 158,
191.
Love feasts, 160.
Lucania, 71.
Lucian, 27, 82, 220.
Luna, 112. (See Moon.}
Lyons, 60, 69.
M
Ma, 30, 1 80.
Macrobius, 187.
Magician, the word, 126.
Magi, the official Persian clergy,
9; in Asia Minor, n et seq.,
20; propaganda of, 15 ; adora
tion of the, 195.
Magus, the title, 126.
Malachi, 193.
Manichseans, the, 165.
Manichseism, v, 207.
Man, origin and destiny of, 120.
Mars, 112.
Martyrs, Oriental, 175.
Masks, sacred, 153.
Mater, Magna, at Rome, 19.
34, 67; Mithraism associated
with, 86 et seq., 179 et seq.
(See Mother, Great.}
Mauls, 73.
Maximus of Ephesus, 202, 203.
Mayence, 52.
Mazdaism, ritual forms of, 28 ;
priests of, 29; its influence
on Occidental culture, iv; a
congeries of traditions, 10; in
Italy, 15 ; in Armenia, 16.
(See MtthraismJ}
Mediator, 140, 191.
Memphis, Mithra at, 33.
Men, Mithra and, 17.
Merchants disseminate Mith
raism, 78.
Mercury, 112.
Metempsychosis, 153.
Metroon, 179, 182.
Middle Zone, 127.
Mihragan, the, 9.
Milan, 72.
Minerva, 112, 181.
Missal, a Mithraic, 152.
Mithra-Ahura, 2, 6.
Mithra- Anahita, 17.
Mithra-Men, 17.
Mithra, the god of light, 2 et
seq., 127 et seq.; as god of
hosts and victory, 4, 8, 12;
doctrine of redemption by, 5 ;
a yazata, 5 et seq. ; in the
calendar, 8, 27; Shamash
and, 10; King Antiochus and,
14 ; typical representations of,
21 et seq.; the tauroctonous,
21 et seq., 210, 216; legends
and deeds of, 30, 127 et seq.,
133; the invincible Sun iden
tified with, 95, 121, 132; the
mediator, 127 et seq. ; the
triple, 129; born from the
rock, 130 et seq. ; his com
bat with the bull, iSj^JJii^L
sjsq^gio; his dog, 135, 137;
the creator, 137, 140; the
guide to heaven, 145 ; causing
the living waters to leap
forth, 197, 228.
Mithradates, the name. (See
Mithr Mates.}
Mithrseums, ruins of, 203.
Mithraism, the origins of, i et
seq., 30; a composite religion,
INDEX
235
31 ; analysis of the constituent
elements of, 30 ; Semitic
theories in, 10; religious sur
vivals in, 30; struggle be
tween Christianity and, v,
1 88 et seq. ; resemblances be
tween Christianity and, 193 ;
differences between Christi
anity and, 197; dissemination
of, in the Roman Empire, 33
et seq. ; army principal agent
of diffusion of, 40 et seq., 60,
77, 78; disseminated by
Syrian merchants and slaves,
61 et seq., 63 et seq., 69, 74
et seq., 78; imperial officers
disseminated, 74 et seq. ; the
Roman aristocracy and, 81
et seq., 205; the imperial
power of Rome and, 85 et
seq. ; reasons the Roman
Empire supported it, 88 et
seq.; despotism and, 91 et
seq. ; favored the pretensions
of the Caesars, 101 ; dogmatol-
ogy of, tended to lift princes
above the level of human
kind, 102; at its apogee, 15, 84
et seq. , 88 et seq. , 1 77, 199 ; the
doctrines of, 104 et seq. ; its
theology, 105 et seq. ; astrol
ogy and, 125; its liturgy,
clergy and devotees, 150 et
seq. ; the religions of the
empire and, 175 et seq.;
importance of its history,
vi; philosophy and, 25; the
Stoic philosophy and, 25;
excluded from the Hellenic
world, 33 ; Roman tolerance
of, 85 ; associated with the
religion of the Magna Mater
(Great Mother), 86 et seq. ;
legal status of, 86; sacred
poetry of, 126; command
ments of, 140; a religion of
soldiers, 142; satisfied the
hearts of the simple-minded,
148 ; allurements of, 149 ; con
forms religion to ancient
science, 149; offers oppor
tunities for prayer and mo
tives for veneration, 149 ; the
religious expression of the
physics and astronomy of
the Roman world, 149; ad
mission to, 156; stupendous
illusions of, 173; women and,
173; its priests, 175; its policy
of compromise, 198; its tem
ples sacked, 199, 203; down
fall of, 203 et seq. ; its art,
sculpture, etc., 209 et seq. ;
monuments of, 43 et seq. , 209
et seq. ; not a cult of beauty,
226.
Mithrakana, the, 9, 167.
Mithridates, 13.
Mithridates Eupator, 31.
Mitra-Varuna, 2.
Mcesia, Mithraism in, 40, 43,
74-
Monachism, Mithraic, 165.
Monarchical power, Mazdean
ideas concerning, 95.
Monarchs, majesty of, sacred,
93-
Monotheism, 187, 188.
Moon, worship of the, 119.
Mosaicists, Christian, 222.
Moses, 197, 228.
Mothers, order of, 179.
Mother, the Great, 19. (See
Mater, Magna.)
236
INDEX
Mysteries, the term, 29.
Myths, origin of, 187.
N
Nabarze, 142, 143, 150.
Nama, Nama Sebesio, 151.
Names, theophorous or god-
bearing, 8, 34.
Narbonne, 69.
Natalts invtcti. (See Christ
mas.}
Nativity, the, 196.
Naturalism of Iran, 1 19.
Necessity, 126.
Necromancy, 125.
Neo-Platonism, 184.
Neo-Pythagorism, 184.
Neptune, in, 115.
Nero, 85, 93.
Nersae, 38, 71.
Neuenheim, 55.
Neuwied, 52.
Nike, 112.
Noricum, Mithraism in, 49, 73,
75, 113-
Numidia, Mithraism in, 59.
O
Oblations of milk, oil, and
honey, 26.
Occult, degree of, 152.
Ocean, 109, 115.
Officers, imperial, disseminate
Mithraism, 74 et seq.
Oglia, river, 72.
Oneiromancy, 125.
Orestes, 20.
Oriental, cults, persecutions of
the, 85; genius, triumphs
over the Roman mind, 90;
traffic, extension of, and
spread of Mithraism, 69, 70.
Ormazd, v, 7, in.
Osrhoene, 36.
Osterburken, 51, 220.
Ostia, 38, 66, 68, 105, 179, 210,
212.
Ox, title of, 153.
P
Pallas, 82.
Pannonia, Mithraism in, 46 et
seq., 74, 199; quarries of, 218.
Pantheism, 149; solar, 188.
Pantheon, Mithraic, 109.
Paradise, 191.
Parendi, 5.
Parseeism, development of, 15.
Parthians, 42, 47, 64.
Pergamon, 12; School of, 24,
192, 210.
Persian, degree of, 152.
Persians and Greeks, iii.
Persians, their apotheosis of
their rulers, 93.
Petronell, 163.
Pharaohs, incarnations of the
great day-star, 92.
Philippus, 88.
Philosophical conceptions, 148.
Philosophy and Mithraism, 25.
Phrygian cap, 131.
Piraeus, 33.
Planets, 222; deified, 120 et
seq. ; and the Constellations,
worship of the, 148.
Plutarch, 7, 36, 37, 96.
Pluto, 112.
Pompey, 37.
Pontiff, the chief, 165.
Pontus, 42.
Porphyry, 155, 158.
Pozzuoli, 64.
Praetextatus, 187.
Priesthood, Mazdean, 29.
Priestsof Mithra, 175 ; slain, 205.
INDEX
237
Pronaos, 170.
Ptolemies, 93.
Ptolemy, 10.
Purification, 181.
Purity, 141.
Puster-Thal, 73.
Q
Quadriga, 116, 118, 138.
Ra, 92.
Radiate crown, 99.
Rashnu, 5.
Raven, degree of, 152 et seq.
Ravenna, fleet at, 46.
Redeemer, the, 193, 195.
Redemption, 143.
Resurrection of the flesh, 146,
171, 191, 206.
Revelation, 191.
Reville, Jean, 17.
Rhsetia, 73.
Rhone, 69 et seq.
Ritual of Mazdaism, 28.
Rock, Mithra born from the,
130 et seq. ; of generation,
194.
Roman aristocracy, Mithra and,
81 et seq.
Roman Emperors and the
ocracy, 90.
Roman tolerance of Mithraism,
85-
Rome, 210, 217; Mithraism at,
79 et seq.; the capital of
paganism, 205.
Runner of the Sun, degree of.
152 et seq.
Sabazius-Anaitis, 17.
Sacraments, 156, 157, 206.
Sacred bath, 180.
Sacrifice, the, 137, 166.
Saeculum. (See Kronos.}
Samson, 228.
Sarmizegetusa, 45, 142, 216.
Sarrebourg, 56, 204.
Sassanian kings, 100.
Saturn, Mithraic, 105 et seq.
(See Kronos.)
Scarbantia, 49.
Schneider, Von, 214.
Schwarzerden, 56.
Scorpion, sign of the, 129.
Scotland, 43.
Sculpture, Mithraic, 196, 215;
ancient, 226.
Seasons, the, 115, 121, 222.
Sebesio, JVama, JVama, 151.
Seleucidae, the, 95.
Semitic theories in Mithraism,
10.
Serapis at Rome, 34.
Services, Mithraic, 162.
Seven spheres, the, 144.
Seven, the number, 120 et seq.,
154-
Severus, Alexander, 18, 61, 78,
88.
Shahrivar, 112.
Shamash, 10, 20, 121, 127, 128.
Shepherds, worship of the, 132,
194.
iicily, Mithraism in, 68.
Sidereal influences, 206.
Silvanus, 66, 112, 136, 137.
Sisters, order of, 179.
Skeleton, Chained, 204.
Slaves, Asiatic, disseminated
Mithraism and other Oriental
cults, 63 et seq., 70, 71, 78.
Smyrna, 214.
Societies, Mithraic, 170.
238
INDEX
Sodaltcia, 168, 171.
Solar, divinities, gg, 121 ; pan
theism, 1 88.
Soldier, degree of, 152; Roman,
his religion, 42 et seq.
Soldiers, the principal agent of
the diffusion of the Mithraic
religion, 40 et seq., 78.
Sol invictus, cult of the, Sg.
Sol the sun-god, 186.
Soul, immortality of, 143, igi.
Spain, Mithraism in, 59, 69, 79.
Spelcea, 161.
Spenta-Armaiti, in.
Sraosha, 5.
Stars, worship of, ng; animals
and, 122.
Statius, 37.
Stoic philosophy, Mithraism and
the, 25, 184.
Stone-hewing industry of an
tiquity, 217.
Strabo, n, 26.
Strassburg, 52.
Sunday, igi.
Sun, worship of the, 118, 183 et
seq. ; the invincible, identi
fied with Mithra, 95, 121;
Mithra and the, 132 ; intimate
alliance of the Caesars with
the, 98 et seq. ; consubstan-
tiality of the emperor with,
101 ; birth of the, 167; of
justice, ig3 ; custom of invok
ing the, 195 ; also 128, 138,
148, 201.
Symbolism, astronomical, 130.
Syncretism, religious, 10-22, 187.
Syrian merchants disseminated
Mithraism, 61 et seq.
Syrians, character and occupa
tions of, 62 et seq.
Tarsus, 31, 32.
Taurobolium, 86, 180.
Tauroctonous, or bull-slaying,
Mithra, the, 21 et seq.
Taurus, constellation of, 129.
Temples sacked, Mithraic, igg,
203.
Tertullian, 157, 165, 188.
Themis, in.
Theocracy, Roman emperors
and, go.
Theodosius, 205.
Theologies, of the Orient and
the philosophies of Greece,
14; the Mithraic, 147.
Theophorous, or god-bearing,
names, 8, 34.
Thiasi, 155.
Time, 148, 153; boundless, 105
et seq.; infinite, 112, 121.
(See Kronos.)
Titus, 47, 64.
Torch-bearers, 57, 68, 128 et
seq., 2ii et seq.
Toronto Mithra, the, 176.
Trajan, 44, 48, 64.
Trapezus, coins of, 18.
Trent, 73.
Treves, 56.
Trials, 160.
Trinity, v, 176; Mithraic, in.
Triple Mithra, the, i2g.
Twigs, sacred (baresmari), 6,
26.
Tyche, 94 et seq.
Unction, 157.
U
Vanainiti, 112.
Vedas, i et seq.
INDEX
239
Vendidad, the, 26.
Venus, 112, 181.
Venusia, 71.
Verethraghna, 5, 20, 127, 222.
Vespasian, 46, 47, 77.
Veterans disseminate Mithra-
ism, 77-
Vienna, 49.
Villa Albani, 212.
Virunum, 50, 73, 113, 199, 218.
Vulcan, 112, 114.
W
Water, 114.
West, 7.
Winds, the, 197, 222, 223.
Witchcraft, 125.
Women in Mithraism, 173.
World, origin and destiny of
the, 109, 1 20, 140.
Yazatas, 5 et seq., 175
York, 57.
Zeno, 25.
Zervan, 105 et seq., 125. (See
Kronos.}
Zeus, in, 222; Ahura-Mazda
and, 20.
Zodiac, signs of the, 109, 121 et
seq., 153, 223.
Zoroaster, 152.
Zoroastrianism, 2 et seq., 8,
165. (See Mithraism. }
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