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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

The Open Court

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and
the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea.

VOL. XVI. (NO. 2.) FEBRUARY, 1902. NO. 549
Copyright by Ttie Open Court Publishing Co., igai.

THE MYSTERIES OF MITH'RAS.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
INTRODUCTORY.
THE present series of articles, in which we propose to treat of
the origin and history of the Mithraistic 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 Arere far
more active as fermenting agents than the theories of the phi
losophers, decomposed the national beliefs on which the Roman
state and the entire life of antiquity rested, and how the destruc
tion of the edifice which they had disintegrated was ultimately
consummated by Christianity. We shall not undertake to trace
here the various phases of the battle waged between idolatry and
the growing Church ; this vast subject, which we cherish the hope
of attacking some day in the future, does not lie within the scope
of the present series of articles. We are concerned here with one
epoch merely of this decisive revolution : it shall be our purpose,
namely, to exhibit with all the distinctness in our power how and
why a sect of Mazdaism failed under the Caesars to become the
dominant religion of the empire.
The civilisation of the Greeks had never succeeded in estab
lishing itself among the Persians, and the Romans were no more
successful in subjecting the Parthians to their sway.- The grand
fact which dominates the entire history of Hither Asia is that the
Iranian world and the Greco-Latin world remained forever un-
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments Jiguris relatffs aux mystlres de
Mithra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

66 THE OPEN COURT.
amenable to reciprocal assimilation, forever sundered by a mutual
repulsion, deep and instinctive, just as much as by a hereditary
hostility.
~ Nevertheless, the religion of the Magi, which was the highest
blossom of the genius of Iran, exercised a deep influence on Occi
dental culture on three different occasions. In the first place, Par-
seeism had made a very distinct impression on Judaism in its stage
of formation, and several of its cardinal doctrines were dissemi
nated by Jewish colonists throughout the entire basin of the Med
iterranean Sea, and subsequently forced their acceptance upon
orthodox Catholicism.
The influence of Mazdaism on European thought was still
more direct, when Asia Minor was conquered by the Romans.
Here, from time immemorial, colonies of Magi, who had migrated
from Babylon, lived in obscurity, and, welding together their tra
ditional beliefs with the concepts of the Grecian thinkers, had elab
orated 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 rapidly and
simultaneously pressing forward 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 reli
gion was checked when it came in contact with Christianity. The
two adversaries discovered with amazement, but with no inkling
of their origin, the similarities which united them ; and they sev
erally accused the Spirit of Deception of having endeavored to
caricature the sacredness of their religious rites. The conflict be
tween the two was inevitable, — a ferocious and implacable duel;
for the stake was dominion over the world. No one has told the tale
of its changing 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 Ormudz and the Trinity.
We know the result of the battle only : Mithraism was vanquished,
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 Mys
teries; it perished, not only because it was encumbered by the oner
ous heritage of a superannuated past, but also because its liturgy
and its theology had retained too much of its Asiatic coloring to be
accepted by the Latin spirit without repugnance. For a contrary

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRAS. 67
reason, the same battle, waged in the same epoch in Persia be
tween these same two rivals, was without success, if not without
honor, for the Christians ; and in the realms of the Sassanids, Zo-
roastrianism 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 re
ception of a new faith, which, like itself, had come from the banks
of the Euphrates, and which resumed hostilities with entirely dif
ferent tactics. Manicheism appeared as its successor and continu-
ator. This was the final assault made by Persia on the Occident,
— an assault more sanguinary than the preceding one, but which
was ultimately destined to be repulsed by the powerful resistance
offered to it by the Christian empire.

The foregoing rapid sketch will, I hope, give some idea of the
great importance which the history 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, which has been so much disputed, of the Avestan ref
ormation. Again, if it has not inspired, it has at least contributed
to give precise form to, certain doctrines of the Church, like the
ideas relative to the powers of hell and to the end of the world.
And thus both 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 influence on the society and
government of Rome. Never, perhaps, not even in the epoch of
the Mussulman invasion, was Europe in greater danger of being
Asiaticised than in the third century of our era, and there was a mo
ment 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 Chosroes have been frequently
emphasised. It was the worship of the sun, and in particular the
Mazdean theories, that disseminated the ideas upon which the dei
fied sovereigns of the West endeavored to rear their monarchical
absolutism. The rapid spread of the Persian Mysteries in all
classes of the population served admirably the political ambitions
of the emperors. A sudden inundation of Iranian and Semitic
conceptions swept over the Occident which threatened to sub
merge everything that the genius of Greece and Rome had so
laboriously erected, and when the flood subsided it left behind in

68

THE OPEN COURT.

the conscience of the people a deep sediment of Oriental 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, in all directions,
much farther than at the outset I had 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 cannot have been otherwise
than difficult. On the one hand, we do not know to what precise
) degree the Avesta and the other sacred books of the Parsees rep
resent the ideas of the Mazdeans of the Occident; on the other,
these constitute the sole material in our possession for interpreting
the great mass of figured monuments which have little by little
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 ddbris of Roman and Gothic por
tals. For this reason, our explanations of Mithraistic representa
tions will frequently possess nothing more than a greater or less
degree of probability. I make no pretension to having 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 arguments which support them. I hope nevertheless to have
established with certainty the general signification of the sacred
images which adorned the Mithraistic 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 series of articles will reproduce the conclusions
summarised at the end of the first volume of my large work.
Stripped of the notes and references which there served to estab
lish them, it will be restricted to epitomising and co-ordinating all
the knowledge we possess concerning the origins and characteris
tic features of the Mithraistic rehgion. It will furnish, in fact, all
the material necessary for readers desirous of general information
on this subject. [to be continued.]

THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM.'

BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
IN that unknown epoch when the ancestors of the Persians werei
still united with those of the Hindus, they were already wor
shippers of Mithra. The hymns of the Vedas celebrated his namej
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 impossible to entertain any
doubt concerning their common origin. Both religions saw in him
a god of light, invoked together with Heaven, bearing in the one
case the name of Varuna and in the other that of Ahura ; in ethics
he was recognised as the protector of truth, the antagonist of false
hood 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 dis
tinctly limned in the Sanskrit literature as it is in the writings of
the Zends, 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 unacquainted, was not a member of the ancient
Aryan pantheon. Mitra- Varuna, and .the five other Adityas cele
brated by the Vedas, likewise Mithra- Ahura and the Amshaspands,
who according to the Avestan conception surrounding the Creator,
are on this theory nothing buf the sun, the moon, and the planets,
the worship of which was adopted bythe Indo-Iranians "from a
neighboring people, their superiors in the knowledge of the starry
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments Jiguris relatifs aux mystires de
Mithra (Brussels: H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

1 68 THE OPEN COURT.
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 it will
be sufficient for us to state, without attempting to dissipate^he ob
scurity of these primitive times, the simple fact that the tribes of
Iran have never ceased to worship Mitra from their first assump
tion of worldly power till the day of their conversion to Islam.
In the Avesta, Mithra is the genius of the celestial light. He
appears before sun-rise 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 night falls he still illumi
nates with flickering glow the surface of the earth, "ever waking,
ever watchful." He is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but
watches with "his hundred ears and his hundred eyes" the
world. Mithra hears all, sees all, knows all : none can deceive
him. By a natural transition he has thus become for ethics the
god of truth and integrity, the one that was invoked in the solemn
vows, that pledged the fulfilment of contracts, that punished per
jurors. The light that dissipates darkness, restores happiness and life
on earth ; the heat that accompanies it fecundates nature. Mithra
is "the lord of the wide pastures," the one that renders them fer
tile. "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 come 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 but of spiritual advantages as well. His is the beneficent
genius that accords peace of conscience, wisdom, and honor along
with prosperity, and causes harmony to reign among all his votaries.
The devas, who inhabit the places of darkness, disseminate on earth
along with barrenness and suffering all manner of vice and impur
ity. Mithra, "wakeful and sleepless, protects the creation of
Mazda" against 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 slaughters 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 ene
mies "miss their mark, for Mithra, sore incensed, hath received

THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM. 1 69
them"; and he assures victory unto them that "have had fit in
struction in the Good, that honor him and offer him the sacrificial
libations." This character of god of hosts, which is the predominating trait I
in Mithra I from the days of the Achaemenides, undoubtedly be- '^
came accentuated in the period of confusion during which the Iran
ian tribes were still at war with one another ; but it is after all only
the development of the ancient conception of struggle between
the day and the night. In general, the picture that the Avesta
offers us of the old Aryan deity, is, as we have already said, sim
ilar to that which the Vedas have drawn in less marked outlines,
and it hence follows that Mazdaism left unaltered the main foun
dation of its primitive nature.
Still, though the Avestan hymns furnish the distinctest glimpses
of the true physiognomy of the ancient God of light, the Zoroas-
trian 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 thence
forward it could recognise none as his peer. Mithra was not even
made one of the six Amshaspands that aided the supreme deity in
governing the universe. He 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 ab
stractions which the Persians had learned to worship. As protector
of warriors, he received for his companion, Verethraghna, or Vic
tory ; 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 genius of prosperity, he is in
voked with Ashi-Vaiiuhi, Riches, and with Pareiidi, Abundance.
In company with Sraosha and Rashnu, he protects the soul of the
Just against the demons that struggle to drag it to Hell, and under
their guardianship it soars aloft to Paradise. This Iranian belief
gave birth to the doctrine of redemption by Mithra, which we find
developed in the Occident.
At the same time, his cult was subjected to a rigorous cere
monial, conforming to the Mazdean liturgy. Sacrificial offerings
were made to him of "small cattle and large, and of flying birds. "
These immolations were preceded or accompanied with moderate
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

170 THE OPEN COURT.
purify himself by repeated ablutions and flagellations. These rigor
ous prescriptions recall the rite of baptism and the corporeal tests
imposed on the Roman mystics before initiation.
Mithra, thus, was adopted in the theological system of Zoro-
astrianism ; a convenient place was assigned to him in the divine
hierarchy; he was associated with companions of unimpeachable
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 pan
theon 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. Further
more, if it is said that Ahura created Mithra as he did all things, it
is likewise said that he made him just as great and worthy as him
self. Mithra is indeed a yazata, but he is also the most potent and
most glorious of the yazatas. "Ahura-Mazda established him as
the protector of the entire movable world, to watch over it." 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
Plutarch expounds the dualistic doctrine of the Persians : Oro-
mazes 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 darkness, and Mithra occupies an intermediary place between
them. The beginning of the Bundahish expounds a quite similar
theory, save that in place of Mithra it is the air (Vayu) that is
placed between Ormuzd and Ahriman. The contradiction is only
one of term's, for according to Iranian ideas the 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 emis
sary and chief of the celestial armies in their constant combat 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 concep
tion, far simpler than that of Zoroastrianism, which appears to
have been generally accepted among the subjects of the Acha-
menides. The conspicuous r61e that the religion of the ancient Persians
accorded to Mithra is attested by a multitude of proofs. He alone

THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM. 171
with the goddess Anahita, is invoked in the inscriptions pf Arta
xerxes alongside of Ahura-Mazda.. The "great kings" were cer
tainly very closely attached to him, and looked upon him as their
special protector. He it is whom they call to bear witness to the
truth of their words, and whom they invoke on the eve of battle.
They unquestionably regarded him as the god that brought victory
to monarchs ; he it was, they thought, that caused that mysterious
light to descend upon them which, according to the Mazdean be
lief, is a guaranty of perpetual success to princes, whose authority
it 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 b)' their members from remotestj
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 cal-1
ender the seventh month was dedicated to him and also doubtless;
the sixteenth day of each month. At the time of his festival, thej
king, if we may believe Ctesias, was permitted to indulge in copi-!
ous libations in his honor and to execute the sacred dances. Cer-'
tainly this festival was the occasion of solemn sacrifices and stately
ceremonies. The Mithrakana were famed throughout all Hither
Asia, and in their form Mihragd-n were destined to be celebrated, in
modern times, by Mussulman Persia at the commencement of win
ter. The fame of Mithra extended to the borders of the ^geanj"
Sea ; he is the only 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 aris
tocracy that aided him in governing his vast territories could not
possibly 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 Babylon, Damas,
and Sardis, as well as at Susa, Ecbatana, and Persepolis. Bab
ylon, in particular, 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 prerogatives
that the imperial protocol guaranteed to this official clergy could
not render them exempt from the influence of the powerful sacer
dotal caste that flourished beside them. The erudite and refined
theology of the Chaldeans was thus superposed on the primitive
Mazdean belief, which was rather a congeries of traditions than a

T72 THE OPEN COURT.
well-established body of definite beliefs. The legends of the two
religions were assimilated, their divinities were identified, and the
Semitic worship of the stars (astrolatry), the monstrous fruit of
long-continued scientific observations, became amalgamated 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 Mithra became
the 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 theories 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 Ptolemy, this potent
solar deity was worshipped in all the countries that stretched from
India to Assyria.
But Babylon was a step only in the propagation of Mazdaism.
Very early the Magi had crossed Mesopotamia and penetrated to
the heart of Asia Minot.^ Even under the first of the Achaemenides,
it appears, they established themselves in multitudes in Armenia,
where the indigenous religion gradually succumbed to their cult,
and also in Cappadocia, where their altars still burned in great
numbers in the days of the great geographer Strabo. The}-
swarmed, at a very remote epoch, into distant Pontus, into Gala
tia, into Phrygia. In Lydia even, under the reign of the Antonines,
their descendants still chanted their barbaric hymns in a sanctuary
attributed to Cyrus. These communities, in Cappadocia at least,
were destined to survive the triumph of Christianity and to be per
petuated 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 Darius 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 Alex-
.ander the Great, no less efficient protection than that which they
enjoyed under the Great King and his satraps. After the dismem
berment of the empire of Alexander, there were established in
Pontus, Cappadocia, Armenia, and Commagene, dynasties which

THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM. I73
the complaisant genealogists of the day feigned to trace back to
the Achaemenian kings. /Whether these royal houses were of Iran
ian descent or not, their supposititious descent nevertheless im
posed upon them the obligation of worshipping the gods of their
fictitious ancestors. In opposition to the Greek kings of Pergamus
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 special favors for the
temples of the Mazdean divinities. Oromazes (Ahura-Mazda),
Omanos (Vohumano), Artagnes (Verethraghna), 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 personal, as
the frequency of the name Mithradates in all their families attests. '
Evidently Mithra had remained for th^hi, as he had been for the:
Artaxerxes and the Dariuses, the god that gave monarchs victory,
— the manifestation and enduring guaranty of their legitimate
rights. I
This reverence for Persian custonis, inherited 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 in
scription engraved on the colossal tomb that Antiochus I , Epi
phanes, of Commagene (69-34 S- C.), erected on a spur of the
mountain-range Taurus, commanding a distant view of the valley
of the Euphrates. But, being a descendant by his mother of the
Seleucidae of Syria, and supposedly 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 Mithradates.
Similarly in the neighboring countries, the Iranian princes and
priests gradually succumbed to the growing power of the Grecian
civilisation. Under the Achaemenides, all the different nations
lying between the Pontus Euxinus and Mount Taurus were suf
fered by the tolerance of the central authority to practice their
local cults, customs, and languages. But in the great confusion
caused by the collapse of the Persian empire, all political and reli
gious barriers were demolished. Heterogeneous races had sud
denly come in contact with one another, and as a result Hither Asia
passed through a phase of syncretism analogous to that which is

174 THE OPEN COURT.
more distinctly observable under the Roman empire. The con
tact of all the theologies of the Orient and all the philosophies of
Greece produced the most startling combinations, and the compe
tition between the different creeds became exceedingly brisk. Many
of the Magi, from Armenia to Phrygia and Lydia, then doubtless
departed from their traditional reserve to devote themselves to ac
tive propaganda, and like the Jews of the same epoch they suc
ceeded 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 rigor
ism that kept growing more and more inaccessible.
The definitive form that Mithraism assumed will receive brief
consideration in our next article.

EASTER.

199

grave, show the spirit in which the early Christians regarded the
idea of Christ's resurrection. Paul's Christ is a spiritual presence,
while the Christ oi a later writer, hankering after a corporeal im
mortality, is a bodily presence who makes doubters touch him and
parades his corporeality by eating in the presence of witnesses.
Finally he is reported\to have departed from th^ earth by ascending
to heaven. Perhaps the most ^eautiful conception Si the risen Christ (in
comparably nobler than yie crude material^tic notion of a corporeal

resurrection) is reflected in the tale of the disciplegjjpf Emaus, where
Christ, the departed master, speaks out of the moiMi of a stranger
whom they meet on the way and with whom they Break bread to
gether. They ki^w him not until he was gone. And Kpw did they
know him? Hig words were the words of Jesus, and 'the way in
which he broke bread and spoke the blessing reminded them of
their beloved raaster. Who will deny that in this sense Christ has
proved a living presence ever since and is still so even unto the
generations of (these latter days?

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAISM.
[continued.]
IT was undoubtedly during the period of moral and religious fer
mentation provoked by the Macedonian conquest that Mithra
ism received approximately its definitive form. It was already thor
oughly consolidated when it spread throughout the Roman empire.
Its dogmas and its liturgic traditions must have been firmly estab
lished from the beginning of its diffusion. But unfortunately we
are unable to determine precisely either the country or the period
of time in which Mazdaism assumed the characteristics that dis
tinguished it in Italy. Our ignorance of the religious movements
that agitated the Orient in the Alexandrian epoch, the almost com
plete absence of direct testimony bearing on the history of the Ira
nian sects during the first three centuries before our era, are our
main obstacles in obtaining certain knowledge of the developments
of Parseeism. At most we can attempt to unravel the principal
factors that combined to transform the religion of the Magi of Asia
Minor, and endeavor to show how in different regions varying in
fluences 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 divinities of the syn-
icretic theology that issued from this triple influence. As in the
Occident, some saw in Mithra the genius of fire, others identified
I him with the sun; 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
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figurts relati/s aux Mysfires de
Miihra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA. 20I
been the offspring of a common mortal. We shall refrain from
dwelling 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 so profound as in Arme
nia. The opposition between the indigenous cults and the reli
gion whose Iranian origin its votaries delighted in recalling, never
ceased to be felt. The pure doctrine of which the worshippers 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

Fig. I.
MiTHRAic Medallion of Bronze from Tarsus, Cilicia.
obverse : Bust of Gordianus III., clad in a paludamentum 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 anaxyrides (trousers), seizes with his left hand
the nostrils of the bull, which he has forced to its knees, while in his right he holds
aloft a knife with which he is about to slay the animal.

among the autochthonous tribes, certain amalgamations of the
conceptions 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 sinuous trousers {anaxyrides') , his attitude
reminding us of the mutilation of Attis. In Lydia, Mithra-Anahita
became Sabazius-Anaitis. Other local divinities also lent them
selves to identification with the powerful yazata. It would seem
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

202

THE OPEN COURT.

religions of these countries 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 we are
unable to ascertain its precise scope. Still, whatever the influence
may have been, it was apparently not very profound, and it had
ino other effect than that of preparing for the intimate union which
was soon to be effected in the West between the Mysteries of
iMithra and those of the Great Mother.

Fig. ¦^.
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 and 3, Bronze coins. Obverse : Bust of Alexander Severus, clad in a paluda
mentum ; head crowned with laurel. Reverse ; The composite Men-Mithra in Orien
tal custom, wearing a Phrygian cap, and mounted on a horse that advances toward
the right. In front, a flaniing altar. On either side, the characteristic Mithraic
torches, respectively elevated and reversed. At the right, a tree with branches over
spreading the horseman. In front, a raven bending towards him. (218 A. D.)
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, with the bust of Gordianus III.

When, as the outcome of the expedition of Alexander, the
civilisation of Greece spread through 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

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA.

203

well as its political independence; and generally speaking, the
power of resistance offered by Persian traditions to an assimila
tion 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 illuminated by their radiation.
Without suffering themselves to be absorbed by the religion of the
conquering strangers, they combined their cults with it. In order
to harmonise the barbaric beliefs with the Hellenic ideas, recourse
was had to the ancient practice of identification. They strove to
demonstrate that the Mazdean heaven was inhabited by the same
denizens as Olympus : Ahura Mazda as supreme being was con-

On the coins of the Scythian kings Kanerkes and Hooerkes.who reigned over
Kabul and the North-west of India from 87 to 129 A. D., the image of Mithra is found
in company with those of other Persian, Greek, and Hindoo gods. These coins have
little direct connection with the Mysteries as they appeared in the Occident, but they
merit our attention as being the only representations of Mithra which are found out
side the boundaries of the Roman world.
a. Obverse : An image of King Kanerkes. Reverse : An image of Mithra.
b. The obverse bas 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.
I'lAe'. Similar coins.
founded with Zeus; Verethraghna, the victorious hero, with Her
acles; Anahita, to whom the bull was consecrated, became Artemis
Tauropolis, and the identification went so far as to localise in her
temples the fable of Orestes. Mithra, already regarded in Baby
lon as the peer of Shamash, was naturally associated with Helios ;

204

THE OPEN COURT.

but he was not subordinated to him, and his Persian name was
never replaced in the liturgy by a translation, as has been the case
with the other divinities worshipped in the Mysteries.
The synonomy ostensibly established between appellations
having no relationship did not remain the exclusive diversion of the
mythologists; it was attended with the grave consequence that

Fig. 4-
Typical Representation of Mithra.
(Famous Borghesi bas-relief in white marble, now in the Louvre, Paris,
but originally taken from the Mithrseum of the Capitol.)
Mithra is sacriiicing a bull in a cave. The characteristic features of the Mithra monuments
are all represented here : the youths bearing an upright and an 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 faoe to that of Alexander, and the imitation of the motif ol
the classical Greek group of Nike sacrificing a bull,— all characteristics of the Diadochian epoch,
the original of all the works ot this type has been attributed to an artist of Pergamon.
the vague personifications conceived by the Oriental imagination
now assumed the precise forms with which the Greek artists had
invested the Olympian gods. Possibly they had never before been

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA. 2O5
represented in the guise of the human form, or if images of them
existed in imitation of the Assyrian idols they were doubtless both
grotesque and crude. In imparting to the Mazdean heroes all the
seductiveness of the Hellenic ideal, the conception of their charac
ter was necessarily modified ; and, pruned of their exotic features,
they were rendered more readily acceptable to the Occidental peo
ples. OnejDf the indispensable conditions for the success of _th^ij^
exotic religion_in the Roman world was fulfilled when towards theu
second century before our era a sculptor of the school of Pergamon
composed the'pathetic group of Mithra Tauroctonos, to which uni-.
versal custom thenceforward reserved the place of honor in the
apse of the speldea.
But not only did art employ its powers in softening the repul
sive features which these rude Mysteries might possess for minds
formed in the schools of Greece. Philosophy also strove to recon-i
cile their doctrines with its teachings, or rather the Asiatic priests!
pretended to discover in their sacred traditions the theories of thej
philosophic sects. None of these sects so readily lent itself to j
alliance with the popular devotion as that of the Stoa, and its in- j
fluence on the formation of Mithraism was profound. An ancienti
myth sung by the Magi is quoted by Dion Chrysostomos on account -
of its allegorical resemblance to the Stoic cosmology; and many
other Persian ideas were similarly modified by the pantheistic con
ceptions 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 some ancient
wisdom, and these tendencies harmonised too much with the pre
tensions and the interest of the Mazdean clergy not to be encour
aged by them with every means in their power.
But if philosophical speculation transformed the character of
the beliefs of the Magi, investing them with a scope which they
did not originally possess, its influence was nevertheless 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 rational explanations for usages
which were apparently absurd, did much toward insuring their
perpetuity. If the theological foundation of the religion was sen
sibly modified, its liturgic framework remained relatively fixed,
and the changes wrought in the dogma were reconciled 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

2o6

THE OPEN COURT.

the Magi of Cappadocia offered in the time of Strabo are rem
iniscent of all the pecularities 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 contaminate the divine flame. The inscription of
Antiochus of Commagene in the rules that it prescribes gives evi
dence of a like scrupulous fidelity to the ancient Iranian customs.
The king exults in having always honored the gods of his ancestors
according to the tradition of the Persians and the Greeks; he ex-

MlTHRA AND KiNG ANTIOCHUS AhURA MaZDA AND ArTAGENES.
OF Commagene.
(Bas-relief of the colossal temple built by Aijtiochus I. (69-34 B.C.) on the
Nemrood Dagh, a spur of the Taurus Mountains.'
presses the desire that the priests established in the new temple
shall wear the sacerdotal vestments of the same Persians, and that
they shall officiate conformably to the ancient sacred custom. The
sixteenth day of each month which is to be 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 Commagenean, Lucian of Samosata, in
a passage apparently inspired by practices he had witnessed in his
1 See The Open Court for March, 1902, p. 173.

THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA. 207
own country, could still deride the repeated purifications, the in
terminable chants, and the long Medean robes of the sectarians of
Zoroaster. In addition, he taunted them with being ignorant even
of Greek and with mumbling an incoherent and unintelligible
jargon. The conservative spirit of the Magi of Cappadocia, which bound
them to the time-worn usages that had been handed down from
generation to generation, abated not one jot of its power after the
triumph of Christianity; and St. Basil has recorded the fact of its
persistence as late as the end of the fourth century. Even in Italy
it is certain that the Iranian Mysteries never ceased to retain a
goodly proportion of the ritual forms that Mazdaism had observed
in Asia Minor time out of mind. The principal innovation con
sisted in substituting for the Persian as the liturgic language, the
Greek, and later perhaps the Latin. This reform presupposes the
existence 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 environments did not prevent Mithraism from preserv
ing 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 organisation 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 sub
divided 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 in
sured their prestige over the ignorant populations that surrounded
them. It is probable that the Mazdean priesthood in Asia Minor
as in Persia was primitively the hereditary property of a tribe, in
which it was handed down from father to son ; that afterwards its
incumbents consented, after appropriate ceremonies of initiation,
to communicate its secret dogmas to strangers, and that these
proselytes were then gradually admitted to all the different cere
monies 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 classes of neophytes, ulti-

2o8 THE OPEN COURT.
mately 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 proportion as it became more
occult. All the original rites that characterised the Mithraic cult of
the Romans unquestionably go back to Asiatic origins : the animal
disguises used in certain ceremonies are a -survival of a very widely-
diffused prehistoric custom ; the practice of consecrating mountain
caves to the god is undoubtedly a heritage of the time when teni-
ples were not yet constructed ; the cruel tests imposed on the ini
tiated 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 civilisation subsist in
the Mysteries alongside of a subtle theology and a lofty system of
ethics. An analysis of the constituent elements of Mithraism, like a
section of a geological formation, shows us the stratifications of
this composite mass in their regular order of deposition. The
basal layer of this religion, its lower and primordial stratum, is the
faith of ancient Iran, from which it took its origin. Above this
Mazdean substratum was deposited in Babylon a thick sediment
of Semitic doctrines, and afterward the local beliefs of Asia Minor
added to it their alluvial deposits. Finally, a luxuriant vegetation
of Hellenic ideas burst forth from this fertile soil and partly con
cealed from view its true original nature.
This composite religion, in which so many heterogeneous ele
ments were welded together, is the adequate expression of the com
plex civilisation that flourished in the Alexandrian epoch in Arme
nia, Cappadocia, and Pontus. If Mithridates Eupator had realised
his ambitious dreams, this Hellenised Parseeism would doubtless
have become the state-religion of a vast Asiatic empire. But the
course of its destinies was changed by the defeat of this great ad
versary of Rome. The dibris of the Pontic armies and fleets, the
fugitives that had been driven out by the war and that had flocked
in from all parts of the Orient, disseminated the Iranian Mysteries
among that nation of pirates that rose to power under the pro
tecting 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. Strong in the consciousness
of his protection, these audacious mariners boldly pillaged the
most venerated sanctuaries 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. [to be continued.]

^BLICAL LOVE-DITTIES.

299

God and His righteousness,! Be not anxious for the rrforrow. Suffi
cient unto the day is the evil thereof. 1 There can be no stronger
condemnation of the teaching^ of Ecclesiastes than these words of
our Saviour, and this ought to stettle the question, at least for the
Christian Church, whether Ecclesiastes ha^any claims to canon
ical authority. 2
The late Professor Franz Delitzs(^h/of Leipzig, one of the fore
most Biblical scholars of the nineteenth century and one of the
most devout Christians I ever met/in m^/ life, stated in the intro
duction to his commentary on the Song of Solomon, that this Book
was the most difficult book in the Old Testament, but the meaning
becomes perfectly plain, in fact too plain, as soon as we know that
it is not an allegorical drajmatic poem but a collection of popular
love-ditties which must /De interpreted on me basis of the erotic
imagery in the Talmud^ and modern Palestinian and other Moham
medan poetry.
1 Compare Matthew vi..'33.
2 Cf, my paper on the^Book of.-Ecclesiastes in Oriental Studies, a s^ection of the papers read
before the Oriental Clu):) of Philadelphia, 1888-1894 (Boston : Ginn &\C\, 1894), p. 245.

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
IT MAY be said, in a general way, that 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 .^Egean Sea, one belated inscription in
the Piraeus only 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,
Mithrseums are found in divers ports of the coast of Phoenicia and
Egypt, near Aradus, Sidon, and Alexandria ; but these isolated
monuments only throw into stronger relief the absence of every
vestige of the Mithraic Mysteries in the interior of the country.
The recent discovery of a temple of Mithra at Memphis would ap
pear to be an exception that confirms the rule, for the Mazdean
deity was probably not introduced 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 nothing as yet to
show that altars were erected to him even in the capital of the
Seleucidae. In these semi-Oriental empires the powerful organi
sation of the indigenous clergy and the ardent devotion of the
people for their national idols appear to have arrested the progress
of the invader and to have paralysed his influence.
One characteristic detail shows that the Iranian yazata never
made many converts in the Hellenic or Hellenised countries.
Greek onomatology, which furnishes a considerable series of the
ophorous or god-bearing names indicating the popularity which
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figurts relati/s aux Mystires de
Mithra (Brussels: H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 3OI
the Phrygian and Egyptian divinities enjoyed, has no Mithrion,
Mithrocles, Mithrodore, or Mithrophile to show as the counterparts
qf its Menophiles, its Metrodotes, its Isidores, and its Serapions.
All the derivatives of Mithras are of barbaric formation. Although
the Thracian Bendis, the Asian Cybele, the Serapis of the Alexan
drians, and even the Syrian Baals, were successively received with
favor in the cities of Greece, that country never extended the hand
of hospitality to the tutelar deity of its ancient enemies.
His distance from the great centers of ancient civilisation ex
plains the belated arrival of Mithra in the Occident. Official wor
ship 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 Carthage-
nian Astarte had a temple in the capital from the end of the Punic
Wars; the Bellona of Cappadocia since the time of Sulla; the Dea
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 the domain of
Mithra stretched from the Indus to the Pontus Euxinus.
But this domain, even in the epoch of Augustus, was still situ
ated almost entirely beyond the frontiei^s of the empire, and the
central plateau of Asia Minor, which had long resisted the Hellenic
civilisation, remained even more hostile to the culture of Rome.
This region of steppes, forests, and pastures, fringed with pre
cipitous declivities, had no attractions for foreigners, and the in
digenous 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. Cilicia, it is true, had been organised as a Roman prov
ince in the year 102 B. C, but a few points only on the coast had
been occupied at that period, and the conquest of the country was
not completed until two centuries later. Cappadocia was not incor
porated until the reign of Tiberius, the western part of Pontus un
til the reign of Nero, and Commagene and Lesser Armenia not
definitively until the reign of Vespasian. Not until then were reg
ular and immediate relations established between these remote
countries and the Occident. The exigencies of administration and
the organisation 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 establish
ment of three legions along the frontier of the Euphrates, provoked

302 THE OPEN COURT.
a perpetual interchange of men, products, and ideas between
these mountainous districts hitherto closed to the world, and the
European provinces. Then came the great expeditions of Trajan,
of Lucius Verus, of Septimius Severus, the subjection of Mesopo
tamia, and the foundation of numerous colonies in Osrhoene and
far 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 the Mithraic religion
in the Latin world. It began to spread there under the Flavians
and developed under the Antonines and the Severi, just as did an
other cult practised alongside of it in Commagene, namely that of
Jupiter Dolichenus,! which made at the same time the tour of the
Roman empire.
According to Plutarch, Mithra was introduced much earlier
into Italy. The Romans, by this account, are said to have been
initiated into his Mysteries by the Cilician pirates conquered 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 with him from the capture of Jerusalem (63 B. C).
Ovying to this special event, it is possible that toward the end of
the republic the Persian god had actually found a few faithful dev
otees in the mixed populace of the capital. But mingled with the
multitude of brother worshippers 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 influence of Buddhistic societies on modern Europe.
It was not until the end of the first century that the name of
; Mithra began to be generally bruited abroad in Rome. When
Statins wrote the first canto of the Thebaid about eighty years after
i Christ, he had already seen typical representations of the tauroc-
tonous hero, and it appears from the testimony of Plutarch that in
his time (46-125 A. D. ) the Mazdean sect already enjoyed a cer
tain notoriety 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 freedman of the
Flavians. 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.). The invincible god must also have penetrated
1 Named from the city of Doliche, now Doluk, in Commagene.

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 303
about the same time into central Italy: at Nersse, in the country
of the ^qui, a text of the year 172 A. D. has been discovered
which speaks of a Mithrseum that had "crumbled to pieces by rea
son of its antiquity." The appearance of the invader in the north
ern 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, and
we also know that about 148 A. D. they were celebrated 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 countries. At the end of the second century, the
Mysteries were celebrated at Ostium in at least four temples.
We cannot think of enumerating all the cities in which our
Asiatic cult was established, nor of stating in each case the reasons
why it was introduced. Despite their frequency, the epigraphic
texts and sculptured monuments throw but very imperfect light on
the local history of Mithraism. It is impossible for us to follow
the detailed steps in its advancement, to distinguish the concurrent
influences exercised by the different churches, to draw up a picture
of the work of conversion, 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 there.
The principal agent of its diffusion was undoubtedly the army.j
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 ap
pear less capable of affording an explanation when one reflects
that under the emperors the legions were quartered in stationary
encampments, and from the time of Hadrian at least they were
severally recruited from the province 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 Dalmatia and Moesia, 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 mastered the various difficulties of his second charge
he was often assigned to a new garrison, so that the entire body of
centurions of any one legion formed "a sort of microcosm of the
empire." These officers were a potent source of influence, for
their very position insured to them a considerable moral influence

304 THE OPEN COURT.
over the conscripts whom it was their vocation to instruct. In ad
dition to this individual propaganda, which is almost totally with
drawn from our ken, the temporary or permanent transfers of sin
gle 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
legionaries who were Roman citizens, an equal, if not a greater,
number of foreign auxilia, who did not like their comrades enjoy
the privilege 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 alcB or indigenous co
horts formed but a minimal fraction of the auxiliaries 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, relatively to the
extent of its territory, a greater number of Roman soldiers than
Commagene, where Mithraism had struck deepest root. In addi
tion to horsemen and legionaries, there were levied in this country,
probably at the time of its union with the empire, at least six con
sanguineous cohorts. Numerous also were the native soldiers of
Cappadocia, 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 qualities they
had become acquainted at their own cost.
The Roman soldier was upon the whole pious and even super
stitious. The many perils to which he was exposed caused him
to seek unremittingly the protection of Heaven, and an incalcu
lable number of dedicatory inscriptions bears witness both to the
vivacity of his faith and to the variety of his beliefs. The Orien
tals especially, transported for twenty years and more into coun
tries which were totally strange to them, piously preserved the
memories of their national divinities. Whenever they found the
opportunity, they did not fail to assemble for the purpose of ren-.
dering them devotion. They had experienced the need of concili
ating the great lord {Ba'al), 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 those of their com
panions in arms, whatever their origin, whose aspirations the offi-

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 305
cial religion of the army failed to satisfy, and who hoped to obtain
from the foreign god more efficacious succor in their combats, or,
if they succumbed, 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 about them a new nucleus of pros
elytes. In this manner, the Mysteries of Mithra, first brought to
Europe by semi barbarian recruits from Cappadocia or Commagene,
were rapidly disseminated lo the utmost confir es of the ancitnt
world. From the banks of the Pontus Euxinus to the north of Brittany}
and to the border of the great Sahara Desert, along the entire
length of the Roman frontier, Mithraic monuments abound. Lower-
Moesia, 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 of 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 Tropceum Traiani, which the discovery of the monuments of
Adam-Klissi has recently rendered celebrated. _Iii_th£ jnterior of
the country, this cult penetrated to ^ontana and to NicopoITs>
and it is doubtless from these northern cities that it crossed the
Balkans and spread into the northern parts of Thrace, notably
above Serdica (Sofia) and as far as Bessapare in the valley of the
Hebrus. Ascending the Danube, it gained a footing at Vimina-
cium, the capital of Upper Moesia; but we are ignorant of the ex
tent to which it spread in this country, which is still imperfectly
explored. The naval flotilla that paroled the waters of this mighty
river was manned and even commanded by foreigners, and the fleet
undoubtedly disseminated the Asiatic religion in all the ports it
touched. We are better informed regarding the circumstances of the in
troduction of Mithraism into Dacia. When in 107 A. D. Trajan
' annexed this barbarous kingdom to the Roman empire, the coun
try, 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, raultitudes of colonists '^ ex iuto orbe Romano,"
from all the territories of Rome. The population of this country
was even more mixed in the second century than it is today, where
all the races of Europe are bickering and battling with one another.
Besides the remnants of the ancient Dacians were found here Illy-

3o6 THE OPEN COURT.
rians and Pannonians, Galatians, Carians, and Asiatics, people
from Edessa and Palmyra, and still others besides, all of whom
continued to practice the cults 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 cuh
took during the 150 years that the Roman domination lasted in this
region. It flourished not only in the capital of the province, Sar-
mizegetusa, and in the cities that sprang up near the Roman
camps, like Potaissa and notably Apulum, but along the entire ex
tent of the territory occupied by the Romans. Whereas one can
not find in Dacia, so far as I know, the slightest vestige of a Chris
tian community, from the fortress Szamos-Ujvar to the northern
frontier and as far as Romula in Wallachia, multitudes of inscrip
tions, of sculptures, and of altars which have escaped the destruc
tion of Mithraeums have been found. This debris especially
abounds in the central portions of the country, along the great
causeway that followed the course of the valley of the Maros, the
principal artery by which the civilisation of Rome spread into the
mountains of the surrounding country. The single colony of Apu
lum counted certainly four temples of the Persian god, and the
spelcBu-m of Sarmizegetusa, recently excavated, still contains the frag
ments of a round fifty of bas-reliefs and other 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 espe
cially powerful in the two principal places of this double province,
in Aquincum and in Carnuntum ; 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 legio IJ adjutrix,^ which had been formed in the year 70 A. D.
by Vespasian for the purpose of supporting the fleet stationed
at Ravenna. Among the freedmen thus admitted into the reg
ular army, the proportion of Asiatics was considerable, and it is
probable that from the very beginning Mithraism counted a num
ber of adepts in this irregular legion. When toward the year 120
A. D. it was established by Hadrian in Lower Pannonia, it un
doubtedly brought with it to this place the Oriental cult to which
1 One of the legions raised bythe proconsuls in the Roman provinces for the purpose of
strengthening the veteran army. — Trans.

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 307
it appears to have remained loyal to the day of its dissolution. The
legio I adjutrix which had a similar origin probably sowed the fer
tile seeds of Mithraism in like manner in Brigetio, when under
Trajan its camp was transferred to that place.
We can determine with even greater precision the manner in
which the Persian god arrived at Carnuntum. In 71 or 72 A. D.,
Vespasian caused this important strategic position to be occupied
by the legio XV ApoUinaris, 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 uprisings of the Jews, and had subsequently ac
companied Titus to Alexandria. The losses which this veteran
legion had suffered in its sanguinary campaigns were doubtless
made good with recruits levied in Asia. These conscripts were
for the most part probably at home in 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 Ira
nian god whose name had been hitherto unknown in the region
north of the Alps. There has been found at Carnuntum a votive
Mithraic inscription due to a soldier of the Apollinarian legion
bearing the characteristic name of Barbarus. The first worshippers
of the Sol Invictus consecrated to him on the banks of the river a
semicircular grotto, which had to be restored from its ruins in the
third century by a Roman knight, and whose high antiquity is evi
denced 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 gemincR, certain detachments
of which were, as it appears, connected with the first-mentioned
legion, succumbed to the allurements of the Mysteries 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 mithrasum was
erected, probably toward the beginning of the second century, and
its dimensions surpassed those of all similar structures hitherto dis
covered. It was enlarged by Diocletian and the princes associated
with him, when in 307 they held a conference at Carnuntum. They

3o8

THE OPEN COURT.

sought thus to give public expression of their devotion to Mithra
in this holy city, which of all those in the North probably contained
the most ancient sanctuaries of the 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 surrounding 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 en
riched by a decurio colonice Curnunti. Toward the east the territory
of iEquinoctium has furnished a votive inscription to Petrce Gene-
trici, and still farther off at Vindobona (Vienna) the soldiers of the
tenth legion had likewise learned, doubtless from the neighboring
camp, to celebrate the Mysteries. Even in Africa, traces are found

Mithr^um of Carndntum, the Modern Petronell, Near Vienna
TO the East.' (Restored by Mr. Tragau.)
of the influence which the great Panonian city exercised on the de
velopment of Mithraism.
Several leagues from Vienna, passing across the frontier of
Noricum, we come upon the hamlet of CommagencR, the name of
which is doubtless due to the fact that a squadron of Commagene-
ans (an aia Commagenoriim) was quartered here. One is not sur
prised, therefore, to learn that a bas-relief of the tauroctonous god
¦ IThis Mithrasum, like all others of the same style, is underground. Before the great bas-
relief of Mithras slaying the bull are two altars, the one large and square in form the other
smaller and richly ornamented. The small statue on the left is Mithras being born from the
rocks. At the entrance we see on the right the lion of Mithras and on the lett a font for holy
water. The two torch-bearers have their stand at the pillars which separate the aisles The
Mithr£eum is approached by a staircase and through a square hall (or pronaos) which is consider
ably larger than the sanctum itself.

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 3O9

Fragments of a Bas-Relief in White Italian Marble.
Found in the Zollfeld (in Noricum), now in the Historical Museum of the
Rudolfinum at Klagenfurt, Austria.'
IThe central part of the monument is utterly destroyed; the head of the sun-god from the
left-hand corner alone being left. The left border represents a Hellenised illustration of Ahura

3IO THE OPEN COURT.
has been discovered here. Nevertheless, in this province, as in
Rhetia, the army does not seem to have taken, as it did in Panno
nia, an active part in the propagation of the Asiatic religion. A
belated inscription of a speculator legionis 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 val
ley of the upper Danube, where the Roman troops were concen
trated. 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.
On the other hand, the marvellous extension that Mithraism
took in the two Germanies is undoubtedly due to the powerful
army corps that defended that perpetually menaced territory. We
find here an inscription dedicated by a centurion to the Soli invicto
Mithrm about the year 148 A. D., and it is probable that in the
middle of the second century this god had already obtained a
goodly number of converts in the Roman garrisons. All the regi
ments appear to have been seized with the contagion : the legions
VIII Augusta, XXII Primigenia, and XXX tJlpia, the cohorts and
auxiliary alcB, as well as the picked troops of citizen volunteers.
So general a diffusion prevents us from telling exactly from what
side the foreign religion entered this country, but it may be as
sumed without fear of error that, save possibly at a certain few
points, it was not imported directly from the Orient, but was trans
mitted through the agency of the garrisons on the Danube ; and if
we wish to assign 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 Moesia to Upper Germany in
the year 70 A. D., first practised there the religion which was soon
destined to become the preponderating one in this country.
[to be continued.]
Mazda's struggle with demons, after the pattern of the giganto machia. The lower part of the
same fragment exhibits the birth of Mithras and two shepherds who figure as torch-bearers
The right border shows scenes from the life of Mithras, among them Mithras crowning tbe sun-
god with a halo of rays and ascending in the solar chariot to heaven.

iJ 3M T *u **- -J* \ TiX "LA^y W^ ¦V.J k 1. f JH ^ MT ^ ^ a.. «

GRAND MITHRAIC BAS-RELIEF OF HEDDERNHEIM, GERMANY.
(After Cumont. See p. 340 of the present number.)

Frontispiece to The Open Court,

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION AS AN HISTORICAL TRUTH. 339
The method of ordaining a bishop is by |he laying on of hands,
but that is a symbol only to indicate the t;;^nsference of authority
by blessing. Spirit is not transferred kfy bodily contact. Let,
therefpre, our brethren of the Episcojial Church not take their
stand upon the des^d pasty'6ut let tljem adhere to th$ spirit of
their organisation and live in the living~present. *^ -"^

THB DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN
THE ROMAN EMPIRE.'

BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.

[continued.]
OF all countries Germany is th?t in which the greatest number
of Mithraeums, or places of Mithraic worship, has been dis
covered. Germany has given us the bas-reliefs having the greatest
^ dimensions and furnishing the most
' ¦' .'l '. ' complete representations, and cer
tainly no god of paganism ever
found in this nation as many enthu
siastic 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 system
between the river Main and the for
tified walls of the limes, have been
marvellously fertile in discoveries.
North of Frankfort, near the vil
lage of lieddernheim,^ the ancient
civitas Taunensium, three important
temples have been successively ex
humed; three others existed in Friedberg in Hesse and two more
have been dug out in the surrounding 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, May-
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figurts relatifs aux Mystirts de
yi/zVAra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.
2 See the Frontispiece to this number of Tke Open Court,

Mithra Monument of Ostburken.'
Discovered in 1861 near the ruins of
a Roman fort, in the Odenwald,
Hesse. (Cumont, III., p. 350.)

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 341
ence, Neuwied, Bonn, Cologne, and Dormagen, a series of monu
ments have been found which show clearly the manner in which
the new faith spread like an epidemic, and was disseminated 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 also accounts for the extension of this religion!
into the interior of Gaul. A soldier of the eighth legion dedicated
an altar to the Deo Invicto at Geneva, which lay on the military
road from Germany to the Mediterranean, and other traces of the

Bas-Relief of Neuenheim.

Oriental cult have been found in modern Switzerland and the
French Jura. In Sarrebourg (Pons Saravi) at the mouth of the
pass leading from the Vosges Mountains, by which Strassburg
IThe monument which has escaped the fate of mutilation by the hands of fanatics, was dis
covered in 1838 in a cave near Neuenheim, on the southern slope of the Heiligenberg, near Heidel
berg, by workmen laying the foundation of a farm house. It is interesting because it shows very
clearly twelve small bas-reliefs exhibiting scenes from the life of Mithras, beginning with his
birth from the rocks on the top of the left border, passing over to the right side where he catches
the bull, carrying him to the cave so as not to show the footprints of his hoofs, and ending on the
top border, where his ascent to Ahura Mazda is represented. Some of the scenes have not yet
been explained satisfactorily. Of interest is the second one, in which Ahura Mazda hands to
Mithras the scepter of the government over the world.

342 THE OPEN COURT.
communicated 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 surpris
ing that the large city of Treves, the regular residence of the Ro
man military commanders, has preserved only some debris of in
scriptions and statues, did not the important role which this city
played under the successors of Constantine explain the almost total
disappearance of the monuments of paganism. Finally, in the val
ley of the Meuse, not far from the route that joins Cologne with
Bavay (Bagacum), some curious remains of the Mysteries have
been discovered.
From Bavay, this route leads to Boulogne {Gesoriacum), the
naval basis 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
to the god by some foreign mariner or officer of the fleet. It was
the object of this important naval station to keep in daily touch
with the great island that lay opposite, and especially with Lon
don, which even at this epoch was visited by numerous ships. The
existence of a Mithraeum in this principal commercial and military
depot of Britain should not surprise us. Generally speaking, the
Iranian cult was in no country so completely restricted to fortified
places as in Britain. Outside of York (Eburacuni), where the head
quarters of the troops of the province were situated, it was dis
seminated only in the west of the country, at Caerleon (Isca) 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 in
cursions 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 (prafectus) furnished the model of de
votion for his subordinates. It is evident, therefore, that the Asiatic
god had penetrated in the train of the army to these northern re
gions, but it is impossible to determine precisely the period at
which it reached this place or the troops by whom it was carried
there. But there is reason for believing that Mithra was worshipped
in these countries from the middle of the second century, and that
Germany served as the intermediary agent between the far Orient
" Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos."

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 343
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 Lambaese 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 ta|
the north, and their propagation has assumed here a special char-j
aeter. Their monuments, nearly all of which date from later epochs,}
are due to the officers, or at least to the centurions, many of whom;
were of foreign origin, rather than to the simple soldiers, nearly alii
of whom were levied in the country which they were charged to
defend. The legionaries of Numidia remained faithful to their in
digenous gods, who were either Punic or Berber in origin, and only
rarely adopted the beliefs of the companions with whom their voca
tion 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 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 Danu-
bian provinces. Finally, in Spain, the country of the Occident
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 pop-j
ulcus cities were crowded together, they are almost totally lacking,
even in the largest centers of urban population. Scarcely the
faintest vestige of an inscription is found in Emerita and Tarraco,
the capitals of Lusitania and Tarraconensis. But in the uncivilised
valleys of Asturias and Galleecia the Iranian god had an organised
cult. This fact will be immediately connected with the prolonged
sojourn of a Roman legion in this country, which remained so long
unsubjugated. Perhaps the conventicles of the initiated also in
cluded veterans of the Spanish cohorts who, after having served as
auxiliaries on the Rhine and the Danube, returned to their hearths
converted to the Mazdean faith.
The army thus united under the same fold citizens, emigrants,
and adventurers from all parts of the world ; kept up an incessant
interchange of ofiicers and centurions and even of entire army-
corps from one province to another, according to the varying needs
of the day ; in fine, threw out to the remotest frontiers of the Ro
man world a net of perpetual communications. Yet this was not
the only way in which the military system contributed to the dis
semination of Oriental religions. After the expiration of their term

344 THE OPEN COURT.
of service, the soldiers continued in their places of retirement the
practices to which they had become accustomed under the standards
of the army ; and they soon evoked in their new environment nu
merous imitators. Frequently they settled in the neighborhood of
their latest station, in the little towns which had gradually replaced
in the neighborhood of the military camps the shops of the sutlers.
At times, too, they would choose their home in some large city of
the country where they had served, to pass there with their old
comrades in arms the remainder of their days. Lyons always shel
tered within its walls a large number of these veteran legionaries
of the German army, and the only Mithraic inscription 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 which Septimius Severus established in this
region. Frequently, the conscripts whom the military authorities
transported to the confines of the empire retained at heart their
love for their native country, with which they never ceased to sus
tain relations ; but when, after twenty or twenty-five years of strug
gle and combat, they returned to their native land, 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 provinces in which no armies were stationed
was due in great measure to other agencies. By her continued
conquests in Asia, Rome had subjected to her domination numer
ous Semitic provinces. After the founding of the empire had as
sured peace to the entire Roman world and permanently insured
the safety of commerce, 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 Phoenicians
and Carthagenians formerly, so now the Syrians populated with
their colonies all the shores of the Mediterranean. In the Hellenic
epoch they had established themselves in the commercial centers
of Greece, and notably at Delos. A number of these merchants
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 in Italy at Ravenna,
Aquileja, and Tergeste ; at Salonse in Dalmatia, and as far distant
as Malaga in Spain. Their mercantile activity even led them into

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 345
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, as St. Jerome puts it, the Roman world. Even
the later invasions of the barbarians were impotent to dampen their
spirit of enterprise. Under the Merovingians they still spoke their
Semitic idiom at Orleans. Their emigration was only checked
when the Saracens shattered the navigation of the Mediterranean.
The Syrians were distinguished in all epochs by their ardent
zeal. No people, not even the Egyptians, defended their ideals
with such great pertinacity against the Christians. So, when they
founded a colony, their first care was to organise their national
cults, and the mother country frequently allowed them generous
subsidies toward the performance of this pious duty. It was in
this manner that the deities of Heliopolis, of Damascus, and Pal
myra first penetrated to Italy.
The word Syrian had in popular usage a very vague signifi
cance. 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 Nine
veh, 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 conquest 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, and those who invoked Mithra were generally Asiatics in
humbler conditions of life. The first temples which this god pos
sessed in the west of the empire were without doubt mainly fre
quented by slaves. The mangones, 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 Cappado
cia and of Pontus ; and this imported population, as one ancient
writer has put it, ultimately came to form distinct towns or quar-

34^ THE OPEN COURT.
ters in the great capital. But the supply did not suffice for the in
creasing consumption of depopulated Italy.
War also was a mighty purveyor of human chattels. When
' we remember that Titus, in a single campaign in Judaea, reduced
to slavery go,ooo Jews, our imagination becomes appalled at the
multitudes of captives that the incessant struggles with the Par
thians, and particularly the conquests of Trajan, must have thrown
on the markets of the Occident.
But whether taken en masse after some great victory, or ac
quired singly by the regular traffickers in human flesh, these slaves
were particularly numerous in the maritime towns, to which their
transportation was cheap and easy. They introduced here, concur-
I rently with the Syrian merchants, the Oriental cults and particu-
larly that of Mithra. This last-named god has been found estab
lished in an entire series of ports on the Mediterranean. We
signalise above all his presence at Sidon in Phcenicia and at Alex
andria in Egypt. In Italy, if Pozzuoli and its environs, including
Naples, have furnished relatively few monuments 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
Trajan were erected at Ostia, this latter city inherited the prosper
ity of its Campagnian rival ; and the result was that all the Asiatic
religions soon had here their chapels and their congregations of
devotees. Yet none enjoyed greater favor than that of the Iranian
god. In the second century, at least four or five spelesa had been
dedicated to him. One of them, constructed at the latest in 162
A. D., and communicating with the baths of Antonine, was situated
on the very spot where the foreign ships landed, and another one
adjoined the Metroon, or sanctuary in which the official cult of the
Magna Mater was celebrated. To the south the little hamlet of
Antium (Porto d'Anzio) had followed the example of its powerful
neighbor ; while in Etruria, Rusellae (Grosseto) and Pisse likewise
accorded a favorable reception to the Mazdean deity.
In the east of Italy, Aquileja is distinguished for the number
of its Mithraic inscriptions. As Trieste to-day, so Aquileja in an
tiquity 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, Salonae, Narona, Epidaurus, in-

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 347
eluding Dyrrachium in Macedonia, have all preserved more or less
numerous and indubitable vestiges of the influence of the invincible
god, and distinctly mark the path which he followed in his journey
to the commercial metropolis of the Adriatic.
His progress may also be followed in the western Mediterra
nean. In Sicily at Syracuse and Palermo, on the coast of Africa
at Carthage, Rusicada, Icosium, Caesarea, on the opposite shores
of Spain at Malaga and Tarraco, Mithraic associations were succes
sively 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 exclusiveness in
his favor. In Gaul, especially, the correlation which we have discovered
between the spread of the Mysteries and the extension of Orienta
traffic is striking. Both were principally concentrated between th«
Alps and the C6vennes, or to be more precise, in the basin of the
Rhone, the course of which had been the main route of its pene
tration. Sextantio, near MontpeUier, has given us the epitaph of a
pater sacrorum, and Aix in the Provence a presumably Mithraic
representation of the sun on his quadrigium. Then, ascending the
river, we find at Aries a statue of the lion-headed Kronos who was
worshipped inthe Mysteries; at Bourg-Saint-And6ol, near Mont^li-
mar, a representation of the tauroctonous god sculptured from the
living rock near a spring ; at Vaison, not far from Orange, a dedi
catory inscription made on the occasion of an initiation; at Vienne,
a spelcEum from which, among other monuments, has been obtained
the most unique bas-relief 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
certainly considerable. Farther up the river, its presence has been
proved at Geneva on the one hand and at Besan9on and Mandeure
on the Doubs, a branch of the Saone, on the other. An unbroken
series of sanctuaries which were without doubt in constant commu
nication 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 moun
tains 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 agencies in the maritime and river ports ; the hope of

34^ THE OPEN COURT.
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 di
rection by the auctions, and we find them in all the different coun
tries 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 they were afterwards
promoted to the rank of superintendents (actor, villicus) and be
came the masters of those whose miserable lot they had formerly
shared. Sometimes they were acquired by some municipality, and
as public servants {servi publici) they executed the orders of the
magistrates or entered the bureaus of the administrations. It is
difficult to realise the rapidity with which the Oriental religions
were thus able to penetrate the regions which it would appear they
could never possibly have attained. A double inscription at Nersse,
in the heart of the Apennines, informs us that in the year 172 of
our era a slave, the treasurer of the town, had restored a Mithraeum
that had fallen in ruins. At Venusia, a Greek inscription 'HAt'oi
MlOpa. was dedicated by the steward of some wealthy burgher, and
his name Sargaris at once proves his servile rank and Asiatic ori
gin. The examples could be multiplied. There is not a shadow
of a doubt but 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
^qui, also at Aveia in the land of the Vestini; then in Umbria,
along the Flaminian road, at Interamna, at Spoletum, where one
can visit a spelceum decorated with paintings, and at Sentinum,
where there has been discovered a list of the patrons of a collegium
of Mithraists ; likewise, in Etruria this religion followed the Cas-
sian way and established itself at Sutrium, at Bolsene, 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
sporadically in Emilia, where the provinces of Bologne and Mo-
dena alone have preserved some interesting ddbris, 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

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 349
which the exotic religion enjoyed great favor and official protec
tion. Some fragments of inscriptions exhumed at Tortona, Indus
tria, and Novara are insufficient to prove that it attained in the re
mainder of the country any wide-spread diffusion.
It is certainly remarkable that we have unearthed 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 Camonica, watered by the river Oglio, altars
were dedicated to the invincible god. But the monuments which
were consecrated to him specially abound along the river Adige
(Etsch) 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 in Rhaetia and Noricum. At Trent,
there is a Mithraeum built near a cascade ; near San-Zeno, bas-
reliefs have been found in the rocky gorges ; at Castello di Tuenno,
fragments of votive tablets have been unearthed with both faces
carved ; on the banks of the Eisack, there has been found a dedi
catory inscription to Mithra and to the sun ; and Mauls finally has
given us the celebrated sculptured plaque discovered in the six
teenth century and now in the museum at Vienna.
The progress of Mithraism in this mountainous district was
not checked at the frontiers of Italy. If, pursuing our way through
the valley of the Drave, we seek for the vestiges 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 at least two temples had been opened to the initiated.
A third one was erected not far from the same place in a grotto in
the midst of the forest.
The city of Aquileja was undoubtedly the religious metropolis
of this Roman colony, and its important church proselytised much
in all this district. The cities 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 ^mona, the Latovici, Neviodunum, 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 Moesia, on the one hand, or to Carnuntum on the
other, could be received at every stage of their journey by co-reli
gionists. In these regions, as in the countries south of the Alps, Ori
ental slaves acted as the missionaries of Mithra. But the condi-

350 THE OPEN COURT.
tions under which their propaganda was conducted were consider
ably 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 em
ployees. Depopulation had not created such havoc here as in the
countries of the old civilisation, and people were not obliged to re
sort to foreign hands for the cultivation of their fields or the ad
ministration of their cities. It was not individuals or municipal
ities, 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 them
selves, had under 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 entrepreneurs who leased the pro
ducts of the mines and the quarries, or the customs returns, em
ployed for the execution of their projects a numerous staff of func
tionaries, 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 inscriptions of southern Pannonia and Noricum.
In all the provinces, the lowly employees of the imperial ser
vice 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 par
ticularism, so also they were the apostles of the universal religion
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.
Like the soldiers, they too were recruited in great numbers from
the Asiatic countries ; like them, they too were perpetually chan
ging their residence as they were promoted in station ; and the lists
of their bureaus, like those of the legions, comprised individuals of
all nationalities. Thus, the imperial administration transferred from one govern
ment to another, along with its clerks and quartermasters, a knowl
edge of the Mithraic Mysteries. A characteristic discovery made
at Caesarea in Cappadocia tells us in very good Latin that a slave,
probably of indigenous origin, an arcarius dispensatoris Augusti (&
clerk of the imperial treasury), offers 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

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 35I
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 provinces especially, the finan
cial agents of the Caesars must have been numerous, not only be
cause 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 armj'. It is therefore natural to find cash
iers, tax-gatherers, and revenue-collectors {dispensaiorcs, exactores,
procuratores), 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
administrators and officers, was the cause of the transportation of
public and private slaves to all garrisons ; while the constantly re
newed needs of the multitudes hore 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 affirming categorically that
Mithra was introduced in this or that manner in a certain region,
our generalisation manifestly cannot lay claim to absolute exacti
tude. The concurrent causes of the spread of the Mysteries are so
intermingled and intertwined, that it would be a futile task to at
tempt to unravel strand by strand the fibres of this entangled snarl.
Having as our sole guide, as we frequently do, inscriptions of un-i
certain date, on which by the side of the name of the god appearsi
simply that of an initiate or priest, it is impossible to determine inj
each single case the circumstances which have fostered the pro- 1
gress of the new religion. The more fleeting influences are almost
absolutely removed from our ken. On the accession of Vespasian,
did the prolonged sojourn in Italy of Syrian troops who were faith
ful worshippers of the sun have any durable result? Did the army
which Alexander Severus conducted into Germany, and which, as
Lampridius has recorded, w&s poientissima per Armenios et Osrhcenos
et Parthos (viz., very largely composed of Armenians, Osrhcenians,
and Parthians), 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 Cap
padocia or Pontus ever embark for the Occident after the manner

352 THE OPEN COURT.
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 Chaldasan astrologists roamed the great cause
ways of Italy, and in the time of Juvenal the soothsayers of Com
magene and Armenia vended their oracles in Rome. These sjjtt
sidiary methods of propagation, which were generally resorted to
i by the Oriental religions, may also have been put to profitable use
by the disseminators of Mithraism; but the most active agents of
its diffusion were undoubtedly the soldiers, the slaves, and the
merchants. Apart from the detailed proofs already adduced, the
presence of Mithraic monuments in places where war and com
merce were constantly conducted, and in the countries where the
vast current of Asiatic emigration was discharged, is sufficient to
establish our hypothesis.
\ The absence of these monuments in other regions is also clear
jproof of our position. Why are no vestiges of the Persian Mysteries
found in Asia, in Bithynia, in Galatia, in the provinces adjoining
those where they were practised for centuries? Because the pro
duction of these countries exceeded their consumption, because
their foreign commerce was in the hands of Greek ship-owners, be
cause 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 wor
ship of its glorious past, which is the most characteristic trait of
the Grecian spirit under the empire. 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 Dalmatia. In these places also no perma-
\ nent 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 especially rich in dis-
icoveries of all kinds, more so in fact than any of the provinces. In
fact, Mithra found in no other part of the empire conditions so
eminently favorable to the success 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 honor
ably discharged, flocked thither in great numbers to spend the re
mainder of their days. An opulent aristocracy resided here, and

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 353
their palaces, like those of the emperor, were filled with thousands
of Oriental slaves. It was the seat of the central imperial adminis
tration, 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 uni
verse," and carried thither their customs and their religions. Col
laterally, the presence in Rome of numbers of Asiatic princelings,
who lived there, either as hostages or fugitives, with their families
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 the pomoerium, or limits. Many of
his monuments have been discovered beyond these boundaries,
especially in the vicinity of the praetorian camp ; but before the
year i8i A. D. he had overleaped the sacred barriers and estab
lished himself in the heart of the city. It is unfortunately impos
sible to follow step by step his progress in the vast metropolis.
Records of exact date and indubitable origin are too scarce to justify
us in reconstructing the local history of the Persian religion 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 all
parts of the city and its environs. The most justly celebrated of
these spelcea 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 the illustration on page
204 of the April Open Court. ) To all appearances, this monument
dates from the end of the second century.
It was at this period that Mithra came forth from the partial
obscurity in which he had hitherto lived, to become one of the
favorite gods of the Roman aristocracy and the imperial court. We
have seen him arrive from the Orient a despised deity of the de
ported or emigrant Asiatics. It is certain that he achieved his first
conquests among the lower classes of society, and it is an impor
tant fact that Mithraism long remained the religion of the lowly.
The most ancient inscriptions are eloquent evidence of the truth of
this assertion, 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 empire are
well known ; while the sons of veterans or of centurions not in
frequently became citizens of wealth and influence. Thus, by a
natural evolution the rehgion transplanted to Latin soil was bound

354 THE OPEN COURT.
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 An
tonines, literary men and philosophers began to grow interested in
the dogmas and rites of this Oriental cult. The wit Lucian par
odied their ceremonies; and in 177 A. D. Celsus in his True Dis
course undoubtedly pits its doctrines against those of Christianity.
About the same period a certain Pallas devoted to Mithraism a
special work, and Porphyry 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 the Roman armies, 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 frequently mention the names of slaves beside
those of freemen, 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 appear
ances 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
the flash of a train 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 decumates.
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 was added an extrinsic element of the
highest efficacy : the imperial favor. Lampridius informs us that
Commodus was initiated into the Mysteries 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
created an immense stir in the Roman world, and told enormously
in favor of the Persian religion. From this moment the exalted
dignitaries of the empire are seen to follow the example of theii
sovereign and to become zealous cultivators of the Iranian cult.
Tribunes, prefects, legates, and later perfectissimi and clarissimi,
are frequently mentioned as authors of the votive inscriptions;
and until the downfall of paganism the aristocracy remained at
tached to the solar god that had so long enjoyed the favor of

THE DISSEMINATION OF MITHRAISM IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 355
princes. But to understand the political and moral 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. This we shall do in a forthcoming article.

THB FYLFOT AND SWASTIKA.

BY THE EDITOR.

[CONCLUDED. I

THE Dip5HDn pottery (so called because discovered near the
Dipylon g^e of Athens) belongs to the pre-Homeric age. It
is rich in swastikaVwhich have nqt' yet lost their religious signifi-

/ Dipylon Vase. (Museum at Athens.)
cance. We reproduce here one specimen of great beauty which is
preserved at Athens in the Museum of the Archaeological Society.
The urn represents a funeral procession, and over the horses that
draw the hearse we see three withershins swastikas. The geese or

*^ rA '

REVERSE OF THE GRAND MITHRAIC BAS-RELIEF OF
HEDDERNHEIM, GERMANY.
(See the Frontispiece to the June Open Court.)
Frontispiece to the August Open Court,
The Open Court

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and
the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea.

VOL. XVI. (NO. 8.) AUGUST, 1902. NO. 555
Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Co., igo2.

MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF
ROME.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
THANKS to the relatively late epoch of their propagation, thej
Mysteries of Mithra escaped the persecutions that had been j
the destiny of the other Oriental cults that had preceded them in j
Rome, especially that of Isis. Among the astrologers or "Chal-'
dseans" who had been expelled from Italy at various times under
the first emperors, there may possibly have been some that ren
dered homage to the Persian gods; but these wandering sooth
sayers who, in spite of the pronunciamentos of the senate, which
were as impotent as they were severe, invariably made their ap
pearance again in the capital, no more preached a definite religion
than they constituted a regular clergy. When, toward the end o^
the first century, Mithraism began to spread throughout the Occi-f
dent, the haughty reserve or outspoken hostility which had an-i
ciently characterised the attitude of the Roman policy toward for-1
eign missionaries began to give way to a spirit of benevolent toler-j
ance, where not of undisguised favor. Nero had already expressed^
a desire to be initiated into the ceremonies of Mazdaism by the
Magi whom King Tiridates of Armenia had brought with him to
Rome, and this last-mentioned prince had worshipped in his per
son an emanation of Mithra himself.
Unfortunately, we have no direct information regarding the
legal status of the associations of the Cultores Solis invicti Mithrm.
No text tells us whether the existence of these brotherhoods was at
first simply tolerated, or whether, having been recognised by the
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figurh relati/s aux Mystires de
Mithra {Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

450^ THE OPEN COURT.
State, they acquired at the outset the right of owning property and
of transacting business. In any event, it is 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 societies were organised as burial
associations, and acquired thus the privileges accorded to this spe
cies of corporations. It would appear, however, that they had re
sorted to a still more efficacious expedient. From the moment of
the discovery of traces of the Persian cult in Italy, we find it inti
mately associated with that of the Magna Mater (Great Mother) of
Pessinus, which had been solemnly adopted by the Roman people
three centuries before. Further, the sanguinary ceremony of the
taurobolium, or baptism in the blood of a bull, which had, under
the influence of the Mazdean belief, been adopted into the liturgy
of the Phrygian goddess, was encouraged, probably from the time
of Marcus Aurelius, 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 privi
leges 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 par
ticipated to the full in the official protection which the latter en
joyed. Yet its 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 its benefit.
Toward the end of the second century, the more or less cir
cumspect complaisance with which the Caesars had looked upon
the Iranian Mysteries was s^uddenly transformed into effective sup
port. Commodus was admitted among their adepts and partici
pated in their secret ceremonies, and the discovery 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 Mithraic propaganda.
After the last of the Antonines had thus broken with the ancient
prejudice, the protection of his successors appears to have been
definitively assured to 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

MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF ROME. 45 I
the protection of Severus and Philippus. Aurelian, who instituted
the official cult of the Sol invictus, could have 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 Carnun
tum, dedicated with one accord a temple to Mithra fautori imperii
sui, 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 monarchs of so diver
gent types and casts of mind cannot have been the result of a pass
ing vogue or of individual fancies. It must have had deeper causes.
If the rulers of the empire show for two hundred years so great a
predilection for this foreign religion, born among the enemies whom
the Romans never ceased to combat, they were evidently com
pelled 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 magis
trate of Rome. By virtue of his office solely, as the heir of the
tribunes and as supreme pontiff, he was already inviolable and in
vested with a sacred character ; 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 representative
of God on earth, nay, even God himself {dominus et deus'). Imme
diately after the battle of Actium, we see arising a movement which
is diametrically opposed to the original democratic fiction of Caesar
ism. 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 subtile distinctions by which the
Italians were endeavoring to overreach themselves. For them, a
sovereign was always a king (jSao-iXe-us) and a god (^eds). This
transformation of the imperial power was a triumph of the Oriental
genius over the Roman mind, — the triumph of the religious idea
over the conception of law.
Several historians have studied in detail the organisation of

452 THE OPEN COURT.
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 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 common sense and to sound Roman tradition,
was in the end almost universally adopted. The sullen resistance
of public opinion was overcome when the religions of Asia van
quished the masses of the population. These religions propagated
in Italy dogmas which tended to raise the monarchs above the
level of humankind, and if they won the favor of the Caesars,
and particularly of those who aspired to absolute power, it is be
cause they supplied a dogmatic justification of their despotism. In
place of the old principle of popular sovereignty was substituted a
reasoned faith grounded on 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 people to suppose that
the Romans drew all ideas of this class from Egypt. Egypt, whose
institutions in so many directions inspired the administrative re
forms of the empire, was also in a position to furnish it with a con
summate model of a theocratic government. According to the an
cient beliefs of that country, not only did the royal race derive its
origin from the sun-god Ra, but the soul of each sovereign was a
double detached from the sun-god Horus. All the Pharaohs were
thus successive incarnations of the great day-star. They were not
only the representatives of divinities, but living gods worshipped
on the same footing with those that traversed the skies, and their
insignia resembled those of these divinities.
The Achaemenides, 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 cer
tain that Augustus and his successors, who scrupulously respected
all the religious usages of the country as well as its political consti
tution, 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

MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF ROME. 453
of the empire. The priests of Isis were its most popular mission
aries 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 attribute flattered, soon encouraged
it openly. Still, although their policy would have been favored by
a diffusion of the Egyptian doctrines, they were yet impotent to
impose this tenet at once and unrestrictedly. From the first cen
tury on they had suffered themselves to be called deus noster by
their domestic servants and their ministers, who were already half
Oriental, but they had not the courage at that period to introduce
their name into their official titles. Certain of the Caesars, a Cali
gula 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 different gods had taken life
in their own persons ; but enlightened Romans were invariably
incensed 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 far less crude theory 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 be
fore 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 Ciesar {genius Ccesaris),
they only worshipped 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 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 conse
crated their power. The Hvareno, as the Avesta calls it, illumi
nated legitimate sovereigns and withdrew its light from usurpers
as from impious persons who should soon lose their crowns and
their lives. On the other hand, those who were deserving of ob
taining and preserving it received as their reward unceasing pros
perity, great fame, and perpetual victory over their enemies.
This peculiar conception of the Persians had no counterpart
in the other mythologies, and the foreign nations of antiquity

454 THE OPEN COURT.
likened the Mazdean "Glory," not very correctly, to Fortune.
The Semites identified it with their Gadd, the Grecians translated
his name by Tv^i/' or Tyche. The different dynasties that suc
ceeded the fall of the Achaemenides 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 consequence and the demonstration of their legiti
macy. We see the Hvareno honored alike, and for the same mo
tives, by the kings of Cappadocia, Pontus, and Bactriana ; and the
Seleucids who long ruled over Iran were also regarded as the pro-
tdgds of 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 himself with the goddess. The Mazdean ideas
concerning monarchical power thus spread into Occidental Asia at
the same time with Mithraism. But, like this latter, it was inter
woven with Semitic doctrines. The belief that fatality gave and
took away the crown again made its appearance even among the
(Achaemenides. Now, according to the Chaldaeans, destiny is nec
essarily 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 par excellence. Thus, the
invincible Sun ('HA.ios), 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 descended 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. Ac
cording as the Syrian 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
champions in the official Roman world. We see it making its ap
pearance there, at first timidly but afterwards more and more boldly,
in the sacred institutions and the official titles of the emperors, the
meaning of which it alone enables us to fathom.
Since the republican epoch the Fortune of the Roman people
had been worshipped under different names at Rome. This an
cient 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

MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF ROME. 455
the Assyrians and the Persians, crossed Egypt and Syria, and took
her abode on the Palatine Hill, his metaphor is true in quite a dif
ferent sense from that which he had in mind. Also the emperors,
imitating their Asiatic predecessors, easily succeeded in causing to
be worshipped by the side of this goddess of the state, that other
goddess who was the special protectress of their own person. The
Fortuna Augusti 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 that in the sec
ond century at least they constantly 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 tv^j? fio.(TiKiis>%. In
fact, when this safeguard abandoned them they were doomed to
death or at least to reverses and calamities; so long as they pre
served it, they knew only success and prosperity.
After the reign of Commodus, from which dates the triumph
at Rome of the Oriental cults and especially of the Mithraic Mys
teries, we see the emperors officially taking the titles of plus, felix,
and invictus, which appellations from the third century on regularly
formed part of the imperial protocols. These epithets were in
spired by the special fatalism which Rome had borrowed from the
Orient. The monarch is plus (pious) because his devotion alone
can secure the continuance of the special favor which heaven has
bestowed on him ; he \s felix, happy, or rather fortunate (ewTux'?s),
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 gods ; and it is
manifested in the shape of victory.
All this conforms to the ancient Mazdean ideas, and the em
ployment of the last of the three adjectives mentioned further be
trays the influence of the astrological theories which were mingled
with Parseeism. Invictus, 'AvCkt/to's, is, as we have seen, the ordi
nary attribute of the sidereal gods imported from the Orient, and
especially so of the Sun. The emperors evidently chose this ap
pellation to emphasise 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 conjoined
with the course of the stars, was accompanied with the corollary

456 THE OPEN COURT.
\that the chief of the planetary bodies was arbiter of the Fortune of
Icings. It was he that raised them to their thrones, or deposed
fhem from them ; it was he that assured them their triumphs and
afflicted upon them their disasters. The sun is regarded as the
companion {comes') of the emperor and as his personal savior (con
servator). We have seen that Diocletian revered in Mithra the
fautor imperii sui, or patron guardian of his empire.
In assuming the surname of invictus (invincible), the Caesars
formally pronounced the intimate alliance which they had con
tracted with the Sun, and they tended more and more to emphasise
their likeness to him. The same reason 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
victorious 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 illu
minated, had also served the Persian kings as an image of the per
petuity of their power ; and it passed with the mystical ideas of
which it was the expression to the Diadochi, and from them on to
the Romans. Also, the radiate crown which, in imitation of the Seleucids
and the Ptolemies the emperors 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 it gave forth, it appeared to render the monarch
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
represented it on earth? The loyalist zeal of the Orientals knew
no bounds in its apotheosis. The Sassanid kings, as the Pharaohs
before them, proclaimed themselves "brothers of the sun and the
moon" ; and the Caesars were almost similarly regarded in Asia as
the successive Avatars of Helios. Certain autocrats approved of
being likened to this divinity and caused statues to be erected that

MITHRA AND THE IMPERIAL POWER OF ROME. 457
showed them adorned with his attributes. They suffered themselves
even to be worshipped as emanations of Mithra. But these insen
sate pretensions were repudiated by the sober sense of the Latin
peoples. As above remarked, the Occident studiously eschewed
such absolute affirmations ; they were content with metaphors ;
they were fond of comparing the sovereign who governed the in- >,
habited world and whom nothing that occurred in it could escape,
to the celestial luminary that enlightened the universe and con
trolled 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 character.
Nevertheless, the conception that the 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 consubstan
tiality. Now, the psychology taught in the Mysteries furnished a ra
tional explanation of this consubstantiality and supplied it almost
with a scientific foundation. According to these doctrines the souls
pre-existed in the empyrean, and when they descended to earth to
animate the bodies in which they were henceforward to be enclosed,
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 planet, 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 theories favored the
pretensions of the Caesars. They were lords of the world by right
of birth {deus et dominus natus'), because of having 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 measure 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; hke
Mithra at the end of his career, as borne heavenward by Helios in
his resplendent chariot.
Thus, the dogmatology of the Persian Mysteries combined two
theories of different origin, both of which tended to lift princes
above the level of humankind. On the one side, the ancient Maz-|
dean conception of Hvareno had become the "Fortune of thei
King," illuminating him with celestial grace and bringing him vic-

45^ THE OPEN COURT.
tory. On the other hand, the idea that the soul of the monarch at
the moment when destiny caused his descent to the terrestrial
spheres, received from the Sun his dominating power, gave rise to
the contention that he shared in the divinity of that planet, and
was its representative on earth.
These beliefs may appear to us to-day as absurd, or even as
monstrous, but they nevertheless controlled for centuries millions
of men of the most different types and nationalities, and united
them undei: the banner of the same monarchical faith. If the edu
cated classes, who always. preserved through literary tradition some
remnant of the ancient republican spirit, cherished a measure of
skepticism in this regard, the popular sentiment certainly accepted
these theocratic chimeras, and suffered themselves to be governed
by them as long as paganism lasted. It may even be said that
these conceptions survived the smashing of the idols, and that the
veneration of the masses as well as the ceremonial of the couit
never ceased to consider the persort of the sovereign as endued
with essence superhuman. Aurelian had essayed to establish an
(official religion broad enough to embrace all the cults of his dc-
minions and which would have served, as it had among the Per
sians, both as the justification and the prop of imperial absolutisn .
His hopes, however, were blasted by the recalcitrance of the Chris
tians. Yet the alliance of the throne with the altar, of which the
Caesars of the third century liad dreamed, was realised under an
other form, and by a strange mutation of fortune the Church itself
was called upon to support the edifice whose foundations it had
shattered. The work for which the priests of Serapis, of Baal,
and of Mithra had paved the way was achieved without them and
in opposition to them. Nevertheless, they had been the first to
preach in Occidental parts the doctrine 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 rec-
, orded time."

THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRY. 52I
son as is that of the Festschrift, namely that it had no need to rep
resent sects by numbers, and consequently has no need of irra
tional numbers. Thus we see that here also Hilbert might have
taken as his battle-cry, "Back'to lEuclid ! "
Though the fundamental theorems above mentioned can be
simply proven without the assumption of magnitudes other than
Hubert's sects (see H^sted's Elements, pp. 183-184), yet it is true
that Euclid in his proof (Eu. VI. 2) uses the content of a triangle,
which content he has, in I. 39, assumed to be a magnitude. That
this assumption is unnecessary and r« dundant was ^owii by Schur,
using the axiom of Archimedes. /
A more elegant demonstration, without the Archimedes postu
late, constitutes §§ 18-21 oi the Festshhrift. I j
Still another point in which Hilbei'ijt returns to Euclid is in re
gard to that fundamental geometric entity, 'the angle, j In Euclid
the two sides of an angle "are not in the same straightlline." Th^
moderns attempting to remove this supposed restriction introduced
the flat or straight angle, and convex or re-entrant angles. I my
self introduced from the rare Pelicotetics the word perigon, which
other writers of geometries, even Italian, adopted frOm my book,
as Beman and Smith found by correspondence when discussing
their adoption of my phrase "partition of a perigon " and the the
orems and corollaries under that heading. But in Hilbert an angle
is defined as a bi-ray whose two rays are co-initial but not co-
straight. Thus, as in Euclid, there are no angles greater than two right
angles. The angle is unambiguous.
Throughout there is successful revolt against arithmetisation.
As Hilbert said at Paris: "I oppose the opinion that only the con
cepts of analysis, or even those of arithmetic alone, are susceptible
of a fully rigorous treatment." And well he may, who has so es
tablished geometry upon a simple and complete system of assump
tions, that the exactness of the geometric ideas and their applica
bility to deduction is in no respect inferior to those of the old
arithmetical concepts.
Said Hilbert : "The most suggestive and notable achievement
of the last century is the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry."
May I add: Its most fascinating outcome \sYi\\hexVs. Festschrift.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC
MYSTERIES.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
FOR more than three centuries Mithraism was practiced 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 swayed one after another the minds
of antiquity, or for that matter the political and social situation
in the empire, did not exercise upon them some influence. But
undoubted though it be that the Persian Mysteries underwent
some modification 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 out
lines the character of the doctrines which were taught by it, indi
cating the additions and revisions which they apparently under
went. Besides, the alterations which it suffered were superficial.
The identity of the images and hieratical formulas of the most re
mote periods and places, proves that before the time of its intro
duction into the Latin countries reformed Mazdaism had already
consolidated its theology. Contrary to the ancient Greco-Roman
paganism, which was an assemblage of practices and beliefs with
out logical bond, Mithraism, had a genuine theology, a dogmatic
system, which borrowed from science its fundamental principles.
The belief appears to prevail generally that 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 adven
titious and recent. This is a gratuitous and erroneous supposition.
Mithra was accompanied in his migrations by a large representa-
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figurh relati/s aux Mystires dt
Mithra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack,

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

523

tion from the Mazdean Pantheon, and if he is in the eyes of his
devotees the principal hero of the religion to which he gave his
name, he was nevertheless not its supreme god.
At the pinnacle of the divine hierarchy and at the origin of

Fig. I. Mithraic Kronos (^Eon or
Zrvan Akarana) Represent
ing Boundless Time.)'

Mithraic Kronos of
Florence.^

things, the Mithraic theology, the heir of that of the Zervanitic
Magi, placed boundless Time. Sometimes they called it Alwv or
IThe statue here reproduced was found in the Mithraeum of Ostia, where C. Valerius Hera
cles and his sons dedicated it in the year igo A. D.; it was figured for the first time by Lajard in
his Recherches sur Mithra, Plate LXX.
2 An important Italian bas-relief representing the Mithraic Kronos surrounded by the signs
of the zodiac, has just been published by us in the Revue Archiologique for 1902, pages i et seq.

524 THE OPEN COURT.
Saeculum, Kpovos or Saturnus; but these appellations were conven
tional and contingent, for he was considered ineffable, bereft alike
of name, sex, and passions. In imitation of his Oriental proto
type, he was represented in the likeness of a human monster with
the head of a lion and his body enveloped by a serpent. The
multiplicity of attributes 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 sinuous folds enwrap him, typifies the tortuous course of the
sun on the ecliptic ; the signs of the zodiac engraved on his body
and the emblems of the seasons that accompany them, are meant to
represent the celestial and terrestrial phenomena that signalise 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 uni
verse, he virtually unites in his person the power of all the gods,
whom he alone has begotten. Sometimes 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 the 'ElfLap/iev-rj. (See Figs. I and 2.)
The preachers of Mithra sought to resolve the grand problem
of the origin of the world by the hypothesis of a series of succes
sive generations. The first principle, according to an ancient be
lief found in India as well as in Greece, begot a primordial couple,
the Heaven and the Earth ; and the latter, impregnated by her
brother, gave birth to the vast Ocean which was equal in power to
its parents, and which appears to have formed with them the su
preme triad of the Mithraic Pantheon. The relation of this triad
to Kronos or Time from which it had sprung, was not clearly de
fined, and the starry Heavens of which the revolutions determined,
as was believed, the course of all events, appears at times to have
been confounded with the eternal Destiny.
These three cosmic divinities were personified under other
names less transparent. The Heaven was naught less than Ormuzd
or Jupiter, the Earth was identical with Spefita-Armaiti, or Juno,
and the Ocean was also called Apam-Napat or Neptune. Like the
Greek theogonies, the Mithraic traditions narrated that Zeus suc
ceeded Kronos, the king of the first ages, in the government of the
world. The bas- rehef s show us this Mazdean Saturn placing in

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 525
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 primigenia^, who bestows on her wor
shippers every grace of body and every beauty of soul. Her be
neficent generosity is contrasted with Ananke, which represents
the unalterable rigor of fate. Themis or the Law, the Moirae or
the Fates, were other personifications of Destiny, which manifests
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 im
mortals : Shahrivar or Hercules whose heroic deeds the sacred
hymns celebrated ; Artagnes 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 ; Vanaiiiiti or Nike
who gave victory to kings ; Asha or Arete, perfect virtue ; and
others besides. This innumerable multitude of divinities was en
throned with Jupiter and Zeus on the sun-tipped summits of Mt.
Olympus and composed the celestial court.
Contrasted with this luminous abode, where dwelt the Most
High gods in resplendent radiance, was a dark and dismal domain
in the bowels of the earth. Here Ahriman or Pluto, born like Ju
piter of Infinite Time, reigned with Hecate over the maleficent
monsters that had issued from their impure embraces. These de
moniac confederates of the King of Hell then ascended to the as
sault of Heaven and attempted to dethrone the successor of Kro
nos ; but, shattered like the Greek giants by the ruler of the gods,
these rebel monsters were hurled backward into the abyss from
which they had arisen.^ They made their escape, however, from
that place and wandered about on the surface of the earth to spread
there misery and to corrupt the hearts of men, who, in order to
ward off the evils that menaced them, were obliged to appease
1 See the cut on p. 309 of the May Open Court,

526 THE OPEN COURT.
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 is meditating.
The gods no longer confined themselves to the ethereal spheres
which were their apanage. 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 ani
mated living creatures, stimilated the growth of plants, or lay dor
mant in the bowels of the earth. In the deep recesses of the sub
terranean crypts it burned perpetually on the altars, and its vo
taries were fearful to contaminate its purity by sacrilegious contact.
They opined with primitive artlessness that fire and water
were brother and sister, and they entertained the same supersti
tious respect for the one as for the other. They worshipped alike
the saline floods which filled the deep seas and which were indiffer
ently termed 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 per
petual 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 symbolisation of the material
and moral boons that the inexhaustible generosity of Infinite Time
scattered throughout the universe, and that of the spiritual re
juvenation accorded to wearied souls in the eternity of felicity.
The primitive earth, the nourishing earth, the mother earth
{terra mater'), fecundated by the waters of Heaven, occupied a like
important 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 atmosphere, which produced the vegeta
tion 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.
' In other words, Mithraism deified the four simple bodies
which, according to the physics of the ancients, composed the uni-

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 527
verse. An allegorical group, often reproduced, in which a lion
represented fire, a cup water, a serpent the earth, pictured the
struggle of the opposing elements, which were constantly devour
ing one another and whose perpetual transmutations and infinitely l
variable combinations provoked all the phenomena of nature.
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 constellations, 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 sombre robe, of which one side only is illu
minated by the rays of the sun ; the third proceeds more slowly
still ; and the fourth turns slowly in the same spot, champing rest
lessly its steel bit, whilst its companions move round it as round
a stationary column in the center. The quadriga turns slowly and
unimpeded, regularly completing its eternal course. But at a cer
tain moment the fiery breath of the first horse falling upon the
fourth ignites its mane, and its neighbor, exhausted by its efforts,
inundates it with torrents of perspiration. Finally, a still more re
markable phenomenon takes place : The appearance of the quar
tette is transformed. The steeds interchange natures 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 from one wherewith to complete the others,
and had ended by merging all into a single form. Then, the con
quering steed in this divine struggle, having become by his triumph
omnipotent, is identified with the charioteer himself. 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 inundations which have desolated and will in the future deso
late 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 suprasensible Cause,
has not been figured in the sacred iconography. The latter re
served 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
IDio Chrysost., Or. XXXVI. § 39 et seq.

528, THE OPEN COURT.
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 accorded the Moon which voyaged in the
spheres above on a cart drawn by white bulls. The animal of re
production and of agriculture had been assigned to the goddess
that presided over the increase of plants and the generation of liv
ing creatures. The elements, accordingly, were not the only natural bodies
that were deified in the Mysteries. The two luminaries that fec
undated 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 Chaldsean
theories. As we have already said,i the ancient belief of the Persians
had been forcibly subjected in Babylon to the influence of a theol
ogy 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 character en
tirely 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 harmonising these new doc
trines with their ancient religions, for the Semitic astrology was as
irreconcilable with the naturalism of Iran as it was with the pagan
ism of Greece. But looking upon these contradictions as simple
differences of degree in the knowledge of one and the same truth,
the clergy reserved for the dlite exclusively the revelation of the
original Mazdean doctrines concerning the origin and destiny of
man and the world, whilst the multitude were forced to remain con
tent with the brilliant and superficial symbolism inspired by the
speculations of the Chaldaeans. The astronomical allegories con
cealed from the curiosity of the vulgar the real scope of the hieratic
representations, and the promise of complete illumination, 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 offer
ings, were the Planets. Conformably to astrological theories, the
planets were endowed with virtues and qualities for which it is fre
quently difficult for us to discover adequate reasons. Each of the
planetary bodies presided over a day of the week, to each some one
ISee The Open Court for March, p. 171.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 529
metal was consecrated, each was associated with some one degree
in the initiation, and their number has caused a special religious
potency to be attributed to the number seven. In descending from
the empyrean to the earth, the souls, it was thought, successively /
received from thera their passions and qualities. These planetaryl
bodies were frequently represented on the monuments, now by sym
bols recalling the elements of which they were formed or the sacri
fices which were offered to them, and now 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 signification 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 wandering course
can be followed amid the constellations. This double system of
interpretation 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 Hoare, the other Semitic, the substitute of
the Babylonian Shamash, identified with Mithra.
By the side of the planetary gods who have still a double char
acter, purely sidereal divinities 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 mithraeums under their traditional aspect (Fig. 3). Each
of them was without doubt the object of particular veneration du
ring the month over which it presided, and they were customarily
grouped by threes according to the seasons to which they con
formed and with the worship of which their worship was associated.
But the signs of the zodiac were not the only constellations
that were incorporated by the priests in their theology. The astro
nomical method of interpretation, having been 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 the symbolic iipage of a stellar group.
Thus the raven, the cup, the dog, and the lion, that ordinarily ac
company the group of the tauroctonous Mithra, were readily iden
tified 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 the Hel
lenic fable, lived and died by turns. Mythology and erudition
were everywhere mingled. The hymns described a hero like the

530

THE OPEN COURT.

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 background ; 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 controlled the existence of men and guided the
course of things.
This was the capital doctrine that Babylon introduced into
Mazdaism : belief in Fatality, the conception of an inevitable Des
tiny controlling the events of this world and inseparably conjoined
with the revolution of the starry heavens. This Destiny, identified
with Zervan, became the supreme being which engendered all

Fig. 3. Marble Bas-Relief Found in London.
In the center the Tauroctonous Mithra with the torch-bearers sur
rounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac. In the lower corners busts o£
the Winds ; in the upper corners the Sun on his quadriga and the Moon
on a chariot drawn by bulls. The inscription reads : Ulpius Silvanus
emeritus leg(ionis) II Aug(ustae) votum solvit. Factus Arausione
(that is, honorably discharged at Orange).
things and ruled the universe. The development of the universe
is subject to immutable laws and its various parts are united in the
most intimate solidarity. The position of the planets, their mutual
relations and energies, at every moment different, produce the series
of terrestrial phenomena. Astrology, of which these postulates
were the dogmas, certainly owes one portion of its success to the
Mithraic propaganda, and Mithraism is therefore partly respon-

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 53 I
sible 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 invocation of spirits,
although the latter commanded greater sway over popular credul
ity. The independent power attributed by Mazdais.ii to the prin
ciple of evil afforded justification for all manner of occult practices.
Necromancy, oneiromancy, belief 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 reproach
of having condoned, if not of having really taught, all these super
stitions. The title "Magus" became not without good reason in
the popular mind a synonym for "magician."
Yet neither the conception of an inexorable necessity unpity-
ingly forcing the human race toward an unknown goal, nor even
the fear of malevolent spirits bent on its destruction, was compe
tent to attract the multitudes to the altars of the Mithraic gods.
The rigor of these sombre doctrines was tempered by a belief in
benevolent powers sympathising with the sufferings of mortals.
Even the planets were not, as in the didactic works of the theoreti
cal astrologists, cosmic forces whose favorable or sinister influence
increased or diminished for all eternity conformably to the revolu
tions of a fixed circle. 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
confidence in the support of these benevolent protectors who com
bated without respite the powers of evil.
The hymns that celebrated the exploits of the gods have un
fortunately almost all perished, and we know these epic traditions
only through the monuments which served to illustrate them.
Nevertheless, the character of this sacred poetry is recognisable in
the dibris which has come down to us. Thus, the labors of Vere
thraghna, 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 vota
ries 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

532

THE OPEN COURT.

tales was Mithra. Certain mighty deeds, which in the books of
Zoroastrianism were attributed to other divinities, were associated
with his person. He had become the center of a cycle of legends
which alone explain the preponderant place that was 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 celes-

CCAE^^LIVS ERMEROSANT
ISTESHVIVS LO
Cl F ECITSVa
PEC ^

CCAEMliLIVS ERMEROSANT ISTESHVIVSLO C I FECIT SVa
ttc "¦

Fig. 4. Statues of Torch-Bearers (Dadophori)
From a Mithrseum at Ostia, now in the Lateran.

tial hierarchy, has given his name to the Persian Mysteries that
were disseminated in the Occident.
For the ancient Magi, Mithra was, as we have seen, the god
of light, and as the light is borne by the air he was thought to in
habit the Middle Zone between Heaven and Hell, and for this rea
son the name of /*ea-iT);s was given to him. In order to signalise

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

533

this attribute in the ritual, the sixteenth or middle day of each
month was consecrated to him. When he was identified with Sha
mash,' his priests in investing him with the appellation of "inter
mediary" doubtless had in mind the fact that, according to the
Chaldsean 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 "mediator" between the unapproach-'
able and unknowable god that reigned in the ethereal spheres andf
the human race that struggled and suffered here below. Shamash "

Fig. 5. Statues of Torch-Bearers.
(Museum of Palermo.)
had already enjoyed analogous functions in Babylon, 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 which reason alone could conceive the existence.
It was in this adventitious quality of the' genius of the solar
light that Mithra was best known in the Occident, and his monu
ments frequently suggest this borrowed character. It was custom
ary to represent him between two youthful figures, one with an up
lifted, the other with an inverted torch. These youths bore the
1 See The Open Court for March, p. 172.

534

THE OPEN COURT.

enigmatic epithets of Cauti and Cautopati, and were naught else
than the double incarnation of his person (Figs. 4 and 5). 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 an
nounced, 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 conquering ardors fecun
dated nature in the heart of summer and the sun that afterwards,
enfeebled, traversed the sign of the Scorpion and announced the
return of winter. From another point of view, one of these torch-

Fig. 6. Mithra Born From the Rock.
Bas-Relief found in the Crypt of St. Clements at Rome.

bearers was regarded as the emblem of heat and of life and the
other as the emblem of cold and of death. Similarly, the tauroc
tonous group was variously explained with the aid of an astronom
ical symbolism more ingenious than rational. Yet these sidereal
interpretations were nothing else than intellectual diversions de
signed to amuse the neophites prior to their receiving the revela
tion of the esoteric doctrines that constituted the ancient Iranian
legend of Mithra. The story of this legend is lost, but the bas-
reHefs recount for us certain episodes of it, and its contents appear
to have been somewhat as follows.
The light bursting from the heavens, which were conceived as
a solid vault, became, in the mythology of the Magi, Mithra born

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 535
from the rock. The tradition ran that the "Generative Rock," of
which a standing image was worshipped in the temples, had given
birth to Mithra on the banks of a river, under the shade of a sacred
tree, and that shepherds alone, ensconced in a neighboring moun
tain, 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 carrying a
torch that had illuminated the sombre depths below (Fig. 6).
Worshipfully the shepherds drew near, offering the divine infant
the first fruits of their flocks 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 detach
ing 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 henceforward to measure his
strength with the other powers that peopled the marvellous world
into which he had entered. For although the shepherds were pas
turing their flocks when he came, all these things came to pass be
fore there were men on earth. [to be continued. 1

AMITABHA.

A STORY OF BUDDHIST METAPHYSICS.

BY THE EDITOR.

[CONCLUDED.]
THE CONSPIRACY.
A SHVAGHOSHX ifeld
JTx. iimich/notxHil)^
but/also Imjrcess
join. \
One day Subahu was detained Jfy important affairs of state,
and when he made his appearanc^^ the accustomed circle of his
philosophical frieVls, he was soyfuU of distress as to be almost
beyond the power oikspeech.
"My royal friendV' said H&nishka, "what disturbs your mind?
How terrible must theValanffity be that so affects a man of your
composure! Are you or^dfte of your kin in danger of death, or
pray; what else is the caureiX)f your trouble?"
"My dear friend arid aN^," replied King Subahu, "it is your
life that is endangered./ 1 com^i^o take counsel with you as to how
we may save you fron/the perilooe situation in which the false pa
triotism of my peof* has placed y^. Some of my southern gen
erals having but latffely arrived with stkbsidies which ought to have
been with me at tl^e beginning of the war entered into a conspiracy
with my Prime Minister to surround the\alace, take you prisoner
and put you t/ the sword; then to attacli your unwary soldiers
and drive the^ out of the country. Everythftag has been planned
in the strictest privacy, and your noble confidecce in my faith and
friendship ihade it easy for them to replace th\guards gradually
by their fr/ends until they now have everything their own way, and
I am given to understand that unless I join the conspirators they
will elect? another king." \
"And^ what is your pleasure in this matter?" asked, Kanishka,

THE MISINTERPRETATION OF TOLSTOY.

60 1

US that Rs. 150 equal about ^100. The'y really equal about ^75
and never, since the RiXsso-Turkish war of 1877, have equalled the
amount she names. Th^re is no excuse for this blunder now that
the value has for some years ^'en fixed on a gold basis of a trifle
over 50 cents for i ruble. ^\ /'
She adds a couple of ^Ves of her own criticism of Tolstoy's
opinion, and she succeeds inNnaking it abundantly evident that
she either has not read/his later ^urorks, or has failed to understand
them. .to
recOi

aVthe rkers

with t

THE DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC
MYSTERIES.'

BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
[concluded.]

THE god with whom Mithra first measured his strength was the
Sun. The latter was compelled to render homage to the su
periority of his rival and to receive from him his investiture. His

Fig. I a. Mithra Born From
THE Rocks.
Holding in his hand the grape which re
places in the West the Haoma
of the Persians.

Fig. -lb. Sol the Sun-God
Installed by Mithra as the governor
of the world. To the right
the globe of power.

conqueror placed upon his head the radiant 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
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments p-gurts relati/s aux Mystires de
Mithra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

f 603

with him a solemn covenant of friendship. And ever after, the two
allied heroes faithfully supported each other in all their enter
prises. -
The most extraordinary of these epic adventures was Mithra's
combat with the bull, the first living creature created by Ormuzd.
This ingenuous fable carries us back to the very beginnings of civ
ilisation. It could never have risen save among a people of shep
herds and hunters with whom cattle, the source of all wealth, had

Fig. 2. The Tauroctonous (Bull-Slaying) Mithra and the Taurophorous
(Bull-Bearing) Mithra ; Between Them the Dog.
Clay cup found at Lanuvium.
become an object of religious 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 pasture on the moun
tain-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

6o4 THE OPEN COURT.
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, suspended from the horns of the animal, which, finally ex
hausted 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. 2) into the cave which served as his home.
This painful Journey (Transitus) of Mithra became the symbol
of human sufferings. But the bull, it would appear, succeeded in
making its escape from its prison, and again roamed at large over
the mountain pastures. The Sun then sent the raven, his messen
ger, 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 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. 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 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 con
sume 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,
produced all the different species of useful animals, and its soul,
under the protection of the dog, the faithful companion of Mithra,
ascended into the celestial spheres above, where, receiving the
honors of divinity, it became under the name of Sylvanus the
guardian of herds. Thus, through the sacrifice which he had so
resignedly undertaken, the tauroctonous hero became the creator
of all the beneficent 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 exist
ence, and Mithra was charged with keeping a watchful eye over
this privileged race. It was in vain the Spirit of Darkness invoked
his pestilential scourges to destroy it ; the god always knew how to
balk his mortiferous designs. Ahriman first desolated the land by

DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

605

causing a protracted drought, and its inhabitants, tortured by thirst,
implored the aid of his ever-victorious adversary. The divine
archer discharged his arrows against a precipitous rock and there
gushed forth from it a spring of living water to which the sup-
pHants thronged to cool their parched palates. 1 But a still more
terrible cataclysm followed, which menaced all nature. A uni
versal deluge depopulated the earth, which was overwhelmed by
the waters of the rivers and the seas. One man alone, secretly

-¦i-'jH'V

^V "

v»

'«*^ ;® jU^L'^

"#>.

Fig. 3. 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 cabin
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.
advised by the gods, had constructed a boat and had saved himself
together with his cattle in this ark buoyant upon the broad expanse
1 See the curved border in centre of frontispiece to The Open Court for June, igo2, and the
picture of the bas-relief of Mayence, to be published in a subsequent number.

6o6 THE OPEN COURT.
of waters. Then a great conflagration ravaged the world and con
sumed utterly both the habitations of men and of beasts. But
the creatures of Ormuzd also ultimately escaped this new peril,
thanks to celestial protection, and henceforward the human race
was permitted to wax great and multiply in peace.
; The heroic period of history was now closed, and the terres
trial mission of Mithra accomplished. In a Last Supper, which
the initiated commemorated by mystical love feasts, he celebrated
jwith Helios and the other companions of his labors the termina
tion of their common struggles. Then the gods ascended to Heaven.
;Borne by the Sun on his radiant quadriga, Mithra crossed the
ocean, which sought in vain to engulf him, and took up his habita
tion with the rest of the immortals. But he never ceased from the
jheights of Heaven to protect the faithful ones that piously served
•him.
I 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 cre
ator to whom Jupiter Ormuzd committed the task of establishing
and of maintaining order in nature. He is, to speak in the philo
sophical language of the times, the Logos that emanated from God
and shared His omnipotence; who, after having fashioned the
world as demiurge, continued to watch carefully over it. The pri
mal defeat of Ahriman had not reduced him to absolute impotence;
the struggle between the good and the evil was still carried on on
earth between the emissaries of the sovereign of Olympus and
those of the Prince of Darkness ; it raged in the celestial spheres
in the opposition of propitious and adverse stars, and it reverbe
rated in the hearts of men, — the epitomes of the universe.
Life is a battle, and to issue forth from it victorious the law
must be faithfully followed that the divinity himself revealed to
the ancient Magi. What were the obligations that Mithraism im
posed upon its followers? What were those "commandments" to
which its adepts had to bow in order to be rewarded in 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 morals 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

DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

607

toward which the life of the faithful should tend. Their ritual re-l
quired 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. Yielding to these tenden
cies, the Mithraists carried their principles even to excess, and
their ideals of perfection verged on asceticism. Abstinence from
certain foods and absolute continence were regarded as praise
worthy. Resistance to sensuality was one of the aspects of the combat
with the principle of evil. To support
untiringly this combat with the fol
lowers of Ahriman, who, under multiple
forms, disputed with the gods the em
pire of the world, was the duty of the
servitors of Mithra. Their dualistic sys
tem was particularly adapted to fostering
individual effort and to developing hu
man energy. They did not lose them
selves, as did the other sects, in con
templative mysticism ; for them, the
good dwelt in action. They rated
strength higher than gentleness, and
preferred courage to lenity. From their
long association with barbaric religions,
there was perhaps a residue of cruelty
in their ethics. A religion of soldiers,
Mithraism exalted the military virtues
above all others.
In the war which the zealous cham
pion of piety carries on unceasingly with
the malign demons, he is assisted by
Mithra. Mithra is the god of help whom
one never invokes in vain, an unfailing
haven, the anchor of salvation for mortals in all their trials, the
dauntless champion who sustains in their frailty his devotees in all
the tribulations of life. As with the Persians, so here he is still the
defender 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

NABARZE DEO
PROSALAMPLlAn
AVG-N-DISP-ET SVA-SVORVMQ. OMNIVM
pr.otas-vd<ar; EIVS

Fig. 4. Dedicatory Inscrip
tion OF Mithra Naear-
ZES (Victorious).
Found at Sarmizegetusa.

6o8 THE OPEN COURT.
that unceasingly recurs in the inscriptions, the idea expressed by
the Persian surname Nabarzes (Fig. 4), by the Greek and Latin
epithets of dwKjjros, invictus, insuper abilis. As the god of armies,
Mithra caused his /ri9//^/.f to triumph over their barbarous adver
saries, 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 Mysteries mingled with
their cosmogonic fables and their theological speculations, ideas of
'deliverance and redemption. They believed in the conscious sur
vival after death of the divine essence that dwells within us, and
in punishments and rewards beyond the tomb. 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 ac
cord upon the earth to undertake here the battle against the demons.
When after death the genius of corruption took possession of the
body, and the soul quitted its human prison, the devas of darkness
and the emissaries of Heaven disputed for its possession. A spe
cial 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 animal. If, on the contrary, its merits outweighed its
faults, it was borne aloft to the regions on high.
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 dif
ferent metals, was the symbolic suggestion 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 an angel of Ormuzd. The initiates alone,
to whom the appropriate formulas had been taught, knew how to
appease these inexorable guardians. As the soul traversed these
different zones, it rid itself, as one would of garments, of the pas
sions and faculties that it had received in its descent to the earth.
It abandoned to the Moon its vital and nutritive energy, to Mer
cury its desires, to Venus its wicked appetites, to the Sun its intel
lectual capacities, to Mars its love of war, to Jupiter its ambitious
dreams, to Saturn its inclinations. It was naked, stripped of every

DOCTRINE OF THE MITHRAIC MYSTERIES.

609

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.i
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 as
cent 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 quintessentialised monads in
a spiritual world is rather difficult to conceive, and doubtless this
doctrine had but feeble attraction for vulgar 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 immor
tality of the soul was rounded off by the doctrine of the resurrec
tion of the flesh.

Fig. 5. Mithraic Cameo.
Showing Mithra born from the rocks between the Dioscuri, surrounded by
Mithraic symbols, among them the cup and bread of the Eucharist.
The struggle between the principles of good and evil is not
destined to continue into all eternity. When the age assigned for
its duration 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 )
recognise 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 his fat with the consecrated wine, and will offer to the
just this miraculous beverage which will endow them with immor-
iThis Mithraic doctrine has recently been compared with other analogous beliefs and
studied in detail by M. Bossuet. "Die Himmelreise derSeele" {.Archiv fur Religionswissen-
schaft, Vol. IV., igor, p. 160 fE.)

6lO THE OPEN COURT.
tality. Then Jupiter Ormuzd, yielding to the prayers of the beati
fied ones, will cause to fall from the heavens a devouring fire which
will annihilate all the wicked. The defeat of the Spirit of Darkness
will be consummated, and in the general conflagration Ahriman
and his impure demons will perish and the rejuvenated universe
enjoy unto all eternity happiness without end. '
We who have never experienced the Mithraic 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 recon
struction. 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 logical structure only
serves to render its radical falsity all the more palpable. All the
impossibilities of the ancient polytheistic fables here subsist side
by side with philosophical speculations on the evolution of the uni
verse 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
understand how Mithraism lived and grew great and why it failed
to win the empire of the world.
Its success was in great part undoubtedly due to the vigor of
its ethics, which above all things favored action. In an epoch of
anarchy and emasculation, its mystics found in its precepts both
stimulus and support. The conviction that the faithful ones formed
part of a sacred army charged with sustaining with the Principle
of Good the struggle against the power of evil, were singularly
adapted to provoking their most pious efforts and transforming
them into ardent zealots.
The Mysteries exerted another powerful influence, also, in fos
tering 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
votaries 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 doctrinal system. Mithra
ism, in fact, satisfied ahke both the intelligence of the educated

THE DOCTRINE OF MITHRAIC MYSTERIES. 6 II
and the hearts of the simple-minded. The apotheosis of Time as
First Cause and that of the Sun, its physical manifestation, which
maintained on earth heat and light, were highly philosophical con
ceptions. The worship rendered to the Planets and to the Constel
lations, the course of which determined terrestrial events, and to
the four Elements whose infinite combinations produced all nat
ural phenomena, are ultimately reducible to the worship of the
principles and agents recognised by ancient science, and the the
ology of the Mysteries was, in this respect, nothing but the reli
gious expression of the physics and astronomy of the Roman
world. This theoretical conformity of revealed dogmas with the ac
cepted ideas of science was calculated to allure cultivated minds,
but it had no hold whatever upon the ignorant souls of the popu
lace. On the other hand, these were eminently amenable to thes
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 illuminated their paths, were the objects of their adora
tion. Perhaps no other religion ever offered to its sectaries in a
higher degree than Mithraism opportunities for prayer and mo
tives for veneration. When the initiated betook himself in the
evening to the sacred grotto concealed in the solitude of the for
ests, at every step new sensations awakened in his heart some mys
tical emotion. The stars that shone in the sky, the wind that whis
pered 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 wor
shipful fear for the infinite forces that swayed the universe. !

THE TRINITY.

BY THE EDITOR.

LUCIAN inentions in his interesting e^s^^'-D^^Syria JDea, § 33,
the f a^t that in a t;etnple at Hierapoli^here fetood the statues
of Zeus ^nd Hera atid between them /a third one cabled (rrnieiov,
viz., a sign or tokeh. Obwiously Zeus and He/a are the Hellen
ised names of Syrian divinities, the/god-fathe/or heaven, and the
god-mWther, the magna dea or the/deity of life and Idve and fertil
ity. /But what can mve been ^he sense otoiaving a Semeion or a
sign/erected between them, and what may have been its shape?
WaB_it^pole or asKera, a stone pillar, /or any other monument?
Who can tell? The\§en>e of the passage seems lost beyond re
demption. Yet the idea suggests itself tVat tljg-'word Semeion may
have been the name or a corruption of the name of a god for whom
Lucian could not find an appropriate Greek expression, and this
suggestion finds good support in the fact that p^S W2, i- e., the
Lord Shanilan, is the Syrian Hercules, the divine god-child and
saviour, who corresponds to the Babylonian Samas, the Hebrew
Samson and the Greek Heracles. / /
If this conjecture is tenable, the three statues at llierapolis
were nothing else than a representation of the ancient trinity which
was revered almost all over Hither /Asia.
Thp trinity conception is very/ancient and is based upon nat
ural as Avell as huma^h analogies. / It represents^ahe sky, the earth,
and thp sun; god-father, god-mother, and god the son, |;he creator
and ruler of the world, the life and fertility of the earth, and the
god-i^an, or the hero-god. /
This trinity conception w^s not always nor in all/countries of
Hither Asia c^fearly retained. As the religious notions were not
scientific but mythological, the sun-goca and sky-gpd were fre
quently identified, which produced confusion. The dea magna was
now the earth goddess, now the mooh goddess, and/again a Pros-

RICHARD WAGNER.

669

tte« illustration of philosop
diatetiijjgpt in view ; ev
gated ii\ the pers^
situaftion. . In '
Schobenftauer i
tion ^fJheJdrar
fuller emb^jdMient
Hved to cdnimet^h

the

on

principle^^g beyond>hg'imme-
arnfrfl -duty of rfe^tmoi^ioiM'g^ili-
ac^s by'fH^^umor of/fne general
the other hamd,'' the influenoe of
ion and^xecu-
and his ideas would have^oubtless-^fdund still
t-ajxd- expression in "Nirvana," had Wagner
this projected work.

percejKit

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY, CLERGY, AND
DEVOTEES.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
IN all the religions of classical antiquity there is one feature which,
formerly very conspicuous and perhaps the most important of
all for the faithful, has to-day almost totally disappeared from our
view. It is the liturgy. The Mysteries of Mithra form no ex
ception 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 borrowed from one unknown
hymn is almost all that has come down to us from the collections
which anciently were so abundant. The old Gathas composed in
honor of the Mazdean gods were translated into Greek during the
Alexandrian epoch, and Greek remained for a long time the lan
guage 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 confidence in its efficacy.
Such were the epithets like Nabarze, "victorious," which has been
applied to Mithra, or of the obscure invocations like Nama, Nama
Sebesio, engraved on our bas-reliefs, which have never yet been
interpreted. A scrupulous respect for the traditional practices of
their sect characterised the Magi of Asia Minor, and continued to
be cherished with unabated ardor among their Latin successors.
On the downfall of paganism, the latter still took pride in wor
shipping the gods according to the ancient Persian rites which
Zoroaster was said to have instituted. These rites sharply dis
tinguished their religion from all the others that were practiced at
the same time in Rome, and prevented its Persian origin from ever
being forgotten.
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments figuris relati/s aux Mystires de
/l//M?-a (Brussels; H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY. 67 I
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 celebration of the
services. Deprived as we are of this indispensable guide, we are
excluded utterly from the sanctuary and know the esoteric dis
cipline of the Mysteries only from a few indiscretions. A text of
St. Jerome, confirmed by a series of inscriptions, informs us that
there were seven degrees of initiation and that the mystic (/xuVtjjs,
sacratus) successively assumed the names of Raven {corax). Occult
{cryphius). Soldier {miles'). Lion {leo), Persian {Parses'), Courier of
the Sun (heliodromus'), and Father {pater'). These strange appella
tions were not empty epithets with no practical bearing. On cer
tain 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 animals, of soldiers, and of Persians (see
Fig. 2, p. 675). "Some flap their wings like birds, imitating the
cry of crows; others growl like lions," says a Christian writer of
the fourth century ;i "in such manner are they who are called wise
shamefully travestied."
These sacred masks, of which the ecclesiastical writer exhibits
the ridiculous side, were interpreted by pagan theologians as an
allusion to the signs of the zodiac, and even to the doctrine of
metempsychosis. Such divergences of interpretation simply prove
that the real meaning 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 prehistoric period where the divinities themselves were rep-
I resented under the forms of animals; and when the worshipper, in
taking the name and semblance of his god, believed that he identi
fied himself with him. The lion-headed Kronos having become
the incarnation of time, was substituted for the lions which the fore
runners of the Mithraists worshipped ; and 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 entered into communion with the monstrous idols which
they worshipped, or that, enveloped in the pelts of their flayed vic
tims, they attributed a purifying virtue to their bloody tunics.
To the primitive titles of Raven and Lion others were after-
iPs. Augustine, Quaest, vet, et novi Test,, (T. et M,, t. II, p. 8).

672

THE OPEN COURT.

wards 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 seven planetary spheres which the soul was forced to traverse

Fig. I. Mithraic Kronos, or Personification of Infinite Time.
Here represented without the head of a lion, which appears on the
breast of the figure. This is a Roman beautification of the horrific
features of the Oriental God. (Bas-Relief of Modena.)
in order to reach the abode of the blessed. ^ After having been
Raven, the initiates were promoted to the rank of Occult (xpij^tos).
I See p. 608 of The Open Court for October, 1902.

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY. 673
The members of this class, hidden by some veil, probably remained
invisible to the rest of the congregation. To exhibit them (ostendere')
constituted a solemn act. The soldier {miles) formed part of the
sacred militia of the invincible god and waged war under his direc
tions on the powers of evil. The dignity of Persian recalled the
first origin of the Mazdean religion, and he who obtained it as
sumed during the sacred ceremonies the Oriental custom of don
ning the Phrygian cap, which had also been bestowed on Mithra.
The latter having been identified with the Sun, his servitors in
vested themselves with the name of Couriers of the Sun ("HXioSpo-
juoi) ; lastly, the "Fathers" were borrowed from the Greek Thiasi,
where this honorific appellation frequently designated the directors
of the community.
In this septuple division of the deities, certain additional dis
tinctions were established. We may conclude from a passage in
Porphyry that the taking of the first three degrees did not authorise
participation in the Mysteries. These initiates, comparable to the
Christian catechumens, were the servants (vir-t^perovvrei) . It was
sufficient to enter this order to be admitted to the degree of Ra
vens, doubtless so called because mythology made the raven the
servitor of the Sun. Only the mystics that had received the Leon-
tics became Participants (/xeTe^ovTes), 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 that of
Pater patr atus, for the purpose of introducing an official sacerdotal
title into a naturalised Roman sect. These grand-masters of the
adepts retained until their death the general direction of the cult.
The reverence and affection which were entertained for these ven
erable dignitaries are indicated by their name of Father, and the
mystics placed under their authority were called brethren among
one another, because the fellow-initiates {consacranei) were ex
pected to cherish mutual affection. ^
Admission {acceptid) 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 suffi-
1 See the next Open Court,

674 THE OPEN COURT.
ciently prepared to receive the higher initiation, which they con
ferred in person {tradere').
This ceremony of initiation appears to have borne the name of
sacrament {sacramentum), doubtless because of the oath which the
neophyte took and which was compared to that made by the con
scripts 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, saying 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 invin
cible god.
We are as poorly acquainted with the liturgy of the seven
Mithraic sacraments as we are with the dogmatic instructions that
accompanied them. We know, however, that conformably to the
ancient Iranian rites, repeated ablutions were prescribed to neo
phytes as a kind of baptism designed to wash away their guilty
stains. As with a certain class of Gnostics, this lustration doubt
less 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 sol
dier. It appears, however, that the sign or seal impressed 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 before
being 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 puri
fications. But this animal being the emblem 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 that was pre
sented to the Persian because of its preservative virtue, as Porphyry
tells us ¦} in fact, marvellous properties appear to have been asso
ciated with this substance, which was believed to have been pro-
iPorpb., De antra Nymph,, c. 15 (7*. et M,, t, II,, p. 40).

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY.

675

duced under the influence 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."

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In the Mazdean service, the celebrant consecrated 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 sacrifice. These ancient usages were preserved
IThe liturgic use of honey has recently been elucidated by Usener, "Milch und Honig "
[Hermes, LVII), 1902, p. 177 fif.

676 THE OPEN COURT.
in the Mithraic initiations, save that for the Haoma, a plant un
known 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 obla
tion of bread and water, with which undoubtedly wine was after
wards mixed, is compared by the apologists to the Christian sacra
ment 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 "Participants" was given to
them. A curious bas-relief recently published shows us the spec
tacle of this sacred repast (Fig. 2). 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 ves
sel is held in the hands of one of the participants. These love
feasts are evidently the ritual commemoration of the banquet 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 expected. The intoxicating liquor
gave not only vigor of body and material prosperity, but wisdom
of mind ; it communicated to the neophyte 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 pre
ceded, by other rites of a different character. These were genuine
trials imposed 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 austerities ; he
played the role of sufferer in certain dramatic expiations of strange
character and of which we know neither the number nor the suc
cession. If we can believe a Christian writer of the fourth cen
tury,^ the eyes of the neophyte were bandaged, his hands were
bound with the entrails of chickens, and he was compelled to leap
over a ditch filled with water ; finally, a liberator approached with
a sword and sundered his loathsome bonds. Sometimes, the terri
fied 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 contented with producing a sword
dipped in the blood of a man who had met a violent death. The
1 See The Open Court for October, 1902, p. 606. 2 See above, p. 671.

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY.

677

cruelty of these ceremonies, which among the warlike tribes of the
Taurus must have been downright savage orgies, was softened by
contact with Western civilisation. In any event, they had become
more fear-inspiring than fearful, and it was the moral courage of 1
the initiate that was tried rather than his physical endurance. The
idea which was sought to be attained was the stoic "apathy," the
absence of every sensitive emotion. The atrocious tortures, the
impossible emasculations, to which some too credulous or inventive
authors have condemned the adepts of the Mysteries, must be rele
gated to the realm of fable, as must likewise the pretended human
sacrifices which were said to have been perpetrated in the shades
of the sacred crypts.
Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that Mithraism exhib
ited nothing more than the benignant phantasmagoria of a species

Fig. 3-

M1THR.EUM OF Carnuntum, the Modern Petronell, Near
Vienna to the East-' (Restored by Mr. Tragau.)

of ancient free masonry. There had subsisted in its liturgic drama
vestiges of its original barbarism, of the time when in the forests,
in the depths of some dark cave, corybantes, enveloped in the skins
of beasts, sprinkled the altars with their blood. In the Roman
towns, the secluded caverns of the mountains were replaced by
subterranean vaults {spelcea') of far less imposing aspect (Fig. 3).
But even in these artificial grottos the scenes of initiation were
IThis Mithrseum, like all others of the same style, is underground. Before the great bas-
relief of Mithras slaying the bull are two altars, the one large and square in form, the other
smaller and richly ornamented. The small statue on the left is Mithras being born from the
rocks. At the entrance we see on the right the lion of Mithras and on the left a font for holy
water. The two torch-bearers have their stand at the pillars which separate the aisles. The
Mithrffium is approached by a stairway and through a square hall (or pronaos), which is consider
ably larger than the sanctum itself.

678 ' THE OPEN COURT.
calculated to produce on the neophyte a profound sensation. 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 stat
ues of the leontocephalous Kronos, laden with attributes and mys
tic 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 officiants,
who, robed in strange costumes, received the new convert. Fitful
flashes of light skilfully manipulated impressed his eyes and his
mind. The sacred emotion with which he was seized lent to im
ages which were really puerile a most formidable appearance; the
vain allurements with which he was confronted 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 efficient formulas,
and they evoked before his distracted imagination divine appari
tions. 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 bounda
ries of death, I have trodden the threshold of Proserpine, and hav
ing traversed all the elements I am returned 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 instructed in the divine science and dis
tinct from all classes of initiates. Its first founders were certainly
the Oriental Magi, but we are almost entirely ignorant of the man
ner in which its ranks were later recruited and organised. Was it
hereditary, named for life, or chosen for a fixed term ? In the latter
event, who had the right of choosing and what conditions did the
candidates have to fulfil? None of these points is sufficiently eluci
dated. We can only state that the priest, who bore indifferently,
as it seems, the title of sacerdos or that of antistes, was often, but
not always, a member of the Fathers. We find one vicar, and
sometimes several, in each temple. There is ever}' ground for be
lieving that a certain hierarchy existed in this "sacerdotal order."
1 Apuleius, Metam., XI, 23, h propos of the mystics of Isis.

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY. 679
Tertullian tells us that the chief pontiff (summus pontifex')^ could
marry but once ; he doubtless designated by this Roman name the
"Father of the Fathers," who appears to have exercised general
jurisdiction over all the initiates residing in the city.^ This is the
only indication we possess regarding an organisation which was
perhaps as solidly constituted as that of the Magi in the Sassanian
kingdom, or that of the Manicheans 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 ex
istence of this kind of Mithraic monachism appears to be all the
more remarkable as the merit attached to celibacy is contrary to
the spirit of Zoroastrianism.
The role of the clergy was certainly more extensive than in the
ancient Greek and Roman religions. The priest was the inter
mediary between God and man. His functions evidently included
the administration of the sacraments and the celebration of the ser
vices. 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 perpetual 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 accompanied with music, were inter
spersed 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 slab, like our tabernacles, revolved on a
pivot, and alternately concealed and exposed the figures that
adorned its two faces.
Every day in the week, the Planet to which it was sacred was
ITertuU., De praescr. haeret., XL.
2 Cf. supra, p. 130. I adopt here the suggestion of M. Wissova, Religion der R'dmer, 1902, p.
309.

68o THE OPEN COURT.
invoked in a fixed spot in the crypt; and Sunday, over which the
Sun presided, was especially holy. Further, the liturgic calendar
solemnised certain dates by festivals concerning which we are un
fortunately very poorly informed. Possibly the sixteenth or middle
day of the month continued (as in Persia) to have Mithra for its
patron. On the other hand, there is never a word in the Occi
dent concerning the celebration of the Mithrakana, which were
so popular in Asia.^ They were doubtless merged in the celebra
tion of the 25th of December, for a very wide-spread custom re
quired 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 be
lieving that equinoxes were also days of rejoicing, the return of the
deified seasons being inaugurated by some religious salutation.
The initiations took place preferably at the beginning of spring, in
March or in April, at the Paschal period, when Christians likewise
admitted their catechumens to the rites of baptism. But concern
ing all these solemnities, as generally with everything connected
with the heortology' of the Mysteries, our ignorance is almost ab
solute. The Mithr^aic communities were not only brotherhoods united
by spiritual bonds ; they were also associations possessing juridic
existence and enjoying the right of holding property. For the man
agement 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
members of these boards of trustees prove to us that the organisa
tion of the colleges of the worshippers of Mithra did not differ from
that of the other religious sodalicia, which was based upon the con
stitutions of the municipalities 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 {decern primi^ possessed, as in
the cities, special privileges. They had their masters (magistri') or
presidents, elected annually, their curators (curatores'), upon whom
fell the task of managing the finances, their attorneys {defensores'),
charged with presenting their cause before the courts or public
bureaus; and finally, their patrons (patroni'), persons of consider-
ISee The Open Court, for March, 1902, p. 171.
2The science of festivals. From eopnj, festival, holiday. — Tr.

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY. 68 1
ation, from whom they expected not only efficient protection but
also pecuniary aid in replenishing their budget.
As the state granted them no subsidies, their well-being de
pended exclusively on private generosity. Voluntary contributions,
the regular revenues of the college, scarcely covered the expenses
of worship, and the least extraordinary expenditure was a heavy
burden for the common purse. These associations of unmoneyed
people could not, with their slender resources, construct sumptu
ous temples ; ordinarily they acquired from some land-holder a
piece of ground favorably situated, 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 in
terior decoration of the crypt and the modelling of the sacred im
ages, other Brothers supplied the necessary sum, and a^honorific
inscription perpetuated the memory of their munificence. Three
dedicatory inscriptions found in Rome enable us to witness the
founding of one of these Mithraic congregations. ^ A freedman and
a freeman contributed a marble altar, two other initiates conse
crated a second one, and a slave likewise made his modest offering.
The generous protectors obtained in return for their liberality th^
highest dignities in the little church. Through their efforts it was
gradually furnished, and in the end could allow itself certain lux
uries. Marble succeeded common stone, sculpture replaced plas
ter, and mosaic was substituted for painting. 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 attachment 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 organic cells of the great religious body, could live and flour
ish. The order was divided into a multitude of little circles,
strongly knit together and practising the same rites in the same
sanctuaries. The size of the temples in which they worshipped is
proof that the number of members was always very limited. Even
supposing that the participants only were allowed to enter the sub
terranean 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. When the
ICIL, VI, 556, 717, 734 = 30822 (7". ei M,, t. II, p. loi, nos 47-481)15).

682 THE OPEN COURT.
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, prevailed 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 sometimes the superior, of the decurion and
the clarissimus. All bowed to the same rules, all were equally hon
ored guests at the same festivals, and after their death they all
doubtless reposed in one common sepulchre. Although no Mith
raic cemetery has been discovered up to the present day, the spe
cial belief of the sect regarding the future life and its very definite
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 religious, a "mansion
eternal," where they could await in peace the day of the resurrec
tion. 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 of their rapid multiplication. The humble plebeians who
first entered its vaults in great numbers found in the fraternity of
these congregations succor and solace. In joining them, they
passed from their isolation and abandonment to become part of a
powerful organisation 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 some part in the
world and of enjoying some consideration in the eyes of his fellows.
With these purely secular reasons were associated the more
powerful motives of faith. The members of these little societies
imagined themselves in the privileged possession of a body of an
cient wisdom derived from the far Orient. The secrecy with which
these unfathomable arcana were surrounded increased the venera
tion that they inspired : Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. The grad
ual 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 trans
formed into reality, actually did find, in the mystic ceremonies a

THE MITHRAIC LITURGY. 683
Stimulant and a consolation. They believed themselves purified
of their guilt by the ritual ablutions, and this baptism hghtened
their conscience of the weight of their heavy responsibility. They
came forth strengthened from these sacred banquets, which con
tained the promise of a better life, where the sufferings of this world
would find their full compensation. The astonishing spread of
Mithraism is due in large measure to these stupendous illusions,
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 considerable role in their churches, and sometimes even a pre
ponderating 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 hundred of inscriptions that have come down to us, not
one mentions either a priestess, a woman initiate, or even a don-
atress. But a religion which aspired to become universal could not
deny a knowledge of divine things to one half of the human race,
and in order to afford some opportunity for feminine devotion it
contracted at Rome an alliance which certainly contributed 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.

GOSPEL PArKlLELS EROm/pALI TEXTS

Translated fdbm the Originals by AljSert J. Edmunds.
(Eighth Series.)
i.-' DECLINE OF THE FAITH.'
WITH REMARKS ON MAITREYA.
Matthew xxiv. ii, 12. Many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead many
astray. And because iniquity shall be multiplied, the love of the many
shall wax cold.
Luke xviii. 8. When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the
earth? NUMERICAL COLLECTION V. 79.
MONKS, the following five future dangers (or, fears for the
future), though not arisen now, will hereafter arise. Ye
must be awake thereto, and being awake, must struggle to avert
them. What are the five ?
Monks, there will be monks in the far future, wanting in phys
ical, moral, emotional and intellectual control ; and being so, they
will confer Initiation upon others, and will not be able to train
them in superior morals, emotions and intelligence. These, being
also without the aforesaid control, will initiate others in their turn,
who will keep up the same state of things. And so, monks, from
corruption of doctrine [will come] corruption of discipline, and
from corruption of discipline corruption of doctrine.
This, monks, is the first future danger which, though not
arisen now, will hereafter arise. Ye must be awake thereto, and
being awake, must struggle to avert it.
1 Translated from the AnSgata-ihayHni (Future Dangers), one of the texts among the selec
tions of the Emperor Asoko, in his Edict at Bhaba, and found in the Numerical CoUection, V.
77-80. Chapters y-^ and 78 deal with the personal dangers for monks in any age, including Bud
dha's own. In Chapter 77 they practice religion for security against the dangers of the forest :
snakes, scorpions, centipedes, etc. In Chapter 78 they practice it for security in old age or times
of trial. We now translate Chapter 79 entire.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE
EMPIRE.'
BY PROFESSOR FRANZ CUMONT.
THE Acts of the Oriental martyrs bear eloquent testimony to
the intolerance of the national clergy of the Persia of the Sas
sanids ; and the Magi of the ancient empire, if they were not per
secutors, at least constituted 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 civili
sation. Transported into a strange world, it was compelled to ac
commodate 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 Avest&n yazatas aLSsnmed there the guise of
the immortals enthroned on Olympus, and these facts are in them
selves sufficient to prove that far from exhibiting hostility toward
the ancient Graeco-Roman beliefs, the Asiatic religion sought to
accommodate itself to them, in appearance at least. A pious mystic
could, without renouncing his faith, dedicate a votive inscription
to the Capitolian triad, — Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva; he merely
invested these divine names 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 Mith
raic initiates, was ever obeyed it was not long able to withstand the
syncretic tendencies of imperial paganism. For in the fourth cen
tury the "Fathers of the Fathers" were found performing the
highest offices of the priesthood, in temples of all sorts.
Everywhere the sect knew how to adapt itself with consum-
1 Extracted by the author from his Textes et Monuments fgurts relati/s aux Mystires de
Mithra (Brussels : H. Lamertin). Translated by T. J. McCormack.

7l8 THE OPEN COURT.
mate 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 honored in the crypts of the
Persian god, or at least in conjunction with them. Thus, the Maz
dean theology, according to the 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
diversified the subordinate details of the religion, and never im
perilled 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,
Mithraism having arrived in the Occident in its full maturity, and
even showing signs of decrepitude, no longer assimilated the ele
ments that it borrowed from the surrounding life. The only in
fluences that profoundly modified its character were those to which
it was subjected in its youth amidst the populations of Asia.
The close relations in which Mithra stood to certain gods of
this country is not only explained 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 Persians persisted even in Rome under the emperors, 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, thoroughly im
bued with Chaldaean theories, must have presented a striking re
semblance 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 Carnuntum in Pannonia, a mithraeum and a
dolichenum adjoined each other. Baal, the lord of the heavens, was
readily identified with Ormadz, who had become Jupiter-Caelus,
and Mithra was easily likened to the solar god of the Syrians. Even
the rites of the two liturgies appear to have offered some resem
blances. As in Commagene, so also in Phrygia, Mazdaism had sought
a common ground of understanding with the religion of the coun
try. In the union of Mithra and Anahita the counterpart was found
of the intimacy between the great indigenous divinities Attis and
Cybele, and this harmony between the two sacred couples persisted

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 719
in Italy. The most ancient mithraeum known to us was coiTfiguous
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 conducted in intimate communion with each other throughout
the entire extent of the empire. Despite the profound differences
of their character, political reasons drew them together. In con
ciliating the priests of the Mater Magna, the sectaries of Mithra
obtained the support of a powerful and officially recognised clergy,
and so shared in some measure in the protection 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 Anahita; she had her^ Matre s 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 ancient cult of Pessinus, now naturalised at Rome.
The loud pomp of its festivals was a poor mask of the vacuity of
its doctrines, which no longer satisfied the aspirations of its devo
tees. Its gross theology was elevated by the adoption of certain
Mazdean beliefs. There can be scarcely any doubt that the prac
tice of the taurobolium, 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 ditch below, was
probably 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 slaughtered 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 god
desses, 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 (Ta.v-
poTToXiov), which was transformed by the popular etymology into i
taurobolium {ravpofioXiov). But under the infiuence of the Mazdean I
beliefs regarding the future life, a more profound significance was

720 THE OPEN COURT.
attributed 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-sustaining liquid
was now thought to communicate, but a renewal, temporary and
even perpetual, of the human soul.^
When, under the empire, the taurobolium was introduced into
Italy, it was not quite certain at the outset what Latin name should
be given the goddess in whose honor it was celebrated. 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 recognised
cult could be modified without the authorisation 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
eternal new birth that was expected of it, resembled 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 savage 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 god
dess took place at Ostia, where the metroon, as we saw above, ad
joined a Mithraic crypt.
The symbolism of the Mysteries certainly saw in the Magna
Mater the nourishing Earth which the Heavens yearly fecundated.
So the Graeco-Roman divinities which they adopted changed in
character on entering their dogmatic system. Now, these gods were
identified with the Mazdean heroes, and the barbaric legends then
celebrated the new exploits which they had performed. Again,
they were considered as the agents that produced the various trans
formations of the universe. Then, in the centre of this pantheon,
which had again become naturalistic, 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 heav
ens themselves, — the one who diffused with his light and his heat
1 These pages summarise the conclusions of a study entitled Le taurobole et le culte de Bellone,
published in the Revue d'hiitoire et de litttrature religieuses.
2'See The Open Court for October, igo2, p. 609,

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 721
all of life here below. This conception, astronomical in its origin,
predominated more and more according as Mithra entered into
more intimate relations with Greek thought and became a more
faithful subject of the Roman state.
The worship of the Sun, the outcome of a sentiment of recog
nition for its daily benefactions, augmented by the observation of
its tremendous r61e in the cosmic system, was the logical upshot
of paganism. When critical thought sought to explain the sacred
traditions and discovered in the popular gods the forces and ele
ments 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, out
side the world, one cult only was reasonable and scientific and that
was the cult of the Sun."i From the time of Plato and Aristotle
Greek philosophy regarded the celestial bodies as animate and
divine creatures; Stoicism 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 be
liefs, 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 philosophical 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 and that of the Sol invictus. When
the Caesars of the third century pretended to be gods descended
from heaven to the earth, the justification of their imaginary claims
had as its corollary the establishment of a public worship of the
divinity from whom they believed themselves the emanations. He-
liogabalus had claimed for his Baal of Emesa the supremacy over
the entire pagan pantheon. The eccentricities and violences of
this unbalanced man resulted in the lamentable wreck of his under
taking ; 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 edi
fice to the tutelary god that had granted him victory in Syria. The
religion of state 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
1 Renan, Lettre h Berthelot [Dialogues et /ragments philosophiques), p. i68.

722 THE OPEN COURT.
sanctuaries of the Orient and not of the dim caves in which the
Mysteries were celebrated. 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 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 uni
verse 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 Sa
turnalia, has learnedly set forth that the gods were ultimately re
ducible 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 Pretextat who defended this radical syncrasy was not only
one of the highest dignitaries of the empire, 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 Graeco-Roman paganism, which accorded the sidereal pow
ers a minimal place only. It had in a measure traced idolatry back
to its origin, and discovered in the myths that obscured its compre
hension the deification of nature. Breaking with the Roman prin
ciple of the nationality 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 annihi
lation 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 Mys
teries and Christianity had long begun. The propagation of the
two religions had been almost contemporaneously conducted, and
their diffusion had taken place under analogous conditions. Both
from the Orient, they had spread because of the same general rea
sons, viz., the political unity and the moral anarchy of the empire.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 723
Iheir diffusion had been accomplished with like rapidity, and
toward the close of the second century they both numbered adher
ents in the most distant parts of the Roman world. The sectaries I
of Mithra might justly lay claim to the hyperbolic utterance of Ter
tullian : ^^ Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus." If we con
sider the number of the monuments that the Persian rehgion has
left us, one may easily ask whether in the epoch of the Severi its
adepts were not more numerous than the disciples of Christ. An
other point of resemblance between the two antagonistic creeds was
that at the outset they drew their proselytes chiefly from the in
ferior classes of society; their propaganda was at the origin essen
tially popular; unlike the philosophical sects, they addressed their
endeavors less to cultivated minds than to the masses, and conse
quently appealed more to sentiment than to reason.
But by the side of these resemblances considerable differences
are to be remarked in the methods of procedure of the two adver
saries. The initial conquests of Christianity were favored by the I
Jewish diaspora, and it first spread in the countries inhabited by '
Israelitic colonies. It was therefore chiefiy in the countries washed
by the Mediterranean that its communities developed. They did
not extend their field of action outside the cities, and their mul
tiplication is due in great part to missions undertaken with the
express purpose of "instructing the nations." The extension 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 function
aries. It was in government circles and in the army that it counted
its greatest numbers of votaries, — that is, in circles where very few
Christians could be found because of their aversion to official pagan
ism. Outside of Italy, it spread principally along the frontiers and
simultaneously gained a foothold in the cities and in the country.
It found its strongest points of support in the Danubian provinces
and in Germany, 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 accordingly longi
grow and develop without coming directly into conflict. It was in
the valley of the Rhone, in Africa, and especially in the city ol
Rome, where the two competitors were most firmly established,
that the rivalry, during the third century, became particularly!
brisk between the bands of Mithra's worshippers and the disciples!
of Christ. The struggle between the two rival religions was the more

724 THE OPEN COURT.
Stubborn as their characters were the more alike. The adepts of
both formed secret conventicles, closely united, the members of
which gave themselves the name of "Brothers,"^ The rites which
they practised offered numerous analogies. The sectaries of the
Persian god, like the Christians, purified themselves by baptism ;
received, by a species of confirmation, the power necessary to com
bat the spirits of evil ; and ardently expected 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 Decem
ber, the same day on which Christmas has always been celebrated,
at least since the fourth century. They both preached a categor
ical system of ethics, regarded asceticism as meritorious, and
counted among their principal virtues abstinence and continence,
renunciation and self-control. Their concepts of the world and of
the destiny of man were similar. They both admitted the exist
ence of a Heaven inhabited by beatified ones, situate in the upper
regions, and that 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 rev
elation ; 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 Mysteries made of
Mithra a "mediator" equivalent to the Alexandrian Logos. Like
him, Christ also was a /jholt-ij's, 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, and the figure of the tau
roctonous god reluctantly immolating his victim, that he might
create and save the human race, was certainly compared to the pic
ture of the Redeemer sacrificing his own person for the salvation
of the world.
On the other hand, the ecclesiastical writers, reviving a meta
phor of the prophet Malachi, 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
1 1 may remark that even the expression " dearest brothers " had already been used by the
sectaries of Jupiter Dolichenus (CIL, VI, 4C6 = 30758 : /ratres carissimos ei conlegas kon\esiissi-
mos]) and probably also in the Mithraic associations.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 725
homage which orthodoxy reserved for God? In the fifth century,
not only heretics, but even faithful followers, were still wont to
bow their heads towards its dazzling disk as it rose above the hori
zon, 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
century, the Greek philosophers were wont to draw parallels be
tween the Persian Mysteries and Christianity which were evidently
entirely in favor of the former. The Apologists also dwelt on the
analogies between the two religions, and explained them as a Sa
tanic travesty of the holiest rites of their religion. If the polemical
works of the Mithraists had been preserved, we should doubtless
have heard the same accusation hurled back upon their Christian
adversaries. We cannot presume to unravel to-day a question which divided
contemporaries and which shall doubtless forever remain insoluble.
We are too imperfectly acquainted with the dogmas and liturgies
of Roman Mazdaism, as well as with the development of primitive
Christianity, to say definitely what mutual influences were opera
tive in their simultaneous evolution. But be this as it may, re
semblances do not necessarily suppose an imitation. Many corre
spondences between the Mithraic doctrine and the Catholic faith
are explicable by their common Oriental origin. Nevertheless, cer
tain ideas and certain ceremonies must necessarily have passed
from the one cult to the other; but in the majority of cases we
rather suspect this transference than clearly perceive it.
Apparently the attempt was made to discern 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 contrast 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 counterpart of that in which Christ was born at Bethlehem. iS^
But this strained parallelism could result in nothing but a carica-
IM. Jean Reville [Etudes publiies en hommage & ta facultt de thiologie 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. Dieterich in a recent article (Zeiischr.f. Neuiest, IViss., 1902, p. 190), in which he
has endeavored not without ingenuity to explain the formation of the legend of the Magi kings,
admits that, the worship of the shepherds was introduced into Christian tradition from Mazda
ism. But I must remark that the Mazdean beliefs regarding the advent of Mithra into the world
have sfrangely varied. (Cf. T, ei M„ t, I., pp. 160 et seq.)

726

THE OPEN COURT.

ture. It was a strong source of inferiority for Mazdaism that it
believed in only a mythical redeemer. That unfailing wellspring
of religious emotion supplied by the Gospel and the Passion of the
God sacrificed on the cross, never flowed for the disciples of Mithra.
On the other hand, the orthodox and heretical liturgies of
Christianity, which gradually sprang up during the first centuries
of our era, could find abundant inspiration in the Mithraic Mys
teries, which of all the pagan religions offered the most affinity with
Christian institutions. 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 practises. Perhaps
the custom of invoking the Sun three times each day, — at dawn, at
noon, and at dusk, — was reproduced in the daily prayers of the
Church, and it appears certain that the commemoration of the Na
tivity was set for the 25th of December, because it was at the

Fig I. Bas-Relief OF Mayence.
Mithra drawing his bow ; and the god of the winds.
winter solstice that the rebirth of the invincible god,'^ the Natalis
Invicti, was celebrated. In adopting this date, which was uni
versally distinguished by sacred festivities, the ecclesiastical author
ity purified in some measure the profane usages which it could not
suppress. The only domain in which we can ascertain in detail the ex
tent to which Christianity imitated Mithraism is that of art. The
Mithraic sculpture, which had been first developed, furnished the
ancient Christian marble-cutters with a large number of models,
which they adopted or adapted. For example, they drew inspira
tion from the figure of Mithra causing the waters of the well of life
to leap forth by the blows of his arrows,' to create the figure of
Moses smiting with his rod the rock of Horeb (Fig. i). Faithful
1 See Open Court for November, p. 680. 2 See Open Court for October, p. 6b5.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 727
to an inveterate tradition, they even reproduced the figures of cos
mic divinities, 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 com
positions that adorned the sacred grottoes of Mithra. i
It would be wrong, however, to exaggerate the significance of
these likenesses. If Christianity and Mithraism offered profound
resemblances, the principal of which were the belief in the purifica
tion of souls and the hope of a beatific resurrection, differences no
less essential separated them. The most important was the con
trast of their relations to Roman paganism. The Mazdean Mys
teries sought to conciliate paganism by a succession of adaptations
and compromises; they sought to establish monotheism while not
combating polytheism, whereas the Church was, in point of prin
ciple, if not always in practise, the unrelenting antagonist of idol
atry in any form. The attitude of Mithraism was apparently the
wisest ; it gave to the Persian religion greater elasticity and pow
ers 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 better world, without compelling them to de
test the faith of their fathers and the state of which they were cit-'
izens. As the Church grew in power despite its persecutors, this
policy of compromise first assured to Mithraism much tolerance
and afterwards even the favor of the public authorities. But it
also prevented it from freeing itself of the gross and ridiculous
superstitions which complicated its ritual and its theology; it in
volved it, in spite of its austerity, in an equivocal alliance with the
orgiastic cult of the beloved of Attis ; and it compelled it to drag
the entire weight of a chimerical and odious past. If Romanised
Mazdaism had triumphed, it would not only have assured the per
petuity of all the aberrations of pagan mysticism, but would also
have rescued from oblivion the erroneous doctrine of physics on
which its dogmatism reposed. The Christian doctrine, which broke
with the cults of nature, remained unconsciously 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, gained for it as many
souls as the positive hopes which it promised. It performed the
1 See next Open Court.

728 THE OPEN COURT.
miraculous feat of triumphing over the ancient world in spite of
legislation and the imperial 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 toward the middle
of the third century, and it appeared for a moment as if the world
was on the eve 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, adminis
tered a terrible blow to the Mazdean sect, which was most power
ful 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 compensation, the authorities, menaced by the rapid
progress of Christianity, renewed their support to the most re
doubtable adversary that they could oppose to it. In the universal
downfall the army was the only institution that remained standing,
and the Caesars created by the legions were bound perforce to seek
their support in the favored religion of 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. Diocletian, 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 Per
sian 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- organised empire.^
The Christians believed, not without some appearance of reason,
that the Mithraic clergy were the instigators of the great persecu
tion of Galerius. In the Roman empire as in Iran, a vaguely monis
tic heliolatry appeared on the verge of becoming the sole, intolerant
religion of state. But the conversion 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 himself had shared,' they ceased to constitute a recog
nised cult and were tolerated only. His successors were determin
edly hostile. To latent defiance succeeded open persecution. Chris
tian polemics no longer restricted its attacks to ridiculing the le
gends and practises of the Mazdean Mysteries, nor even to taunt-
1 See The Open Court for August, p. 451.
2Cf. Preger, Konstaniinos-Helios (Hermes, XXXVI), r90i, p. 457.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE. 729
mg them for having as their founders the irreconcilable 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 re
frained from observing the stars, and tremblingly held their eyes
fixed upon the ground, we have in these emphatic declarations a
magnified echo of the fears that then filled all pagan hearts.
The proclamation of Julian the Apostate (331-363 A. D.) sud
denly inaugurated an unexpected turn in affairs. A philosopher, '
seated on the throne by the armies of Gaul, Julian had cherished
from childhood a secret devotion for Helios. He was firmly con
vinced that this god had rescued him from the perils that 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 spirit
ual son. He dedicated to this celestial "king" a discourse in
which the ardor of his faith transforms in places a cold theological
dissertation into an inflamed dithyrambic, and the fervor of his de
votion for the star that he worshipped never waned to the moment
of his death.
The young prince had been presumably drawn to the Mysteries
by his superstitious predilection for the supernatural. Before his
accession, perhaps even from youth, he had been introduced se
cretly into a Mithraic conventicle by the philosopher Maximus of
Ephesus. The ceremonies of 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 pro
claimed himself a pagan, he called Maximus to his side, and doubt
less had recourse to extraordinary ablutions 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 as
cended 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, 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
IMaroert,, Grat, actio in Julian., o. 23.

730 THE OPEN COURT.
Invicti, The emperor contented 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
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 perished this spasmodic
attempt at reaction, and Christianity, now definitively victor, ad
dressed 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 astrology
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 practises 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 government legislated
formally and directly against the disgraced sect. In the provinces,
popular uprisings frequently anticipated the interference 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 con
version the "smashing, shattering, and shivering, "^ of a Mithraic
crypt, with all the statues that it contained. Frequently, in order
to protect their grottoes from pillage, the priests walled up the
entrances, or conveyed their sacred images to well-protected hiding-
places, convinced that the tempest 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 contaminated by the
presence of a dead body ever afterward unfit for worship, some
times slew the refractory priests of Mithra and buried them in the
ruins of their sanctuaries, now forever profaned (Fig. 2).
The hope of restoration was especially tenacious at Rome,
which remained the capital of paganism. The aristocracy, still
faithful 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 redoubled
ISt, Jerome, Epist, lo-j ad Lest am [T, et M., t. II, p. i8); subveriit^ /regit ^ excussii.

MITHRAISM AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE EMPIRE.

731

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 grand
father near the Flaminian Way, boasting that he was able to dis
pense with public subsidies of any kind.^ The usurpation of Eu
genius appeared for a moment to bring on the expected resurrection.
The prefect of the praetorium, Nicomachus Flavianus, celebrated
solemn taurobolia and renewed in a sacred cave the Mysteries of
the "associate god" {deum comiiem) of the pretender. But the vic
tory of Theodosius, 394 A- D., shattered once and for all the hopes
of the belated partisans and the ancient Mazdean belief.
A few clandestine conventicles may, with stubborn persistence,
have been held in the subterranean retreats of the palaces. The

Fig. 2. Chained Skeleton.
Discovered in the ruins of a temple at Saarburg.
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 flourishing valley, of which a narrow defile
closed the mouth. But httle by little its last disciples in the Latin
countries abandoned a religion tainted v/ith moral as well as polit
ical decadence. It maintained its ground with greater tenacity in
the Orient, the land of its birth. Driven out of the rest of the em
pire, it found a refuge in the countries of its origin, where its light
only slowly flickered out.
ICIL, VI, 774 {T. et M,,t. II, p. 94, n°. 13).

732 THE OPEN COURT.
Nevertheless, the conceptions which Mithraism had diffused
throughoti^ the empire during a period of three centuries were not
destined to perish with it. Some of them, even those most charac-
Iteristic 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 accel
erated 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 irreconcil
able with orthodox Christianity, outside of which only they could
maintain their hold. Its theory of sidereal influences, alternately
condemned and tolerated, was carried down by astrology to the
threshold of modern times; but it was to a religion more powerful
than this false science that the Persian 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 numer
ous 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 reli
gions had been formed in the Orient from a mixture of ancient
Babylonian mythology with the Persian dualism, and had after
wards absorbed. Hellenic elements. The sect of Manichasus spread
throughout the empire during the fourth century, at the moment
when Mithraism was expiring, and it was called to assume the lat-
ter's succession. Mystics whom the polemics of the church against
paganism had shaken but not converted were enraptured with the
hew conciliatory faith which suffered both Zoroaster and Christ to
be simultaneously worshipped. The wide diffusion which the Maz
dean beliefs with their taint of Chaldaeism had enjoyed, prepared
the minds of the empire for the reception of the new heresy. The
latter found its ways made smooth for it, and this is the secret of
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.

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