In the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, supervised by so eminent a scholar and hierologist as the late Professor Robertson Smith, as against some hundreds of pages on the books of the Bible, there was devoted to the subject of the ancient Persian deity Mithra or Mithras, and his cultus, one column. All the while, Mithraism was well known to have been the chief rival to Christianity in the ancient world. Within the past dozen years there has taken place a great improvement in the sense of proportion among the cultivators of hierology; and the study of Mithraism, in particular, has been conducted with a zeal and a competence which leave little opening for new contributions. The present survey, first undertaken over twenty years ago, is an attempt to elucidate, in the light of comparative science, what is likely to remain an obscure problem.
When all is said, we have but a fragmentary knowledge of Mithraism. But we do know that it was during some centuries the most widespread of the religious systems of the Roman empire. That is to say, Mithraism was in point of range the most nearly universal religion of the western world in the early centuries of the Christian era. As to this, students are agreed. 1 To the early
And yet, with all this testimony to the vogue of Mithraism in the early Christian centuries, there ensues for a whole era an
absolute blank in the knowledge of the matter in Christendom—a thousand years in which the ancient cultus seems a forgotten name in Europe. One modern investigator, M. Lajard, 1 thinks that since the time of the Fathers the first in European literature to mention Mithra was Pietro Riccio (Petrus Crinitus), 2 born about 1465, a disciple of Politian; and no other mention occurs till about the middle of the sixteenth century. 3 Such was the ignorance of most scholars, that of three now well-known Mithraic monuments discovered about that period, not one is attributed to Mithra either by the great antiquarian of the time, Rossi, or by his pupil, Flaminius Vacca. Every one knows the sculptured group of Mithra slaying the bull, so often engraved, of which we have a good example in the British Museum. Rossi declared one of these monuments to represent Jupiter, as the bull, carrying off Europa; and Vacca tells how a lion-headed image, now known to represent Kronos-Zervan or the Time-Spirit in the mysteries of Mithra, but then held to represent the devil, was (probably) burned in a limekiln. 4 A century later, Leibnitz demonstrated that Ormazd and Ahriman, the Good and Evil Powers of the Persian system to which Mithra belonged, were simply deified heroes; and later still the historian Mosheim, a man not devoid of judgment, elaborately proved that Mithra had simply been at one time, like Nimrod, a famous hunter, 5 before the Lord or otherwise. Other eighteenth-century scholars discussed the problem more intelligently; 6 but even in our own day, when all the extant notices and monuments of Mithra have been carefully collected and studied, vigilant scholars 7 confess that we know very little as to the Mithraic religion. It is somewhat remarkable that this should be so; and though in the terms of the case we cannot look to find much direct knowledge, we may hope at least to find out why the once popular cultus has fallen into such obscurity. To that end we must see what really is known about it.
281:1 Cp. Tiele, Outlines of the History of the Ancient Religions, Eng. tr. p. 170; Gaston Boissier, La Religion Romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins, i, 395, ii, 417; H. Seel, Die Mithrageheimnisse, Aarau, 1823, p. 214; Sainte-Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères du Paganisme, 2e. édit. ii, 123; Smith and Cheetham's Dict. of Christ. Antiq., art. Paganism; Beugnot, Hist. de la Destruction du Paganisme, 1835, i, 156-8, 336, ii, 225; Windischmann, Mithra, ein Beitrag zur Mythengeschichte des Orients, in Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlands, Bd. i, p. 62; E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, 1884, i, 541; Ozanam, History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century, Eng. tr. i, 77; Creuzer, Das Mithrēum von Neuenheim bei Heidelberg, 1838, pp. 10, 19; Lajard, Recherches sur le culte public et les Mystères de Mithra, 1867, p. 672; Preller, Römische Mythologie, ed. Köhler, pp. 758-63; Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 1905, Bk. iv, ch. 6; Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, col. 3067, 11. 20-30; Prof. Cumont, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, 1894-6, passim (partly translated by T. J. McCormack, 1903, under title The Mysteries of Mithra, where see pp. 38-84, and in Open Court, May, June, and July, 1902. where see pp. 303, 305, 306, 310, 340, 347, etc.); Quinet, Génie des Religions, 1. iv, sec. 1; Renan, Marc. Aurèle, éd. 1882, pp. 576-581; Jean Réville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères, 1886, pp. 78, 84-5, 102; Hertzberg, Geschichte Griechenlands unter der Herrschaft der Römer, 1866, 3te Th. pp. 120-121; Gardner, Exploratio Evangelica, 1899; p. 333; Hausrath, Hist. of N.T. Times: Time of the Apostles, Eng. tr. 1895, i, 96-7.
282:1 Wright, The Celt, The Roman, and the Saxon, 4th ed. pp. 327, 353.
282:2 Such a cave, since discovered at Ostia, is described in the Athenæum, Oct. 30 and Nov. 6, 1886 (ext. rep. in Ancient Calendars and Constellations, by the Hon. Emmeline E. Plunkett, 1903, p. 62).
282:3 There are a shrine and two altars. The second altar has on its frieze the simple word Deo, the whole inscription running: "To the Sun-God, Mithra, unconquered, eternal." The first was erected in the year 252. See the Newcastle Society of Antiquarians' Guide to the Black Gate, etc., pp. 11-12.
282:4 Wright, as cited, p. 327; Wellbeloved, Eburacum, 1842, pp. 75, 84; Stukeley, Palæographica Britannica, No. 3, London, 1752. See also the inscriptions to Sol and Mithra in Hübner, Inscr. Brit. Lat.
282:5 See the scholarly and temperate essay of Canon (now Bishop) Hicks, Mithras Worship (rep. from "The Roman Fort at Manchester"), Manch. Univ. Press, 1909.
282:6 C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, 2nd ed. p. 136. The statement as to France seems inexact. Cp. Prof. Cumont, Textes et Monuments, passim. Prof. Cumont ascribes the largest share of Mithraic monuments to Germany, noting that they are abundant also in Italy, and fairly plentiful in south-eastern Gaul, but rare in central and western France, and very scanty in Greece.
283:1 Introduction à l’étude du culte de Mithra, 1846, pp. 2-3.
283:2 De Honesta Disciplina, v, 14, cited by Lajard.
283:3 By Smet and Pighi.
283:4 Cp. Cumont, Textes et Monuments, ii, 196; King, pp. 129-130.
283:5 Mosheim's notes on Cudworth, Intellectual System, Harrison's ed. i, 475.
283:6 See a list in Fabricius, Bibliographia Antiquaria, ed. 3a. 1760, p. 332; and cp. M. J. C. Wolf, Manichæismus ante Manichæos, 1707, pp. 62-7.
283:7 Havet, Le Christianisme et ses Origines, iii, 402; Cumont, Textes et Monuments, as cited, i, 5-7; J. Réville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sévères, p. 88.