Midrash

“ Very important for the study of Midrashic literature are the Yalqūṭ (gleaning) Shimʽōnī, on the whole Bible, the Yalqūṭ Mekhīrī, on the Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs and Job, and the Midrash ha-gadhōl, [3] all of which are of uncertain but late date and preserve earlier material. The last, which is preserved in MSS. from Yemen, is especially valuable as representing an independent tradition. ”

“ The Patriarch asked how long he had to live. "About five hundred years more," answered the angel. "Then," said Methuselah, "it is not worth taking the trouble for so short a time." [1]
"Methuselah," says the Midrash, "was a thoroughly righteous man. Every word that fell from his lips was superlatively perfect, exhausting the praises of the Lord. He had learnt nine hundred chapters of the Mischna. At his death a frightful thunder was heard, and all beasts burst into tears. He was mourned seven days by men, and therefore the outbreak of the Flood was postponed till the mourning was over." ”

“ The halakoth are fuller and sometimes older than the corresponding decisions in the Mishnah, and the treatment is generally more haggadic. [10] The method of making the discussions part of an interpretation of the Old Testament (halakic Midrash) , as exemplified in the Tōsephtā, is apparently older than the abstract and independent decisions of the Mishnah—which presuppose an acquaintance with the Pentateuchal basis—and, like the employment of narrative or historical Midrash (e.g. in the Pentateuch, Chronicles and Jubilees) , was more suitable for popular exposition than for the academies. ”

“ HAGGADA, or ’Agada (literally “narrative”) , includes the more homiletic elements of rabbinic teaching. It is not logically distinguishable from the halakha (q.v.) , for the latter or forensic element makes up with the haggada the Midrash (q.v.) , but, being more popular than the halakha, is often itself styled the Midrash. ”

“ The Hebrew and Aramaic of the Talmudic period had little to learn from a people which after the close of the Talmudic era became the world's teacher.
The difficulties besetting the study of Talmud and Midrash will be overcome in the degree in which modern scholars will take it up for philological and archaeological purposes as adjuncts of those who are too much engrossed in its practical and doctrinal side to allow themselves time for what seems to them unessential. ”

“ When they brought him, he taught the lad to repeat the blessing, which he did on the ensuing Sabbath at the public reading of the law; upon which his father was immediately removed from hell to Paradise. On the self-same night the father repaired direct to Rabbi Akiva, and gratefully expressed his hope that the Rabbi's mind might be as much at rest as his own was.
Midrash Assereth Hadibroht.
There are three things which a man does not wish for: Grass to grow up among his grain-crops; to have a daughter among his children; or that his wine should turn to vinegar. ”

“ Now, I wonder whether those ignorant persons [who take the Midrashic interpretations literally] believe that the author of this saying gave it as the true interpretation of the text quoted, and as the meaning of this precept: that in truth yated, "the paddle," is used for "the finger, "and azeneka denotes "thy ear." I cannot think that any person whose intellect is sound can admit this. The author employed the text as a beautiful poetical phrase, in teaching an excellent moral lesson, namely this: It is as bad to listen to bad language as it is to use it. ”

“ A ladder takes the pious souls from one story to another. When the souls have traversed the seven zones, they enter the last paradisaic abode of eternal light and beatitude. At the end of time, Ahriman will destroy the world. Mithra will then come down upon the earth and will bring about the resurrection of the dead. The dead that have come to life again will recognize one another. Mithra will separate the righteous from the wicked. A bull, akin to the primeval Bull, will appear on earth. Mithra will immolate it and give its fat with wine to the righteous that will make them immortal. ”

“ After the separation of these two groups of the Aryan people, Mithra rose to great eminence, and was the premier divinity in Western Iran, when Zarathushtra preached his religion. During the period of syncretism after the passing away of the prophet, Mithra became the most conspicuous angel of the Younger Avestan period. The longest Yasht, which is eight times longer than the Yasht composed in honour of Ahura Mazda, celebrates his greatness. He is the most masculine, exacting, implacable, and relentless of all the Yazatas. ”

“ Nor was the very real, if somewhat vague, monotheism which Mithraism taught, very likely to attract, at first sight, the enthusiasm of a large and mixed population engaged in civil pursuits. If the conjecture made above be correct, the Mithraist in the ordinary way acknowledged no other god than Mithras, although he would probably have admitted that he was but the representative and antitype of the supreme Jupiter whom he recognized as the official head of the State pantheon. ”

“ Mithraic monuments represent in stone Mithra in the act of immolating the Bull, Mithraic legends, cosmogony, and mysteries.
Mithraic eschatology. The soul is immortal. It receives the reward or retribution according to the life it led upon earth. Mithra presides over the tribunal that judges the souls. As the heavenly Mediator, he helps the good to ascend to heaven and welcomes them as children returning from a distant journey. Woe imto the souls of the wicked, for they are dragged to hell by Ahriman and submitted to untold tortures. ”

“ Mithras has a male and a female aspect, though not himself androgynous. As Mithras, he is the ford of the sun, powerful and radiant, and most magnificent of the Yazatas (Izads, or Genii, of the sun) . As Mithra, this deity represents the feminine principle; the mundane universe is recognized as her symbol. She represents Nature as receptive and terrestrial, and as fruitful only when bathed in the glory of the solar orb. The Mithraic cult is a simplification of the more elaborate teachings of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) , the Persian fire magician. ”

“ Candidates who successfully passed the Mithraic initiations were called Lions and were marked upon their foreheads with the Egyptian cross. Mithras himself is often pictured with the head of a lion and two pairs of wings. Throughout the entire ritual were repeated references to the birth of Mithras as the Sun God, his sacrifice for man, his death that men might have eternal life, and lastly, his resurrection and the saving of all humanity by his intercession before the throne of Ormuzd. ”

“ If the worship of Mithras were not indigenous in Western Asia, it may therefore well have come there independently of the Persians [796] .
There is no doubt, however, that the roots of Mithras-worship went very far down into the Persian religion. In the Yashts or hymns which are the earliest evidence of primitive Iranian beliefs, Mithra—to use the Avestic spelling of his name—frequently appears, not indeed as the material sun, but as the “genius of the heavenly light” which lightens the whole universe [797] and is the most beneficent among the powers of Nature. ”

“ Mithra gives swift horses to those who do not deceive him; to the habitation in which he is satisfied he gives troops of cattle and men. The fire of Auramazda gives the straightest path to those who do not deceive Mithra. But if the lord of the house, the village, the canton, the land deceives him, then Mithra in anger destroys house and village, canton and land. Not all evil deeds, not all deception, are seen by Mithra, saith the wicked man. But Mithra sees all that is between heaven and earth. With ten thousand eyes he beholds the man who hates and deceives him. ”

“ Mithras is spiritual light contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labours the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with heaven's own light; the Eternal will receive all things back into his favour, the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the Good, his name is Love. In [pg 363] relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace, in relation to man he is the life-giver and mediator. ”

“ At her side stands the sun-god Mithras, who is represented as a young and victorious hero. Both deities occupy the very first rank in the popular creed; while to the theologian they are the most potent of the good powers—Mithras being the herald and propagator of the service of Light and the mediator betwixt man and Ahuramazda, who now fades more into the background. Thus, in the subsequent period, the Persian religion appears purely as the religion of Mithras. ”

“ For the bull whose death at the hands of the God takes the central position in all the representations of Mithras was originally none other than the God himself—the sun in the constellation of the Bull, at the spring equinox—the sacrifice of the bull accordingly being also a symbol of the God who gives his own life, in order by his death to bring a new, richer and better life. Mithras, too, performs this self-sacrifice, although his heart struggles against it, at the command of the God of Heaven, which is brought to him by a raven, the messenger of the God of Gods. ”

“ Ahura Mazda consequently has ordained that Mithra should watch from on high over the entire moving world. [136] The heat of Mithra it is, accordingly, that gives warmth and life to the plant world and bestows fertility upon this earth. Mithra, as a guardian genius in the celestial realm, superintends the vast expanse of the universe. Varuna has a thousand eyes, [137] and Mithra is constantly spoken of as having a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The brilliant sun is the lord of yonder heavens, who with his infinite rays of light pervades the whole world. ”

“ Mithras, also a soldier, give us strength for the day!
Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat.
Our helmets scorch our foreheads, our sandals burn our feet.
Now in the ungirt hour—now ere we blink and drowse,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!
Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main—
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!
Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull dies,
Look on thy children in darkness. ”

“ In Persian mythology Mitra, as Mithra, is the patron of Truth, and "the Mediator" between heaven and earth [70] . This god was also worshipped by the military aristocracy of Mitanni, which held sway for a period over Assyria. In Roman times the worship of Mithra spread into Europe from Persia. Mithraic sculptures depict the deity as a corn god slaying the harvest bull ”

“ Fire, wind, water, and earth are the four steeds that drive the chariot of the Supreme God. The Sun goes his daily round in his chariot. The moon drives in a cart drawn by white bulls. Verethraghna is likened to a bellicose and destructive boar, one of the forms in which he manifests himself in the Avestan texts. The exploits and achievements of other Yazatas are ascribed to Mithra. As God is unknowable and unapproachable, Mithra acts as the Mediator between God and mankind. ”

“ M. Georges Lafaye is of opinion that it narrates in apocalyptic fashion the adventures of the soul of a perfect Mithraist on its way to heaven, and this is probably correct, although it is here told for no purpose of edification but as a spell or charm [912] . The soul, if it be indeed she who is speaking, repeatedly complains to the gods whom she meets—including one in white tunic, crimson mantle and anaxyrides or Persian trousers who may be Mithras himself—of “the harsh and inexorable necessity” which has been compelling her so long as she remained in the “lower nature [913] .” ”

“ Mithras, the Persian Saviour, and mediator between God and man, was believed by the inhabitants of Persia, Asia Minor and Armenia, to have been put to death, and to have risen again from the dead. In their mysteries, the body of a young man, apparently dead, was exhibited, which was feigned to be restored to life. By his sufferings he was believed to have worked their salvation, and on this account he was called their "Saviour." His priests watched his tomb to the midnight of the veil of the 25th of March, with loud cries, and in darkness ”

“ And the Lady Mirdath was no longer able to endure, and cried out in her sudden fear and disgust, and struck the rough hind that embraced her, so hard that he loosed her a moment, swearing great oaths. And directly he came back to her again, and had her in a moment, to kiss her; and she, loathing him to the very death, beat him madly in the face with her hands ”

“ Horsemen sacrifice unto him even from on horseback and beg swiftness for their teams, vigour for their bodies, and might for overthrowing their adversaries. [190] Neither the spear of the foe nor his arrow hits the man whom Mithra helps, [191] for he guards and protects man from behind and in front. [192] Mithra furthers the possessions of man, he gives flocks of cattle, male offspring, chariots, spacious mansions, and prosperity; [193] he is therefore entreated to grant riches, courage, victory, good name and fame, felicity, wisdom, and strength to smite the adversaries. ”