Mithraism

“ Finally, philosophy as well as politics contributed to the success of Mithraism, for the outcome of the attempt to recognize in the Graeco-Roman gods only forces of nature was to make the Sun the most important of deities; and it was the Sun with whom Mithras was identified.
The beginning of the downfall of Mithraism dates from A.D. 275, when Dacia was lost to the empire, and the invasions of the northern peoples resulted in the destruction of temples along a great stretch of frontier, the natural stronghold of the cult. The aggression of Christianity also was now more effective. ”

“ What they, and even more urgently, their womenfolk needed was a God, not towering above them like the Eternal Sun, the eye of Mithras and his earthly representative, shedding his radiance impartially upon the just and the unjust; but a God who had walked upon the earth in human form, who had known like themselves pain and affliction, and to whom they could therefore look for sympathy and help. Such a god was not to be found in the Mithraic Cave.
For these reasons, probably, Mithraism fell after a reign of little more than two centuries. Yet for good or ill, few religions have lived in vain ”

“ THE CULT OF MITHRAS The Phrygian and Egyptian mysteries eventually gave way before the greatest of all the mystery cults, the worship of Mithras. The Mithraic cult made its appeal to a wide range of human nature and gradually supplanted both of its predecessors. Mithraism spread over the Roman Empire through the propagandizing of Roman legions recruited in the Levant, where this religion was the vogue, for they carried this belief wherever they went. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only the central ideas of formal Christianity, but many of its dependent and related principles, are found in Mithraism, which was the translation of the fundamental philosophic ideas of Zoroastrianism into terms of human life. The parallel is so striking that many thinkers regard Christianity merely as Mithraism bodied forth in a story invented by, or at least told to and believed by, a circle of primitive and uneducated zealots who knew nothing of the history of the doctrines they were embracing. ”

“ The cumbrous mythology and cosmogony of Mithraism at last weakened its hold upon men’s minds, and it disappeared during the 4th century before a victorious Catholicism, yet not until another faith, equally Iranian in its mythology and cosmological beliefs, had taken its place. This new faith was that of Mani, which spread with a rapidity only to be explained by supposing that Mithraism had prepared men’s minds for its reception. ”

“ Inspired with the tendency or ambition to gather many races into its fold, Mithraism was a compound of the influences of very different ages, and offered many footholds for the faith or superstition of the lands which it traversed in its march. ”

“ He helps the good in this life in their struggle for existence and assures them of salvation in the next. There is the esoteric side of Mithraism in which the aspirants to the Mithraic mysteries had to practise strict self-control. ”

“ It may be that a single temple was the resort of several small associations of worshippers which were subdivisions of the whole community. The cult was supported mainly by voluntary contribution. An abundance of epigraphic evidence testifies to the devotion of rich and poor alike.
III. Moral Influence.—The rapid advance of Mithraism was due to its human qualities. Its communities were bound together by a sense of close fraternal relation. Its democracy obliterated the distinctions between rich and poor ”

“ The mysteries of Mithras do not turn on a human victim: contrariwise, the victim is a bull. The man gets much the best of it—with a knife.
The idea that Mithraism was ever a serious rival to the Catholic Church is an old-fashioned piece of guesswork, which every succeeding year of research has done more and more to discredit. ”

“ Later philosophy too lent its aid in that it took the sun as the supreme symbol of divinity. On Roman dedications Mithras is often called simply “The Invincible Sun,” Sol Invictus.
For all its exotic character Mithraism could offer nothing essentially new in point of theology which would attract devotees, nor could it win them simply by its elaborate and distinctive ritual. ”

“ Now we have already mentioned that in the Mithra cult the slaying of a Bull by the Sungod occupies the same sort of place as the slaving of the Lamb in the Christian cult. It took place at the Vernal Equinox and the blood of the Bull acquired in men’s minds a magic virtue. Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity; but its genesis was similar. In fact, owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes, the crossing-place of the Ecliptic and Equator was different at the time of the establishment of Mithra-worship from what it was in the Christian period ”

“ The Persian cult owed much of its success to imperial and aristocratic favour. The last pagan emperor of the West, the last generation of the pagan aristocracy, were devotees of the Sun-god. It is a curious thing that even under the early Empire Mithraism seems never to have suffered from the suspicion and persecution with which other alien worships had to contend.3168 Its close league with the cult of the Great Mother, which, since the second century B.C., had been an established institution, may have saved Mithra from official mistrust. ”

“ In a special degree the Osirian and Dionysian and Mithraic cults seem to have insisted on the doctrine of immortality correlatively with the doctrine of eternal punishment; and insofar as Mithraism is to be known from the present form of the Zendavesta, which is but a revised portion of the older Mazdean literature, it appealed to the imagination on this side at least as winningly as did the Jesuist literature in respect, for instance, of the Apocalypse. Mithra was the God of the upper and the nether world, the keeper of the keys of heaven and hell, of life and death ”

“ Mithraism was in no way universal. It was mainly a soldiers’ superstition, its relics are not numerous as are those of the main popular deities.
There is not a shred of evidence, nor of anything that can be twisted into an implication of evidence, that St. Paul had ever heard of Mithras. To suggest that St. Paul got the dogma of the Atonement from the mysteries of Mithras is as though I were to suggest that Mr. Wells got his doctrine of Natural Selection from the Contrat Social; for (1) I have no proof that he has ever heard of the Contrat Social; he probably never has. ”

“ The work of conversion in which Mithraism had failed was taken up by Manicheism, the heir to its cardinal doctrines, and until the Middle Ages Persian dualism continued to cause bloody struggles in the ancient Roman provinces.
Just as we cannot understand the character of the mysteries of Isis and Serapis without studying the circumstances accompanying their creation by the Ptolemies, so we cannot appreciate the causes of the power attained by the mysteries of Mithra, unless we go far back to their origin. ”

“ After time had run its course Mithra would raise all men from the dead, pouring out a marvelous beverage of immortality for the good, but all evil doers would be annihilated by fire together with Ahriman himself.
Of all the Oriental cults none was so severe as Mithraism, none attained an equal moral elevation, none could have had so strong a hold on mind and heart. In many respects it gave its definite religious formula to the pagan world and the influence of its ideas remained long after the religion itself had come to a violent end. ”

“ It was constructed after the rebellion of 1745, when the Scots were able to invade England by Carlisle before our very superior forces at Newcastle could get across the pathless waste between to intercept them.
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Mithraism is first heard of in the 2nd century A.D., as an eccentric cult having many of the features of Christianity, especially the sense of Sin and the doctrine that the vicarious blood-shedding essential to remission must be connected with a New Baptismal Birth unto Righteousness. ”

“ Except in the fact that both Mithraism and Manichaeism came in the first instance from Persia, there is little likeness between the two faiths, which are in all essential respects diametrically opposed to each other. A strict dualism, or the eternal antagonism of two equal principles, is the distinguishing feature of the religion of Manes, while the worship of Mithras rested, as has been said in the last chapter, on an equally uncompromising monotheism, which made the Supreme Being, whether known as Jupiter or Ormuzd, at once the creator and the governor of the universe. ”

“ We all know that Mithraism constituted a serious rival to Christianity, and we all are aware that the church took over the birthday of Mithra as the birthday of Jesus Christ. The old persisted in the new, and this lesson Miss Murray enforces in unexpected ways. Mingled with the Christianity of the middle ages much of the old paganism remained. The witch-cult persisted, and with its persistence rites for rain-making and for causing or blasting fertility survived. Inevitably Dianists sought to encourage fertility among themselves, and to restrain it among their enemies. ”

“ This curious synthetic belief, united as it was with the highly popular cult of Mithra, travelled with the foreign legionaries, adherents of that cult, to the furthest bounds of the Roman Empire, and when the struggle between Mithraism and Christianity ended in the definite triumph of the latter, by virtue of that dual synthetic nature, the higher ritual still survived, and was celebrated in sites removed from the centres of population--in caves, and mountain fastnesses ”

“ Mithraism therefore was well suited to stir and energize the individual in a time when the ancient fibre of the Romans was relaxing and when the signs of social and economic decay were evident. In the first three centuries of the Empire, as we have already had occasion to observe more than once, the loss of political power and the weakening of the satisfactions which a vigorous society can give, led men to search for other rewards and assurances than those of this world ”

“ Religious Syncretism in the Third Century In the third century religious syncretism took two leading forms—the Mithraic worship, which spread rapidly throughout the Empire, and the fashionable interest in novel religions fostered by the imperial court. Mithraism was especially prevalent in the army, and at army posts have been found numerous remains of sanctuaries, inscriptions, etc. It was by far the purest of the religions that invaded the Roman Empire, and drew its leading ideas from Persian sources. ”

“ The originality and value of the Persian religion lay not in its doctrines regarding the nature of the celestial gods. Without doubt Parseeism is of all pagan religions the one that comes closest to monotheism, for it elevates Ahura Mazda high above all other celestial spirits. But the doctrines of Mithraism are not those of Zoroaster. What it received from Persia was chiefly its mythology and ritual; its theology, which was thoroughly saturated with Chaldean erudition, probably did not differ noticeably from the Syrian. ”

“ Gentiles ignore Christianity while still a branch of, ii. 21; Saturninus’ hatred of, ii. 89; approach of Mithraism to, ii. 277 Judas Iscariot, in Pistis Sophia apparently receives super-excellent soul, ii. 137 n. 1. See Matthias Julian, the Emperor, thinks Alexandrians worship Serapis in his time, i. 82 n. 2, 83; notes hatred of Christian sects for each other, ii. 11; authority for religion of Mithras, ii. 236; his eclecticism, ii. 269; Mithraism revives temporarily under, ii. 271; favours Manichaeism, ii. 356 Juno, the goddess, identified with Isis, i. 56; on Mithraic monuments, ii. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the sun arises above Hara berezaiti so may I obtain my desires over the evil Angromainyu. With uplifted arms, Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, conveys us to immortality. With sacrifice named by name, with becoming speech, O strong Mithra, will I make offerings to thee with libations. Listen, O Mithra, to our sacrifice. Come to our sacrifice; come to our libations. Carry them away to the place of meeting (chinvat) ; deposit them in Garonmana. Thou, O Mithra, art the saviour and helper of lands and men. ”