Part 19 (1/2)

[Greek: Xenas de thusias ethuon autoi tas en Olumpoi kai teletas tinas aporretous eteloun, on he tou Mithrou kai mechri deuro diasozetai katadeichtheisa proton hup' ekeinon].

15. Lactantius Placidus ad Stat., _Theb._ IV, 717: ”Quae sacra primum Persae habuerunt, a Persis Phryges, a Phrygibus Romani.”

16. In the _Studio Pontica_, p. 368, I have described a grotto located near Trapezus and formerly dedicated to Mithra, but now transformed into a church. We know of no other Mithreum. A bilingual dedication to Mithra, in Greek and Aramaic, is engraved upon a rock in a wild pa.s.s near Farasha (Rhodandos) in Cappadocia. Recently it has been republished {263} with excellent notes by Henri Gregoire (_Comptes Rendus Acad. des Inscr._, 1908, pp. 434 ff.), but the commentator has mentioned no trace of a temple. The text says that a strategus from Ariaramneia [Greek: emageuse Mithrei].

Perhaps these words must be translated according to a frequent meaning of the aorist, by ”became a magus of Mithra” or ”began to serve Mithra as a magus.” This would lead to the conclusion that the inscription was made on the occasion of an initiation. The magus dignity was originally hereditary in the sacred caste; strangers could acquire it after the cult had a.s.sumed the form of mysteries. If the interpretation offered by us is correct the Cappadocian inscription would furnish interesting evidence of that transformation in the Orient. Moreover, we know that Tiridates of Armenia initiated Nero; see _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 239.

17. Strabo, XI, 14, -- 9. On the studs of Cappadocia, cf. Gregoire, _Saints jumeaux et dieux cavaliers_, 1905, pp. 56 ff.

18. Cf. _C. R. Acad. des Inscr._, 1905, pp. 99 ff. (note on the bilingual inscription of Aghatcha-Kale); cf. Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier, _Dict.

Antiqu._, s. v. ”Satrapa.”

19. _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 10, n. 1. The argument undoubtedly dates back to Carneades, see Boll, _Studien uber Claudius Ptolemaus_, 1894, pp.

181 ff.

20. Louis H. Gray (_Archiv fur Religionswiss._, VII, 1904, p. 345) has shown how these six Amshaspands pa.s.sed from being divinities of the material world to the rank of moral abstractions. From an important text of Plutarch it appears that they already had this quality in Cappadocia; cf.

_Mon. myst. Mithra_, II, p. 33, and Philo, _Quod omn. prob. lib._, 11 (II, 456 M).--On Persian G.o.ds wors.h.i.+ped in Cappadocia, see _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 132.

21. See _supra_, n. 16 and 18.--According to Gregoire, the bilingual inscription of Farasha dates back to the first century, before or after Christ (_loc. cit._, p. 445).

22. _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 9, n. 5.

23. Comparison of the type of Jupiter Dolichenus with the bas-reliefs of Boghaz-Keui led Kan (_De Iovis Dolicheni cultu_, Groningen, 1901, pp. 3 ff.) to see an Anatolian G.o.d in him. {264} The comparison of the formula _ubi ferrum nascitur_ with the expression [Greek: hopou ho sideros tiktetai], used in connection with the Chalybians, leads to the same conclusion, see _Revue de philologie_, XXVI, 1902, p. 281.--Still, the representations of Jupiter Dolichnus also possess a remarkable resemblance to those of the Babylonian G.o.d Ramman; cf. Jeremias in Roscher, _Lexikon der Myth._, s. v. ”Ramman,” IV, col. 50 ff.

24. _Rev. archeol._ 1905, I, p. 189. Cf. _supra_, p. 127, n. 68.

25. Herod., I, 131.--On the a.s.similation of Baalsamin to Ahura-Mazda, cf.

_supra_, p. 127, and _infra_, n. 29. At Rome, Jupiter Dolichenus was _conservator totius poli et numen praestantissimum_ (_CIL_, VI, 406 = 30758).

26. Inscription of King Antiochus of Commagene (Michel, _Recueil_, No.

735), l. 43:

[Greek: Pros ouranious Dios oromasdou thronous theophile psuchen propempsan]; cf. l. 33: [Greek: Ouranion anchista thronon].

27. _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 87.

28. _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 333.--An inscription discovered in a mithreum at Dorstadt (Sacidava in Dacia, _CIL_, III, 7728, cf. 7729), furnishes, if I rightly understand, another proof of the relation existing between the Semitic cults and that of the Persian G.o.ds. It speaks of a ”de[orum?] sacerdos creatus a Pal[myr]enis, do[mo] Macedonia, et adven[tor]

huius templi.” This rather obscure text becomes clear when compared with Apul., _Metam._, XI, 26. After the hero had been initiated into the mysteries of Isis in Greece, he was received at Rome in the great temple of the Campus Martius, ”fani quidem advena, religionis autem indigena.” It appears also that this Macedonian, who was made a priest of their national G.o.ds (Bel, Malakbel, etc.) by a colony of Palmyrenians, was received in Dacia by the mystics of Mithra as a member of their religion.

29. At Venasa in Cappadocia, for instance, the people, even during the Christian period, celebrated a panegyric on a mountain, where the celestial Zeus, representing Baalsamin and Ahura-Mazda, was formerly wors.h.i.+ped (Ramsay, _Church in the Roman Empire_, 1894, pp. 142, 457). The identification of Bel with Ahura-Mazda in Cappadocia results from the Aramaic inscription of Jarpuz (Clermont-Ganneau, _Recueil_, III, {265} p.

59; Lidzbarski, _Ephemeris fur semit. Epigraphik_, I, pp. 59 ff.). The Zeus Stratios wors.h.i.+ped upon a high summit near Amasia was in reality Ahura-Mazda, who in turn probably supplanted some local G.o.d (_Studia Pontica_, pp. 173 ff.).--Similarly the equation Anahita = Ishtar = Ma or Cybele for the great female divinity is accepted everywhere (_Mon. myst.

Mithra_, I, p. 333), and Ma takes the epithet [Greek: aniketos] like Mithra (_Athen. Mitt._, XVIII, 1893, p. 415, and XXIX, 1904, p. 169). A temple of this G.o.ddess was called [Greek: hieron Astartes] in a decree of Anisa (Michel, _Recueil_, No. 536, l. 32).

30. The Mithra ”mysteries” are not of h.e.l.lenic origin (_Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 239), but their resemblance to those of Greece, which Gruppe insists upon (_Griech. Mythologie_, pp. 1596 ff.) was such that the two were bound to become confused in the Alexandrian period.

31. Harnack (_Ausbreitung des Christentums_, II, p. 271) sees in this exclusion of the h.e.l.lenic world a prime cause of the weakness of the Mithra wors.h.i.+p in its struggle against Christianity. The mysteries of Mithra met the Greek culture with the culture of Persia, superior in some respects.

But if it was capable of attracting the Roman mind by its moral qualities, it was too Asiatic, on the whole, to be accepted without repugnance by the Occidentals. The same was true of Manicheism.

32. _CIL_, III, 4413; cf. _Mon. myst. Mithra_, I, p. 281.