The United States has given the world much, including peace, democracy and an open internet, and much that is perhaps less attractive. But it has also given us a vast surge of cranks and lunatics. In certain fields of study there must be many an undergraduate tutor who finds that, every year, he must try to be patient, when some self-assured young man innocently trots out some terrible old canard once again.
One of these claims – that Mithras was “born of a virgin,” was emailed to me by a concerned Iranian gentleman a couple of days ago. Unlike many who write to me, he had tried to source his claims. He found the claim on a website here:
An inscription on a Seleucid Temple in Iran dated to the 200s B.C. reads “Anahita, as the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithra.” While there is only one primary source for the “virgin birth” claim, and it has been shown to be very difficult to locate, the quote about Mithras being born of the virgin was published in 1983 by Mary Boyce, a British scholar on Iranian languages and Zoroastrianism who is so respected, the Royal Asiatic Society award for outstanding contributions to the study of religion is called the “Boyce Prize.”
Mithras was, in fact, born from a rock – petra genetrix, as it says on monuments. Amusingly the website even showed a picture of Mithras being born… from a rock. This is an unintelligent website pushing a fantasy, and deserves no consideration.
What concerned my correspondent was the claim that this came from Mary Boyce, the leading scholar of Zoroastrianism, published in an unspecified source in 1983.
The link given is to a PDF written by a certain Frank Zindler, containing emails that he wrote, without response, at Dr Bart Ehrman. The latter must receive a great quantity of crank emails. Indeed Mr Z. appears to be part of the lunatic fringe of US atheism. In the PDF we find this:
There is a popular, English-language women’s Web-site called www.irandokht.com. On it I found an article by a certain Manouchehr Saadat Noury, PhD, titled “First Iranian goddess of productivity and values,” dealing with the ancient Iranian goddess Anahita. After showing a picture of the great Temple of Anahita at Kangavar, the article says that
“By the HELLENISTIC era (330—310 BC), if not before, Anahita’s cult came to be closely associated with that of MITHRA.
The ANAHITA TEMPLES have been built in many Iranian cities like Kangavar, Bishapur (an ancient city in south of present-day Faliyan) and other places during different eras. An inscription from 200 BC dedicates a SELEUCID temple in western Iran to “Anahita, as the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithra.” The ANAHITA TEMPLE at Kangavar city of Kermanshah (a western province in present-day Iran) is possibly the most important one. It is speculated that the architectural structure of this temple is a combination of the Greek and Persian styles and some researchers suggest that the temple is related to a girl named Anahita, the daughter of din Mehr, who enjoyed a very high status with the ancient Iranians.”
And also this:
“In the Bundahishn, the two halves of the name “Ardwisur Anahid” are occasionally treated independently of one another, that is, with Ardwisur as the representative of waters, and Anahid identified with the planet Venus.[20] In yet other chapters, the text equates the two, as in “Ardwisur who is Anahid, the father and mother of the Waters” (3.17).
“This legend of the river that descends from Mount Hara appears to have remained a part of living observance for many generations. A Greek inscription from Roman times found in Asia Minor reads ‘the great goddess Anaïtis of high Hara.'[21] On Greek coins of the imperial epoch, she is
spoken of as ‘Anaïtis of the sacred water.[20]”[20] Boyce 1983, p. 1004 [Boyce, Mary (1983), “Āban,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, New York: Routledge &
Kegan Paul]
[21] Boyce 1975a, p. 74 [Boyce, Mary (1975a), A History of Zoroastrianism, Vol. I, Leiden/Köln: Brill]
There is indeed an article on “Aban” by Mary Boyce in vol. 1 of the Encyclopedia Iranica – on page 58, in the 1985 edition – but it does not contain the quote made at all. But the reference in the Zindler PDF to Boyce reference is nothing to do with the “immaculate conception of Anahita”, but to this stuff about the waters. I have also searched her publications from this time – the History of Zoroastrianism in 3 volumes – and there is no reference to this supposed “immaculate conception of Anahita” inscription.
So it looks very much as if the website author has just skimmed the Zindler PDF, and misread, and posted his misreading. He has assumed that the reference covered both claims. In fact Zindler references the “immaculate conception” claim is to an article online by somebody called “Manouchehr Saadat Noury, PhD”.
So the claim that this is by Mary Boyce is simply untrue.
Let’s see if we can go a bit further. Is there any evidence at all of such an inscription?
The ‘article by Manouchehr Saadat Noury, PhD, titled “First Iranian goddess of productivity and values,”‘ referred to by Zindler, seems today to be online at iranian.com here, making the same claims, but with no reference to Boyce at all. This gives the following references.
Frye, R. N. (1963): The Heritage of Persia: The pre-Islamic History of One of the World’s Great Civilizations, ed., The World Publishing Company, New York.
Frye, R. N. (1993): The Golden Age of Persia, ed., Weidenfeld, London.
Nazmi Afshar, M. S. (2005): Online Article on “Anahita, the Mother of Gods, Iran the cradle of the early gods”.
Saadat Noury, M. (2005): Various Articles on Persian Culture and the History of Iran.
Various Sources (2005): Notes & Articles on Anahita.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia (2005): Online Notes on Anahita (in English & Persian).
I have accessed the two Frye volumes, and I can confirm that neither contains this claim. The Afshar article is today here. This also says nothing about this supposed “immaculate conception” inscription in a Seleucid era temple.
There is a Persian-language Wikipedia article for Anahita here. As far as I can tell this does not include the claim either.
The other “references” are not references at all, and cannot be followed further.
In conclusion, this claim about an inscription in an unspecified temple in western Iran cannot be verified, and need not be attended to.