Tag: Mithras

Mithras in the Greek Magical Papyri

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A chance query led me to Betz’ English translation of the Greek magical papyri.  This is a collection of magical texts in multiple volumes discovered at Thebes in the early 19th century.  The best known of these is the so-called Mithras liturgy, which is in reality just a spell like the rest.  The reason it is called the Mithras liturgy is that it contains a mention of “Helios Mithras”.

Anyway, I got the PDF of Betz’ translations and did a search on “Mithr”.  To my astonishment, I started getting results in some of the other magical texts in the collection.  Here are some excerpts from the spells:

From PGM III, 1-164; lines 71-85:

“I conjure you, the powerful and mighty angel of this animal in this place; rouse yourself for me, and perform the NN [deed] both on this very day and in every hour and day; rouse yourself for me against my enemies, NN, and perform NN deed” (add the usual), “for I conjure you by IAO SABAOTH ADONAI ABRASAX, and by the great god, IAEO” (formula), “AEEIOYW WYOIEEA CHABRAX PHNESKER PHIKO PHNYRO PHWCHW BWCH / ABLANATHANALBA ARRAMMACHAMARI SESENGENBARPHARANGES MITHRA NAMAZAR ANAMARIA DAMNAMENEU CHEU CHTHO[NIE] THORTOEI, holy king, the Sailor, [who steers] the tiller of the lord god, rouse [yourself] for me, great cat-faced one, steerer of the tiller [of God], perform the NN deed (add the usual), from this very day, immediately, immediately; quickly, quickly. …

The footnote indicates that the portion that I have placed in italics, which is repeated on line 100, may be garbled Greek for Damnameneu, Zeu cthonie, identifying Helios-Mithras with Hades.  Note the Jewish names of power somewhat earlier, and the invocation of the Greek vowels, first in one direction, then the other.

And lines 99-104 of the same:

“Halt, halt the sacred boat,” steersman of the sacred boat! Even you, Meliouchos, / I will bind to your moorings, until I hold converse with sacred Helios. Yea, greatest Mithra, NAMAZAR ANAMARIA DAMNAMENEU CHEU CHTHONIE THONTOEI, holy king, the sailor, he who controls the tiller of the lord god,”

In PGM III, 424-466, a spell for knowledge, on line 439 we find the following interesting remark, mentioning the historian Manetho who helped create the Serapis cult:

[For] the lord [god] speaks. A procedure greater than this one does not exist. It has been tested by Manetho, [who] received [it] as a gift from god Osiris the greatest. Perform it, perform it successfully and silently.

Followed by:

pray to him. But . . I . but a swallow of this comes . . . this your formula repeat seven times . . . formula, which you say: “Hail, Helios, Mithras. . . .”

Then there is the passage in PGM IV 475-829:

… for an only child I request immortality, O initiates of this our power (furthermore, it is necessary for you, O daughter, to take / the juices of herbs and spices, which will [be made known] to you at the end of my holy treatise), which the great god Helios Mithras ordered to be revealed to me by his archangel, so that I alone may ascend into heaven as an inquirer / and behold the universe.

Again, this is surely a spell, not a liturgy?

PGM V. 1-53 begins:

“Oracle of Sarapis, [by means of] a boy, by means of a lamp, saucer and bench: “I call upon you, Zeus, Helios, Mithra, Sarapis, / unconquered one, Meliouchos, Melikertes, Meligenetor, ABRAAL BACHAMBECHI BAIBEIZOTH (EBAI BEBOTH)…

Finally in the glossary on pp.336-7 I found this note:

Mithras: The Persian god is mentioned only a few times in PGM (note III. 100, 462; IV. 482) and each time as being identical with Helios or with Zeus-Helios-Sarapis (see PGM V. 4). See Nilsson, GGR II,668-72; Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie 67ff. Vermaseren,”Mithras in der Romerzeit,” in M. J. Vermaseren, ed., Die orientalischen Religionen in Romerreich, EPRO 93 (Leiden: Brill, 1981) 96-120, with bibliography.

It’s permissible to wonder why Mithras appears at all, except that plainly it was a “name of power”, just like the others with which the texts are studded.   This led me to a review of Betz, The Mithras Liturgy: Text, Translation and Commentary (2003), by John Gee in the RBL here.  Gee points out that the papyri are all often in the same hand, an Egyptian who writes both Greek and Demotic, and evidently is part of a temple.  He adds:

 

Egyptian deities, whether under Greek or Egyptian names, appear sixteen times more frequently in the text than deities from any other pantheon. It is probably significant that the only mention of Mithras is of Helios-Mithras, where Mithras is syncretized with the Egyptian deity Re under the Greek name Helios. Betz himself notes that usually Mithras was identified with Saturn rather than the sun (p. 137). If we consider that there is evidence of the Egyptian co-opting Iao as early as the Persian period, then we have the strange situation where all the deities mentioned in the so-called “Mithras Liturgy” are Egyptian.

Interesting indeed.  The references to Iao and Adonai and Sabaoth are also telling.

I suspect that the “Mithras liturgy” is about as much a Mithraic liturgy as it is a Psalm of David.

UPDATE: I also went through Preisendanz’ two volume collection of all the texts with German translation.  I didn’t find any more instances, except for an ostracon at the end of vol. 2, which had a series of names such as Baal, Mithreu, Mithra, etc.

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Mithras: list of literary testimonia

Posted on by Roger Pearse

When I encounter twaddle about the ancient world online, I always find it  useful to gather all the relevant ancient sources.  Long ago I did this with Mithras.  I have just revised my collection and expanded it, and included also the references to Persian Mitra in Greek and Roman literature.  The result is here.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

We all know Franz Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes, which collected all the ancient sources on Mithras known a century ago.  What few realise is that a translation was made of most of the literary fragments that he published.  It’s A. S. Geden, Select passages illustrating Mithraism.  It was published by SPCK in 1925; and since Mr. Geden died in 1936, it should be out of copyright in the EU and probably everywhere else too.

Last night I scanned it to PDF and made it searchable.  I’ve uploaded it to Archive.org, here.

I’ve been going through my own page of Mithras testimonia, and was struck by how he rendered some passages from Tertullian.

For instance in De praescriptione haereticorum 40:3-4, the ANF version reads:

… if my memory still serves me, Mithras there, (in the kingdom of Satan,) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown.  What also must we say to (Satan’s) limiting his chief priest to a single marriage? He, too, has his virgins; he, too, has his proficients in continence.

While Mr. Geden gives us:

…  if my memory does not fail me marks his own soldiers with the sign of Mithra on their foreheads, commemorates an offering of bread, introduces a mock resurrection, and with the sword opens the way to the crown. Moreover has he not forbidden a second marriage to the supreme priest? He maintains also his virgins and his celibates.

Let’s see the Latin:

[4]  et si adhuc memini Mithrae, signat illic in frontibus milites suos. Celebrat et panis oblationem et imaginem resurrectionis inducit et sub gladio redimit coronam. [5] Quid, quod et summum pontificem in unis nuptiis statuit? Habet et uirgines, habet et continentes.

The ANF material in brackets is the opinion of the translator, struck by the sudden switch from “the devil” to Mithras as the subject.

Now I know that “Mithrae” in this passage is thought to be a gloss itself.  Some have thought that the sense demands that the subject of all these remarks is “the devil” — the devil has his chief priest, who can only marry once, the devil has sacred virgins.  Both are, after all, part of ancient Roman religion.  The Roman state priests had to marry only once; the vestal Virgins are well known.  Nothing of either is known to be associated with Mithras; and indeed the idea of Mithraic nuns is strange, for a male-only cult.  Tertullian, then, is listing a set of features of Roman paganism, from various sources, on this theory.

Maybe so.  But it is curious, all the same.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Still busy with dull stuff, but I have been revising the Wikipedia article on Areimanios. 

“Who he?” I hear you cry?  Well Areimanios is the Greek name for Ahriman, the Persian evil spirit, used in descriptions of Zoroastrianism in Plutarch and the like.

Except … there’s more.  There are some odd traces of a non-evil Areimanios.  And there are five Latin inscriptions which seem to be all to a deity associated with Mithras, saying things like “To the god Arimanius in fulfilment of a vow”.

Some of the commentary I have read has said that it is fairly unlikely that anyone would set up altars to an evil god in their temples dedicated to good gods.  But I’m not so sure about this, because, in a dualist world view, you might well say that both need to exist.  We’ve all heard enough smelly hippies talking about “Yin and Yang, man”.  Won’t a true dualist see both as a part of the world, necessary in their own way?  Rather like having a toilet in the vestry, if you like?

I can see such a person making offerings and vows to the “dark side”, when in mortal danger — “let me off this time and I’ll give you a nice altar”?

We need to remember that we do not understand how ancient religion worked.  We can only guess at much of it.  I claim nothing for what I have just suggested — it is pure imagination — but we must avoid being too positive about what “must not” have happened.

On the other hand, maybe the critics are right.  Maybe the name of Ahriman was transferred (in its Latin form) to a different deity, the lion-headed god found in Mithraea and usually anonymous.  The name “Areimanios” appears (I am told) on the foot of one such statue, although that interpretation relies on expanding abbreviations and might be a personal name of a donor, not of the god. 

If so, then perhaps there is a pattern.  Roman Mithras, born from a rock and killing the bull, is not really at all like Persian Mithra, although they share the same name.  Rather someone took the name of the Persian god and applied it to their “export version” religion, rather like the Hari Krishna’s did for Krishna.  Did that same someone take the nice, authentic Persian “Areimanios” and apply it to their own made-up lion-headed god too? Is that how the cult was created?

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“According to Realencyclopaedie, the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I love modern legends.  They have been the stimulus for much of what I have done online.  The effort to research, access and document has given me many happy hours.

This morning I was sitting in front of the monitor, looking for inspiration and stimulation.  Then a Google Groups search on Mithras brought up this gem:

Christ: The Greeks used both the word Messias (a transliteration) and Christos (a translation) for the Hebrew Mashiach (Anointed). The word Christos is far more acceptable to some Pagans who worship Chreston and Chrestos. According to The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, the word Christos was easily confused with the common Greek proper name Chrestos, meaning “good.” According to a French theological dictionary, it is absolutely beyond doubt that Christus and Chrestus, and Christiani and Chrestiani were used indifferently by the profane Christian authors of the first two centuries AD The word Christianos is a Latinism, being contributed neither by the Jews nor by the Christians themselves. The word was introduced from one of three origins: the Roman police, the Roman populace, or an unspecified Pagan origin. Its infrequent use in the New Testament suggests a Pagan origin. According to Realencyclopaedie, the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican. According to Christianity and Mythology, Osiris, the Sun God of Egypt, was reverenced as Chrestos..

The only “reference” for all these claims is to a post in a closed forum. 

If you search around the web for this stuff, you will find it repeated endlessly.  Some even add after the bold phrase “(I’ve seen it myself)” although since this too is repeated, one wonders just who the author was.

One claim caught my eye: the claim about the RE.  After much searching, I found a slightly different version here:

Who was this Chrestos or Chreston with which Christos became confused with?

We have already seen that Chrestos was a common Greek proper name, meaning “good.” Further we see in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopaedie, under “Chrestos,” that the inscription Chrestos is to be seen on a Mithras relief in the Vatican. We also read in J. M. Robertson, Christianity and Mythology, p. 331, that Osiris, the Sun-deity of Egypt, was reverenced as Chrestos. We also read of the heretic Gnostics who used the name Chreistos.

OK, so what does the RE say about “Chrestos”? 

Well, in the 6th half-volume (band III.2) the entry appears in columns 2449-2450, giving a list of people known by that name:

  1. A praetorian prefect under Alexander Severus (Dio. epit. book 80, 2:2), also given as prefect of Egypt in a papyrus fragment, where his name appears as Geminus Chrestus.
  2. A Roman geographer, mentioned by John the Lydian in De Mensibus IV 68 (p. 98ff of the Bonn edition) as talking about the Nile.
  3. An officer under Constans (Aurelius Victor, epit. 41, 22) ca. 350 AD.
  4. An African grammarian, ca. 357, mentioned in Jerome’s Chronicle under AA 2374.  But one manuscript gives the name as Charistus.
  5. A pupil of Herodes Atticus at Byzantion, working as a sophist and teacher in the second half of the second century. (Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, p. 98, l.15 of Kayser’s edition).

And after that, we find the following entry:

6) Auf Grund der Inschrift eines Mithrasreliefs im Vatican (Cumont Mitras inscr. nr. 39; mon. fig. nr. 31) Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν früher für einen Künstler gehalten. Doch bezeichnet, wie zuerst Brunn Künstlergesch. I 611 gesehen hat, ἐποίησαν nur die Weihung, πατὴρ im Mithraskult ein priesterlicher Titel ist. Kaibel IGI 1272. Loewy Inschr. griech. Bildh. 457. [C. Robert.] 

I.e.

6) On the base of an inscription of a Mithras relief in the Vatican (Cumont, Mithras, inscrip. 39; mon. fig. 31) Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν was previously taken for the name of an artist.  But it is now recognised, as Brunn saw in Künstlergesch. I 611, that ἐποίησαν refers to the consecration, and πατὴρ is a title for a priest in the Mithras cult. Kaibel IGI 1272. Loewy Inschr. griech. Bildh. 457. [C. Robert]

Indeed the text says:

Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν

Chrestus the Pater and Gaurus made [this].

Let’s look at Cumont.  I found the stuff in vol. 2 of Textes et Monumentes, in p.211 in the section on Rome, which I had great difficulty navigating.

31. Bas-relief de marbre blanc [L. 0.71m, H. 0.41m, Ep. 0.05m], conservé au musée du Vatican, Galleria scoperta, n° 416 [doit être déplacé].  

Cité : Zoega, p. 149, n° 15; cf. Kaibel, ISI, n° 1272.

Mithra tauroctone dans la grotte avec le chien, le serpent, le scorpion et le corbeau, mais sans les dadophores. Dans les coins supérieurs, à gauche, Sol sur un quadrige, à droite Luna sur un char traîné par deux taureaux. Dans les coins inférieurs, de chaque côté, un cyprès grossièrement dessiné. En dessous l’inscription n° 39.

Brisé en deux morceaux, mais sans restauration importante. Travail médiocre.

And the inscription itself is on p.100

39. Kaibel, ISI, 1272. — Voyez le monument n° 31.

Χρῆστος πατὴρ καὶ Γαῦρος ἐποίησαν.

Non videntur artifices esse Chrestus et Gaurus cf. Brunn, Hist. art., I, 611, qui cum recte iam Rochettius vidisset Chrestum fuisse patrem Mithrae, verbum ἐποίησαν ita explicabat ut esset consacraverunt [Kaibel].

It’s a tauroctony, in other words, a relief showing Mithras killing the bull, which has the inscription beneath.  All it shows is that a priest named Chrestus set up the relief.  It happens to be in the Vatican museum, but has no ancient connection specified with that location.

As ever, once we know the facts and return to the context of the original claim, we see that the reader is being misled by a statement which, literally true, is nevertheless  guaranteed to mislead everyone to suppose that “Chrestos” is another name for “Mithras”.

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Mithras in Scotland

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Mike Aquilina has kindly emailed me notice of the discovery of a couple of altars of Mithras in East Lothian in Scotland.  The BBC have the story here.

The first stone has side panels showing a lyre and griffon as well as pictures of a jug and bowl, objects which would be used for pouring offerings on the altar. The front face bears a carved inscription dedicating the altar to the god Mithras – the furthest north that such dedications have been discovered.  …

The front face of the second stone shows female heads which represent the four seasons. All are wearing headdresses, spring flowers, summer foliage, autumn grapes and a shawl for winter.The centre of the stone contains a carving of the face of a God, probably Sol, wearing a solar crown. The eyes, mouth and solar rays are all pierced and the hollowed rear shaft would probably have held a lantern or candle letting the light shine through, similar to a Halloween pumpkin or turnip lantern.

An inscription on a panel beneath the four seasons is currently partially obscured, but experts said it was likely to bear the name of the dedicator – who is believed to be a Roman centurion – and the God to whom the altar is dedicated.Traces of red and white paint are still visible beneath the inscription panel, which experts said suggested it was originally brightly painted.

The pictures online aren’t very good, tho.

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Another source of nonsense about Jesus and Mithras

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Today I read online that:

Mithras, the Persian divinity, was also given this title of “Unconquered”; and as one of the very earliest Christian writers tells Justin Martyr (Dialog with Trypho, p. 305) Mithras was mystically said to have been born in a cave or grotto, as was also Jesus, according to very early and wide-spread orthodox Christian legends. Justin adds: “He was born on the day on which the Sun was born anew, in the stable of Augeas”: and, as all know, the Christian gospels which are now considered as canonical say that Jesus was born in a “manger” or in a “stable,” because, so the legend runs in the New Testament, there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the inn.

I do love the touch that only the New Testament is qualified as “the legend runs that…”; pagan myths are not so qualified.  Hate is a funny thing, eh?

Well, this is news about Justin is news to me.  And when looking at Justin’s Dialogue, which  is online, it seems to be news to him too!  The claim is copied verbatim from  here, which seems to be a headbanger site.  This in turn is plagiarising Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds: their origin and meaning (1928) who says:

Justin Martyr again, in the Dialogue with Trypho says that the Birth in the Stable was the prototype (!) of the birth of Mithra in the Cave of Zoroastrianism; and boasts that Christ was born when the Sun takes its birth in the Augean Stable, (1) coming as a second Hercules to cleanse a foul world; and St. Augustine says “we hold this (Christmas) day holy, not like the pagans because of the birth of the Sun, but because of the birth of him who made it.”

(1) The Zodiacal sign of Capricornus, iii.

Not that Carpenter troubled to verify what Justin said, as these claims also are not found in Justin’s text.  The “reference” given is to something unknown, for neither COPAC nor the Library of Congress record any book of that title.

Oh well.

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Images from the Santa Prisca Mithraeum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In the Mithraeum under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome, there are a number of verses written on plaster around the walls, in between or above various images in the frescoes.  The frescoes themselves have been badly damaged, partly because of the poor quality of the material on which they were placed, but also because of intentional damage not later than 400 AD.

One of these verses has attracted wide attention.  It reads as follows:

Primus et hic aries astrictius ordine currit;
Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso;
Offero ut fiant numina magna Mithre.

The meaning is less than obvious:

Here too the ram runs in front, more strictly in line.
And you saved us after having shed the eternal blood.
I bring offerings so that the great power of Mithras may be shown.

Even Vermaseren is not sure whether this gibberish makes up one sentence or three independent sentences.  The middle line has been eagerly seized on by the headbangers, although the Mithraeum was constructed in 220 AD, and so is not evidence for any pre-Christian beliefs.

The inscription appears on the left-hand wall, at the top of the lower layer of frescoes.  The colour images sent to me by a reader and published in Mysteria Mithrae, appendix 1, are the best I have seen; far better than the wretched effort by Vermaseren.  Here’s the context in which those three lines appear:

Location of the "nos servasti" inscription on the left wall of the Santa Prisca Mithraeum

It should be immediately obvious that the wall is badly damaged.  Also some sort of graphic — is  that a head? — intrudes into the middle of the text.  Note the word “FUSO” – that last word in the crucial sentence is the clearest element we get.  Note also the next lines of the inscriptions, on the right.

Let’s add the diagram by Vermaseren:

Fig.69: "et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso" - or is it?

And now the photograph.  Since this is long and thin, it’s in two halves; first the left, then the right.  Click on the images to get the full size.

The nos servasti inscription - left hand side

The "nos servasti" inscription - right hand half

Myself I would have thought that colour would be clearer, but  maybe not.  At all events, this is all we get.

Possibly more is visible on the wall than can be photographed.  But frankly… it’s not very good, is it?  How much of what Vermaseren read is imaginary?

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More on the Santa Prisca Mithraeum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The inscription painted on crumbling stucco in the Mithraeum under Santa Prisca has provoked much discussion.

Fig.69: "et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso" - or is it?

This image comes from Martin Vermaseren, The excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome, p.215 in the Google preview.  It’s a diagram, not a plate; although apparently plate LXVIII shows it.

These are lines 13-15 of the inscription.  The restored reading is:

Primus et hic aries astrictius ordine currit;
Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso;
Offero ut fiant numina magna Mithre.

On p.222 Vermaseren asks:

Finally there is the question whether the three lines of verse on this section of the wall (of which line 15 is the last) are related. … This is not at all certain, although it cannot be excluded.

It takes little effort to see that line. 14, “Et nos servasti eternali sanguine fuso” is indeed a restoration, rather than simply reading the text.  Unfortunately Vermaserens discussion of the line on p.217-8 is not online.

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The Santa Prisca Mithraeum in Rome

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome is the remains of a Mithraeum.  It is notable because of an inscription somewhere in it, which is often supposed to refer to Mithras “saving” people “by the eternal blood”.  There seems to be more than a little doubt about whether it really does say this, tho.  The Mithraeum is full of frescos, all in glorious colour!

Obviously we could use a photograph.  So I was wondering where the inscription is.  Is it still in situ, I wonder?  Is it possible to visit the Mithraeum?  Or how else can one get a picture of the inscription?

This site suggests that it is, although it looks as if you have to make an appointment.  I’m not quite sure what that site is, tho.  But this site suggests it can arrange site visits to various unusual sites.  An Italian site gives slightly different info here.  I must admit I am tempted to go over to Rome for a couple of days and see what I can snap!

I did a Google images search for “Santa Prisca Mitreo”, and came up incidentally with this wonderful colour tauroctony (click on it to see it full size) from here, which is in fact from the Mithraeum at Marino, not the Santa Prisca one:

Fresco of Mithras from the Mithraeum at Marino

I’ve seen a few of these, so here are the standard elements.  Their real meaning, of course, is largely forgotten, but we can list the elements of the painting.

At the top left, the sun beams down rays, one ray striking Mithras.  Top right is the moon.  Mithras kneels on the bull and stabs it, and a dog and a snake leap up to lick the blood, and a scorpion grabs the bull’s balls.  In this case Mithras’s cloak is lined with stars.  The action takes place in a cavern.  The two attendants, Cautes and Cautopates appear on either side, one with the torch pointing up, one down. 

A band of coloured images reciting the myth is on either side.  I can’t make out most of them, but on the right, from the top, #2 is the sun, Helios, kneeling to Mithras; #3 is the two shaking hands.   Those on the left ought to depict Mithras’ struggle with the bull.

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