THE REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D., ON MITHRAISM. 241 



the vilest immorality, they afterwards encountered in Phrygia 

 and elsewhere, and against whom, even when enthroned in the 

 person of a Nero,* a Vitellius, a Domitian, a Commodus, an Elaga- 

 balus, they were destined to contend unto blood, unto death by 

 torture, on the cross, at the stake, by the teeth of wild beasts. 

 The deification of the Eoman Emperors was directly due to 

 Mithraism.f It was their determined opposition to such 

 blasphemy, and their resolve to die in agonies indescribable 

 rather than burn a handful of incense before the Emperor's 

 statue, which, from the point of view of Eoman statesmanship, 

 rendered necessary those terrible persecutions of the Christians 

 that, again and again during three centuries, arrayed against 

 the martyr church all the might of the Empire, only to succeed 

 after all in crowning its faithfulness with the victor's palm. In 

 the Vicisti Galilme of Julian the Apostate, Mithraisni uttered its 

 dying groan. 



The worship of Mithra, brought to Eome by the Cilician 

 pirates^ captured by Pompey in 68 B.C., did not at first spread 

 to any extent, though even then Eastern religions were becoming 

 in some degree popular in the West. Of Latin writers Statins 

 {Thebais, Lib. I, 716 fin.)^ is the first to mention it, about 



tion, p. 266, speaking of Mitliraism, says: "The immorality of the 

 ancient Phrygian Sabazia had not disappeared, but was masked by a 

 veneer of pantheism and mysticism." 



* Dio Cassius, Lib, Ixiii, 5, represents Tiridates of Armenia as saying 

 to Nero : Knt 7)\0oi^ tt^jo's ae toi> ejbLou Oeoi/^ 7rpo(TKvi^)j(ncu ae ic? Kal rou 

 MiOpau. Nero bears many divine and semi-divine titles in recently 

 found papyri. 



t "On a souvent insiste sur les ressemblances que la cour de Diocletien 

 offre avec celle de Chosroes. Ce fut le culte solaire, ce furent ea 

 particulier, les theories mazdeennes, qui repandirent les idees sur 

 lesquelles les souverains divinisces tenterent de fonder I'absolutisme 

 monarchique. La rapide diffusion des mysteres persiques dans toutes les 

 classes de la population servit admirablement les ambitions politiques des 

 empereurs " (Cumont, Textes et Monuments^ V(.l. i, Preface, p. xi). Vide 

 too what he says of the " effective support " given by tlie Emperors to 

 Mithraism {Mysteries of Mithra^ Eng. Ed., pp. 87-89). 

 X Plutarch, Life of Fompey, cap. 24. 



§ " Adsis, o, memor hospitii, lunoniaque arva 

 Dexter anies : sen te roseum Titana vocari 

 Gentis Achaemeniae ritn, seu praestat Osirin 

 Frugiferum, seu Persei sub rupibus antri 

 Indignata sequi torquentem cornna Mitram." 

 The Scholiast explains this by saying that Mithra is represented as 

 grasping the bull's horns with both hands and twisting them. He 

 (wrongly ?) says that the bull is the moon. Note the syncretism in these 

 lines. 



