THE llEV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, D.D.^ OK MITHRAISM. 257 



have no extant Mitbraic scriptures,* and all that is told us by 

 Porphyry (Eubulus) and the various other Greek and Latin 

 writers who mention the matter, is far too scanty in amount and 

 fragmentary in character to justify any scholar in attempting 

 to give a full account of the beliefs of Mithraists. Nor can we 

 recover any Mitbraic mytli — if there ever was one — from 

 the carvings found in the Mitbraea, of which so many have been 

 discovered. Accounts are given us hj modern Eiiropean writers 

 of Mithra's birth, death, resurrection and ascension : but on 

 examination tbicse are found to be romances, put together partly 

 through confounding Persian with Western Mithraism, but 

 mostly through misunderstanding certain casual references 

 contained in early and later Christian writers. A vivid 

 imagination too often supplies the place of knowledge, and 

 conjecture that of investigation. Common as this method of 

 dealingf with some subjects is in our day, it can hardly be said 

 to be scholarly, scientific, reliable, or even honest. 



With reference to Mithra's birth we have already stated all 

 that is actually known to have been held by his worshippers. 

 The modern idea that they conceived of him as having been 

 born of a Virgin, and entering the world as an infant, has. 

 absolutely no foundation whatever. An Armenian Christian 

 WTiterJ of the fifth century does, it is true, tell us that the 

 Christian bishops of Armenia, in reply to an attack upon their 

 faith by the Persian viceroy Mihr ISTerseh, taunted the Persians 

 with holding that " the God Mithra was born of a§ woman," and 

 in another place he explains this by affirming that a Persian 

 sage had taught that " the God Mithra has been incestuously 

 born of a mortal || mother." The reference is doubtless to the 

 Avestic legend referring to Mithra as son of Ahura Mazda and 

 Armaiti, which was of course an incestuous birth.lF But as to 



The 'ATraOai^arta/iw^, published from a Zauher-'pa'pyrus by A. Dieterich 

 under the title of Eine Mithrasliturgie, is held not to be Mithraic by Camont. 

 Mithra's name occurs in it only once, nor does it tell us anything about 

 him. 



t Mr. J. M. Eobertson's Pagan Christs is only one, though perhaps the 

 most striking, example of this unsatisfactory method. 



X Eghishe (Elisseus), Concerning the Vardans and the Armenian War, 

 Armenian ori<.;inal, Venice, 1864. 



§ Mihr asiouads i hioche dsnau ; {op. cit.^ p. 53). 



II Mihrn astouads mairadsin e i mardkane {op. cit., p. 57). 



IF Another Armenian writer, Eznik, in his Refutation of Heresies 

 (Bk. IT, cap. X, p, 133, Armenian original) tells a story as to the Persian 

 belief of the coming birth of one of the three future prophets, in which he 



