260 THE KEV. W. ST. CLAIK TISDALL, D.D., ON MITHRAISM. 



that sometimes bis face when slaying the bull exhibits a look 

 of reluctance.* The title of " Mediator " seems never to have 

 been given him in the Christian sense at all. Plutarch (who 

 was not a Mitliraist), indeed, in one passage,t in mentioning 

 the religion of the " Persians," says that they named him 

 o MecrtTTy?, but the reason he gives is that he was regarded 

 as standing midway hetween Ormazd and AJvriman, not as " in 

 more senses than one the ' Mediator ' between man and the 

 Most High," as a modern writer^ ventures to assert. What 

 Plutarch here states is§ quite incorrect on this point regarding 

 Avestic (Persian) Mithraism, so it probably refers to the Western 

 form of that religion, and may possibly be true in reference to 

 the latter. But if so, fiecriTr]^ cannot here be correctly rendered 

 by " Mediator " in the modern theological sense : it means 

 rather "intermediary." If Mithra was regarded as a link 

 between the Good and the Evil Principle, this shows how much 

 lower the moral conceptions of Western Mithraism w^ere than 

 those of Avestic. 1 1 



Of a Logos doctrine in Western Mithraism we know nothing. 

 In Persian Mithraism it is certain that there was nothing of 

 the kind. In the Avesta the words wa^/wo spento, " sacredlT 

 text," occasionally occur, and some translators have rendered 



As in the head (from the Mithraic statue of the Capitol) pictured on 

 the cover and on p. 192 of Cumont's 77ie Mysteries of Mithra. Cumont 

 describes " the singular mixture of exultation and remorse depicted in 

 the countenance of the god Mithra when he has succeeded in slaying 

 the Bull (p. 211, see also p. 135). 



t De hide et Osiride^ cap. 46, quoted on p. 249, above, note t. 



X Mr. Mallock, in Nineteenth Century mid After, Sept., 1905. 



^5 I mean about Mithra being a /uea/Trj^, and also about worship (at 

 least according to the Avesta) being offered to Ahriman by the 

 " Persians." A good deal of the rest of what Plutarch tells us about 

 Zoroastrian teaching, especially in capp. 46 and 47, is correct to some con- 

 siderable degree. 



II Hence doubtless it was that Mithraism in the West admitted to its 

 pantheon such a large number of the gods of the various tribes with 

 which it came in contact, without at all shutting out those that were 

 distinctly associated with immorality. A man might be a Mithraic priest 

 -and yet hold a high position in the service of other gods at the same 

 time. The inscriptions quoted by Cumont {Textes et Monuments figures^ 

 vol. ii) give many instances of this. One cited by A. Dieterich may be 

 given here. It runs thus : " Pater sacrorum summi invicti Mithrge, 

 sacerdos Tsidis, dei Liberi archibucolus, sacratus Eleusiniis, tauroboliis, 

 defim matris pontifex, hierofanta HecatcB (Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgiey 

 p. 210, Second Ed.). Zoroastrianism would never have permitted this, 



IT If for the sake of convenience we render spe^^o by "sacred" : but 

 see note t, p. 250, above. 



