268 THE EEV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL^ D.D., ON MITHRAISM. 



were supposed to confer immortality,* for on Mithraic monu- 

 ments the phrase Benatus m mternum not un frequently occurs. 



A sentence used by Tertullian in the first of the two passages 

 to which we have just referredf has led some to assert that 

 Mithraism inculcated moral purity and self-restraint. But the 

 restoration of the correct reading makes it clear that Tertullian 

 ieaches nothing of the kind, that the words Hahet ct virgioies,]. 

 habet et continentes, do not in any way refer to Mithra and his 

 religion. A very careful study of all that remains to us of 

 Mithraism, Eastern as well as Western, has not enabled me to 

 find what their moral code was. In Persia it inculcated 

 truthfulness and fidelity to one's obligations, and this may have 

 been the case with Western Mithraism too. But that the 

 latter was "a§ religion of inward holiness, of austere self- 

 discipline and purity," though often asserted, is a statement 

 not only unproved, but contrary to all that we know of all 



confundat et indicet." This treatise was written a.d. 201, when Tertul- 

 lian had become a Montanist. He here objects to a Christian's wearing 

 a garland, and says that by refusing it a miles Mithrae set Christians a 

 good example. This has been distorted into a statement that, in matters 

 of moral coriduct, Mithraists set a good example to Christians ! 



* Cf. Julian the Apostate {Convivium, fin : Hertlein's Ed. vol. i, p. 432). 

 2o< ^e, Trpo^ 7j/bLa9 \c<^^(vv o ' Kp/iiy'i, BedwKci 7ov ircnepa Mn9pav eTri'^ivwvai . 

 (TV h' ainou licu evyoXwv e\ov, TTeia/J-a kcu opjiwv a(r(pa\y ^Cbini re ffeavrCo 

 Trapaaiceva^uov^ icai yviKci av evOevde aTTievai Sefj, /uera T/yv d<^^a$ij<s cXtti'So^ 

 y^^e/bLova Oeov ev/u^evfj Kadia-rd^ (reavriv. Here 'Julian is possibly letting 

 the Christianity he had renounced colour his language. 



+ P. 31, note IT (Be Fraescriptione, cap. 40). 



I This was first pointed out to me by the Rev. C. C. Martindale. 

 The subject of signat is ipse, i.e., diaholus. The summus pontifex is the 

 Fontifex maximus of Rome (a fact that has escaped the notice of the 

 writer of the article " Mithraism " in the new Ed. of the Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica\ not the Pater Patnim or summus sacerdos of the Mithiaists, 

 It is known that the old Roman religious law allowed only one 

 marriage to the Pontifex maximus, which suits the context here. The 

 hahet et virgines refers to the Vested virgins at Rome, the subject of hahet 

 being diaholus once more. Hence, thinking of the old Roman worship, 

 Tertullian quite naturally proceeds to mention Numa Pompilius. The 

 hahet et mrgines has by some, misled by an incorrect reading, been sup- 

 posed to mean that there were virgins in connexion with Mithraism : and, 

 on this slender foundation (if it were a fact, which the present reading 

 shows not to be the case at all) has been constructed the often repeated 

 assertion that Mithraism was " a religion of inward holiness, of austere 

 self-discipline and purity." Mr. Robertson (Pccgan Christs, 2nd Ed., 

 p. 308) falls into the error of understanding the virgines and the summus 

 pontifex as belonging to Mithra. 



§ Mr. Mallock in Nineteenth Centut^ and After for Sept. 1905, p. 496. 



