297193

8/12/2019 297193

1/7

The Genius of MithraismAuthor(s): Arthur Darby NockSource: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 27, Part 1: Papers Presented to Sir Henry StuartJones (1937), pp. 108-113Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/297193 .Accessed: 04/01/2014 14:14

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Journal of Roman Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 13 2.66.236.148 on Sat, 4 Jan 20 14 14:14:31 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sprshttp://www.jstor.org/stable/297193?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/297193?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sprs

8/12/2019 297193

2/7

THE GENIUS OF MITHRAISM

By ARTHUR DARBY NOCK

Since Sir Henry Stuart Jones has included Mithraism among hismany interests, 1 it seems appropriate to offer to him on this occasionsome remarks on its general significance. No phcnomenon in Imperialpaganism has attracted as much attention, and this is natural.

Virtus, Albine, est pretium persolvere verumquis in versamur, quis vivimus rebus, potesse.

Let us make another provisional attempt to determine the pretiumverum of Mithraism.

We see in it something of eastern worship detached from itsnative content and developed in a new milieu; apparently it had nooecumenical organization; certainly it tolerated other gods, andlent itself to an unchecked local diversification of forms. 2 In all theserespects it was essentially on a par with the other ' oriental religions

in Roman paganism.' Nevertheless, it differed from them in varioussignificant ways. The normal exclusion of women and the moraldemands made of the initiate have often been remarked; but that isnot all.

First, the social basis of Mithraism was peculiar. Syrian andEgyptian cults were commonly carried abroad by Syrian and Egyptianmigrants. Men of other racial origins came to use these rites, buta native character persisted, and in the western half of the empirethe administration of the ceremonies seems to have remained in thehands of a clergy which, if not oriental in birth, at least preserved

the appearances of oriental origin, and which, like the priesthoodsof the Near East, seems to have been professional in character and tohave lived by the exercise of religious functions. 2a Cybele's cult wasdifferent, because of its deliberate introduction at Rome in a Romanform under th-e direction of the quindecimviri. Her conquests in thewestern provinces were the conquests of a Roman goddess.

Mithras never acquired civic status or a place among the sacrapublica.3 But he was not carried by groups of emigrant Iranians.His worship had indeed entered the Greek world on a national basis,starting, as it must have done, with groups of Persians who remained in

1 Article in J. Hastings, Encyclopaedia o1Religionand Ethics viii, 752 ff.; Quarterly Revieuw ccxxi(I914), I03 ff.

2 C/. E. Wuist in P-W s.v. ' Mithras, col. 2I45 f.;Nock in Gnomon vi (I930), 33 ff.

2a The priests of cult societies for the Syriandeities need not have been professional.

3 Julian is speaking in terms of his own personaldevotion when he says of the Romans, Orat. iv,p. I55 B: et aost LeTa TOUJTO

8/12/2019 297193

3/7

THE GENIUS OF MITHRAISM lO9

Asia Minor after the victories of Alexander ; an indication of this

remains in the use of ' Perses ' as the title for the fifth grade ofinitiation. 3a Nevertheless, the Mithraism which reached the westernworld was a new thing, created by fusion in Asia Minor; theMithraism which came to Dura-Europos was brought first byPalmyrene archers4 and secondly by Roman soldiers-not byParthians.5 In general, the cult was carried by pirates, soldiers,functionaries, traders, and slaves, who had learned this derivative ofPersian belief, and it did not travel on a national basis. The spreadof religious ideas, Jewish in origin, by the Christians is in fact analogous,and 'nama' in Mithraism corresponds to 'Amen.'

Furthermore, Mithras in the western world does not seem tohave had a priestly caste or a professional clergy. We do not find anyspecial terminology except that of the grades of initiation-nevermagus, and nothing comparable with profeta, pastophorus, gallus,fanaticus,-but instead sacerdos, antistes, hieroceryx, and the normalwords for men holding office in a collegium. Our inscriptional recordsmention a pater (an initiate of the highest grade) or a sacerdos orantistes as the person in charge. 6 Cumont left it an open questionwhether there was or was not some priestly order in Mithraism as awhole. I

The evidence is scanty. In a late Roman dedication we find theordo sacerdotum honouring the pater patrum. 8 May we not supposethat the priestly office was, sometimes at least, annual, and that theordo, like the ordo Augustalium, was composed of men who had heldit ? This would be clear, if we could be sure of the reading ' sac(er-dote) it(erum) ' in a votive inscription found in the Mithraeum ofDeutsch-Altenburg: Mommsen and Cumont both treat it as uncer-tain, 9 while Kubitschek, who checked the text later, makes no com-ment. 10 A second indication, again unfortunately open to question, isafforded by a text from Dorstadt in Dacia: ' [Invic]to S[oli deo ge]ni-tori [P. Ael. Art]emidorus de [c(?) . . . . . .] sacer(dos) creatus a Pal-[myre]nis do(mo) Macedonia et adve[nitor huius templi pro se et suisfecit.' 1 1 Cumont is now inclined to restore' de[orum] sacerdos,' and tosuppose that this man was made a priest of the Palmyrene gods. 12 But

3a Mr. Le Roy Campbell of Yale University,who kindly read this article in proof, makes analternative suggestion which may well be right-that ' Perses ' is an artificial piece of archaism in-vented to give atmosphere.

4Rostovtzeff, Rdm. Mitt. xlix, I934, I94 ff.Cumont, CR Ac. Inscr. I934, go ff., suggests thatthese men may have learned Mithraism from the

Hadrianic garrison of Palmyra. This is possible;but see below for Palmyrenes in Dacia apparentlyworshipping Mithras.

We know very little as to the type of religionprevalent in Parthia during this period. Cumont,Riv. fil. lxi (933), I45 ff., has shown reason forbelieving that the Tiridates who visited Nero knewsomething like our Mithraism; but in general we

may suspect that ritual practices such as werecommon in the Achaemenid period predominated.

6 Cumont, Textes et monuments i, 535 f.; addfrom the Mithraeum at Gimmeldingen, '. . . fanusconsacra(tus) per Potentianum patrem' [A.D. 325J. Leipoldt, Die Religion des Mithra (H. Haas,Bilderatlas zur Religionsgeschichte, Lief. xv), p. xix].

Les mystei-es de Mithra, I70.8 CIL vi, 2I5i:ITextes ii, p. 96, inscr. i8; cl.

p. II8, inscr. I4 '. . . sacerdoti . . . sacerdotes.'9 CIL iii, 44I7=Textes ii, p. I47, inscr. 372.10 CIL iii, P. 1770-

G1 IL iii, 7728.12 Les religions orievtales dans le paganisnoe

romain,4 276, n. 39.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

8/12/2019 297193

4/7

110 ARTHUR DARBY NOCK

'deorum sacerdos 'is a very strange phrase, 13 and it is easier to imagine

that these Palmyrenes made a man from Macedonia priest of Mithras-whose cult had an extra-national basis-than to envisage themmaking him priest of Malachbel and similar gods. Consequently wemay prefer Cumont's earlier supplement de[curio (?) ],14 andinterpret sacerdos as sacerdos Mithrae. If this is right, we haveanother indication against the existence of anything like a priestlyorder or caste ; for creatus implies the choice of an ordinary man toperform priestly functions whether for a year or longer. If therehad been individuals held to possess an inherent fitness to conductpriestly ministrations, and if a congregation chose at will from among

them, as in effect it chooses Episcopalian clergy in the United States,we should expect some such word as adscitus.We cannot have any great confidence in the interpretation of

these and other data, 15 and we must sulppose that custom varied indifferent times and places, 16 but we may provisionally conclude thata Mithraic collegium selected its priestly officials after the manner ofother collegia, and that ,uayo& nd vyoua0cxo& ad no equivalent in the.west. If this is so, there.must have been at least two importantstages in the evolution of MVithraism. The first is indicated by theword cys6uoIocxn an inscription at Ariaramneia in Cappadocia ; forysuYyoa implies that a.man who was not a magos by birth could

become one by some ceremonial and could thus acquire competence toperform Magian rites. 17 The second stage abandoned the appearanceof Magianism. In any case, whatever were the functions performedby sacerdos or antistes, 18 the initiations, which were the most solemnpart of Mithraic life, were in the hands of the pa ter. 1 9 Further, thewhole community of initiates were sacrati.

Secondly, the other oriental religions in Roman paganism hadtwo principal expressions in worship: (a) a cult-drama, in which. thesacred story of man's deliverance was annually set forth in actionbefore all who cared to attend ; (b) initiations, in which those whowere found worthy were one by one subjected to ceremonies which,,either at once or by stages, produced a new spiritual condition and anew relationship to the gods. (a) was normally an integral part ofthe cult, and, although the deities concerned were also approachedin the ordinary way by processions, sacrifices, votive offerings, hymns,and prayers, the cult-drama was probably performed wherever therewas a substantial temple. (b) was for the relatively few, and there is.

13 I can quote only CIL x, i560 (Puteoli)-'servitor deorurn,' which does not profess to be an

official title, and vi, 377 pater deoru orniuniss.14 Textes ii, p. I34, inscr. 257.'5 The term 'privati' in a dedication in the

Mithraeum at Bingen (published by I-I. Finke inRGK, xvii Bericbt, 1927, 75) seems to be in contrastwith the higher grades of initiation; another textfrom Bingen (ibid. p. 74) mentions a pater sacrorumsiand a matricarius.

16 Thus at Rome we find an antistes who is leand has not yet reached the highest grade (Textes.

ii, p. IoI, inscr. 45).17 Cf. Nock in Jackson-Lake, Beginnings of

Christianity v, I77.18 The two terms are clearly synonymous.19 Cumont, Harvard Theological Review xxv

('933), I55.


8/12/2019 297193

5/7

THE GENIUS OF MITHRAISM I I I

no reason to suppose that it existed in every temple of Isis or Cybele

or the Syrian deities.0

Now Mithraism, so far as we know, had nothing correspondingto the cult-drama ; in fact the essential mystery-idea of a deityannually doing or suffering something was absent. Mithras was notborn annually and did not die annually: he had created once; in thepresent he helped and saved; in the end he would inaugurate the neworder which would last for ever. Although the Greek idea of cyclescould be superimposed, the original Iranian basis of Mithraisminvolved a concept of history akin to that of the Jews ; semel Christus-natus est. On the other hand, Mithraism, outside Asia Minor,

always included initiations. Accordingly, while the range of populardevotion to Mithras was thus limited, his worship had a more inturnedand intense character. That it remained a private cult was noaccident.

Thirdly, Mithraism had its own cosmogony and eschatology,and the bas-relief which met the eye in every Mithraeum set thiscosmogony in the centre of things.2' This may well have been anasset in Imperial times, when cosmogony gained a new interest froman incoherent but widespread mood of questioning and of spiritualanxiety, 22 and the tendency to value non-Greek wisdom as of fabulous

antiquity was very strong. So we see a multiplication of ' barbarian 'cosmogonies ; four in our Hermetic literature, a fifth ' Hermetic 'one presupposed by Sanchuniathon as quoted by Philo of Byblus;the Phoenician cosmogony of Sanchuniathon himself; those quotedby Damascius, Dubitationes et solutiones i, 32I $f. (ed. Ruelle) fromthe Babylonians, the Magi, the Sidonians and the Egyptians.Mithraism was unique in that it told of the end as well as of thebeginning. Further, other mystery-religions could be interpretedby the use of Greek philosophic concepts ; but in Mithraism, as inJudaism and Christianity, there was what seemed a core orphilosophy.23

Fourthly, the myth of Mithras was quite different from themyths of the other oriental gods who were attracting attentionat the same time. The worshipper of Attis and Adonis was concernedonly with the god's death and with the subsequent turning of sorrowinto joy; for Osiris there was also a tradition of his earthly ruleand of his introduction of civilized order into human life. Each ofthese gods had a birth-story, and the birth of Osiris had in Egypt aliturgical commemoration in the Pamylia. But none of these godshad a Vita, as Mithras had, a chain of actions each of which was anevent in the world's drama. This Vita throughout represented

2 0 Cl. Nock, Conversion, 38 ff., 56 ff.21 M. P. Nilsson, Deutsche Literaturzeitung,

1933, col. 253, has pointed to the attractive powerof Mithraic cosmogony.

22 C/. Nock, in Gnosnon xii (1936), 6Io if.

23 At the same time we must distinguish betweenMithraism as a religion on the one hand and theliterary dissemination of Iranian ideas on the other -I hope to return to this topic elsewhere.


8/12/2019 297193

6/7

I112 ARTHUR DARBY NOCK

vigorous heroic achievement. Attis and Adonis had a distinctly

feminine aspect in art and story; Osiris had an air of age. All threewere for a time worsted, although they ultimately triumphed;Mithras was throughout inictus. 24 So, while the cult of Mithrascould give some satisfaction to the anxious questing mood of the time,it spoke also the language of another and a more Roman mood'-the instinct for unsparing exertion in the face of mighty obstacles.This may have contributed to the god's popularity in the higher ranksof the army. I suspect that this note of energy was more importantthan the note of revelation. Julian was a keen Mithraist and lookedto Mithras as moral guide, Commander and redeemer: but for

insights concerning the universe he turned to his philosophic teachersand to the doctrines enshrined in the new synthetic mysteries whichwere associated with the Chaldaic Oracles. 25

Mithras had a character which was all his own. A man mighthope to be delivered as Attis, Adonis, and Osiris were deliveredhe might hope to be delivered by them; but we can hardly supposehim to have desired to be like them. On the other hand, a mancould follow Mithras, not only as leader but also as exemplar. AnOstian dedication has the noteworthy phrase ' antistes dei iubenis (sic)inconrupti Solis invicti Mithra[el.' 2 6 Mithras had from of old beengod of justice and truth as well as god of light. In the Graeco-Romanworld one feature of his story perhaps acquired a new importance.Unlike the gods of Greece and the gods of Rome as seen in the lightof Greek ideas, and the gods of Syria and Egypt who had come intothe picture, Mithras had no erotic mythology. It may be that thegod thus drew to himself some of that sentiment glorifying sexualabstinence which is illustrated in the Greek novel (above all inHeliodorus) and in the Historia Jugusta.27

Fifthly, the *representation of supernatural personages in artmade a deep impression on the ancients, just as it did on the men ofthe Middle Ages ; the pictorial theology of Villon's mother is aninstructive illustration. Artemidorus tells how people dreamed of thegods and saw them in one or other of the familiar art-types. NowMithraism had an iconography which, in spite of differences, is on the

24 On this epithet L. Berlinger, Beitrage zurinoj/iziellen Titulatur der rdnmischen Kaiser (Diss.Breslau, i935), zo ff., has some very valuable remarksand has properly stressed the importance ofHeracles. The art-cycle of Mithras' achievementshas a certain analogy to the 'HpaKVVoU 7rpd4eLW, sthey are called in the 'Tabula Iliaca' (0. Jahn,

Griecbische Bilderchroniken, 43).25 The barbarian cosmogonies quoted by philoso-

phers under the Empire (as earlier by Aristotle)are given as interesting illustrations; only at thelower intellectual level of the Hermetica is one adogma.

26 CIL xiv, 66; cf. Cumont, CRAc. Inscr. I934,

ro6, on the term 'Kepatot, as applied to initiates atDura.

27E.g. fita Opilii Macr. 12 (savage punishmentsof sexual offences); fita Pescenii 6.6 ' rei veneriaenisi ad creandos liberos prorsus ignarus '-aninteresting contrast with the concubine of MarcusAurelius. On the Greek novel and its ethical

sentimentalism ci. M. Braun, Griechischer Romanat. hellenistiscke Geschichtschreibustg, 5, n. I, 62 ff.and index s.v. 'Gewissen'; on popular morality,cf. S. Reinach, Arch. Rel.-Wiss. ix (I906), 312 ff.I suspect that certain scruples at the popular levelfused in a measure with the salvationism whichspread downwards from Pythagorean and Platoniccircles; cf. Gnomon xii (936), 6Io f.


8/12/2019 297193

7/7

THE GENIUS OF MITHRAISM 113

whole curiously consistent. 28 This is not in itself peculiar; Sabazios,

Nemesis and Isis had types which are found everywhere, and therepresentation of a goddess between two riders is found all over theeastern half of the empire and sporadically in the west. Nevertheless,Mithraic iconography is very significant, because it emphasized so wellboth the cosmogonic and the heroic aspects of the sacred story. Apartfrom the appearance of Phaethon in the Dieburg Mithraeum, there isno progressive Hellenization, but rather a fixity which is almost creedal.In this, as in the two stages of organization discussed earlier, we mustsee the work of a definite individual or individuals.

Sixthly, while Mithras was originally a god of light and not a

Sun god, and while in legend and art Helios is different from himand, in fact, subordinate, Mithras was nevertheless solar in the e yesof the people and in dedications he was very commonly equated withSol. So was Sarapis-but the link was less close. The appeal ofMithraism was therefore re-inforced by very widespread and powerfultrends the philosophic heliocentric piety which meant so much to somany; the universal acceptance of a solar calendar 2 9 the Syriansolar cults ; natural piety towards the Sun as the source of light andlife. 3 0 Mithraism drew from this far more than it contributed.The Sol invictus who came to Rome with Aurelian was Syrian and notIranian: this was the god whom Constantine's ancestors, strengthenedperhaps by a background of Thracian beliefs, accepted.

Mithraism had thus ideas, power, intensity and qualities whichdifferentiated it from its natural rivals. Without a hierarchy, withoutthe control of the quindecimviri, it retained its characteristic forms overa wide range. But it showed its strength only in part of the empire. Wecan easily be misled by the devotion which the last circles in Romeshowed towards Mithras ; his cult and the taurobolium were, so tospeak, the forms of paganism which seemed to them most deeply ladenwith emotion; Julian's example probably counted for something.3'

Suppose that Christianity had perished early, whether as a resultof a consistent persecution or by being swallowed up in the generalreligious and cultural atmosphere of the time: we should not then havehad a Mithraic world. We might have had a world in which Mith-raism itself was the special devotion of a few but in which it had beenotherwise absorbed in a solar piety grafted on the normal observancesof ancient paganism, with perhaps some mild diffusion of a highernmoral one. There was, if anything, less chance of the Roman Empireturning Mithraic than of seventeenth-century England turningQuaker. To say this is not to under-estimate Mithraism or Quakerism.

28 C/. F. Saxl, Mithras; L. Deubner, Gronion x(I933), 37Z ff.; and note the phrase in a Mithraeumat Ostia, deum vetusta religione in velo formatum'(of Caelus): G. Calza, N. d. Sc. 1924, 73.

29 C/. M. P. Nilsson, Arch. Rel.-Wiss. xxx('933), I4I ff.

30 Cf. Nock, JTS xxxvii (1936), 305.31 For a nev monument of the period found in

Rome cf. R. Paribeni, N. d. Sc. 1933, 478 ff.; it mustbe Mithraic, but the sun god, as Paribeni remarks,resembles Juppiter Ileliopolitanus more thanMithras.

This content downloaded from 13 2.66.236.148 on Sat, 4 Jan 20 14 14:14:31 PM

Date post:	03-Jun-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	frankha1115
View:	220 times
Download:	0 times

297193

Documents