For military service, as a symbol of devotion and an emblem of unflinching loyalty, did influence the mystery-religions and cults of the period J as well as Christianity. It is natural to expect this in the case of a cult like Mithraism, which was so popular in the army itsidf ; probably one of its attractions for soldiers lay in the fact that the Mithra initiates were enrolled in a 'sacred army,' swearing an oath (sacrament um) when they en- listed in the cult, and devoting themselves to a campaign a'.;ainst immorality and mortality. The unconquerable god of the cult marshalled his
* This blending of a martial and a pacific metaphor Is not unparalleled; cf., e.()., Ps 91-> (' He shall cover thee with his feathers. . . his truth shall be thy shield and buckler') and la !t^ ('They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when thej* divide the spoil ').
t If the reading is correct, the * absent-minded bejrpar* appears as early as Sir 202s (' For two things my heart is grieved, and for three thinf^ wrath comes on me ; a soldier (7roA<^t(rr»)c] sutTer- ing from poverty, wise men sufTering contempt, and one who turns from righteousness to sin — the Lord prepare the sword for him ! '). But the Syriac version makes a rich man out of the Greek woAcm'O't^*.
I The relevant texts are collected by F. Cumont in his 3fonum. Mi/ftt. Mithra, Brussels, 1S94, i. ;il7, n. 1 ; see, further, his Lra Religions orifntal'\t dans U pai/anisme romain, Paris, 1007, p. xiii f. (Eng. tr., Chicago, 1911, p. xxf.), and U. Keitzenstein, Die hetlenistischen ilysterienreUfjionen, Leipzig, 191U, p. 6C f.
devotees against the powers of darkness. The organization of the cult was partly modelled on military linos; the third gra>le in the liierarcliy was that of miies, according to .lerome (A'/<. 107, in A.D. 403), who leniimls the Homan huly I.nela that her kinsman Cracchus had oidy a few years ago de.stroycd the .Mithia'um at Home with all the inuiges, before which (cf. I'.HE viii. 7."i6) the initi- ates were lankeil as Haven, Gryiihus, Sohlier, Lion, Persian, lleliodromus, and iMilher.* ttne of the ceremonies of initiation consisted in llu- solemn abjuring of a crown ; the votary had a crown placed on his head, which he formally removed, saying that Milhra wiu) his crown. This, according to Terttillian (de Corona, 15), stani|>ed him as a Milhrw miles.
In the cult of Isis also the votaries of the goddess were considered to be her sacred troojis ; the initiate, as we learn from Aptileius (.Mel. xi. 14-1.'>), took a solemn oath on entering the sanrta militia, and thenceforth belonged to the cohort of the goddess. It was a conception of the religious life which was familiar in connexion with the cults, long before Christianity ; Livy (xxxix. 15. 13), e.f/., witnesses to the use of saermncntiim as a term for the oath taken by those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Hacchus, and he chronicles a similar practice among the Samnites (X. 38: ' Kt deorum etiam adiiibucrant opes ritii quodam sacramenti vetusto velut initiatis militibus . . . iurare cogehatur diro quodam carnnne in execrationera capitis familiaeque et stirpis com- posito, nisi isset in proelium quo imperatoies duxissent'). One factor which developed its usage in the religious world w,is probably the oatii of allegi.ance taken by the subjects of Oriental monarchs who were regarded as semi-divine on earth. Thus loyalism lilended with piety, and military allegiance acquired a religious sanction, so that, }>cr contra, the religion of the cults, Syrian, Egyptian, and Persian, became more than ever adapted to tlie ideas of an absolute devotion on the part of members to their sovereign deity. ' The sacred militia of the mysteries,' says Cumont [Les Relig. orientalcs, p. xvi), 'is simply this civic morality viewed from the standpoint of religion.' With regard to the Isis cult, in particular, early in the 2nd cent.t we come upon an invocation of Isis Myrionyma, a rigmarole of her various titles and excellences, which shows how even a fenuile ileity ins])ired thi^ sense of adoring confidence in her votaries. The military aspect is repeatedly visible ; e.g. she is hailed as ' victorious,' ' saviour of men,' 'swiftly victorious,' ' warlike,' 'warding oil" attacks,' ' the queen of war and rule, who easily destroy est tyrants by trusty counsels.' Her Egyptian initiate adores her for satisfying the manifold needs of men and women ; he has a religious and naive assurance that she will never disappoint her loyal followers. Later on, the pious emotions of an isis-worshipjier are described by Ai)uleius of Mailaura in tlie 11th book of his Hutamurptioses. A pnleius was an Oscar Wilde of the 2nd cent, literature; an unclean brilliance shines from his pages, and the more devoutly he writes, the more we suspect him of posing. But his delineation of what Lucius felt and said at Corinth, when he was admitted to the cult, is probably a faithful transcript, on the whole, of the better
• ' Did ho not,' Jerome adds — and this should be quoted as a fresh proof of the military laiiguago of the early Church—' did ho not send them before him like hostages and so win for himself Christian baptism ? Paganism even in Rome is left desolate. . . . The standards of the soldiers have the ensign of the cross. . . . The ruddy, yellow-haired ho'ils of the tJetai- carrv with them tents for churches, and iwrlinps Ihev Imld their own against us beca\iBO they rely on the same religion as we do.'