RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Missions to the Heathen Mithra
town, Conn. (A.B., 1873), the school of theology attached to Boston University (B.D., 1876), and the University of Leipsic (Ph.D., 1879). He was then pastor of the church of his denomination at Fayette, N. Y., for a year (1879-80), after which he was tutor in Latin and Hebrew at Wesleyan University for three years (1880-83). Since 1883 he has been connected with Boston University, first as instructor in Hebrew and Old- Testament exegesis (1883-84) and later as professor of the same subjects (since 1884). In 1901-02 he was director of the American School for Oriental Study and Research in Palestine. In addition to translating C. H. Piepenbring's " Theology of the Old Testament " (New York, 1893), he has written Final Constructions of Biblical Hebrew (Leipsic, 1879); Hebrew Lessons (Boston, 1885); Amos, an Essay in Exegesis (1893); Isaiah, a Study of Chapters i.-xii. (New York, 1897) ; The World before Abraham (Boston, 1901); Tales told in Palestine (in collaboration with J. E. Hanauer, Cincinnati, 1904); and the volume for Genesis in The Bible for Home and School (New York, 1909).
MITHRA, MITHRAISM.
Mithraism and Christianity (§ 1).
Mithra as an Indo-Iranian Deity (§ 2).
Development and Diffusion of Mithraism (§ 3).
Mythology and Theology (§ 4).
Anthropology, Eschatology (§ 5).
The Mysteries (§ 6).
Art and Architecture (§ 7).
The Decay (§8).
Interest in Mithraism is not attributable merely to the fact that it is a rediscovery of comparatively recent date. Two other reasons give the subject importance: (1) This religion contested with Chris-
, tianity for the religious hegemony of
i. Mithra- the Roman world more closely than
ism and any other of the pagan cults in the Christianity, syncretism which marked the religious practise of the later Roman empire. Renan says of it, and without exaggeration: " We may say that if Christianity had been arrested in its growth by some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraistic. It needed to destroy
it the terrible blows struck at it by the Christian empire " (Marcus Aurelius, p. 332, London, n.d.). (2) The causes for this able rivalry furnish the second reason. The diffusion of Mithraism and of Christianity in the Roman world was from the same direction, at about the same time, and its propaganda, popular rather than philosophic, was carried to the same class of people./Tn theory, ritual, and practise Mithraism parodied or duplicated, after a fashion, the central ideas of Christianity. The birth of Mithra and of Christ were celebrated , on the same day; tradition placed the birth of both in a cave; both regarded Sunday as sacred; in both the central figure was a mediator (mesites) who was one of a triad or trinity; in both there was a sacrifice for the benefit of the race, and the purifying power of blood from the sacrifice was, though in different ways, a prime motive; regeneration or the second birth was a fundamental tenet in both; the conception of the relationship of the worshipers to each other was the same — they were all brothers; both had sacraments, in which baptism and a com-
munion meal of bread and the cup were included; both had mysteries from which the lower orders of initiates were excluded; ascetic ideals were common to both; the ideas of man, the soul and its immortality, heaven and hell, the resurrection from the dead, judgment after death, the final conflagration by which the world is to be consumed, the final conquest of evil, were quite similar. Of course the rationale behind these conceptions and the ways in which they were carried out were very differemt, but the general effect is almost startling. The Church Fathers were themselves astounded at the resemblances, and could explain them only by the theory which has so often been applied in the history of the contact of Christianity in its missions to the pagan world — the observances of Mithraism were the cunning parodies devised by Satan to discredit the holy things of God and to seduce the souls of men from the true faith by a false and insidious imitation of it (Tertullian, De corona, xv.; De prozscriptione, xl.; Justin Martyr, 7 Apol. lxvi.; Trypho, lxxviii.). There were, however, two very important differences between the two faiths: Christianity had as its nucleating point a historic personage; Mithra came out of a distant past with all its accretion of myth and fancy. In the second place, Mithraism, like Buddhism and Brahmanism, was syncretistic, was tolerant of the practises of other cults. Where it could not supplant, it assimilated or adopted. As Renan says, once more (ut sup.) : " Mithra lent himself to all the confusions, with Attis, with Adonis, with Salazius, with Men, who had already been in possession for a long time back, to make the tears of women flow." Christianity, on the other hand, was intolerant; its teachers were confident that they alone had the whole and only truth, that all else was error with which there could be no compromise. It would brook no rival; Mithraism, like all else pagan, was ruthlessly and completely crushed when the empire became Christian.
Mithra was originally an Indo-Iranian deity. In the Vedas he appears as one of the Adityas, a lightdeity commonly invoked with Varuna, but later giving way to Savitar. He was a guardian of truth, fidelity, and justice. In Zoroastrianism Mithra was very important. He was one of the 2. Mithra Yazatas or lofty genii of the religion, as an Indo- second in age and honor only to Ahura Iranian Mazda the Supreme, and is often put Deity. on an equality with him. How prominent his part was in Mazdaism may be seen from the fact that in the Avesta the second longest of the Yasts, the Mihir Yast, is in his praise, and to him the Mihir Nyayis is dedicated (SBE, xxiii. 119-158, 353-355). Here, too, he is a light-god, while his attributes appear in the Avesta as follows (a single passage only for each attribute is cited). He is lord of the country side (Fargard, i. 1) and of wide pastures (Sirozah, i. 7), having 100 ears and 10,000 eyes (Sirozah, i. 16); his club strikes the demons (Khorshad Yast, 5); he makes the world grow (Farvardin Yast, 18); has piercing rays (Afrin Paighambar Zartust, 6), possesses full knowledge, is strong, sleepless, was made by Ahura the most glorious of all gods, " Mithra and Ahura,
Mitkra