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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
A first examination of the evidence, literary, epigraphic, and archaeological, upon which our present knowledge of the Mithraic grades is based, is apt to leave us with an impression of finality. The facts themselves reveal hardly a trace of their underlying complexity; and of these facts modern authorities have unanimously propounded what appears to be the one and obvious interpretation. It is only when we realise that part of our evidence is conflicting and part apparently ignored, that we begin to experience doubt as to the successful solution of the problem.
page 53 note 1 Ep. ad Laetam, cvii.
page 53 note 2 Toutain, , Les cultes paiens dans l'empire romain, i, 140Google Scholar.
page 54 note 1 Contra Cels. vi, 21.
page 54 note 2 Cf. the Mithraeum at Ostia. Cumont, Text. et Mon. mon. 84 d.
page 54 note 3 Invicto Mithrae et transitu dei.” T. et M. i, 171.
page 54 note 4 βōνκλόπōσ Θϵὸσ. Porph. De Antr. Nymph. c. 18. In certain sculptures half the signs of the zodiac are “retrograde,” an allusion to this “theft” and the manner in which Mithra, like Cacus, dragged the bull away backwards.
page 54 note 5 The commentators on st. Gregory Naziazenus give variously 80 and 12 as the number of these tests. The writer is disposed to accept the latter as correct for two reasons, firstly, because the acknowledged affinity of Mithra to Hercules suggests a genuine connexion between the labours and the test; secondly, and, it must be confessed, on less scientific grounds, because it would tax the ingenuity of the most practised to invent a sufficient variety of tests to satisfy the demands of so high a figure as 80. The lightheartedness which appends “aliaque id genus” and similar expressions to a meagre list of some four or five examples must be received with suspicion. Even with the instances of tests given us by every commentator, it is a matter of some difficulty to make out the dozen, much less the higher sum. The question is, however, one which does not seriously affect the argument.
page 55 note 1 In what may be presumed to have been the final “labour” of Mithra, the slaying of the bull, the crow is almost invariably present and the lion not seldom.
page 55 note 2 C.I.L. vi, 749–753.
page 56 note 1 T. et M. i. 316. Toutain, op. cit. ii, 141. “Les occultes se voilaient la face.” Dill, Rom. Society from Nero to Marc. Aur. 611. “The veil of the Chryfios … (has) a significance or a history which needs no comment.”
page 57 note 1 T. et M. ii, 375.
page 57 note 2 Cf. T. et M. i, 81. In Mithraea too small or too poor to contain such niches the concealment may have been effected by veils. Was this, perhaps the purpose of the “Bela domini insicnia habentes,” C.I.L. vi, 746? The words “domini” and “insicnia” certainly suggest the majesty and many attributes of the leontocephalous god.
page 58 note 1 Ps. St. August, cf. T. et M. ii, 8.
page 58 note 2 Loc. cit.
page 58 note 3 It is, however, possible that the idea of “humiliation” existed only in the writer's mind through its association with the idea of being blindfolded.”
page 58 note 4 T. et M. i, 321.
page 59 note 1 This theory is not, of course, at variance with the concealment of the mysteries in cells. Both methods may have been practised simultaneously, since the hidden objects must always be kept in their place of darkness, and the neophyte must be impressed by every possible means with a due sense of their secrecy.
page 59 note 2 Vol. i, p. 14.
page 59 note 3 At the writer's request for further information about the cast of the Konjica relief at the exhibition at Rome, Mrs. Arthur Strong kindly re-examined the sculpture in detail. She writes: “I have come to the conclusion that all the four standing figures wear the same dress, namely the short tunic or chiton, and that the disguise is confined to the mask worn by each of the personages. In the case of the supposed Miles the head is almost obliterated, so that there is nothing to indicate that his dress is military.”
page 59 note 4 T. et M. i, 176.
page 60 note 1 Tert. De Corona, xv.
page 60 note 2 De Praescriptione Haereticorum, 40.
page 60 note 3 T. et M. ii, 51.
page 60 note 4 Ap. Met. xi, 15.
page 60 note 5 T. et M. i, 319.
page 61 note 1 It is possible that this may be the ceremony to which the term acceptio was applied, See above.
page 61 note 1 iv, 16.
page 62 note 1 A full account, to which Mr. Stuart Jones has drawn my attention, is to be found in Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions, etc. 1903, 357.
page 63 note 1 Cf. T. et M. ii, 172. One inscription runs Λōύκιōσ ἀνέστησϵν … έαετὸν. The occurrence of the word lion is the sole ground on which the Mithraic origin of the first inscription is based. For ίέραξ there is not even this shred of evidence.
page 63 note 2 Probably of the triple Hecate, cf. C.I.L. vi, 510Google Scholar.
page 63 note 3 C.I.L. vi, 1779Google Scholar; T. et M. no. 15, late fourth century.
page 63 note 4 De Abstinentia, loc. cit. ὧν τὴν αἰτἱαν ἀπōδιδōὺσ Πάλλασ, κ.τ.λ.