THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA: TRACING

SYNCRETISTIC CONNECTIONS TO

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University Dominguez Hills

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Humanities

by

Carlo Provanzano

Fall 2009
 UMI Number: 1481388

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

UMT
Dissertation Publishing

UMI 1481388
Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

uest
ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
 Copyright by

CARLO PROVANZANO

2009

All Rights Reserved

 This work is dedicated to my father*, whose venerable character and noble unselfish

service have always been and shall always be a source of strength and inspiration to me.
 PREFACE

Whenever, as a child, I was taught about ancient Egypt, Alexander the Great, or

the glory of Rome, I always thrilled to know more. In my young mind I visualized great

pyramids, marching legions, and great stone temples where holy priests made offerings to

the gods. Later, still in youth, but by then developing a mind of my own, I wondered how

what I was taught in school could be true. Considering the grandeur of their monuments,

the sophistication of their societies, and the advanced state of their scientific knowledge,

how could Egypt and Sumeria have just suddenly arisen only a few thousand years before

the Christian era? It seemed incongruous to me.

More recently, of course, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of much earlier

cultures, with the most recent "discovery" being what they believe is the oldest temple so

far uncovered, dated around 10,000 BC. They find this stunning. I find it amusing. And, I

wonder if in the months and years ahead—with the climactic ravages of global warming

and seismic activity shifting sea levels and affecting land masses—far more ancient finds

will be made. We can only wait and see.

However what I do believe is that long ago in ages too distant to remember, those

few elect among mankind, possessing vision and intellect far in advance of the masses,

must have seen and understood things—call them secrets of nature if you will—and felt it

crucial, even urgent, that they be preserved for future ages. This they did with

architectural monuments and symbols on stone and baked clay, as symbols can be

universally comprehended and speak what countless words cannot. Those secrets, those

Mysteries, hold the key to our future now, as mankind reaches a crucial crossroads.
v
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE ii

APPROVAL PAGE iii

DEDICATION iv

PREFACE v

TABLE OF CONTENTS vi

LIST OF FIGURES viii

ABSTRACT xv

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION 1

Historical Context 1
The Mysteries 6
Statement of the Problem 7
Theoretical Bases and Organization 8
Methodology 9
Limitations of the Study 11
Definition of Terms 13

2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 19

Overview 19

Basic Structure of the Mithra Cult 20

3. SCHOLARLY CONTENTIONS 29

Basic Theories of Franz Cumont 29

The Opinions of Beck and Clauss 33
The Views of David Ulansey 39

vi
CHAPTER PAGE

4. MITHRAISM AND CHRISTIANITY 44

Alexander's New World Order 45

DuraEuropos 46
Similarities between Mithraism and Christianity 49

5. ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ROOTS: SYNCRETISM 58

Socio-Political Connections among Kingdoms 58

Conflation of Deities in Anatolia, Syria, and Rome 61
Similarities in Mysteries of Various Nations 64
Antecedents to Elements in Mithraism 69
Lunar and Solar Deities and Symbols 75

6. THE LION-HEADED GOD 91

Interpretations of the Major Scholars 91

The Sumerian Nergal Connection 94

7. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 100

Recommendations 107

WORKS CITED 110

vu
 LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE

1. Gobekli-Tepe Relief Depicting a Lion 2

2. Gobekli-Tepe Relief Depicting a Scorpion and Vultures 2

3. Gobekli-Tepe Relief Depicting a Bull 2

4. Nevali Cori Head with Snake Crawling Up the Back 2

5. Cut but Unused Megalith, Baalbek, Lebanon 4

6. Temple of Jupiter, Baalbek, Lebanon 4

7. Egyptian Lodge Room, Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania 11

8. The Papacy and the World, Allegorical Painting of

Pope Leo XIII Seated on the Throne of Saint Peter 11

9. Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres (Mitreo delle Sette Sfere)

in Ostia Antica (Rome), the Restoration of the Shrine 12

10. Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres

(Mitreo delle Sette Sfere) in Ostia Antica (Rome) 12

11. Behistun Rock Monument of Darius I the Great (close view) 13

12. Behistun Rock Monument of Darius I the Great (wider view) 13

13. Scene from Taq-e-Bostan High Relief Sculpture, Kermanshah, Iran,

Depicting the Royal Investiture of Sasanid Monarch Ardashir II 15

14. Scene from Taq-e-Bostan High Relief Sculpture, the Tree of Life 15

15. Scene from Taq-e-Bostan High Relief Sculpture

Depicting the Royal Investiture of Khosro II (AD 591-628) 15

16. Near East in 1450 BC, Map 16

17. Nimrud Dag Monument of Antiochus I viii

of Commagene 17
 PAGE

18. Nimrud Dag Monument of Antiochus I of Commagene,

Antiochus I Shaking Hands with the Sun-God Mithra 17

19. Bust of Utu/Shamash the Sun-God

of Sumeria Wearing the Horned Crown of the Gods 17

20. Mother-Goddess Figure Enthroned,

With Two Lions, from Catal Htiyuk 18

21. Lion-Man, also Called Lowenfrau (Lion-Lady), 30,000 BC 18

22. Sculpture of the Tauroctony, Now in the British Museum 20

23. Mithraeum in Ostia Antica (Rome) 20

24. Mithra and Sol Sitting over a Bull While Being Passed a Drink 23

25. Tauroctony, Fiano Romano (Near Rome) 23

26. Cult Relief within the Zodiacal Circle, Walbrook, London 23

27. Temple of the Soul, Masonic Art 26

28. Solar Lion Door-Knocker,

House of the Temple, Supreme Grand Lodge AASR 26

29. Beyond the Heavens, an Allegorical Painting 26

30. Mithra/Helios Relief Sculpture 31

31. Shamashor Sol Invictus, Relief from Hatra, Iraq 31

32. Sol Invictus, Silver Disk, Roman, 3 rd Century AD 31

33. First Century BC Empire of Armenia, Map 34

34. Taurophorous, Poetovio (Spodnja Hajdina, Slovenia) 37

35. Grand Mithraic Bas-Relief of Heddernheim, Germany 37

36. Mithra with Star Cape, Marino, Italy 37

ix
 PAGE

37. Mithra Born from Cosmic Egg, Verovicium/Housesteads 41

38. Mithra Bom from Rock, Entwined by a Serpent 41

39. Rock-Bom Mithra, Terme Di

Diocleziano Museo Nazionale Romano, Roma 41

40. Constellations along Celestial Equator 42

41. Lion-Bull Combat, Persepolis, 6th Century BC 42

42. Sun-God Ahura Mazda inside

Winged-Disk, Palace of Xerxes, Persepolis, Iran 43
43. Nabonidus, King of Babylonia (556-539 BC)

with Symbols of Moon, Sun (Winged-Disk) and Venus 43

44. William-Adolphe Borgereau, The Virgin and Angels 51

45. Anahita, Iranian Mother Goddess, with Her Lions 51

46. Mary Queen of the World with Rays and Crescent Moon 51

47. Helios in His Chariot, 435 BC 52

48. Christ as the Sun, Detail from 3rd Century Mosaic 52

49. Mithra as Kosmocrator Turning the Zodiac 52

50. Christ Pantocrator, 13th Century Fresco 53

51. Christ as Imperator in Full Imperial Garb, Ravenna 53

52. Christ as Universal Ruler 53

53. Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutres Sfeir 54

54. Pope John Paul II 54

55. Assyrian Patriarch Mar Addai II 54

56. Chaldean Cardinal Investiture in Rome 54

x
 PAGE

57. Pope Shenouda I, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria 54

58. Rose Croix Masons in Red and White Ritual Garb 55

59. Rose Croix Officer in Red Cap and Red and White Robes 55

60. Coptic Easter Eggs 55

61. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant 56

62. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant 56

63. Pope John Paul II Raising Host for Adoration 56

64. Hermes as Shepherd, Archaic Period (600-480 BC) 57

65. Moschoforos, The Calf Bearer, 570 BC 57

66. Hermes Kriophoros (or Apollo Nomios)

also Called Christ the Good Shepherd 57

67. Christ as the Good Shepherd, Mosaic 57

68. Goddess Inanna with Her Lion 61

69. Urartian Inanna 61

70. Boghaz-keui Chief God and Goddess 61

71. Cybele, Great Mother Goddess of Anatolia and Magna Mater of Rome 61

72. Kadesh of Syria, Adopted into the Egyptian Pantheon 62

73. Inanna of Sumeria 62

74. Boghaz-keui Depiction of Inanna under a Winged Canopy 62

75. Boghaz-keui Depiction of Inanna

and a Seven Stepped Winged Ladder on the Back of a Bull 62
76. Cybele and Attis, Museo Archaeologico, Venezia, Italia 63

xi
 PAGE

77. Djehuti (Thoth), Ibis-Headed God, Assisting Deceased

while Osiris, Lord of the Underworld, Looks On 63

78. Hermes, Athenian Red Figure, Lykethos, 5th C. BC 63

79. Apis Bull of Egypt beneath Winged-Disk 73

80. Herakles and Kretan Bull, Tampa Museum of Art 73

81. Goddess Durga, the Bull-Slayer, Sasanian Silver Rhyton 73

82. Syrian Hadad (Sumerian Adad), Storm God, on a Bull 73

83. Lamassu, Human-Headed Winged Bull, Neo-Assyrian 73

84. Gilgamesh and the Bull, Terracotta Relief (c.2250-1900 BC) 73

85. Celtic Smertrius-Herakles Slaying a Bull, Gundestrup Cauldron 74

86. Gobekli-Tepe, Prehistoric Sculpture 74

87. Sumerian Gods and Astral Symbols, Cylinder Seal 74

88. Mithra Born from a Tree 75

89. Urartian Helmet with Tree of Life, 760-743 BC 75

90. Gold Pectoral, Iran, 800-500 BC 75

91. Tree of Life with Winged-Disk, Sumerian 76

92. Goddess Anahita and Sun-God Mithra Rising from the Sun-Lion 76

93. Sumerian Sun-God Utu (Babylonian Shamash) 76

94. Apollo Riding a Winged Tripod (Which Represents the Sun) 77

95. Sun-God Ashur, Supreme Deity of Assyria, in a Winged-Disk 77

96. Urartian Bronze Relief of a Male God on a Bull, 824-810 BC 77

xii
 PAGE

97. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome

of Santa Maria dell' Ammiraglio, Palermo 79

98. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome i

of the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie in Kiev 79

99. Christ Pantocrator Hovering in Disk Held by Winged Angels 79

100. Gold Medallion of Pius IX Enthroned Under a Winged-Canopy 79

101. Relief from Ninurta Temple of Ashurnasirpal II, 883-959 BC 83

102. Utu-Shamash in His Throne Room 83

103. Zeus Killing Typhon, Black on Red Vase, Greek 83

104. Bronze Bust of "Commodus Mithras," Salting Collection 86

105. Amenhotep IV, Son of the Sun,

and Queen Nefertiti Making Offerings to Aton 86

106. Alexander as Sun-God, Bronze Statuette, Louvre 86

107. Statuette of Celestial Bull with Body Adorned with Star-Shaped Rosettes 87

108. Statuette of Celestial Bull with Body

Adorned with Symbols of Heavenly Bodies 87
109. Lion-Headed Cloaks and Heads,
Relief, Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) 89
110. Julio Claudian Princeps, Roman Bronze Imago Clipeata

of the Emperor Claudius (r. AD 41-54) Wearing a Radiate Crown 89

111. Pius XI Medallion Struck to Commemorate the 1929 Lateran Treaty 90

112. Christ in Roman Imperial Robes with

Scepter of Power and Solar Disk (Aureole) Behind 90

113. Lion-Headed God on Globe with Crossed Circles 93

114. The Orphic God Phanes 93

xiii
 PAGE

115. Arelate/Aries: Fragmentary Lion-Head with Signs of the Zodiac 93

116. Maahes, Egyptian God of War, Modern Depiction 95

117. Two Assyrian Gods, One Lion-Headed 95

118. Sekhmet, Lioness Egyptian Goddess of War 95

119. Mithraic Leontocephalous Kronos, Bas-Relief, White Marble 99

120. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean Bronze Plaque (back view) 99

121. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean Bronze Plaque (front view) 99

122. Emperor Augustus as Pontifex Maximus 103

123. Pope John XXIII, Pontifex Maximus,

Wearing the Tiara (Triple Crown) and Sun Symbol on Gloves 103

124. Nefer-Kheperu-RA, Ua-En-RA,

Beautiful-Essence-of-the-Sun, Only-One-of-the-Sun 103

125. Sumerian Astrological Depiction of Sagittarius with

Scorpion, Lion, Dog, Eagle, Bull, and Snake Symbols 106

126. Gilgamesh and Enkidu Slaying the Bull of Ishtar 106

127. Tauroctony with Scorpion in the Typical Place 106

128. The Destructive Sun, with Erupting Solar Flares 109

129. Christ in Majesty, as Pantocrator,

Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C 109

xiv
 ABSTRACT

Mithraism, first established as a separate branch of study by famed philologist

Franz Cumont in the first year of the 20th century, is currently a battlefield of contention

among scholars, especially concerning the origins and meaning of the Roman Cult of

Mithra. The author herein argues that Roman Mithraism was not a completely newly

fabricated cult but merely another manifestation of the same Mysteries descended from

the ancient Near East and Egypt. The methodology used applies a syncretistic

comparison and discursive examination of various elements in the Roman cultic

iconography, epigraphy, textual remnants and rituals with correlative manifestations of

the astral-cosmogonical beliefs, relics, and rituals from the ancient Near East and Egypt

over a period of more than four thousand years. The discourse includes ancillary

discussions on the leontocephalous (lion-headed god) and the Sun-god-Moon-god

alternating preeminence in archaic cultures and in relation to the Cult of Mithra.

 1
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Worldly intelligence seeks this Sanctuary in

vain; in vain also do the efforts of malice strive to
penetrate these great mysteries; all is undecipherable
to him who is not prepared; he can see
nothing, read nothing in the interior.. .

Karl von Eckartshausen

Historical Context

There is a revolution going on in the scholarly world that is changing many time-

honored views about history and the history of religion. The waves of the ocean of time

are washing away many long-held beliefs, and a new paradigm of ancient history and the

development of religions is rapidly taking shape. It was long believed in modern times

that all true philosophy originated with the Greeks. In the nineteenth century, noted

scholars like Hegel and Zeller scorned the idea that sublime Greek philosophy could have

had precursors of Indian, Egyptian, or Chinese origin (Burkett, Babylon 50-51).

Anglocentrism made serious consideration of such ideas out of the question, as non-

European civilizations were looked upon as inferior (Hadfield 221-27).

Dates for the earliest civilizations and cultures keep getting pushed back farther

and farther. Sumerian cities of the fourth millennium BC, once considered the oldest,

have been superseded by Catal Huyiik in Turkey and Jericho in Palestine, preceding them

by at least three thousand years (Fairbairn 202; Baiter 1). Evidence of ritual sacrifice has

been found at sites 8,500 years old (Rodrigue 987). Nevali Cori (Turkey) had

monumental temple architecture dating back at least 10,000 years, but archaeologists now
claim 12,000-year-old Gobekli Tepe as the most ancient (see Figures 1-4) (Scham 23-24).

It was believed that only sedentary agriculturalists could have produced the earliest

monumental architecture, but naming Gobekli Tepe as a religious temple of Neolithic

hunters with no domesticated animals " . . . has turned this theory on its head" (26).

Figs. 1., 2., and 3. Gobekli Tepe, reliefs depicting a lion; scorpion Fig. 4. Nevali Cori head with snake

and vultures; and a bull, c. 10,000 BC, from Andrew Curry, "The crawling up the back, c. 8000 BC,

World's First Temple?" Smithsonian Magazine Nov. 2008: 54-60, Prehistoric Turkey. 8 Dec. 2008

5 Feb. 2009 <http:www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ <http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/

gobekli-tepe.html>. turkeynevah.html>.

Later megalithic temples with a similar plan of construction have been found as

far away as the Euphrates (Scham 27). An archaeologist at the Gobekli site, recalling

cultic animal sculptures found in Syria, said "You can really see it's the same culture. All

the most important symbols are the same" (Curry 60). Take note of the "pollen buckets"

in Figure 2 surrounded by bees and ants, as they will appear again in the iconography of

the historic Near East discussed in Chapter Five. The sculpture of "a bare human head

with a snake crawling up the back of it" (see Figure 4) (Scham 25), found at both Gobekli

Tepe and Nevali Cori (separated by two millennia), is significant in later Egyptian, Near

Eastern, and Mithraic iconography as well.

 Earlier dates have been assigned to the Neolithic period. With the discovery of

prehistoric settlements in Hungary, Slovenia, western Anatolia, Bulgaria, and Greece, it

is now believed these areas had a dense population in Mesolithic times and earlier.

Substantial evidence of a catastrophe in the eastern Mediterranean before 8000 BC may

provide the reason for much lower populations in the later Neolithic. Sea level rise of 130

m since 13,000 BC, 50 m during the Mesolithic (10,000-7000 BC), and 40 m during the

Neolithic/Eneolithic (7000-3500 BC) "explains why a great number of Mesolithic and

Neolithic settlements of the Aegean area are now embedded under more or less deep

sediments . . . " (Seferiades 177-83; Byrd 255).

Numerous cultures have traditions of great floods, including the Sumerian, as

related in the Epic ofGilgamesh (Kramer 97; Lambert 130) and copied (with alterations)

by the Jews in the Book of Genesis. Recently an interdisciplinary team of climatologists,

anthropologists, and archaeologists from the United States and Europe reported evidence

of catastrophic climatic devastation of Neolithic civilization in large parts of

"southeastern Europe, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Near East" in 6,200 BC, and "all of

Palestine and the Jordan Valley... suddenly abandoned" about 1250 years earlier

(Weninger, et al. 401-20).

In the mythology of mankind one reads of great giants who do battle, feathered

serpents with wings, dazzling antediluvian cities, and a time in the distant past when gods

and demi-gods with superhuman abilities ruled over men. In the iconography and textual

remains of the Mysteries strange and fantastic images portray multi-form deities, speak of
ascending "celestial spheres," and tell of secret formulas whereby the soul of mortal man

may break the bounds of flesh and take flight, "seeing" in another "realm" (Meyer 214).

Witnessing the massive quarried and cut stones—the one shown below weighing

985 tons—matching those in the stone platform under the great Temple of Jupiter at

Baalbek, one wonders at the advanced skills of the ancients, as the pediment is believed

to have been in place long before the Roman temple was built. Some scholars think the

pediment was dedicated to Hermes/Mercury or Dionysus/Bacchus (Binst 132-33). The

Ptolemys had designated Baalbek as Heliopolis (City of the Sun), and local Arab legends

place the origin of the megaliths before the Flood (Mruzek, Jupiter's). Two men standing

on the ruins in each of the photographs below allow size comparisons (see Figures 5 and

6). In later chapters it shall be seen with whom Hermes/Mercury was equated. And, why

would the Romans choose to build such a monument to the gods at this remote spot?

$&*$&:-!* If4'i y*? 2-f;

Fig. 5. Cut But Unused Megalith, Baalbek, Lebanon, at Fig. 6. Temple of Jupiter, Baalbek, Lebanon, built

an ancient quarry, age unknown, a perfect match to upon a more ancient pediment, begun by Julius

the stones in the pediment under the Temple of Caesar in 15 BC and finished in Nero's reign

Jupiter, together called trilithon, 6 Feb. 2009 <http:// (AD 54-68), from Jiri Mruzek, "Jupiter's Temple,

www.biblemysteries.com/images/baalbek.gif>. Baalbek, Lebanon," 21 May 2009 <http://

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_baalbek_2.htm>.
 5
The recent findings at Gobekli Tepe seem to indicate that man's ritualistic or

religious activities were advanced enough in 10,000 BC to have a functional temple.

When this is coupled with the ongoing evidence being presented by geologists and

archaeologists indicating immense climatic catastrophes in the Eastern Mediterranean

region in that time period, could it be possible that many more such sites are yet to be

discovered, buried under many feet of earth? Satellite imagery was used recently to

identify another 450 undiscovered sites in the Afghan wilderness, some of which may be

many millennia old. According to Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Supreme Council

of Antiquities, seventy percent of the relics of Egypt still lie buried under the sand.

No longer can we look at each discovery from the Mediterranean to India or even

beyond in isolation. More and more, recent findings—textual, iconographical, and

archaeological—are proving strong connections across the region. The Eastern

Mediterranean was very much within the spheres of influence of the great cultures of

ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Iran (Burkert, Babylon), and it is now accepted that

most of Europe's, Iran's, and half of India's languages evolved from a single original

Indo-European mother tongue (Kriwaczek 49).

It is generally conceded that the religions of mankind are repositories of beliefs

from past times, but how far back they go has been a matter of contention. Zarathustra,

father of Zoroastrianism, who shall be dealt with in more depth in later chapters, is

variously dated from 6000 BC to the mid-sixth century BC. The oldest dates are based

upon information from Aristotle, Eudoxus, and Hermippus as quoted in later Greco-

Roman writers (Churchward 14; Jackson 15; Doresse 10, 53). He is also generally
considered to be the first of the prophets (Kriwaczek 209); nevertheless, few would say

the religious and cultic traditions of mankind began with Zarathustra.

The Mysteries

The subject of the Mysteries is quite esoteric, so defining the term proves helpful.

In the days of Classical Greece the polis (city state) was the primary political unit and the

Olympian pantheon of gods was publicly worshipped by all good citizens. Later, after

Alexander's conquests, in the period called "Hellenistic," doubts were cast upon the

Olympian deities of the polis as the world became cosmopolitan. Deities from Anatolia,

Asia, Africa, and India became familiar in the Greek world. With the rise of philosophy

the motives of the Olympian gods were questioned, and some began doubting their very

existence (Meyer 2; Vernant, Origins 54-59; Case 58-59). Western man had become

dissatisfied with the traditional exoteric worship and now sought deeper meaning. The

Mysteries filled this need. This, so far, is what the consensus believes as to when the

Mysteries took shape and why.

Simply put, "the mysteries were secret religious groups composed of individuals

who decided, through personal choice, to be initiated into the profound realities of one or

another deity" (Meyer 4). The word mystery (mysterion in Greek) refers to the closing of

the lips or eyes. Contrary to the very public worship of the gods of the polis, the

Mysteries were private convocations. The mystai (initiates) were held to a vow of silence

and forbidden to reveal cultic secrets to outsiders (Meyer 4; Vernant, Origins 58-59).

Mystery cults existed throughout the Roman Empire until the rise and eventual

take-over by Christianity, most scholars believing them extant from the seventh century
 7
BC to the fourth century AD (Claussl4), although there is evidence of extreme antiquity,

as in the Eleusinian mysteries, going back at least to the days of Mycenae and Troy (1200

BC) (Mylonas 135). There was one mystery cult that was particularly popular with the

Roman military forces, and that was the Cult of Mithra, the primary focus of this study.

Statement of the Problem

The famous philologist, Franz Cumont, introduced the study of Mithraism to the

academic world at the beginning of twentieth century. He had spent long years in

research and archaeological excavations in Europe and the Near East prior to the

publication of his magisterial work, Textes et monuments figures relatifs aux mys teres de

Mithra, with 931 pages and 507 illustrations. In 1900 he published The Mysteries of

Mithra as a summary of his conclusions based on the larger work (Cumont, Mysteries

viii). Most later studies and criticisms start with Cumont, as his influence in the academic

world of his day was considerable and still holds many in its thrall (Lincoln 204-05).

Cumont held that the Roman Cult of Mithra was "a branch from the ancient

Mazdean trunk . . . " {Mysteries vi), viewing it as descended from the older Iranian

religion of Zoroastrianism. He explained how he believed it evolved over time from its

roots in Iran to take on a "seductive Hellenic form more palatable to the West" (14-15).

Mithraic cult worship involved a ubiquitous icon referred to as the tauroctony, a relief

sculpture or sculpture-in-the-round that could include various symbols and gods, but most

importantly the god Mithra in a Phrygian cap slaying a bull (Nabarz 18-21). All this

seems rather straightforward but is hardly so, as only scanty textual evidence exists from

the Roman cult, and little or no explanations of the ritual practiced in the mithrae
 8
(Mithraic temples) survive. Extensive iconographic remains spread across Europe and the

Near East consist mostly of cultic relief sculptures. Numerous temple ruins contain

epigraphy (mostly votive dedications) but no explanations of rituals (Clauss 40-44).

Because of this dearth of information, contention has arisen among Mithraic

scholars over the meaning of the iconography, the exact form or interpretation of rituals,

and the very origin of Roman Mithraism. These controversies are addressed at length in

Chapter Three. Scholars also argue over the meaning of the Lion-Headed God

{leontocephalous) in the Mithra cult. This paper offers some exciting new information on

that subject. Additionally, two other ancillary topics are argued. The first is the hotly

debated connection between Mithraism and Christianity. The second is the ancient Sun-

god-Moon-god alternating dominance, as this has direct bearing on the Mithraic cult and

its ties to the Emperors of Rome.

Theoretical Bases and Organization

The research presented herein includes the opinions and findings of most major

Mithraic scholars. The dominant names in the field are of course Franz Cumont (the

founder of Mithraic studies), Roger Beck, Manfred Clauss, and David Ulansey. The

valuable insights of Dr. Payam Nabarz—a Persian-born Sufi, practicing occultist, and

Mithraic revivalist—are also included. Professor Walter Burkert is considered the

world's foremost expert in ancient religions. His in-depth analyses of many issues

contributed significantly to argumentation supporting the primary thesis of this study.

In brief, it can be stated that Cumont saw the cult as an invasion of Iranian

Mazdaism disguised in Western garb. Beck finds its origins in Commagene in the first
 9
century AD and even narrows it down to the royal court and one astrologer named

Balbillus. Nabarz views Roman Mithraism as a continuation of the Zoroastrian faith of

Iran. Ulansey sees the tauroctony as portraying a "salvific act" and views the whole scene

as basically an astrological snapshot of the heavens on the spring equinox in 4000 BC

when the Age of Taurus began. He places the founding of the cult in Tarsus in the first

century BC and suggests one Posidonius as responsible for its genesis. Lastly, Clauss

spurns the views of the other major scholars, insists Roman Mithraism began in the city

of Rome itself or in its port of Ostia, and claims that it "cannot be shown to have

developed from Persian religious ideas" (7). In addition, most of the more recent

scholarly articles by various other authors reject the notion that the Roman cult had its

origins in Iran and argue for a disconnection with the Near East entirely. The current

consensus is running against many of the views Cumont initially put forth (xix-xxi).

Methodology

This study, after digesting all the rest, moves on to present a "new" paradigm: The

Mystery Cult of Mithra was one of several interrelated initiatic orders that flourished in

the time of Roman rule (and well before) and cannot be taken as an isolated and

anomalous movement as most have suggested. As a cult, Mithraism, as part of the

Mysteries, demonstrates continuity with the most ancient cults of Mesopotamia and

Egypt, as shall be argued herein by means of syncretistic analyses and iconographical,

epigraphical, textual, and ritualistic comparisons. The Roman cult was no new

"invention," and its elements long predate Roman imperial times.

 10
While researching syncretism among the various cults and religions of the past,

the researcher is confronted by a critical need to attempt to assess the existential

difference (if any) between (1) purposeful borrowing, (2) unconscious or conscious

influence, (3) assimilation, (4) continuity, and (5) common origin. This, at first glance,

would seem to impede the research involving questions of origin or development, but,

fortunately, Mithraism, when properly understood as a link in a very ancient chain, is

capable of decipherment. The difficulties are in the details. As with any religion or cult,

the embellishments added by inheriting cultures through the years and the aesthetic

changes made to some of the iconographical representations can sometimes mask

underlying basics. When the underlying basics are studied in the context of a broader

time period (rather than just the Roman) and a broader geographical area (rather than just

the Roman territories) heretofore unrealized insights begin to arise.

Extremely helpful in formulating this broader and more holistic approach was the

research of Jean Pierre Vernant and Walter Burkert, both of whom have presented

convincing and voluminous evidence for continuity in matters of cosmology, cosmogony,

and religions from the very ancient Near East and Egypt to Greco-Roman times.

Also helpful were the vast research efforts and scholarly monographs of such luminaries

as Helena Blavatsky, Charles Leadbeater, Max Heindel, and others whose works

presented not only prestigious historical evidence but the viewpoints of actual initiates

themselves. A study of modern initiatic and religious ritual, cosmogonical beliefs, and art

forms (see Figures 7 and 8) helped elucidate some of what other modern Mithraic

researchers had found confusing or indecipherable in the more ancient usages.

 11

Fig. 7. Egyptian Lodge Room. Grand Lodge Fig. 8. The Papacy and the World, allegorical

of Pennsylvania, photo by Kimberely, painting of Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903) seated

Phoenix Masonry, Inc. 9 Jan. 2009 on the throne of Saint Peter, Lateran Palace,

<http://www.phoenixniasonry.org>. Rome, Google Images, 22 Feb. 2008, 29 Jan.

2009 <http://images.google.com>.

Limitations of the Study

The available scholarly articles and books on Roman Mithraism number into the

hundreds now—a truly a massive collection—and this might be seen as a limitation, as

the author of this study could not possibly review them all. Yet, enough were covered to

give a healthy representative sampling, indeed the major thrust, of the cutting edge

scholarship on the Cult of Mithra.

Syncretism is the conflation of different gods and goddesses and ritual practices

over time, geographical areas, and through cultures. The syncretistic approach that was

taken, with so many cultic systems being examined, presented a challenge. Thankfully a

plethora of other scholars (see bibliography) have provided the philological and

archaeological groundwork of research necessary for this study to be undertaken.

 12
An obvious limitation is the length of this discourse, as a mountain of salient

points and relevant art that could be presented in defense of the arguments had to be

pared down to a select few representative of the whole (i.e. the mithraeum in Figures 9

and 10, of which there are many dozens). Considering the careful choice of quality

sources and substantive back-ups to pin down the assertions made it is hoped that the

reader will find the subject clarified and the presentation satisfying, despite its brevity.

What must especially be kept in mind is the philosophical concept of "truth" or

"knowledge." Any study is delimited by its inability to grasp fully or imagine completely,

any possible significant discoveries of the future. Therefore, it is today's "knowledge."

until a newer, better, and more advanced "truth" comes along.

Figs. 9. and 10. Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres (Mitreo delle Sette Sfere) in Ostia Antica (Rome), the

restoration of the shrine and its vestibule (pronaos) by A. Decimus Decimianus, dedication of the altar to

Sol Mithras, bull's tail ends in grains of wheat, scorpion pinches testicles, on the vertical side of benches

are mosaic depictions of the planets, their positions referencing the spring equinox of 21 March in AD 172,

gods Jupiter, Mercury, Luna (as Diana), Saturn, Venus, and Mars depicted in mosaics (on the vertical side

of the benches), as are all the signs of the zodiac (on the horizontal side of the ledge in front of the

benches), Mithra relief now in the Vatican, 27 May 2009 <http://www.ostia-antica.Org/regio2/8/8-6.htm>.

 13
Definition of Terms

There are alternative spellings of some frequently used terms in this study and

alternative usages of others, so some explanations are in order here. The Roman form of

the god was Mithras, the Iranian form was Mithra, and the Indo-Aryan form was Mitra

(later conflated as Mitra-Varuna). In this study the name of the god shall be rendered as

Mithra in all instances excepting direct quotations where it might be spelled otherwise.

Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd) is the supreme good god (and Sun-god) in Zoroastrianism.

Angra Mainyu or Ahriman is the evil god in Iranian Zoroastrianism who opposes Ahura.

Behistun is the rock monument built by Darius I, the Great (521-486 BC), known as the

Rosetta Stone of Iran (see Figures 11 and 12 below).

Bundahishn is one of the ancient holy Zoroastrian texts.

CIMRM stands for Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae.

Figs. 11. and 12. Behistun Rock monument of Darius 1 the Great (521-486 BC), ruler of the Achaemenid

Empire, high-reliefs and inscriptions, measuring 15 m high, 25 m wide, and carved 100 m up a cliff on an

ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylon and Ecbatana, called the Rosetta Stone of Iran, has the

inscriptions repeated three times in three languages: Aryan (Old Persian), Elamite (the administrative

language of the Achaemenid Empire), and Akkadian (Babylonian), with ten figures representing conquered

peoples, all text illegible from ground level, and has the Sun-god, Ahura Mazda, hovering over the scene,

Feb. 21, 2008 <http://www.livius.org/be-bm/behistun/behistun02.html>.

 14
Dadophori is the Greek term for the twins who surround Mithra in the tauroctony.

Genetor luminis is Latin for one of the titles of Mithra, meaning "new begetter of light."

The word "god" shall be rendered with a lower case g, whether referring to the ancient

gods or to any Christian, Zoroastrian, or Gnostic divinity. It shall be rendered with a

capital G only if referring to the Ineffable One. Exceptions of course will be usages

within quoted passages.

Hierophant (hierophantes), literally "the one who shows sacred things," refers to the

leader of mystery cult rituals and religious processions.

Mehr is the modern form of Mithra and in Farsi means "love," "sun," and "friend."

Mithraeum is a temple of the cult. The plural is variously spelled as mithraeums, mithrai,

or mithrae, but herein shall be rendered always as mithrae, not capitalized unless used

within the name of a temple, such as the "Mithraeum of Santa Prisca."

Mystae and mystai are the singular and plural for "initiate," not capitalized. Mystery

{mysterion in Greek) literally means "the closing of the lips or eyes," and is the name by

which the cultic secret systems are designated. The term "Mysteries" will always be

capitalized in this discourse (unless not done so in a direct quote).

Neophyte is one newly initiated into the Mysteries and a candidate for further initiation.

Shamash is the Babylonian Sun-god who was known in Sumeria as Utu.

Soshyant is the Zoroastrian savior prophesied to come at the end of time.

Taq-e-Bostan is the relief sculpture depicting the investiture of Sasanid monarch Ardashir

II (AD 379-383) featuring Ahura Mazda and Mithra (see Figures 13 and 15).

Tauroctony refers to the ubiquitous iconography of the bull slaying by the god Mithra.
 15
Tree of Life is the ubiquitous Near Eastern symbol which modern initiates believe

represents man (see Figure 14 below).

Figs. 13., 14., and 15. Scenes from Taq-e-Bostan high-relief sculpture, Kermanshah, Iran, depicting (left to

right) the royal investiture of Sasanid monarch Ardashir II (AD 379-383), flanked by Mithra on his right

and sun-god Ahura Mazda on his left, the Tree of Life, and a depiction of the royal investiture of Khosro II

(AD 591-628) flanked by Sun-goddess Anahita on his right and Ahura Mazda on his left, though some

scholars believe the figure to the king's left is Mobed-e-Mobedan, the Zoroastrian high priest at the time.

Khosro wears the sun and moon symbols on his head, Feb. 21, 2009

<http: //commons. wikipedia. org/wiki/F ile: Taq-e_B ostan>.

Yazatas are the Immortals that accompany Ahura Mazda (in the Iranian religion).

Utu is the Sumerian name of the same Sun-god known in Akkadian as Sama or Shamash.

The previous entry concludes the definition of terms. A map of the ancient Near

East will prove helpful in locating some of the various kingdoms and peoples referred to

in the text, and a basic chronology of historical periods and dynasties (see below) will

prove invaluable as well. The reader can clearly see the proximity of the ancient Near

Eastern kingdoms to each other and to Mycenaean Greece (see Figure 16), which had

intimate relations with the Hittites and Assyrians as will be shown in later chapters.
 16

Kaska'"
fiathisass
>K~ ^ / , ^ ^ , ; T . / V - , „
* ^ Ihebes

PyloSf

Knossos
/ *Qadesh \

'AttJMUt'flns -.tkbyloit '

GUM.
Libyans - ,.
' \\
Memphis! m
>°P°l^ +Anshan
Hemcleopoln J
Hennopohsi w
mm\>mmmms

Fig. 16. "Near East in 1450 BC", map, University of Michigan, Ian Mladiov's Resources. 7 Feb 2009

<http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/maps>.

The chronology below was taken largely from G. Maspero (see works cited section).

SUMER AND AKKAD KASSITE DYNASTY 1595-1155 BC

Early Dynastic Period (Uruk) 3000-2340 BC NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE 934-609 BC

Akkadian Period (Ur) 2340-2180 BC ACHAEMENID PERIOD 553-330 BC

Neo-Sumerian Period (Ur III) 2125-2025 BC HELLENISTIC PERIOD 331 -141 BC

OLD ASSYRIAN PERIOD 2500-1392 BC PARTHIAN PERIOD 141 BC-AD 224

OLD BABYLONIAN 1894-1595 BC SASANIAN PERIOD AD 224-637

The previous illustrations of Behistun and Taq-e-Bostan (Figures 13-15), the images of

Nimrud Dag (see Figures 17 and 18 below) built by the Commagenian ruler Antiochus I,

and the bust of the Sun-god Utu/Shamash (see Figure 19) will assist the reader in

visualizing some of the places and gods mentioned in the text.

 17

Figs. 17. and 18. Nimrud Dag monument of Antiochus I of Commagene, Fig. 19. Bust of Utu/Shamash

(r.70-38 BC), near Adiyaman, Turkey, has statues 8 to 9 m high, with the Sun-god of Sumeria, wear-

two lions, two eagles, and various Greek, Armenian, and Persian gods, ing the horned crown of the

including Ahura Mazda and Mithra-Apollo-Helios, all originally seated gods, 17 Feb. 2009 <http://

but now with their heads off and scattered over the site. Center figure www. flickr.com/photos/

shows Antiochus I shaking hands with the Sun-god Mithra. Photos by 89756796ON00/214768876>.

Maurice Crijns, 22 Feb. 2009 <http://www.nemrud.nl/img/

west6_mithri.jpg7>.

The time span between the oldest (Behistun) and the latest (Taq-e-Bostan) is over

one thousand years. Some have compared the multi-tiered horned crown worn by Sun-

god Utu/Shamash to the papal tiara. These portrayals will serve to "paint a picture" of

some of the terms defined in this section. The illustration below (see Figure 20) shows

what scholars refer to as the prehistoric Mother-Goddess. Lions rest on each side of her

and remain as her symbol as she reappears throughout this discourse under different

names. The 32,000-year-old statue on the right (see Figure 21) is the oldest known

zoomorphic sculpture in the world, and scholars debate whether it is a male, female,

human or god (Filingeri 65). Curiously, it has seven diagonal marks on its left arm.
 18

Fig. 20. Mother-Goddess Figure Enthroned, Fig. 21. Lion-Man, also called Lowenfrau (Lion-

with two lions, from Catal Hiiytik, c. 7250- Lady), 30,000 BC, found in a cave named Stadel-

6700 BC, Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Hohleim, Hohlenstein, Germany, carved from

Ankara, Turkey, from "Art of the Neolothic mammoth ivory and among several found in

Era in Europe," 8 Jan. 2009 <http:// Paleolithic cave sites, has seven parallel horizontal

www.accd.edu/.. ./arts 13 03/Neolith 1 .htm>. gouges on the left arm, now in Ulmer Museum,

Ulm, Germany, 22 May 2009 <http://

absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lion_man>.
 19
CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Plain and naked exposition of herself is repugnant to

nature . . . she wishes her secrets to be treated by myth.
Thus the mysteries themselves are hidden in the tunnels
of figurative expression, so that not even to initiates the
nature of such realities may present herself naked, but only
an elite may know about the real secret, through the
interpretation furnished by wisdom, while the rest may be
content to venerate the mystery, defended by those
figurative expressions against banality.

Macrobius

Overview

The Mysteries of Mithra had swept across the Roman world in the first centuries

after Christ, the exact date of their origin within the Latinized realm still under debate. By

the late fourth century the cult had virtually disappeared, as Christian fanatics destroyed

Mithraic temples, and many devotees converted to Christianity. Initiates of this strange

"Oriental" deity left behind few traces of ritual and no real explanations of their beliefs.

As a mystery religion, its mystai were sworn to secrecy and did not divulge their cultic

knowledge to outsiders. But they did leave behind numerous relief sculptures, many of

which are well preserved because their temples were to emulate caves and were thus

subterranean constructions (see Figure 23) (Nabarz 8-9, Mac Mullen 122; Meyer 199).

The principal iconographic item, as related earlier, was the tauroctony (see Figure

22), the depiction of the god Mithra slaying the bull, accompanied by various other

symbols (Nabarz 20). Many of the contentions of modern scholars revolve around the

interpretation of the tauroctony.

 20

Fig. 22. Sculpture of the tauroctony, now in the British Fig. 23. Mithraeum in Ostia Antica (Rome),

Museum, from "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's from "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's Guide,"

Guide," The Roman Military Research Society. The Roman Military Research Society, 7 Jan

7 Jan. 2009, 9 Feb. 2009 <http:// 2009, 9 Feb. 2009 <http://www.romanarmy.net/

www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>. mithras.html>.

Basic Structure of the Mithra Cult

In Roman Mithraism the members of each congregation met in mithrae that were

usually underground, as the temple was to represent a cave—the cave in turn representing

the cosmos (Clauss 51). The vault could be adorned with painted stars with glass at the

centers to sparkle with light (MacMullen 125). The initiates underwent a form of baptism

with water, had to pass through various ordeals called the "twelve Tortures" and were

sealed on their foreheads (Meyer 199; Blavatsky, Isis 2: 351). The candidate who passed

all the tests was given "a small round cake or wafer of unleavened bread...." One of the

symbolic referents of this wafer was the solar disk, and it was referred to as the "manna"

or heavenly bread, with figures etched upon it (Blavatsky, Isis 2:351). The Christian

writer, Justin Martyr, relates that the initiates also consumed a holy meal together of
 21
bread and wine or water mixed with wine while uttering a formula. The writings of the

Platonist Celsus suggest, according to some, that the eventual goal was a "new life" for

the initiate, with the ascent of his soul to the divine realm (Meyer 200).

The Seven Degrees

Roman Mithraism, according to most modern scholars, had seven progressive

stages, which shall henceforth be referred to as degrees, although there is evidence of

more than seven terms for degrees. Individual congregations may have had eight or only

two or three (MacMullen 234). The seven, typically named, are as follows: Corax

(raven), under Mercury's rule, was symbolic of the death of the neophyte. Nymphus

(male bride) was the next degree, under the tutelage of Venus. It has a second meaning of

"bee chrysalis." The neophyte remained celibate during this stage and became the bride

(lover) of Mithra. Miles (soldier) was the third degree and under the domination of Mars.

The neophyte knelt naked, with hands tied and blindfolded, as a crown was offered to

him on the end of a sword. After being crowned he removed it from his head and placed

it upon his shoulder, declaring that Mithra was his only crown (Nabarz 34). Cumont

believed part of the Miles initiation was a branding or tattooing on the forehead. Scholars

speculate that it may have been an equal-armed cross Sun symbol (Nabarz 35; Cumont,

Mysteries 157).

Leo (lion) was the fourth degree, whose ruler was Jupiter. It was the first senior

degree and involved a "washing" of the hands and anointing of the tongue with honey.

Porphyry related that the initiates of Leo were "exhorted to keep them [their hands] pure

from everything distressing, harmful, and loathsome... .They use honey as well to purify
 22
the tongue from all guilt." Like the Ravens the Lions wore animal masks, and an

inscription at the Santa Prisca Mithraeum indicates their duty to tend the sacred fire:

"Receive the incense-burners, Father, receive the Lions, Holy One, through whom we

offer incense, through whom we ourselves are consumed!" (Nabarz 36-37).

The fifth degree was Perses (Persian), ruled by the Moon. The harpe (curved

sword) that Perseus used to slay the Gorgon was one emblem of the degree. Again, honey

was used to purify the initiate. As an interesting aside, in ancient Iran honey was believed

to come from the Moon, hence the expression "honey-moon" for the period of one month

(moon) after marriage. Love and fertility, which came from the Moon, would then

continue into the marriage (Nabarz 36-37; Clauss 136).

Heliodromus (Sun Runner) was sixth and under the influence of the Sun. The

symbols of the degree were the torch and a seven-rayed crown with whip (typically

possessions of the Sun-god) (Clauss 137). The Sun Runners represented the Sun at the

ritual banquets and dressed in red, the color of the Sun, fire, and blood (Nabarz 37).

Finally, the highest degree was the Pater (Father). He was under the tutelage of

Saturn and was the representative of Mithra on earth. He was the teacher of the others

(Nabarz 37) and presided over the pater sacrorum (sacred ceremonies). Over all was the

Pater Patrum (Father of Fathers), who held the post until death as grand master of the

adepts (Cumont, Mysteries 155).

Iconography, Epigraphy and Celebrations

The ubiquitous relief of the tauroctony, depicting Mithra slaying the bull, has

been found from Britain to the Euphrates, spanning a period of about 300 years of Roman
 23
rule (Clauss 16). Often included on reliefs of the tauroctony are images of twins, called

the dadophori, dressed like Mithra and in a sense creating a triple Mithra (see Figure 24).

They bear the names Cauti (or Cautes) and Cautopati (or Cautopates). They each bear a

torch, but one holds it up, and the other holds it down (Cumont, Mysteries 129). The most

mysterious figure in the Roman iconography was the leontocephalous (lion-headed god),

of whom more will be said later (Ulansey, Origins 118; Cumont, Mysteries 105).

Various Olympian gods sometimes appear on the chief icon as well, along with

images of a dog, a snake, a raven, a lion, Helios the Sun-god, Selene the Moon-goddess,

and sometimes a krater (cup) (see Figures 25 and 26). The famous Borghesi bas-relief

now housed in the Louvre (originally from the Capitol mithraeum) has nearly all these

(Cumont, Mysteries 21, 117). Sometimes three sprouts of wheat issue from the wound of

r T
, t t

Aiifiii i i irnwinH

Fig. 24. Mithra and Sol sitting Fig. 25. Tauroctony, Fiano Romano Fig. 26. Cult relief within the

over a bull while being passed (near Rome), from Manfred Clauss, zodiacal circle, Walbrook,

a drink, Musee de Louvre, Paris; The Roman Cult of Mithras: The London, from Manfred Clauss,

rpt. in Payam Nabarz, The God and His Mysteries (New York: The Roman Cult of Mithras:

Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Routledge, 2001) 148. The God and His Mysteries

Belief That Shaped the Christian (New York: Routledge, 2001)

World (Rochester, Vermont: 89.

Inner Traditions, 2005) 21.

the bull, and always a scorpion claws at his testicles (39). Another popular Mithraic icon

pictures Mithra and Helios having a banquet, sometimes on the bull carcass or on its hide

(Cumont, Mysteries 54; Clauss 111).

The icon called the "rock-born Mithra" is a portrayal of the god emerging as

either a child or an adult from solid rock (Cumont, Mysteries 130-31; Clauss

66-67,129). A serpent typically entwines the rock below the god, and on some images

Mithra is encircled by a zodiacal ring. The tauroctony can also be circled with a zodiacal

ring, as is the one from Walbrook, London (Ulansey 122; Clauss 68-69, 71, 89).

Epigraphic remains primarily consist of votive offering inscriptions left by

soldiers, captains, or even slaves who paid for and commissioned cultic relief sculptures

such as the tauroctony or an altar. As an example, one reads: D(eo) 0(mnipotenti) S(oli)

Invi(cto), Deo Genitori, r(upe) n(ato) "To the almighty God Sun invincible, generative

god, born from the rock" (Clauss 62). Such votive inscriptions number into the hundreds.

As far as epigraphical remnants of the cult rituals themselves, there is a brief

inscription in the mithraeum beneath the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome that suggests

the initiate is renatum (reborn) and creatum (created or re-created), which in line fourteen

says "And you saved us after having shed the eternal blood." Line 12 makes reference to

"the ram," the significance of which will be taken up later (Meyer 206-07).

An important Mithraic celebration was the ritual meal, which has been compared

to the Christian Eucharist. Bread and wine were consumed in the mithraeum lectisternia

(reclining) by male initiates as illustrated in a relief sculpture from Bosnia-Herzegovina

(Clauss 108-09; Nabarz 53). This position for all, rather than sillisternia (seated) for the
 25
lower-born, as in everyday meals, proved the brotherhood and equality of all the initiates

regardless of whether they were slaves or generals (Nabarz 53). The Sun-god Helios is

also portrayed in some reliefs banqueting with Mithra. In the mithrae the Pater

represented Mithra and the Heliodromus represented the Sun, both of whom sat with the

other initiates at the sacred meal (27). The sixteenth day of every month was celebrated

as the day sacred to the god, as it is in the middle, and he was a divine mediator. Sunday

was a holy day. The birth of Mithra as Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) was celebrated on

December 25th (Cumont, Mysteries 128,167). Dramatic initiation rituals enacted in the

subterranean vaults, which included lighting effects, noises, blindfolds, swords, masks,

and naked men, were designed to "amaze and terrify" (MacMullen 125-26).

Textual Remains

References are made to the Cult of Mithra by a number of Classical authors and

early Church fathers. The third-century Neo-Platonist, Porphyry, for example, wrote:

"The equinoctial region they assigned to Mithras as an appropriate seat. And for this

reason he bears the sword of Aries, the sign of Mars; he also rides a bull, Taurus being

assigned to Venus. As creator and lord of genesis, Mithras is placed in the region of the

celestial equator with the north to his right and the south to his left" (qtd. in Ulansey,

Origins 17-18). Writing in the same century as Porphyry, Church father Origen, quoting

Celsus, wrote:

These truths are obscurely represented by the teaching of the Persians

and by the mystery of Mithras which is of Persian origin. For in the latter

there is a symbol of the two orbits in heaven, the one being that of the
 26
fixed stars and the other that assigned to the planets, and of the soul's

passage through these. The symbol is this. There is a ladder with seven

gates and at its top an eighth gate. (qtd. in Ulansey, Origins 18)

In relation to this information from Celsus an old allegorical painting used by

David Ulansey (and widely published in other sources on the Mysteries of Mithra) has an

initiate peering beyond the known physical universe and into the cosmos beyond (see

Figure 29). Freemasonry and other initiatic orders also make reference to the "Occult

Sun" behind the physical Sun and ladders to the "eighth gate" in various forms of

mystical art, as in the allegorical painting in Figure 27 and the solar lion door knocker in

Figure 28 below. The polished and unpolished ashlars in Figure 27 would have no

meaning to one unfamiliar with Masonic symbology, yet have immense meaning to the

initiates. In the Mysteries allegory and symbols are ubiquitous.

Fig. 27. Temple of the soul, Fig. 28. Solar lion door knocker, Fig. 29. Beyond the heavens, an

Masonic art, ed. Greg Stewart, House of the Temple, Supreme allegorical painting, from

30 April 2008 <http:// Grand Lodge AASR, 7 Feb.2009 Mithraism ed. David Ulansey, 17

www.freemasoninformation.com>. <http://www.dcpages.com/ Dec. 2008 <http://www.well.com/

gallery>. davidu/mithras.html>.
 27
Plutarch wrote that the cult of Mithra came to the West when the Roman general

Pompey encountered Cilician pirates in 67 BC. He said the pirates "offered strange rites

of their own at Olympus, and celebrated there certain secret rites, among which those of

Mithras continue to the present time, having been first instituted by them" (qtd. in

Ulansey, Origins 40; Meyer 204-05). Other ancient writers, such as Tertullian and

Firmicus Maternus, commented on the Mithra Cult, but the above quotes were chosen as

they relate to the arguments which will follow (Meyer 207-11).

Most important among the few extant texts is the so-called Mithras Liturgy,

which occupies lines 475-834 of the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris (Meyer 211). The

Mithras Liturgy has two sections, the first a liturgical mystery for the ascent of the soul

and the other instructing initiates how to use the liturgy. There are seven stages of ascent.

At the highest stage the initiate comes to meet the highest god, who appears like Mithra.

This results, after a divine revelation, in a mystical experience of apathanatismos

(immortalization) (212). It is interesting that the only known textual rendering of the

Mithraic ritual is part of a document written in Greek and part of an Egyptian prayer-text.

The greatest evidence for the cult in Egypt was a mithraeum in Alexandria. Voces

mysticae (mystical vowel sounds) were used in the liturgy, and scholars believe these

"evoked a psycho-cerebral state of excitement by phonaesthetic means . . . " serving to

induce "voluntary production of... psychic states" (Clauss 106-07).

This concludes the exposition of the cult in its Romanized form. As this study is

of limited length the discussions about the more mystical aspects of the Mysteries will be

held to a minimum. All of the Mysteries had meaning on three levels: the mythical, the
 28
allegorical, and the metaphysical. The mythos (myth) involved the telling of the hieros

logos (sacred tale) (Burkert, Ancient 70), in this case visually portrayed by the

tauroctony. Beginning in Hellenistic times allegory was typically termed "mystic" and

dealt more with nature than with the gods, as Cicero stated in his De nature deorum

(Burkert, Ancient 79). As for the deepest metaphysical meaning, that shall be left for a

later time, as herein the more exoteric aspects of the Cult of Mithra relating to world

power structure, syncretistic connections, and astrological considerations shall be the

major concern.
 29
CHAPTER 3

SCHOLARLY CONTENTIONS

Alas, alas, my son, a day will come when the sacred

hieroglyphics will become but idols. The world will mistake
science for gods, and accuse grand Egypt of having
worshipped hell-monsters. But those who
calumniate us thus will themselves worship
Death instead of Life, folly in place of wisdom. . . .
Hermes Trismegistus

As stated earlier, Franz Cumont, the famous Belgian philologist and

archaeologist, had introduced Mithraic studies as a separate branch of historical and

religious inquiry at the beginning of the twentieth century (Burkert, Ancient 1). Since

then many scholars have contested his theories, some offering new interpretations and

some building upon what he had presented. The following subsections will present the

primary and often opposing views of the main scholarly contenders concerning the most

important elements of Mithraic iconography and interpretations, and these bear upon the

primary arguments presented herein. We begin with Cumont.

Basic Theories of Franz Cumont

Cumont's basic argument was twofold: (1) that Roman Mithraism was an

adaptation of the amalgamation—in Roman Syria and Anatolia—of ancient Iranian

Mazdaism, Chaldean astral-cosmology, and infusions of Grecian philosophical concepts,

and, (2) that the Cult of Mithra was locked in a life and death struggle with Christianity

for domination of the minds and hearts of the people and rulers of the Roman Empire.

Cumont was a prince, of sorts, in the intellectual world of academia, author of a twelve-
 30
volume catalog of Greek astrological manuscripts and two books on Greco-Roman

astrology and Egyptian astrology, and chair of the International Congress of the History

of Religions in Brussels, among numerous other accolades.

Cumont held a definite prejudice against all things Iranian, and in addressing the

delegates of the 1947 Congress (in absentia) spoke of the eminent role of Rome, "the

Eternal City who [sic], after sending the world Latin-Hellenic civilization, became

Christian [and] spread in Europe this religion which is ours" (De Ruyt 211-22). The elite

of Europe in the nineteenth century saw other races as "inferior" and even "degenerate"

(Winlow 135-37) and their European culture and society as superior (Hadfield 209-20);

so, it is not surprising that the prince of European academia, Franz Cumont—privileged

and pedigreed, Catholic and living in Rome and Paris, the greatest Catholic humanist

capitals of the time (de Ruyt)—might grow to resent any "incursion" onto European soil

by a "barbaric" (to use his own words) Iranian cult, viewing it with abhorrence.

Obviously such thinking could not help but color his views on anything originating in the

"barbaric" Orient (i.e. Iran), and he reveled in what he considered the "victory" of the

Christian Church over the Mazdean invasion (205-06).

Having stated the basic tenets of the ancient Mazdean (Zoroastrian) faith, Cumont

( Mysteries 112-18) went on to state his belief that under the influence of Chaldean astral-

cosmogony, the Aryan (Iranian) gods came to be identified with the planets, and each

deity then assumed a double meaning as the Semitic system was superimposed upon the

ancient Aryan. Each planet presided over a day of the week; thus the number seven took

on special significance (120). It was mentioned earlier as the number of degrees in the
 3
later Roman Mithraic system. Later, as the thesis of this study is unfolded, the

significance of this will become more clear, but for now, to summarize Cumont's view,

he held that the Roman initiates passed through the seven degrees in a celestial ascent to

perfect wisdom and purity in the final and eighth sphere (145,154).

In the earliest Mazdaism Mithra was a hero battling the forces of darkness and

had become the center of many legends in the Indo-Aryan world. He thus occupied a

middle ground between Heaven and Hell—the middle day of each month, the sixteenth,

was consecrated to him—and, after the Chaldean infusion, he was identified with

Shamash, the Sun-god (Cumont, Mysteries 127). In Babylon Shamash was an

intermediary between mankind and the unapproachable high gods, and later Mithra

assumed that role, eventually becoming Sol Invictus (see Figures 30-32 below).

Fig. 30. Mithra/Helios, relief Fig. 31. Shamash or Sol Fig. 32. Sol Invictus, silver

sculpture, from the Roman Invictus, relief from Hatra, disk, Roman, 3 rd century AD,

Imperial period, Gods, Heroes Iraq, 2nd C , from Ernst H. 12 Feb 2009 <en.wikipedia.org/

and Myths, 30 Aug. 2008 <http:// Kantorowicz, "Gods in Sol Invictus>.

www.gods-heroes-myths.com/ Uniform," Proceedings of

godpages/helios.html>. the American Philosophical

Society 105 (1961) 379.

 The Greek philosophers considered the orb of the Sun an image of the invisible

Being, hidden from the sight of man and conceivable only through reason (129). There

was an evolution of Mithra from demon fighter to solar deity and divine intermediary,

later to be hailed in Rome as Sol Invictus (Unconquerable Sun) (89). This especially

bears upon the major ancillary question of this study: the Sun-god Moon-god alternating

domination. The ramifications go far beyond the inner rituals of the cult itself.

According to Cumont, Mithraism spread across the Roman Empire after it had

already taken solid form during the Macedonian conquest when Greek religion blended

with the Iranian. He believed it was this "seductive" Hellenic form that made it more

palatable to the West {Mysteries 14-15). He believed Asiatic priests pretended to discover

their sacred tradition in the philosophic theories of the West (25). That is a major point

with which this thesis takes exception, seeing rather a common origin to both as the

source of the similarities, which will be argued in later chapters.

Cumont goes on to postulate the continued spread of the cult by way of Cilician

pirates who were avid devotees of Mithra and the exposure of Roman troops to them as

Rome conquered Cilicia (in Anatolia) and used its men to fill its legions, as they did also

with men from Pontus and Syria, not to mention enlisting squadrons of Parthian cavalry

{Mysteries 41-3). Thus, Cumont bases his primary theory on the spread of the cult in the

Roman West on the movement of these Iranianized troops and also of slaves taken from

the same areas (38). An important brick in the edifice of our thesis, uncovered by Cumont

but not as fully integrated by him as it shall be by this study, is this: There was a virtual

"race change" in the Roman Empire after the time of Vespasian (AD 69-79). Mangones
 33
(slave mongers) drove great hordes of "Syrian" slaves into Rome—so many that they

ultimately occupied their own quarter in the capital (63).

In addition to these slaves, Syrian traders, seeing the chance for profit, "populated

with their colonies all the shores of the Mediterranean," and earlier, in the Hellenic era,

had established themselves in the great trading centers of Greece. Their numbers were

dense in Gaul, and large settlements existed in Pozzuoli, Ostia, Lyon, and Treves (in the

north). These hordes of Syrians brought with them their Eastern cults, particularly that of

Mithra (Cumont, Mysteries 61-64), and a number of Asiatic princes—hostages or

fugitives—lived in Rome as well, along with their families and entourages, practicing

their Mazdean faith (80). The Mithraic Mysteries appeared "almost simultaneously" all

over the empire; and, by the time of the Antonines (AD 138-80), even philosophers and

writers became interested in the cult. Lucian, Celsus, Pallas, and Porphyry all wrote of it.

The cult finally reached the Imperial Court, and Emperor Commodus (AD 180-92)

became an initiate (81-83). Here lies a most important point in our thesis: the emperors

themselves became initiates. The concomitant results of that will be explained later.

The Opinions of Beck and Clauss

Roger Beck takes exception to Cumont in one major aspect: the foundational

origin of the Roman Cult of Mithra. Beck notes that until recently "Mithraism in the East

. . . was generally thought to be a later back-formation from the cult in the West" (Beck,

Mysteries 118), for example, the discovery of the mithraeum at Dura Europos (Syria)

(Hopkins 200). Beck places the beginning of Roman Mithraism with a "founding group"

as he calls it, composed of the military and civilian dependents of the dynasty of
Commagene (see map Figure 33) as they moved from being client rulers to Roman

aristocrats (Beck, Mysteries 121). He believes that "The Mysteries were 'founded'

wherever subsets of this highly mobile Commagenian founding group interacted with

their military or civilian peers in the Roman world" (122).

The Empire of Tlgran the Great, 95-66 B.C.

Fig. 33. First century BC Empire of Armenia, map, 20 Jan. 2009 < http://www.Armenia.org>.

Beck also believes the Roman Mithraic Mysteries were a new creation, but one which

drew upon older traditions, the bull-killing as a "salvific act" being their primary

"invention," as he calls it. He says this occurred in the first century AD and that there is

no Iranian original of the tauroctonous Mithra (123). Cumont, of course, had seen the
 35
transformation of Mazdaism to Mithraism occurring in the Hellenizing pre-Christian

centuries (125). Beck takes another big step when postulating the astrological

components of Roman Mithraism as having their origin in one Balbillus, a famous

astrologer connected to the Commagenian court, who was also Vespasian's favorite,

served as Roman prefect of Egypt from AD 55 to 59, and headed the museum and library

at Alexandria as well. Beck believes that these positions held by Balbillus resulted in the

introduction of the lion-headed god as an Egyptian element in Roman Mithraism (127).

Manfred Clauss disagrees with Cumont, Beck, and Ulansey and insists the Roman

Cult of Mithra had its origins in the city of Rome itself or in Ostia, saying: "The

mysteries cannot be shown to have developed from Persian religious ideas, nor does it

make sense to interpret them as a fore-runner of Christianity" (7). To buttress his

argument that Mithraism was never a real threat to the spread of Christianity he draws

attention to the fact that the cult "never became one of those supported by the state with

public funds and was never admitted to the official list of festivals celebrated by the state

and the army" and adds that the same was true of all the mystery cults. He sees the

initiation into the cult by Emperor Commodus and its congeniality to the reigning

political order and its military legions as prime reasons for its wide dispersion (27-30).

In contradistinction to Cumont's belief that "Syrian" immigrants spread the cult

northwards into Germany, Clauss says "we must assume that it was Italians who brought

the cult of Mithras to the Danube and the Rhine" (38-39). Yes, but of what racial stock

were these "Italians" of whom he speaks? He fails to take into account the massive "race
change" that Cumont had shown occurred in Italy after the time of Vespasian (AD 69-79)

{Mysteries 61-64). "Syrians" referred to persons from the Levant to the Iranian border.

In other important points, Clauss stresses the identification of the bull with the

Moon and "Mithras, as the Sun, overcomes the bull, and thereby also the Moon, from

earliest times a symbol of death and restoration to life" (84). He denigrates astrological

interpretations of the iconography as "highly speculative," yet, strangely, goes on to

make such connections himself (89-90). The torch-bearing twins, Cautes (who holds his

torch up) and Cautopates (who holds his down) are seen by Clauss as representing

sunrise and sunset; the gods Oriens and Occidens (East and West); the Sun and the

Moon; or, fourthly, part of the "three-fold Mithras" alluded to by the sixth-century

Christian writer Dionysius the Areopagite (82, 95-96). He also mentions a possible

connection of the twins to the two halves of the year, as in several relief sculptures (i.e.

the one from Sarmizegetusa, Romania) Cautes carries a bull head and Cautopates a

scorpion, the astrological signs of the months beginning each half of the year—Taurus

and Scorpio (97). Whereas Beck sees the bull slaying as a salvific act, Clauss simply

sees it as new life burgeoning "out of the death of the bull," which "new life is true, real

life . . . owed to Mithras alone" (101).

The mythic panels of the life of Mithra portray him hunting (rustling might be a

better word) (Cumont, St. George 67), overcoming, then dragging the bull (with its hind

legs over his shoulders) to a cave to slay it (see Figures 34 and 36) (Clauss 77). The

meanings of the snake and the scorpion figure prominently in the scholarly contentions as

well. The scorpion is usually shown clawing at the testicles of the bull (see Figure 35),
Fig. 34. Taurophorus Poetovio Fig. 35. Grand Mithraic bas- Fig. 36. Mithra with star cape, 2n C.

(Spodnja Hajdina, Slovenia) relief of Heddernheim, Germany, Marino, Italy, ed. David Ulansey,

2nd C , Pokrajinski Muzej Ptuj. in the center stand Mithra and the "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra,"

9 Dec. 2008 <http:// two torchbearers, from Franz Mithraism. 11 Feb. 2009

www.pok-muzej-ptuj.si/ Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra <http://www.well.com/user/

ang/stalne_zbirke_mitreja>. (New York: Dover, 1956) davidu/mithras.html>.

Fig.25, 117, 11 Feb. 2009

<http://www.sacred-texts.com>.

and all the major authors consider this as an attack on the bull (Clauss 99; Cumont,

Mysteries 137), but when does a scorpion attack with its claws? Does it not use the

stinging tail to attack?

As for the snake, it is typically shown underneath the bull or with its mouth at the

wound made by the dagger of Mithra, so all scholars assume it is drinking the blood

(Clauss 100). In some sculptures the krater (cup) is placed under the bull, as in the

Fellbach (near Stuttgart) relief (122). It is perhaps significant that the krater is placed

directly under the penis of the bull, not under the wound. Cumont concluded that the cup

contained just water (Frothingham 59; Cumont, Mysteries 116); but, when considered in

conjunction with the Fellbach (Stuttgart) relief, where the snake's head is at the top of the

vessel ready to drink from it, a different possible meaning unfolds (Clauss 122). The
 38
Divine Bull was created at the beginning of the world by Ahura Mazda as the source

from which all animal and vegetable life would spring (Cumont, St. George 68). Could

the krater, therefore, be holding something other than water, and the snake be harvesting

something other than blood?

The cult-relief from Sia Jebel Hauran, Syria, from the forecourt of the temple of

Dusares, might provide elucidation. This image shows the snake sucking semen from the

penis of the bull (Clauss 101). It was commonly held that the snake was an earth symbol,

and the crescent-shaped horns sometimes depicted on the bull showed it to be a Moon

referent (Cumont, Mysteries 119). Frothingham informs us "that it was from the seed of

the bull transported at his death to the sphere of the moon that creation was to be

produced" (59). New life burgeons out of the death of the bull, "and this new life, which

is true, real life, is owed to Mithras alone" (Clauss 101; Suhr 215). Is the snake then a

chthonic symbol relating to earth, water, or underworld imbibing of the life seed

ejaculated by the Divine Bull, as the krater is perhaps the repository of the regenerating

seed? Zeus impregnated Persephone (goddess of the Underworld) in the form of a snake.

In the Mysteries of Dionysus, Olympias, the mother of Alexander, is impregnated by a

god in the form of a snake. And, in the Mysteries of Sabazius the sacred ritual contained

a phallic snake, which the initiate had to touch in the half-dark initiation chamber, not

knowing if it was real or artificial (Burkert, Ancient 106). So the snake, as will be shown

later, figured significantly in cultic symbology throughout the Near East, and in the

accoutrements of the mithrae, such as drinking vessels {kraters), "the creature occurs

much more frequently than any other" (Clauss 119).

 39
The Views of David Ulansey

In 1989, David Ulansey, assistant professor of religion at Boston University,

presented what was considered by the consensus a radical viewpoint; he interpreted the

tauroctony as a star map depicting the precession of the equinoxes and the position of the

constellations at a certain point in time. In disputing Cumont's assertion that the

tauroctony of Mithra is a carryover from Mazdaism, he claimed there is no evidence of

the Iranian Mithra (of Zoroastrianism) ever killing a bull; instead, it was Ahriman (the

evil god) that slew the bull, forcing Cumont to "hypothesize a variant on this myth"

{Origins 9). Ulansey further remarked on Cumont's use of the terms "incoherence and

absurdity" in reference to "this body of doctrine" (the Zoroastrian story), stating that the

problem was not with the doctrines but with Cumont's sometimes forced assumptions

and arbitrary interpretations (10). It is true, though, that the Bundahishn (Zoroastrian

scripture) does prophesy that Soshyant, the Zoroastrian "savior," will (at the end of time)

sacrifice a bull, and from its fat form a drink that will give immortality to those who

imbibe (Serith 13).

Clauss admits that the zodiacal Taurus and Scorpio are associated in agricultural

calendars with the beginnings of summer and winter (87), as does Cumont, when he

associates the dadophori with the same {Mysteries 128-30). Ulansey sees the Taurus-

Scorpio connections and has them symbolizing the equinoxes (64). A cult relief from

Rome solidifies this contention, as two trees stand in the background of the tauroctony,
 40
one with a lowered torch and fruit on it, the other with a raised torch and only leaves on

it. A scorpion is attached to the fruit-bearing tree, and the head of a bull to the leafy tree

(Ulansey, Origins 65). The symbolism seems obvious.

Crucial to Ulansey's overall astrological interpretation is the rock-born Mithra.

The consensus holds that Mithra was born from the rock (Cumont, Mysteries 131). The

god is typically shown emerging from the rock with upraised arms, as on the relief from

Colonia Agrippina/Cologne, and the reworked denarius from Verulamium/St. Albans

(England) (Clauss 63-44). The consensus also holds that the rock symbolizes the cosmos

or the earth from which Mithra is born (65-67). Ulansey begs to differ; after having

identified Mithra with Perseus (born in an underground chamber), he states (quoting

Maarteen Vermassen) that Mithra was "forced out of the rock as if by some hidden magic

power. He is the new begetter of light {genitor luminis), born from the rock {dues genitor

rupe natus), from a rock which gives birth (petra genetrixy {Origins 35).

The consensus sees Mithra as born into the world as kosmocrator (universal

ruler), but Ulansey sees him as born out of the world. A relief from Rome depicts Mithra

emerging from (or enclosed in) a cosmic egg and surrounded by the zodiac {Origins 122).

In another image he is shown appearing to turn the wheel of the zodiac while holding the

cosmic sphere (99), and on yet another relief he holds the sphere of the world on his

shoulders as Atlas (98). Thus, Ulansey sees Mithra as being born out of a world that has

been destroyed by fire (recalling a Zoroastrian prophecy), becoming the new supreme

god, above all gods, and ruler of the universe, with power over all the planets and stars
 41
(95-112). Most other scholars scoff at this "astrological" interpretation (Serith 7; Clauss

87; Burkert, Ancient 84; Cumont, Mysteries 129-30).

Below, in Figure 37, Mithra is being born from the Cosmic egg, the Zodiac

surrounding him, and in Figures 38 and 39 he is emerging from solid rock. Many dozens

of such images have been found in mithrae across Europe, and thus it may be assumed

that they hold significant positions and meanings in Mithraic mystical symbology.

Fig. 37. Mithra born from Fig. 38. Mithra born from rock, Fig. 39. Rock-born Mithra.

Cosmic egg, Verovicium/ entwined by a serpent, from Terme di Diocleziano. Museo

Housesteads, from Manfred David Ulansey, The Origins of Nazionale Romano, Roma,

Clauss, The Roman Cult of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology from Manfred Clauss, The

Mithras: The God and His and Salvation in the Ancient World Roman Cult of Mithras: The

Mysteries (New York: (New York: Oxford UP, 1989) God and His Mysteries (New

Routledge, 2001)71. 36, fig. 3.7. York: Routledge, 2001) 66.

Keeping in mind the Zoroastrian prophecy about the destruction of the world by

fire (more specifically molten metal) at the end of time and, the emergence of a Divine

Savior (Soshyant) who will slay a bull and offer men the drink of immortality, one cannot

help but be drawn to a tiny image in Clauss' book of a cult-relief of the "rock-born"

Mithra from Bulgaria, where flames shoot out of the ground below him. Another cult

relief from Dura-Europos has flames "shooting out of the rock as Mithras' body
 42
emerges" (Clauss 129; Suhr 216). This seems to lend credence to Ulansey's theory.

Therefore, his main argument—that Mithra was seen as a ruler above the powers of the

fixed spheres and all the other gods—becomes plausible. In Chapter 5 this idea will be

expanded as the syncretistic evidence takes it back much further in time.

Ulansey pointed out that in 4000 BC, the approximate date of the beginning of the

Age of Taurus, the constellations along the celestial equator were exactly those pictured

on the tauroctony (see Figure 40) {Origins 47-51). Allesandro Bausani explained the

tauroctony as a descendent of the ubiquitous ancient Near Eastern portrayals of lion-bull

combat (see Figure 41), and others speculated that Perseus, the founder of Tarsus, a

Mithraic cult center, symbolized the lion (the city's emblem was a lion atop a bull). Leo

Fig. 40. Constellations along the celestial equator, "Earliest History of the Constellations,"

reflecting those typically portrayed on the tauroctony, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965): 17.

with Perseus (above) slaying the bull (Taurus), the

the constellation appearing beneath him in the sky.

10 Nov. 2008 <http://www.atheists.org>.

 43
is "killing" Taurus symbolically; Leo reaches its highest position in the sky as Taurus

sinks below the horizon (21, 45). This idea is expanded in Chapter 5 as the lion-bull

combat motif is traced back in time. The Sun and other astral symbols figure significantly

in ancient Near Eastern iconography, as for example, Ahura Mazda in the winged Sun-

disk and King Nabonidus of Babylonia on a stele with the Sun and astral symbols (see

Figures 42 and 43 below).

After reviewing some of the basic theories held by the most prominent Mithraic

scholars it becomes apparent that there is extensive wrangling and disagreement as to the

meanings and interpretations of the iconography and the origins of the cult, even after

several international conferences held at Manchester, Teheran, and Rome, and a scholarly

journal devoted especially to Mithraic studies (Clauss xx). This all makes the controversy

more interesting.

Fig. 42. Sun-god Ahura Mazda inside winged-disk, Fig. 43. Nabonidus, King of Babylonia (556-539 BC)

Palace of Xerxes, 5th C. BC, Persepolis, Iran, 18 with symbols of Moon, Sun (winged-disk) and Venus,

Dec. 2008 <http://www.livius.org.au-az/avesta/ British Museum, photo by Marco Prins, 16 Feb. 2009

avesta/html>. <http://www.livius.Org/a/l/mesopotamia/

Nabonidus.jpf>.
 44
CHAPTER 4

MITHRAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

In their longing for the expression of some mysteries

never to be comprehended by the profane, the Ancients,
knowing that nothing could be preserved in human memory
without some outward symbol, have chosen the (to us) often
ridiculous images . . . to remind man of his origin and
inner nature. The subjective can hardly be expressed by the objective.
Therefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize
that which is above scientific reasoning, and as often far
beyond our intellects, it must needs go beyond that intellect
in some shape or other, or else
it will fade out from human remembrance.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

In our time many scholars are interested in digging into the past in an attempt to

discover the true roots of the Christian religion. Old ideas are falling away quickly, and

with recent archaeological discoveries, enhanced textual translations, and newly

uncovered epigraphical evidence come new theories concerning the origins of various

rituals, dogmas, iconography, and beliefs of the Christian Church. During the several

centuries preceding the Christian era and the several centuries following the birth of Jesus

the Roman world played host to a seething mix of religions—both the traditional Greco-

Roman and the more "exotic" cults from Egypt and the East. Syncretism was the rule of

the day, and the result was cults and Mysteries with admixtures of various origins. The

days of naivety are over, and now serious students of religion realize that Christianity did

not form entirely from the teachings of one man or group, just as they also realize many

stories in the Torah did not originate only with the Hebrews who transcribed them.
 45
A look shall be taken at the fascinating postulations which claim that a number of

the primary doctrines, as well as elements of the iconography and ritual of the Christian

Church (i.e. the Roman Church), were either influenced by, sprang from, were borrowed

from, or were inherited from the Mysteries of Mithra and Mazdaism. But, what must be

kept in mind as well is this important fact, which shall be expounded in later chapters.

Mithraism itself was but one expression of the sacred Mysteries; therefore, any element

of that particular system might well be also an aspect of other mystery cults, including

those of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria or various other ancient cultures.

The syncretism prevalent among various religions and cults during the several

centuries before and after Christ will be discussed. Secondly, archaeological and

epigraphical findings at Dura-Europos (see map in Figure 33) will be analyzed

concerning the role that city and region may have played in the syncretism and

transmission of the Mithraic mysteries westward. Lastly, the many similarities between

Mithraism and Christianity shall be reviewed, with possible reasons for their occurrence.

Alexander's New World Order

The conquests of Alexander the Great resulted in an amazing amalgamation of

Grecian and Eastern cultures. In the realm of religion, syncretism in the Hellenized East

was the rule of the day. The Mazdean Ahura Mazda was conflated with Zeus, Hercules

became synonymous with the hero Verethraghna, and "Anahita, to whom the bull was

consecrated, became Artemis Tauropolos." The Vedic Mitra, Sumero-Babylonian Utu-

Shamash, and Iranian Mithra became one with the Greek Helios (Cumont, Mysteries 20-

22). Syria figures prominently as a bridge for ideas moving back and forth between East
 46
and West. The cosmopolitan nature of the cities of Syria at the time must have facilitated

this mixing of gods. Syria was for centuries crossed by East-West caravan routes, with

exchange of goods from China and India improved even more by the presence of Roman

roads. It took center stage as a crossroads—commercially, militarily, culturally, and

religiously—between East and West, and "Through Roman . . . times Syria became the

focal point in efforts to maintain a universal Empire" (Burns 2; Merrillees 46).

Romans held no bias toward foreign religions, and exotic cults had been popular in

Rome for centuries. The cult of the Great Mother of Anatolia had been practiced in Italy

since the second century BC, and the Cult of Isis was immensely popular there as well

(MacMullen 114). Pagan cults were not at all exclusivist like the jealous god of Israel

(and then of Christianity). At mithrae in Dura Europos, where Roman soldiers

worshipped, the temples featured a Mithra in fully Parthian garb, and the weapon he uses

to slay the bull is not a Roman sword but an akinakes, a Persian dagger or short sword

(Hopkins 203). Consideration of all this warrants a deeper analysis of what was

happening in Syria and a closer examination of the religious syncretism going on there.

Dura-Europos

One of the most important archaeological sites in Syria is the city of Dura-

Europos, a full-fledged Roman colony on the banks of the Euphrates (Hopkins 224). The

site was discovered by accident and later excavated by Franz Cumont in 1922 (Teicher

99-109; Hopkins 197-98). Inscriptions in Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew,

Hatrian, Palmyrenean, Middle Persian, and Safaitic Persian were found there (Millar 445-

52, 467-72). Temples of Greek, Roman, and Palmyrene gods were uncovered, in addition
 47
to the oldest Jewish synagogue extant and the earliest known "Christian house church."

Frescoes in the church followed the Hellenistic Jewish iconographic tradition, and

parchment scrolls with Hebrew text were discovered inside (Teicher 99-109). In his book,

The Discovery of Dura Europos, archaeologist Clark Hopkins remarks, "Astounding at

Dura in the third century is that we have in this outpost sacred buildings of the three great

religions preserved almost side by side" (203).

There were two mithrae in the city. Clauss denied Mithraism was a "forerunner"

to Christianity. He related that native divinities were assimilated in mithrae, as was the

local mountain deity Turmasgad, who was identified with Mithra in Dura Europos.

Mercury had a close relation to Mithras, in Germany the mother-goddesses were popular

in temples of Mithra, and in Crimea the god Attis was equated with Mithra (Clauss 157).

There was lively interchange among the various mystery cults, as individuals "passed

freely from one cult to another" (Case 56). Frequent admixture of foreign elements into

native religions and the renaming and conflation of gods took place everywhere (61).

Ramsay MacMullen, in his seminal work, Paganism in the Roman Empire, tells us

"several older cults in Greece and Asia Minor took on broadly similar shapes through

mutual imitation" (122). Holy days of various gods were kept sacred in whatever area or

under whatever name they went by in an "unchanging calendar," as in the case of the

goddess Cybele. Rituals of Serapis in Rome "closely followed the Egyptian calendar,"

and "when Ma of Comana [in Capodicia] took r o o t . . . in Pontus, her new home was

called Comana too, and her new services used the same procedures in sacrifices, divine

inspiration and veneration for priests" (Strabo qtd. in MacMullen 100). The point here is
 48
that there was amazing continuity in the practices and iconography associated with each

god regardless of forms of worship or culture. Christianity was developing as a religion

in this very milieu.

Keeping in mind what was said in Chapter 3 about the "race change" in Italy and

the general mixing of "Syrians" throughout the Roman Empire, it is not hard to imagine

how the Christian cult might blend in "Eastern" elements (i.e. Mithraic) with its already

established Judaic ones. It was standard procedure, especially since the days of the Greek

philosophers, to compare and contrast other beliefs with one's own. Aristotle's pupils had

discussed the ideas of Egyptians, Chaldeans, Zoroastrians, Indians, and Jews. This

concept of barbaros philosophia, Burkert tells us, had "by then been appropriated by

Jews and Christians for their own purposes" (Babylon 50).

Concentration on Roman Syria is purposeful because it seems it was there,

according to many modern scholars of Mithraism, that the cult took its "Romanized"

form, and it may have been there where its syncretism with Christianity began. Could this

have been helped along by the Emperors? "Attention was increasingly focused on the

Orient during this period .. ." as "for the first time, natives of Syria were becoming

Roman emperors." Severus (r. 193-211) "married into an important family from Emesa,

and his successors .. . Caracalla. .. Heliogabulus, and Alexander Severus, were

descended from dignitaries and priests of the sun cult in Emesa" (Binst 92). The Council

of Nicea in 325 "included many Syrians, Phoenicians, and bishops from Arabia" (211).

So, Syria and the "Syrians" were at center stage in the religio-political activities in the

Empire during this crucial formative period of Christianity.

 Similarities between Mithraism and Christianity

The forms and rituals used by the Christian Church are often analogous to earlier

pre-Christian forms. During the reign of Artaxerxes Memnon in Persia (404-358 BC) the

hero Mithra was elevated to membership in the divine triad of Zoroastrianism as mediator

between Ahura Mazda (the good god) and Ahriman (the evil god). In Baalbek (first and

second centuries AD) the Romanized divine triad consisted of Jupiter, Venus, and

Mercury, with Mercury as divine mediator (Suhr 215-18). The later Christian triad of

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost may be seen as partly analogous, with Christ as mediator.

Perhaps the most blatant similarity between the Mysteries of Mithra and

Christianity is the date of birth of both Mithra and Christ: December 25th (Clauss 66).

Under the Julian Calendar this was the winter solstice, regarded by Romans as the

nativity of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the Invincible Sun) (Nabarz 47). The day of Saturn

(Saturday) had been held holy by ancient Romans and Jews, but worshippers of Mithra

and Jesus held Sunday, the day of the Sun, as sacred. Both Jesus and Mithra saved the

world through the shedding of "eternal blood" (48). An inscription in the mithraeum

below the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome reads, "and you saved us after having shed the

eternal blood" (Meyer 207).

Christianity is dualistic in its dogma pitting the Devil against God, good angels

against fallen angels—the forces of darkness against the forces of light (Meyer 199). In

the same manner the ancient Zoroastrian (and Mithraic) religion pitted good against evil,

as holy Ahura Mazda battled the evil Angra Manyu (Ahriman) (Ulansey, Origins 9),

whose symbol was the snake, and who is called the Great Lie {durug in Farsi). The newly
 50
enlightened Buddha was tempted by Mara, and Zarathustra, after having received the

revelations of Ahura Mazda was tempted by a demon sent by Angra Mainyu (Jackson 51-

53).This may be compared to the Judeo-Christian tempting of Eve in Genesis and to the

temptation of Christ in the wilderness.

Jesus and Mithra were both born of virgin mothers, Mary and Dughdova

respectively (Nabarz 2, 48). Just as the Holy Mother Mary is revered in the Holy Roman

and Orthodox Catholic Churches, so was the Virgin Mother Anahita in Mithraism (4).

Anahita wore a golden crown with a hundred stars, with eight rays (98), and the Virgin

Mary is often portrayed with a starry crown or veil and rays emanating from her body

(see Figures 44 through 46 below).

The Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele, was conflated with Anahita, Artemis,

Bellona, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Ishtar, Ma of Phrygia, Demeter, Minerva, Diana, Luna, and

others (MacMullen 90; Vernant, Greeks 264; Meyer 6; Cumont, Mysteries 112), and in

Italy she was worshipped as Magna Mater (The Great Mother) (Burkert, Ancient 2). In

Syria, Dea Syria (Syrian Goddess) was usually "identified by the lions around her

throne" (Binst 126) (recall the Mother Goddess of Catal Huyiik). Isis, of course, predates

them all, and as C.W. Leadbeater tells us in Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites:

"Isis was the Mother of all that lives, and the wisdom and truth and power. . . .The moon

was her symbol; and the influence she outpoured upon her worshippers . . . was of

brilliant blue light veined with delicate silver, as of shimmering moonbeams, the very

touch of which brought upliftment and ecstasy" (see Figures 44 and 46 for comparisons

with the Virgin Mary) (19). In Chapter 5 more will be said of Queen Isis.
 51

Fig. 44. William-Adolphe Fig. 45. Anahita, Iranian Mother Fig. 46. Mary Queen of the

Bourgereau, The Virgin and Goddess, with her lions, 18 Dec. World, with rays and crescent

Angels. 1900, Petit Palais 2008 <http://www.cais/ moon, 18 Dec. 2008 <http://

Musee des Beaux Arts, religions/iranian/Anahita.htm>. www.geocities.com/

Paris, France. reginamundi77>.

In addition to the two great gods, Mithraism had seven immortal gods of the

world, and the New Testament speaks of "seven Spirits which are before His throne"

(Nabarz 51; Heindel 180). In Zoroastrianism these were the Amshaspands (Amesha

Spentas, Holy Immortals) (Jackson 41-42; Arjomand 245-46). The Apocalypse (Book of

Revelation) tells of the coming of a Divine Judge at the end of the age and speaking of

that future time condemns evil doers to a "pool that burns with fire and brimstone"

(Apoc. 21.8) (Holy Bible, 343). The Zoroastrian Soshyant comes to destroy by fire

(molten metal) and renew the world at the end of time (Serith 13). Mithra, by shedding

the blood of the bull, bursting forth from the cave of the world, and turning the Greco-

Babylonian zodiac (Sarton 70-72), initiates a New World Order, as Apocalypse has

Christ doing when he returns in triumph (Apoc 21.1-27) (Holy Bible 343).
 52
On Italian medallions found in the catacombs and on Christian sarcophagi from

the early fourth century the Magi (the name for Zoroastrian priests) who came to adore

the newborn Christ are depicted as three men in Persian garb wearing the Phrygian cap of

Mithra. The Magi are beardless and carrying their gifts on plates, as the general style was

adopted from Roman triumphal art showing barbarians bringing tribute (Clauss 169).

Mithra wore the diadem of the Sun and is believed by most scholars to be conflated

with Apollo, Helios, and other Sun-gods (see Figure 47). A third-century mosaic depicts

Christ (see Figure 48) as the Sun-god Apollo (Geitlin 378). As Kosmocrator (see Figure

49) (Clauss 70) Mithra was responsible for the movement of the universe and the

precession of the equinoxes (Ulansey, Mithras 257-64). Christ became Sol Iustitiae, the

f I*. T ' * *

Fig. 47. Helios in His Chariot Fig. 48. Christ as the Sun, Fig. 49. Mithra as Kosmocrator

435 B.C., British Museum, London. detail from 3 rd C. mosaic Turning the Zodiac, c i s t - 3rd

Catalogue No.: London E466 under St. Peter's Necropolis, C. AD, from David Ulansey, The

Attic Red Figure, Calyx Krater, from Mark Geitlin, Living Origin of the Mithraic Mysteries:

High Classical, 11 Feb. 2009 with Art (Boston: McGraw, Cosmology and Salvation in the

<http://www.theoi.com/gallery/ 2008) 378. Ancient World (New York:

gallery/T17.1html>. Oxford UP, (1989) 99.

 53
Sun of Righteousness (Clauss 169). In The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics Jean

Doresse, paraphrasing the Codex Askewianus (the first two books of the Pistis Sophia),

relates that Jesus, after his return, tells his disciples on the Mount of Olives that he has

"just overthrown the evil powers of the celestial spheres...." He "abolished the course of

Fate; he changed the regular movement of the spheres into an alternating movement, so

that the planets could no longer exert their malign influence upon men . . . " (67-68).

Anyone walking into an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Rite Catholic Church

typically sees the imposing image of the Pantocrator (Christ as Ruler of the Universe)

dominating the dome of the sanctuary (see Figure 50). Modern Latin Rite (Roman)

Catholic imagery of Christ as the universal ruler can be seen in Figure 52. A fifth-

century Byzantine image from Ravenna (Kantorowicz 386) depicts Christ in full Imperial

garb, again as a universal ruler (see Figure 51). In Christian Gnosticism a descendant of

Fig. 50. Christ Pantokrator, Fig. 51. Christ as Imperator in full Fig. 52. Christ as Universal Ruler,

13th Century Fresco, Menil Imperial Garb, 5th C. Ravenna, from modern depiction, 24 Dec. 2008

Collection. 24 Dec. 2008 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, "Gods in <http://www.catholictradition.org/

<http://www.menil.org/ Uniform, "Proceedings of the christ>.

visit/byzantine.php>. American Philosophical Society

4 (1961): 386, fig. 40.

 54
Zoroaster, who is the savior Soshyant, "became a representation of Jesus . . . " to justify

the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem (Doresse 102).

The Pater of the Mysteries of Mithra wore a red cap and vestments and carried a

shepherd's crook (Nabarz 49), just as prelates of the Latin and Eastern Churches do (see

Figures 53-57 ). Masonic participants in the rites of the Rose Croix (18th) degree

Figs. 53.-57. (From left to right) Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutres Sfeir, 14 Feb. 2009

<http://www.koyayat.com/maronites.htm>. Pope John Paul II, 12 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/pope.shtml>. Assyrian Patriarch Mar Addai II, 14 Feb. 2009

<http://www.stziacathedral.org.au/popup addai.htm>. Chaldean Cardinal Investiture in Rome, 28 Nov.

2007 <http://www.ankawa.com>. Pope Shenouda I, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, 27 Dec.

2008 <http://www.saintmary.net/copticfaith/pope>.

(sometimes called the "Christian degree") wear red and white vestments (see Figures 58

and 59) and partake of a "mystic supper," as in the mithrae of ancient Rome and in the

ritual of Amen of the Egyptian Mysteries (Leadbeater 73). The mitre (Greek for Mitra)

cap marked the office of bishop in the Christian Church, and the title "father" (pater) was

adopted for priests of the Church (Nabarz 49). And, as Mithra rose from the rock or

cosmic egg, Christ rose from the rock tomb, and eggs (red in the oldest Christian

tradition) help celebrate Easter (see Figure 60).

 55

Figs. 58. and 59. Rose Croix Masons in Red and White Ritual Garb, Fig. 60. Coptic Easter Eggs,

during a medallion presentation, and a Rose Croix Officer in Red Cap 23 Mar. 2008 <http://

and Red and White Robes, holding a basket of fresh red roses, photos www.thegarance.com/

by R. Reed, 4 Jan. 2008, 23 Aug. 2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/ archives/222>.

rreed3/2168181816/in/photostream>.

In the Eastern Orthodox Churches the Mother of God is called the Theotokos, her

icon dominating the main wall of the church. Christ typically appears on her lap, as she is

the Throne of Christ. In Mithraism, as in Mazdaism, the Great Mother Goddess, Anahita

or Magna Mater (in Rome)—and much earlier as Diktynna in the Cretan Mysteries

(Leadbeater 51) and Isis in the Egyptian Mysteries (Meyer 190)—was venerated in the

mithrae alongside Mithra (207). Initiates in the mithrae partook of the sacred meal of

bread and wine. In Catholic churches the Eucharistic host (bread wafer) is held up for the

adoration of the congregation (see Figure 63), as the very body of the god, ensconced

within a monstrance (sunburst).

In an impressive new addition to the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Chicago,

the Blessed Mother—massive in size and seated between two angels over the Ark of the
 56
Covenant and her crescent moon—enshrines, within herself, a twelve-inch host (see

Figure 61). In Figure 62 the Sun symbol on the vestment of the priest is visible. The

Figs. 61. and 62. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant, created by Fig. 63. Pope John Paul II raising

Stefan Niedorezo, gilded by Malgorzata Sawczuk, St.Stanilaus Kostka host for adoration, 12 Feb.2009

Church, Chicago, Illinois, 7 Dec. 2008 <http://www.st.stansk.com>. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/

10442151@N00/16868948>.

host within the monstrance is Christ the Sun. Mary is the Throne as Theotokos, the

mother of god, as Anahita is the mother of Sun-god Mithra, and Isis is the mother of Sun

god Horus.

Many more similarities between the Catholic Mysteries and the Mysteries of

Mithra could be enumerated. Are the similarities due more to a common origin of the two

cults (Christian and Mithraic), rather than a borrowing of one from the other? Figures 64

and 65 depict images of Hermes and the Calf Bearer from ancient Greece that appear to

be the precursors of the third-to fourth-century sculpture called Christ the Good Shepherd

(see Figure 66). A fifth-century mosaic from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in

Ravenna also depicts Christ as the good shepherd (see Figure 67). The much more
 57

Fig. 64., 65., and 66. On the left, Hermes as Shepherd, Archaic Period Fig. 67. Christ as the Good

(600-480 BC) Greek relief sculpture fragment, 24 May 2009 <http:// Shepherd, mosaic, c.425-

www.umw.edu/Course/mythology/0600/apollo.htm>. Center, 450, from the Mausoleum

Moschoforos, The Calf Bearer, 570 BC, probably by Phaidimos, of Galla Placidia, Ravenna,

Acropolis Museum, Athens, and right, Hermes Kriophoros (or Apollo Italy, 24 May 2009 <http://

Nomios), also called Christ the Good Shepherd, 3rd-4th C , 24 May www.accd.edu/arthistory/

2009 <http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/art/Moschoforos.htm>. artl303/ECBYZl.htm>.

ancient Chaldean and Egyptian mysteries had similar iconography and rituals. Chapter 5

will develop this idea further.

 58
CHAPTER 5

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN ROOTS

SYNCRETISM

My Lady, Sin, Inanna. . . Wise daughter of Sin, beloved

sister ofShamash, I am powerful in Borsippa, I am a hierodule
in Uruk, I have heavy breasts in Daduni, I have a beard in
Babylon, still I am Nana. Ur, Ur, temple of the great gods. . . .
They call me the Daughter ofUr, the Queen ofUr, the
daughter of princely Sin . . . holy one who holds ordinances;
she takes away the young man in his prime, she removes the
young girl from her bedchamber—still I am Nana.
Sumero-Akkadian hymn to Nana

The main thesis being presented here is that Mithraism in its Roman form

cannot be considered as anomalous and in isolation, but rather must be looked upon as a

part of a greater whole, that whole being all the cults of the Sacred Mysteries, which

arose not each and every one singly and unconnected, but as the colorful and fascinating

branches of one great tree, with a common descent, also syncretistically conjoined. In

defense of this assertion several elements of the Mysteries of Mithra as practiced by the

Romans will be shown to be of much earlier design and usage, and the Sumero-

Babylonian and Egyptian astrological antecedents will be presented, preceded first by a

review of the commonality and conflation of gods among ancient kingdoms and the

cultural and socio-religious exchanges among them.

Socio-Political Connections among Kingdoms

Any cursory glance at a map of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East shows

how very near all the ancient civilizations were to one another. Syria, the all-important

crossroads in Roman times, was an Egyptian province in the fourteenth century BC.
 59
Akkadian (the Semitic language of Mesopotamia) by that time had become the

diplomatic lingua franca among nations (Na'aman 52). At a time of Hittite expansion

into Syria, the kingdom of Mitanni sought to halt it by allying itself to the other great

power—Egypt—by the marriage of a Hurrian princess to Thutmose IV. During the reign

of Akhenaten the Hittite king Suppiluliuma took as his wife and queen the daughter of

the king of Babylon (Bryce 172-73).

The power of Hatti was so great at that time that Queen Ankhesenpaaten,

widow of Tutankhamen (Nebkheperure), proposed marriage to the son of Suppiluliuma

(Bryce 193). The prince was murdered; the Hittites seized most of Egyptian Syria and

carried thousands of prisoners back to Hatti (198), later taking Carchemish from the

Assyrians and conquering Aleppo and Ugarit, thus consolidating their control over Syria

(222). Hittite destruction of Mitanni resulted in a takeover by Assyria (199).

Now a most important statement on the part of the son of Suppiluliuma

concerning his conquest of Carchemish: "When he had conquered the city—since my

father feared the gods—on the upper citadel he let no one into the presence of (the deity)

[Kubaba (?)] and of (the deity) Lamma, and he did not rush close to any one of the

temples.... But from the lower town he removed the inhabitants, silver, gold, and bronze

utensils and carried them to Hattusa" (qtd. in Bryce 194). Here a conquering king

removed the population and wealth of a great city but dared not go near the precinct of its

gods. He apparently either recognized their authority, even though these were the gods of

another people or simply was too afraid of some power to risk it. The answer will become

apparent as this chapter progresses.

 After Alexander's conquest, and long before, Greeks had contact with the East.

The Mycenaean world was intimately a part of the Near Eastern cultural orbit. In the

fourteenth century BC the Hittites had established relations with people they called the

Achaiwoi (Achaeans or Mycenaeans), the people of Ahhiyawa (Achaea) (Vernant,

Origins, 18-19). Mycenaeans came to dominate Crete by 1450 BC, took Cyprus, and

made the old Cretan colony in Ugarit (Syria) Mycenaean. They also held Alalakh,

"gateway to the Euphrates and Mesopotamia," and "made their way as far as Phoenicia,

Byblos, and Palestine" (21). The Achaeans were now the intermediaries between Egypt

and mainland Europe, a role formerly played by Crete, and may have had a colony in El-

Amarna during the reign of Akhenaten (22). This shows, contrary to former beliefs, that

the Greeks were thoroughly a part of the socio-cultural milieu of the ancient Near East. It

stands to reason that cultic beliefs as well as cultural ideas would be exchanged.

At this point it is important to remember how very different the thinking was at

that time, as compared to the rigid creeds, dogmas, and exclusivism of the denominations

of today. Vernant tells us that "for ancient Greek man, the world was not that objectified

external universe, cut off from man by the impassable barrier that separates matter from

the mind, the physical from the psychic. Man was in a relationship . . . with the animate

universe to which everything connected him" (Greeks 12). People readily identified their

deities with deities of similar characteristics in other nations, as will be shown.

 61
Conflation of Deities in Anatolia,
Syria, and Rome

At Boghaz-keui (ancient Pterium in central Anatolia) is a carved relief (called

Yazilikaya) of the Hittite pantheon. The chief god carries a three-pronged symbol of

authority. The chief goddess stands upon a lion (see Figure 70). Also appearing on the

relief are the winged Sun-disks over four columns, a double-headed eagle, symbolic

mountains shaped like pine cones, and various other deities in procession (Ward 5).

As can clearly be seen in Figures 68 through 71, the chief goddess has as her

symbol the ever-present lion, whether she appears under the name of Inanna or Cybele,

M
.iYT%? V-"

11
» . * , •

u
g% -f^\
Figs. 68. and 69. Goddess Inanna with Her Lion, Figs. 70. and 71. Boghaz-keui Chief God and

Sumerian period, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie Crystal, Goddess (c. 1600-1200 BC), from The Syrian

12 Nov. 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/ Goddess in History and Art. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://

sumergods.html>, and Urartian Inanna (c. 900-600 www.sacred-texts.org>, and Cybele, Great Mother

BC), called the Urartu Sphinx, 12 Feb. 2009 <http:// of Anatolia and Magna Mater of Rome (from 205

www.britam.org/picturesYair/Urartu-sphinx.jpg>. BC), 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.astriad.com>.

whether in Sumeria, Urartu (Armenia), Anatolia, or Rome. Speaking of the art and

religious cults of the Phoenicians, Syrians, Hebrews, and Mycenaeans, Ward

tells us they were "permeated with the elements borrowed from [the] two more ancient

sources [Egypt and Babylonia]" (14). Several Hittite cylinders clearly depict Egyptian
 62
gods Ra-Horakte and the ibis-headed Djehuti (Thoth) (15). Another illustrates Phoenician

god Resheph holding a bull on a leash, an eight-pointed star, and an Egyptian crux ansata

(tau cross) (18). Resheph is conflated with Syrian Hadad and Hittite Teshub. Inanna is

identified with Babylonian Ishtar and Urartian Zarpanit, who is Phoenician-Canaanite

Ashtoreth and also Kadesh (see Figures 72 and 73), her Hittite name thought to be Ishara

(21-29). She typically appears with her lion beside or under her, as on an Assyrian iron

helmet from Nimrud (Dezso and Curtis 107) in the shape of a Phrygian cap.

An inscription on Yazilikaya addresses a Sun-goddess saying, "in Hatti you have

assumed the name Sun-Goddess of Arinna . . . but in . . . the land . . . of cedars (that is,

Syria) you have assumed the name Hebat" (Beckman 100). Two additional reliefs from

Yazilikaya (Ward 24-25) are worth noticing here. In the first (see Figure 74) Inanna, a

Sumerian goddess, appears on the Hittite monument under a winged canopy, and in a

nearby relief the ubiquitous Near Eastern symbol of the ladder appears winged. Both

Inanna and the ladder rest upon the backs of bulls (see Figures 74 and 75).

Figs. 72. and 73. Kadesh of Syria, adopted Figs. 74. and 75. Boghaz-keui depictions of Inanna under

into the Egyptian pantheon, and Inanna of a winged canopy and a seven-stepped winged ladder

Sumeria, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie Crystal, on the back of a bull, (1600-1400 BC), Turkey, from

6 Dec. 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/ William Hayes Ward "The Hittite Gods in Hittite Art,"

sumergods.html>. American Journal of Archaeology 1(1899): 24-25.

 63
The cohort of the Anatolian Great Mother (Cybele) was Attis (see Figure 76), and

Lucian tells us "the Ritual of the Phrygians . . . Lydians, and Samothracians was entirely

learned from Attes." He then relates how, deprived of his manhood, Attis dressed as a

woman and "roaming the whole earth he performed his mysterious rites.... In the course

of his wanderings he passed into Syria where he built a temple to himself...." The image

of the deity in the temple was that of a female "drawn by lions" (qtd. in Strong 56).

"Mithra is twy-sexed," relates Strong, "figuring in some versions as a female . . . " (322),

another type of the Divine Hermaphrodite, as was Zeus-Zen, Cthonis-Metis (earth-water),

and Osiris with Isis-Latona (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 130). As has been stated, Mithra was

identified with Hermes (see Figure 78), and Hermes was the Greek name for the Egyptian

Toth (Djehuti), who, in the mural from Egypt depicted in Figure 77 below, assists the

deceased in the Underworld as a type of intermediary, as the Lord of the Underworld

(Osiris) presides. The "intermediary" or "bridge" between the divine world and the

human realm was a function of Mithra in the later Roman cult.

Figs. 76., 77., and 78. Cybele and Attis, Museo Archaeologico, Venezia, Italia, her lion accompanies

Cybele, 28 Dec. 2008 <http://www.flikr.com/photos/xerxespersepolis/797589843>. Djehuti (Thoth), ibis-

headed god, assisting deceased while Osiris, Lord of the Underworld, looks on, Egyptian mural, 17 Feb.

2009 <http://www.resurrectisis.org/ClWebPage.htm>. Hermes, Athenian red figure, lykethos, 5th C. BC,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17 Feb. 2009 <http://www.theoi.com/olympios/hermes.html>.

 64
Attis, it will be remembered, was equated in Anatolia with Mithra (Cumont,

Mysteries 87,179); a cult statue from Crimea illustrates the conflation (Clauss 157).

Mercury "was identical with the Mazdean Mithra" and was "the leader of and the

evocator of souls, the 'great Magician' and the Heirophant." He is symbolized in Greek

mythology as Hermes, Anubis, or the Agathodaemon. It is through the intercession of

Mercury that Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 28). This

Hermes-Serameyas of the Greeks was related to the Hindu Saram and Sarameya.

Speaking of this great Hierophant (Mercury-Hermes-Mithra-Sarameya), Blavatsky

informs us that in the ancient Brahmanic teachings "The Globe propelled . . . by the Spirit

of the Earth and his six assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the

medium of the seven planetary Dhyanis from the Spirit of the Sun" (29).

Similarities in Mysteries of Various Nations

Further, in The Arcana of Freemasonry, Albert Churchward relates that there

were, in the ancient Egyptian stellar cult, "seven divinities, called Lords of Eternity." He

continues that in the ancient Egyptian ritual (incorporated into the eighteenth Masonic

degree, Rose Croix) the candidate "had to pass through difficulties, danger, and darkness,

after which he was presented to the Great Circle of Princes . . . the veil being removed by

Thoth" (Greek Hermes, Roman Mercury). The initiate in Egypt was conducted "through

the valley of the shadow of death, and after mounting seven steps [was] presented to the

Glorious Princes," after which he shared in the sacred meal (67-68).

It will be recalled that the Roman initiates of Mithra had to endure trials, danger,

and darkness and had seven degrees to pass through before they finally beheld the circle
 65
of the gods and the great Sun-god, the god of gods (Meyer 214-16). Meyer, quoting from

the Mithras Liturgy in The Greek Magical Papyri, tells us the initiate saw (in this

apanathatismos) "seven virgins . . . with the faces of asps . . . the Fates of heaven . . .

guardians of the four pillars!" (217). Recall the winged Sun-disk on the relief at Boghaz-

keui was supported by four pillars. Meyer continues from the Liturgy: "There also came

forth another seven gods, who have the faces of bulls . . . the, so-called Pole-Lords of

heaven" (218). These are the same seven planetary Dhyanis of Brahmanism (Blavatsky,

Secret 2: 29); the same Seven Pole Lords of the Egyptian stellar cult mentioned earlier;

the same seven lords of Christian Gnosticism (Doresse 275-76); and the same astral

counterparts in Gnostic Judaism and of the Essene mysteries (288). Sumerian King Etana

had to pass through "seven gates of the skies" in his celestial ascent (Warren 139). Each

of the seven degrees of Roman Mithraism was under the rule of one of the seven planets,

and the mithrae had portrayals of gates on floor mosaics (see Chapter 2).

The Chaldean system of astral cosmogony had been overlain onto Iranian

Mazdaism in pre-Roman times (Cumont, Mysteries 10). Many Israelites, even after the

Babylonian captivity, remained in Media and in Babylonia. In due time Zoroaster

"became identified with Seth.... They [the Jews] also liked to assimilate him to Balaam,

who had foretold the Star of Jacob.... They identified him, again, with Ezekiel, and

made him a disciple of Abraham" (Doresse 287). There was syncretism between the

Iranian and Jewish cults (Bivar 267) and again with the Christian Gnostics. In the most

ancient Jewish mysticism the soul of the seer was "uplifted through the celestial spheres,

which were guarded by the Archons," of which there were seven. (Doresse 290).
 66
The Essenes of Qumran absorbed the same occult information from the

Hellenistic Pythagoreans (Doresse 296), whose "seven invisible yet solid concentric

revolving spheres is . . . the latest survival of the immemorially ancient world-view of

the" Sumerians (Warren 139-40). In the Bible of the Roman Church, Saint John, speaking

while "in the spirit" (apanathatismos) spoke of the seven powers before the Throne

(Apoc. 1.4,9) {Holy Bible 325), the Merkaba of the Egyptian Gnostics (Doresse 290).

Cumont informs us that the Mazdean Magi in early times had "penetrated to the

heart of Asia Minor" and "established themselves in multitudes in Armenia" {Mysteries

11) (recall the Urartian depiction of Inanna-Zarpanit as bull-lady). Before this time

Mazdean Ahura Mazda had already been conflated with the Chaldean god Bel, Anahita

with Ishtar, and Mithra with Babylonian Shamash (10). Armenia became thoroughly

Mazdean, and it was from Syria, Anatolia, and Armenia that hordes of immigrants

flooded the West in Roman times (all called Syrians by the Romans). Was it any new

religion they were transmitting, or one as old as thinking mankind?

There is a common belief among most scholars that Zoroaster rejected the old

religion of Iran and introduced a basically new one. This has been conclusively proven as

untrue. Zoroastrian scholar Mary Boyce states: "Doctrinal fidelity in the cult of Mithra

can . . . be demonstrated over a period of at least 2,500 years." She goes on to say that

"Zoroaster held to the basic theology of the old Iranian religion, with all its yazatas, and .

.. his reform consisted largely in reinterpreting its beliefs at a nobler and subtler spiritual

level... " (34). Comparably, in the Roman world as well, the concept oitapatria meant

to revere tradition. In the words of Porphyry the "chief fruit of piety" was "to honor the
divinity according to one's ancestral custom," and Plutarch's father asserted "The

ancestral faith suffices in itself, than which no demonstration can be declared or

discovered more palpable . . . " (qtd. in MacMullen 3).

It is interesting to note that these same "Syrians" in the third century clung to

Manichaeism (which Cumont considered the successor of Mithraism) which the

persecuting Sasanian rulers considered indistinguishable from Christianity (Brown 97;

Arjomand 245; Robertson 334; Tighe 28). Curiously, the first nation to convert to

Christianity was Armenia, the very nation that was so thoroughly Mithraic (Cumont,

Mysteries 16; Russell 77). Arnobius speaks of a man named Zostrian as the grandfather

of "Zoroaster the Armenian" (qtd. in Doresse 156). From ancient Mazdaism to the

religion of Christ, from Inanna-Sarpanit to the Virgin Mary, the Armenians and the

Sarmatians—a mixture of Iranian peoples from the steppe, five thousand of whom

manned Hadrian's Wall as Roman army conscripts—figure significantly (Kriwaczek 83).

The similarities between Christianity and Mithraism illustrated in Chapter 4

correlate with how quickly the "new" faith spread in the East. The Apostle Thomas

evangelized in what are today Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern India before his

martyrdom in AD 68. There is speculation that these early missionaries may have been

Gnostic or Jewish Christian sects. The Church "continued to grow and spread, and by 310

its 'catholicos' (later 'patriarch') was the bishop of Ctesiphon, the Persian capital" (Tighe

28). In Armenia, Mithra was held to be one and the same person with Christ in the fourth,

fifth, and sixth centuries (Strong 322).

 68
In Egypt, a third century BC papyrus speaks of a Mithraion (Zoroastrian, not a

mithraeum) (Bivar 266), evidencing presence of Iranian religion there at that early date.

Doresse relates that "ancient prophecies preserved by the remaining devotees of the

Egyptian cults had foretold . . . the manifestations of this sign [the cross] would mark the

advent of a new religion: thus many of the Alexandrian worshippers of Serapis became

converts to the new faith [Christianity]," and the Christians there adopted the crux ansata

(the ancient hieroglyphic symbol of eternal life), "which had the advantage of having

already signified, in their ancestral writing the 'life to come"' (139).

In the Egyptian Mysteries the four children or brothers of Horus figure

significantly, representing the gods of the four quarters or cardinal points, holding up the

canopy of heaven. The Indians had the four Deva Rajas, Kings of air, fire, water, and

earth. Ezekiel described the four great cherubim, and Apocalypse has four great beasts in

the midst of the throne, with the faces of a lion, a bull, a man, and an eagle (Leadbeater

21). Sun-disks on the Boghaz-keui monument are supported by four columns. Brahma is

four-faced, and Jupiter is fourfold—marine, terrestrial, aerial, and fulgurant (22).

In the Hellenistic world the Greeks assimilated the gods of Egypt to their own,

with Zeus becoming Zeus-Amon; Demeter conflated with Isis, and Osiris to Dionysus

(Vernant, Greeks 268). Just as Egypt had in the Osirian mysteries, a ritual of death and

resurrection, so in Greece the Orphic mysteries had its suffering and dying Dionysus

(274). In the Orphic cult individual salvation was by way of a purification of the soul,

beyond ritual, to a way of life. The primary god of Orphism was Apollo Kathartes (the

purifier). The purified soul could then return to the original divine state (275). On the
 69
Nimrud Dag relief of Commagene Mithra is called Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes in the

foundation text of the hierothesion of Antiochus I (Beck, Mysteries 124; Clauss 6-7).

In Roman Mithraism initiates were admonished by the Pater to live a noble and

moral life, and the red boots they wore (also worn by Christian bishops) symbolized the

spiritual warfare in which they were engaged (Robertson 331). How does this moral

purification (especially among initiates in the Roman army) connect to Egypto-Sumerian

astral cosmogony, and further still, how does it relate to the Imperial hierarchy and the

office of Emperor? The interlocking connections become clear as the veil is lifted further.

Antecedents to Elements in Mithraism

The political and sociological connections among ancient nations of the Eastern

Mediterranean have been profusely demonstrated thus far, as has the syncretism of the

various deities. Textual evidence also illustrates the fact that the Greco-Roman world in

which Mithraism expanded had its basis in the ancient Near East. Assyrian king

Assurnasirpal had reached the Mediterranean, and by 700 BC Cyprus was in Assyrian

hands (Burkert, Babylon 7). The Persians believed Perseus to be an Assyrian, who

became Greek, and the progenitors of his mother Danae (his father was Zeus) to be from

Egypt, as the Greeks also attested (Herodotus 77).

The Qumran Essene texts speak of a belief in two spirits, good and evil, light and

dark (Allegro 139) in an apparent adoption of Zoroastrian dualism. The Book of Daniel

in the Bible, compiled in its current form around the time Antiochus Epiphanes forbade

Jewish ritual worship, has Zoroastrian images of world ages and the end of time

(Kriwaczek 161). Mazdaean ideas of angels, heaven, and the concept of an afterlife
infiltrated Judaism from Mazdaism (170). Yet interestingly, the so-called Zoroastrian

ideas are quite "Chaldean" (hence Sumerian). Scholars have no evidence that Cyrus was

Zoroastrian (184), but there is evidence that he worshipped Marduk of Babylonia. In a

baked clay cylinder now in the British Museum an inscription gives us the testimony in

Cyrus' own words: "Marduk, the great god, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of

Babylon to love me, and I daily endeavor to worship him . . . " (183).

Christians and Muslims invoke the intercession of saints, and in litanies of the

Latin and Greek Churches the Holy Mother is importuned under her many names and

titles (i.e. Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mystical Rose). Queen Isis, who claimed to

be founder of all the mysteries, was, after Zeus, the "most truly polyonymous of all the

gods in antiquity . . . " (MacMullen 90). Mithra too was known under many co-names. He

was conflated with Apollo, and Dio Chrysostom tells us "some people say Apollo, Helios

and Dionysus are all one . . . " (qtd. in Mac Mullen 86). Dionysus was Osiris in Egypt,

and Apollo was originally Orpheus (both had as their symbol the lyre) (Leadbeater 83).

Similar elements can be seen throughout the various cults, as for example, in the

Osirian and Eleusinian mysteries. Isis lost her husband and brother Osiris due to the

treachery of Set and searched the earth, lamenting as she went (Meyer 160-65). In the

mysteries of Eleusis, Demeter lost her daughter (Kore) and searched the earth for her,

lamenting and weeping. Demeter was a grain goddess, and in the Mithraic mysteries the

sacrificial bull sprouted grain from his tail. The black Apis Bull kept at Heliopolis was

sacred to Osiris (168), and in the Bacchic mysteries Dionysus (Bacchus) was "Son of the

Bull" (169). In the Isis Aretalogy Isis was revealed as a lawgiver (173), and one of the
 71
titles of Demeter was Thesmophoros (lawgiver) (172). Mithra was upholder of laws, and

Shamash (his syncretic equal) was "dispenser of justice and protector of the existing

order . . . " (Fischer 131; Young 132). There was also the "extensive influence Egyptian

culture had always exercised in Phoenicia. Phoenicians . . . in Egypt were as ready to

accept the deities of the Egyptians, as their hosts had been in identifying their own gods

with Semitic deities" (Moorey 64).

Mithra, a Sun-god, was son and sometimes lover of the Great Mother Goddess or

Dea Syria (Cybele-Anahita) (Robertson 322). Millennia earlier in Egypt Moon-goddess

Hathor was mother of the young Sun-god Horus (Churchward 82). Modern scholars

believe the iconography of the Mithraic tauroctony celebrates the solstices and

equinoxes. In ancient Sumerian Ur the akiti festivals marked the same events (Fischer

129). Mithra, as Sun-god, was a mediator between heaven and earth. "Assyrians and

Babylonians saw a connection between the sun, which maintains order within creation,

and the earthly social order" (132). "The two pillars of the gateway of the House of Ptah

are Horus and Set" in Memphis (Churchward 85), Shamash had two attendants at the

Gateway of the Heavens (Warren 142), and Mithra had the Dadophori.

Most scholars believe the bull's blood on the Mithraic tauroctony was collected in

the krater. The early Christians ate lamb on Easter and collected the blood in a cup, and

Firmicus relates that in Egypt the ritual ram slain for Amon was mourned, and that in

Crete a bull was destroyed to symbolize the ruin of Dionysus (Robertson 320).
 72
Lion-Bull Combat Motif

An ironclad rule among scribes of the ancient Near Eastern kingdoms was to

adhere to tradition and preserve the ways of the past. Scribes in Persia, Akkad,

Babylonia, and even Anatolia continued to use "Sumerograms" and wrote in the old

cuneiform thousands of years after the language of Sumerian had ceased to be the spoken

language, and Syria was the "link in the transmission of cuneiform from Mesopotamia to

Anatolia . . . " (Rubio 45-50).

Preoccupation with the past was significant in liturgical texts that continued in the

old tradition. There was an amazing continuity in iconography as well, from the fourth

millennium BC through Sasanian times (Gunter 13), as can be seen in the cultic images

of Indian mother goddess Durga ("slayer of the buffalo [bull] demon," and seated

between lions, an obvious descendent of Inanna-Ishtar) (Carter 314); the man-bulls and

lion-headed eagles from Ebla (2400 BC); the lion-headed winged fish from Mari; and the

Hathor carving from Byblos (Binst 23,27).

Bulls were long ritualized by all the ancient kingdoms of the Near East. At 9,500

year old Catal Hiiyiik bull horns were embedded in the walls (Baiter 1-2; Shipman 278).

Sumerian king Gilgamesh slew the Bull of Heaven and "dedicated the horns . . . to

Shamash [the sun-god]" (Burkert, Babylon 43; Langdon 145). Indian Mitra slew the god

Soma (symbolically identified with the bull) (Lincoln 203). Goddess Durga rides a bull

on a Sasanian (Persian) rhyton, Egypt had its Apis Bull, and Heracles fought the Cretan

Bull (see Figures 79-81). It appears the image on the Mithraic tauroctony has very

ancient precursors all over Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, and the ancient Near East.
 73

^"^Mj f^^fflB
v\ i

LSig MSSSSA nS&Vi

Fig . 79. Apis Bull of Egypt, Fig. 80.Herakles and Kretan Fig. 81. Goddess Durga, the

beneath winged-disk, 17 Bull, Tampa Museum of Art, bull slayer, Sasanian silver

Feb. 2009 <http:// Florida. Catalog: Tampa 86.85. rhyton, Cleveland Museum

www.touregypt.net/ Attic red figure, kylix. Attributed of Art, Artibus Asiae

featurestories/bull.htm>. to the Euergides painter, c.515-505 BC 41 (1979) pi. 1. la, b.

Syrian Haddad (see Figure 82) is Anatolian Tarhunna and Adad of Sumeria; and

"in Akkadian texts Adad is a bull" (Lambert 435-36). The huge lamassu from Assyria

(see Figure 83) are well known even to the general public, and the legend of Gilgamesh

takes the motif of man-bull combat back to the third millennium BC (see Figure 84).

Fig. 82. Syrian Hadad. Fig. 83. Lamassu, Human Headed Fig. 84. Gilgamesh and the Bull,

(Sumerian Adad), storm Winged Bull, Neo-Assyrian, terracotta relief, c.2250-1900 BC,

god, on a bull, Phoenician, Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 BC, Musee Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,

c.2500-1000 BC, stele, 14 Dec. Nimrud (Kahlu), 7 Dec. 2008 Brussels, 19 Feb, 2009 <http://

2008 <http://www.tolos.de/ <http:www.metmuseum.org>. www.piney.com/BabGilBull.html>.

religion.E.htm>.
 74
In the second millennium BC Adad and Shamash were worshipped together as

"givers of oracles," and Shamash is "Marduk of Justice." Shamash is another title of the

great God Marduk, called "the sun god of the gods" (Lambert 439). Apparently the name

of one god could be applied to signify his attributes or powers held within another god.

This must be kept in mind when trying to understanding the hierarchy and the changing

dominance of one god over another and will be examined more closely in a later part of

this chapter which discusses the Sun-god-Moon-god alternating supremacy.

The lion-bull or man-bull combat motif continued through successive historical

periods and into the Roman period. A Roman era Celtic relic from Colonia Ulpia Traiani

depicts the god Tarvustrignarus slaying a bull. The animal at the bottom of the icon

seems to resemble one made 10,000 years earlier on a pillar at Gobekli Tepe (see Figures

85 and 86), and Mithraic astral symbology had its precursors (see figure 87) ages earlier.

Figs. 85. and 86. Celtic Smertrius-Herakles Slaying a Bull, Fig. 87. Sumerian Gods and Astral

"Gundestrup Cauldron," Colonia Ulpia Traiani (Anteon, Germany), Symbols, cylinder seal, c. 3000-

1st C. BC, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 26 Dec. 1000 BC, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie

2008 <http://www.Ganglieri.nl/articles>, and Gobekli Tepe, Crystal, 23 July 2008 <http://

prehistoric sculpture, Turkey, 10,000 BC, 6 Jan. 2009 <http:// www.crystalinks.com/

www.smithsonian.com/history-archaeology/gbekli-tepe.html>. sumergods.html>.
 75
Lunar and Solar Deities and Symbols

Understanding the various iconographical symbols of the Sun is imperative when

attempting to trace the history of the Sun-gods. Lion-headed eagles on the silver vase of

Entemena of Lagash (Sumerian) symbolize the Sun (Hartner 11), at times specifically

at its maximum power as the summer Sun, at other times as the Sun in general. Stars,

rosettes, crosses, lions, bulls, and the tree of life remain constant as Near Eastern

iconographical motifs from the oldest Mesopotamian times (fourth millennium BC) into

Sasanian times (second to sixth centuries AD) (see Figures 88-90) (13-14).

Pill
m
klj /

"^252n
Fig. 88. Mithra Born From a Tree, Figs. 89. and 90. Urartian Helmet with Tree of Life, 760-743 BC,

from Manfred Clauss, The Roman Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 1 Jan. 2009 <http://

Cult of Mithras: The God and His www.starspring.com/ascender/urartu/urartu/html>, and Gold

Mysteries. (New York: Routledge, Pectoral, Iran, 800-500 BC, Tree of Life in center, Smithsonian

2001)71. S1986.496, 11 Oct. 2008 <http://www.asia.si.edu/collection/...>.

The Mithraic monuments all contained sacred trees, and with Osiris, Dionysus,

and Adonis, the gods themselves were represented either as reborn or placed within a tree

(Robertson 319), as was Mithra (Clauss 71). As the Mysteries took form in each

succeeding nation, the symbology remained basically consistent, though with regional

embellishments and styles.

 76
The other ubiquitous symbols of the Sun-god are the winged-disk—often shown

hovering above the Tree of Life (see Figure 91) or near the god—or a Sun disk,

sometimes circled by a serpent. Radiate diadems or body rays also frequently adorn the

Sun-gods, as in Figures 92 and 93, which portray Mithra and Utu/Shamash.

Fig. 91. Tree of Life with winged- Fig. 92. Goddess Anahita and Fig. 93. Sumerian Sun-god

disk, Sumerian, 10 Jan. 2009 <http:// Sun-god Mithra rising from Utu (Babylonian Shamash),

www.pandore.net/magies/creatures/ the Sun-lion, tablet of Ardashir Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie

sirenes.htm/sirenes/php>. II (AD 379-383), Sasanid, Crystal, 25 Dec. 2008

24 July, 2008 <http:// <http://www.crystalinks.com/

www.piney.com/sun-lion.gif> sumergods.html>.

A cylinder from Urartu has a sacred tree and winged Sun disk in a "style closely

related to the Neo-Assyrian of the eighth or seventh centuries B.C."(Moorey 37). Recall

that Urartu is the ancient predecessor of Armenia. Old-Babylonian representations of the

Sun-god are "derived from . . . Akkadian prototypes" (Porada 573). The "eagle was an

attribute of the majority of solar and supreme deities, as it was of the supreme Indo-

European deity, the religious traditions of the Sarmatians and the Iranian tribes of Central

Asia being very close." The Vedic Mitra-Varuna was conflated with Ahura Mazda to

create the Mithra-Ahura of the Iranians (Ustinova 174, 180).

 77

As an example of the continuity in usage of the winged-disk associated with Sun-

gods, Figure 95 portrays a relief of the Sun-god Ashur, supreme deity of Assyria, riding

in a winged-disk. An Urartian male god from the ninth century BC rides a bull and is

within a winged disk (or he has wings) in Figure 96. Centuries later, the Sun-god Apollo

rides in a winged-tripod, which serves as the same solar symbol (see Figure 94).

Fig. 94. Apollo Riding a Winged Fig. 95. Sun-God Ashur, supreme Fig. 96. Urartian Bronze Relief,

Tripod (which represents the Sun), deity of Assyria, in a winged- a male god on a bull, 824-810

Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, disk, one of whose epithets was BC, 22 Feb. 2008 <http://

Vatican City, Cat. No. Vatican "Bull of Heaven," 14 Feb. 2009 www.rubens.anu.edu.au/raid4/

16568, Attic red ware, hydria, by <http://en.wikipedia.org/ europe.0602/germany/karlsruhe/

the Berlin Painter, 17 Feb. 2009<http:/ wiki/Assur_(god)>. badischelandesmuseum/

/www.theo.com/01ympios/Apollo/html>. archaeology/urartu>.

The Hittite iconography was the same, containing elements of the Egyptian and

the Babylonian (Ward 17-19). One Hittite depiction has Zarpanit-Ishtar inside the

winged-disk, expanded into a canopy of sorts, with the goddess standing on a bull (24).

Another shows a winged seven-stepped ladder (similar to some depictions of the

Egyptian Tree of Life) resting on the back of a bull (25). These images were shown

previously (see Figures 74 and 75) in the section discussing the syncretism of the mother
 78
goddess through the various cultures and periods, but they hold relevance here as

depictions of the apparent "interchangeability" of the winged-disk, winged-canopy, and

winged-ladder. Winged-disks, bulls, lions, trees of life, Sun-gods, and Sun-kings are all

part of the recondite symbolism of the Mysteries.

Inanna-Ishtar described herself as a divine androgyne (see epigraph). In Hittite

iconography she appears inside the Sun-disk "canopy" (reference Figure 74 shown

previously). Her symbol is the lion, typically a Sun symbol. Mithra was sometimes

depicted as a goddess. The Divine Androgen is a recurring theme in the Mysteries, as

with Sumerian Apsu-Tiamat (Albright 200). Cybele-Anahita-Zarpanit, the Great Mother,

the Moon, the female principle, and fecundity, is worshipped concomitantly with Mithra-

Apollo-Helios-Zeus-RA, the male and solar principle, who releases the blood or seed of

the sacred bull to allow the renewal of nature to take place. In a sense the god sacrifices

himself, as ultimately portrayed in Christianity.

The similarity with Christianity is not only metaphysical. In Catholic (both

Eastern Rite and Western Latin) art, ancient and modern, Christ Pantocrator (Universal

Ruler) rides within a winged-disk, as portrayed in numerous old cathedral domes all over

Europe and Russia (see Figures 97 and 98). Figure 99 shows Christ Pantocrator riding in

an angel-winged-disk hovering over the tomb of Pope Pius XI in the Vatican. On two

corners of the sarcophagus are a lion and a bull.

 79

Figs. 97. - 99. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of Santa Maria delPAmmiraglio, Palermo, 12 C. Byzantine

in Norman and Arab style, photo by Xerones, 9 Feb. 2006,24 Aug. 2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/

Xerones/97521742>. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie in Kiev, Ukraine,

1037, Australian EJournal of Theology. Feb 2005: Issue 4. 24 Aug. 2009 <http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/

research/theology/ejournal/aejt 4/battaglia.htm>. Christ Pantocrator Hovering in Disk Held by Winged

Angels, above the Tomb of Pius XI (1922-1939), grotto under St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, photo by Roma

Sacra: The Vatican Grottoes, 24 Aug. 2009 <http://www.saintpetersbasilica.org>.

In a beautiful carryover from the ancient usages (recall the depiction of Inanna

from Hittite Yazilikaya in Figure 74), a golden papal medallion features Pope Pius IX

enthroned within a winged canopy (see Figure 100). The inscription is from Joel.2.23

from the Latin Vulgate, translated in the Rheims Douay Catholic Bible as "exult and

rejoice in the Lord your God! He hath given you a teacher of justice" {Holy Bible 1049).

Fig. 100. Gold Medallion of Pius IX Enthroned Under a Winged-Canopy, 1877, Papal Claims to Authority.

12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.biblelight.net/claims.htm>.

 80
Earlier it was shown that the primary attribute of Mithra was dispenser of justice.

Utu/Shamash, the Sumero-Babylonian Sun-god, was also known famously as the

enforcer of justice (Porada 573). The pope as Vicari Christi dispenses his (Christ's)

justice. On the center of the sarcophagus that was shown in Figure 99 is a six-spoked

disk. The same symbol will be seen over the throne of Utu/Shamash later in this chapter

in the section which discusses the supremacy of the Sun-god (see page 83).

In Babylonian inscriptions the god Enki is "Bull, king," and "lord of determining

fates" (Albright 199). A Sumerian tablet calls Dungi, a king of Ur, divine, and "Enlil on

earth," but "he is also Ninlil" (cohort of Enlil). He is the "bull of life and . . . the great

serpent and "he who brings justice." In addition he is called a lion, an ox, a shepherd, and

a steward (Peters 140). Selene (Luna) wears the lunar crescent but also wears the radiate

diadem, as does Helios (Sol). Plutarch connects the Sun-god Osiris to the Moon-goddess

Isis and implies their physical union by referring to a festival called "The Entry of Osiris

into the Moon," and figures from Saqqara which wear lunar discs with ibis heads (the

symbol of Thoth) are considered by scholars to represent "Osiris-lunar- Thoth."(Griffiths,

Osiris 153-58).Thoth was a Moon-god. Again, one god takes on an aspect of or absorbs

another.

On the Parthenon pediment Selene rides in a horse-drawn chariot, as does Helios.

Who is guiding the chariots of the gods on the Parthenon frieze? It is Hermes (Mercury,

Thoth, Mithra) in his role as psychopompos (leader of the dead into the eternal realm).

Hermes "acts as marshal to Eos, another divinity of the light" as well, "because his
 81
golden wand had the double power of giving sleep to mortals and of awakening them"

(Savignoni 270-72). Again, this shows the complementary roles of Sun and Moon gods.

The Divine Androgen is the god in both male and female attributes, Sun and

Moon, seed and fecundity. The Tree of Life—the microcosm of man under the winged-

disk, the macrocosm of the universe—and the divine Hermes (Thoth) Psychopompos,

who leads mortals into the immortal realm, are indeed a summary of the Mysteries, a

glimpse into the more recondite profundity. The "Macrocosmic tree is the Serpent of

Eternity and of absolute wisdom . . . " and "those who dwell in the . . . branches are the

Serpents of manifested Wisdom." The "'tree' is man himself" (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 98).

Now the connections between Mesopotamia and Rome will be bridged again.

In the first century AD Sarmatians flooded into the Bosporus, especially into the

city of Tanais, radically changing the region (Ustinova 159). A title of the supreme god,

called Tanais by the Sarmatians, was Theos Hypsistos (Roman Sancta Tutela, Syrian

Baal, and Palmyran Baalshamin as well), whom scholars link to the cult of Cybele, the

mother goddess (173). Iamblichus uses the word "mysteries" to refer to the local festival

in honor of Tanais, Aphrodite, and Pharsiris. The Tanais cult was exclusively male,

included the drinking oiHaoma (Soma) at major rituals (176), was linked to the fire cult,

was "extremely meticulous in moral issues," and practiced initiation. Achaemenid Persia

maintained male cults along the same lines (177). Here is a direct link to the Mithraic cult

of Rome, as Rome ruled the Bosporus, and identical elements were found in Roman

Mithraism.
 82
The Supremacy of the Sun-God.

The reigning god took the aspects of other gods, in essence absorbing them. Burkert

illustrates this when he tells us Zeus "swallowed the phallus o f Uranus (as heaven, his

phallus was the Sun). In a Hittite text Kumarbi swallowed the phallus of Anu (Heaven)

and became pregnant with the weather-god, and Zeus then carried " . . . all the other gods,

in himself." In Orphic theogony Zeus swallowed Phanes (Babylon 90-94) (keep this in

mind when reading chapter 6). Perhaps this explains why obviously phallic-form obelisks

are yet another Sun symbol?

It has previously been shown that Zeus was conflated with Bel, who was Marduk

of Babylon, the Merodach of the Bible (Jer.50. 2) (Holy Bible 936), who "gradually

succeeded to the headship of the planetary pantheon," as the power of Babylon became

supreme (Warren 141). Recalling that the Egyptian religion "is related to the Sumerian"

(Langdon 135), it becomes clear that the currently reigning Sun-god of Egypt—be it RA

or Atum or Aten—would include the attributes of the other gods as well, as was seen

above in the case of Osiris displaying the attributes of Thoth. Egypt and Sumer had

contact with each other from the earliest times (139-41), and the cults were similar.

The reigning god at any particular time can be ascertained by the theophoric name

of the king, as Amen in Tutankhamen, Aten in Akhenaten, Mithra in Mithradates, and

Nabu in Nebuchadnezzar, for example. At times the reigning god was a Sun-god and at

times a Moon-god, as when Naram-Sin reigned in Sumeria under the Moon-god Sin

(Nannar). The Moon-god Sin rose to replace the Sun-god Utu-Shamash as the reigning

deity, and Naram-Sin (the king) then assumed the role of the Sun-god (Fischer 125). As
 83
has been shown, Marduk (the greatest Sun-god) had pre-empted or absorbed within

himself the attributes of the other gods—including the old Sumerian Sun-god Utu

(Babylonian Shamash) (see Figure 102)—when he assumed the head of the pantheon

(Lambert, Trees 437). He took the identity of the primordial creator deity who defeated

Tiamat (see Figure 101). He also spared antediluvian Sippar, "the eternal city," where

Xisouthros buried all the writings to save them from the flood (Woods 31)—an example

of Marduk again preempting Shamash, the "lord of Sippar" (25) and preserver "of law

and justice" (Porada 573). As the names (but not the primary attributes) of the deities

changed with the changing times and cultures, Zeus, as a later type of the prime male

god, in turn, slays Typhon, the type of Tiamat (see Figure 103).

Fig. 101. Relief from Ninurta Temple Fig. 102. Utu-Shamash in his Fig. 103. Zeus killing Typhon,

of Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 BC. throne room, British Museum. black on red vase, Greek,

A.H. Layard, Monuments of Nineveh. London, Sumerian, 7 Dec.2008 30 Aug. 2008 <http://

London, 1849, pi. 5. <http://www.graal.co.uk/ www.bahumuth.chaosnet.org/

lordoftherings.html>. apocrypha6 .html>.

It is the reigning Sun-god and mother goddess (who is Moon or Sun-goddess)

who invests the king with his royal office. Plutarch says the rule of Artaxerxes II was
 84
inaugurated with a ritual at "a sanctuary of a warlike goddess whom one might conjecture

to be Athene" (qtd. in Arjomand 247). This was the Avestan yazata Harahvaiti "known

by her cult-epithets, Aredvi Sura Anahita," and she invested the king "alongside Ahura

Mazda and Mithra." Centuries later Sasanian king Ardashir was "invested by Anahita" as

"King of Kings" (248). Anahita was Mesopotamian Nana (affiliated with the Sun and

Moon) (Azarpay 539) and the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian Armaiti, cohort of the sky-god

Ahura (later considered his daughter) (540). As recounted earlier, Nana was the chief

goddess of Dura-Europos (in Syria) where the Romans had a large military base and

mithrae where she was worshipped with Mithra. Her images stood in the Roman temples

there alongside Aphrodite, Victory, and Fortuna suggesting "she combined the functions

of all those Graeco-Roman divinities" (537). In India she appeared as goddess Durga and

in Asia Minor as Nana, the mother of Attis. (Carter 316).

All gods were subordinate to Ahura Mazda (Boyce 20), who was "the ultimate

ruler of men's destiny," with Mithra alongside him as judge and upholder of oaths (23),

as was Shamash when he witnessed the Old-Assyrian treaty at Kultepe (along with Sin

and goddess Kubabat) (Donbaz 64-65). The winged solar-disk of the Near East is of

Egyptian origin (Lambert, Trees 438; Goldman 327). Recalling that the disk represented

Shamash and then Ashur, and that later Marduk appropriated the attributes of Shamash

and the other gods {Trees 439), it then becomes clear that the Sun-disk was preeminently

a later symbol of Marduk of Babylon, the Bull (448). Baal, Teshub, and Nabu (the son of

Marduk) were all associated with the bull as well.

 85
Serpents, bulls, lions, winged-disks, rose buds and griffins are Sun symbols, the

latter evolved from the lion motif (and associated with sacred trees and as defenders of

Sun-kings) (Goldman326-27). Pharaoh wore the Ureaus, and RA bore the Sun-disk on his

head. The winged-disk appeared on the royal seal of Mitanni (Merrillees 49). A statuette

from Tel Brak (Syria 2200 BC) depicts a god as a human-headed bull (Miller 126).

Urartian cylinders bear winged-disks and sacred trees (Moorey 37), and in the Uruk

period (3000-2340 BC) rosettes were symbols of Inanna (Porada 579). In the final battle

Zoroastrianism has Hudayosh (the sacrificial bull) conferring immortality on resurrected

mankind (Russell 80). We recall the world ages of the Iranian Bundahisn, of the Book of

Daniel, of Brahmanic teachings, and of Egypt as the link with Rome is made.

Greco-Roman Sun-Gods

The mantle of world rulership passed from Persia to the Greeks, and Alexander—

who considered himself the literal son of RA (supreme Sun-god of Egypt)—became the

new Sun-king as the next world-age began (see Figure 106) (Burkert, Babylon 110).

Approximately a thousand years earlier, Amenhotep IV had changed his name to

Akhenaton and declared himself Son of the Sun, having a relationship with the Aton (the

sole god) unique to himself (see Figure 105). Aton was really synonymous with the

oldest Sun-god, RA, whose abode was the sacred city of On or Anu, which the Greeks

later called Heliopolis (City of the Sun) (Devi 17, 20). Centuries later, in Rome, Emperor

Commodus, a devotee of Mithra, commissioned a bust of himself in the image of that

god, then reigning as the supreme Sun-god or Sol Invictus (see Figure 104).
 86

u^wtrHg<£gtfaft*T>*iVi

Fig. 104. Bronze Bust of Figs. 105. and 106. Amenhotep IV, Son of the Sun, and Queen Nefertiti

'Commodus Mithras.'Salting making offerings to Aton, "Development of the Cult of Aton under

Collection, Victoria and Albert Amenhotep IV," p. 88, 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.sacred-texts.com/

Museum, from Katherine A. egypt/tut/tut08.htm>, and Alexander as Sun-God, bronze statuette,

Easdaile, "The Commodus- Louvre, Photo by Giraudon; rpt. in "Gods in Uniform" by Ernst H.

Mithras of the Salting Kantorowicz, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society

Collection," Journal of Roman 105 (1961): 373. Fig. 13.

Studies 7(1917) pi. 1.

Marduk had preempted Enlil as head of the Sumero-Babylonian pantheon and

subsumed the aspects of the other gods within himself (Shotwell 313). He became Moon

god and fertility god but supremely the Sun-god. Prior to this, Sin, the Moon-god, had

dominated Babylon (316). "The moon-god gained ascendency in Babylon in the days of

the first Semitic kingdom. Dominating the religion, it dominated the cosmology" and

only later did the "victorious sun" gain "his supreme place in Mesopotamia..." (316).

As the Sun-god gained ascendency so did a new calendar worked out by the priests to

replace the increasingly inaccurate lunar one that had been used since at least 3000 BC

(317; Sarton and Carmody 70). This shows a constant revolving dominance of Sun-gods
 87

and Moon-gods through the ages as imperial kings rose to power. Even when a Moon-

god and his king were supreme the king would "[assume] the role of the sun-god," as did

Naram-Sin during the ascendency of Akkad (Fischer 125).

The akiti festival in ancient Ur celebrated the creation, and under Marduk the

New Year festival (the akiti celebration marking the Spring Equinox) was the grandest of

ceremonies, in which Marduk (the Bull Sun-god) preempted the original creator in the

ritual (Smith 139).The gods conferred authority on the kings of their choice (Cooper 40).

World-ruling gods decided what kings could rule, as when Amen gave Egypt to the kings

of Cush, or Marduk ordered Cyrus to take Babylon (141). As was shown earlier, Mithraic

scholars think the bull represents the constellation Taurus, a blood sacrifice, or a lunar

symbol. Considering Figures 107 and 108 in combination with the fact heretofore shown

that the great gods are "bulls," it would seem that the bull is representative also of all the

gods—as incarnate representative of heaven. In this light, it might explain why only other

bulls—and only perfect ones—were sacrificed to the Apis Bull of Egypt, and why even

the Atlanteans (as relates Plato in Kritias) sacrificed a bull (Cumont, St. George 67).

Figs. 107. and 108. Statuettes of Celestial Bull, bodies adorned with star-shaped rosettes and with symbols

of heavenly bodies, from Willy Hartner, "The Earliest History of the Constellations in the Near East and

the Motif of the Lion-Bull Combat," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965): plates 11 and 12.
 88
The Mithraic tauroctony has been thus proven to represent something more far-reaching

than the scholars suspect. The divine bull was created by Ahura Mazda at the beginning

says the Mithraic faith (Frothingham 55); yet, this only hints at the deeper occult

meaning.

The emperors of Imperial Rome declared themselves Sun-gods. King Tiradates of

Armenia worshipped Nero (56-68 AD) as "an emanation of Mithra himself (Cumont,

Mysteries 85-6). Commodus (AD 180-192) became a Pater in the Mithra Cult, Aurelian

(270-75) "instituted the official cult of Sol Invictus" (Unconquerable Sun), and "the last

pagan that occupied the throne of the Caesars, Julian the Apostate," was ardently devoted

to Mithra (87-89). "The deification of the Roman emperor . . . was essentially an Oriental

concept" (Case 68). Millennia earlier Naram-Sin of Akkad had declared himself a Sun-

god. Pharaohs were the sons of RA, incarnations of the Sun (Cumont, Mysteries 92).

In Italy the Roman emperor entered the Taurobolium, where the blood of the

sacrificed bull drenched his body. In Britannia the emperors themselves joined the

Sarmatian conscripts in the mithrae along Hadrian's Wall. Even earlier, in official

artworks, the Caesars (as Pontifex Maximus) wore the radiate diadem of the Sun-god, as

illustrated in a bronze image of Emperor Claudius from the mid-first century (see Figure

110). The mystai of the Leo degree roared in their lion masks and carried the "counterfeit

heads of... soldiers and of Persians" (Cumont, Mysteries 152), as did the men of Assyria

a thousand years earlier (see Figure 109) (Pythian-Adams 57; Collon 101).
 89

-X* t

1 * *- -»„3T

is»

Fig. 109. Lion-Headed Cloaks and Heads, Fig. 110. Julio Claudian Princeps, Roman bronze

relief, Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 imago clipeata of the Emperor Claudius (r.AD 41-54)

BC), Nimrud, Iraq, from Dominique Collon wearing a radiate crown, flanked by the symbols

"Dance in Ancient Mesopotamia," Near of the office of Pontifex Maximus, found at Derventio,

Eastern Archaeology 66 (2003): 101. near Stanford Bridge, Yorkshire, England, 1991, now

in Royal-Athena Galleries, New York. (Art of the

Ancient World, 1997, no.l).

The continuity was complete. The Roman Mithraic cult was no isolated anomaly

or unconnected newly-born ritual but indeed as old as civilized man. They practiced a

ritualized dramatization of the sacred Mysteries in dim torch-lit caves, as had the priests

of ancient Mesopotamia in the seven-tiered ziggurats and the initiates of mystic Egypt in

the darkened subterranean vaults of that sand-swept land at the dawn of human history.

Initiates in every age ever hailed the Mighty Sun.

Christ became the successor Sun-god to Mithra and the Roman emperors, and was

"repeatedly represented with the imperial purple chlamys around his shoulders" as is

depicted in the tomb of Clodius Hermes (c. AD 230). The term "Christus Imperator had

become relatively common . . . and the victorious cross . . . was . . . decorated with the

imperial paludamentum" (Kantorowicz 384). The hierarchy of the Roman Empire lives
 90
on in type in the hierarchy of the Roman Church with Christ replacing Mithra-Helios-

Apollo as Sun-god (see Figure 112).

An interesting medallion, struck to commemorate the Lateran Treaty of 1929

which made the Vatican a separate state, shows Saint Peter holding the keys to the gates

of heaven. Earlier, the solar lion-headed god of Mithraism had held the key to the

heavenly celestial spheres to which the mystai of the Mysteries of Mithra had aspired

long before the Roman Church assumed power. The medallion also has a globe with

Vatican City (Citta del Vaticand) and Roma as capital of the world, as ancient Rome was

capital of the world it conquered (see Figure 111).

< & " '

U.^* Ul
M*f^M '

A m mki

1 ^v^*Hlf'
U llffl^H-MH

Fig. 111. Pius XI medallion struck to commemorate the 1929 Fig. 112. Christ in Roman imperial

Lateran Treaty, with Saint Peter on the globe of the world, robes with scepter of power and

holding the keys of authority; Roma shown as capital of the solar disk (aureole) behind, 12 Feb.

world, Papal Claims to Authority. 12 Feb. 2009 <http:// 2009 <http://www.catholictradition.org/

www.biblelight.net/claims.htm>. christ>.
 91
CHAPTER 6

THE LION-HEADED GOD

Now the literally minded never see behind the letter

of the allegory. The truly initiated mind discerns the allegory's
spiritual value. In fact, part of the purpose of all initiation
was, and still is, to educate the mind in penetrating the
outward shell of all phenomena, and the value of initiation
depends upon the way in which the inward truths are allowed
to influence our thought and lives and to awaken in us still
deeper powers of consciousness.
W.L. Wilmshurst (1867-1939)

The mysterious lion-headed god that was part of the iconography in Roman-era

mithrae is interpreted very differently by the various major Mithraic scholars. In this

chapter the primary opinions of these scholars will be given. Their views will be followed

by my own contrasting ideas on whom or what the leontocephalous might represent.

Interpretations of the Major Scholars

Franz Cumont held the leontocephalous to be a Mithraic Kronos (Aeon or Zervan

Kakrana) "representing boundless time," whose various elements symbolized "the

embodiment in him of the powers of all the gods" {Mysteries 105). He declared this

representation from the Mazdean pantheon was at the "pinnacle of the divine hierarchy"

(107). Cumont considered the leontocephalous to be a creation of the Roman Mithra cult,

based on Mazdean and possibly Assyrian artistic antecedents, but took it no further.

Ulansey considers the leontocephalous a remake of the Gorgon that Perseus slew,

thus complementing his theory that Roman Mithraism began in Tarsus, whose deity was

Perseus. He cites the discovery of a sandstone block found in a mithraeum in Pannonia to

support his argument. "On one side was a Gorgon head, and on the other was a lion." In

Angera he cites a "series of six marble columns, upon" which "alternatively lions' and

Gorgons' heads are represented" (Origins 30-33). And, he believes the lion-headed god

to be androgynous (the Gorgon was typically presented as female) (34). Following

Maarten Vermassen, Ulansey considers the six coils of the snake around the body of the

god (see Figure 113) to "indicate the course of the sun through the zodiac," and

concludes: "The lion-headed god, therefore, embodies . . . the organizing power of the

entire cosmos" (117).

Clauss sees the leontocephalous as a male deity and mentions a statue from

Arelate/Aries with the "signs of the zodiac denoting Spring, Summer, Autumn and

Winter" appearing on the body with the entwined serpent (see Figure 115) (164). He says

the god was called "Aion, whom we know under his Greek name in Egypt, the god of

Time, born on . . . 6 January, considered the birth date of Christ before Mithra's birthdate

of 25 December was chosen." He points out elements of the leontocephalous coinciding

with "lineaments of Serapis, Apollo, Jupiter, Pluto, Aesculapius, Pan and other divine

beings . . . " (165) and identifies the relief called Phanes by Ulansey as the "god of Time"

(as does Cumont), noting the cosmic egg from which he emerges (see Figure 114) (166-

67).
 93

Fig. 113. Lion-Headed God Fig. 114. The Orphic God Phanes, Fig. 115. Arelate/Aries: Fragmentary

on globe with crossed (CIMRM 695): rpt. in David Lion-Head with Signs of the Zodiac,

circles, (CIMRM 543); rpt. in Ulansey, Origins of the Mithraic from Manfred Clauss. The Roman

David Ulansey, Origins of the Mysteries (New York: Oxford Cult of Mithras: The God and His

Mithraic Mysteries (New York: UP, 1989) 121. Mysteries (New York: Routledge,

Oxford UP, 1989)49. 2001) 164.

Nabarz follows Ulansey concerning the leontocephalous, emphasizing the key he

holds for the "eight celestial gates, the ways into the realm of fire" (29). Beck states that

"one might point to certain Egyptian (or Egyptianizing) elements which appear to have

entered Mithraic ideology, most notably in the person of their lion-headed god"

{Mysteries 127). He elsewhere states that a possible identity for the god (as proposed by

I. F. Legge in 1912) is Ahriman, calling it "an outrageous choice were it not that the

name Arimanius is attested in Mithraic epigraphy, although never in a context which

makes it more than a possibility that the... god was Ahriman" {Iranian 15).

Ward draws attention to "grotesque winged figures with the head of a lion or a

dog . . . guarding the entrance.. ."at Boghaz-keui (11). Doresse relates that the Egyptian

god Khnum was lion-headed with the body of a snake (93). Ialdabaoth was the evil god
 94
that seduced Eve and begat the unjust Cain with the face of a cat (207). Besides Osiris,

Maahes, the lion-faced Egyptian god of Leontopolis, was also compared to Ialdabaoth,

the demiurgos of the Gnostics. In the hands of this god "lies the celestial fate of eternal

nature . . . " (274). Maahes was protector of the priests of Amon, was son of RA and Bast

or "Sekhmet, the lioness war goddess," and "fought the serpent Apep during RA's daily

night voyage." He was "the personification of the summer heat" and "punished those who

violated Ma'at" (universal order of truth and right). He wore the Sun-disk and uraeus and

bore the epithets "Initiator" and "Lord of Slaughter" (Ancient Egypt Online).

The Sumerian Nergal Connection

There are definitely Egyptian elements in the leontocephalous, and now it shall be

shown that there very well may have been, coeval with Maahes, Sumerian antecedents to

the mysterious god in the person of the deity Nergal and the Assyrian demon Pazuzu. In

Figure 116 below is a modern recreation of the lion-faced Egyptian war god Maahes

aggressively posed with sword in hand. The next image (see Figure 117) has two

Assyrian deities shown in relief, one of which has the head of a lion and also carries a

dagger or short sword, indicating that he too is probably a war god. Inside the ancient

Shrine of Ptah at the Egyptian site of Karnak stands, to this day, the sculpture of

Sekhmet, the fierce lioness-headed goddess of war (see Figure 118). The similarity in the

Assyrian and the Egyptian figures cannot be overlooked, nor can the similarities between

them and the leontocephalous. Do any epigraphicai or textual references about the deities

under discussion help make a connection or demonstrate syncretism? The answer is yes.
 95

3 -1 '

„ • — -, -*•

Fig. 116. Maahes, Egyptian Fig. 117. Two Assyrian gods, one lion- Fig. 118. Sekhmet, lioness

God of War, modern depiction, headed, from Donald A. MacKenzie, Egyptian goddess of war, in

27 Jan. 2009 <http:// "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria," the Shrine of Ptah, Karnak,

www.pharaohenland.de/ 5 Sept. 2005, ed. Sami Sieranoja, 8 10 July 2009 <http://

start.html>. Dec. 2008 <http://www.gutenberg.org/ www.sharewisdom.com/

files/16653/16653-h/16653-h.htm>. tourl4.html>.

The Akkadian word melammu has been taken to mean "an aureole or divine

nimbus surrounding that which has divine power: gods, demons, temples, and holy

objects," or "a mask that bestows invisibility upon the wearer." Three related terms in

Sumerian are believed to translate to "radiance," "red," and "glowing," all used in

connection with the winged Sun disk and with Nergal. The melammu could be transfered

by the god to the king. When in possession of it Assyrian kings were "overwhelming

enemies and driving them in terror, madness, and flight," the king himself "radiant" while

possessing it. Esarhaddon vaunted, "Nergal, the all-powerful among the gods, bestowed

upon me . . . radiance, and glory" (Waldman 615-16). Another inscription speaking of

AshurbanipaPs defeat of an enemy says "the radiance of Ashur and Ishtar overwhelmed

him and he went crazy" (617). Recall that in the Roman mithrae the lion-headed god was

always depicted with fire in his mouth, sometimes shooting it outwards.

 96
A statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic inscriptions refers to plague as

the "staff of Nergal," whereas Hadad and Shamash are "salvation" and "light"

respectively (Millard and Bordreuil 138). Nergal is "the Lord of the eternal city" which

Stephen Langdon equates with Hades (209) (recall that earlier the eternal city was

identified as Sippar of Shamash). The "Assyrians worshipped . . . Nergal.. . chiefly as

the god of War and of the Chase," and his wife, Gula, as "the mistress who awakens the

dead." In the Hymn to Nergal the god is called a "windblast" and is "conceived of as

causing a fiery blast over the 'fruitful land'." He "destroys the . . . power of vegetation or

the germinating property of the soil" (Prince 178).

Now are there any demonstrable direct links that may be shown between this

ancient Sumerian war-god Nergal of the fourth millennium BC and the Roman era?

Indeed there are, and Wathiq Al-Salihi provides them for us. At the site of ancient Hatra

(in Iraq) a Nergal shrine has the figure of the god strangely nude, the reason being a

fusion with the god Hercules, "widely worshipped in near eastern cities in the Hellenistic

and Parthian periods," including at Dura-Europos. On tesserae from Palmyra, one side

shows the name Nergal and the other side has the club of Hercules. Hercules was also

"assimilated to . . . Verethragna, the Iranian god of war . . . " as on the Commagenian

monuments of Nimrud Dag. In Turkestan "Hercules was identified with Verethragna,"

and in Armenia Hercules-Verethragna was fused with "Vahagn, a war god, and the killer

of a dragon. This identification appears at Hatra too" {Hercules 114-15). A statue of

Hercules was found at the North Gate of Hatra, carrying a lion skin over the left arm, and

a nearby inscription refers to Nergal as the "chief guardian." The North Gate of the great
 97
Assyrian capital, Nineveh, "was known as the Nergal Gate." The cult of Hercules-Nergal

was present at Dura-Europos and Palmyra in the Seleucid and Parthian periods, and a cult

of Nergal continued into the first decades of the Christian era at Spasinou Charax (a rich

port on the Persian Gulf) (Al-Salihi, Hercules II65-68).

A bronze Pazuzu, an Assyrian demon, was found in the Egyptian delta, with a

leonine face, four feathered wings, horns, a scorpion tail, and a serpent's head at the end

of a large phallus. Its legs end in talons, and it holds two spheres (thought to represent

lightning bolts) (Moorey 33-4). Pazuzu has been found at Babylon, at Ur, in Urartu, West

Persia, and at the Palace of Nimrud (some flanked by snakes). With extensive trade and

cultural exchanges at the time, Moorey suggests syncretism with these and the one found

in Egypt. He concludes that "the iconography of Pazuzu appears to derive directly from

the 'lion-headed demon,' often represented in Old Babylonian glyptic . . . " (34-40).

The Sumerian deity Tiamat, slain by the Sun-god Marduk, was a precursor of the

Old Babylonian lion-head demon, who was perhaps a representation of the lion-faced

Nergal, god of war and destruction, who opposed Marduk and tried to destroy him. And,

the Roman Mithraic leontocephalous, it can be argued, was most certainly descended

from the original forms of the leonine solar war-gods—Egyptian Maahes and Sumerian

Nergal. In The Religion of the Kassites Semitic scholars demonstrate that Adar, "the god

of the all-consuming and" scorching "South-or Noonday-sun" is synonymous with the

god Nusku, who is the destroying "Sun flames." They go on to say: "The lion, under

whose likeness the god Nergal is worshipped, is the symbol of the destructive Sun-

flame," proving "Nergal as identical with Nusku" (189-90).

 The Mysteries always have layers of meaning. Marduk was Jupiter fused with

Zeus-Amen-Mithra (Cumont, Mysteries 111). Nergal was Saturn (Shotwell 315), lord of

the underworld, holding the key to the celestial gates. The Paters of Mithra were under

the rule of Saturn and held the keys of initiation which the mystae needed to pass through

the seven degrees, of which the fourth was Leones (the lions). One of the symbols of the

fourth degree was the lightning bolt, which the lion-headed god wore on his chest in

some images. And, it was "in the offering of incense performed by the Lions" that the

"other souls ascend" according to the Roman sacral language (Clauss 135-37). This is

significant, because in the eighth-century BC Assyrian relief (refer back to Figure 109)

some men wear lion masks and others carry human heads in what appears to be a ritual

enactment.

On a Hittite cylinder, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, next to the seated

goddess Ashara (Inanna-Anahita) two lions standing on their hind legs lift a boat with a

figure inside upwards (reminiscent of the boat of RA). In his analysis of this scene Ward

stated "such lion-headed creatures as we also see on the bronze funerary plate [he is

referring to Figure 121 depicted below] . . . may have something to do with the passage

of the soul" (37-38). That would certainly match what the Roman ritual said about the

function of the Lions of the fourth degree. Could the much older depiction portray the

same initiatic rites practiced in Rome a thousand years later? The evidence continues.

In that fascinating bronze plaque from ancient Chaldea, G. Maspero labels the

lion-headed figure (presiding over a scene which he labels "the underworld") as Nergal

(see Figure 121). Cumont told us that in the Roman cult the mystai wore lion masks and
 99

carried fake heads in the initiation rituals (Mysteries 152-53). The reader can decide for

himself if the scholars were wrong when they labeled these figures as "dancing" and "the

underworld" respectively (see Figures 109 on page 89 and 120 and 121 below), with no

reference to initiations. Knowing then that the lion-faced Nergal/Nusku (see above) was

the Sun in its destructive aspect, the meaning of the ubiquitous Mithraic leontocephalous

in Roman mithrae—portrayed as a statue with a hole in the mouth where a torch flame

flared out or in relief as shooting flame out of his mouth (see Figure 119)^then becomes

clear.

Fig. 119. Mithraic Leontocephalous Figs. 120. and 121. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean

Kronos, bas-relief, white marble, from bronze plaque, from G. Maspero, History of Egypt. Chaldea.

Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Syria. Babylonia, and Assyria (London: Grolier, n.d.) 220,

Mithra (New York: Dover, 1956) fig. 221. Gutenberg Project. 7 Sept. 2008 <http://

23, p. 110. www.gutenberg.org/files/17323>.

The symbology used by Roman mystai of the Mysteries of Mithra was nothing

new. The evidence indicates that it descended from the Mysteries of Chaldea, of Egypt,

of Assyria, and of ancient Iran reaching back into the fourth millennium BC and earlier.
 100
CHAPTER 7

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

. . . being initiated in those Mysteries, which it is lawful to call

the most blessed of all Mysteries . . . these divine Orgies were
celebrated by us, while we possessed the proper integrity of
our nature, we were freed from the molestations of evil which
otherwise await us in a future period of time. Likewise, in
consequence of this divine initiation, we became spectators of the
entire, simple, immovable and blessed visions, resplendent in a pure
light; and were ourselves pure and immaculate, being liberated
from the surrounding vestment, which we denominate the body,
and to which we are now bound like an oyster to its shell.

Plato

This final chapter shall delineate a summary of what has been presented in this

thesis, emphasizing the more salient points and the reasoning behind them. Secondly,

conclusions shall be drawn from all the information presented herein. Lastly, some

recommendations shall be presented, discussing briefly the relevance of this study.

The groundwork was first laid by offering a panoply of information in Chapter

One (presented by modern anthropologists, archaeologists and earth scientists) to help

expand and broaden the view of the reader towards a mindfulness of the interconnections

among the various ancient nations from the eastern Mediterranean to India and beyond.

After defining what the "Mysteries" in general entailed, the topic of the thesis, the Roman

Cult of Mithra, was presented as a problem confronting scholars who argue over its

origin and meaning. The methodology was presented as a syncretistic analysis of the

various elements, symbology, iconography, and deities that Roman Mithraism entails as

compared to earlier forms from Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt, and
textual remains of ritual were compared to usages in the context of older cultures, the

purpose being to establish an argument for continuity in the Mysteries as a whole.

Chapter Two presented the basic form of the Roman cult of Mithra from analyses

of extant iconography, epigraphy, and what little evidence of ritual remains. The

contentions of the various modern scholars followed in the next chapter, which can be

briefly summarized as follows. Cumont saw the Roman cult as an "invasion" of

Mazdaism from Iran clothed in Greco-Roman attire. Beck found its origin in first-century

Commagene's royal house and even narrowed it down to one man, Balbillus, scorning

Cumont's assertions of Iranian origins. Nabarz admitted Iranian origins for the cult as a

western form of Zoroastrianism.

Ulansey interpreted the principal icon of the cult {the tauroctony) as an

astrological roadmap of the sky in 4000 BC when the precession of the equinoxes (Sun

rising in Aries on the spring equinox, progressively moving through all the signs of the

Zodiac and marking the start of a "New Age" every 2160 years) marked the end of the

Age of Taurus. He pinned the origin of the cult to Tarsus in Asia Minor, claiming it

began after Hipparchus discovered the precession of the equinoxes, being formulated by

Stoic leaders at the Platonic Academy there who believed in astral cosmogony, and

specifically pinpointing one Posidonius (135-50 BC) as the commanding figure. Lastly,

Clauss—opposing Beck, Ulansey, and Cumont—insisted the cult originated in the city of

Rome in the first century. They all gave various and often conflicting meanings to the

symbols in the iconography with the interpretation of the leontocephalous ranging from
 102
the Gorgon (by Ulansey) to Zurvan (by Cumont) and of the tauroctony ranging from a

"salvific act" to an "astrological map."

Again, the thesis of this discourse, after digesting all the opposing theories about

Roman Mithraism, was to argue for a new and expanded view, where the cult is not

viewed in isolation, where its symbology is not particular to itself, and where it is shown

to be but another expression of the age old Mysteries, merely manifested in sometimes

altered forms dictated by the culture and types of the times but still veiling the same

occult gnosis. It was argued that the Roman cult of Mithra, in all its elements, is not

unique, not original by any means, not formulated by scheming priests of Commagene or

Rome or Tarsus, but merely another "expression" of the timeless Mysteries whose origins

are in so-called pre-history.

Early on, the similarity, admitted by archaeologists, was pointed out,

demonstrating continuity between iconography at Gobekli Tepe of 10,000 BC, Nevali

Cori (two thousand years later), and numerous other sites in Syria and eastern Anatolia. A

head with a snake crawling up the back was found at both the above-named sites, and

10,000 years after Gobekli Tepe, Mithraic cult images of the leontocephalous featured a

snake crawling up the back of his head. Symbols remained consistent in type and form

for at least 12,000 years, and, one might argue, into our time as well, if the time is taken

to examine the symbols in modern temples and cathedrals—the symbols of the gospels of

Christianity, for example, being a bull, a lion, a man, and an eagle,

Chapter Four compared elements of the cult of Mithra with those of the Christian

Church (Latin, Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Coptic) and found remarkable
 103
similarities, arguing that the Christian Mysteries inherited the mantle of the Mysteries of

Mithra, not only in outward forms but in ritual and beliefs as well. Christ became the new

Sun-god, and the Holy Father (Pater, the pope) became the Pontifex Maximus (great

bridge)-—as was the divine Caesar (see Figures 122 and 123) in the pagan religion—his

vicar and mediator between human and divine—the same duty the Pater Patrum (Father

of Fathers) fulfilled in the Mithra cult. The Caesars identified with the Sun-god Sol

Invictus. Over a thousand years earlier Akhenaton (see Figure 124) was the great bridge

and divine Son of the Sun, identifying himself with Aton (RA-Horakhti) (Devi 61, 69).

Fig. 122. Emperor Augustus Fig. 123. Pope John XXIII, Fig. 124. Nefer-Kheperu-RA,

as Pontifex Maximus, 9 Pontifex Maximus, wearing Ua-en-RA, Beautiful-Essence-

Feb. 2009 <http:// the tiara (triple crown) and sun- of-the-Sun, Only-One-of-the-

www.romanemperors.com/ symbol on gloves, 9 Feb. 2009 Sun, 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

augustus.htm>. <http:www.tofmo.org/papacy/ www.africawithin.com/

images/John23itiara.jpg>. kemit/akhenaten 1 .htm>.

Chapter Five went on to illustrate the various syncretistic connections among the

nations of the ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean with the Greco-Roman
 104
world, arguing the identity of the major gods of the Mysteries as continuous in actuality

and function, changing in form and name only, as ages and cultures passed by. It was

further shown that the elements of the Roman cult descended from ancient Assyria,

Urartu, Syria, and Babylonia, and before that from Sumer, Akkad, and ancient Egypt,

dating to the fourth millennium BC and earlier. Numerous examples of iconography were

used to demonstrate sometimes amazing continuity in the forms through the ages and

nations, even showing Chaldean and Assyrian relief sculptures strangely similar to

Cumont's description of the rituals carried out by the mystai of the Leo (fourth) degree of

Roman Mithraism. Analysis of Sumerian cylinder seals, the monuments of Hittite

Yazilikaya; Achaemenid Behistun and Persepolis; and Commagenian Nimrud Dag, and

the palace reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, all demonstrated the continuity of the

deities and outward forms of the Mysteries through successive empires and cultures from

the most ancient to Roman times. Epigraphy and texts from Egypt, Sumer, Assyria and

other ancient cultures linked the beliefs of those nations with those of Hatti, Urartu,

Mitanni, Mycenae, Greece, and finally Rome.

Chapter Six was a study of the so-called Lion-Headed God, commonly referred to

by scholars as the leontocephalous, reviewing first the interpretations by the major

Mithraic scholars, after which were presented the arguments for his possible descent from

the Egyptian war-god Maahes and the Sumero-Babylonian war-god Nergal, both

worshipped in lion-faced form, and possibly two names of the same god, as Egyptian and

Sumerian religions were very similar. Egypto-Sumerian contact was proven from the

earliest historical times or before. Textual evidence from ancient scholars and other cults
led to the conclusion that the Lion-Headed God in its primary symbolism is the

destructive Sun.

After considering all the outward forms presented, ranging from 12,000-year-old

Gobekli Tepe to Roman era bestial forms; from fourth-millennium BC goddess Inanna to

Roman era Cybele; from ancient Egyptian Osirian cult ritual to Assyrians in lion masks

and Roman Leones roaring and carrying heads; the conclusion seems clear. These

exoteric forms demonstrate amazing continuity of expression over a period of at least

4000 years and more. The words of the ancient authors themselves were given which

attest to the conflation of the various deities of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian

Mysteries with those of the Greeks and Romans.

The similarity of expression in ritual forms was shown to span the time from Old

Kingdom Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia to the days of Imperial Rome and the court of

Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor. The astrological iconography of ancient

Sumeria (see Figure 125) and that culture's depictions of bull slaying and lions were

apparent precursors of the later Roman astrological symbology and bull slaying of the

tauroctony (see Figure 127). Numerous reliefs of the hero Gilgamesh are found all over

the territory that was once ancient Mesopotamia. His slaying of the Bull of Ishtar is

legendary. In the relief shown in Figure 126 he is assisted by a lion (which some scholars

interpret as Enkidu)—hence another image of the lion-bull combat motif.

 106

Fig. 125. Sumerian Astrological Fig. 126. Gilgamesh and Enkidu Fig. 127. Tauroctony with Scorpion

Depiction of Sagittarius with Slaying the Bull of Ishtar, 2nd in the typical place, "The Cosmic

scorpion, lion, dog, eagle, bull, millennium BC, Sumerian, 19 Mysteries of Mithras," ed. David

and snake symbols, from 2nd Feb. 2009 <http://www.garone.net/ Ulansey, 23 Nov. 2008 <http://

millennium BC or earlier, 20 tony/random.html>. www.well.com/user/davidu/

Feb.2008 <http://catshaman.com/ mithras.html>.

13Sumerian/03round.htm>.

The Sun-god concept and his Sun-king, the divinely appointed vicar, was an

ancient Oriental idea descending through the kingdoms of the archaic Near East, into

Anatolia, Syria, and Commagene, and from thence to Rome itself, where the divine

Caesar, son-of-the-Sun, had his throne. Pharaoh was the son of RA or Aton (the Sun) as

was Alexander. Marduk, RA, Ahura Mazda, Utu-Shamash, and all the earlier Sun-gods

fused into Zeus, Jupiter, Helios, Sol Invictus, and Christ, with Apollo as their

psychopompos Sun-god; and, Thoth conflated with Mercury and Mithra. Ancient

Sumerian Inanna was one and the same with the Roman Mater Dea, Anatolian Cybele,

Hittite Ashara, Canaanite Ashtoreth or Astarte, or the Iranian Anahita, mother of Mithra.

They carried the same symbols, had the same functions, and veiled the same Mysteries.
 It must be remembered that there are many layers of meaning to all the symbols

and rituals used in the Mysteries (Burkert, Ancient 72). The purpose of the rituals was to

impress upon the emotional nature of the initiate deeper meanings that could only be

comprehended inwardly and psychically, a task which mere spoken or written words

could never accomplish alone (Meyer 213-21; Burkert, Ancient 89). So, it seems that the

Mysteries, manifested in all the civilized nations of the ancient world, were formulated in

the most perfect way to assure that the knowledge survived in perpetuity (Ancient 41-42,

89-96). Stone outlasts paper and parchment.

Recommendations

The study of the Mysteries of Mithra has exploded in popularity in the scholarly

world as hundreds of journal articles, web pages, and books have developed around the

topic (Clauss xv). The excitement generated rivals that of a treasure hunt. It seems as if

everyone is digging for something they know is hidden there, but that they just haven't

decoded yet. This discourse pursued the Mithra Cult from a more holistic perspective.

The opinion was presented that no ancient cult should be studied in isolation or

necessarily presumed to have been the creation of any one man or group. Just as immense

strides are being made in the understanding of the formation and development of the

Christian religion in recent years through the wider use of holistic methodologies, so the

study of the Mystery cults might benefit from the same inclusive approach.

The work of venerated scholars such as Walter Burkert and Jean-Pierre Vernant

has helped reopen the discussion about the origin of Western culture and beliefs. The

historiographer, Robert Williams, wrote that "History involves revision, not denial, of
statements of fact about the past, based on new facts or new interpretations of old facts,

not on present politics" (45). To keep an open mind, when the subject of religion is

involved (and that includes the cults) and to suppress preconceived ideas, whether held

consciously or unconsciously, is no easy thing. Scholars are subject to prejudices and

preconceived notions like anyone else, although it may be argued these are more

subconscious than conscious in intellectuals who pride themselves on "objectivity."

So, in such a study as the Mysteries of Mithra, it behooves the researcher to keep

a totally open mind and not automatically reject what might seem, at first glance, as

unlikely or even incredulous. In the advancing study of Church history cutting edge

scholarship has presented numerous findings, which, in an earlier decade, might have

been thought preposterous. The Mysteries were initiatic and experiential, and scholars

who truly want to delve deeper must take this to heart (Burkert, Ancient 114).

The theories of David Ulansey have opened up wide speculation and debate on

the possible astrological meanings in the tauroctony. I believe this bears further study,

especially as concerns the possible meaning of Mithra turning the wheel of the zodiac

(see Figure 49). Scholars have theorized that this symbolizes a progression of the

zodiacal ages (from the age of Taurus to the Age of Aries, and so forth) connected with

the precession of the equinoxes. Is there perhaps a prophetic significance to the

symbology concerning later ages? And, how does the lion-headed god, entwined by a

serpent, figure in? Chapter Seven of this discourse concluded that the leontocephalous

was (in its primary aspect) the destructive Sun (see Figure 128).
 109
Christ has been pictured in many of his aspects, such as the gentle good shepherd

or instructive rabbi. In Figure 129, from America's largest church, the Basilica of the

Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Christ is Pantocrator (Universal Ruler) in

his apocalyptic aspect, as the returning King of Kings and final Judge who meets out

justice (recall the primary role of Mithra and of Shamash as dispenser of justice). To one

from a culture foreign to Christianity, the image would most likely appear to be some

fierce Sun-god. Much remains to be discovered about the foundations of Christianity and

its relation to the Mysteries and the Cult of Mithra.

In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (associated with the Eleusinian mysteries) the

goddess Demeter remarked that "Humans are short-sighted, stupid, ignorant of the share

of good or evil which is coming to them" (qtd. in Meyer 26). Can we disagree with a

goddess? Let the research go on.

Figs. 128. and 129. The Destructive Sun, with erupting solar flares (compare to Fig. 119), 29 May 2009

<http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/solar_flare.jpg>. Christ in Majesty, as Pantocrator, Basilica of the

Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., 3 million tile, 3600 sq. foot mosaic, 20 May 2005, photostream

of D.B. King, 28 Aug. 2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootbearwdc/14872164>.

WORKS CITED
 111
WORKS CITED

Albright, W. F. "The Name and Nature of the Sumerian God Uttu." Journal of the

American Oriental Society 42 (1922): 197-200.

Allegro, John. Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed. New York: Gramercy, 1964.

Al-Salihi, Wathiq. "Hercules-Nergal at Hatra." Iraq 33 (1971): 113-15.

—. "Hercules-Nergal at Hatra (II)." Iraq 1 (1973): 65-69.

Amenhotep IV, Son of the Sun. Mural. "Development of the Cult of Aton under

Amenhotep IV." 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.sacred-texts.com/egypt/tut/

tut08.htm>.

Anahita, Iranian Mother Goddess. Sculpture. CAIS. 18 Dec. 2008 <http://www.cais/

religions/iranian/Anahita.htm>.

Ancient Egypt Online. Ed. Jenny Hill. 27 Jan. 2009 <http://

www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk>.

Apis Bull of Egypt. Relief Sculpture. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://www.touregypt.net/

featurestories/bull.htm>.

Apollo Riding a Winged Tripod. Red Ware Hydria. Classical. Museo Gregoriano

Etrucso, Citta Vaticano, Italia. Theoi. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://www.theo.com/

01ympios/Apollo/html>.

Arjomand, Said Amir, "Artaxerxes, Ardasir, and Bahman." Journal of the American

Oriental Society 118 (1998): 245-48.

Asmussen, Jess P. Rev. of Zoroastrianism in Armenia, by James R. Russell. Journal of

the American Oriental Society 111 (1991): 151-52.

 112
Assyrian Patriarch Mar Addai II. Photograph. 14 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.stzaiacathedral.org.au/popup_addai.htm>.

Atac, Mehmet-Ali, "Manichaeism and Ancient Mesopotamian 'Gnosticism'." Journal of

Eastern Religions 5 (2005): 1-39.

Averbeck, Richard E. "Myth, Ritual, and Order in 'Enki and the World Order'." Journal

of the American Oriental Society 123 (2003): 757-71.

Azarpay, G. "Nana, the Sumero-Akkadian Goddess of Transoxiana." Journal of the

American Oriental Society 96 (1976): 536-42.

Baird, Forest E., and Walter Kaufmann. Ancient Philosophy. Upper Saddle River, New

Jersey: Prentice, 2003.

Baiter, Michael. "Prehistoric Cattle Go Wild." Science Now 23 Nov. 2005: 1-2.

Beck, Roger. "Iranian Religions: Mithraism: The Cult of Mithra as It Developed in the

West, Its Origins, Its Features, and Its Origins with Mithraism in Iran." CAIS:

Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies. 8 Aug. 2008 <http://www.cais-soas.com/

C AIS/Religions/iranian/Mithraism>.

—. "The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of Their Genesis." Journal of Roman

Studies 88 (1998): 115-28.

Beckman, Gary. "The Religion of the Hittites." Biblical Archaeologist 52 (1989): 98-108.

Behistun Rock Monument. Sculpture. Livius.Org. "Persia." 21 Feb. 2008 <http://

www. livius .org/be-bm/behistun/behistun02 .html>.

Beyond the Heavens. Painting. Mithraism. Ed. David Ulansey. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.well.com/davidu/mithras.html>.
 113
Binst, Oliver, ed. The Levant: History and Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Cologne: Konemann, 2000. Trans, of Die Levant. Geschichte und Archaologie im

Nahen Osten.

Bivar, A. D. Rev. of A History of Zoroastrianism: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and

Roman Rule, by M. Boyce, F. Grenet, and R. Beck. Journal of Roman Studies 82

(1992): 265-67.

Blanchard, John. Scottish Rite Masonry. Vol. 2. Bensenville, Illinois: Lushena, 2001.

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient

and Modern Science and Theology. Vol. 2. Pasadena: Theosophical UP, 1976.

—. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Vol. 2

Pasadena: Theosophical UP, 1977.

Boghaz-keui Chief God and Goddess. Sculpture. The Syrian Goddess in History and Art.

7 Dec. 2009 <http://www.sacred-texts.org>.

Bougereau, William-Adolphe.The Virgin and Angels. 1900. Petit Palais Musee des

Beaux Arts, Paris, France.

Boyce, Mary. "On Mithra's Part in Zoroastrianism." Bulletin of the School of Oriental

and African Studies 32 (1969): 10-34.

Brace, C. Loring, et al. "The Questionable Contribution of the Neolithic and Bronze Age

to European Craniofacial Form." PNAS 103 (2006): 242-47.

Brown, Peter. "The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire." Journal of Roman

Studies 59 (1969): 92-103.

Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998.

 114
Burkert, Walter. Ancient Mystery Cults: Carl Newell Jackson Lectures. Cambridge:

Harvard UP, 1987.

—. Babylon-Memphis-Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge:

Harvard UP, 2004.

Byrd, Brian. "Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Near East." Journal of

Archaeological Research 13 (2005): 231-90.

Carter, Martha L. "An Indo-Iranian Silver Rhyton in the Cleveland Museum." Artibus

Asjae 41 (1979): 309-25.

Case, Shirley Jackson. "Popular Competitors of Early Christianity." Journal of Religion

10 (1930): 55-73.

Celtic Smertrius-Herakles Slaying a Bull. Relief Sculpture on Cauldron. 26 Dec. 2008

<http://www.Ganglieri.nl/articles>.

Chaldean Cardinal Investiture. Photograph. 28 Nov. 2007 <http://www.ankawa.com>.

Christ as the Good Shepherd. Mosaic, c. 425-450. Mausoleum of Galla Placidia,

Ravenna, Italy, 24 May 2009 <http://www.accd.edu/arthistory/artl303/

ECBYZl.htm>.

Christ in Majesty. Mosaic. Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Washington, D.C.

20 May 2005, photo by D.B. King, 28 Aug. 2009 <http://www.flickr.com/

photos/bootbearwdc/14872164>.

Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie in Kiev. Photograph.

Australian EJournal of Theology, Feb. 2005: Issue 4, 24 Aug.2009 <http://

dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_4/battaglia.htm>.
 115
Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio. Photograph. 24 Aug.

2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/Xerones/97521742>.

Christ Pantocrator Hovering in Disk Held by Winged Angels. Photograph. The Vatican

Grottoes. Photo by Roma Sacra. 24 Aug. 2009 <http://

www. saintpetersbasilica.org>.

Christ Pantokrator. Fresco. Menil Collection. 24 Dec. 2008 <http://www.menil.org/

visit/byzantine.php>.

Christ in Roman Imperial Robes. Illustration. Catholic Tradition. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.catholictradition.org/christ>.

Christ as Universal Ruler. Illustration. Catholic Tradition. 24 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.catholictradition.org/christ>.

Churchward, Albert. The Arcana of Freemasonry: A History of Masonic Signs and

Symbols. 1915. Boston: Weiser Books, 2005.

Clauss, Manfred. The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries. New York:

Routledge, 2001.

Collon, Dominique. "Dance in Ancient Mesopotamia." Near Eastern Archaeology 66

(2003): 96-102.

Constellations along Celestial Equator. Illustration. 10 Nov. 2008 <http://

www.atheists.org>.
 116
Cooper, Jerrold S. "Mesopotamian Historical Consciousness and the Production of

Monumental Art in the Third Millennium B.C.." Investigating Artistic

Environments in the Ancient Near East. Ed. Ann C. Gunter. Washington:

Smithsonian, 1990. 39-51.

Coptic Easter Eggs. Photograph. 23 Mar. 2008 <http://www.thegarance.com/archives/

222>.

Crijns, Maurice. Nimrud Dag Monument of Antiochus I. Photograph. 22 Feb. 2009

<http://www.nemrud.nl.img/west6_mithri.jpgy>.

Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra. Trans. Thomas J. McCormack. New York:

Dover, 1956.

—. "St. George and Mithra 'The Cattle Thief." Journal of Roman Studies 27 (1937):

63-71.

Curry, Andrew. "The World's First Temple?" Smithsonian Nov. 2008: 54-60.

Cut But Unused Megalith, Baalbek, Lebanon. Photograph. 6 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.biblemysteries.com/images/baalbek.gif>.

Cybele, Great Mother of Anatolia. Sculpture. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.astrid.com>.

Cybele and Attis. Sculpture. Museo Archaeologico, Venezia, Italia. Flickr. 28 Dec. 2008

<http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerxespersepolis/797589843>.

De Ruyt. "Valery Marie Franz Cumont." National Biography 39 (1976): 211-22.

The Destructive Sun. Image. 29 May 2009 <http://english.pravda.ru/img/idb/

solarflare .j pg>.
 117
Devi, Savitri. Son of the Sun. San Jose, California: Supreme Grand Lodge of

A.M.O.R.C., Inc., 1981.

Dezso, Tamas, and John Curtis. "Assyrian Iron Helmets from Nimrud Now in the British

Museum." Iraq 53 (1991): 105-26.

Dick, Michael Brennan. "Job XXVIII 4: A New Translation." Vetus Testamentum 29

(1979): 216-21.

Djehuti (Thoth) Assisting Deceased. Mural. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://www.Resurrectisis.org/

ClWebPage.htm>.

Donbaz, Veysel. "An Old Assyrian Treaty from Kultepe." Journal of Cuneiform Studies

57 (2005): 63-68.

Doresse, Jean. The Secret Book of the Egyptian Gnostics: An Introduction to the Gnostic

Coptic Manuscripts Discovered at Chernoboskion. New York: MJF, 1986. Rpt. of

Les livres secrets des Gnostiques d'Egvpt. 1958.

Emperor Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, Statue. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.romanemperors.com/augustus.htm>.

Esdaile, Katharine A. "The 'Commodus-Mithras' of the Salting Collection." Journal of

Roman Studies 7 (1917): 71-73.

Fairbairn, Andrew. "A History of Agricultural Production at Neolithic Catalhoyuk East,

Turkey." World Archaeology 37 (2005): 197-210.

Feldman, Marian H. "Assur Tomb 45 and the Birth of the Assyrian Empire." Bulletin of

The American Schools of Oriental Research Aug. (2006): 21-43.

 118
Filingeri, Licia. "A Mousterian Sculpture of the European Lion: Between Myth and

Ritual," Paleolithic Art Magazine: Europa. Oct. (2001). 22 May 2009 <http://

www.paleolithicartmagazine.org/pagina65html.html>.

"First Century BC Empire of Armenia." Map. 31 July 2008 <http://www.Armenia.org>.

Fischer, Claudia. "Twilight of the Sun-God." Irag. (64): 125-34.

Frankfort, H. "Gods and Myths on Sargonid Seals." Iraq 1 (1934): 2-29.

Frothingham, A. L. "A New Mithraic Relief from Syria." American Journal of

Archaeology 1 (1918): 54-62.

Getlein, Mark. Living with Art. New York: McGraw, 2008.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu Slaving the Bull of Ishtar. Cylinder Seal. 19 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.garone.net/tony/random.html>.

Gilgamesh and the Bull. Sculpture, c.2250-1900 BC. Musee Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,

Brussels, Belgium. 19 Feb. 2009 <http://www.piney.com/BabGilBull.html>.

Gobekli Tepe. Sculpture. Smithsonian.com. 6 Jan. 2009 <http://www.smithsonian.com/

history-archaeology/gbekli-tepe.html>.

Goddess Anahita and Sun-God Mithra. Relief Sculpture. AD 379-383. 24 July 2008

<http://www.piney.com/sun-lion.gif>.

Goddess Durga. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. Artibus Asiae 41 (1979)

pi, 1. la, b.

Goddess Inanna with Her Lion. Relief Sculpture. Sumerian. Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie

Crystal, 12 Nov. 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html>.

 119
Gold Medallion of Pius IX Enthroned Under a Winged Canopy. Medallion. Papal Claims

to Authority. 12 Feb. 2009, 24 Aug. 2009 <http://www.biblelight.net/

claims.htm>.

Gold Pectoral, Iran. Design on Breastplate Fragment. 800-500 BC. Smithsonian

Institution, Washington, D.C. 11 Oct. 2008 <http://www.asia.si.edu/collection/

singleObject.cfm?ObjectId=22472>.

Goldman, Bernard. "The Development of the Lion-Griffin." American Journal of

Archaeology 64 (1960): 319-28.

Gordon, Richard, and Christopher Beall, Rev. of Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and

His Mysteries, by Manfred Clauss. Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003): 314.

Gray, Louis H. "Recent Studies on the Iranian Religions." Harvard Theological Review

15 (1922): 87-95.

Griffiths, J. Gwyn. "Atlantis and Egypt." Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte 34

(1985): 3-28.

—. "Osiris and the Moon in Iconography." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 62 (1976):

153-59.

—. "Religion in Commagene." Rev. of Per kommagenische Mazdaismus, by Helmut

Waldmann. Classical Review, New Series 42 (1992): 340-41.

Gunter, Ann C. "Artists and Ancient Near Eastern Art". Investigating Artistic

Environments in the Ancient Near East. Ed. Ann C. Gunter. Washington:

Smithsonian, 1990. 9-17.

Hadfield, Andrew. "History/Historiography." The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural

Theory 14 (2006): 209-29.

Hall, Manly P. Masonic Orders of Fraternity. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research

Society, 1976.

Hartner, Willy. "The Earliest History of the Constellations in the Near East and the Motif

Of the Lion-Bull Combat." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965): 1-16.

Hawass, Zahi. The Plateau. 3 Mar. 2009 <http:www.zahihawass.com/home.htm>.

Heimpel, Wolfgang. "The Sun at Night and the Doors of Heaven in Babylonian Texts."

Journal of Cuneiform Studies 38 (1986): 127-51.

Heindel, Max. The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception or Mystic Christianity. 1909.

London: Fowler, 1973.

—. The Rosicrucian Mysteries: An Elementary Exposition of their Secret Teachings

n.p.: Forgotten Books, 2008.

Helios in His Chariot. 435 BC. British Museum, London. Theoi. 11 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.theoi.com/gallery/Tl 7.1 .html>.

Herakles and Kretan Bull. Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, Florida.

Hermes. 5th Century BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theoi. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.theoi.com/olympios/Hermes.html>.

Hermes as Shepherd. Relief Sculpture. 24 May 2009 <http://www.umw.edu/Course

mythology/0600/apollo.htm>.

Hermes Kriophoros (or Apollo Nomios). Sculpture. 24 May 2009 <http://

www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Art/Moschoforos.htm>.
 121
Herodotus. Histories. Trans. George Rawlinson. Ed. E. H. Blakeney. Vol. 2. London:

Dent, 1964.

Hoey, Allen S. "Official Policy towards Oriental Cults in the Roman Army."

Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 70

(1939): 456-81.

Holy Bible: Confraternity-Douav Version. Ed. Catholic Scholars. New York: Catholic

Publishing Co., 1962.

Hopkins, Clark. The Discovery of Dura-Europos. Ed. Bernard Goldman. New Haven:

Yale UP, 1979.

lamblichus. On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. Trans. Thomas

Taylor. Mecosta, Michigan: Wizards Bookshelf, 2006.

Investiture of Khosro II. Sculpture. Wikipedia Commons. 21 Feb. 2009 <http://

commons.wikipedia.Org/wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.

Jackson, A. V. Williams. Zoroaster: The Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1898. New York:

Columbia UP, [2008].

—. "On the Date of Zoroaster." Journal of the American Oriental Society 17 (1896):

1-22.

Jastrow, Morris. "Nebopolassar and the Temple to the Sun-God at Sippar." American

Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 15 (1899): 65-86.

Julio Claudian Princeps. Bronze Imago Clipeata. Royal-Athena Galleries, New York.

Kantorowicz, Ernst H. "Gods in Uniform." Proceedings of the American Philosophical

Society 105 (1961): 368-93.

Kimberly. Egyptian Lodge Room. Photograph. Phoenixmasonry, Inc. 9 Jan. 2009 <http://

www.phoenixmasonry.org>.

Knoche, Grace F. The Mystery Schools. 1940. Pasadena: Theosophical UP, 1999.

Kramer, Samuel Noah. History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History.

Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1981.

—. Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third

Millennium B.C.. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1972.

Kriwaczek, Paul. In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed

the World. New York: Knopf, 2003.

Lake, Marilyn. "The White Man under Siege: New Histories of Race in the Nineteenth

Century and the Advent of White Australia." History Workshop Journal 58

(2004): 41-62.

Lamassu. Human-Headed Winged Bull. Sculpture. 883-859 BC. Metropolitan Museum

of New York. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://www.metmuseum.org>.

Lambert, W. G. "Enmeduranki and Related Matters." Journal of Cuneiform Studies 21

(1967): 126-28.

—. "Snakes and Gods in Ancient Syria and Anatolia." Bulletin of the School of Oriental

and African Studies, University of London 48 (1985): 435-51.

Langdon, S. "The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their

Culture." Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 7 (1921): 133-53.

—. "Lexicographical Notes, Contribution to the Assyrian Dictionary." American Journal

of Semitic Languages and Literatures 34 (1918): 206-09.

Layard, A. H. Monuments of Nineveh. London, 1849.

Leadbeater, C.W. Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites. 1926. New York:

Gramercy, 1998.

Lincoln, Bruce. "Mitra, Mithra, Mithras: Problems of a Multiform Deity." Rev of

Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic

Studies, by John R. Hinnells. History of Religions 17 (1977): 200-08.

Lion-Man. Sculpture. 30,000 BC. Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany. 22 May 2009 <http://

www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lion_man>.

Maahes, Egyptian God of War. Statue. 27 Jan. 2009 <http://www.pharaohenland.de/

start.html>.

MacKenzie, Donald A. "Deified Heroes: Etana and Gilgamesh." Myths of Babylonia

and Assyria. Project Gutenberg. Ed. Sami Sieronoja. 5 Sept. 2005. 8 Jan 2009

<http://www.gutenberg.org.files/l 6653/16653-h>.

MacMullen, Ramsay. Paganism in the Roman Empire. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981.

Marionite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutres Sfeir. Photograph. 14 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.kobayat.com/maronites.htm>.

Mary Queen of Heaven. Illustration. 18 Dec. 2008 <http://www.geocities.com/

reginamundi77>.

Maspero, G. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria. Babylonia, and Assyria. Ed. A. H. Cayce.

Trans. M. L. McClure. Vol. 3. London: Grolier, n.d. N. pag. Project Gutenberg.

16 Dec. 2005. 24 Jan. 2009 <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17323/17323-h/

v3b.htm>.
 124
Merrillees, Robert S. "Political Conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late

Bronze Age." Biblical Archaeologist 49 (1986): 42-50.

Meyer, Marvin. Ed. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts. Philadelphia:

U of Pennsylvania?, 1987.

Millar, F. The Roman Near East: 31 BC-AD 337. Boston: Harvard UP, 1993.

Millard, A. R. and P. Bordreuil. "A Statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic

Inscriptions," Biblical Archaeologist 45 (1982): 135-41.

Miller, J. Maxwell. "Syria: Land of Civilizations." Near Eastern Archaeology 64 (2001):

122-131.

Mithra with Star Cape. Mural. "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra." Mithraism. Ed. David

Ulansey. 11 Feb. 2009 <http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html>.

Mithraeum in Ostica Antica. Photograph. "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's Guide."

The Roman Military Research Society. 7 Jan. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>.

Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres. Ostia Antica (Rome). Photographs. Vatican Museum,

Rome, Italy. 27 May 2009 <http://www.ostia-antica.Org/regio2/8/8-6.htm>.

Mithraism: The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra. Ed. David Ulansey. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.well.com/~davidu/mithras.html>.

Mithras/Helios Relief. Sculpture. Gods. Heroes, and Myths. 30 Aug. 2008 <http://

www.gods-heroes-myth.com/godpages/helios.html>.

Moorey, P.R.S. "A Bronze 'Pazazu' Statuette from Egypt."Iraq 27 (1965): 33-41.

Moschophoros, The Calf Bearer. 570 BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece.
 125
Mother Goddess Figure Enthroned. Sculpture. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,

Ankara, Turkey. 22 May 2009 <http://www.accd.edu/...artsl301/Neolithl.htm>.

Mruzek, Jiri. "Jupiter's Temple, Baalbek, Lebanon." 21 May 2009 <http://

www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_baalbek_2.htm>.

Mylonas, George. "Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries." Classical Journal 43 (1947):

130-46.

Na'anam, Nadav. "The Trowel vs. the Text: How the Amarna Letters Challenge

Archaeology." Biblical Archaeology Review Jan.-Feb. 2009: 52+.

Nabarz, Payam. The Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Belief that Shaped the Christian

World. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

Nabonidus, King of Babylonia. Sculpture. Mesopotamia. 16 February 2009 <http://

www.livius.org.a/l/mesopotamia/nabonidus.jpg>.

"Near East in 1450 BC." Map. Ian Mladjov's Resources. University of Michigan. 7 Feb.

2009 <http ://www. sitemaker.umich.edu/mladj ov/maps>.

Nefer-Kheperu-RA, Ua-en-RA. Statue. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://www.africawithin.com/

kemit/akhenatenl .htm>.

Neils, Jenifer. "Reconfiguring the Gods on the Parthenon Frieze." Art Bulletin 81 (1999):

6-20.

Nevali Cori Head. Photograph. Prehistoric Turkey. 8 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/rurkeynevali.html>.
 126
Niedorezo, Stefan. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant. Sculpture. St. Stanislaus

Kostka Catholic Church, Chicago, Illinois. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.st.stansk.com>.

Nock, Arthur Darby. "The Genius of Mithraism." Journal of Roman Studies 27 (1937):

108-13.

Pius XI Medallion. Papal Claims to Authority. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.biblelight.net/

claims.htm>.

Pope John XXIII, Pontifex Maximus. Photograph. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

tofmo.org/papacy/images/John23itiara.jpg>.

Pope John Paul II. Photograph. 12 Dec. 2008 <http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com/

pope.shtml>.

Pope John Paul II Raising Host for Adoration. Photograph. Flickr. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://

ww.flickr.com/photos/10442151 @N00/16868948>.

Pope Shenouda I. Photograph. 27 Dec. 2008 <http://www.saintmary.net/copticfaith/

pope>.

Porada, Edith. "Why Cylinder Seals? Engraved Cylindrical Seal Stones of the Ancient

Near East, Fourth to First Millennium BC." Art Bulletin 75 (1993): 563-82.

Postgate, J. N. Early Mesopotamia: Society and Economy at the Dawn of History.

London: Routledge, 2007.

Potter, David. Emperors of Rome: The Story of Imperial Rome from Julius Caesar to the

Last Emperor. London: Quercus, 2007.

 127
Pythian-Adams, W. J. "The Problems of the Mithraic Grades." Journal of Roman Studies

2 (1912): 53-64.

"Religion of the Kassites." Hebraica 1 (1885): 189-91.

Robertson, John M. Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology. 1903. Boston:

Adamant, 2005.

Rodrigue, Christine M. "James Blaut's Critique of Diffusionism through a Neolithic

Lens: Early Animal Domestication in the Near East." Antipode 37 (2005):981-89.

Rose Croix Masons in Red and White Ritual Garb. Photographs by R. Reed. 23 Aug.

2009 <http://www.flickr.eom/photos/rreed3/2168181816/in/photostream>.

Royal Investiture of Ardashir II. Sculpture. Wikepedia Commons. 21 Feb. 2009 <http://

commons.wikepedia.org/ wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.

Rubio, Gonzalo. "Writing in another Tongue: Alloglottography in the Ancient Near

East." Margins of Writing: Origins of Cultures. Ed. Seth L. Sanders. Chicago: U

of Chicago P, 2007. 10 Jan. 2009 <http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/

ois2_2007.pdf>.

Russell, James R. "On Mysticism and Esotericism among the Zoroastrians." Iranian

Studies 26 (1993): 73-94.

Sarton, George, and Francis J. Carmody. Rev. of'The Exact Sciences in Antiquity," by

Otto Neugebauer. Isis 43 (1952): 69-73.

Savignoni, L. "On Representations of Helios and Selene." Journal of Hellenic Studies

19 (1899): 265-72.
Scham, Sandra. "The World's First Temple: Turkey's 12,000-Year-Old Stone Circles

Were the Spiritual Center of a Nomadic People." Archaeology Nov.-Dec. 2008:

22-27.

Sculpture of the Tauroctony. Sculpture. "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's Guide."

The Military Research Society. 7 Jan. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>.

Seferiades, M. "Complexity of the Processes of Neolithization: Tradition and Modernity

of the Aegean World at the Dawn of the Holocene Period (1 l-9kyr)." Quaternary

International 167-8 (2007): 177-185.

Sekhmet, Egyptian War Goddess. Sculpture. Egyptian Tour. Ed. Hank Wesselman.

10 July 2009 <http://www.sharewisdom.com/tourl4.html>.

Serith, Ceisiwr. "What is Mithraism?" Ceisiwr Serith's Homepage. 23 July 2008. <http://

www.ceisiwrserith.com/mith/whatismith.htm>.

Shipman, Pat. "At the Trowel's Edge." Rev. of Goddess and the Bull, Catalhoyuk: An

Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization, by Michael Baiter. Nature

435 (2005): 278-79.

Shotwell, J. T. "The Discovery of Time." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and

Scientific Methods 12 (1915): 309-17.

Smith, Morton. "The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East." Journal of Biblical

Literature 71 (1952): 135-47.

Sol Invictus. Silver Disk Sculpture. Wikepedia. 19 Jan. 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/

Sol Invictus>.
 129
Solar Lion Door Knocker. Symbolic Adornment. 7 Feb. 2009 <http://www.dcpages.com/

gallery>.

Strong, Herbert A., trans. De Pea Syria. By Lucian. John Garstang, ed. London:

Constable, 1913. Internet Archive of the University of Toronto. 2008. Microsoft

Corporation. 4 Jan.2008 <http://www.org/stream/syriangoddess>.

Suhr, Elmer. "Krishna and Mithra as Messiahs." Folklore 77 (1966): 205-21.

Sumerian Astrological Depiction of Sagittarius. Illustration. 20 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.catshaman.com/13 Sumerian/03round.htm>.

Sumerian Gods and Astral Symbols. Cylinder Seal. Sumerian Gods. Ed. Ellie Crystal.

23 July 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html>.

Sumerian Inanna. Relief Sculpture. Sumerian Gods. Ed. Ellie Crystal. 12 Nov. 2008

<http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html>.

Sun-God Ahura Mazda inside a Winged-Disk. Sculpture. Persia. 18 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.livius.org.au-az/avesta/avesta.html>.

Sun-God Ashur. Relief Sculpture. Wikipedia. 14 Feb.2009 <http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assur_(god)>.

Syrian Hadad (Sumerian Adad). Relief Sculpture. 14 Dec. 2008 <http://www.tolos.de/

religion.E.htm>.

Taq-e-Bostan Tree of Life. Sculpture. Wikepedia Commons. 21 Feb. 2009 <http://

commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.

Tauroctony with Scorpion. Relief Sculpture. "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras." Ed.

David Ulansey. 23 Nov. 2008 <http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html>.

 130
Taurophorus Poetovio. Sculpture. Pokraiinski Muzei Ptuj, Slovenia. 9 Dec. 2008 <http://

www.pok-muzej -ptuj. si/ang/stalne_zbirke_mitrej a>.

Taylor, Thomas. The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. 1791. Wizards Bookshelf: San

Diego, 1997.

Teicher, J. L. "Ancient Eucharistic Prayers in Hebrew (Dura-Europos Parchment D. pg.

25)," Jewish Quarterly Review New Series 54.2 (1963): 99-109.

Temple of the Soul. Image. Freemason Information. Ed. Greg Stewart. 30 April 2008

<http://www.freemasoninformation.com>.

The Papacy and the World. Painting. Google Images. 22 Feb. 2008. 29 Jan. 2009 <http://

images.google.com>.

Thieme, Paul. "The 'Aryan' Gods of the Mitanni Treaties." Journal of the American

Oriental Society 80 (1960): 301-17.

Tighe, William J. "The Shadow of Nestorius." Review of The Church of the East: An

Illustrated History of Assyrian Christianity, by Christoph Baumer. Touchstone

21 (2008): 27-32.

Tree of Life with Winged-Disk. Cylinder Seal. 10 Jan. 2009 <http://www.pandore.net/

magies/creatures/sirenes.htm/sirenes/php>.

Two Assyrian Gods, One Lion-Headed. Relief Sculpture. Myths of Babylonia and

Assyria. By Donald A. MacKenzie. Ed. Sami Sieranoja. Gutenberg Online. 8 Dec.

2008 <http://www.gutenberg.0rg/f1les/l6653/16653-h/l6653-h.htm>.

Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the

Ancient World. Oxford UP, 1989.

—. "Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun." Studies in Mithraism. Ed. John R. Hinnells,

Rome: "L'Erma" di Brettschnieder, 1994. 257-64.

Urartian Bronze Relief. Helmet Fragment. 824-810 BC. 22 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.rubens.anu.edu.au/raid4/europe.0602/germany/

karlsruhe/badische_landesmuseum/archaeology/urartu>.

Urartian Helmet with Tree of Life. Relief in Bronze. 760-743 BC. Hermitage Museum,

St. Petersburg, Russia. 1 Jan. 2009 <http://www.starspring.com/ascender/urartu/

urartu/html>.

Urartian manna. Sculpture. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.britam.org/picturesYair/

Urartu-sphinx.jpg>.

Ustinova, Julia. "The 'Thiasoi' of Theos Hypsistos in Tanais." History of Religions 31

(1991): 150-80.

Utu-Shamash in His Throne Room. Relief Sculpture. British Museum, London. 7 Dec.

2008. <http://www.graal.co.uk/lordoftherings.html>.

Utu/Shamash the Sun-God of Sumeria. Sculpture. Flickr Photos. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://

www.flickr.com/photos/89756796@N00/214768876>.

Van de Mieroop, Marc. Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History. New York:

Routledge, 1999.

Van der Waerden. "Babylonian Astronomy III: The Earliest Astronomical

Computations." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10 (1951): 20-34.

Vermassen, Maarten. Mithras: The Secret God. New York: Barnes and Nobel, 1963.
Vernant, Jean Pierre. The Greeks. Trans. Charles Lambert and Teresa Lavender Fagan.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.

—. The Origins of Greek Thought. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1982.

Waldmann, Nahum M. "A Note on Ezekiel 1:18." Journal of Biblical Literature 103

(1984): 614-18.

Ward, William Hayes. "The Hittite Gods in Hittite Art." American Journal of

Archaeology 3 (1899): 1-39.

Warren, William F. "Babylonian and Pre-Babylonian Cosmology." Journal of the

American Oriental Society 22 (1901): 138-44.

Weniger, Bemhard, et al. "Climate Forcing Due to the 8200 cal yr BP Event Observed

at Early Neolithic Sites in the Eastern Mediterranean." Quaternary Research

66 (2006): 401-20.

Williams, Robert C. The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft

of History. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003.

Wilmshurst, W. L. The Meaning of Masonry. 1922. New York: Barnes, 1999.

Winlow, Heather. "Mapping Moral Geographies: W.Z. Ripley's Races of Europe and the

United States" Annals of the Association of American Geographers 96 (2006):

119-41.

Winston, David. "The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran: A

Review of the Evidence." History of Religions 5 (1966): 183-216.

Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her

Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper, 1983.

 133
Woods, Christopher E. "The Sun-God Tablet of Nabu-apla-iddina Revisited." Journal of

Cuneiform Studies 56 (2004): 23-103.

Young, Gorman Douglas. "Utu and Justice: A New Sumerian Proverb." Journal of

Cuneiform Studies 24 (1972): 132

Zeus Killing Typhon. Vase. 30 Aug. 2008 <http://www.bahumuth.chaosnet.org/

apocrypha6.html>.