style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0.90em">ISIS AND SERAPIS

Their long reign in Europe—Established at Peiraeus in the fourth century B.C.—And in Asia Minor—How the Egyptian cults had been transformed under Greek influences—Greek settlers, soldiers, and travellers in Egypt from the seventh century B.C.—Greek and Egyptian gods identified—The new propaganda of the Ptolemies—Theories of the origin of Serapis—The new Egyptian Trinity—The influence of Greek mysticism—The worship probably established in Campanian towns before 150 B.C.—The religious excitement in Italy in the early part of the second century B.C.—The Bacchanalian scandal—The apocryphal books of Numa—Efforts of the Government in the first century B.C. to repress the worship—A violent struggle with varying fortunes—The triumvirs in 42 B.C. erect a temple of Isis—Persecution of eastern worships in the reign of Tiberius—Thenceforth there was little opposition—Attitude of the Flavian Emperors—Domitian builds a temple of Isis, 92 A.D.—The Egyptian worship propagated from Alexandria by slaves, officials, philosophers, and savants—Votaries in the imperial household—Spread of Isiac worship through Europe—It reaches York—The secret of its fascination—The cult appealed to many kinds of mind—Its mysticism—Its charm for women—Its pomp and ceremonial—How a religion originally gross may be transformed—The zoolatry of Egypt justified as symbolism by Greek philosophers—But there is little trace of it in the Isiac worship of the West—Isis becomes an all-embracing spiritual power—And Serapis is regarded by Aristides as sovereign lord of life—Yet the worship never broke away from the traditions of idolatry—It fostered an immense superstition—The Petosiris—But there was undoubted spiritual power in the worship—The initiation of Lucius—The faith in immortality—εὐψύχει on tombs—Impressive ritual—Separation of the priesthood from the world—Description of the daily offices—Matins and Vespers—Silent meditation—The great festivals of the Isiac calendar—Ascetic preparation—The blessing of the sacred ship—Description of the procession in Apuleius—The grades of priests—The sacred guilds—The place of women—The priesthood an aggressive power—The Isiac presbytery—Priestly rule of life—Tertullian holds it up as an example—The popular charm of the Divine Mother

Pages 560-584

[pg xxi]

CHAPTER VI

THE RELIGION OF MITHRA

The causes which in the second century A.D. prepared the triumph of Mithra—Heliolatry the natural goal of heathenism—Early history of Mithra in the Vedas and Avestas—He is a moral power from the beginning—His place in the Zoroastrian hierarchy—His relation to Ormuzd—The influence of Babylon on the Persian worship—Mithra identified with the Sun—The astral lore of Babylonia inseparable from Mithraism—Yet Mithra and the Sun are distinct in the later Inscriptions—How Mithra worship was modified in Asia Minor—The influence of Greek mythology, philosophy, and art—The group of the Tauroctonus probably first fashioned by a Pergamene artist—Mithra in literature—Herodotus—Xenophon—The Thebaid of Statius—Plutarch—Lucian may have heard the Mazdean litany—Mithra’s first coming to the West probably in the reign of Tiberius—The earliest inscriptions of Mithraism belong to the Flavian age—At the same time, the worship is established in Pannonia—The earliest temples at Ostia and Rome—The power of Mithra in the capital—The secret of the propaganda—Soldiers were the most effective missionaries of Mithra—Slaves and imperial officials of every degree propagate the Persian faith—Its progress traced around Rome and through various regions of Italy, especially to the north—Mithra’s chapels in the valleys of the Alps and on the roads to the Danube from Aquileia—Along the line of the Danube—His remains abundant in Dacia and Pannonia—Chapels at Aquincum and Carnuntum—The enthusiasm of certain legions—The splendid remains of Mithra worship in Upper Germany in the early part of the second century A.D.—Mithra passes on, through Cologne and Boulogne, to London, Chester, York and the wall of Hadrian—Mithra made least impression on W. Gaul, Spain, and N. Africa—In spite of tolerance and syncretism, Mithraism never ceased to be a Persian cult—The influence of astrology—The share of Babylonia in moulding the worship—Yet Greek mystic influences had a large part in it—The descent and ascent of the soul—Yet, although Mithraism came to be a moral creed, it never ceased to be a cosmic symbolism—The great elemental powers—The daemonology of Mithraism—Its affinity with the later Neo Platonism—The evil effect of belief in planetary influences—The struggle between formal and spiritual ideals of religion—The craving for mediatorial sympathy in the moral life was urgent—Mithra was a mediator both in a cosmic and a moral sense—He stands between Cautes and Cautopates, and between Ormuzd and Ahriman—The legend of Mithra as faintly recovered from the monuments—The petra genetrix—The adoration of the shepherds—The fountain gushing at the arrow stroke—The legend of the mystic bull—Its chase and slaughter—Its death as the source of resurgent life—The mysterious reconciliation of Mithra and the Sun—Their solemn agape—Various interpretations of the legend—Yet there was a real spiritual meaning under it all—A religion of strenuous combat—How it touched the Roman soldier on the Danube—Its eschatology—Its promise of immortality and final triumph over evil—The sacramental mystery of Mithraism—The daily offices, and the annual festivals—The [pg xxii]mysteries of Mithra and the seven grades of initiation—Symbolic ceremonies—The colleges of Mithra—Their influence in levelling social distinctions—The suspicions of the Apologists—Description of a chapel of Mithra—The form of the cave always preserved—The scene of full initiation—Mithraism as an imperial cult and a support of imperial power—Sketch of the history of imperial apotheosis—The historic causes which aided it—The influence of Egypt and Persia on the movement—The Persian attitude to kings—The Fortune of the monarch—How these ideas blended with old Roman conceptions—The influence of Sun-worship in the third century, in stimulating theocratic