Front matter (continued 5)
Reading edition
16. For instance, the hymn "which the magi sung" about the steeds of the supreme god; its contents are given by Dion Chrysostom, Oral., XXXVI, 39 (see Mon. myst. Mithra, I. p. 298; II, p. 60).
17. I have in mind the hymns of Cleanthes (Von Arnim, Stoic. fragm., I, Nos. 527, 537), also Demetrius's act of renunciation in Seneca, De Provid., V, 5, which bears a surprising resemblance to one of the most famous Christian prayers, the Suscipe of Saint Ignatius which concludes the book of Spiritual Exercises (Delehaye, Les légendes hagiographiques, 1905, p. 170, n. 1).—In this connection we ought to mention the prayer translated in the Asclepius, the Greek text of which has recently been found on a papyrus (Reitzenstein, Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904, p. 395). On pagan prayers introduced into the Christian liturgy see Reitzenstein and Wendland, Nachrichten Ges. Wiss., Göttingen, 1910, pp. 325 ff.
18. This point has been studied more in detail in our Monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, from which we have taken parts of the following observations (I, pp. 21 ff.).
19. Lucian's authorship of the treatise Περὶ τῆς Συρίης θεοῦ has been questioned but wrongly; see Maurice Croiset, Essai sur Lucien, 1882, pp. 63, 204. I am glad to be able to cite the high authority of Nöldeke in favor of its authenticity. Nöldeke writes me on this subject: "Ich habe jeden Zweifel daran schon lange aufgegeben.... Ich habe lange den Plan gehabt, einen Commentar zu diesem immerhin recht lehrreichen Stück zu schreiben and viel Material dazu gesammelt. Aus der Annahme der Echtheit dieser Schrift ergiebt sich mir, dass auch das Περὶ αστρονομίας echt ist."
20. Cf. Frisch, De compositione libri Plutarchei qui inscribitur, Περὶ Ἴσιδος, Leipsic, 1906, and the observations of Neustadt, Berl. Philol. Wochenschr., 1907, p. 1117.—One of Plutarch's sources is the Ἰουδαϊκά by Apion.—See also Scott Moncrieft, Journ. of Hell. Studies, XIX, 1909, p. 81.
21. See ch. VII, pp. 202-203.
22. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 75, p. 219.—For Egypt see Georges Foucart, "L'art et la religion dans l'ancienne Egypte," Revue des idées, Nov. 15, 1908.
23. The narrative and symbolic sculpture of the Oriental cults was a preparation for that of the Middle Ages, and many remarks in Mâle's beautiful book L'Art du XIIIe siècle en France, can be applied to the art of dying paganism.
II. WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.
Bibliography: Boissier, La religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, especially Bk. II, ch. II.—Jean Réville, La religion à Rome sous les Sévères, Paris, 1886.—Wissowa, Religion und Cultus der Römer, Munich, 1902, pp. 71 ff., 289 ff.—Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1905.—Bigg, The Church's Task Under the Roman Empire, Oxford, 1905.—Cf. also Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, 1906, pp. 1519 ff.—Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zum Judentum und zum Christentum, Tübingen, 1907, pp. 54 f.—The monographs will be cited in connection with the different cults which they treat.
1. Mélanges Fredericq, Brussels, 1904, pp. 63 ff. (Pourquoi le latin fut la seule langue liturgique de l'Occident); cf. the observations of Lejay, Rev. d'hist. et litt. relig., XI, 1906, p. 370.
2. Holl, Volkssprache in Kleinasien (Hermes, 1908, pp. 250 ff.).
3. The volume of Hahn, Rom und Romanismus im griechisch-römischen Osten bis auf die Zeit Hadrians (Leipsic, 1906) discusses a period for the most part prior to the one that interests us. On the period following we have nothing but a provisional sketch by the same author, Romanismus und Hellenismus bis auf die Zeit Justinians (Philologus, Suppl. X), 1907.
4. Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 44: "Nationes in familiis habemus quibus diversi ritus, externa sacra aut nulla sunt."
5. S. Reinach, Epona (Extr. Rev. archéol.). 1895.
6. The theory of the degeneration of races has been set forth in particular by Stewart Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des XIX. Jahrhunderts, 3d. ed., Munich, 1901, pp. 296 ff.—The idea of selection by retrogression, of the Ausrottung der Besten, has been defended, as is well known, by Seeck in his Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, which outlines the religious consequence (II, p. 344). His system is developed in the third volume which appeared in 1909.
7. Apuleius, Metam., XI, 14 ff. See Preface. Manilius said of the divine stars (IV, 910; cf. II, 125),
"Ipse vocat nostros animos ad sidera mundus."
8. Hepding, Attis, pp. 178 ff., 187.
9. The intimate connection between the juridical and religious ideas of the Romans has left numerous traces even in their language. One of the most curious is the double meaning of the term supplicium, which stands at the same time for a supplication addressed to the gods and a punishment demanded by custom, and later by law. In regard to the development of this twofold meaning, see the recent note by Richard Heinze, Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie, XV, pp. 90 ff. Sematology is often synonymous with the study of customs.
10 Réville, op. cit., p. 144.
11 On ecstasy in the mysteries in general, cf. Rohde, Psyche, 2d ed., pp. 315-319; in the Oriental religions cf. De Jong, De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, 1900, p. 100; De Jong, Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 323.
12 Firmicus Maternus mentioned this in De errore prof. relig., c. 8.
13 For Babylonia, cf. Strab., XVI, 1, § 6, and infra, ch. V, n. 51; for Egypt, id., XVII, 21, § 46. From the very interesting account Otto has written of the science of the Egyptian priests during the Hellenistic period (Priester und Tempel, II, pp. 211 ff.; 234), it appears that it remained quite worthy of consideration although progress had ceased.
14 Strabo, loc. cit.: Ἀνατιθέασι δὲ τῷ Ἑρμῇ πᾶσαν τὴν τοιαύτῆν σοφίαν; Pliny, Hist. nat., VI, 26, § 121: "(Belus) inventor fuit sideralis scientiae"; cf. Solinus, 56, § 3; Achilles, Isag., 1 (Maass, Comm. in Arat., p. 27): Βήλῳ τὴν εὕρεσιν ἀναθέντες. Let us remember that Hammurabi's code was represented as the work of Marduk.—In a general way, the gods are the authors of all inventions useful to humanity; cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 1904, p. 123; Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 91 ff. Likewise in the Occident: CIL, VII, 759 = Bücheler, Carm. epigr., 24: "(Dea Syria) ex quis muneribus nosse contigit deos," etc., cf. Plut., Crass., 17.—"Religion im Sinne des Orients ist die Erklärung alles dessen was ist, also eine Weltauffassung" (Winckler, Himmelsbild der Babylonier, 1903, p. 9).
15 Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 312.—Manicheism likewise brought a complete cosmological system from Babylonia. Saint Augustine criticizes the book of that sect for containing long dissertations and absurd stories about matters that have nothing at all to do with salvation; see my Recherches sur le manichéisme, 1908, p. 53.
16 Cf. Porphyry, Epist. Aneb., 11; Jambl., De myst., II, 11.
17 This upright character of the Roman religion has been thoroughly expounded by G. Boissier (op. cit., I, 30 ff, 373 ff). See also the remarks by Bailey, Religion of Ancient Rome, London, 1907, pp. 103 ff.
18 Varro in Augustine De civ. Dei, IV, 27; VI, 5; cf. Varro, Antiq. rerum divin., ed. Aghad, pp. 145 ff. The same distinction between the religion of the poets, of the legislators and of the philosophers has been made by Plutarch, Amatorius, 18, p. 763 C. The author of this division is Posidonius of Apamea. See Diels, Doxographi Graeci, p. 295, 10, and Wendland, Archiv für Gesch. der Philos., I, pp. 200 ff.
19 Luterbacher, Der Prodigienglaube der Römer, Burgdorf, 1904.
20 Juvenal, II, 149; cf. Diodorus, I, 93, § 3. Cf. Plutarch also in speaking of future punishment (Non posse suaviter vivi, c. 26, p. 1104 C-E: Quo modo poetas aud., c. 2, p. 17 C-E; Consol. ad Apollon., c. 10, p. 106 F), "nous laisse entendre que pour la plupart de ses contemporains ce sont là des contes de nourrice qui ne peuvent effrayer que des enfants" (Decharme, Traditions religieuses chez les Grecs, 1904, p. 442).
21 Aug., Civ. Dei, VI, 2; Varro, Antiqu., ed. Aghad, 141; "Se timere ne (dii) pereant non incursu hostili sed civium neglegentia."
22 I have developed this point in my Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 279 ff.
23 In Greece the Oriental cults expanded much less than in any other religion, because the Hellenic mysteries, especially those of Eleusis, taught similar doctrines and satisfied the religious needs.
24 The development of the "ritual of purification" has been broadly expounded in its entirety, by Farnell in The Evolution of Religion, 1905, pp. 88 ff.
25 We shall mention this subject again when speaking of the taurobolium in ch. III, pp. 67 ff.
26 We cannot dwell here upon the various forms assumed by that purifying rite of the Oriental mysteries. Often these forms remained quite primitive, and the idea that inspired them is still clear, as where Juvenal (VI, 521 f.) pictures the worshiper of the Magna Mater divesting himself of his beautiful garments and giving them to the archigallus to wipe out all the misdeeds of the year (ut totum semel expiet annum). The idea of a mechanical transfer of the pollution by relinquishing the clothes is frequent among savages; see Farnell, op. cit., p. 117; also Frazer, Golden Bough, I2, p. 60.
27 Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 157 ff.; Hepding, Attis, pp. 194 ff.—Cf. Frazer, Golden Bough, III2 pp. 424 ff.
28 Cf. Augustine Civit. Dei, X, 28: "Confiteris tamen (sc. Porphyrius) etiam spiritalem animam sine theurgicis artibus et sine teletis quibus frustra discendis elaborasti, posse continentiae virtute purgari," cf. ibid., X, 23 and infra, ch. VIII, n. 24.
29 Here we can only touch upon a subject of very great interest. Porphyry's treatise De abstinentia offers a fuller treatment than is often possible in this kind of studies.—See Farnell, op. cit., pp. 154 ff.
30 On ἐξομολόγησις in the religions of Asia Minor, cf. Ramsay, Cities, I, p. 134, p. 152, and Chapot, La province romaine d'Asie, 1904, pp. 509 ff. See also Crusius, "Paroemiographica," Sitzungsb. Bayr. Akad., 1910, p. 111.
31 Menander in Porphyry De abstin., II, 15; cf. Plutarch, De Superstit., 7, p. 168 D.; Tertullian, De Paenit., c. 9.—Regarding the sacred fishes of Atargatis, see infra, ch. V.—In Apuleius (Met. VIII, 28) the gallus of the goddess loudly accuses himself of his crime and punishes himself by flagellation. See Gruppe, Griech. Myth., p. 1545; Farnell, Evol. of Religion, p. 55.—As a matter of fact, the confession of sin is an old religious tradition dating back to the Babylonians; cf. Lagrange, Religions sémit., p. 225 ff. Schrank, Babylonische Sühnriten, 1909, p. 46.
32 Juvenal, VI, 523 ff., 537 ff.; cf. Seneca, Vit. beat., XXVI, 8.
33 On liturgic feasts in the religion of Cybele: infra, ch. II; in the mysteries of Mithra: Mon. myst. Mithra, I. p. 320; in the Syrian cults: ch. V, n. 37. See in general, Hepding, Attis, pp. 185 ff.
34 We know according to Herbert Spencer that the progressive differentiation of the ecclesiastic and lay functions is one of the characteristics of religious evolution. In this regard Rome was far behind the Orient.
35 An essential result of the researches of Otto (op. cit.) is the proof of the opposition existing in Egypt since the Ptolemies between the hierarchic organization of the Egyptian clergy and the almost anarchical autonomy of the Greek priests. See our remarks on the clergy of Isis and the Galli. On the Mithraic hierarchy see our Mysteries of Mithra, Chicago, 1903, p. 165.
36 The development of the conceptions of "salvation" and "saviour" after the Hellenistic period has been studied by Wendland, Σωτήρ (Zeitschrift für neutestam. Wissensch., V, 1904, pp. 335 ff.). See also Lietzmann, Der Weltheiland, Bonn, 1909. W. Otto, "Augustus Σωτήρ," Hermes, XLV, 1910, pp. 448 ff.
37 Later on we shall expound the two principal doctrines, that of the Egyptian religions (identification with Osiris, god of the dead), and that of the Syrian and Persian religions (ascension into heaven).
38 At that time man's fate after death was the one great interest. An interesting example of the power of this idea is furnished by Arnobius. He became converted to Christianity because, according to his peculiar psychology, he feared that his soul might die, and believed that Christ alone could protect him against final annihilation (cf. Bardenhewer, Gesch. der altkirchlichen Literatur, II, 1903, p. 470.)
39 Lucretius had expressed this conviction (II, 1170 ff.). It spread to the end of the empire as disasters multiplied; cf. Rev. de philologie, 1897, p. 152.
40 Boissier, Rel. rom., I3, p. 359; Friedländer, Sittengesch., I6, pp. 500 ff.
III. ASIA MINOR.
Bibliography: Jean Réville, La religion à Rome sous les Sévères, pp. 62 ff.—Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythol., s. v. "Meter," II, 2932.—Wissowa, Religion und Cultus der Römer, pp. 263 ff., where the earlier bibliography will be found, p. 271.—Showerman, "The Great Mother of the Gods" (Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43), Madison, 1901.—Hepding, Attis, seine Mythen und sein Kult, Giessen, 1903.—Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1905, pp. 547 ff.—Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie, 1906, pp. 1521 ff. Eisele, "Die phrygischen Kulte," Neue Jahrb. für das klass. Altertum, XXIII, 1909, pp. 620 ff.
For a number of years Henri Graillot has been collecting the monuments of the religion of Cybele with a view to publishing them in their entirety.—Numerous remarks on the Phrygian religion will be found in the works and articles of Ramsay, especially in Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 1895, and Studies in the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1906.
1. Arrien, fr. 30 (FGH, III, p. 592). Cf. our Studio Pontica, 1905, pp. 172 ff., and Statius, Achill., II, 345: "Phrygas lucos ... vetitasque solo, procumbere pinus"; Virg., Aen., IX, 85.
2. Lion; cf. S. Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, p. 293. The lion, represented in Asia Minor at a very remote period as devouring a bull or other animals, might possibly represent the sacred animal of Lydia or Phrygia vanquishing the protecting totem of the tribes of Cappadocia or the neighboring countries (I am using the term totem in its broadest meaning). This at least is the interpretation given to similar groups in Egypt. Cf. Foucart, La méthode comparat. et l'histoire des religions, 1909, p. 49, p. 70.
3. Πότνια θηρῶν. On this title, cf. Radet, Revue des études anciennes, X, 1908, pp. 110 ff. The most ancient type of the goddess, a winged figure leading lions, is known from monuments dating back to the period of the Mermnadi (687-546 B. C.).
4. Cf. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, I, p. 7, p. 94.
5. Foucart, Le culte de Dionysos en Attique (Extract from the Mém. Acad. Inscr., XXXVII), 1904, pp. 22 ff.—The Thracians also seem to have spread, in Asia Minor, the cult of the "riding god" which existed until the beginning of the Roman period; cf. Remy, Le Musée belge, XI, 1907, pp. 136 ff.
6. Catullus, LXIII.
7. The development of these mysteries has been well expounded by Hepding, pp. 177 ff. (see Gruppe, Gr. Myth., p. 1544).—Ramsay has recently commented upon inscriptions of Phrygian mystics, united by the knowledge of certain secret signs (τέκμωρ); cf. Studies in the Eastern Roman Provinces, 1906, pp. 346 ff.
8. Dig., XLVIII, 8, 4, 2: "Nemo liberum servumve invitum sinentemve castrare debet." Cf. Mommsen, Strafrecht, p. 637.
9. Diodorus, XXXVI, 6; cf. Plutarch, Marius, 17.
10. Cf. Hepding, op. cit., p. 142.
11. Cf. chap. VI.
12. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 291.
13. Hepding, op. cit., pp. 145 ff. Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Dendrophori," V, col. 216 and Suppl., col, 225, s. v. "Attis."
14. Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XI, 15.
15. This opinion has recently been defended by Showerman, Classical Journal, II, 1906, p. 29.
16. Frazer, The Golden Bough, II2, pp. 130 ff.
17. Hepding, pp. 160 ff. Cf. the texts of Ambrosiaster cited in Rev. hist. et litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 423, n. 1.
18. Hepding, p. 193. Cf. Gruppe, p. 1541.
19. On this diffusion, cf. Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v. "Meter," col. 918.
20. Gregory of Tours, De glor. confess., c. 76. Cf. Passio S. Symphoriani in Ruinart, Acta sinc., ed. of 1859, p. 125. The carpentum mentioned in these texts is found in Africa; cf. CIL, VIII, 8457, and Graillot, Rev. archéol., 1904, I, p. 353; Hepding, op. cit., p. 173, n. 7.
21. Θαρρεῖτε μύσται τοῦ θεοῦ σεσωσμένου | ἕσται γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐκ πόνων σωτηρία; cf. Hepding, op. cit., p. 167.—Attis has become a god through his death (see Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 93), and in the same way were his votaries to become the equals of the divinity through death. The Phrygian epitaphs frequently have the character of dedications, and it appears that the graves were grouped about the temple, see Ramsay, Studies, pp. 65 ff., 271 ff., passim.
22. Perdrizet, Bull. corr. hell., XIX, 1905, p. 534 ff.
23. We know of those beliefs of the Sabaziasts from the frescoes in the catacombs of Praetextatus; the Mercurius nuntius, who leads the dead, is found beside Attis under the Greek name of Hermes (see Hepding, p. 263).—Maybe the inscription CIL, VI, 509 = Inscr. graec., XIV, 1018, should be completed: Ῥείῃ [Ἑρμῇ] τε γενέθλῳ; cf. CIL, VI, 499. Hermes appears beside the Mother of the gods on a bas-relief by Ouchak published by Michon, Rev. des études anciennes, 1906, p. 185, pl. II. See also Mendel, "Musée de Brousse," Bull. corr. hell., 1909, p. 255.—The Thracian Hermes is mentioned in Herodotus, see Maury, Rel. de la Grèce, III, p. 136.
24. Besides Bellona-Ma, subordinate to Cybele and Sabazius, who was as much Jewish as Phrygian, there was only one god of Asia Minor, the Zeus Bronton (the Thunderer) of Phrygia, prominently mentioned in Roman epigraphy. See Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. and Suppl. I, col. 258.
25. Cf. CIL, VI, 499: "Attidi menotyranno invicto." "Invictus" is the characteristic epithet of the solar divinities.
26. P. Perdrizet, "Mèn" (Bull. corr. hell., XX), 1896; Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v., II, col. 2687.
27. CIL, VI, 50 = Inscr. graec., XIV, 1018.
28. Schürer, Sitzungsb. Akad. Berlin, XIII, 1897, p. 200 f. and our Hypsistos (Suppl. Revue instr. publ. en Belgique), 1897.
29. The term is taken from the terminology of the mysteries: the inscription cited dates back to 370 A. D. In 364, in connection with Eleusis, Agorius Praetextatus spoke of συνέχοντα τὸ ἀνθρώπειον γένος ἁγιώτατα μυστήρια (Zozimus, IV, 3, 2). Earlier the "Chaldean oracles" applied to the intelligible god the term μήτρα συνέχουσα τὰ πάντα (Kroll, De orac. Chaldeïcis, p. 19).
30. Henri Graillot, Les dieux Tout-Puissants, Cybèle et Attis (Revue archéol., 1904, I), pp. 331 ff.—Graillot is rather inclined to admit a Christian influence, but omnipotentes was used as a liturgic epithet in 288 A. D., and at about the same date Arnobius (VII, 32) made use of the periphrasis omnipotentia numina to designate the Phrygian gods, and he certainly was understood by all. This proves that the use of that periphrasis was general, and that it must have dated back to a much earlier period. As a matter of fact a dedication has been found at Delos, reading Διὶ τῷ πάντων κρατοῦντι καὶ Μητρὶ μεγάληι τῆι πάντων κρατούσῃ (Bull. corr. hellén., 1882, p. 502, No. 25), that reminds the reader of the παντοκράτωρ of the Septuagint; and Graillot (loc. cit., p. 328, n. 7) justly observes, in this connection, that on certain bas-reliefs Cybele was united with the Theos Hypsistos, that is to say, the god of Israel; see Perdrizet, Bull. corr. hell., XXIII, 1899, p. 598. On the influence of Judaism on the cult of Men cf. Sam. Wide, Archiv für Religionsw., 1909, p. 227.—On the omnipotence of the Syrian gods, see ch. V, pp. 128 ff.
31. We are here giving the substance of a short essay on "Les mystères de Sabazius et le judaïsme," published in the Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., Febr. 9, 1906, pp. 63 ff. Cf. "A propos de Sabazius," Musée belge, XIV, 1910, pp. 56 ff.
32. Cf. Monuments myst. de Mithra, I, p. 333 f. The very early assimilation of Cybele and Anahita justifies to a certain extent the unwarranted practice of calling Cybele the Persian Artemis. See Radet, Revue des études anciennes, X, 1908, p. 157. The pagan theologians often considered Attis as the primeval man whose death brought about the creation, and so they likened him to the Mazdean Gayomart, see Bousset, Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, 1907, pp. 184 ff.
33. Prudentius, Peristeph., X, 1011 f.
34. Their meaning has been revealed through an inscription at Pergamum published by Schröder, Athen. Mitt., 1904, pp. 152 ff.; cf. Revue archéologique, 1905, I, pp. 29 ff.—The ideas on the development of that ceremony, which we are summarizing here, have been expounded by us more fully in the Revue archéologique, 1888, II, pp. 132 ff.; Mon. myst. de Mithra, I, pp. 334 ff.; Revue d'histoire et de litt. relig., VI, 1901, p. 97.—Although the conclusions of the last article have been contested by Hepding (op. cit., 70 f.), it cannot be doubted that the taurobolium was already practised in Asia Minor, in the cult of the Ma-Bellona. Moore (American Journal of Archeology, 1905, p. 71) justly refers to the text of Steph. Byz., in this connection: Μάσταυρα· ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ καὶ ἡ Ῥέα Μᾶ καὶ ταῦρος αὐτῃ ἐθύετο παρὰ Λύδοις. The relation between the cult of Ma and that of Mithra is shown in the epithet of Ἀνείκητος, given to the goddess as well as to the god; see Athen. Mitt., XXIX, 1904, p. 169, and Keil und von Premerstein, "Reise in Lydien," Denkschr. Akad. Wien, 1908, p. 28 (inscription of the Hyrkanis plain).
35. Prudentius, Peristeph., 1027: "Pectus sacrato dividunt venabulo." The harpé shown on the taurobolic altars, is perhaps in reality a boar-spear having a kind of hilt (mora; cf. Grattius, Cyneg., 110) to prevent the blade from entering too far.
36. Hepding, pp. 196 ff.; cf. supra, n. 21.
37. CIL, VI, 510, = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4152. Cf. Gruppe, Griech. Myth., p. 1541, n. 7.
38. Hepding, pp. 186 ff.
39. CIL, VI, 499: "Dii animae mentisque custodes." Cf. 512: "Diis magnis et tutatoribus suis," and CIL, XII, 1277, where Bel is called mentis magister.
40. Hippolytus, Refut. haeres., V, 9.
41. Julien, Or., V; cf. Paul Allard, Julien l'Apostat, II, pp. 246 ff.; Mau, Die Religionsphilosophie Kaiser Julians, 1908, pp. 90 ff. Proclus also devoted a philosophic commentary to the Cybele myth (Marinus, Vita Procli, 34).
42. Regarding all this see Revue d'histoire et de littérat. relig., VIII, 1903, pp. 423, ff.—Frazer (Osiris, Attis, Adonis, 1907, pp. 256 ff.) has recently defended the position that the commemoration of the death of Christ was placed by a great many churches upon March 25th to replace the celebration of Attis's death on the same date, just as Christmas has been substituted for the Natalis Invicti. The text of Ambrosiaster cited in our article (Pseudo Augustin, Quaest. veter. Test, LXXXIV, 3, p. 145, 13, Souter ed.) shows that this was asserted even in antiquity.
IV. EGYPT.
Bibliography: Lafaye, Histoire du culte des divinités d'Alexandrie hors de l'Egypte, Paris, 1884, and article "Isis" in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionn. des antiquités, III, 1899, where may be found (p. 586) an index of the earlier works.—Drexler, art. "Isis" in Roscher, Lexikon der Mythol., II, p. 373-548.—Réville, op. cit., pp. 54 ff.—Wissowa, op. cit., pp. 292 ff.—Dill, op. cit., pp. 560 ff.—Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgesch., pp. 1563-1581 (published after the revision of this chapter).—The study of the Roman cult of the Alexandrian gods is inseparable from that of the Egyptian religion. It would be impossible to furnish a bibliography of the latter here. We shall only refer the reader to the general works of Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie, 4 vols., Paris, 1893, and Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient, 1895 (passim).—Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, London, 1897 [cf. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, "Religion of Egypt," V, pp. 177-197].—Erman, Die ägyptische Religion, Berlin, 1910.—Naville, La religion des anciens Egyptiens (six lectures delivered at the Collège de France), 1906.—W. Otto, Priester und Tempel im hellenistischen Aegypten, 2 vols., 1905, 1908.—The publication of a Bulletin critique des religions de l'Egypte by Jean Capart, begun in the Rev. de l'hist. des religions (LI, 1905, pp. 192 ff.; LIII, 1906, pp. 307 ff.; 1909, pp. 162 ff.).
1. Cf. on this controversy Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, I, p. 102; S. Reinach, Cultes, Mythes et Religions, II, pp. 347 f.; Lehmann, Beiträge zur alten Geschichte, IV, 1904, pp. 396 ff.; Wilcken, Archiv f. Papyrusforschung, III, 1904, pp. 249 ff.; Otto, Priester und Tempel, I, 1905, pp. 11 ff.; Gruppe, loc. cit., pp. 1578 ff.; Petersen, Die Serapislegende, 1910, pp. 47 ff.; Schmidt, Kultübertragungen, 1910, pp. 47 ff.
2. Herodotus, II, 42, 171.—Cf. n. 4.
3. Ælius Aristides, VIII, 56 (I, p. 96, ed. Dindorf). Cf. Plut., De Iside et Osiride, ed. Parthey, p. 216.
4. Plut., De Is. et Osir., 28; cf. Otto, Priester und Tempel, II, pp. 215 ff.—This Timotheus is undoubtedly the same one that wrote about the Phrygian mysteries; see infra, n. 79.—The question, to what extent the Hellenistic cult had the form ascribed to it by Plutarch and Apuleius immediately after its creation, is still unsettled; see Otto, Priester und Tempel, II, p. 222. We do not appear to have any direct proof of the existence of "mysteries" of Isis and Serapis prior to the Empire, but all probabilities are in favor of a more ancient origin, and the mysteries were undoubtedly connected with the ancient Egyptian esoterism.—See infra, n. 78.
5. Diogenes Laertius, V, 5, § 76: Ὅθεν καὶ τοὺς παιᾶνας ποιῆσαι τοὺς μέχρι νῦν ᾁδομένους. The μέχρι νῦν Diogenes took undoubtedly from his source, Didymus. See Artemidorus, Onirocr., II, 44 (p. 143, 25 Hercher).—This information is explicitly confirmed by an inscription which mentions ἡ ἱερὰ τάξις τῶν παιανιστῶν (Inscr. Graec., XIV, 1034).
6. Kaibel, Epigr. 1028 = Abel, Orphica, p. 295, etc.—See supra, ch. I, n. 14.—According to recent opinion, M. de Wilamowitz was good enough to write me, the date of the Andros hymn cannot have been later than the period of Cicero, and it is very probably contemporary with Sulla.—See supra, ch. I, n. 14.—On other similar texts, see Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., P. 1563.
7. Amelung, Le Sérapis de Bryaxis (Revue archéol, 1903, II), p. 178.
8. P. Foucart, Le culte de Dionysos en Attique (Mém. Acad. des Inscr., XXXVII), 1904. On the Isis cult in ancient Greece, we can now refer to Gruppe, Griech. Myth., pp. 1565 ff.; Ruhl, De Sarapide et Iside in Graecia cultis (Diss. Berlin) 1906, has made careful use of the epigraphic texts dating back to the time before the Roman period.
9. The only exception is the Zeus Ammon, who was only half Egyptian and owed his very early adoption to the Greek colonies of Cyrene; see Gruppe, Griech. Myth., p. 1558. The addition of other goddesses, like Nephtis or Bubastis to Isis is exceptional.
10. Concerning the impression which Egypt made on travelers, see Friedländer, Sittengesch., II6, 144 ff.; Otto, Priester und Tempel, II, p. 210.
11. Juvenal, XV, 10, and the notes of Friedländer on these passages.—The Athenian comic writers frequently made fun of the Egyptian zoolatry (Lafaye, op. cit., p. 32). Philo of Alexandria considered the Egyptians as the most idolatrous heathens and he attacked their animal worship, in particular (De Decal., 16, II, p. 193 M., and passim). The pagan writers were no less scandalized (Cicero, Nat. deor., III, 15, etc.) except where they preferred to apply their ingenuity to justify it. See Dill, loc. cit., p. 571.—The features of this cult in ancient Egypt have been recently studied by George Foucart, Revue des idées, Nov. 15, 1908, and La méthode comparative et l'histoire des religions, 1909, pp. 43 ff.
12. Macrobius, Sat., I, 20, § 16.
13. Holm, Gesch. Siziliens, I, p. 81.
14. Libanius, Or., XI, 114 (I, p. 473 Förster). Cf. Drexler in Roscher, op. cit., col. 378.
15. Pausan., I, 18, 4: Σαράπιδος ὃν παρὰ Πτολεμαίου θεὸν εἰσηγάγοντο. Ruhl (op. cit., p. 4) attaches no historic value to this text, but, as he points out himself, we have proof that an official Isis cult existed at Athens under Ptolemy Soter, and that Serapis was worshiped in that city at the beginning of the third century.
16. Dittenberger, Or. gr. inscr. sel., No. 16.
17. Apul., Metam., XI, 17.
18. Thus it is found to be the case from the first half of the third century at Thera, a naval station of the Ptolemies (Hiller von Gärtringen, Thera, III, pp. 85 ff.; cf. Ruhl, op. cit., p. 59), and also at Rhodes (Rev. archéol., 1905, I, p. 341). Cult of Serapis at Delos, cf. Comptes rendus Acad. inscr., 1910, pp. 294 ff.
19. A number of proofs of its diffusion have been collected by Drexler, loc. cit., p. 379. See Lafaye, "Isis" (cf. supra), p. 577; and Ruhl, De Sarapide et Iside in Graecia cultis, 1906.
20. This interpretation has already been proposed by Ravaisson (Gazette archéologique, I, pp. 55 ff.), and I believe it to be correct, see Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 75, n. 1.
21. The power of the Egyptian cult in the Oriental half of the empire has been clearly shown by von Domaszewski (Röm. Mitt., XVII, 1902, pp. 333 ff.), but perhaps with some exaggeration. All will endorse the restrictions formulated by Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, p. 274.
22. The very early spread of Orphic doctrines in Magna Graecia, evidenced by the tablets of Sybaris and Petilia (Diels, Vorsokratiker, II2, p. 480) must have prepared the way for it. These tablets possess many points in common with the eschatological beliefs of Egypt, but, as their latest commentator justly remarks (Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, p. 624), these new ideas are fairly overwhelmed in the old mythology. The mysteries of Isis and Serapis seemed to offer a revelation that had been a presentiment for a long time, and the affirmation of a truth foreshadowed by early symbols.
23. CIL, X, 1781, I, 15-6.
24. Apul., Metam., XI, 30.
25. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 292-3; cf. Seeck, Hermes, XLIII, 1908, p. 642.
26. Manicheism was later persecuted on a similar pretext, see Collat. Mos. et Rom. leg., 15, 3, § 4: "De Persica adversaria nobis gente progressa."
27. A full list of the inscriptions and monuments discovered in the various cities is given by Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v. "Isis," II, col. 409 ff.
28. Hirschfeld, CIL, XII, p. 382, and Wiener Studien, V, 1883, pp. 319-322.
29. Cf. Wissowa, op. cit., pp. 294 ff.
30. Minuc. Fel., Octav. 22, 2: "Haec Ægyptia quondam nunc et sacra Romana sunt."
31. Carmen contra paganos (Anthol. lat., ed. Riese, I, 20 ff.) v. 91, 95 ff.; cf. Ps. Aug., Quaest. Vet. Test., CXIV, 11 (p. 308, 10 Souter), and Rev. hist. litt. relig., VIII, 1903, p. 422, n. 1.
32. Rufin, II, 24: "Caput ipsum idolatriae." A miniature from an Alexandrian chronicle shows the patriarch Theophilus, crowned with a halo, stamping the Serapeum under foot, see Bauer and Strzygowski, Eine alexandrinische Weltchronik (Denkschr. Akad. Wien, LI), 1905, to the year 391, pp. 70 ff., 122, and pl. VI.
33. Cf. Drexler in Roscher, s. v. "Isis," II, p. 425; Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, pp. 147 ff.—Some curious details showing the persistence of the Isis cult among the professors and students of Alexandria during the last years of the fifth century are given in the life of Severus of Antioch by Zachariah the Scholastic (Patrol. orient., I, ed. Kugener), pp. 17 ff., 27 ff.
34. Ps.-Apul., 34. Compare with a similar prophecy in the Sibylline oracles, V, 184 f. (p. 127, Geffcken ed.).
35. Iseum of Beneventum; cf. Notizie debgli scavi di ant., 1904, pp. 107 ff. Iseum of the Campus Martius: see Lanciani, Bollet. communale di Roma, 1883, pp. 33 ff.; Marucchi, ibid., 1890, pp. 307 f.—The signa Memphitica (made of Memphian marble), are mentioned in an inscription (Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4367-8).—The term used in connection with Caracalla: "Sacra Isidis Romam deportavit," which Spartianus (Carac., 9; cf. Aur. Vict., Cæs., 21, 4) no longer understood, also seems to refer to a transfer of sacred Egyptian monuments. At Delos a statue of a singer taken from some grave of the Saïs period had been placed in the temple. Everything Egyptian was looked upon as sacred. (Ruhl, op. cit., p. 53).
36. Gregorovius, Gesch. des Kaisers Hadrian, pp. 222 ff.; cf. Drexler, loc. cit., p. 410.
37. The term is Wiedemann's.
38. Naville, op. cit., pp. 89 ff.
39. On the ἱερογαμματεύς Cheremon, see Otto, Priester und Tempel II, p. 216; Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., III, col. 2025 ff.
40. Doctrines of Plutarch: cf. Decharme, Traditions religieuses chez les Grecs, pp. 486 ff. and supra, ch. I, n. 20.
41. I did not mention Hermetism, made prominent by the researches of Reitzenstein, because I believe its influence in the Occident to have been purely literary. To my knowledge there is no trace in the Latin world of an Hermetic sect with a clergy and following. The Heliognostae or Deinvictiaci who, in Gaul, attempted to assimilate the native Mercury with the Egyptian Thoth, (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 49, n. 2; cf. 359), were Christian gnostics. I believe that Reitzenstein misunderstood the facts when he stated (Wundererzählungen, 1906, p. 128): "Die hermetische Literatur ist im zweiten und dritten Jahrhundert für alle religiös-interessierten der allgemeine Ausdruck der Frömmigkeit geworden." I believe that Hermetism, which is used as a label for doctrines of very different origin, was influenced by "the universal spirit of devotion," and was not its creator. It was the result of a long continued effort to reconcile the Egyptian traditions first with Chaldean astrology, then with Greek philosophy, and it became transformed simultaneously with the philosophy. But this subject would demand extended development. It is admitted by Otto, the second volume of whose book has been published since the writing of these lines, that not even during the Hellenistic period was there enough theological activity of the Egyptian clergy to influence the religion of the times. (Priester und Tempel, II, pp. 218-220).
42. Plut, De Isid., 9.
43. Apul., Metam., XI, 5.
44. CIL X, 3800 = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4362.
45. See the opening pages of this chapter.
46. Plut,. De Iside et Osir., 52; cf. Hermes Trismegistus, Ὅροι Ἀσκληπίου, c. 16; and Reitzenstein, Poimandres, p. 197.
47. Cf. Naville, op. cit., pp. 170 ff.
48. Juv., VI, 489: "Isiacae sacraria lenae"; cf. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, I6, p. 502.
49. In a recent book Farnell has brilliantly outlined the history of the ritual of purification and that of the conception of purity throughout antiquity (Evolution of Religion, London, 1905, pp. 88-192), but unfortunately he has not taken Egypt into account where the primitive forms have been maintained with perhaps the fewest alterations.
50. Juv., VI, 522 ff.
51. Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, I6, p. 510.—On this transformation of the Isis cult, cf. Réville, op. cit., p. 56.
52. Plut., De Iside, c. 2; cf. Apul., Met., XI, 6, end.
53. Ælius Arist., In Sarap., 25 (II, p. 359, Keil ed.); see Diodorus, I, 93, and Apuleius, XI, 6, end.—On future rewards and punishments in Hermetism, see Ps.-Apul., Asclepius, c. 28; Lydus, De mensib., IV, 32 and 149, Wünsch ed.
54. Porph., Epist. ad Aneb., 29. The answer of the Ps.-Iamblichus (de Myst., VI, 5-7) is characteristic. He maintained that these threats were addressed to demons; however, he was well aware that the Egyptians did not distinguish clearly between incantations and prayers (VI, 7, 5).
55. Cf. G. Hock, Griechische Weihegebräuche, 1905, pp. 65 ff. Ps.-Apul., Asclep., 23: "Homo fictor est deorum qui in templis sunt et non solum inluminatur, verum etiam inluminat"; c. 37: "Proavi invenerunt artem qua efficerent deos." Cf. George Foucart, loc. cit. [n. 61]: "La statuaire égyptienne a, avant tout autre, le caractère de créer des êtres vivants."
56. Maspero, Sur la toute-puissance de la parole (Recueil de travaux, XXIV), 1902, pp. 163-175; cf. my Récherches sur le manichéisme, p. 24, n. 2.—The parallelism between the divine and the sacerdotal influence is established in Ps.-Apul., Asclepius, 23.
57. Iamblichus, Myst., VI, 6; cf. G. Foucart, La méthode comparative et l'histoire des religions, 1909, p. 131, 141, 149 ff. and infra, n. 66. The Egyptians prided themselves on having been the first "to know the sacred names and to use the sacred speech" (Luc., De Dea Syr., 1).
58. This has been proven by Otto, Priester und Tempel, I, pp. 114 ff. Cf. supra, chap. II, n. 35. Certain busts have recently inspired Mr. Dennison to give his attention to the tonsure of the votaries of Isis (American Journ. of Archeology, V, 1905, p. 341). The Pompeian frescoes representing priests and ceremonies of the Isis cult are particularly important for our knowledge of the liturgy (Guimet, C. R. Acad. des Inscr., 1896, pls. VII-IX. Cf. von Bissing, Transact. congr. relig. Oxford, 1908, I, pp. 225 ff.).
59. CIL, XII, 3061: "Ornatrix fani."
60. Cf. Kan, De Iove Dolicheno, 1901, p. 33.
61. Cf. Moret, Le rituel du culte divin journalier en Egypte, Paris, 1902. Just as the ritual of consecration brought the statue to life (supra, n. 55), the repeated sacrifices sustained life, and made it longa durare per tempora (Ps.-Apul., Asclep., 38). The epithet of ἀείζωος, given to several divinities (CIG, 4598; Griech. Urkunden of Berlin, I, No. 124), expresses it exactly. All this is in conformity with the old ideas prevailing in the valley of the Nile (see George Foucart, Revue des idées, Nov. 15, 1908).—When compared with the Egyptian ceremonial, the brief data scattered through the Greek and Latin authors become wonderfully clear and coherent.
62. Apul., XI, 22: "Rituque sollemni apertionis celebrato ministerio." Cf. XI, 20: "Matutinas apertiones templi."
63. Jusephus, Ant. Jud., XVIII, 3, 5, § 174.
64. Servius ad Verg., Aen., IV, 512: "In templo Isidis aqua sparsa de Nilo esse dicebatur"; cf. II, 116. When, by pouring water taken from the river, reality took the place of this fiction, the act was much more effective; see Juv. VII, 527.
65. This passage, together with a chapter from Apuleius (XI, 20), is the principal text we have in connection with the ritual of those Isis matins. (De Abstin., IV, 9):
Ὥς που ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἐν τῇ ἀνοίξει τοῦ ἁγίου Σαράπιδος ἡ θεραπεία διὰ πυρὸς καὶ ὕδατος γίνεται, λείβοντος τοῦ ὑμνωδοῦ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ πῦρ φαίνοντος, ὁπηνίκα ἑστὼς ἐπὶ τοῦ οὐδοῦ τῇ πατρίῳ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων φωνῇ ἐγείρει τὸν θεόν.
Arnobius (VII, 32) alludes to the same belief of the votaries of Isis: "Quid sibi volunt excitationes illae quas canitis matutini conlatis ad tibiam vocibus? Obdormiscunt enim superi remeare ut ad vigilias debeant? Quid dormitiones illae quibus ut bene valeant auspicabili salutatione mandatis?"
66. On the power of "barbarian names" see my Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 313, n. 4; Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, pp. III ff. Cf. Charles Michel, Note sur un passage de Jamblique (Mélanges, Louis Havet), 1909, p. 279.—On the persistence of the same idea among the Christians, cf. Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christ., I, pp. 124 ff.; Heitmüller, Im Namen Jesu, Göttingen, 1903 (rich material).
67. Apul., Met., XI, 9.
68. CIL, II, 3386 = Dessau, Inscr. sel., 442; cf. 4423.
69. Apul., XI, 24; cf. Lafaye, pp. 118 ff. Porphyry (De Abstin., IV, 6) dwells at length on this contemplative character of the Egyptian devotion: The priests ἀπέδοσαν ὅλον τὸν βίον τῇ τῶν θεῶν θεωρίᾳ καὶ θεάσει.
70. In the Pharaonic ritual the closing ceremony seems to have taken place during the morning, but in the Occident the sacred images were exposed for contemplation, and the ancient Egyptian service must, therefore, have been divided into two ceremonies.
71. Herodotus, II, 37.
72. Cf. Maspero, Rev. critique, 1905, II, p. 361 ff.
73. Apul., Metam., XI, 7 ff.—This festival seems to have persisted at Catana in the worship of Saint Agatha; cf. Analecta Bollandiana, XXV, 1906, p. 509.
74. Similar masquerades are found in a number of pagan cults (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 315), and from very early times they were seen in Egypt; see von Bissing, loc. cit., n. 58, p. 228.
75. The pausarii are mentioned in the inscriptions; cf. Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4353, 4445.
76. Schäfer, Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos unter Sesostris III, Leipsic, 1904; cf. Capart, Rev. hist, relig., LI, 1905, p. 229, and Wiedemann, Mélanges Nicole, pp. 574 ff. Junker, "Die Stundenwachen in den Osirismysterien" (Denkschrift Akad. Wien, LIV) 1910.
77. In the Abydos mysteries, the god Thoth set out in a boat to seek the body of Osiris. Elsewhere it was Isis who sailed out in quest of it. We do not know whether this scene was played at Rome; but it certainly was played at Gallipoli where make-believe fishermen handled the nets in a make-believe Nile; cf. P. Foucart, Rech. sur les myst. d'Eleusis (Mém. Acad. Inscr., XXXV), p. 37.
78. Cheremon in Porphyry, Epist. ad Aneb., 31:
Καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ τῆς Ἴσιδος ἐπαινεῖ καὶ τὸ ἐν Ἀβύδῳ ἀπόρρητον δείξει.
Cf. Iamblichus, De myster., VI, 5-7.—On the "mysteries" of Isis in Egypt, cf. Foucart, loc. cit., p. 19 f.; De Jong, De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, Leyden, 1900, pp. 79 f., and Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909.
79. Cf. supra.—De Jong, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 1574.
80. La Cité antique, I, ch. II, end.
81. Cf. Erman, op. cit., pp. 96-97.
82. Sufficient proof is contained in the bas-reliefs cited above (n. 20), where apotheosized death assumes the shape of Serapis. Compare Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2098: Εὐψύχι μετὰ τοῦ Ὀσείριδος. This material conception of immortality could be easily reconciled with the old Italian ideas, which had persisted in a dormant state in the minds of the people, see Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, III6, p. 758.
83. Reitzenstein, Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904, 406 ff. These are perhaps the most striking pages written on the meaning of the ceremony; it is an ἀπαθανατισμός. Cf. also Reitzenstein, Hellenistische Wundererzählungen, p. 116.
84. Apul., Metam., 23.—De Jong, the latest commentator on this passage, seems inclined to take it as a mere ecstatic vision, but the vision was certainly caused by a dramatic scene in the course of which hell and heaven were shown in the dark.—The Egyptians represented them even on the stage; see Suetonius, Calig., 8: "Parabatur et in mortem spectaculum quo argumenta inferorum per Aegyptios et Aethiopas explicarentur."
85. Apul., Met., XI, 6 end.
86. Ibid., c. 24: "Inexplicabili voluptate < aspectu > divini simulacri perfruebar."
87. Plut., De Isid., 78, p. 383 A:
Ὡς ἂν ἐξηρτημέναις (ταῖς ψυχαῖς) ἀπ' αύτοῦ (τοῦ Ὀσίριδος) καὶ θεωμέναις ἀπλήστως καὶ ποθούσαις τὸ μὴ φατὸν μηδὲ ῥητὸν ἀνθρώποις κάλλος.
88. Cf., supra, n. 22.
89. We find similar wishes on the Egyptian monuments, frequently at least since the Middle Empire. "Donnez-moi de l'eau courante à boire.... Mettez-moi la face au vent du nord sur le bord de l'eau et que sa fraîcheur calme mon cœur" (Maspero, Etudes égyptiennes, I, 1881, p. 189). "Oh, si j'avais de l'eau courante à boire et si mon visage était tourné vers le vent du nord" (Naville,op. cit., p. 174). On a funerary stele in the Brussels museum (Capart, Guide, 1905, p. 71) is inscribed, "Que les dieux accordent de boire l'eau des sources, de respirer les doux vents du nord."—The very material origin of this wish appears in the funeral texts, where the soul is shown crossing the desert, threatened with hunger and thirst, and obtaining refreshment by the aid of the gods (Maspero, Etudes de mythol. et d'archéol. égypt., 1883, I, pp. 366 ff.).—On a tablet at Petilia (see supra, n. 22), the soul of the deceased is required to drink the fresh water (ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ) flowing from the lake of Memory in order to reign with the heroes. There is nothing to prevent our admitting with Foucart ("Myst. d'Eleusis," Mém. Acad. des Inscr., XXXV, 2, p. 67), that the Egyptian ideas may have permeated the Orphic worship of southern Italy after the fourth or third century, since they are found expressed a hundred years earlier at Carpentras (infra, n. 90).
90. Δοίη σοι ὁ Ὄσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ, at Rome: Kaibel, Inscr. gr. XIV. 1488, 1705, 1782, 1842; cf. 658 and CIL, VI, 3, 20616.—Σοὶ δὲ Ὀσείριδος ἁγνὸν ὕδωρ Εἶσις χαρίσαιτο, Rev. archéol., 1887, p. 199, cf. 201.—Ψυχῇ διψώσῃ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ μετάδος, CIG, 6267 = Kaibel, 1890. It is particularly interesting to note that almost the same wish appears on the Aramaic stele of Carpentras (C. I. Sem., II, 141), which dates back to the fourth or fifth century B. C.: "Blessed be thou, take water from in front of Osiris."—A passage in the book of Enoch manifestly inspired by Egyptian conceptions, mentions the "spring of water," the "spring of life," in the realm of the dead (Enoch, xxii. 2, 9. Cf. Martin, Le livre d'Hénoch, 1906, p. 58, n. 1, and Bousset, Relig. des Judentums, 1903, p 271). From Judaism the expression has passed into Christianity. Cf. Rev. vii. 17; xxi. 6.
91. The Egyptian origin of the Christian expression has frequently been pointed out and cannot be doubted; see Lafaye, op. cit., p. 96, n. 1; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 391; Kraus, Realencycl. der christl. Alt., s. v. "Refrigerium"; and especially Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 95 ff. Cf. Perdrizet, Rev. des études anc., 1905, p. 32; Audollent, Mélanges Louis Havet, 1909, p. 575.—The refrigerii sedes, which the Catholic Church petitions for the deceased in the anniversary masses, appears in the oldest Latin liturgies, and the Greeks, who do not believe in purgatory, have always expressed themselves along the same lines. For instance, Nubian inscriptions which are in perfect agreement with the euchology of Constantinople hope the soul will rest ἐν τόπῳ χλοερῷ, ἐν τόπῳ ἀναψύξεως (G. Lefebvre, Inscr. gr. chrét. d'Eg., No. 636, 664 ff., and introd., p. xxx; cf. Dumont, Mélanges, Homolle ed., pp. 585 ff.). The detail is not without significance because it furnishes a valuable indication as to the Egyptian origin of prayer for the dead; this is unknown to Graeco-Roman paganism which prayed to the deified dead but never for the dead as such. The Church took this custom from the Synagogue, but the Jews themselves seem to have taken it from the Egyptians during the Hellenistic period, undoubtedly in the course of the second century (S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, I, p. 325), just as they were indebted to the Egyptians for the idea of the "spring of life" (supra, n. 90). The formula in the Christian inscriptions cited,
ἀνάπαυσον τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν κόλποις Ἀβραὰμ καὶ Ἰσαὰκ καὶ Ἰακώβ,
appears to indicate a transposition of the doctrine of identification with Osiris. In this way we can explain the persistence in the Christian formulary of expressions, like requies aeterna, corresponding to the most primitive pagan conceptions of the life of the dead, who were not to be disturbed in their graves.—A name for the grave, which appears frequently in Latin epitaphs, viz., domus aeterna (or aeternalis) is undoubtedly also of Egyptian importation. In Egypt, "la tombe est la maison du mort, sa maison d'étérnite, comme disent les textes" (Capart, Guide du musée de Bruxelles, 1905, p. 32). The Greeks were struck by this expression which appears in innumerable instances. Diodorus of Sicily (I, 51, § 2) was aware that the Egyptians
τοὺς τῶν τετελευτηκότων τάφους ἀϊδίους οἴκους προσαγορεύουσιν, ὡς ἐν Ἅιδου διατελούντων τὸν ἄπειρον αἰῶνα (cf. I, 93, § 1, εἰς τὴν αἰώνιον οἴκησιν).—
It is probable that this appellation of the tomb passed from Egypt into Palestine and Syria. It appears already in Ecclesiastes, xii. 7 (beth ’olam = "house of eternity"), and it is found in Syrian epigraphy (for instance in inscriptions of the third century (Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 123), also in the epigraphy of Palmyra. (Chabot, Journal asiatique, 1900, p. 266, No. 47)).—Possibly the hope for consolation, Εὐψύχει, οὐδεὶς ἀθάνατος, frequently found engraved upon tombs even in Latin countries was also derived from the Egyptian religion, but this is more doubtful. Εὐψύχει is found in the epitaphs of initiates in the Alexandrian mysteries. Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 1488, 1782 (Εὐψυχεῖ κυρία καὶ δοίη σοι ὁ Ὄσιρις τὸ ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ), 2098 (cf. supra, n. 90). Possibly the twofold meaning of εὔψυχος which stands both for animosus and frigidus (see Dieterich, Nekyia, loc. cit.) has been played upon. But on the other hand, the idea contained in the formula "Be cheerful, nobody is immortal," also inspired the "Song of the Harpist," a canonical hymn that was sung in Egypt on the day of the funeral. It invited the listener to "make his heart glad" before the sadness of inevitable death (Maspero, Etudes égyptiennes, I, 1881, pp. 171 ff.; cf. Naville, op. cit., p. 171).
V. SYRIA.
Bibliography: The Syrian religions have been studied with especial attention to their relation with Judaism: Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1876. The same author has published veritable monographs on certain divinities (Astarte, Baal, Sonne, etc.) in the Realencyclopädie für prot. Theol., of Herzog-Hauck, 3d ed.—Bäthgen, Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin, 1888.—W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 2d. ed., London, 1894.—Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions sémitiques, 2d ed., Paris, 1905. The results of the excavations in Palestine, which are important in regard to the funeral customs and the oldest idolatry, have been summarized by Father Hugues Vincent, Canaan d'après l'exploration récente, 1907.—On the propagation of the Syrian religions in the Occident, see Réville, op. cit., pp. 70 et passim; Wissowa, Religion der Römer, pp. 299 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., pp. 1582 f.—Important observations will be found in Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archéologie orientale, 8 vols., 1888, and in Dussaud, Notes de mythologie syrienne, Paris, 1903. We have published a series of articles on particular divinities in the Realencyclopädie of Pauly-Wissowa (Baal, Balsamem, Dea Syria, Dolichenus, Gad, etc.). Other monographs are cited below.
1. Lucian, Lucius, 53 ff.; Apul., Metam., VIII, 24 ff. The description by these authors has recently been confirmed by the discovery of an inscription at Kefr-Hauar in Syria: a slave of the Syrian goddess "sent by her mistress (κυρία)," boasts of having brought back "seventy sacks" from each of her trips (Fossey, Bull. corr. hell., XXI, 1897, p. 60; on the meaning of πήρα, "sack," see Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 1908, p. 73).
2. Cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. Astrologie, col. 1816.
3. Cato, De agric., V, 4.
4. On dedication of Romans to Atargatis, see Bull. corr. hell., VI, 1882, p. 497, No. 15; p. 498, No. 17.
5. Since the year 187 we find the Syrian musicians (sambucistriae) mentioned also at Rome. Their number grew steadily (Livy, XXXIX, 6; see Friedländer, Sittengesch., III6, p. 346.)
6. Florus, II, 7 (III, 9); cf. Diodorus Sic., fr. 34, 2, 5.
7. Plut., Vit. Marii, 17.
8. Juvenal, VI, 351; Martial, IV, 53, 10; IX, 2, 11, IX, 22, 9.
9. CIL, VI, 399; cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 201.—Suetonius, Nero, 56.
10. A temple of the Syrian gods at Rome, located at the foot of the Janiculum, has been excavated very recently. Cf. Gauckler, Bolletino communale di Roma, 1907, pp. 5 ff. (Cf. Hülsen, Mitt. Inst. Rom, XXII, 1907, pp. 225 ff.); Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907, pp. 135 ff.; 1908, pp. 510 ff.; 1909, pp. 424 ff., pp. 617 ff.; Nicole and Darier, Le sanctuaire des dieux orientaux au Janicule, Rome, 1909 (Extr. des "Mél. Ecole franç. de Rome," XXIX). In it have been found dedications to Hadad of the Lebanon, to the Hadad ἀκρορείτης, and to Maleciabrudus (in regard to the latter see Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d'archéol. or., VIII, 1907, p. 52). Cf. my article "Syria Dea" in Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier, Diction. des antiquités gr. et rom., 1911.
11. I have said a few words on this colonization in my Mon. rel. aux myst. de Mithra, I, p. 262. Courajod has considered it in regard to artistic influences, Leçons du Louvre, I, 1899, pp. 115, 327 ff. For the Merovingian period see Bréhier, Les colonies d'orientaux en Occident au commencement du moyen âge (Byzant. Zeitschr., XII), 1903, pp. 1 ff.
12. Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2540.
13. Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1899, p. 353 = Waltzing, Corporations professionelles, II, No. 1961 = CIL, III S., 141658.—Inscription of Thaïm of Canatha: Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2532.
14. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Fr., VIII, 1.—On the diffusion of the Syrians in Gaul, see Bréhier, loc. cit., p. 16 ff.
15. Cf. Bréhier, Les origines du crucifix dans l'art religieux, Paris, 1904.
16. Adonis: Wissowa, p. 300, n. 1.—Balmarcodès: Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v.; Jalabert, Mél. fac. orient. Beyrouth, I, p. 182.—Marnas: The existence at Ostia of a "Marneum" can be deduced from the dedication CIG, 5892 (cf. Drexler in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v., col. 2382).—On Maleciabrudus, cf. supra, n. 10.—The Maiuma festival was probably introduced with the cult of the god of Gaza, Lydus, De Mensib., IV, 80 (p. 133, Wünsch ed.) = Suidas s. v. Μαιουμᾶς and Drexler, loc. cit., col. 2287. Cf. Clermont-Ganneau, Rec. d'archéol. orient., IV, p. 339.
17. Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Damascenus, Dusares."
18. Malalas, XI, p. 280, 12 (Bonn).—The temple has recently been excavated by a German mission; cf. Puchstein, Führer in Baalbek, Berlin, 1905.—On the Hadad at Rome, cf. supra, n. 10.
19. CIL, X, 1634: "Cultores Iovis Heliopolitani Berytenses qui Puteolis consistunt"; cf. Wissowa, loc. cit., p. 504, n. 3; Ch. Dubois, Pouzzoles antique, Paris, 1906, p. 156.
20. A list of the known military societies has been made by Cichorius in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Ala" and "Cohors."
21. CIL, VII, 759 = Buecheler, Carmina epigr., 24. Two inscriptions dedicated to the Syrian Hercules (Melkarth) and to Astarte have been discovered at Corbridge, near Newcastle (Inscr. gr., XIV, 2553). It is possible that Tyrian archers were cantoned there.
22. Baltis: Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclop., s. v.
23. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Aziz"; cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 303, n. 7.
24. On the etymology of Malakbel, see Dussaud, Notes, 24 ff. On the religion in the Occident see Edu. Meyer in Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.
25. Kan, De Iovis Dolicheni cultu, Groningen, 1901; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Dolichenus."
26. Réville, Relig. sous les Sévères, pp. 237 ff.; Wissowa, op. cit., p. 305; cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Elagabal."—In a recent article (Die politische Bedeutung der Religion von Emesa [Archiv für Religionsw., XI], 1908, pp. 223 ff.) M. von Domaszewski justly lays stress on the religious value of the solar monotheism that arose in the temples of Syria, but he attributes too important a part in its formation to the clergy of Emesa (see infra, n. 88). The preponderant influence seems to have been exercised by Palmyra (see infra, n. 59).
27. Cf. infra, n. 59.
28. Cf. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, Chicago, 1902; Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes du pays de Moab, Paris, 1908, pp. 297 ff.
29. Cf. Robertson Smith, passim; Lagrange, pp. 158-216; Vincent, op. cit., pp. 102-123; 144 f.—The power of this Semitic litholatry equaled its persistence. Philo of Byblus defined the bethels as λίθοι ἔμψυχοι (2, § 20, FHG, III, p. 563): Hippolytus also tells us (V, 1, p. 145, Cruice), that in the Syrian mysteries (Ἀσσυρίων τελεταί) it was taught that the stones were animated (οἱ λίθοι εἰσὶν ἔμψυχοι· ἔχουσι γὰρ τὸ αὐξητικόν), and the same doctrine perpetuated itself in Manicheism. (Titus of Bostra, II, 60, p. 60, 25, de Lagarde ed.:
Οὐκ αἰσχύνεται δὲ καὶ τοὺς λίθους ἐψυχῶσθαι λέγων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἔμψυχα εἰσηγούμενος).
During the last years of paganism the neo-Platonists developed a superstitious worship of the bethels; see Conybeare, Transactions of the Congress of Hist. of Rel., Oxford, 1908, p. 177.
30. Luc., De dea Syria, c. 41. Cf. the inscription of Narnaka with the note of Clermont-Ganneau, Etudes d'arch. orient., II, p. 163.—For bull worship in Syria cf. Ronzevalle, Mélanges fac. orient. Beyrouth, I, 1906, pp. 225, 238; Vincent, op. cit., p. 169.
31. Philo Alex., De provid., II, c. 107 (II, 646 M.); cf. Lucian, De dea Syria, 54.
32. For instance on Mount Eryx in Sicily (Ael., Nat. Anim., IV, 2).—Cf. Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Dea Syria," col. 2242.
33. Tibullus, I, 7, 17.
34. Lucian, De dea Syria, 14; 54. Cf. Diodorus, II, 4, 2; Ovid, Met., IV, 46; V, 331.
35. Pauly-Wissowa, loc. cit., col. 2241; W. Robertson Smith, p. 175.
36. The ancient authors frequently alluded to this superstition of the Syrians (the texts have been collected by Selden, De dis Syris, II, C. 3, pp. 268 ff., ed. of 1672). W. Robertson Smith (loc. cit., p. 449), is right in connecting it with certain ideas of savages. Like many primitive beliefs, this one has continued to the present day. It has been pointed out to me that at Sam-Keuï, a little west of Doliché, there is a pond fed by a spring and well stocked with fish, which one is forbidden to take. Near the mosque of Edessa is a large pond where catching fish is prohibited. They are considered sacred, and the people believe that any one who would eat them would die instantly. (Sachau, Reise in Syrien, 1883, pp. 196 ff. Cf. Lord Warkworth, Diary in Asiatic Turkey, London, 1898, p. 242). The same is the case at the mosque of Tripoli and elsewhere (Lammens, Au pays des Nosaïris [Revue de l'Orient chrétien], 1908, p. 2). Even in Asia Minor this superstition is found. At Tavshanli, north of Aezani on the upper Rhyndacus, there is to-day a square cistern filled with sacred fish which no one is allowed to take (on the authority of Munro). Travelers in Turkey have frequently observed that the people do not eat fish, even when there is a scarcity of food (Sachau, loc. cit., p. 196) and the general belief that their flesh is unhealthful and can cause sickness is not entirely unfounded. Here is what Ramsay has to say on the subject (Impressions of Turkey, London, 1897, p. 288): "Fish are rarely found and when found are usually bad: the natives have a prejudice against fish, and my own experience has been unfavorable.... In the clear sparkling mountain stream that flows through the Taurus by Bozanti-Khan, a small kind of fish is caught; I had a most violent attack of sickness in 1891 after eating some of them, and so had all who partook." Captain Wilson, who spent a number of years in Asia Minor, asserts (Handbook of Asia-Minor, p. 19), that "the natives do not eat fish to any extent." The "totemic" prohibition in this instance really seems to have a hygienic origin. People abstained from all kinds of fish because some species were dangerous, that is to say, inhabited by evil spirits, and the tumors sent by the Syrian goddess were merely the edemas caused by the poisoning.
37. On the Ἰχθύς symbolism I will merely refer to Usener, Sintflutsagen, 1899, pp. 223 ff. Cf. S. Reinach, Cultes, mythes, III, 1908, pp. 43 ff. An exhaustive book on this subject has recently appeared: Dölger, ΙΧΘYΣ, das Fischsymbol in frühchristlicher Zeit, I, Rome, 1910.
On sacred repasts where fish was eaten see Mnaseas, fragment 32 (Fragm. histor. graec., III, 115); cf. Dittenberger, Sylloge, 584: Ἐὰν δέ τις τῶν ἰχθύων ἀποθάνῃ, καρπούσθω αὐθημερὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ, and Diog. Laert., VIII, 34. There were also sacred repasts in the Occident in the various Syrian cults: Cenatorium et triclinium in the temples of Jupiter Dolichenus (CIL, III, 4789; VI, 30931; XI, 696, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 501); promulsidaria et mantelium offered to the Venus Caelestis (CIL, X, 1590); construction of a temple to Malachbel with a culina (CIL, III, 7954). Mention is made of a δειπνοκρίτης, δείπνοις κρείνας πολλὰ μετ' εὐφροσύνης, in the temple of the Janiculum (Gauckler, C.R. Acad. Inscr., 1907, p. 142; Bolletino communale, 1907, pp. 15 ff.). Cf. Lagrange, Religions sémitiques, II, p. 609, and Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Gad."
38. W. Robertson Smith, pp. 292 ff.
39. An inscription discovered at Kefr-Hauar (Fossey, Bull. corr. hell., 1897, p. 60) is very characteristic in this respect. A "slave" of the Syrian goddess in that inscription offers his homage to his "mistress" (κυρία).
40. Notably at Aphaca where they were not suppressed until the time of Constantine (Eusebius, Vit. Const., III, 55; cf. Sozom., II, 5).
41. Much has been written about the sacred prostitutions in paganism, and it is well known that Voltaire ridiculed the scholars who were credulous enough to believe in the tales of Herodotus. But this practice has been proven by irrefutable testimony. Strabo, for instance, whose great-uncle was arch-priest of Comana, mentions it in connection with that city, (XII, 3, 36, p. 559 C), and he manifests no surprise. The history of religion teaches many stranger facts; this one, however, is disconcerting. The attempt has been made to see in it a relic of the primitive promiscuity or polyandry, or a persistence of "sexual hospitality," ("No custom is more widely spread than the providing for a guest a female companion, who is usually a wife or daughter of the host," says Wake, Serpent Worship, 1888, p. 158); or the substitution of union with a man for union with the god (Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 915). But these hypotheses do not explain the peculiarities of the religious custom as it is described by more reliable authors. They insist upon the fact that the girls were dedicated to the temple service while virgins, and that after having had strangers for lovers, they married in their own country. Thus Strabo (XI, 14, § 16, p. 532 C.) narrates in connection with the temple of Anaitïs in Acilisena, that θυγατέρας οἱ ἐπιφανέστατοι τοῦ ἔθνους ἀνιεροῦσι παρθένους, αἴς νόμος ἐστὶ καταπορνευθείσαις πολὺν χρόνον παρὰ τῇ θεῷ μετὰ ταῦτα δίδοσθαι πρὸς γάμον, οὐκ ἀπαξιοῦντος τῇ τοιαύτῃ συνοικεῖν οὐδενός. Herodotus (I, 93), who relates about the same thing of the Lydian women, adds that they acquired a dowry in that manner; an inscription at Tralles (Bull. corr. hell., VII, 1885, p. 276) actually mentions a descendant of a sacred prostitute (ἐκ προγόνων παλλακίδων) who had temporarily filled the same office (παλλακεύσασα κατὰ χρησμὸν Διί). Even at Thebes in Egypt there existed a similar custom with striking local peculiarities in the time of Strabo (XVII, 1, § 46), and traces of it seem to have been found in Greece among the Locrians (Vurtheim, De Aiacis origine, Leyden, 1907). Every Algerian traveler knows how the girls of the Ouled-Naïl earn their dowry in the ksours and the cities, before they go back to their tribes to marry, and Doutté (Notes sur l'Islam maghrébien, les Marabouts, Extr. Rev. hist. des relig., XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the Ouled-Naïl in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note by Basset).—It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has ever been offered) that this strange practice is a modified utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. "La première union sexuelle impliquant une effusion de sang, a été interdite, lorsque ce sang était celui d'une fille du clan versé par le fait d'un homme du clan" (Salomon Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf. Lang, The Secret of the Totem, London, 1905.) Thence rose the obligation on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted to marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted to in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from that act (see for inst., Reinach, Mythes, cultes, I, p. 118).—The opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after its publication, by Frazer (Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic of primitive communism. But at least one of the arguments which he uses against our views is incorrect. Not the women, but the men, received presents in Acilisena (Strabo, loc. cit.) and the communistic theory does not seem to account for the details of the custom prevailing in the temple of Thebes. There the horror of blood clearly appears. On the discovery of a skull (having served at a rite of consecration) in the temple of the Janiculum, see the article cited above, "Dea Syria," in Dict. des antiquités.
42. Porphyry, De Abstin., II, 56; Tertull., Apol., 9. Cf. Lagrange, op. cit., p. 445.
43. Even in the regions where the cities developed, the Baal and the Baalat always remained the divinities πολιοῦχοι, the protectors of the city which they were supposed to have founded.
44. Le Bas-Waddington, 2196.—Suidas, s. v. Φυλάρχης (II, 2, col. 1568, Bernhardy). Cf. Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, I, p. 405, 409.
45. Hippolytus, Adv. Haeres., V, II, § 7: Ἀσσυρίων τελεταί; § 18: Ἀσσυρίων μυστήρια (pp. 145, 148, ed. by Cruice). Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, I, 12. Pognon (Inscrip. sémitiques, 1907, No. 48) has recently published a Syrian epitaph that is unfortunately mutilated, but which seems to be that of an adept of the pagan mysteries; see Nöldeke, Zeitschrift für Assyr., XXI, 1907, p. 155.
46. On the Semitic notion of purity, W. Robertson Smith has written admirably and convincingly (pp. 446 ff. and passim). The question has been taken up from a different point of view by Lagrange, pp. 141 ff.—The development of the notion of purity in the ancient religions has been recently expounded by Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, 1905, pp. 88 ff., especially pp. 124 ff. Cf. also supra, p. 91 f. An example of the prohibitions and purifications is found in the Occident in an inscription, unfortunately mutilated, discovered at Rome and dedicated to Beellefarus (CIL, VI, 30934, 31168; cf. Lafaye, Rev. hist. relig., XVII, 1888, pp. 218 ff.; Dessau, Inscr. sel., 4343). If I have understood the text correctly it commands those who have eaten pork to purify themselves by means of honey.—On penances in the Syrian religions see ch. II, n. 31.
47. M. Clermont-Ganneau (Etudes d'archéologie orientale, II, 1896, p. 104) states that the epithet ἅγιος is extremely rare in pagan Hellenism, and almost always betrays a Semitic influence. In such cases it corresponds to קרש, which to the Semites is the epithet par excellence of the divinity. Thus Eshmon is קרש; cf. Lidzbarski, Ephemer. für semit. Epigraph., II, p. 155; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archéol. orient., III, p. 330; V, p. 322.—In Greek Le Bas-Waddington, 2720, has: Οὶ κάτοχοι ἁγίου οὐρανίου Διός. Dittenberger, Orientis inscript., 620, Ζεὺς ἅγιος Βεελ βωσῶρος. Some time ago I copied at a dealer's, a dedication engraved upon a lamp: Θεῷ ἁγίῳ Ἀρελσέλῳ, in Latin: J. Dolichenus sanctus, CIL, VI, 413, X, 7949.—J. Heliopolitanus sanctissimus, CIL, VIII, 2627.—"Caelestis sancta," VIII, 8433, etc.—The African Saturn (= Baal) is often called sanctus.—Hera sancta beside Jupiter Dolichenus, VI, 413.—Malakbel is translated by Sol sanctissimus, in the bilingual inscription of the Capitol, VI, 710 = Dessau, 4337. Cf. deus sanctus aeternus, V, 1058, 3761, and Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1906, p. 69.—See in general Delehaye, Analecta Bollandiana, 1909, pp. 157 ff.
48. As curious examples of Greco-Syrian syncretism we may mention the bas-relief of Ed-Douwaïr in the Louvre, which has been analyzed in detail by Dussaud (Notes, pp. 89 ff.), and especially that of Homs in the Brussels museum (ibid., 104 ff.).
49. Macrobius, I, 23, § 11: "Ritu Assyrio magis quam Aegyptio colitur"; cf. Lucian, De dea Syria, 5.—"Hermetic" theories penetrated even to the Sabians of Osrhoene (Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 166 ff.), although their influence seems to have been merely superficial (Bousset, Göttingische gelehrt. Anzeigen, 1905, 704 ff.)—The existence of κάτοχοι at Baetocécé and elsewhere appears to be due to Egyptian influence (Jalabert, Mélanges de la fac. orient. de Beyrouth, II, 1907, pp. 308 ff.). The meaning of κάτοχος which has been interpreted in different ways, is established, I think, by the passages collected by Kroll, Cat. codd. astrol. graec., V, pars 2, p. 146; cf. Otto, Priester und Tempel, I, p. 119; Bouché-Leclercq, Hist. des Lagides, IV, p. 335. It refers to the poor, the sick and even the "illumined" living within the temple enclosures and undoubtedly supported by the clergy, as were the refugees of the Christian period who availed themselves of the right of sanctuary in the churches (cf. Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907, p. 454).
50. Cf. infra, n. 59.
51. Strabo, XVI, 1, 6. Cf. Pliny, H. N., VI, 6: "Durat adhuc ibi Iovis Beli templum." Cf. my Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 35 ff.; Chapot, Mém. soc. antiq. de France, 1902, pp. 239 ff.; Gruppe, Griech. Mythol., p. 1608, n. 1.
52. Lucian, De dea Syria, c. 10.
53. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I, pp. 233 ff. and passim.
54. On the worship of Bel in Syria cf. Comptes Rendus Acad. Inscr., 1907, pp. 447 ff.—Cf. infra, n. 59.
55. On the Heliopolitan triad and the addition of Mercury to the original couple see Perdrizet, Rev. études anc., III, 1901, p. 258; Dussaud, Notes, p. 24; Jalabert, Mélanges fac. orient. de Bayrouth, I, 1906, pp. 175 ff.—Triad of Hierapolis: Lucian, De dea Syria, c. 33. According to Dussaud, the three divinities came from Babylon together, Notes, p. 115.—The existence of a Phœnician triad (Baal, Astarte, Eshmoun or Melkarth), and of a Palmyrian triad has been conjectured but without sufficient reason (ibid., 170, 172 ff.); the existence of Carthaginian triads is more probable (cf. Polybius, VII, 9, 11, and von Baudissin, Iolaos [Philothesia für Paul Kleinert], 1907, pp. 5 ff.)—See in general Usener, Dreiheit (Extr. Rhein. Museum, LVIII), 1903, p. 32. The triads continued in the theology of the "Chaldaic Oracles" (Kroll, De orac. Chald., 13 ff.) and a threefold division of the world and the soul was taught in the "Assyrian mysteries" (Archiv für Religionswiss., IX, 1906, p. 331, n. 1).
56. Boll, Sphaera, p. 372.—The introduction of astrology into Egypt seems to date back no further than the time of the Ptolemies.
57. The Seleucides, like the Roman emperors later, believed in Chaldean astrology (Appian., Syr., 28; Diodorus, II, 31, 2; cf. Riess in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenc., s. v. "Astrologie," col. 1814), and the kings of Commagene, as well as of a great number of Syrian cities, had the signs of the zodiac as emblems on their coins. It is even certain that this pseudo-science penetrated into those regions long before the Hellenistic period. Traces of it are found in the Old Testament (Schiaparelli; translation by Lüdke, Die Astron. im Alten Testament, 1904, p. 46). It modified the entire Semitic paganism. The only cult which we know in any detail, that of the Sabians, assigned the highest importance to it; but in the myths and doctrines of the others its influence is no less apparent (Pauly-Wissowa, Realencycl., s. v. "Dea Syria," IV, col. 2241, and s. v. "Gad"; cf. Baudissin, Realencycl. für prot. Theol., s. v., "Sonne," pp. 510-520). To what extent, for instance, the clergy of Emesa had been subjected to its ascendency is shown by the novel of Heliodorus, written by a priest of that city (Rohde, Griech. Roman2, p. 464 [436]), and by the horoscope that put Julia Domna upon the throne (Vita Severi, 3, 8; cf. A. von Domaszewski, Archiv für Religionsw., XI, 1908, p. 223). The irresistible influence extended even to the Arabian paganism (Nöldeke in Hastings, Encyclop. of Religion, s. v. "Arabs," I, p. 661; compare, Orac. Sibyll., XIII, 64 ff., on Bostra). The sidereal character which has been attributed to the Syrian gods, was borrowed, but none the less real. From very early times the Semites worshiped the sun, the moon, and the stars (see Deut. iv. 19; Job xxxi. 25), especially the planet Venus, but this cult was of secondary importance only (see W. Robertson Smith, op. cit., p. 135, n. 1), although it grew in proportion as the Babylonian influence became stronger. The polemics of the Fathers of the Syrian Church show how considerable its prestige was in the Christian era (cf. Ephrem, Opera Syriaca, Rome, 1740, II, pp. 447 ff.; the "Assyrian" Tatian, c. 9 ff., etc.).
58. Humann and Puchstein, Reise in Klein-Asien und Nord-Syrien, 1890, pl. XL; Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 188, fig. 8; Bouché-Leclercq, Astrol. gr., p. 439.
59. Cf. Wissowa, op. cit., p. 306-7.—On the temple of Bel at Palmyra, cf. Sobernheim, Palmyrenische Inschriften (Mitt. der vorderasiat. Gesellsch., X), 1905, pp. 319 ff.; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, I, pp. 255 ff., II, p. 280.—Priests of Bel: Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'arch. orient., VII, p. 12, 24, 364. Cf. supra, n. 54. The power of Palmyra under Zenobia, who ruled from the Tigris to the Nile, must have had as a corollary the establishment of an official worship that was necessarily syncretic. Hence its special importance for the history of paganism. Although the Babylonian astrology was a powerful factor in this worship, Judaism seems to have had just as great an influence in its formation. There was at Palmyra a large Jewish colony, which the writers of the Talmud considered only tolerably orthodox (Chaps, Gli Ebrei di Palmira [Rivista Israelitica, I], Florence, 1904, pp. 171 ff., 238 f. Cf. "Palmyra" in the Jewish Encycl.; Jewish insc. of Palmyra; Euting, Sitzb. Berl. Acad., 1885, p. 669; Landauer, ibid., 1884, pp. 933 ff.). This colony seems to have made compromises with the idolaters. On the other hand we see Zenobia herself rebuilding a synagogue in Egypt (Revue archéologique, XXX, 1875, p. III; Zeitschrift für Numismatik, V, p. 229; Dittenberger, Orientis inscript., 729). This influence of Judaism seems to explain the development at Palmyra of the cult of Ζεὺς ὕψιτος καὶ ἐπήκοος, "he whose name is blessed in eternity." The name of Hypsistos has been applied everywhere to Jehovah and to the pagan Zeus (supra, p. 62, 128) at the same time. The text of Zosimus (I, 61), according to which Aurelian brought from Palmyra to Rome the statues of Ἡλίου τε καὶ Βήλου (this has been wrongly changed to read τοῦ καὶ Βήλου), proves that the astrological religion of the great desert city recognized a supreme god residing in the highest heavens, and a solar god, his visible image and agent, according to the Semitic theology of the last period of paganism (supra, p. 134).
60. I have spoken of this solar eschatology in the memorial cited infra, n. 88.
61. This opinion is that of Posidonius (see Wendland, Philos Schrift über die Vorsehung, Berlin, 1892, p. 68, n. 1; 70, n. 2). It is shared by the ancient astrologers.
62. This old pagan and gnostic idea has continued to the present day in Syria among the Nosaïris; cf. Dussaud, Histoire et religion des Nosaïris, 1900, p. 125.
63. The belief that pious souls are guided to heaven by a psychopompus, is found not only in the mysteries of Mithra (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 310), but also in the Syrian cults where that rôle was often assigned to the solar god, see Isid. Lévy, Cultes syriens dans le Talmud (Revue des études juives, XLIII), 1901, p. 5, and Dussaud, Notes, p. 27; cf. the Le Bas-Waddington inscription, 2442:
"Βασιλεῦ δέσποτα (= the sun), ἵλαθι καὶ δίδου πᾶσιν ἡμῖν ὑγίην καθαράν, πρήξις ἀγαθὰς καὶ βίου τέλος ἐσθλόν."—
The same idea is found in inscriptions in the Occident; as for instance in the peculiar epitaph of a sailor who died at Marseilles (Kaibel, Inscr. gr., XIV, 2462 = Epigr., 650):
"Ἐν δὲ [τε] τεθνειοῖσιν ὁμηγύρι [έσ] γε πέλουσιν δοιαί· τῶν ἑτέρη μὲν ἐπιχθονίη πεφόρηται, ἡ δ' ἑτέρη τείρεσσι σὺν αἰθερίοισι χορεύει, ἠς στρατιῆς εἶς εἰμί, λαχὼν θεὸν ἡγεμονῆα."
It is the same term that Julian used (Césars, p. 336 C) in speaking of Mithra, the guide of souls: ἡγεμόνα θεόν. Cf. also infra, n. 66 and ch. VIII, n. 24.
64. The Babylonian origin of the doctrine that the souls returned to heaven by crossing the seven planetary spheres, has been maintained by Anz (Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus, 1897; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I. pp. 38 ff., p. 309; Bousset, Die Himmelsreise der Seele [Archiv für Religionsw., IV], 1901, pp. 160 ff.) and "Gnosis" in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, col. 1520. It has since been denied by Reitzenstein (Poimandres, p. 79; cf. Kroll, Berl. philol. Wochensch., 1906, p. 486). But although it may have been given its precise shape and been transformed by the Greeks and even by the Egyptians, I persist in believing that it is of Chaldean and religious origin. I heartily agree with the conclusions recently formulated by Bousset, (Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 1905, pp. 707 ff.). We can go farther: Whatever roots it may have had in the speculations of ancient Greece (Aristoph., Pax, 832, Plato, Tim., 42B, cf. Haussoullier, Rev. de philol., 1909, pp. 1 ff.), whatever traces of it may be found in other nations (Dieterich, Mithrasliturgie, pp. 182 ff.; Nekyia, p. 24, note; Rohde, Psyche, II, p. 131, n. 3), the idea itself of the soul rising to the divine stars after death certainly developed under the influence of the sidereal worship of the Semites to a point where it dominated all other eschatological theories. The belief in the eternity of souls is the corollary to the belief in the eternity of the celestial gods (p. 129). We cannot give the history of this conception here, and we shall limit ourselves to brief observations. The first account of this system ever given at Rome is found in "Scipio's Dream" (c. 3); it probably dates back to Posidonius of Apamea (cf. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur, p. 85, 166, n. 3, 168, n. 1), and is completely impregnated with mysticism and astrolatry. The same idea is found a little later in the astrologer Manilius (I, 758; IV, 404, etc.). The shape which it assumed in Josephus (Bell. Judaic., V, 1, 5, § 47) is also much more religious than philosophical and is strikingly similar to a dogma of Islam (happiness in store for those dying in battle; a Syrian [ibid., § 54] risks his life that his soul may go to heaven). This recalls the inscription of Antiochus of Commagene (Michel, Recueil, No. 735, l. 40):
Σῶμα πρὸς οὐρανίους Διὸς Ὠρομάσδου θρόνους θεοφιλῆ ψυχὴν προπέμψαν εἰς τὸν ἄπειρον αἰῶνα κοιμήσεται.
It must be said that this sidereal immortality was not originally common to all men; it was reserved "omnibus qui patriam conservaverint adiuverint, auxerint" (Somn. Scip. c. 3, c. 8; cf. Manil., I, 758; Lucan, Phars., IX, 1 ff.; Wendland, op. cit., p. 85 n. 2), and this also is in conformity with the oldest Oriental traditions. The rites first used to assure immortality to kings and to make them the equals of the gods were extended little by little as a kind of privilege, to the important persons of the state, and only very much later were they applied to all who died.
Regarding the diffusion of this belief from the beginning of the first century of our era, see Diels, Elementum, 1899, p. 73, cf. 78; Badstübner, Beiträge zur Erklärung Senecas, Hamburg, pp. 2 ff.—It is expressed in many inscriptions (Friedländer, Sitteng., III, pp. 749 ff.; Rohde, Psyche, p. 673, cf. 610; epitaph of Vezir-Keupru, Studia Pontica, No. 85; CIL. III (Salone), 6384; supra, n. 63, etc.) It gained access into Judaism and paganism simultaneously (cf. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutest. Zeitalter, 1903, p. 271, and, for Philo of Alexandria, Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, V, p. 397 and p. 297).—During the third century it was expounded by Cornelius Labeo, the source of Arnobius and Servius (Nieggetiet, De Cornelio Labeone [Diss. Munster], 1908, pp. 77-86). It was generally accepted towards the end of the empire; see infra, n. 25.—I hope soon to have the opportunity of setting forth the development of this sidereal eschatology with greater precision in my lectures on "Astrology and Religion in Antiquity" which will appear in 1912 (chap. VI).
65. According to the doctrine of the Egyptian mysteries the Elysian Fields were in the under-world (Apul., Metam., XI, 6).—According to the astrological theory, the Elysian Fields were in the sphere of the fixed stars (Macrobius, Comm. somn. Scip., I, 11, § 8; cf. infra, chap. VIII, n. 25). Others placed them in the moon (Servius, Ad Aen., VI, 887; cf. Norden, Vergils Buch, VI, p. 23; Rohde, Psyche, pp. 609 ff.). Iamblichus placed them between the moon and the sun (Lydus, De mens., IV, 149, p. 167, 23, Wünsch).
66. The relation between the two ideas is apparent in the alleged account of the Pythagorean doctrine which Diogenes Laertius took from Alexander Polyhistor, and which is in reality an apocryphal composition of the first century of our era. It was said that Hermes guided the pure souls, after their separation from the body, εἰς τὸν Ὕψιστον (Diog. Laert., VIII, § 31; cf. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, V, p. 106, n. 2).—On the meaning of Hypsistos, cf. supra, p. 128. It appears very plainly in the passage of Isaiah, xiv, 13, as rendered by the Septuagint:
Ἐις τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀναβήσομαι, ἐπάνω τῶν ἀστέρων θήσω τὸν θρόνον μου ... ἔσομαι ὅμοιος τῷ Ὑψίστῳ.
67. Originally he was the thunder-god, in Greek Κεραυνός. Under this name he appeared for instance on the bas-relief preserved in the museum of Brussels (Dussaud, Notes, p. 105). Later, by a familiar process, the influence of a particular god becomes the attribute of a greater divinity, and we speak of a Ζεὺς Κεραύνιος (cf. Usener, Keraunos, Rhein. Museum, N. F., LX, 1901).—This Zeus Keraunios appears in many inscriptions of Syria (CIG, 4501, 4520; Le Bas-Waddington, 2195, 2557 a, 2631, 2739; cf. Roscher, Lexikon Myth., s. v. "Keraunos").
He is the god to whom Seleucus sacrificed when founding Seleucia (Malalas, p. 199), and a dedication to the same god has been found recently in the temple of the Syrian divinities at Rome (supra, n. 10).—An equivalent of the Zeus Keraunios is the Zeus Καταιβάτης—"he who descends in the lightning"—worshiped at Cyrrhus (Wroth, Greek Coins in the British Museum: "Galatia, Syria," p. 52 and LII; Roscher, Lexikon, s. v.)
68. For instance the double ax was carried by Jupiter Dolichenus (cf. supra, p. 147). On its significance, cf. Usener, loc. cit., p. 20.
69. Cf. Lidzbarski, Balsamem, Ephem. semit. Epigr., I, p. 251.—Ba‘al Samaïn is mentioned as early as the ninth century B. C. in the inscription of Ben Hadad (Pognon, Inscr. sémit., 1907, pp. 165 ff.; cf. Dussaud, Rev. archéol., 1908, I, p. 235). In Aramaic papyri preserved at Berlin, the Jews of Elephantine call Jehovah "the god of heaven" in an address to a Persian governor, and the same name was used in the alleged edicts of Cyrus and his successors, which were inserted in the book of Esdras (i. 1; vi. 9, etc.)—If there were the slightest doubt as to the identity of the god of thunder with Baalsamin, it would be dispelled by the inscription of Et-Tayibé, where this Semitic name is translated into Greek as Ζεὺς μέγιστος κεραύνιος; cf. Lidzbarski, Handbuch, p. 477, and Lagrange, op. cit., p. 508.
70. On the worship of Baalsamin, confused with Ahura-Mazda and transformed into Caelus, see Mon. myst. Mithra, p. 87.—The texts attesting the existence of a real cult of heaven among the Semites are very numerous. Besides the ones I have gathered (loc. cit., n. 5); see Conybeare, Philo about the Contemplative Life, p. 33, n. 16; Kayser, Das Buch der Erkenntniss der Wahrheit, 1893, p. 337, and infra, n. 75. Zeus Οὐράνιος: Le Bas-Waddington, 2720 a (Baal of Bétocécé); Renan, Mission de Phénicie, p. 103.—Cf. Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, IX, 1906, p. 333.
71. Coins of Antiochus VIII Grypus (125-96 B. C.); Babelon, Rois de Syrie, d'Arménie, 1890, p. CLIV, pp. 178 ff.
72. All these qualities ascribed to the Baals by astrological paganism (ὕψιστος, παντοκράτωρ, etc.), are also the attributes which, according to the doctrine of Alexandrian Judaism, characterized Jehovah (see supra, n. 66). If he was originally a god of thunder, as has been maintained, the evolution of the Jewish theology was parallel to that of the pagan conceptions (see supra, n. 69).
73. On this subject cf. Jupiter summus exsuperantissimus (Archiv f. Religionsw., IX), 1906, pp. 326 ff.
74. Ps.-Iamblichus, De mysteriis, VI, 7 (cf. Porph., Epist. Aneb., c. 29), notes this difference between the two religions.
75. Apul., Met., VIII, 25. Cf. CIL, III, 1090; XII, 1227 (= Dessau, 2998, 4333); Macrobius, Comm. somn. Scipionis, I, 14, § 2: "Nihil aliud esse deum nisi caelum ipsum et caelestia ipsa quae cernimus, ideo ut summi omnipotentiam dei ostenderet posse vix intellegi."—Ἥλιος παντοκράτως: Macrob., I, 23, 21.
76. Diodorus, II, 30: Χαλδαῖοι τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν ἀΐδιόν φασιν εἶναι κ. τ. λ.; cf. Cicero, Nat. deor., II, 20, § 52 ff.; Pliny, H. N., II, 8, § 30. The notion of eternity was correlative with that of εἱμαρμενη; cf. Ps.-Apul., Asclep., 40; Apul., De deo Socratis, c. 2: "(The planets) quae in deflexo cursu ... meatus aeternos divinis vicibus efficiunt."—This subject will be more fully treated in my lectures on "Astrology and Religion" (chaps. IV-V).
77. At Palmyra: De Vogüé, Inscr. sem., pp. 53 ff., etc.—On the first title, see infra, n. 80.
78. Note especially CIL, VI, 406 = 30758, where Jupiter Dolichenus is called Aeternus conservator totius poli. The relation to heaven here remained apparent. See Somn. Scip., III, 4; IV, 3.
79. Cf. Rev. archéol., 1888, I, pp. 184 ff.; Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. "Aeternus," and Festschrift für Otto Benndorf, 1898, p. 291.—The idea of the eternity of the gods also appeared very early in Egypt, but it does not seem that the mysteries of Isis—in which the death of Osiris was commemorated—made it prominent, and it certainly was spread in the Occident only by the sidereal cults.
80. The question has been raised whether the epithet מרא עלמא means "lord of the world" or "lord of eternity" (cf. Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, I, 258; II, 297; Lagrange, p. 508), but in our opinion the controversy is to no purpose, since in the spirit of the Syrian priests the two ideas are inseparable and one expression in itself embraces both, the world being conceived as eternal (supra, n. 76). See for Egypt, Horapoll., Hieroglyph., I (serpent as symbol of the αἰών and κόσμος). At Palmyra, too, the title "lord of all" is found, מרא כל (Lidzbarski, loc. cit.); cf. Julian, Or., IV, p. 203, 5 (Hertlein): Ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν ὅλων Ἥλιος, and infra, n. 81; n. 87. Already at Babylon the title "lord of the universe" was given to Shamash and Hadad; see Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens, I, p. 254, n. 10. Nöldeke has been good enough to write me as follows on this subject: "Daran kan kein Zweifel sein, dass עלם zunächst (lange Zeit) Ewigkeit heisst, und dass die Bedeutung 'Welt' secundär ist. Ich halte es daher für so gut wie gewiss dass das palmyrenische מרא עלמא, wenn es ein alter Name ist, den 'ewigen' Herrn bedeutet, wie ohne Zweifel אל עולם, Gen., xxi. 33. Das biblische Hebräisch kennt die Bedeutung 'Welt' noch nicht, abgesehen wohl von der späten Stelle, Eccl. iii. 11. Und, so viel ich sehe, ist im Palmyrenischen sonst עלמא immer 'Ewigkeit,' z.B. in der häufigen Redensart לבריך שמח לעלמא. Aber das daneben vorkommende palmyr. מרא כל führt allerdings darauf, dass die palmyrenische Inschrift auch in מרא עלמא den 'Herrn der Welt' sah. Ja der syrische Uebersetzer sieht auch in jenem hebräischen אל עולם 'den Gott der Welt.' Das Syrische hat nämlich einen formalen Unterschied festgestellt zwischen ‘ālăm, dem Status absolutus, 'Ewigkeit,' und ‘ālmā [ālemā] dem Status emphaticus 'Welt.'—Sollte übrigens die Bedeutung Welt diesem Worte erst durch Einfluss griechischer Speculation zu Teil geworden sein? In der Zingirli-Inschrift bedeuted בצלם noch bloss 'in seiner Zeit.'"
81. Cf. CIL, III, 1090 = Dessau, Inscr., 2998: "Divinarum humanarumque rerum rectori." Compare ibid., 2999 and Cagnet, Année épigr., 1905, No. 235: "I. O. M., id est universitatis principi." Cf. the article of the Archiv cited, n. 73. The Asclepius says (c. 39), using an astrological term: "Caelestes dii catholicorum dominantur, terreni incolunt singula."
82. Cf. W. Robertson Smith, 75 ff., passim. In the Syrian religions as in that of Mithra, the initiates regarded each other as members of the same family, and the phrase "dear brethren" as used by our preachers, was already in use among the votaries of Jupiter Dolichenus (fratres carissimos, CIL, VI, 406 = 30758).
83. Renan mentioned this fact in his Apotres, p. 297 = Journal Asiatique, 1859, p. 259. Cf. Jalabert, Mél. faculté orient. Beyrout, I, 1906, p. 146.
84. This is the term (virtutes) used by the pagans. See the inscription Numini et virtutibus dei aeterni as reconstructed in Revue de Philologie, 1902, p. 9; Archiv für Religionsw., loc. cit., p. 335, n. 1 and infra, ch. VIII, n. 20.
85. CIL, VII, 759 = Bücheler, Carm. epig., 24.—Cf. Lucian, De dea Syria, 32.
86. Macrobius, Sat., I, 23, § 17: "Nominis (Adad) interpretatio significat unus unus."
87. Cicero, Somnium Scip., c. 4: "Sol dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio." Pliny, H. N., II, 6, § 12: "Sol ... siderum ipsorum caelique rector. Hunc esse mundi totius animam ac planius mentem, hunc principale naturae regimen ac numen credere decet," etc. Julian of Laodicea, Cat. codd. astr., I, p. 136, l. 1:
Ἥλιος βασιλεὺς καὶ ἡγεμὼν τοῦ σύμπαντος κόσμου καθεστώς, πάντων καθηγούμενος καὶ πάντων ὢν γενεσιάρχης.
88. We are here recapitulating some conclusions of a study on La théologie solaire du paganisme romain published in Mémoires des savants étrangers présentés à l'Acad. des Inscr., XII, 2d part, pp. 447 ff., Paris, 1910.
89. The hymns of Synesius (II, 10 ff., IV, 120 ff., etc.) contain peculiar examples of the combination of the old astrological ideas with Christian theology.
VI. PERSIA.
Bibliography: We shall not attempt here to give a bibliography of the works devoted to Mazdaism. We shall merely refer the reader to that of Lehmann in Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, II, p. 150. We should mention, in the first place, Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta, 1892 ff., with introductions and commentary.—In my Textes et monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (2 vols., 1894-1900), I, pp. xx ff., I have furnished a list of the earlier works on this subject; the conclusions of the book have been published separately without the notes, under the title: Les Mystères de Mithra, (2d ed., Paris and Brussels, 1902; English translation, Chicago, 1903). See also the article "Mithra" in the Dictionnaire des antiquités of Daremberg and Saglio, 1904.—General outlines of certain phases of this religion have been since given by Grill, Die persische Mysterienreligion und das Christentum, 1903; Roeses, Ueber Mithrasdienst, Stralsund, 1905; G. Wolff, Ueber Mithrasdienst und Mithreen, Frankfort, 1909; Reinach, La morale du mithraïsme in Cultes, mythes, II, 1906, pp. 220 ff.; Dill, op. cit., pp. 594-626; cf. also Bigg, op. cit. [p. 321], 1905, p. 46 ff.; Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christent., II, p. 270. Among the learned researches which we cannot enumerate here, the most important is that of Albrecht Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, 1903. He has endeavored with some ingenuity to show that a mystical passage inserted in a magic papyrus preserved at Paris is in reality a fragment of a Mithraic liturgy, but here I share the skepticism of Reitzenstein (Neue Jahrb. f. das class. Altertum, 1904, p. 192) and I have given my reasons in Rev. de l'Instr. publ. en Belg., XLVII, 1904, pp. 1 ff. Dieterich answered briefly in Archiv f. Religionswis., VIII, 1905, p. 502, but without convincing me. The author of the passage in question may have been more or less accurate in giving his god the external appearance of Mithra, but he certainly did not know the eschatology of the Persian mysteries. We know, for instance, through positive testimony that they taught the dogma of the passage of the soul through the seven planetary spheres, and that Mithra acted as a guide to his votaries in their ascension to the realm of the blessed. Neither the former nor the latter doctrine, however, is found in the fantastic uranography of the magician. The name of Mithra, as elsewhere that of the magi Zoroaster and Hostanes, helped to circulate an Egyptian forgery., cf. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur, 1907, p. 168, n. 1. See on this controversy Wünsch's notes in the 2d ed. of the Mithrasliturgie, 1910, pp. 225 ff.—A considerable number of new monuments have been published of late years (the mithreum of Saalburg by Jacobi, etc.). The most important ones are those of the temple of Sidon preserved in the collection of Clercq (De Ridder, Marbres de la collection de C., 1906, pp. 52 ff.) and those of Stockstadt published by Drexel (Der obergerm. Limes, XXXIII, Heidelberg, 1910). In the following notes I shall only mention the works or texts which could not be utilized in my earlier researches.
1. Cf. Petr. Patricius, Excerpta de leg., 12 (II, p. 393, de Boor ed.).
2. Cf. Chapot, Les destinées de l'hellénisme au delà l'Euphrate (Mém. soc. antiq. de France), 1902, pp. 207 ff.
3. Humbert in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire, s. v. "Amici," I, p. 228 (cf. 160). Cf. Friedländer, Sittengesch., I, pp. 202 ff.
4. Cf. L'Eternité des empereurs romains (Rev. d'hist. et de litt. relig., I), 1896, p. 442.
5. Friedländer (loc. cit., p. 204) has pointed out several instances where Augustus borrowed from his distant predecessors the custom of keeping a journal of the palace, of educating the children of noble families at court, etc. Certain public institutions were undoubtedly modeled on them; for instance, the organization of the mails (Otto Hirschfeld, Verwaltungsbeamten, p. 190, n. 2; Rostovtzev, Klio, VI, p. 249 (on angariae)); cf. Preisigke, Die Ptolemäische Staatspost (Klio, VII, p. 241), that of the secret police (Friedländer, I, p. 427).—On the Mazdean Hvareno who became Τύχη βασιλέως, then Fortuna Augusti, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 284 ff.—Even Mommsen (Röm. Gesch., V, p. 343), although predisposed to look for the continuity of the Roman tradition, adds, after setting forth the rules that obtained at the court of the Parthians: "Alle Ordnungen die mit wenigen Abminderungen bei den römischen Caesaren wiederkehren und vielleicht zum Teil von diesen der älteren Grossherrschaft entlehnt sind."—Cf. also infra, ch. VIII, n. 19.
6. Friedländer, loc. cit., p. 204; cf. p. 160.
7. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestam. Zeitalter, 1903 (2d ed. 1906), pp. 453 ff., passim.
8. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 21 ff.
9. Cf. infra, ch. VII, pp. 188 ff.
10. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 9 ff., pp. 231 ff.
11. Lactantius, De mort. persec., 21, 2; cf. Seeck, Gesch. des Untergangs der antiken Welt, II, pp. 7 ff.
12. Cf. Strzygowski, Mschatta (Jahrb. preuss. Kunstsammlungen, XXV), Berlin, 1904, pp. 324 ff., 371 ff.—From a communication made to the Congress of Orientalists at Copenhagen (1908) by Father Lammens, it would appear that the façade of Mschatta is the work of an Omaiyad kalif of Damascus, and Strzygowski's conclusions would, therefore, have to be modified considerably; but the influence of Sassanid art in Syria is nevertheless certain; see Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie avant l'Islam, 1907, pp. 33, 51 ff.
13. Cf. infra, n. 32.
14. Plutarch, V. Pompei, 24:
Ξενὰς δὲ θυσίας ἔθυον αὐτοὶ τὰς ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ καὶ τελετάς τινας ἀπορρήτους ἐτέλουν, ὤν ἡ τοῦ Μίθρου καὶ μέχρι δεῦρο διασώζεται καταδειχθεῖσα πρῶτον ὑπ' ἐκείνων.
15. Lactantius Placidus ad Stat., Theb. IV, 717: "Quae sacra primum Persae habuerunt, a Persis Phryges, a Phrygibus Romani."
16. In the Studio Pontica, p. 368, I have described a grotto located near Trapezus and formerly dedicated to Mithra, but now transformed into a church. We know of no other Mithreum. A bilingual dedication to Mithra, in Greek and Aramaic, is engraved upon a rock in a wild pass near Farasha (Rhodandos) in Cappadocia. Recently it has been republished with excellent notes by Henri Grégoire (Comptes Rendus Acad. des Inscr., 1908, pp. 434 ff.), but the commentator has mentioned no trace of a temple. The text says that a strategus from Ariaramneia ἐμάγευσε Μίθρῃ. Perhaps these words must be translated according to a frequent meaning of the aorist, by "became a magus of Mithra" or "began to serve Mithra as a magus." This would lead to the conclusion that the inscription was made on the occasion of an initiation. The magus dignity was originally hereditary in the sacred caste; strangers could acquire it after the cult had assumed the form of mysteries. If the interpretation offered by us is correct the Cappadocian inscription would furnish interesting evidence of that transformation in the Orient. Moreover, we know that Tiridates of Armenia initiated Nero; see Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 239.