God Fearing Atheist

Various websites claim there existed a Mithraeum on Vatican Hill. A typical example is Wikipedia, which says "a mithraeum on the Vatican Hill was seized by Christians in 376 CE" and cites "Smith, John Holland (1976). The Death of Classical Paganism. pp. 146" in support.

The passage in Smith says only that "Gracchus suppressed the worship of Mithras at the cave on the Vatican hill," and cites no sources in support. My guess is that he has Hieronymus Ep. 107.2 in mind, and although i've been unble to track down a copy myself, my understanding is that Hieronymus never names the location of the Mithraeum which was destroyed.

Does anyone have a better idea of what's going on here? Was there a Mithraeum on Vatican Hill or is this yet more Mithras misinformation?

mountainman

I am not sure about the mithraeum, but there does exist evidence to relate
the vatican (area) to the far more ancient Shivaism.

The word vatican comes from the Sanskrit word vatica, which means a bower or sylvan hermitage. Shiva emblems have been found in the vatican area, and across Italy. Examples are available from the Vatican's Etruscan museum.

Roger Pearse

I too have seen these web-sites, and been unable to consult Smith, so I am very grateful that you raise the issue. I am unsurprised by the lack of sources -- this is so very typical of this sort of assertion.

Interesting. The suggestion about Jerome is from where? I did find this here, a modified version of Mithras, the Secret God, M.J. Vermaseren, London, 1963? But this refers to some events in 377, no reference to location of a Mithraeum. Gracchus was the urban prefect, it seems:

After his death in A.D. 363 a period of comparative tolerance set in, but this was cut short by an edict of the Emperor Gratian in A.D. 382. The altar of Victory was removed from the Senate, and state support for the upkeep of the Roman cult was withdrawn. Gratian was in A.D. 379 the first emperor to refuse the high dignity and title of pontifex maximus. Shortly before this (A.D. 377) the city perfect Gracchus had, according to Hieronymus, overturned, broken and destroyed a cave of Mithras filled with monstrous images. We do not know exactly which Mithraic temple this was; de Rossi though it might be the sanctuary at San Silvestro. Be that as it may, the traces of such an iconoclastic act are clearly visible in the temple of Santa Prisca.

This also refers to Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, the Father of Fathers of Mithras in the reign of Gratian. I found more about this here:

Mithraea were destroyed by Christians even before the anti-pagan legislation as Jerome reports of Furius Maecius Gracchus, a Christian city prefect who destroyed a cave of Mithras in 377.[84]

...

[84] Hier. epist. 107.2. Cf. Prud. c. Symm. 1.561-563. Merkelbach 1984, 248 and Matthews 1975, 23 believe that the cave was situated on private property (maybe Gracchus’ own property) and that Gracchus himself might have been one of the initiates before his conversion to Christianity.

and here:

4 Hier. epist. 107,2; Prud. c. Symm. 1,561-565. J. Matthews, Western Aristocracies and Impenal Court A.D. 364-425, Oxford 1990², 23 suggests that the destroyed Mithraeum could have been on some private property of the family of Gracchus; D. Vera, Commento storico alle Relationes di Quinto Aurelio Simmaco, Pisa 1981, 153-154, disagrees with Matthews.

and here:

[14] Hier. epist. 107.2; Prud. c. Symm. 1.561-565. Matthews 1975, 23 suggests that the destroyed Mithraeum could have been on some private property of the family of Gracchus but Chastagnol 1960, 157 (who believes that Gracchus did not act on his own initiative but followed imperial policy), Vera 1981, 153-154 and Clemente 1982, 62 disagree with him.

There is this in Rome the Cosmopolis:

29 Epistle 107.2, with discussion in Matthews (1975) 22-3.

I see that there is something in JSTOR, in Neil McLynn's The fourth-century Taurobolium, but as a humble taxpayer I have no access to this, of course. It does refer to Prudentius, Peristephanon 10.

In this rather interesting but now offline doc by A. B. Griffith, Mithraism in the private and public lives of 4th-c. senators in Rome (HTML here):

The decline of Mithraic dedications in the late 4th c. can be attributed to various causes, but perhaps the most important is the death of the senators who had sustained the cult for decades and who were sustained by it in return. Dedications by viri clarissimi in the Phrygianum occurred between 305 and 390 (most in the latter half of that period), while the latest dedication by someone identifying himself as a pater patrum of Mithras there is 377.82 Jerome’s famous letter of 403 to Laeta, a daughter of the Albini, recalled the destruction of a Mithraic cave (specus) and its images by Gracchus during his urban prefecture (probably in 378).83

Violence may indeed have been a factor in Christian opposition to Mithraic worship, but neither it nor the ban on sacrifice and revocation of funding of state cults recorded in the Codex Theodosianus for 391 and 392 were the leading cause of its demise.84 The Codex records frequent and escalating bans on sacrifice of various sorts and on “superstition” during the 4th c. Such repetition suggests that such prohibitions were utterly ineffective, and perhaps that the laws of this part of the Codex was difficult to enforce.85 Mystery cults proper were not formally outlawed until 396.86 The death of the senators themselves coincides with the cessation of Mithraic dedications,87 the last reference to Mithras being Alfenius Ceionius Iulianus Kamenius’ epitaph from Antium in 385. So final was this end that in Macrobius’ Saturnalia, written only a generation or so later, the confirmed Mithraist Vettius Agorius Praetextatus failed to mention “Mithras” as one of the many manifestations of the sun.88

But none of the references are given online.

I would be most interested to hear anything more about this. The idea that 4th century Mithras was a different animal to that of earlier years is an interesting one.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I came across a stray reference to "Greenslade's translation of letter 107 of Jerome" and realised with a shock that I have this volume of Greenslade! -- "Early Latin Theology", Library of Christian Classics vol. 5, containing his splendid version of Tertullian "De praescriptione".

Here's the text, in chapter 2 of the letter (p.333), 107 "To Laeta":

"...did not your own kinsman Gracchus, whose name betokens his patrician origin, when a few years back he held the prefecture of the City, overthrow, break in pieces, and set on fire the grotto of Mithras and all the dreadful images therein? Those I mean by which the worshippers were initiated as Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Sun-runner, and Father? Did he not send them before him as hostages, to obtain for himself Christian baptism? 5"

Note 5 reads:

"5. Furius Maecius Gracchus is mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus as Prefect of Rome in A.D. 378 and 377. His destruction of the cave of Mithras is also alluded to by Prudentius, Contra Symmachum, I., 562. Platner and Ashby, Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1929), list eight known Mithraea in Rome, with another doubtful. This passage is important for the seven degrees of initiation into Mithraism, but the text is not wholly certain. The Latin words are:-- corax, nymphius, miles, leo, Perses, heliodromus, pater; Hilberg substitutes cryphius for nymphius on the basis of inscriptions, but this is against the manuscripts. For the family connections of Gracchus compare Letter 108:1."

108 is to Eustochium (also in the same book), and describes Paula as a descendant of the Gracchi and related to the Maecii.

The letter refers to the destruction of the Serapeum, and seems to date to 403.

To sum up: the story seems like fiction. The date is wrong, the reference gives no ancient source, the ancient sources do not support it. The only loose end is Prudentius.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

I don't know about the particular site, but there are mithraea under a number of churches in Rome: there's one under San Clemente, Santa Prisca, and Santi Giovanni & Paolo. It is usually the apse that is built over the mithreum. It was a symbol, I believe, of the victory of christianity over mithraism. It meant that no more worship of the competitor could take place there any more. The reason a number of churches survived in Istanbul when the Turks took over the city was that they were converted into mosques. By taking over the site you eradicate the local use of the place by competitors.


spin

Roger Pearse

What we should do, tho, is track down the original source of the online story.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

God Fearing Atheist

Exactly what I wanted Roger. Good work as usual!

God Fearing Atheist

Yeah, I know. Had they refered to any of those churchs, I would have no problem.

Roger Pearse

I wrote a detailed post and my line went down and it was lost! Pardon me if I do not write it all again.

Briefly, Platner and Ashby are online at Perseus, and a rather more accessible copy at Bill Thayer's site. Locations:

see (1) DOMUS CLEMENTIS, (2) THERMAE ANTONINIANAE. (3) Another, in Piazza S. Silvestro, was built by a certain Tamesius Augentius Olympus, nephew of Nonius Victor, in 357-362, and probably destroyed in 391-2 (Cumont, Textes et Monuments, i. 354, No. 17 ; CIL vi. 754; PT 124). (4) See DOMUS NUMMIORUM. (5) A well-preserved Mithraeum (with a Lararium above) was found in 1885 east of S. Martino Ai Monti (BC 1885, 27-38; Lanciani, Ancient Rome, 191-194; Cumont, Textes et Mon. ii. 199, No. 15; HJ 316, 317). (6) Another was found opposite S. Vitale in the Vigna Muti (Cumont, op. cit. ii. 196-7, No. 10). (7) For a small Mithraeum found on the Quirinal (in Via Mazzarino), see CIL vi. 31039. (8) A Mithraeum existed on the Capitol as late as 1391, but it was destroyed between 1550 and 1594, and the relief belonging to it is in the Louvre (No. 559; Cumont, ii. 193-195, No. 6). A small chapel with a relief was found in 1872: ibid. No. 7: i. 35 ; cf. BC 1872-3, 111 (the reference in the legend of S. Silvester is to a grotto of Hecate). The position of the rest of the Mithraea enumerated by Cumont (op. cit.) cannot be fixed. (9) For a (doubtful) Mithraeum on the Aventine near S. Saba, see NS 1925, 384.

I looked up and listed the position of all these -- none are anywhere near the Vatican.

#3 is interesting as the site of Aurelian's temple of the sun.

So we have no known Mithraeum on the Vatican at all. Mr. John Holland Smith -- you have some explaining to do.

So who was/is this chap? I found the following review-comment in 1977 in Time:

The Death of Classical Paganism, by John Holland Smith (Scribner's; 280 pages; $12.95). A British novelist and historian, Smith declares himself a "pagan" and expresses his regret that the Christian God ever overwhelmed Jupiter and his court of divinities. Most historians believe that the classical gods were already moribund when Christianity arose; Smith argues that they were alive and well until they were "assassinated" by the new faith. The early Christians' Jupiter-is-dead movement, he concludes, was the worst of "all the crimes committed in Christ's name" because it impoverished Western culture.

And this at a Franciscan site:

John Holland Smith, a non-Christian follower of psychoanalyst Karl Jung, writes an unfriendly biography of Francis as a neurotic political intriguer. ...

Hmm.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

God Fearing Atheist

IIRC, in The Roman Cult of Mithras, Clauss mentioned that Mithraists had a presence at the Temple of Mater Magna.

That might explain his error.