spin

There seem to be not two but three stops for this train. Persia and Iran (Mitra), Anatolia and Greece (Mithra) and Rome and its empire (Mithras). How much mystery religion there was in Iran is difficult to know: at least one cave temple I know about has been found in Iran.

The Iranian god has had many faces in its Iranian history from Indian-Iranian times when Mitra was one of the principal gods with Varuna (even known in the Mittanian treaty with the Hittites), to son of the one god, Ahura Mazda (title for a god whose name in India was Varuna and Greece, Uranus, but never named in Iran), under the machinations of Zarathustra, though his efforts were functionally rejected during the Hasmonean era and Mitra reappeared as a god in his own right, on to Anatolia where he went through local changes -- gained the Phrygian cap for example -- and finally Rome. But when he became a saviour god as we know him through the Mithraea of the Roman Empire is not easy to pin down.

spin

spin

Memory. Exact sources will have to wait.
Which Persian words?


spin

pkropotkin

Meher is Middle or New Persian for Mithra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehr

andrewcriddle

EUREKA

The article by Cumont is in Revue Archeologique 1946 vol 25 pages 183-195 Un Bas-Relief Mithriaque du Louvre it refers (pps 193-195) to an Arabic manuscript in Syriac characters (Garshuni) in the Mingana collection in Birmingham England (Manuscript 142 in Catalogue of the Mingana collection of Manuscripts. v 1)

This manuscript is undated but the handwriting supports a date in the 17th century. (NB this is the date of the copy. The original could be anytime after the Arab conquests of the middle east in the 7th century.)

The Catalogue of the Mingana collection of Manuscripts says (paraphrased from memory) that manuscript 142 contains two apparently unrelated Christian works. The second is a strange work comparing the truth of Christianity to the false imitations found in other religions. In this work Zoroaster says 'He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation....' (Wording actually slightly different from above which is from Vermaseren. The passage in Vermaseren has been translated from English to French and back again.)

Cumont gives a somewhat fuller account of the work. It compares the falsehoods of the Jews and the Magi to the truth of Christianity. After the alleged quote from Zoroaster it gives a little later the Christian parallel. 'He who eats of my body and drinks of my blood shall have eternal life.'

The only apparent relevance to Mithraism is that after giving the quote from Zoroaster the work immediately goes on according to Cumont quand ses oeuvres devinrent celebres et que ses adeptes se repandirent dans le monde ils le firent bouillir et burent son bouillon. which I translate as when its works became famous and its followers spread in the world they boiled [beef] and drank its broth.. This seems to imply that a Magian/Zoroastrian sacred meal involving beef broth is being understood as a communion in the body of Zoroaster.

This sacred meal may suggest parallels to Mithraism but the work itself is comparing alleged Magian/Zorostrian beliefs with those of Christianity. There is IIUC no explicit mention of Mithras at all.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

AMEN! I spent some time today fossicking through Mithras publications in vain, and wish I'd seen this one. Thank you, Andrew!

Probably not, if the original language was Arabic; the Syriac-speaking Christians did not adopt Arabic as a literary language until about the 10th century, IIRC.

But on the other hand Zoroastrianism/Magianism probably ceases to be a threat after the Arab invasions, so presumably the text predates the Arab conquest, and is thus a translation from an earlier Syriac text.

Very interesting. I must follow these references up and get the article and the catalogue entry.

Again a million thanks.

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

You don't know the name of the author of this work? Only, I'm getting a vague feeling that I ought to know it. Syriac anti-Zoroastrian AND anti-Jewish works are not that common. If so, it might have been published somewhere.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

andrewcriddle

IIUC the work is anonymous.

In a post-humously published article Cumont IMS refers to the work as the

Book of Elements or Book of the Elements

I'm not sure if that helps.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

It does help. Do you have the reference for the article? I'm going up to Cambridge tomorrow, and will look it up.

Can I ask how you located the Cumont article(s)?

Roger Pearse

Ray Moscow

In reference to the opening post: I got a message back from Peter Gandy, who said that they got the quote (in TJM) from Jocelyn Godwin's book, which as has been pointed out does not give the primary source.

However, he pointed out that Justin attributes some similar saying to the Mithras ceremonies (as I mentioned above).

Does anyone know Jocelyn Godwin? Why not ask him? Here's his bio: http://people.colgate.edu/jgodwin/

Roger Pearse

I'm in Cambridge University Library. The relevant volume of Revue Archeologique isn't on the shelf (<&^%$#!> -- I hope it isn't a reader of this thread that has removed it!), but I have got a photocopy of the Mingana manuscript catalogue which I will upload here this evening. It doesn't give us much, tho.