Roger Pearse

I happened to be at a colloquium today (a rare event for me) and heard a fascinating paper describing Oxyrhynchus papyrus POxy. 1802, by Francesca Schironi of Harvard University.

This is a fragment of an ancient Greek glossary or lexicon, in strict alphabetical order. Most of the words on the fragment begin with μ.

The words are all ones that are unusual, of foreign origin, or used in an unusual way. The definitions mostly refer to books (mainly now lost) rather than current usage, and the latest such book is of the 1st century BC. The papyrus itself is 2-3rd century AD, which suggests that this is a copy of an older work from the late Ptolemaic-early Roman period. Among the words given is this:

Mithras: Prometheus, according to others the sun among the Pers[ians].

This indicates that the name of Mithras was itself an unusual word at this period, and is perhaps evidence of the non-existence of the cult at the time of composition?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Haran

Interesting. Did they happen to mention any articles on this fragment (ie. what journal and article name)?

Clivedurdle

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

As the Romans and Persians were continuously fighting, they knew a lot about each other but the Romans did not understand Persian society! One of the Triumvirate Crassus is thought to have been killed by pouring molten gold down his throat.

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

Ratel

Unknown to whom? Romans? Greeks? Asians?

FatherMithras

Dude, I wasn't even born yet. DUH.

jgibson000

[QUOTE=Clivedurdle]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

As Roger and others have noted previously, this Wiki article on Mithras and Mithraism, is hopelessly out of touch with modern Mithras scholarship, especialy on the issue of Roman Mithraism being derived from, and essentially a transplanted version of, Persian Mithraism.

But leaving that aside for the moment, if you, Clive, were to attempt to convince someone of the truth of its claims about Mithraism being widespread in Europe and (presumably known by Romans before the 1st century), what primary -- i.e., archaeological or textual -- evidence would you point to to do so? Indeed, what primary evidence convinces you that what the Wiki article says about Mithras and Mithraism is correct?

Jeffrey Gibson

Loomis

Did Mithraists believe that Satan had seven heads? Or was that just a Christian thing?

:devil1: :devil1: :devil1: :devil1: :devil1: :devil1: :devil1:

aso

roger,

the professor has an article in progress on the subject--hopefully we'll learn more when it's published. a couple questions that you could perhaps answer:

did the fragment contain exclusively asian ("foreign") words, or some arcane but perfectly greek words as well? the presence of the word "mithras" on a lexicon of foreign words doesn't seem to speak to the obscurity of the cult.

what were some of the other names? our knowledge of mithras in the first centuries (BCE and CE) is spotty, but if we see some names that would have been widely known at that time ("mithridates," for instance), then we know that we're dealing with foreign, but not completely unknown, words.

i'm new to this board, and i'm sure there have been thousands of posts about mithras already. plutarch's comment and early appearances of the tauroctony in greek art support the notion that mithraism had been introduced to the greco-roman world (i won't even hazard a guess as to its origin) by 50BCE. that's my own feeling.

andrew

Roger Pearse

No, this is pre-publication.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Many thanks for this, Jeffrey, and you are quite right. But of course there is huge repetition of Cumont's view online, and no doubt Clive is repeating it quite innocently, as indeed is also true for the ignorant authors and editors at Wikipedia.

The reason that I posted this except from that papyrus is that it looks a lot like prima facie evidence that Cumont was indeed wrong, if the very name was treated as an odd word in Alexandria around the time of Actium.

Generalising, unless we are to be at the mercy of the ignorant and biased (scholarly or not), perhaps all of us want to either be able to answer this question in respect of our, or should qualify our assertions and indicate who we believe could.

All the best,

Roger Pearse