Roger Pearse

Adding in bits before and after, in much too great haste:

Diabolus autem, qui est satanas, ut fallaciae suae auctoritatem aliquam possit adhibere, et mendacia sua commentitia veritate colorare, primo mense quo sacramenta dominica scit celebranda, quia non mediocris potentiae est, Paganis quae observarent instituit mysteria, ut animas eorum duabus ex causis in errore detineret: ut quia praevenit veritatem fallacia, melius quiddam fallacia videretur, quasi antiquitate praejudicans veritati.

The devil, however, who is Satan, so that he might be able to keep some authority of his deceits, and to colour his invented mendacity with truth, in the first month where the dominical sacrament is celebrated, because it is of no little power, he instituted mysteries for the pagans who are religious, so that he could keep hold of their souls in two ways: as because the deceit came before the truth, the deceit might seem rather better, as if by antiquity prejudging of the truth.

...

Sed quia apud nos pro certo veritas est,

But because among us truth is certain,

et ab initio haec est,

and these things are from the beginning,

virtutum atque prodigiorum signa perhibent testimonium,

the signs of the virtues and miracles bear witness,

ut, teste virtute, diaboli improbitas innotescat.

so that, by the test of virtue, the cheating of the devil may become known.

Quoniam enim sola est quae facile suadeat,

For since those things alone which may easily persuade, (? something wrong with plurals and singulars)

haec contra versutiam et praeventum diaboli posita est,

these things are put forth against the cunning and anticipation of the devil,

ut simulationem ejus revelet.

in order to reveal his deception.

Nemo enim etiam inimicorum negare audeat illic esse veritatem, ubi virtus apparet.

For non-one of the enemies will still dare to deny that is the truth, where virtue appears.

God Fearing Atheist

Thank guys. You're totally radical in a far-out, groovy way.

BTW, the translation of De err. is by Clarence Forbes. Published in 1970 by Newman Press (New York), it is part of the Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation series, edited by Johannes Quasten, Walter Burghardt and Thomas Lawler.

God Fearing Atheist

Looking through Deconstructing Jesus for something else yesterday, I found this on page 87: ""...the Mithraist undertook a ritual shower in the blood of a disemboweled bull (or, if he couldn't afford it, a lamb)." Typically, there is no source cited.

On Price's Biblegeek website, i've posed the question of his source. Hopefully he'll respond.

Roger Pearse

yes, this seems to be the one translation of Firmicus Maternus. It's in copyright, so off-line. It gets referenced a lot in these sorts of debates, tho.

It's quite a short text, tho. I've done an ILL for it, and for a Latin text, and might produce a public domain translation myself if I get some time. So much to do, tho.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

I think it's probably bunk. That's the Taurobolium (or Criobolium) (described somewhere as "the holy, the mighty taurobolium"), and isn't associated with Mithras anywhere that I know of.

But the thing to do is make sure.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

God Fearing Atheist

A couple of additional things about FM's account of Attis and his cult:

-Note 47 of page 48 reads [with my emphasis]:

-On page 157-8 of Lancellotti's Attis: Between Myth and History (or via: amazon.co.uk), she interprets FM thus:

On the issue of the Attis grave cult, the following primary sources are cited: Arrianus Tactic. 33.4; Lucian Tragodopodagra 30-32; Eusebius PE 2.2.41-45; Alexipharmacon 8; Statius Silv. 5.3.242-245 and a couple others you already have.

ETA: Here's another bizarre reference from Price's Deconstructing Jesus, pg. 87:

But 22.1 does not name Attis, and from 22.3, where FM describes how the worshippers "put together the stony limbs [of the idol] that lie there" the identification of the god with Osiris seems infinitely more likely. This is mentioned by Forbes in his translation, and according to Price's note on the above, that is what he used.

Hmm...

Roger Pearse

We really do need an online translation of Firmicus Maternus, don't we? I've been labouring through chapter 3 for the last couple of days myself. When it's done I'll post it and we can talk about it.

But the Latin even here doesn't mention Attis by name. It's a cult, in Phyrgia, of the mother of all, who was a queen and killed a youth who was her lover, and the pagan interpretation of this is that the youth is the seed and the renewal in the crops. The whole thing must mean Cybele, and Attis, I suppose, but looks very little like the accounts in other sources. Here it is assimilated to a rural cycle of the seasons (a point made repeatedly). It simply doesn't look or feel like the mythos in the other sources, so may not be. Attis does indeed come back to life in it; which contradicts much of the point of the main mythos.

Thanks for the references for the grave cult. Will look at these.

Roger Pearse

Firmicus Maternus:

III. 1. The Phyrgians who live at Pessinus, around the banks of the river Gallus, attribute first place to the earth over the other elements, and this they profess (volunt) is the mother of all things. Then, so that they also might have for themselves an order of annual sacred events, they have consecrated the love affair of a rich women, their queen, who chose to punish tyrannically the scorn of an adolescent lover, with annual lamentations. And to satisfy the irate woman, or to find relief for her remorse, he whom they buried a little earlier, they claim to have been resurrected, and as the soul of the woman burned with the impatience of excessive love, they built temples to the dead youth. Then they profess that the priests appointed should undergo from themselves what the angry woman had done because of the injury to her scorned beauty. So in the annual sacred rites in honour of the earth the pomp of his funeral is organised, and when men are persuaded that they are honouring the earth, they are (in fact) venerating the death and funeral of a wretch.

2. Here also, most sacred emperors, in order to shield this error, they profess that these natural sacred rites are also arranged rationally. They profess that the earth loves its fruits, they profess that the beloved is exactly this, which is born from fruits; however the punishment which he sustained, this they profess is what the reaper with his scythe does to the ripe fruits. They call it his death when the collected seeds are stored; life again, when the sown seeds sprout in the turning of the years.

3. I would like them now to reply to my inquiry, why have they associated this simple (story of) seed and fruit with something disgusting, with death, with scorn, with punishment, with love? Was there not anything else that might be said? Was there not anything else that poor mortals might do in grateful thanks to the highest God for the crop? So that you can give thanks for the reborn crop, you howl; so that you rejoice, you weep. And you, when you see the true reason, you do not finally repent of doing this, but you do this, so that busyied with the turning seasons, you still flee from life, you pine for death.

4. Let them tell me, how it benefits the crop, that they sow their tears in sorrow with yearly howlings, that they groan over the calamities at the funeral of the killed one, which they say is arranged by a natural reason; you mourn and you wail, and you shield your tears with another reason. The farmer knew when he could furrow the earth with a plow, when he could sow the furrows with grain. He knew when to gather the crop ripened by the heat of the sun. He knew when to tread out the dried crop. This is the natural reason, these are the true sacrifices, which are made by the yearly labour in men of healthy minds. The divinity asks for this simplicity, that men should follow the ordained laws of the seasons (temporum) in collecting crops. Why do they try to explain this order by wretched fictions of a death? Why is that shielded with tears, which does not need to be shielded? From where is it believed necessary not to hold these crops in honour, but strange deaths are held in honour.

5. For that they say that the earth is the mother of all the gods, and they allot the chief roles to this element, indeed it is mother of their gods, which we don't deny or refuse, because from it their bunch of gods are made, whether of stone or wood. The sea flows around the whole earth, and again it is held tight by the circle of the encircling embracing Ocean. The heavens also are covered by the lofty dome, blown through by winds, splashed by rains, and in fear, as shown by tremors of unremitting motion. What remains to you, who cultivate these things, consider; when your gods reveal their weakness to you in daily declarations.

Roger Pearse

For "they profess that the beloved is exactly this" read "they profess that Attis is exactly this" -- I've obtained a later Latin text which indicates "Attin" where the other read "amatum".

There's another change between the pre-critical 1826 and the 1905 Teubner texts which is important; I'll post a revised version once I've identified all the changes.

Roger Pearse

The material about Attis in Eusebius PE 2 seems to be quoted from Diodorus Siculus and Clement of Alexandria.

There is a brief mention in Tertullian, Ad Nationes I. He refers to the custom of punishing criminals by forcing them to carry out mythical deeds, known to us from Martial. The latter tells us that a criminal was told he would be burned to death unless he agreed to burn his own hand off, like Scaevola, for the entertainment of the crowd. In the same vein: