Rick Sumner

Perhaps you could show me where, exactly, in your post you provide a shred of evidence suggesting what "saved" implies. While we're at it, perhaps you can find one image of the tauroctony that implies an afterlife (I'm not saying Mithraists didn't believe in one, I'm saying that this has nothing to do with the significance of the tauroctony, which is the very existence of this life).

Long posts that change topics frequently (the eucharist, for example, is still not an issue relevant to anything I've said) do nothing to address the point at hand.

To successfully defend your most recent suggestion, you would need to provide a shred of evidence that the slaying of the bull provided an afterlife. Otherwise you're going from A to B by fiat.

Once again, deal with the actual evidence at hand (sparse though it may be). Mithras slew the bull, thus creating the world. Not thus creating an afterlife.

Further, there is one inscription linking the "shed blood" with "saving." This versus thousands that do not. Based on this single attestation, you are prepared to create an entire meaning to the slaying of the bull that 1) Isn't implied anywhere else, and 2) Needs to read into, not from, the evidence.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

Roger Pearse

Perhaps, although there may be two opinions on that. But in the absence of primary source material, won't we merely be articulating our prejudices?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Many thanks for this! Was there any more of the inscription? What does Turcan say about this?

I was wondering what 'servasti' meant and then realised it was a syncopated perfect -- servavisti. So:

And [et] you have saved/preserved/kept [servasti, 2 PERF ACT IND] us [nos ACC]...

to/for/by/with/from/in/on the everlasting [aeternali DAT/ABL]

sangine fuso looks like an ablative absolute, possibly with aeternali: 'when/after the (everlasting) blood had been poured out'?

I'm not sure I understand this. eternali isn't in my dictionary. Anyone?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

ecco

So that's what a golden shower is! I always thought...never mind.

countjulian

Thanks andrew, beat me too the punch. Some more interesting info: the Mithraeum itself was filled with sand before being converted to a church, and the wall carrying this graffito was covered in a picture of a procession advancing towards Mithra and Sol, and this was defaced by a vicious ax attack prior to the sand filling thing.

Calm down there, partner. We're all friends here, No need to get upset, even if Christianity had nothing to do with Mithraism that still doesn't mean that we should all go to church tomorrow and get down on our knees in front of the priest. And plus, when you write stuff like that, it gives people the impression that skeptics are "desperate", or unwilling to engage in serious, rational diologue. Simmer down.

I called it a eucharist because it was compared to as such by Tertulian and Justin Martyr.

Mithraism copying Christianity would be very interesting, since it never happened. In Doliche they have found a Mithraeum containing a full turoctony that dates back to the beginning of the first century, perhaps even before the christian era. What's more, Christian churches do not start showing up until about 2 centuries after this, and it seems bizarre at least that a cult with the backing of Imperial Rome would have had to pilfer doctrines from an upstart sect that many people until the beginning of the 4th century had never heard of. On your own site (which, BTW is the best compendium of Mithras info on the net, be sure to add the blood inscription and some other) Tertulian says "The question will arise, By whom is to be interpreted the sense of the passages which make for heresies? By the devil, of course, to whom pertain those wiles which pervert the truth, and who, by the mystic rites of his idols, vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments of God. He, too, baptizes some-that is, his own believers and faithful followers; he promises the putting away of sins by a layer (of his own); and if my memory still serves me, Mithras there, (in the kingdom of Satan, ) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown." Tertulian seems to be making it clear that the Mithra eucharist is somehow connected with the resurrection. As the Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies says about Mithraism, it "surely offered its initiates deliverance from some awful fate to which all other men were doomed, and a privileged passage to some ultimate state of well-being." As for the parallel with Christian eucharist, the iconography makes it clear. When Mithra's faithful eat the bread and drink the water/wine/haoma, they are eating the body and blood of the bull, just as Christians are said to do with the body of Jesus. Of course they are not eating real bull's flesh or drinking real bull blood, but the important things is that is what the meal represents. An interesting tie in with bacchism can be made here, since the bachantaes were said to eat the raw flesh of bulls in the rites; perhaps the Mithraic rites were a more sterile, "family-friendly" version?

And yes, the amount of dis-info out there about Mithra is stunning, which is why I decided to use only primary texts in my flyer.

As the sign in New York says, "Oh Vey!" If you had looked up Tertulian, you would have seen where the link between the communion and afterlife is established; no matter, you can look at the above quote in my post and see that Tertulian was clearly comparing the saving power of the Eucharist to the "resurrection" power of the Mithra happy meal. Combined with the iconography of Mithra's disciples sharing the bulls flesh with him and Sol in an un-earthly realm and the inscription in the Roman Mithraeum, I think my case has been made plain enough. For more info on Mithra, you should visit Pearse's excellent page right here http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/ . Also, I've heard the old tirade that Mithra killing the bull created the world, care to share with us were that comes from? I would be most pleased if you did, friend.

Oh BTW, tomorrow is Sunday, and I would kind of like to get this printed out before then. Does anybody know of the Dionysus-Zagreus quote? I know I’ve seen it somewhere.

andrewcriddle

Could you give a referemce for this please ?

The Doliche excavations are ongoing and IIUC the latest discoveries suggest a very early date but the only online reference I could find Mithraism
quoting a 2000 paper says See Tearing Apart the Zagreus Myth for a thorough discussion.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

There are more inscriptions Turcan only quotes selectively

Primus et hic aries astrictius ordine currit.
(Here too the ram runs at the head strictly in order)

...per quos consuminur ipsi (refers to purification by fire no exact translation given)

Hail to the Lions for new and many years (No Latin text given)

Turcan is cautious about interpreting the eternal blood but he seems to think it refers to the divine life which irrigates the animal and plant world and which is set free throughout the world by the slaying of the bull which was a reservoir for this life force.

Andrew Criddle

countjulian

Sure. As your quote indicates, the Mithraeum doesn't date from the 2nd or 3rd century like most of the others, seeming to indicate a 1st century date; Eberhard Sauer, in The Archaeology of Religious Hatred, says on p.138 that archaeology at Doliche "has revealed a typical temple of Mithras in use in the early first century, if not before." Sauer thinks that this could be the "missing ling" between the worship of Mithra in Iran and his Roman Mystery Religion. This, amongst other data, seems to indicate that if there was borrowing, it had to be from Mithraism to Christianity, not vice versa.

That's alright, I have all ready found every Zagreus quote known to man here http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Zagreus.html . The story seems to be all over the place, none of the quotes have quite the "shock value" I was looking for, hmmmmm. I suppose maybe I'll just leave that part out, since it would seem to take more material to explain than could be comfortably fit on a flyer. Thanks though. (BTW I had already read both of those sites yesterday for the first time... funny, huh?)

andrewcriddle

What reference to the archaeological literature does Sauer give for the early date of the Mithraeum at Doliche ?

FWIW I don't think that Mithraism borrowed significantly from Christianity but I still find full blown Mithraism in the Eastern Empire before 50 CE rather unlikely.

Also, unless I'm misunderstanding the passage I quoted, it does date the site to the 2nd or 3rd century CE which was certainly how the finds were originally (and provisionally) understood.

Andrew Criddle

countjulian

Sauer gives Roger Beck’s article in The Journal of Roman Studies, The Mysteries of Mithras: a new account of their genesis.

The internet article has this to say about the Doliche Mithraeum, "So far, nothing about the recently discovered Mithraeum at Doliche (see Schütte-Maischatz and Winter 2000) suggests that its cult relief is other than a product of second or third century CE Mithraism."

What it seems to be saying, albeit in a very odd way, is that the Mithraeum comes from some time other than the 2nd or 3rd centuries, e.g. the 1st century. And what you said about "full-blown" Mithraism hits the nail on the head; the current theory is that the Mithraism being practiced in Anatolia at the time was not "full-blown" Mithraism, but an intermediate type between Persian worship of Mithra and the Roman mystery religion. Anyway, since the Mithraeum probably does date to at least 50AD, I think we can safely rule out Mithraism copying from Christianity any of its core doctrines; if there was an exchange, it was from Mithraism to Christianity, not vice versa.

Edit: Also, I cannot for the life of me find the information on Zagreus I'm looking for, even with the Theoi website and the Zagreus article. I've found two that come close, but no cigar:

"the fierce resentment of implacable Hera, the Titanes cunningly smeared their round faces with disguising chalk, and while he contemplated his changeling countenance reflected in a mirror they destroyed him with an infernal knife. There where his limbs had been cut piecemeal by the Titan steel, the end of his life was the beginning of a new life"-- Nonnus, Dionysiaca 6.155

and

"Liber [Dionysos-Zagreos], son of Jove [Zeus] and Proserpina [Persephone], was dismembered by the Titanes, and Jove gave his heart, torn to bits, to Semele in a drink. When she was made pregnant by this, Juno [Hera], changing herself to look like Semele’s nurse, Beroe, said to her: ‘Daughter, ask Jove to come to you as he comes to Juno, so you may know what pleasure it is to sleep with a god.’ At her suggestion Semele made this request of Jove, and was smitten by a thunderbolt." -- Hyginus, Fabulae 167

Does anyone know of any other passages relating the death of Zagreus and his return to life?