Mnemonics

Relation to Christianity.

The most interesting aspect of Mithraism is its antagonism to Christianity. Both religions were of Oriental origin; they were propagated about the same time, and spread with equal rapidity on account of the same causes, viz., the unity of the political world and the debasement of its moral life. The points of collision were especially at Rome, in Africa, and in the Rhone Valley, and the struggle was the more obstinate because of the resemblances between the two re ligions, which were so numerous and so close as to be noticeable as early as the 2nd century, causing mutual recrimination.

The fraternal spirit of the first communities, and their humble origin; the connection of their central figures the Sun; the legends of the shepherds with their gifts and adoration; the flood, and the ark; the representation in art of the fiery chariot; the drawing of water from the rock, the use of bell and candle, holy water and the communion; the sanctification of Sunday and of the 25th of December; the insistence on moral conduct, the emphasis placed upon abstinence and self-control; the doctrine of heaven and hell, of primitive revelation, of the mediation of the Logos emanating from the divine, the atoning sacrifice, the con stant warfare between good and evil and the final triumph of the former, the immortality of the soul, the last judgment, the resur rection of the flesh and the fiery destruction of the universe—are some of the resemblances which, whether real or only apparent, enabled Mithraism to prolong its resistance to Christianity. At

their root lay a common Eastern origin rather than any borrowing.

Neither these resemblances, many of which can be found in all the mystery cults, nor the approach made by Mithraism to be coming a universal religion, should be exaggerated. As regards the latter, it could never have been really universal, for it ap parently quite excluded women; also, it was a compromise with polytheism, and, as such, weaker than its uncompromising rival. Moreover, like all the other mystery-cults, it had as its central figure a mythical, not a historical personage. Many elements of it passed into Manichaeism, which seems to have provided a half-way house for those who were not prepared to accept the Christian theology in its entirety.

BiaLioGRAPHY.—Chief work, F. Cumont, Texts et Monuments fig ures relatifs aux Mysteres de Mithra, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1896, 5899, bib liography). Shorter works by same author, art. MITHRAS in Roscher's Lexikon; Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain (1907).