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THE ZOROASTRIAN BOOKS. spirit. He makes references to, and attacks the inconsistencies he finds in Mohammedan, Jewish, Christian, and Manichæan doctrine.
MITHRAISM. The recurrence of the name of Mithra in the preceding chapters, from page 7 onwards, will already have been noted; and we must now give a brief account of the obscure cultus which has been termed Mithraism, which some assert to have been the most widespread religious system in the Roman empire for some centuries after the rise of Christianity, having been even brought into this country by the Roman soldiery (see J. M. Robertson in “Religious Systems of the World," 1890, pp. 225-248). In the Veda, Mithra is twin-god with Varuna; in Zoroaster, he is lord of wide pastures, created by AhuraMazda; he was still lord of the heavenly light, and so became specially the sun-god, god of light and truth, of moral goodness and purity, punishing the Mithra-Druj,
him who lies to Mithra'; hence also he is a judge in hell. (S.E., iv. xxiii.) Rawlinson says that Darius Hystaspes placed the emblems of Ahura-Mazda and of Mithra in equally conspicuous positions on the sculptured tablet above his tomb (B.C. 485); and his example was followed by later monarchs. The name Mithradates, “ given by Mithra," so often borne by Eastern monarchs, is another testimony to the influence of Mithra. He came to be regarded as a sort of intermediate between Ormuzd and Ahriman, a mediator eternally young, preserving mankind from the evil one, and performing a mysterious sacrifice, through which the good will triumph; and in some aspects Mithra was regarded as a female deity, and there are many Mithraic monuments on which the symbols of
Mithraic two deities appear, male and female. The monuments. Græco-Roman bas-relief of Mithras slaying a bull, in the British Museum, indicates one form of the symbolism associated with this god, and connected with the idea of sacrifice and purification; and in other associations a ram was slain to Mithra. We learn from Origen that the Mithraic mysteries included a complex represen
