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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1886.
a crystal, and the sacred fire carried on a silver marks of dating from the second half of the altar ; that the king's carriage was ornamented last century of paganism. In fact, the Mithraic on all sides with image of gold and silver; and feasts and the mysteries of the god Mithra, that there were also gulden statoes an ell in were established and recognised in Italy under height on top of it, one of which represented the reign of Trajan, who was born 52 A.D. Bêlus (the Sun). Tertullian also in his Apologia, and ascended the throne 98 A.D. For nearly Chap. 16, gives us to understand that the a century and a half the followers of Mithra Persians adored a figure of the Sun, which they were obliged, like the early Christians, to carry caused to be painted on canvas.
out their religious rites in caves and grottos, Zoroaster (Zardusht) gave Mithra, the Sun and the grotto of Mithramonia may be regarded god of the Persians, two principles; and made as one of the spots where the votaries of this these exercise two distinct forces, each in- worship used to assemble in secret. dependent of the other, under the names of | Mithraic worship was not of long duration Ormuzd (good) and Ahriman (evil). This, in in Italy. It was tolerated and permitted by time, in the opinion of Mr. Fiske (the American the emperors in the first years of the second upholder of the Darwinian theories), produced centary of the Christian era, but Christianity the Manichæan heresy, in which the devil was then already beginning to spread and gain appears as an independently existing principle ground, and was recognized by Constantine of evil, and thus was continued in part at in the following century, as the true and only least the old Asiatic worship of the Sun in religion. comparatively modern Europe. This heresy, According to ancient writers, the ceremony says Mr. Fiske," was always ripe in Armenia. of the initiation of a candidate into the It was through Armenian missionaries that Bul. Mithraic mysteries was very appalling. Tergaria was converted from heathenism, and tullian says that the candidate encountered a from thence Manichæism penetrated into drawn sword on the threshold of the cavern, Servia and Bosnia, which latter was its head from 'which, if he persevered in entering, he quarters from the 12th century onwards, and received more than one wound. He then had was a perpetual thorn in the side of the
to pags repeatedly through the flames of a Papacy. From Bosnia, the great Albigensian fierce fire, and undergo a rigid fast, which, some heresy was propagated through Northern Italy have stated, lasted 50 days, during which tim and Southern Gaul." Mr. Fiske also adds, he was to remain far from all human habitathat this connection of Eastern and Western tions; but this seems hardly possible, and some Protestantism was well understood at the kind of coarse food must have been permitted time."
him. He was then beaten with rods for two The worship of Mithra penetrated to many whole days, and during the last 20 days of places in ancient Italy. At Milan there was his his trial was buried up to the neck in snow. cavern or grotto and his sacrificing priests, as If he endured all these privations and sufferappears from an inscription discovered near the ings, the candidate was admitted as a disciple monastery of Saint Ambrose. Also, on the of Mithra, and a golden serpent was placed in island of Capri, in the bay of Naples, in a grotto, his bosom, given him as a sign of his regeneraare the remains of a temple of Mithra. The tion, for, as the snake renews its vigour in the name of this grotto has been popularly corrupted spring by casting its skin, so the vivifying heat into Matromania, but it should be styled of the San is annually renewed. Sókratés, the Mithramonia. In Naples, too, there was a author of the Ecclesiastical History, who lived temple to Mithra, the columns of which may in the fifth century A.D., relates that in his still be seen in the Church of Santa Maria à time "the Christians of Alexandria, having disCappella on the Cliatamone.
covered a cavern which had been consecrated This worship of Mithra was introduced into to Mithra, but long closed ap, resolved to Italy after the return of Pompey the Great explore it and see what remnants of that superfrom his victories in Asia, and beni's all the stition it contained, when to their astonishment
Illustrazione Italiana, March 1933. It is not in also wore in their tuin obliged to perform their religious probable that tho Christiana used this grotto, when they ritos in secret.
