simplicity and smallness of the Mithraic temples are to be accounted for by structural and financial reasons; an underground temple was difficult to construct on a large scale, and the worshippers of Mithras were usually from the humbler classes. The average grotto held from fifty to a hundred persons. The size of the sanctuaries, however, was compensated for by their number; in Ostia alone there were five.

The typical bas relief, which is found in great abundance in the museums of Europe, invariably represents Mithras, under the form of a youth with conical cap and flying drapery, slaying the sacred bull, the scorpion attacking the genitals of the animal, the serpent drinking its blood, the dog springing towards the wound in its side, and frequently, in addition, the Sun-god, his messenger the raven, a fig-tree, a lion, a ewer, and torch-bearers. The relief is in some instances enclosed in a frame of figures and scenes in relief. The best example is the monument of Osterburken (Cumont, Textes et monuments figurés, No. 246). With this monument as a basis, Franz Cumont has arranged the small Mithraic reliefs into two groups, one illustrating the legend of the origin of the gods, and the other the legend of Mithras. In the first group are found Infinite Time, or Cronus; Tellus and Atlas supporting the globe, representing the union of Earth and Heaven; Oceanus; the Fates; Infinite Time giving into the hand of his successor Ormazd the thunderbolt, the symbol of authority; Ormazd struggling with a giant of evil-the Mithraic gigantomachy. The second group represents, first, the birth of Mithras; then the god nude, cutting fruit and leaves from a fig-tree in which is the bust of a deity, and before which one of the winds is blowing upon Mithras; the god discharging an arrow against a rock from which springs a fountain whose water a figure is kneeling to receive in his palms; the bull in a small boat, near which again occurs the figure of the animal under a roof about to be set on fire by two figures; the bull in flight, with Mithras in pursuit; Mithras bearing the bull on his shoulders; Helios kneeling before Mithras; Helios and Mithras clasping hands over an altar; Mithras with drawn bow on a running horse; Mithras and Helios banqueting; Mithras and Helios mounting the chariot of the latter and rising in full course over the ocean. Few of the Mithraic reliefs are of even mediocre art. Among the best is the relief from the Capitoline grotto, now in the Louvre.

The bull escaped, but was overtaken, and by order of the Sun, who sent his messenger the raven, was reluctantly sacrificed by Mithras. From the dying animal sprang the life of the earth, although Ahriman sent his emissaries to prevent it. The soul of the bull rose to the celestial spheres and became the guardian of herds and flocks under the name of Silvanus. Mithras was through his deed the creator of life. Meanwhile Ahriman sent a terrible drought upon the land. Mithras defeated his purpose by discharging an arrow against a rock and miraculously drawing the water from it. Next Ahriman sent a deluge, from which one man escaped in a boat with his cattle. Finally a fire desolated the earth, and only the creatures of Ormazd escaped. Mithras, his work accomplished, banqueted with the Sun for the last time, and was taken by him in his chariot to the habitation of the immortals, whence he continued to protect the faithful.

The symbolism employed by Mithraism finds its best illustration in the large central relief, which represents Mithras in the act of slaying the bull as a sacrifice to bring about terrestrial life, and thus portrays the concluding scenes in the legend of the sacred animal. The scorpion, attacking the genitals of the bull, is sent by Ahriman from the lower world to defeat the purpose of the sacrifice; the dog, springing towards the wound in the bull's side, was venerated by the Persians as the companion of Mithras; the serpent is the symbol of the earth being made fertile by drinking the blood of the sacrificial bull; the raven, towards which Mithras turns his face as if for direction, is the herald of the Sun-god, whose bust is near by, and who has ordered the sacrifice; various plants near the bull, and heads of wheat springing from his tail, symbolize the result of the sacrifice; the cypress is perhaps the tree of immortality. There was also an astrological symbolism, but it was superficial, and of secondary importance. The torch-bearers sometimes seen on the relief represent one being in three aspects-the morning, noon and evening sun, or the vernal, summer and autumn sun. Owing to the almost absolute disappearance of documentary evidence, it is impossible to know otherwise than very imperfectly the inner life of Mithraism. Jerome (Epist. cvii.) and inscriptions preserve the knowledge that the mystic, sacratus, passed through seven degrees, which probably corresponded to the seven planetary spheres traversed by the soul in its progress to wisdom, perfect purity, and the abode of the blest: Corax, Raven, so named because the raven in Mithraic mythology was the servant of the Sun; Cryphius, Occult, a degree in the taking of which the mystic was perhaps hidden from others in the sanctuary by a veil, the removal of which was a solemn ceremonial; Miles, Soldier, signifying the holy warfare against evil in the service of the god; Leo, Lion, symbolic of the element of fire; Perses, Persian, clad in Asiatic costume, a reminiscence of the ancient origin of the religion; Heliodromus, Courier of the Sun, with whom Mithras was identified; Pater, Father, a degree bringing the mystic among those who had the general (Cumont, vol. i. p. 175, fig. 10) shows figures masked and costumed to represent Corax, Perses, Miles and Leo, indicating the practice on occasion of rites involving the use of sacred disguise, a custom probably reminiscent of the primitive time when men represented their deities under the form of animals, and believed themselves in closer communion with them when disguised to impersonate them. Of the seven degrees, those mystics not yet beyond the third, Miles, were not in full communion, and were called vηpetoÛvτes (servants); while the fourth degree, Leo, admitted them into the class of the fully initiate, the μETEXOVTES (participants). No women were in any way connected with the cult, though the male sex could be admitted even in childhood. The time requisite for the several degrees is unknown, and may have been determined by the Patres, who conferred them in a solemn ceremony called Sacramentum, in which the initial step was an oath never to divulge what should be revealed, and for which the mystic had been specially prepared by lustral purification, prolonged abstinence, and severe deprivations. Special ceremonies accompanied

The Mithras legend has been lost, and can be reconstructed only from the scenes on the above described relief. Mithras was born of a rock, the marvel being seen only by certain shepherds, who brought gifts and adored him. Chilled by the wind, the new-born god went to a fig-tree, partook of its fruit, and clothed himself in its leaves. He then undertook to vanquish the beings already in the world, and rendered subject to him first the Sun, with whom he concluded a treaty of friendship. The most wonderful of his adventures, however, was that with the sacred bull which had been created by Ormazd. The hero seized it by the horns and was borne headlong in the flight of the animal, which he finally subdued and dragged into a cavern.

the diverse degrees: Tertullian speaks of "marking the | forehead of a Miles," which may have been the branding of a Mithraic sign; honey was applied to the tongue and hands of the Leo and the Perses. A sacred communion of bread, water and possibly wine, compared by the Christian apologists to the Eucharist, was administered to the mystic who was entering upon one of the advanced degrees, perhaps Leo. The ceremony was probably commemorative of the banquet of Mithras and Helios before the former's ascension, and its effect strength of body, wisdom, prosperity, power to resist evil, and participation in the immortality enjoyed by the god himself. Other features reminiscent of the original barbarous rites in the primitive caverns of the East, no doubt also occupied a place in the cult; bandaging of eyes, binding of hands with the intestines of a fowl, leaping over a ditch filled with water, witnessing a simulated murder, are mentioned by the Pseudo-Augustine; and the manipulation of lights in the crypt, the administration of oaths, and the repetition of the sacred formulae, all contributed toward inducing a state of ecstatic exaltation. What in the opinion of Albrecht Dieterich (Eine Mithrasliturgie, Leipzig, 1903) is a Mithras liturgy is preserved in a Greek MS. of Egyptian origin of about A.D. 300. It is the ritual of a magician, imbedded in which, and alternating with magic formulae and other occult matter, are a number of invocations and prayers which Dieterich reconstructs as a liturgy in use by the clergy of Mithras between A.D. 100 and 300, and adapted to this new use about the latter date.

The Mithraic priest, sacerdos or antistes, was sometimes also of the degree of pater. Tertullian (De praescr. haeret. 40) calls the chief priest summus pontifex, probably the pater patrum who had general supervision of all the initiates in one city, and states that he could marry but once. According to the same author, there were Mithraic, as well as Christian, virgines et continentes. Besides the administration of sacraments and the celebration of offices on special occasions, the priest kept alight the eternal fire on the altar, addressed prayers to the Sun at dawn, midday and twilight, turning towards east, south and west respectively. Clad in Eastern paraphernalia, he officiated at the numerous sacrifices indicated by the remains of iron and bronze knives, hatchets, chains, ashes and bones of oxen, sheep, goats, swine, fowl, &c. There was pouring of libations, chanting and music, and bells and candles were employed in the service. Each day of the week was marked by the adoration of a special planet, the sun being the most sacred of all, and certain dates, perhaps the sixteenth of each month and the equinoxes, in conformity with the character of Mithras as mediator, were set aside for special festivals.

The Mithraic community of worshippers, besides being a spiritual fraternity, was a legal corporation enjoying the right of holding property, with temporal officials at its head, like any other sodalitas: there were the decuriones and decem primi, governing councils resembling assembly and senate in cities; magistri, annually elected presidents; curatores, financial agents; defensores, advocates; and patroni, protectors among the influential. It may be that a single temple was the resort of several small associations of worshippers which were subdivisions of the whole community. The cult was supported mainly by voluntary contribution. An abundance of epigraphic evidence testifies to the devotion of rich and poor alike.

III. Moral Influence.-The rapid advance of Mithraism was duc to its human qualities. Its communities were bound together by a sense of close fraternal relation. Its democracy obliterated the distinctions between rich and poor; slave and senator became subject to the same rule, eligible for the same honours, partook of the same communion, and were interred in the same type of sepulchre, to await the same resurrection. The reward of title and degree and the consequent rise in the esteem of his fellows and himself was also a strong incentive; but the Mithraic faith itself was the greatest factor. The impressiveness and the stimulating power of the mystic ceremonies, the consciousness of being the privileged possessor of the secret wisdom of the ancients, the sense of purification from sin,

and the expectation of a better life where there was to be compensation for the sufferings of this world-were all strong appeals to human nature. The necessity of moral rectitude was itself an incentive. Courage, watchfulness, striving for purity, were all necessary in the incessant combat with the forces of evil. Resistance to sensuality was one aspect of the struggle, and asceticism was not unknown. Mithras was ever on the side of the faithful, who were certain to triumph both in this world and the next. The worthy soul ascended to its former home in the skies by seven gates or degrees, while the unworthy soul descended to the realms of Ahriman. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was accompanied by that of the resurrection of the flesh; the struggle between good and evil was one day to cease, and the divine bull was to appear on earth, Mithras was to descend to call all men from their tombs and to separate the good from the bad. The bull was to be sacrificed to Mithras, who was to mingle its fat with consecrated wine and give to drink of it to the just, rendering them immortal, while the unjust, together with Ahriman and his spirits, were to be destroyed by a fire sent from Heaven by Ormazd. The universe, renewed, was to enjoy eternal happiness.

IV. 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. At the end of the 2nd century each had advanced to the farthest limits of the empire, though the one possessed greatest strength on the frontiers of the Teutonic countries, along the Danube and the Rhine, while the other throve especially in Asia and Africa. The points of collision were especially at Rome, in Africa, and in the Rhône Valley, and the struggle was the more obstinate because of the resemblances between the two religions, which were so numerous and so close as to be the subject of remark as early as the 2nd century, and the cause of mutual recrimination. The fraternal and democratic spirit of the first communities, and their humble origin; the identification of the object of adoration with light and 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 constant warfare between good and evil and the final triumph of the former, the immortality of the soul, the last judgment, the resurrection 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. On the other hand, there were important contrasts between the two. Mithraism courted the favour of Roman paganism and combined monotheism with polytheism, while Christianity was uncompromising. The former as a consequence won large numbers of supporters who were drawn by the possibility it afforded of adopting an attractive faith which did not involve a rupture with the religion of Roman society, and consequently with the state. In the middle of the 3rd century Mithraism seemed on the verge of becoming the universal religion. Its eminence, however, was so largely based upon dalliance with Roman society, its weakness so great in having only a mythical character, instead of a personality, as an object of adoration, and in excluding women from its privileges, that it fell rapidly before the assaults of Christianity. Manichacism, which combined the adoration of Zoroaster and Christ, be ame the refuge of those supporters of Mithraism who were inclined to compromise, while many found the transition to orthodox Christianity easy because of its very resemblance to their old faith.

Fig. 6.- Mitre (restored) of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester (d. 1404), preserved at New College, Oxford.

Fig. 7.- Flemish Mitre, embroidered in gold thread, and the panels in colours, with figures of the Virgin and St Augustine. The other side is similar, with figures of St Leonard and St Mary Magdalene. It is dated 1592, repaired in 1766.