Part 20

14. The sacred formulas have been collected by Alb. Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, pp. 212 ff. He adds [Greek: Doie soi Osiris to psuchron hudor], {217} Archiv fuer Religionswiss., VII, 1905, p. 504, n. 1. [Cf. infra, ch. IV, n. 90.] Among the hymns of greatest importance for the Oriental cults we must cite those in honor of Isis, discovered in the island of Andros (Kaibel, Epigr., 4028) and elsewhere (see ch. IV, n. 6). Fragments of hymns in honor of Attis have been preserved by Hippolytus (Philosoph., V, 9. pp. 168 ff.) The so-called orphic hymns (Abel, Orphica, 1883), which date back to a rather remote period, do not seem to contain many Oriental elements (see Maas, Orpheus, 1893, pp. 173 ff.), but this does not apply to the gnostic hymns of which we possess very instructive fragments.--Cf. Mon. myst. de Mithra, I, p. 313, n. 1.

15. Regarding the imitations of the stage, see Adami, De poetis scen. Graecis hymnorum sacrorum imitatoribus, 1901. Wuensch has shown the liturgic character of a prayer to Asklepios, inserted by Herondas into his mimiambi (Archiv fuer Religionswiss., VII, 1904, pp. 95 ff.) Dieterich believes he has found an extensive extract from the Mithraic liturgy in a magic papyrus of Paris (see infra, ch. VI, Bibliography). But all these discoveries amount to very little if we think of the enormous number of liturgic texts that have been lost, and even in the case of ancient Greece we know little regarding this sacred literature. See Ausfeld, De Graecorum precationibus, Leipsic, 1903; Ziegler, De precationum apud Graecos formis quaestiones selectae, Breslau, 1905; H. Schmidt, Veteres philosophi quomodo iudicaverint de precibus, Giessen, 1907.

16. For instance, the hymn "which the magi sung" about the steeds of the supreme god; its contents are given by Dion Chrysostom, Oral., XXXVI, 39 (see Mon. myst. Mithra, I. p. 298; II, p. 60).

17. I have in mind the hymns of Cleanthes (Von Arnim, Stoic. fragm., I, Nos. 527, 537), also Demetrius's act of renunciation in Seneca, De Provid., V, 5, which bears a surprising resemblance to one of the most famous Christian prayers, the Suscipe of Saint Ignatius which concludes the book of Spiritual Exercises (Delehaye, Les legendes hagiographiques, 1905, p. 170, n. 1).--In this connection we ought to mention the prayer translated in the Asclepius, the Greek text {218} of which has recently been found on a papyrus (Reitzenstein, Archiv fuer Religionswiss., VII, 1904, p. 395). On pagan prayers introduced into the Christian liturgy see Reitzenstein and Wendland, Nachrichten Ges. Wiss., Goettingen, 1910, pp. 325 ff.

18. This point has been studied more in detail in our Monuments relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra, from which we have taken parts of the following observations (I, pp. 21 ff.).

19. Lucian's authorship of the treatise [Greek: Peri tes Suries theou] has been questioned but wrongly; see Maurice Croiset, Essai sur Lucien, 1882, pp. 63, 204. I am glad to be able to cite the high authority of Noeldeke in favor of its authenticity. Noeldeke writes me on this subject: "Ich habe jeden Zweifel daran schon lange aufgegeben.... Ich habe lange den Plan gehabt, einen Commentar zu diesem immerhin recht lehrreichen Stueck zu schreiben and viel Material dazu gesammelt. Aus der Annahme der Echtheit dieser Schrift ergiebt sich mir, dass auch das [Greek: Peri astronomias] echt ist."

20. Cf. Frisch, De compositione libri Plutarchei qui inscribitur, [Greek: Peri Isidos], Leipsic, 1906, and the observations of Neustadt, Berl. Philol. Wochenschr., 1907, p. 1117.--One of Plutarch's sources is the [Greek: Ioudaika] by Apion.--See also Scott Moncrieft, Journ. of Hell. Studies, XIX, 1909, p. 81.

21. See ch. VII, pp. 202-203.

22. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 75, p. 219.--For Egypt see Georges Foucart, "L'art et la religion dans l'ancienne Egypte," Revue des idees, Nov. 15, 1908.

23. The narrative and symbolic sculpture of the Oriental cults was a preparation for that of the Middle Ages, and many remarks in Male's beautiful book L'Art du XIII^e siecle en France, can be applied to the art of dying paganism.

II. WHY THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS SPREAD.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Boissier, La religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, especially Bk. II, ch. II.--Jean Reville, La religion a Rome sous les Severes, Paris, 1886.--Wissowa, Religion und Cultus der Roemer, Munich, 1902, pp. 71 ff., 289 ff.--Samuel Dill, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, London, 1905.--Bigg, The Church's Task Under the Roman Empire, {219} Oxford, 1905.--Cf. also Gruppe, Griech. Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, 1906, pp. 1519 ff.--Wendland, Die hellenistisch-roemische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zum Judentum und zum Christentum, Tuebingen, 1907, pp. 54 f.--The monographs will be cited in connection with the different cults which they treat.

1. Melanges Fredericq, Brussels, 1904, pp. 63 ff. (Pourquoi le latin fut la seule langue liturgique de l'Occident); cf. the observations of Lejay, Rev. d'hist. et litt. relig., XI, 1906, p. 370.

2. Holl, Volkssprache in Kleinasien (Hermes, 1908, pp. 250 ff.).

3. The volume of Hahn, Rom und Romanismus im griechisch-roemischen Osten bis auf die Zeit Hadrians (Leipsic, 1906) discusses a period for the most part prior to the one that interests us. On the period following we have nothing but a provisional sketch by the same author, Romanismus und Hellenismus bis auf die Zeit Justinians (Philologus, Suppl. X), 1907.

4. Cf. Tacitus, Annales, XIV, 44: "Nationes in familiis habemus quibus diversi ritus, externa sacra aut nulla sunt."

5. S. Reinach, Epona (Extr. Rev. archeol.). 1895.

6. The theory of the degeneration of races has been set forth in particular by Stewart Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des XIX. Jahrhunderts, 3d. ed., Munich, 1901, pp. 296 ff.--The idea of selection by retrogression, of the Ausrottung der Besten, has been defended, as is well known, by Seeck in his Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, which outlines the religious consequence (II, p. 344). His system is developed in the third volume which appeared in 1909.

7. Apuleius, Metam., XI, 14 ff. See Preface. Manilius said of the divine stars (IV, 910; cf. II, 125),

"Ipse vocat nostros animos ad sidera mundus."

8. Hepding, Attis, pp. 178 ff., 187.

9. The intimate connection between the juridical and religious ideas of the Romans has left numerous traces even in their language. One of the most curious is the double meaning of the term supplicium, which stands at the same time for a supplication addressed to the gods and a punishment {220} demanded by custom, and later by law. In regard to the development of this twofold meaning, see the recent note by Richard Heinze, Archiv fuer lateinische Lexicographie, XV, pp. 90 ff. Sematology is often synonymous with the study of customs.

10 Reville, op. cit., p. 144.

11 On ecstasy in the mysteries in general, cf. Rohde, Psyche, 2d ed., pp. 315-319; in the Oriental religions cf. De Jong, De Apuleio Isiacorum mysteriorum teste, 1900, p. 100; De Jong, Das antike Mysterienwesen, Leyden, 1909. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 323.

12 Firmicus Maternus mentioned this in De errore prof. relig., c. 8.

13 For Babylonia, cf. Strab., XVI, 1, Sec. 6, and infra, ch. V, n. 51; for Egypt, id., XVII, 21, Sec. 46. From the very interesting account Otto has written of the science of the Egyptian priests during the Hellenistic period (Priester und Tempel, II, pp. 211 ff.; 234), it appears that it remained quite worthy of consideration although progress had ceased.

14 Strabo, loc. cit.: [Greek: Anatitheasi de toi Hermei pasan ten toiauten sophian]; Pliny, Hist. nat., VI, 26, Sec. 121: "(Belus) inventor fuit sideralis scientiae"; cf. Solinus, 56, Sec. 3; Achilles, Isag., 1 (Maass, Comm. in Arat., p. 27): [Greek: Beloi ten heuresin anathentes]. Let us remember that Hammurabi's code was represented as the work of Marduk.--In a general way, the gods are the authors of all inventions useful to humanity; cf. Reitzenstein, Poimandres, 1904, p. 123; Deissmann, Licht von Osten, 91 ff. Likewise in the Occident: CIL, VII, 759 = Buecheler, Carm. epigr., 24: "(Dea Syria) ex quis muneribus nosse contigit deos," etc., cf. Plut., Crass., 17.--"Religion im Sinne des Orients ist die Erklaerung alles dessen was ist, also eine Weltauffassung" (Winckler, Himmelsbild der Babylonier, 1903, p. 9).

15 Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 312.--Manicheism likewise brought a complete cosmological system from Babylonia. Saint Augustine criticizes the book of that sect for containing long dissertations and absurd stories about matters that have nothing at all to do with salvation; see my Recherches sur le manicheisme, 1908, p. 53.