The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

NOTES PERSIA. 265
p. 591 Lidzbarski, Ephemeris fur semit. Epigraphik, I, pp.
59 ff.)- The Zeus Stratios worshiped upon a high summit
near Amasia was in reality Ahura-Mazda, who in turn prob
ably supplanted some local god (Studia Pontica, pp. 173 ff.).
Similarly the equation Anahita = Ishtar = Ma or Cybele for
the great female divinity is accepted everywhere (Mon. myst.
Mithra, I, p. 333), and Ma takes the epithet di/t/c^ros like
Mithra (Athen. Mitt., XVIII, 1893, p. 415, and XXIX, 1904,
p. 169). A temple of this goddess was called iepbv AardpTTjs
in a decree of Anisa (Michel, Recueil, No. 536, 1. 32).
30. The Mithra "mysteries" are not of Hellenic origin (Mon.
myst. Mithra, I, p. 239), but their resemblance to those of
Greece, which Gruppe insists upon (Griech. Mythologie, pp.
1596 ff.) was such that the two were bound to become con
fused in the Alexandrian period.
31. Harnack (Ausbreitung des Christentums, II, p. 271)
sees in this exclusion of the Hellenic world a prime cause of
the weakness of the Mithra worship in its struggle against
Christianity. The mysteries of Mithra met the Greek culture
with the culture of Persia, superior in some respects. But
if it was capable of attracting the Roman mind by its moral
qualities, it was too Asiatic, on the whole, to be accepted
without repugnance by the Occidentals. The same was true
of Manicheism.
32. CIL, III, 4413; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 281.
33. Cf. the bibliography
chapter.
34. As Plato grew
at the head of the notes for this
older he believed that he could not ex
plain the evils of this world without admitting the existence
of an "evil soul of the world" (Zeller, Philos. der Gricchen.
II*, p. 973, p. 981, n. i). But this late conception, opposed
as it is to his entire system, is probably due to the influence
of Oriental dualism. It is found in the Epinomis (Zeller,
ibid., p. 1042, n. 4), where the influence of "Chaldean" theories
is undeniable; cf. Bidez, Revue de Philologie, XXIX, 1905, p.
319.
35. Plutarch, De Iside, 46 ff. ; cf. Zeller, Philos. dcr Griechen,
V, p. 188; Eisele, Zur Demonologie des Plutarch (Archiv fur
f. Cf infra, n. 40.
Gesch. der Philos., XVII), 1903, p. 283 .