University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1908-11-04
MITHRAlSM

movement OI the IerslanS that
. disputed for a while the adyano.
of Christianity, was the subject of IN.
fifth lecture by Professor jackson in b;s
Lowell Institute course at Harvard m
the Religions of Persia"
There were two widely disseminated
religious movements that sprang out of
Zoroastrianism," said the sDeako.
(which affected the West as we'll "a ~.
East. One Of these was the worsb;,
of Mithra, the divinity OF light and
truth; the other was Manici.aeism n.
faith founded in the third Christie,
century by the religious leader and
teacher, Mani" Each OF these creed.
came for time into competition mora
or less active with Christianity, and
each yielded ultimately to the world,s
greater religion in the West and to tha
MOhammedan belief in the East Thu
history of each movement has its inter.
est to the thinking man today as vel,
as to the theOlOgian.
Of the two the faith in Nthra vax
the more widely diffused and attracted
more attention in the world out side of
Persia. 1t spread over all Of western
Europe, even into Great Britain. and
persisted for two or three centuries. II
was accepted at Rome, to which it ia
said to have been brought to Pompev
by some captured pirates, and its limits
were hardly less remarkable than those
of the empire Itself.
Mithra, lord OF wide pastures. was the
persOnificatiOn of the sun. Perhans
more accurately he was the light of day.
rather than the sun itself As a sun
god he had some affinities 20 Jupiter
In the Avestan hymns he rides in his
chariot with his arms uplifted, with
Rashnu on his right and Christa on his
left. He was the god of truth. and woe
be to him who would lie in his pres.
ence. He had place by the side of the
supreme God, Ormazd. With his thou
sand senses and ten thousand ewes and
ears, he sought out the sinner that had
belied his word, broken his pledge or
been untrue to his faith. And in this
connection there was given a curious
setting forth of relationships or rather
their strength, under different eombina.
tiOns. The pledge between two friends
was twenty fold; between co partners
in land thirty fold, and between busi
ness partners forty fold. The scale goes
up into family life, rating fifty fold be-
tween man and wife, sixty fold between
two pupils of the same master, and sew.
enty fold between master and pupil
Son-in-law and father -in-law have an
eighty fold pledge, two brothers nine
ty fold bond, while between father and
son it is one hundred fold. Between ma
tions the pledge is one thousand fold,
and in matter connected with tie
religion of Mazda it was ten thousand
fold. Mothers and sisters did not enter
INTO this rating at all.
Monuments to Mithra, remains of the
temples and accounts that have been
give some idea of the nature
Of the worship. 1t included Illustrations
and castigations, sacrament. wine and
various rites. Its temples We're often
times in caves, and it's symbols the fig
ure of Mithra, usually as the slayer of
the bull, and with him his faithful dog.
like the hound of Meleager,
who Is also solar hero. The serpent,
the scorpion, the cock and the ant were
symbolic to Mithra and an emblem of
Lhe faith. also solar in meaning, were
-he torches, one inverted, typifying the
sun in its circular course. Finally It
ost strength and began to fade, giving
place to Manichaeism.
Mani, teacher and prophet, was born
n Babylon, but of Persian ancestry.
he appeared in A. d. 2l6. and thanks
% an eclectic education given him by
lis father, he formulated a creed com
'osed OF elements from the Persian,
6abylonian and other faiths with tine
ure of Christian ideas. 1t was in
way antagonistic to the young Chris
ian church. and until very recently
he knowledge of it has been by infer
nee, for all of it's books were lost. Pole
iic writings, quotations in the writ
ngs of the church fathers furnished
Ill that was known of it until the
attest finds in Chinese Turkestan.
Among the sand buried ruins of Tur-
an, preserved in the earth in one of the
most arid regions of the earth. the
'lble of this faith, Or fragments of it
ave been so recently discovered that
he scholars have not as yet had the
lme to decipher the texts. An expedi
ION fostered by the Emperor William
'lthln ten years has resurrected these
'rltings, which have literally been bur-
ID IN the earth for a thousand years,
nd the task of decipherino is now IN