M

M
i
i
t
t
h
h
r
r
a
a
i
i
s
s
m
m
:
:

F
F
r
r
e
e
e
e
m
m
a
a
s
s
o
o
n
n
r
r
y
y

a
a
n
n
d
d
t
t
h
h
e
e

A
A
n
n
c
c
i
i
e
e
n
n
t
t
M
M
y
y
s
s
t
t
e
e
r
r
i
i
e
e
s
s


By
Bro. H. L. Haywood, editor, The
Builder








THE THEORY that modern Freemasonry is in some
sense a direct descendant from the ancient
Mysteries has held a peculiar attraction for Masonic
writers this long time, and the end is not yet, for the
world is rife with men who argue about the matter
up and down endless pages of print. It is a most
difficult subject to write about, so that the more one
learns about it the less he is inclined to ventilate any
opinions of his own. The subject covers so much
ground and in such tangled jungles that almost any
grand generalization is pretty sure to be either
wrong or useless. Even Gould, who is usually one of
the soundest and carefullest of generalizers, gets
pretty badly mixed up on the subject.

For present purposes it has seemed to me wise to
attention to one only of the Mysteries, letting it
stand as a type of the rest, and I have chosen for
that purpose MITHRAISM, one of the greatest and
one of most interesting, as well as one possessing as
many parallelisms with Freemasonry as any of the
others.

I - HOW MITHRA CAME TO BE A FIRST-CLASS
GOD

Way back in the beginning of things, so we may
learn from the Avesta, Mithra was the young god of
the sky lights that appeared just before sunrise and
lingered after the sun had set. To him was
attributed patronship of the virtues of truth, life-
giving, and youthful strength and joy. Such qualities
attracted many worshippers in whose eyes Mithra
grew from more to more until finally he became a
great god in his own right and almost equal to the
sun god himself. "Youth will be served," even a
youthful god; and Zoroastrianism, which began by
giving Mithra a very subordinate place, came at last
to exalt him to the right hand of the awful Ormuzd,
who had rolled up within himself all the attributes
of all gods whatsoever.

When the Persians conquered the Babylonians, who
worshipped the stars in a most thoroughgoing
manner, Mithra got himself placed at the very
center of star worshipping cults, and won such
strength for himself that when the Persian Empire
went to pieces and everything fell into the melting
pot with it, Mithra was able to hold his own identity,
and emerged from the struggle at the head of a
religion of his own. He was a young god full of
vigour and overflowing with spirits, capable of
teaching his followers the arts of victory, and such
things appealed mightily to the bellicose Iranian
tribesmen who never ceased to worship him in one
form or another until they became so soundly
converted to Mohammedanism centuries
afterwards. Even then they did not abandon him
altogether but after the inevitable manner of
converts rebuilt him into Allah and into
Mohammed, so that even today one will find pieces
of Mithra scattered about here and there in what
the Mohammedans call their theology.

After the collapse of the Persian Empire, Phrygia,
where so many religions were manufactured at one
time or another, took Mithra up and built a cult
about him. They gave him his Phrygian cap which
one always sees on his statues, and they
incorporated in his rites the use of the dreadful
"taurobolium," which was a baptism in the blood of
a healthy young bull. In the course of time this gory
ceremony became the very center and climax of the
Mithraic ritual, and made a profound impression on
the hordes of poor slaves and ignorant men who
flocked into the mithrea, as the Mithraic houses of
worship were called.

Mithra was never able to make his way into Greece
(the same thing could be said of Egypt, where the
competition among religions was very severe) but it
happened that he borrowed something from Greek
art. Some unknown Greek sculptor, one of the
shining geniuses of his nation, made a statue of
Mithra that served ever afterwards as the orthodox
likeness of the god, who was depicted as a youth of
overflowing vitality, his mantle thrown back, a
Phrygian cap on his head, and slaying a bull. For
hundreds of years this statue was to all devout
Mithraists what the crucifix now is to Roman
Catholics. This likeness did much to open Mithras
path toward the west, for until this his images had
been hideous in the distorted and repellant manner
so characteristic of Oriental religious sculpture. The
Oriental people, among whom Mithra was born,
were always capable of gloomy grandeur and of
religious terror, but of beauty they had scarcely a
touch; it remained for the Greeks to recommend
Mithra to men of good taste.

After the Macedonian conquests, so it is believed,
the cult of Mithra became crystallized; it got its
orthodox theology, its church system, its philosophy,
its dramas and rites, its picture of the universe and
of the grand cataclysmic end of all things in a
terrific day of judgment. Many things had been built
into it. There were exciting ceremonies for the
multitudes; much mysticism for the devout; a great
machinery of salvation for the timid; a program of
militant activity for men of valour; and a lofty ethic
for the superior classes. Mithraism had a history,
traditions, sacred books, and a vast momentum
from the worship of millions and millions among
remote and scattered tribes. Thus accoutered and
equipped, the young god and his religion were
prepared to enter the more complex and
sophisticated world known as the Roman Empire.

II - HOW MITHRA FOUND HIS WAY TO ROME

When Mithridates Eupator - he who hated the
Romans with a virulency like that of Hannibal, and
who waged war on them three or four times - was
utterly destroyed in 66 B.C. and his kingdom of
Pontus was given over to the dogs, the scattered
fragments of his armies took refuge among the
outlaws and pirates of Cilicia and carried with them
everywhere the rites and doctrines of Mithraism.
Afterwards the soldiers of the Republic of Tarsus,
which these outlaws organized, went pillaging and
fighting all round the Mediterranean, and carried
the cult with them everywhere. It was in this
unpromising manner that Mithra made his
entrance into the Roman world. The most ancient of
all inscriptions is one made by a freedman of the
Flavians at about this time.

In the course of time Mithra won to his service a
very different and much more efficient army of
missionaries. Syrian merchants went back and forth
across the Roman world like shuttles in a loom, and
carried the new cult with them wherever they went.
Slaves and freedmen became addicts and loyal
supporters. Government officials, especially those
belonging to the lowlier ranks, set up altars at every
opportunity. But the greatest of all the
propagandists were the soldiers of the various
Roman armies. Mithra, who was believed to love
the sight of glittering swords and flying banners,
appealed irresistibly to soldiers, and they in turn
were as loyal to him as to any commander on the
field. The time came when almost every Roman
camp possessed its mithreum.

Mithra began down next to the ground but the time
came when he gathered behind him the great ones
of the earth. Antoninus Pius, father-in-law of
Marcus Aurelius, erected a Mithraic temple at Ostia,
seaport of the city of Rome. With the exception of
Marcus Aurelius and possibly one or two others all
the pagan emperors after Antaninus were devotees
of the god, especially Julian, who was more or less
addle-pated and willing to take up with anything to
stave off the growing power of Christianity. The
early Church Fathers nicknamed Julian "The
Apostate"; the slur was not altogether just because
the young man had never been a Christian under
his skin.

Why did all these great fellows, along with the
philosophers and literary men who obediently
followed suit, take up the worship of a foreign god,
imported from amidst the much hated Syrians,
when there were so many other gods of home
manufacture so close at hand? Why did they take to
a religion that had been made fashionable by slaves
and cutthroats? The answer is easy to discover.
Mithra was peculiarly fond of rulers and of the
mighty of the earth. His priests declared that the
god himself stood at the right hand of emperors
both on and off the throne. It was these priests who
invented the good old doctrine of the divine right of
kings. The more Mithra was worshipped by the
masses, the more complete was the imperial control
of those masses, therefore it was good business
policy for the emperors to give Mithra all the
assistance they could. There came a time when
every Emperor was pictured by the artists with a
halo about his head; that halo had originally
belonged to Mithra. It represented the outstanding
splendour of the young and vigorous sun. After the
Roman emperors passed away the popes and
bishops of the Roman Catholic Church took up the
custom; they are still in the habit of showing their
saints be-haloed.

Mithraism spread up and down the world with
amazing rapidity. All along the coast of northern
Africa and even in the recesses of the Sahara;
through the Pillars of Hercules to England and up
into Scotland; across the channel into Germany and
the north countries; and down into the great lands
along the Danube, he everywhere made his way.
London was at one time a great center of his
worship. The greatest number of mithrea were built
in Germany. Ernest Renan once said that if ever
Christianity had become smitten by a fatal malady
Mithraism might very easily have become the
established and official religion of the whole
Western World. Men might now be saying prayers
to Mithra, and have their children baptised in bulls
blood.

There is not here space to describe in what manner
the cult became modified, by its successful spread
across the Roman Empire. It was modified, of
course, and in many ways profoundly, and it in turn
modified everything with which it came into contact.

Here is a brief epitome of the evolution of this
Mystery. It began at a remote time among primitive
Iranian tribesmen. It picked up a body of doctrine
from the Babylonian star worshippers, who created
that strange thing known as astrology. It became a
mystery, equipped with powerful rites, in the Asia
Minor countries. It received a decent outward
appearance at the hand of Greek artists and
philosophers; and it finally became a world religion
among the Romans. Mithraism reached its apogee
in the second century; it went the way of all flesh in
the fourth century; and flickered out entirely in the
fifth century, except that bits of its wreckage were
salvaged and used by a few new cults, such as those
of the various forms of Manicheeism.

III - THE MITHRAIC THEORY OF THINGS

After overthrowing its hated rival, the early
Christian Church so completely destroyed
everything having to do with Mithraism that there
have remained behind but few fragments to bear
witness to a once victorious religion. What little is
accurately known will be found all duly set down
and correctly interpreted in the works of the learned
Dr. Franz Cumont, whose books on the subject so
aroused the ire of the present Roman Catholic
Hierarchy that they placed them on the Index, and
warned the faithful away from his chapters of
history. Today, as in Mithras time, superstitions
and empty doctrines have a sorry time when
confronted with known facts.

The pious Mithraist believed that back of the
stupendous scheme of things was a great and
unknowable deity, Ozmiuzd by name, and that
Mithra was his son. A soul destined for its prison
house of flesh left the presence of Ormuzd,
descended by the gates of Cancer, passed through
the spheres of the seven planets and in each of these
picked up some function or faculty for use on the
earth. After its term here the soul was prepared by
sacraments and discipline for its re-ascent after
death. Upon its return journey it underwent a great
ordeal of judgment before Mithra. Leaving
something behind it in each of the planetary
spheres it finally passed back through the gates of
Capricorn to ecstatic union with the great Source of
all. Also there was an eternal hell, and those who
had proved unfaithful to Mithra were sent there.
Countless deons, devils and other invisible
monsters raged about everywhere over the earth
tempting souls, and presided over the tortures in
the pit. Through it all the planets continued to
exercise good or evil influence over the human
being, according as his fates might chance to fall out
on high, a thing imbedded in the cult from its old
Babylonian days.

The life of a Mithraist was understood as a long
battle in which, with Mithras help, he did war
against the principles and powers of evil. In the
beginning of his life of faith he was purified by
baptism, and through all his days received strength
through sacraments and sacred meals. Sunday was
set aside as a holy day, and the twenty-fifth of
December began a season of jubilant celebration.
Mithraic priests were organized in orders, and were
deemed to have supernatural power to some extent
or other.

It was believed that Mithra had once come to earth
in order to organize the faithful into the army of
Ormuzd. He did battle with the Spirit of all Evil in a
cave, the Evil taking the form of a bull. Mithra
overcame his adversary and then returned to his
place on high as the leader of the forces of
righteousness, and the judge of all the dead. All
Mithraic ceremonies centered about the bull slaying
episode.

The ancient Church Fathers saw so many points of
resemblance between this cult and Christianity that
many of them accepted the theory that Mithraism
was a counterfeit religion devised by Satan to lead
souls astray. Time has proved them to be wrong in
this because at bottom Mithraism was as different
from Christianity as night from day.

IV - IN WHAT WAY MITHRAISM WAS LIKE
FREEMASONRY

Masonic writers have often professed to see many
points of resemblance between Mithraism and
Freemasonry. Albert Pike once declared that
Freemasonry is the modern heir of the Ancient
Mysteries. It is a dictum with which I have never
been able to agree. There are similarities between
our Fraternity and the old Mystery Cults, but most
of them are of a superficial character, and have to
do with externals of rite or organization, and not
with inward content. When Sir Samuel Dill
described Mithraism as "a sacred Freemasonry" he
used that name in a very loose sense. Nevertheless,
the resemblances are often startling. Men only were
admitted to membership in the cult. "Among the
hundreds of inscriptions that have come down to us,
not one mentions either a priestess, a woman
initiate, or even a donatress." In this the mithrea
differed from the collegia, which latter, though they
almost never admitted women as members, never
hesitated to accept help or money from them.
Membership in Mithraism was as democratic as it is
with us, perhaps more so; slaves were freely
admitted and often held positions of trust, as also
did the freedmen of whom there were such
multitudes in the latter centuries of the empire.

Membership was usually divided into seven grades,
each of which had its own appropriate symbolical
ceremonies. Initiation was the crowning experience
of every worshipper. He was attired symbolically,
took vows, passed through many baptisms, and in
the higher grades ate sacred meals with his fellows.
The great event of the initiates experiences was the
taurobolium, already described. It was deemed very
efficious, and was supposed to unite the worshipper
with Mithra himself. A dramatic representation of a
dying and a rising again was at the head of all these
ceremonies. A tablet showing in bas relief Mithras
killing of the bull stood at the end of every
mithreum.

This, mithreum, as the meeting place, or lodge, was
called, was usually cavern shaped, to represent the
cave in which the god had his struggle. There were
benches or shelves along the side, and on these side
lines the members sat. Each mithreum had its own
officers, its president, trustees, standing committees,
treasurer, and so forth, and there were higher
degrees granting special privileges to the few.
Charity and Relief were universally practised and
one Mithraist hailed another as "brother." The
Mithraic "lodge" was kept small, and new lodges
were developed as a result of "swarming off" when
membership grew too large.

Manicheeism, as I have already said, sprang from
the ashes of Mithraism, and St. Augustine, who did
so much to give shape to the Roman Catholic
church and theology was for many years an ardent
Manichee, and through him many traces of the old
Persian creed found their way into Christianity. Out
of Manicheeism, or out of what was finally left of it,
came Paulicianism, and out of Paulicianism came
many strong medieval cults the Patari, the
Waldenses, the Hugenots, and countless other such
developments. Through these various channels
echoes of the old Mithraism persisted over Europe,
and it may very well be, as has often been alleged,
that there are faint traces of the ancient cult to be
found here and there in our own ceremonies or
symbolisms. Such theories are necessarily vague
and hard to prove, and anyway the thing is not of
sufficient importance to argue about. If we have
three or four symbols that originated in the worship
of Mithra, so much the better for Mithra!

After all is said and done the Ancient Mysteries
were among the finest things developed in the
Roman world. They stood for equality in a savagely
aristocratic and class-riddled society; they offered
centers of refuge to the poor and the despised
among a people little given to charity and who
didn't believe a man should love his neighbour; and
in a large historical way they left behind them
methods of human organization, ideals and
principles and hopes which yet remain in the world
for our use and profit. It a man wishes to do so, he
may say that what Freemasonry is among us, the
Ancient Mysteries were to the people of the Roman
world, but it would be a difficult thing for any man
to establish the fact that Freemasonry has directly
descended from those great cults.

[Note: Kipling, who has never wearied of handling
themes concerned with Freemasonry, often writes
of Mithraism. See in especial his Puck of Pooks Hill,
page 173 of the 1911 edition, for the stirring Song to
Mithras.]

WORKS CONSULTED IN PREPARING THIS
ARTICLE

The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, Vol. II, Waite.
The Book of Acts, Expositors Bible.
Mystery Religions and the New Testament, Sheldon.
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, Sir
Samuel Dill.
The Works of Franz Cumont.
Le Culte de Mithra, Gasquet.
On Isis and Osiris, Plutarch.
Life of Pompey, Plutarch.
Annals, Tacitus.
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
Mythrasliturgie, Dielitch.
De Corona, Tertullion.
History of France, Vol. V, Vol. VI, Vol. VII, Duruy.
Neoplatonism, Bigg.
Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western
Empire, Sir Samuel Dill.
Menippus, Lucian.
Thebaid, Statius.
See bibliography in Hastings Encyclopedia of
Religion and Ethics, Vol. VIII, p. 752.
Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. III, p. 109; Vol. IV,
p. 32; Vol. XIII, p. 90. The History of Freemasonry,
Vol. I, Gould.
Mackeys Encyclopedia-(Revised Edition): Allah, 46,
Babylon, 89. Egyptian Mysteries, 232-233. Egyptian
Priests, Initiations of the, 234. Gnostics, 300-301.
Legend, 433. Manichaeans, 462. Mithras, Mysteries
of, 485-487. Mohammed, 488. Mysteries, Ancient,
497-500. Mystery, 500. Myth, 501. Myth, Historical,
501. Mythical History, 501. Mythology, 501. Myth,
Philosophical, 501. Ormuzd, 539. Persia, 558 Pike,
Albert, 563. Roman Colleges of Artificers, 630-634.
THE BUILDER:
Vol. 1, 1915. - Symbolism, The Hiramic Legend, and
the Masters Word, p. 285; Symbolism in Mythology,
p. 296.
Vol. II, 1916. - Masonry and the Mysteries, p. 19;
The Mysteries of Mithra, p. 94; The Dionysiacs, p.
220; The Mithra Again, p. 254; The Ritual of
Ancient Egypt, p. 285; The Dionysiaes, p. 287.
Vol. III, 1917. - The Secret Key, p. 158; Mithraism, p.
252; Vol. IV, 1918. - The Ancient Mysteries, p. 223.
Vol. V, 1919. - The Ancient Mysteries Again, p. 25;
The Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites, pp. 143, 172;
The Mystery of Masonry, p. 189; The Eleusinian
Mysteries and Rites, pp. 218, 240.
Vol. VI, 1920. - A Birds-Eye View of Masonic
History, p. 236.
Vol. VII, 1921. - Whence Came Freemasonry, p. 90;
Books on the Mysteries of Isis, Mithras and Eleusis,
p. 205.
Vol. VIII, 1922. - A Mediating Theory, p. 318;
Christianity and the Mystery Religions, p. 322.