VI. PERSIA.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: We shall not attempt here to give a bibliography of the works devoted to Mazdaism. We shall merely refer the reader to that of Lehmann in Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, II, p. 150. We should mention, in the first place, Darmesteter, Le Zend Avesta, 1892 ff., with introductions and commentary.--In my Textes et monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (2 vols., 1894-1900), I, pp. xx ff., I have furnished a list of the earlier works on this subject; the conclusions of the book have been published separately without the notes, under the title: Les Mystères de Mithra, (2d ed., Paris and Brussels, 19m; English translation, Chicago, 1903). See also the article "Mithra" in the Dictionnaire des antiquités of Daremberg and Saglio, 1904.--General outlines of certain phases of this religion have been since given by Grill, Die persische Mysterienreligion und das Christentum, 1903; Roeses, Ueber Mithrasdienst, Stralsund, 1905; G. Wolff, Ueber Mithrasdienst und Mithreen, Frankfort, 1909; Reinach, La morale du mithraïsme in Cultes, mythes, II, 1906, pp. 220 ff.; Dill, op. cit., pp. 594-626; cf. also Bigg, op. cit. [p. 321], 1905, p. 46 ff.; Harnack, Ausbreitung des Christent., II, p. 270. Among the learned researches which we cannot enumerate here, the most important is that of Albrecht Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, 1903. He has endeavored with some ingenuity to show that a mystical passage inserted in a magic papyrus preserved at Paris is in reality a fragment of a Mithraic liturgy, but here I share the skepticism of Reitzenstein (Neue Jahrb. f. das class. Altertum, 1904, p. 192) and I have given my reasons in Rev. de l'Instr. publ. en Belg., XLVII, 1904, pp. 1 ff. Dieterich answered briefly in Archiv f. Religionswis., VIII, 1905, p. 502, but without convincing me. The author of the passage in question may have been more or less accurate in giving his god the external appearance of Mithra, but he certainly did not know the eschatology of the Persian mysteries. We know, for

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instance, through positive testimony that they taught the dogma of the passage of the soul through the seven planetary spheres, and that Mithra acted as a guide to his votaries in their ascension to the realm of the blessed. Neither the former nor the latter doctrine, however, is found in the fantastic uranography of the magician. The name of Mithra, as elsewhere that of the magi Zoroaster and Hostanes, helped to circulate an Egyptian forgery., cf. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur, 1907, p. 168, n. 1. See on this controversy Wünsch's notes in the 2d ed. of the Mithrasliturgie, 1910, pp. 225 ff.--A considerable number of new monuments have been published of late years (the mithreum of Saalburg by Jacobi, etc.). The most important ones are those of the temple of Sidon preserved in the collection of Clereq (De Ridder, Marbres de la collection de C., 1906, pp. 52 ff.) and those of Stockstadt published by Drexel (Der obergerm. Limes, XXXIII, Heidelberg, 1910). In the following notes I shall only mention the works or texts which could not be utilized in my earlier researches.

6_1. Cf. Petr. Patricius, Excerpta de leg., 12 (II, p. 393, de Boor ed.).

6_2. Cf. Chapot, Les destinies de l'hellinisme au delà l'Euphrate (Mém. soc. antiq. de France), 1902, pp, 207 ff.

6_3. Humbert in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire, s. v. "Amici," I, p. 228 (cf. 160). Cf. Friedländer, Sittengesch., I, pp. 202 ff.

6_4. Cf. L'Eternité des empereurs romains (Rev. d'hist. et de litt. relig., I), 1896, p. 442.

6_5. Friedländer (loc. cit., p. 204) has pointed out several instances where Augustus borrowed from his distant predecessors the custom of keeping a journal of the palace, of educating the children of noble families at court, etc. Certain public institutions were undoubtedly modeled on them; for instance, the organization of the mails (Otto Hirschfeld, Verwaltungsbeamten, p. 190, n. 2; Rostovtzev, Klio, VI, p. 249 (on angariae); cf. Preisigke, Die Ptolemäische Staatspost (Klio, VII, p. 241), that of the secret police (Friedländer, I, p. 427).--On the Mazdean Hvareno who became Τύχη βασιλέως, then Fortuna Augusti, cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 284 ff.--Even Mommsen (Röm. Gesch., V, p. 343), although pre

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disposed to look for the continuity of the Roman tradition, adds, after setting forth the rules that obtained at the court of the Parthians: "Alle Ordnungen die mit wenigen Abminderungen bei den römischen Cæsaren wiederkehren und vielleicht zum Teil von diesen der älteren Grossherrschaft entlehnt sind."--Cf. also infra, ch. VIII, n.  8_19.

6_6. Friedländer, loc. cit., p. 204; cf. p. 160.

6_7. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutestam. Zeitalter, 1903 (2d ed. 1906), pp. 453 ff., passim.

6_8. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 21 ff.

6_9. Cf. infra, ch. VII, pp. 188 ff.

6_10. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 9 ff., pp. 231 ff.

6_11. Lactantius, De mort., persec., 21, 2; Cf. Seeck, Gesch. des Untergangs der antiken Welt, II, pp. 7 ff.

6_12. Cf. Strzygowski, Mschatta (Jahrb. preuss. Kunstsammlungen, XXV), Berlin, 1904, pp. 324 ff., 371 ff.--From a communication made to the Congress of Orientalists at Copenhagen (1909) by Father Lammens, it would appear that the façade of Mschatta is the work of an Omaiyad kalif of Damascus, and Strzygowski's conclusions would, therefore, have to be modified considerably; but the influence of Sassanid art in Syria is nevertheless certain; see Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie avant l'Islam, 1907, pp. 33, 51

6_13. Cf. infra, n.  6_32.

6_14. Plutarch, V. Pompei, 24:

Ξενὰς δὲ θυσίας ἔθυον αὐτοὶ τὰς ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ καὶ τελετάς τινας ἀπορρήτους ἐτέλουν ὦν ἡ τοῦ Μίθρου καὶ μέχρι δεῦρο διασώξεται καταδεαιχθεῖσα πρῶτον ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων.

6_15. Lactantius Placidus ad Stat., Theb. IV, 717: "Quae sacra primum Persae habuerunt, a Persis Phryges, a Phrygibus Romani."

6_16. In the Studia Pontica, p. 368, I have described a grotto located near Trapezus and formerly dedicated to Mithra, but now transformed into a church. We know of no other Mithreum. A bilingual dedication to Mithra, in Greek and Aramaic, is engraved upon a rock in a wild pass near Farasha (Rhodandos) in Cappadocia. Recently it has been republished

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with excellent notes by Henri Grégoire (Comptes Rendus Acad. des Inscr., 1908, pp. 434 ff.), but the commentator has mentioned no trace of a temple. The text says that a strategus from Ariaramneia ἐμάγευσε Μίθρῃ. Perhaps these words must be translated according to a frequent meaning of the aorist, by "became a magus of Mithra" or "began to serve Mithra as a magus." This would lead to the conclusion that the inscription was made on the occasion of an initiation. The magus dignity was originally hereditary in the sacred caste; strangers could acquire it after the cult had assumed the form of mysteries. If the interpretation offered by us is correct the Cappadocian inscription would furnish interesting evidence of that transformation in the Orient. Moreover, we know that Tiridates of Armenia initiated Nero; see Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 239.

6_17. Strabo, XI, 14, § 9. On the studs of Cappadocia, cf. Grégoire, Saints jumeaux et dieux cavaliers, 1905, pp. 56 ff.

6_18. Cf. C. R. Acad. des Inscr., 1905, pp. 99 ff. (note on the bilingual inscription of Aghatcha-Kalé); cf. Daremberg-Saglio-Pottier, Dict. Antiqu., s. v., "Satrapa."

6_19. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 10, n. 1. The argument undoubtedly dates back to Carneades, see Boll, Studien über Claudius Ptolemäus, 1894, pp. 181 ff.

6_20. Louis H. Gray (Archiv für Religionswiss., VII, 1904, p. 345) has shown how these six Amshaspands passed from being divinities of the material world to the rank of moral abstractions. From an important text of Plutarch it appears that they already had this quality in Cappadocia; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 33, and Philo, Quod omn. prob. lib., II (II, 456 M).--On Persian gods worshiped in Cappadocia, see Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 132.

6_21. See supra, n.  6_16 and  6_18.--According to Grégoire, the bilingual inscription of Farasha dates back to the first century, before or after Christ (loc. cit., p. 445).

6_22. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 9, n. 5.

6_23. Comparison of the type of Jupiter Dolichenus with the bas-reliefs of Boghaz-Keui led Kan (De Iovis Dolicheni cultu, Groningen, 1901, pp. 3 ff.) to see an Anatolian god in him.

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[paragraph continues] The comparison of the formula ubi ferrum nascitur with .... expression ὄμου ὁ σίδηρος τίκτεται, used in connection with the Chalybians, leads to the same conclusion, see Revue de philologie, XXVI, 1902, p. 281.--Still, the representations of Jupiter Dolichnus also possess a remarkable resemblance to those of the Babylonian god Ramman; cf. Jeremias in Roscher, Lexikon der Myth., s. v. "Ramman," IV, col. 50 ff.

6_24. Rev. archéol. 1905, I, p. 189. Cf. supra, p 373, n. 68.

6_25. Herod., I, 131.--On the assimilation of Baalsamin to Ahura-Mazda, cf. supra, p. 127, and infra, n. 29. At Rome, Jupiter Dolichenus was conservator totius poli ct numen praestantissimum (CIL, VI, 406 = 30758).

6_26. Inscription of King Antiochus of Commagene (Michel, Recueil, No. 735), l. 43:

Πρὸς οὐρανιους Διὸς Ὠρομάσδου θρόνους θεοφιλῆ φυχὴν προπέμψαν; cf. l. 33: Οὐρανίων ἅγχιστα θρόνων.

6_27. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 87.

6_28. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 333.--An inscription discovered in a mithreum at Dorstadt (Sacidava in Dacia, CIL, III, 774 cf. 7729), furnishes, if I rightly understand, another proof of the relation existing between the Semitic cults and that of the Persian gods. It speaks of a "de[orum?] sacerdos creatus a Pal[myr]enis, do[mo] Macedonia, et adven[tor] huius templi." This rather obscure text becomes clear when compared with Apul., Metam., XI, 26. After the hero had been initiated into the mysteries of Isis in Greece, he was received at Rome in the great temple of the Campus Martius, "fani quidem advena, religionis autem indigena." It appears also that this Macedonian, who was made a priest of their national gods (Bel, Malakbel, etc.) by a colony of Palmyrenians, was received in Dacia by the mystics of Mithra as a member of their religion.

6_29. At Venasa in Cappadocia, for instance, the people, even during the Christian period, celebrated a panegyric on a mountain, where the celestial Zeus, representing Baalsamin and Ahura-Mazda, was formerly worshiped (Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, 1894, pp. 142, 457). The identification of Bel with Ahura-Mazda in Cappadocia results from the Aramaic inscription of Jarpuz (Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, III,

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[paragraph continues] p. 59; Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semit. Epigraphik, I, pp. 59 ff.). The Zeus Stratios worshiped upon a high summit near Amasia was in reality Ahura-Mazda, who in turn probably 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 ἀνίκητος like Mithra (Athen. Mitt., XVIII, 1893, p. 415, and XXIX, 1904, p. 169). A temple of this goddess was called ἱερὸν Ἀστάρτης in a decree of Anisa (Michel, Recueil, No. 536, l. 32).

6_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 confused in the Alexandrian period.

6_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.

6_32. CIL, III, 4413; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 281.

6_33. Cf. the bibliography at the head of the notes for this chapter.

6_34. As Plato grew older he believed that he could not explain the evils of this world without admitting the existence of an "evil soul of the world" (Zeller, Philos. der Griechen., 114, p. 973, p. 981, n. 1). 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.

6_35. Plutarch, De Iside, 46 ff.; cf. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, V, p. 188; Eisele, Zur Demonologie des Plutarch (Archiv für Gesch. der Philos., XVII), 1903, p. 283 f.--Cf. infra, n.  6_40.

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6_36. Arnobius, who was indebted to Cornelius Labeo for some exact information on the doctrines of the magi, says (IV, 12, p. 150, 12, Reifferscheid): "Magi suis in accitionibus memorant antitheos saepius obrepere pro accitis, esse autem hos quosdam materiis ex crassioribus spiritus qui deos se fingant, nesciosque mendaciis et simulationibus ludant." Lactantius, the pupil of Arnobius, used the same word in speaking of Satan that a Mazdean would have used in referring to Ahriman (Inst. divin., II, 9, 13, p. 144, 13, Brandt): "Nox quam pravo illi antitheo dicimus attributam"; he is the aemulus Dei.--Heliodorus who has made use in his Aethiopica of data taken from the Mazdean beliefs (see Monuments relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, volume I, p. 336, n. 2) uses the Greek word in the same sense, (IV, 7, p. 105, 27, Bekker ed.): Ἀντίθεός τις ἔοικεν ἐμποδίζειν τὴν πρᾶξιν.--The Ps.-Iamblichus, De myster., III, 31, § 15, likewise speaks of δαιμονες πονηρὺς οὒς δὴ καὶ καλοῦσιν ἀντιθέους. Finally the magical papyri also knew of the existence of these deceiving spirits (Wessely, Denksch. Akad. Wien, XLII, p. 42, v. 702: Πέμψον μοι τὸν ἀληθινὸν δίχα τινὸς ἀντιθέου πλανοδαίμονος).

6_37. In a passage to which we shall return in note  6_39, Porphyry (De Abstin., II, 42), speaks of the demons in almost the same terms as Arnobius: Τὸ γὰρ φεῦδος τούτοις οἰκεῖον· Βούλονται γὰρ εῖ᾽ναι θεοὶ καὶ ἡ προσετῶσα αὐτῶν δύναμις δοκεῖν θεὸς εῖ᾽ναι ὁ μέγιοστος the De philos. ex orac. hour. (pp. 147 ff. Wolff), an early work in which be followed other sources than those in De Abstinentia, Porphyry made Serapis (= Pluto) the chief of the malevolent demons. There was bound to be a connection between the Egyptian god of the underworld and the Ahriman of the Persians at an early date.--A veiled allusion to this chief of demons may be contained in Lucan, VI, 742 ff., and Plutarch who, in De Iside, 46, called Ahriman Hades (supra, p. 190; cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 131, No. 3), says elsewhere (De latenter viv., 6, p. 1130):Τὸν δὲ τῆς ἐναντίας κύριον μοίρας, εἴτε θεὸς εἴτε δαίμων ἐστίν, Ἄιδην ὀνομάζουσιν. Cf. Decharme, Traditions religieuses chez les Grecs, 1904, p. 431, n. 1.

6_38. The dedication Diis angelis recently found at Viminacium

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[paragraph continues] (Jahresh. Instituts in Wien, 1905, Beiblatt, p. 6), in a country where the Mithra worship had spread considerably seems to me to refer to this. See Minuc. Felix, Octav., 26: "Magorum et eloquio et negotio primus Hostanes angelos, id est ministros et nuntios Dei, eius venerationi novit assistere." St. Cypr., "Quod idola dii n. s.," c. 6 (p. 24, 2, Hartel): "Ostanes et formam Dei veri negat conspici posse et angelos veros sedi eius dicit adsistere." Cf. Tertullian, Apol., XXIII: "Magi habentes invitatorum angelorum et daemonum adsistentem sibi potestatem;" Arnobius, II, 35 (p. 76, 15, Reifferscheid); Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9, and the texts collected by Wolff, Porphyrii de philos. ex orac. haurienda, 1856, pp. 223 ff.; Kroll, De orac. Chaidaïcis, 1894, pp. 53; Roscher, Die Hebdomadenlehre der griech. Philosophen, Leipsic, 1906, p. 145; Abt, Apuleius und die Zauberei, Giessen, 1909, p. 256.

6_39. Porphyry, De Abstin., IL 37-43, expounds a theory about the demons, which, he says, he took from "certain Platonists" (Πλατωνικοί τινες, Numenius and Cronius?). That these authors, whoever they were, helped themselves freely to the doctrines of the magi, seems to appear immediately from the whole of Porphyry's exposition (one could almost give an endless commentary on it with the help of the Mazdean books) and in particular from the mention that is made of a power commanding the spirits of evil (see supra, n.  6_37). This conclusion is confirmed by a comparison with the passage of Arnobius cited above (n.  6_36), who attributes similar theories to the "magi," and with a chapter of the Ps.-Iamblichus (De mysteriis, III, 31) which develops analogous beliefs as being those of "Chaldean prophets."--Porphyry also cites a "Chaldean" theologian in connection with the influence of the demons, De regressu animae (Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9).

I conjecture that the source of all this demonology is the book attributed to Hostanes which we find mentioned in the second century of our era by Minucius Felix, St. Cyprian (supra, n.  6_38), etc.; cf. Wolff, op. cit., p. 138; Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 33. As a matter of fact it would be false logic to try to explain the evolution of demonology, which is above everything else religious, by the development of the philosophic theories of the Greeks (see for instance the communications of Messrs. Stock and Glover: Transactions of the Congress of 

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[paragraph continues] History of Rel., Oxford, 1908, II, pp. 164 ff.). The influence of the popular Hellenic or foreign ideas has always been preponderant here; and the Epinomis, which contains one of the oldest accounts of the theory of demons, as proved supra, n.  6_34, was influenced by the Semitic notions about genii, the ancestors of the djinns and the wélys of Islam.

If, as we believe, the text of Porphyry really sets forth the theology of the magi, slightly modified by Platonic ideas based on popular beliefs of the Greeks and perhaps of the barbarians, we shall be able to draw interesting conclusions in regard to the mysteries of Mithra. For instance, one of the principles developed is that the gods must not be honored by the sacrifice of animated beings (ἔμψυχα), and that immolation of victims should be reserved for the demons. The same idea is found in Cornelius Labeo, (Aug., Civ. Dei, VIII, 13; see Arnobius, VII, 24), and possibly it was the practice of the Mithra cult. Porphyry (II, 36) speaks in this connection of rites and mysteries, but without divulging them, and it is known that in the course of its history Mazdaism passed from the bloody to the bloodless sacrifice (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 6).

6_40. Cf. Plutarch, De defectu orac., 10, p. 415 A:

Ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκοῦσι πλείονας λῦσαι ἀπορίας οἱ τὸ τῶν δαιμόνων γένος ἐν μέσῳ θέντες θεῶν καὶ ἀνθρώπων καὶ τρόπον τινὰ τὴν κοινωνίαν ἡμῶν συνάγον εἰς ταὐτὸ καὶ σύναπτον ἐξεύροντες· εἴτε μάγων τῶν περὶ Ζωροάστρην ὁ λόγος οῦ᾽τός ἐστι, εἴτε Θρᾴκιος . . .

6_41. Cf. Minucius Felix, 26, § 11: "Hostanes daemonas prodidit terrenos vagos humanitatis inimicos." The pagan idea, that the air was peopled with evil spirits against whom man had to struggle perpetually, persisted among the Christians; cf. Ephes., ii. 2, vi. 12, see also Prudentius, Hamartigenia, 514 ff.

6_42. Cf. Minucius Felix, loc. cit.: "Magi non solum sciunt daemonas, sed quidquid miraculi ludunt, per daemonas faciunt," etc. Cf. Aug., Civ. Dei, X, 9 and infra, ch. VII, n.  7_76.

6_43. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 139 ff.

6_44. Theod. Mopsuest. ap. Photius, Bibl. 81. Cf. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 8.

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6_45. Cf. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im neutest. Zeitalter, 1903, pp. 483 ff.

6_46. Julian, Cæsares, p. 336 C. The term ἐντολαί is the one also used in the Greek Church for the commandments of the Lord.

6_47. Cf. supra, p. 36.

6_48. The remark is from Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta, II, p. 441.

6_49. Cf. Reinach, op. cit., [260], pp. 230 ff.

6_50. Farnell, Evolution of Religion, p. 127.

6_51. Mithra is sanctus (Mon. myst. Mithra, II, p. 533), like the Syrian gods; cf. supra, ch. V, n.  5_47.

6_52. Mon. myst. Mithra, I, pp. 309 ff. The eschatology of orthodox Mazdaism has been expounded recently by Söderblom, La vie future d'après le mazdéisme, Paris, 1901.

6_53. Cf. supra, ch. IV, p. 100, ch. V, p. 126.

6_54. We have explained this theory above, p. 125. It was foreign to the religion of Zoroaster and was introduced into the mysteries of Mithra with the Chaldean astrology. Moreover, ancient mythological ideas were always mixed with this learned theology. For instance, it was an old Oriental belief that souls, being regarded as material, wore clothing (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 15, n. 5; Bousset, Archiv für Religionswiss., IV, 1901, p. 233, n. 2; Rev. hist. des relig., 1899, p. 243, and especially Böklen, Die Verwandtschaft der jüdisch-christlichen und der parsischen Eschatologie, Göttingen, 1902, pp. 61 ff. Thence arose the notion prevalent to the end of paganism, that the soul in passing through the planetary spheres, took on the qualities of the stars "like successive tunics." Porphyry, De abstin., 1, 31: Ἀποδυτεόν ἄρα τοὺσ πολλοὺσ ἡμῖν χιτῶνας κ. τ. λ.; Macrobius, Somnium Sc., I, II, § 12: "In singulis sphaeris aetherea obvolutione vestitur"; I, 12, § 13: "Luminosi corporis amicitur accessu"; Proclus, In Tim., I, 113, 8, Diehl ed.: Περιβάλλεσθαι χιτῶνας; Procl., Opera, Cousin ed., p. 222: "Exuendum autem nobis et tunicas quas descendentes induti sumus"; Kroll, De orac. Chaidaïcis, p. 51, n. 2: Ψυχὴ ἑσσαμένη νοῦν; Julian, Or., II, p. 123, 22, (Hertlein). Cf. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-römische Kultur, p. 168 n. 1. Compare what

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[paragraph continues] Hippolytus, Philos., V, I, says of Isis (Ishtar?) in connection with the Naasenians. She is ἑπτάστολος, because nature also is covered with seven ethereal garments, the seven heavens of the planets; see Ps.-Apul., Asclepius, 34 (p. 75, 2 Thomas): "Mundum sensibilem et, quae in eo sunt, omnia a superiore illo mundo quasi ex vestimento esse contecta." I have insisted upon the persistence of this idea, because it may help us to grasp the significance attributed to a detail of the Mithra ritual in connection with which Porphyry relates nothing but contradictory interpretations. The persons initiated into the seven degrees were obliged to put on different costumes. The seven degrees of initiation successively conferred upon the mystic were symbols of the seven planetary spheres, through which the soul ascended after death (Mon. myst. Mithra, I, p. 316), the garments assumed by the initiates were probably considered as emblems of those "tunics" which the soul put on when descending into the lower realms and discarded on returning to heaven.

6_55. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, p. 579.

6_56. Anatole France, Le mannequin d'osier, p. 318. Cf. Reinach, op. cit. [p. 260], p. 232.