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Mithraism and Gnosticism

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Mithraism and Gnosticism Mithraism and Gnosticism The theme of'Mithraism and Gnosticism' is at the same time fascinating and difficult to handle. It evokes a general question of relations between gnos­ ticism and the mystery cults (and the mysteriosophic doctrines)! of late pagan antiquity, but is at the same time conditioned by the specific char­ acteristics of the sources of Mithraism, that historical-religious 'quantity' which is so well determined yet so difficult to penetrate. Furthermore, it must be said that, whereas the final form of the initiatory cult of Mithras in the Roman milieu may be clearly caught through the remains of its typical sanctuaries and through direct witnesses (though poor in contents) which its adepts have bequeathed to us, the questions of the historical-cultural back­ ground of Mithraism are more complex than those of other mystery cults of the Graeco-Roman world. Suffice it to mention the researches of the Swedish school, and in particular those of G. Widengren,2 which examine the prob­ lem of the relations of Mithraism with Iran and those ~octrines which also play an essential part in the same author's studies of the origins of Gnosticism. We will face the problem starting with Mithraism's occidental connections. We have already hinted at this argument in a previous article on certain aspects of Gnostic and 'Orphic' theologies that imply syncretism or analogies with the Mithraic material.3 In this paper, two topics will be considered: first the cult and the figure of Arimanius in the mysteries, and second the ascensus of the souls-topics that most evidently belong to the question of 'Mithraism and Gnosticism'. 1 For a distinction between 'mystery religions' and 'mysteriosophy' see 'Initiation, mysteres, gnose', in C. J. Bleeker (ed.), Initiation, Leiden, 1965, pp. 154-71, and Numen xn, 3, 1965, p. 170. 2 Numen 1, 1 1954, pp. 65 ff.; Iranisch-semitische Kulturbegegnung in parthischer Zeit, Cologne and Opladen, 1960, pp. 51 f.; Die Religionen [rans, Stuttgart, 1965, pp. 225-32 (Les Religions de l' Iran, Paris, 1968, pp. 252--62); 'The Mithraic mysteries in the Greco-Roman world, with special regard to their Iranian background', in La Persia e il mondo greco-romano, Accad. Naz. dei Lincei, Roma, 1966, pp. 433-56. 3 'Protogonos. Aspetti dell'idea di· Dio nelle religioni esoteriche dell'antichita', Sttidi e materiali di storia delle religioni, xxvm, 2, 1957, pp. 115-33. [208] 458 Ugo Bianchi Far from what sometimes happens when studying conjectural questions, it has been the documentary material itself that has raised the question about the cult and the figure of Arimanius in the Mithraic mysteries. In spite of what Plutarch4 and others say about a 'black' cult of Ahriman,5 (texts which do not in fact refer directly to the Mithraic mysteries), one would never have expected the mysteries, which seem so poor in Iranian divine names,6 to reveal not an occasional but a typical Ahriman cult, at any rate a cult of his Latin linguistic equivalent, Arimanius qualified as deus. 7 This Arimanius of the Mithraic mysteries does not seem to enjoy a 'black' cult, in the sense of it being hidden, forbidden, aggressive, 'magical'. 8 Apart from the qualification of deus, he is also honoured with ex voto offerings by exalted members of the initiated hierarchy,9 within the frame of the spelaea, even if (as seems likely) outside the central space.10 It might be asked whether the Arimanian cult, though not a 'black' cult in its proper sense, might not have had a certain apotropaeic nature that could bring it closer to the 'black' cult of Plutarch's Areimanios. The thoroughly and irreducibly negative character of the Iranian Ahriman and of Plutarch's Areimanios makes this a real possibility but does not overcome certain difficulties and compels us to examine the problem more deeply. It is a fact that the dedicatory formulae used for the deus Arimanius11 are so like the usual forms of the Latin votive 4 De /side, 46 f. 3690-3700. 5 R. C. Zaehner, l{,urvan: a Zoroastrian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955, pp. 13-16, 24 (with other passages quoted in. the index, s.v. 'devil-~orshippers', p. 482), 19, 35. 8 J. Duchesne--Guillemin, 'Ahriman et le dieu supreme dans les mysteres de Mithra', Nwnen 11, 3, 1955, p. 191. 7 Vermaseren,G/MRM,No. 369 (= G/Lvi,47; Cumont, TMMMn, No. 27,fromRome); GIMRM, No. 1773 (= GIL 111, 3415; TMMM 11, No. 324, from Pannonia). GIMRM, No. 1775 (= GIL m, 3414; TMMM 11, No. 323, from Pannonia). To be compared are (see below) CIMRM, No. 834 (= TMMM n, No. 474, from York) and CIMRM, No. 222 (= GIL XIV, 4311, from Ostia: dedication ofa statue of Arimanius). s It is only with substantial reservation that we can accept Zaehner's statement (op. cit., p. 19; cf. Duchesne-Guillemin, op. cit., pp. 191 f.), that 'the mysteries of Mithra ... are "devil-worshipping" ... in that they allow offerings to be made to Ahriman, the 'prince of devils'. As we shall see, the Mithraists' Arimanius was not just a devil but a Gnostic-shaped (inferior) arclwn. Too immediate a comparison of the actual cult of deus Arimanius with the daiva cult suppressed by Xerxes and also the Persian 'yiitukih "sorcery", and diviisnih "devil­ worship" ', is therefore anachronistic; it could be considered only in the context ofa complete discussion of the Iranian prehistory of Mithraism. 9 A magister et pater patrum is the dedicator of the Roman inscription GIMRM, No. 369; a leo, of GIMRM, No. 1773; GIMRM, No. 222 mentions a Pater, M. Lollianus Callinicus, who is responsible for other Mithraic dedications of the most orthodox tenor, and is men­ tioned in other Ostian epigraphical records, one of which concerns the local 'establishment' (cf. GIL XIV, 4310-12, 4569 dee, 111, 7). 10 So the leontocephaline of Mithraeum m of Heddernheim (TMMM 11, p. 375, mon. No. 253 f.; GIMRM, No. 1123; Duchesne-Guillemin, art. cit., p. 191). The signum Arimanium ofOstia (GIMRM, No. 222) was placed in an aedicula and was placed-as it seems (Becatti, I mitrei di Ostia, pp. g-20; Maria Floriani Squarciapino, / culti orientali ad Ostia, pp. 38 f. )-in the Mitreo della Casa di Diana (late second century A.a.). 11 GIMRM, Nos. 222: do(num) ded(it); 1773: voto dic(avit); 369: voti c(ompos) d(at); perhaps also 834: d(onum) d(edit) (? see below). [209] .
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