From Ritual to Romance

by
Jesse L. Weston

Chapter 12

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Synopsis for Chapter XII
Mithra and Attis

Problem of close connection of cults.  Their apparent divergence.
Nature of deities examined.  Attis.  Mithra.  The Messianic Feast.
Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie.  Difference between the two
initiations.  Link between Phrygian, Mithraic, and Christian,
Mysteries to be found in their higher, esoteric, teaching.  Women not
admitted to Mithraic initiation.  Possible survival in Grail text.
Joint diffusion through the Roman Empire.  Cumont's evidence.  Traces
of cult in British Isles.  Possible explanation of unorthodox
character of Grail legend.  Evidence of survival of cult in fifth
century.  The Elucidation a possible record of historic facts.  Reason
for connecting Grail with Arthurian tradition.


Chapter XII
Mithra and Attis

The fact that there was, at a very early date, among a certain sect of
Christian Gnostics, a well-developed body of doctrine, based upon the
essential harmony existing between the Old Faith and the New, which
claimed by means of a two-fold Initiation to impact to the inner
circle of its adherents the secret of life, physical and spiritual,
being, in face of the evidence given in the previous chapter, placed
beyond any possible doubt, we must now ask, is there any evidence that
such teaching survived for any length of time, or could have
penetrated to the British Isles, where, in view of the priority of the
Bleheris-Gawain form, the Grail legend, as we know it, seems to have
originated?  I think there is at least presumptive evidence of such
preservation, and transmission.  I have already alluded to the close
connection existing between the Attis cult, and the worship of the
popular Persian deity, Mithra, and have given quotations from Cumont
illustrating this connection; it will be worth while to study the
question somewhat more closely, and discover, if possible, the reason
for this intimate alliance.

On the face of it there seems to be absolutely no reason for the
connection of these cults; the two deities in no way resemble each
other; the stories connected with them have no possible analogy;
the root conception is widely divergent.

With the character of the deity we know as Adonis, or Attis, we are
now thoroughly familiar.  In the first instance it seems to be the
human element in the myth which is most insisted upon.  He is a
mortal youth beloved by a great goddess; only after his tragic death
does he appear to assume divine attributes, and, alike in death and
resurrection, become the accepted personification of natural energies.

Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun, remarks that Adonis belongs to "einer
Klasse von Wesen sehr unbestimmter Art der wohl über den Menschen aber
unter den grossen Göttern stehen, und weniger Individualität besitzen
als diese."[1]  Such a criticism applies of course equally to Attis.

Mithra, on the other hand, occupies an entirely different position.
Cumont, in his Mystères de Mithra, thus describes him; he is
"le génie de la lumière céleste.  Il n'est ni le soleil, ni la lune,
ni les étoiles, mais à l'aide de ces mille oreilles, et de ces deux
milles yeux, il surveille le monde."[2]

His beneficent activities might seem to afford a meeting ground with
the Vegetation goods--"Il donne l'accroissement, il donne l'abondance,
il donne les troupeaux, il donne la progéniture et la vie."[3]

This summary may aptly be compared with the lament for Tammuz,
quoted in Chapter 3.

But the worship of Mithra in the form in which it spread throughout
the Roman Empire, Mithra as the god of the Imperial armies, the deity
beloved of the Roman legionary, was in no sense of this concrete and
material type.

This is how Cumont sums up the main features.  Mithra is the Mediator,
who stands between "le Dieu inaccessible, et inconnaissable, qui règne
dans les sphères éthérées, et le genre humain qui s'agite ici-bas."--"Il
est le Logos émané de Dieu, et participant à sa toute puissance, qui
après avoir formé le monde comme démiurge continue à veiller sur lui."
The initiates must practice a strict chastity--"La résistance à la
sensualité était un des aspects du combat contre le principe du mal--le
dualisme Mithraique servait de fondement à une morale très pure et
très efficace."[4]

Finally, Mithraism taught the resurrection of the body--Mithra will
descend upon earth, and will revive all men.  All will issue from
their graves, resume their former appearance and recognize each
other.  All will be united in one great assembly, and the good will
be separated from the evil.  Then in one supreme sacrifice Mithra
will immolate the divine bull, and mixing its fat with the consecrated
wine will offer to the righteous the cup of Eternal Life.[5]

The final parallel with the Messianic Feast described in Chapter 9
is too striking to be overlooked.

The celestial nature of the deity is also well brought out in the
curious text edited by Dieterich from the great Magic Papyrus of
the Bibliothèque Nationale, and referred to in a previous chapter.
This text purports to be a formula of initiation, and we find the
aspirant ascending through the Seven Heavenly Spheres, to be finally
met by Mithra who brings him to the presence of God.  So in the
Mithraic temples we find seven ladders, the ascent of which by the
Initiate typified his passage to the seventh and supreme Heaven.[6]

Bousset points out that the original idea was that of three Heavens
above which was Paradise; the conception of Seven Heavens, ruled
by the seven Planets, which we find in Mithraism, is due to the
influence of Babylonian sidereal cults.[7]

There is thus a marked difference between the two initiations;
the Attis initiate dies, is possibly buried, and revives with his god;
the Mithra initiate rises direct to the celestial sphere, where he is
met and welcomed by his god.  There is here no evidence of the death
and resurrection of the deity.

What then is the point of contact between the cults that brought them
into such close and intimate relationship?

I think it must be sought in the higher teaching, which, under widely
differing external mediums, included elements common to both.  In both
cults the final aim was the attainment of spiritual and eternal life.
Moreover, both possessed essential features which admitted, if they
did not encourage, an assimilation with Christianity.  Both of them,
if forced to yield ground to their powerful rival, could, with a fair
show of reason, claim that they had been not vanquished, but
fulfilled, that their teaching had, in Christianity, attained its
normal term.

The extracts given above will show the striking analogy between the
higher doctrine of Mithraism, and the fundamental teaching of its great
rival, a resemblance that was fully admitted, and which became the
subject of heated polemic.  Greek philosophers did not hesitate to
establish a parallel entirely favourable to Mithraism, while Christian
apologists insisted that such resemblances were the work of the Devil,
a line of argument which, as we have seen above, they had already
adopted with regard to the older Mysteries.  It is a matter of
historical fact that at one moment the religious fate of the West hung
in the balance, and it was an open question whether Mithraism or
Christianity would be the dominant Creed.[8]

On the other hand we have also seen that certainly one early Christian
sect, the Naassenes, while equally regarding the Logos as the centre
of their belief, held the equivalent deity to be Attis, and frequented
the Phrygian Mysteries as the most direct source of spiritual
enlightenment, while the teaching as to the Death and Resurrection
of the god, and the celebration of a Mystic Feast, in which the
worshippers partook of the Food and Drink of Eternal Life, offered
parallels to Christian doctrine and practice to the full as striking
as any to be found in the Persian faith.

I would therefore submit that it was rather through the medium of
their inner, Esoteric, teaching, that the two faiths, so different in
their external practice, preserved so close and intimate a connection
and that, by the medium of that same Esoteric teaching, both alike
came into contact with Christianity, and, in the case of the Phrygian
cult, could, and actually did, claim identity with it.

Baudissin in his work above referred to suggests that the Adonis
cult owed its popularity to its higher, rather than to its lower,
elements, to its suggestion of ever-renewing life, rather than to the
satisfaction of physical desire to be found in it.[9]  Later evidence
seems to prove that he judged correctly.

We may also note that the Attis Mysteries were utilized by the priests
of Mithra for the initiation of women who were originally excluded
from the cult of the Persian god.  Cumont remarks that this, an
absolute rule in the Western communities, seems to have had exceptions
in the Eastern.[10]  Is it possible that the passage quoted in the
previous chapter, in which Perceval is informed that no woman may
speak of the Grail, is due to contamination with the Mithra worship?
It does not appear to be in harmony with the prominent position assigned
to women in the Grail ritual, the introduction of a female Grail
messenger, or the fact that (with the exception of Merlin in the
Borron text) it is invariably a maiden who directs the hero on his
road to the Grail castle, or reproaches him for his failure there.

But there is little doubt that, separately, or in conjunction,
both cults travelled to the furthest borders of the Roman Empire.
The medium of transmission is very fully discussed by Cumont in both
of the works referred to.  The channel appears to have been three-fold.
First, commercial, through the medium of Syrian merchants.  As
ardently religious as practically business-like, the Syrians
introduced their native deities wherever they penetrated, "founding
their chapels at the same time as their counting-houses."[11]

Secondly, there was social penetration--by means of the Asiatic
slaves, who formed a part of most Roman households, and the State
employés, such as officers of customs, army paymasters, etc., largely
recruited from Oriental sources.

Thirdly, and most important, were the soldiers, the foreign legions,
who, drawn mostly from the Eastern parts of the Empire, brought their
native deities with them.  Cumont signalizes as the most active agents
of the dispersion of the cult of Mithra, Soldiers, Slaves, and
Merchants.[12]

As far North as Hadrian's Dyke there has been found an inscription in
verse in honour of the goddess of Hierapolis, the author a prefect,
probably, Cumont remarks, the officer of a cohort of Hamii, stationed
in this distant spot.  Dedications to Melkart and Astarte have been
found at Corbridge near Newcastle.  The Mithraic remains are
practically confined to garrison centres, London, York, Chester,
Caerleon-on-Usk, and along Hadrian's Dyke.[13]  From the highly
interesting map attached to the Study, giving the sites of ascertained
Mithraic remains, there seems to have been such a centre in
Pembrokeshire.

Now in view of all this evidence is it not at least possible that
the higher form of the Attis cult, that in which it was known and
practised by early Gnostic Christians, may have been known in Great
Britain?  Scholars have been struck by the curiously unorthodox tone
of the Grail romances, their apparent insistence on a succession
quite other than the accredited Apostolic tradition, and yet, according
to the writers, directly received from Christ Himself.  The late
M. Paulin Paris believed that the source of this peculiar feature was
to be found in the struggle for independence of the early British
Church; but, after all, the differences of that Church with Rome
affected only minor points of discipline: the date of Easter, the
fashion of tonsure of the clergy, nothing which touched vital
doctrines of the Faith.  Certainly the British Church never claimed
the possession of a revelation à part.  But if the theory based upon
the evidence of the Naassene document be accepted such a presentation
can be well accounted for.  According to Hippolytus the doctrines of
the sect were derived from James, the brother of Our Lord, and Clement
of Alexandria asserts that "The Lord imparted the Gnosis to James
the Just, to John and to Peter, after His Resurrection; these delivered
it to the rest of the Apostles, and they to the Seventy."[14]
Thus the theory proposed in these pages will account not only for the
undeniable parallels existing between the Vegetation cults and the
Grail romances, but also for the Heterodox colouring of the latter,
two elements which at first sight would appear to be wholly
unconnected, and quite incapable of relation to a common source.

Nor in view of the persistent vitality and survival, even to our own
day, of the Exoteric practices can there be anything improbable in
the hypothesis of a late survival of the Esoteric side of the ritual.
Cumont points out that the worship of Mithra was practised in the
fifth century in certain remote cantons of the Alps and the
Vosges--i.e., at the date historically assigned to King Arthur.
Thus it would not be in any way surprising if a tradition of the
survival of these semi-Christian rites at this period also existed.[15]
In my opinion it is the tradition of such a survival which lies at
the root, and explains the confused imagery, of the text we know as the
Elucidation.  I have already, in my short study of the subject, set
forth my views; as I have since found further reasons for maintaining
the correctness of the solution proposed, I will repeat it here.[16]

The text in question is found in three of our existing Grail versions:
in the MS. of Mons; in the printed edition of 1530; and in the German
translation of Wisse-Colin.  It is now prefixed to the poem of
Chrétien de Troyes, but obviously, from the content, had originally
nothing to do with that version.

It opens with the passage quoted above (p. 130) in which Master Blihis
utters his solemn warning against revealing the secret of the Grail.
It goes on to tell how aforetime there were maidens dwelling in the
hills[17] who brought forth to the passing traveller food and drink.
But King Amangons outraged one of these maidens, and took away from
her her golden Cup:

         "Des puceles une esforcha
         Et la coupe d'or li toli--[4]."

His knights, when they saw their lord act thus, followed his evil
example, forced the fairest of the maidens, and robbed them of their
cups of gold.  As a result the springs dried up, the land became
waste, and the court of the Rich Fisher, which had filled the land
with plenty, could no longer be found.

For 1000 years the land lies waste, till, in the days of King Arthur,
his knights find maidens wandering in the woods, each with her
attendant knight.  They joust, and one, Blihos-Bliheris, vanquished by
Gawain, comes to court and tells how these maidens are the descendants
of those ravished by King Amangons and his men, and how, could the
court of the Fisher King, and the Grail, once more be found, the
land would again become fertile.  Blihos-Bliheris is, we are told,
so entrancing a story-teller that none at court could ever weary of
listening to his words.

The natural result, which here does not immediately concern us, was
that Arthur's knights undertook the quest, and Gawain achieved it.
Now at first sight this account appears to be nothing but a fantastic
fairy-tale (as such Professor Brown obviously regarded it), and
although the late Dr Sebastian Evans attempted in all seriousness to
find a historical basis for the story in the events which provoked the
pronouncement of the Papal Interdict upon the realm of King John, and
the consequent deprivation of the Sacraments, I am not aware that
anyone took the solution seriously.  Yet, on the basis of the theory
now set forth, is it not possible that there may be a real foundation
of historical fact at the root of this wildly picturesque tale?  May
it not be simply a poetical version of the disappearance from the land
of Britain of the open performance of an ancient Nature ritual?
A ritual that lingered on in the hills and mountains of Wales as the
Mithra worship did in the Alps and Vosges, celebrated as that cult
habitually was, in natural caverns, and mountain hollows?  That it
records the outrage offered by some, probably local, chieftain to a
priestess of the cult, an evil example followed by his men, and the
subsequent cessation of the public celebration of the rites, a
cessation which in the folk-belief would certainly be held sufficient
to account for any subsequent drought that might affect the land?
But the ritual, in its higher, esoteric, form was still secretly
observed, and the tradition, alike of its disappearance as a public
cult, and of its persistence in some carefully hidden strong-hold,
was handed on in the families of those who had been, perhaps still were,
officiants of these rites.

That among the handers on of the torch would be the descendants of the
outraged maidens, is most probable.

The sense of mystery, of a real danger to be faced, of an overwhelming
Spiritual gain to be won, were of the essential nature of the tale.
It was the very mystery of Life which lay beneath the picturesque
wrappings; small wonder that the Quest of the Grail became the synonym
for the highest achievement that could be set before men, and that
when the romantic evolution of the Arthurian tradition reached its
term, this supreme adventure was swept within the magic circle.  The
knowledge of the Grail was the utmost man could achieve, Arthur's
knights were the very flower of manhood, it was fitting that to them
the supreme test be offered.  That the man who first told the story,
and boldly, as befitted a born teller of tales, wedded it the
Arthurian legend, was himself connected by descent with the ancient
Faith, himself actually held the Secret of the Grail, and told, in
purposely romantic form, that of which he knew, I am firmly convinced,
nor do I think that the time is far distant when the missing links
will be in our hand, and we shall be able to weld once more the golden
chain which connects Ancient Ritual with Medieval Romance.


Notes to Chapter XII

[1]  Op. cit. p. 71.
[2]  Op. cit. p. 3.
[3]  Op. cit. p. 4.
[4]  Cumont, op. cit. pp. 129-141 et seq.
[5]  Op. cit. p. 148.
[6]  Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie, the text is given with
translation and is followed by an elaborate commentary.
The whole study is most interesting and suggestive.
[7]  Cf. Bousset, Der Himmelfahrt der Seele, Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft, Vol. IV.
[8]  Cumont, op. cit. pp. 199 et seq.
[9]  Adonis und Esumn, p. 521.
[10] Cf. Mead, op. cit. p. 179, note; Cumont, Mystères de Mithra, p. 183.
[11] Cumont, Les Religions Orientales, pp. 160 et seq.
[12] Mystères de Mithra, p. 77.
[13] Les Religions Orientales, pp. 166, 167, Mystères de Mithra, p. 57.
[14] Mead, op. cit. pp. 147, 148, and note.
[15] Without entering into indiscreet details I may say that students
of the Mysteries are well aware of the continued survival of this
ritual under circumstances which correspond exactly with the
indications of two of our Grail romances.
[16] The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 110 et seq.
[17] Professor A. C. L. Brown, Notes on Celtic Cauldrons of Plenty,
n. p. 249, translates this 'wells,' an error into which the late
Mr Alfred Nutt had already fallen.  Wisse Colin translates this
correctly, berg, gebirge.
[18] I suspect that the robbery of the Golden Cup was originally
a symbolic expression for the outrage being offered.

[ End of chapter ]