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The Magi the priests of the Iranians differed widely in their religious views from the Brahmans, inculcating a higher morality and a loftier theological creed, worshipping the Supreme Being without temples or shrines or images, although their religion ultimately degenerated into a worship of the powers of Nature, as the recognition of Mithra the sun-god and the mysterious fire-altars would seem to indicate.
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? But there is little doubt that, separately, or in conjunction, both cults travelled to the furthest borders of the Roman Empire.
This is not yet the place for a description of this regenerated empire of Cyrus; it is sufficient to mention generally the fact that powerful as was the influence of Hellenism in its composition, the Parthian state, as compared with that of the Seleucids, was based on a national and religious reaction, and that the old Iranian language, the order of the Magi and the worship of Mithra, the Oriental feudatory system, the cavalry of the desert and the bow and arrow, first emerged there in renewed and superior opposition to Hellenism.
I read in the Zend Avesta, "No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength speaks so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength speaks good. No earthly man with a hundred-fold strength does so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength does good." And now leave Persia and Zoroaster, and come down with me to our own New England and one of our old Puritan preachers.
And then he permitted and even encouraged the emotional sex to participate in the mysteries; the same tactics that later on materially helped the triumph of Christianity over the more exclusive and rational cult of Mithra. Lastly, he came with a "message," like the Apostle of the Gentiles; and in those times a preaching reformer was a novelty. That added a zest.
“That Zeus and Athena were greater than Mazda the Pure and glorious Mithra? To-morrow will prove him wrong. I wonder whether he yet lives,—whether he will ever confess that Persia is irresistible.” “I do not know. From the evening we parted at Phaleron he has faded from our world.” “He was fair as the Amesha-Spentas, was he not? Poor Roxana—she is again in Sardis now.
Our soldiers, indeed, who quitted their post, sought to cast on thee the blame due to their own cowardice. But we have not listened to them: their leader we punished with death, and to thy realm, I swear by Mithra, we have done no hurt. Arrange matters then so that thou mayest come to us with all speed, and consult with us concerning our common advantage. Then thou canst return home."
The elements, and more particularly Fire, Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, were the objects of their religious reverence, because they considered them as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature.
It is plain that Crishna of India and the Persian Mithra furnished the copy for the Jesus of the Romish Church, all of whom mean one and the same thing the second person in the Solar Trinity.
Waiting for the sacred hour of sunrise, the leader of the host, as the first rays appeared, poured a libation from a golden goblet into the sea, and prayed to Mithra that he might effect the conquest of Europe. As he prayed he cast into the sea the golden goblet, and with it a golden bowl and a short Persian sword.
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