The Miraculous Birth of Mithras

Abstract

The series of scenes representing the heroic legend of the Persian Mithras opens with the birth of the young god. It is the only scene of Mithras' childhood and some details of it may therefore not be out of place here where we are paying homage to Prof. Dr. G. van Hoorn who has contributed so much to our knowledge of child-life in Antiquity. The scarce literary evidence as well as the abundant archaeological material give us different versions of the way in which Mithras came into the world and it is hardly possible to reconcile the two *). In the Yasht 10, the hymn of the recent Avesta, in which Mithras is specially invoked, the Persian god of light appears resplendent in a golden colour on the top of the mountain Hara b?r?zaiti, the present Elburz in Persia, from where he looks over the whole earth of the Aryan people 2). This is not a description of a real birth, but this manifestation of the deity as the giver of light, pouring forth his largess every morning anew and, besides, the feminine name of the mountain were apt to lead to the conception of the birth of the god from a Mother-Goddess. Yet, the idea of Mithras as a son of Ahura-Mazda, the Knowing Lord, or as born naturally from a woman, though attested by some late Armenian writers, did not become traditional3). Mithras' birth remained an obscure affair: the principal thing was that he existed and helped anyone who lived in true obedience to his laws. Neither in the Western world did the authors conceive Mithras as a child procreated by a father or born from a woman or even