The Mithraic worship took the form of a mystery with seven
grades, or degrees, through which candidates passed by ordeals of initiation.
The rites included a kind of baptism with holy water, a sacrificial meal of
bread and wine, and daily litanies to the sun. Mithra was represented as a
youthful hero miraculously born from a rock at the dawn of day; for this reason
his worship was always conducted underground in natural or artificial caves, or
in cellars. At the back of one of these subterranean temples would be often a
picture of Mithra slaying a bull, and an inscription: "To the
Unconquerable Sun, to Mithra."
[16] Soli Invicto Mithrae. An interesting survival
of Mithra worship is the date of our festival of Christmas. The 25th of
December was the day of the great annual celebration in memory of the Persian
deity. In 274 A.D. the emperor Aurelian raised a gorgeous temple to the sun god
in the Campus Martius, dedicating it on the 25th of December, "the
birthday of the Unconquerable Sun." After the triumph of Christianity the
day was still honored, but henceforth as the anniversary of the birth of
Christ.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS
The new Oriental religions all appealed to the emotions.
They helped to satisfy the spiritual wants of men and women, by dwelling on the
need of purification from sin and by holding forth the prospect of a happier
life beyond the tomb. It is not strange, therefore, that they penetrated every
province of the Roman Empire and flourished as late as the fourth century of
our era. Christianity had no more dangerous antagonists than the followers of
Mithra and other eastern divinities.
