Mithras: the 'Zardusht' reference

This is a bogus quotation often circulated online.  Here is a translation of the Cumont article that lies behind it.

St. Justin and Tertullian see in these mithraic meals a satanic imitation of the Christian communion ¹. The Greek apologist, recalling how the eucharist was instituted, ends by observing that the perverse demons imitated it in the mysteries of Mithras, and he refers to ritual formulas which were marked on the bread and the cup presented to the worshipper during his initiation; they must have offered some resemblance to the words pronounced by Jesus in the last supper ².

A strange passage in a late work may perhaps compensate for the reticence of Justin, who scrupled to reproduce the pagan formulae. An Arab manuscript in Syriac characters (Karshuni) of the Library of Birmingham ³ containing a homily or pastoral letter, the theme of which is to put side by side the false pretentions of the Jews and Magians and the true wisdom of Christianity.  The motif which is repeated with monotonous rigour, is that the devil has accomplished a series of miracles among the unbelievers, but, to these false miracles, God has opposed true ones.  Speaking about the Magi ^193.1,  the unknown author asserts that Zoroaster, having built pyres, exhorted his followers to throw themselves into the fire, and that they would seem to perish in the flames; and then coming out safe and well, they would appear to have come back from the dead, but this was only an illusion produced by magic spells.  But Christ measured himself against Zoroaster, and by really bringing people back from the dead, made the propaganda of the Magi in the whole world pointless.  Then the Christian writer adds:  "This Zardasht again says to his disciples: whoever does not eat of my body and does not drink of my blood, so that he mixes with me and I mix with him, he will not have salvation... But Christ says to his disciples: Whoever eats my body and drinks my blood will have eternal life. ^193.2"  The first part of this passage really goes back to a Mazdaean tradition, according to which similar wonders proved the divine mission of Zoroaster.

In his childhood, he {Zoroaster} is thrown into a large bonfire at the instigation of the wizards, but the burning flames save him and his mother finds him alive ^195.1. Later, one reads elsewhere, the prophet being withdrawn on a mountain, a rain of fire set fire to him, but the Persians, who had come to pray in this place, see the prophet appear unharmed ^195.2. When the author of the Arab homily claims to have consulted a book of the Magi, the title of which unfortunately could not be deciphered, he appears to be telling the truth. There is thus some probability that he also found in this book the words which he gives to Zoroaster addressing his disciples. So had this book transferred to the person of the founder of Mazdaeism that which the Mithraists applied to the Bull; that it was necessary, in a mystical meal, to consume its flesh and to drink its blood? Perhaps. But our medieval source is so confused that it would be labour lost, I believe, to try to clarify this.  It is not doubtful that certain Magi moved their traditions closer to the doctrines of the Church and claimed for themselves the priority.  A Mazdaean myth, stripped of its true sense, was called upon to prove that Jesus, whose miraculous star was to announce the birth to the astrologers of Persia, was an avatar of Zoroaster ^195.3: "He will arise, says he, from my family and my line; I am him, and he is me; I am in him, and he is in me " These words offer a singular analogy with those of the anonymous Arab "so that he mixes with me and I mix with him".

1. Tertullien. De praescr. haeret.. 40 : Mithra celebrat et panis oblationem et imaginent resurrectionis inducit. »

2. Justin. Apol. I, 66 ...

3. A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Mingana collection of manuscripts (Birmingham, Selley Oak colleges library) Cambridge, 1933. Ms. Mingana, n° 142, ff. 48 à 61. --- Our attention was drawn to this manuscript by Fr. Vosé, whose erudition as an orientalist has again allowed us to profit from his discoveries.  Our friend Mr. Levi della Vida agreed to undertake to translate the Karshuni work which interested us, with his proven competence, and he proposed to study in it more detail and determine its sources and date.  The war has unfortunately halted his research; let us hope, only temporarily.

193.1.  We reproduce here the translation of what this difficult to access and sometimes not very comprehensible work says about the Magi.  f. 158 b: "As for the sect of the Magi, we will say again to you what did Zardasht in the time of L d. yû. n (or c. d. yû. n), the 82^nd king after Adam.  He started pyres, and accomplished prodigies which induced souls to obey him.  Among his various miracles, he excited people to throw themselves into the pyres, and those who saw them believed that they burned, but all this was art of sorcery.  After some time, as they always found them in the pyres, the people believed (f. 159 a) that they were resuscitated, as the book Z. b. h. r. and other books of the Magi attest.  This Zardasht again says to his disciples: whoever does not eat of my body and does not drink of my blood, so that he mixes with me and I mix with him, he will not have salvation."  When his works became famous, and his followers spread in the world, they boiled and drank beef.

193.2. Jean, VI, 53; cf Matth., XXVI, 26. — On the introduction of a similar formula into Manicheism, cf Alberry, Das manichäische Bema-Fest (Zeitschr. F Neutest. Wissenschaft, 1938, XXXVII, p. 7).

195.1.  Dinkart, VII, 3, 8 s. (West, Pahlavi Texts, V, 36), Zad-Sparam, XVI, 7 (Ibid., p. 146). The same story in the Zarâtust Nama persan (Rosenberg, Le livre de Zoroastre, 1904, c. 8, p. 12).

195.2.  Dion Chrysost... Or.. XXXVI, 39. cf. our Mages hellénisés. I, p. 29 ; II, p. 143. In the same way at the end of the world, the just will traverse a river of fire without feeling the burning (Boundahish, XXX. 18).

195.3.  Theodore bar Koni, in Mages hellénisés, vol. II, p. 128 (translation of P. Peeters) ; cf. vol. I, p. 52 ff.

Bibliography

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