BIBLIOGRAPHY: We shall not attempt here to give a bibliography of the works
devoted to Mazdaism. We shall merely refer the reader to that of Lehmann in
Chantepie de la Saussaye, _Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte_, II, p. 150.
We should mention, in the first place, Darmesteter, _Le Zend Avesta_, 1892
ff., with introductions and commentary.--In my _Textes et monuments
relatifs aux mystères de Mithra_ (2 vols., 1894-1900), I, pp. xx ff., I
have furnished a list of the earlier works on this subject; the conclusions
of the book have been published separately without the notes, under the
title: _Les Mystères de Mithra_, (2d ed., Paris and Brussels, 1902; English
translation, Chicago, 1903). See also the article "Mithra" in the
_Dictionnaire des antiquités_ of Daremberg and Saglio, 1904.--General
outlines of certain phases of this religion have been since given by Grill,
_Die persische Mysterienreligion und das Christentum_, 1903; Roeses, _Ueber
Mithrasdienst_, Stralsund, 1905; G. Wolff, _Ueber Mithrasdienst und
Mithreen_, Frankfort, 1909; Reinach, _La morale du mithraïsme_ in _Cultes,
mythes_, II, 1906, pp. 220 ff.; Dill, _op. cit._, pp. 594-626; cf. also
Bigg, _op. cit._ [p. 321], 1905, p. 46 ff.; Harnack, _Ausbreitung des
Christent._, II, p. 270. Among the learned researches which we cannot
enumerate here, the most important is that of Albrecht Dieterich, _Eine
Mithrasliturgie_, 1903. He has endeavored with some ingenuity to show that
a mystical passage inserted in a magic papyrus preserved at Paris is in
reality a fragment of a Mithraic liturgy, but here I share the skepticism
of Reitzenstein (_Neue Jahrb. f. das class. Altertum_, 1904, p. 192) and I
have given my reasons in _Rev. de l'Instr. publ. en Belg._, XLVII, 1904,
pp. 1 ff. Dieterich answered briefly in _Archiv f. Religionswis._, VIII,
1905, p. 502, but without convincing me. The author of the passage in
question may have been more or less accurate in giving his god the external
appearance of Mithra, but he certainly did not know the eschatology of the
Persian mysteries. We know, for {261} instance, through positive testimony
that they taught the dogma of the passage of the soul through the seven
planetary spheres, and that Mithra acted as a guide to his votaries in
their ascension to the realm of the blessed. Neither the former nor the
latter doctrine, however, is found in the fantastic uranography of the
magician. The name of Mithra, as elsewhere that of the magi Zoroaster and
Hostanes, helped to circulate an Egyptian forgery., cf. Wendland, _Die
hellenistisch-römische Kultur_, 1907, p. 168, n. 1. See on this controversy
Wünsch's notes in the 2d ed. of the _Mithrasliturgie_, 1910, pp. 225 ff.--A
considerable number of new monuments have been published of late years (the
mithreum of Saalburg by Jacobi, etc.). The most important ones are those of
the temple of Sidon preserved in the collection of Clercq (De Ridder,
_Marbres de la collection de C._, 1906, pp. 52 ff.) and those of Stockstadt
published by Drexel (_Der obergerm. Limes_, XXXIII, Heidelberg, 1910). In
the following notes I shall only mention the works or texts which could not
be utilized in my earlier researches.