1 Earliest Rome

12. R E L I G I O U S G R O U P S
2. The date of Euboulos is unknown, but his work was used by Numenius and Kronios
writing on Platonic philosophy perhaps c. A.D. 160-80.
3. R. L. Gordon (1980a) elucidates die animal symbolism, and shows thar women, despite
their title 'Hyenas 7
, were not initiated into the mysteries (cf. Vol. 1, 298). On Lions see
further 12.5c(v) and 12.5h(xiv).
4. Pallas wrote in or after the reign of Hadrian.
12.5e The soldier of Mithras
Here the Christian writer Tertullian makes play with the word 'soldier' - which
referred not only to a member of the Roman army and a follower of Christ, but
also to the third Mithraic grade (12.5a). He is emphasizing that the soldier of
Christ is the only true soldier. The passage is drawn from a trearise written in
defence of a Christian soldier who had recently displayed disloyalty by refusing
to wear the customary crown at a distribution of imperial bounty to the troops,
perhaps in A.D. 211.
See further: Vol. 1, 288, 294-5; Vermaseren (1963) 144-6*; R. L. Gordon
(1975) 234-6; Clauss (1992).
Tertullian, On the Soldier's Crown 15.3-4
You should be ashamed now, fellow soldiers , not of being
judged by him but by some soldier of Mithras. When he is initiated in the cave, in the
teal camp of darkness, he is offered a crown on a sword point, a sort of mockery of
martyrdom, which is then fitted on his head, but he is instructed to remove it with his
hand from his head and to transfer it, if possible, to his shoulders, saying that Mithtas is
his crown. And from then on he never wears a crown, and has thar as a mark of his
initiation^ whenever he is put to the test at the oath-taking, and is immediately
recognized as a soldier of Mithras, if he rejects the crown, if he says that in his god he has
his crown. Let us recognize the devices of the devil, especially when he creates imitations
of divine rites so as to shame and condemn us with the faith of his followers.
312
12.5f The Mithraic ascent of the soul
Celsus, as part of his now lost critique of Christianity, had occasion to refer to
'some Persian mysteries', apparently part of Mithraic rituals. The passage,
which is part of the Christian Origen's reply to Celsus (cf. 11.11c), gives a
unique account of the ascent of the soul through the seven planets. However,
we do not know the source of Celsus' list nor its context in Celsus' original
work. There is therefore room for debate about how far it is strictly Mithraic.
The sequence of seven planets assumed here is not confirmed in other texts,
nor evidenced by any monument. But the layout of some buildings docs play
with similar ideas. In Germany some have seven entrance steps down into the
building; the mithraettm at Dura Europus in Syria has a seven-stepped staircase
up to the cult niche. At Ostia one sanctuary (Sette Sfere) depicts on the