Found a unexpected Mithras - Odin Iconographical Link

[Onasander]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Mithras_tauroctony_Louvre_Ma3441b.jpg

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Manuscript_Odinn.jpg/640px-Manuscript_Odinn.jpg

 

I had been having a terribly time deciphering a 19th century text on the Fragments of Numenius, his "Cave of the Sea Nymphs" analogy, but especially the descent and rising of the soul, with the tropics of Capricorn and cancer, underworld being involved, within the larger framework of three gods. Well, I was more or less screwed working through it, as his fragments were, well, VERY fragmentary. The visual reconstruction lead to a tilted earth, with the tropic of cancer being closer to the earth than the tropic of Capricorn (say what?!).

 

So I redoubled my efforts, hating to throw a potentially good fact away. I started looking into Ionian seamanship and exploration, tilt of the earth axis via the seasons, what portions of what constellations could be seen and when (still working on that last part).

 

I had typed the out of copyright translation up, and was correcting its language (still am), turning manifold doubleness into Duality, etc.... but uncertain if he is pushing a real Monadic theory as I know it from the pre-einstein era in Natural Philosophy or in India, or more like Leibniz. I kept focusing on his cosmology, building up in my mind a visual map of every stage I understood. I believe (not 100%) that he was describing a Analemma and not just a simple circle for the soul's migration into matter and back.

 

I got the only other translation I know of, hard to get, Robert Petty's PHD Thesis, and found the Tropic of Cancer-Capricorn story was much bigger than I thought, and that I was on the right track, just missing a lot of info.

 

But I kept thinking of church domes, simulating the universe, and of the ceiling in the Library of Alexandria. And images of the ends of underground Mithra Temples. I don't know why, maybe it was the underground Neo-Pythagorean underground temple in Rome that made that unconscious connection, hard to say.

 

So I've continued to read, unable to shake the idea of souls entering either end. I know I lack any data architecturally to suggest this, and will undoubtedly eliminate it, but it remains hovering.

 

I none the less have been looking up images of Mithra temples the last hour. I recognize now why Mithras was looking at the Sun from Numenius' perspective.... Sun being the Monad, Mithras being the Creator God, who is only Good IF he is looking to the Monad, while slaughtering the Bull for life to thrive. Each animal is very different, unlike the other. Scorpion is a kind of bug, Snake is a legless Reptile, Ravens Fly, dog is a mammal, each can lend themselves to allegories and myth.

 

Numenius called the Monad Apollo, and the Raven was a prophetic messenger of Apollo, according to those picture books I read as a kid.

 

It couldn't be, could it? The damn raven is hanging out next to the sun in every other image. I saw a few with a snake, and the moon in Apollo/Sol Invictus' place.

 

So I said to myself "You know dammit, your a philosopher, you know how to invert a logical system by systematically approaching it from a very different style of thinking."

 

So I did. I said to myself, even IF the Mythraic religion was secretive, a fucking loudmouth like Numenius who LOVED to get initiated into mystery cults and then immediately spill their beans (feeling guilty afterwards) would of leaked this stuff all over, and even if it didn't, it likely seeped into different myths over time, be they Roman or a later barbarian state.

 

So I googled Ravens and Sun.

 

Guess what I found?

 

That image of Odin. Raven in the sun, with a whisp of the cape/lopsided facial hair heading off to the sun.

 

It also has a second raven, suggesting what the underlining "mystery" originally was, a psychological one. Each creature I'm guessing represented a hidden nature in each man.

 

I don't know what manuscript this text comes from. Could be pure coincidence, but a lot of parallels exist.

 

This is my state at only the beginning. Found this unexpectantly fast. Pretty cool, huh?

 

(Mithras was a cult BIG on Serotonin Increase OVER Dopamine alone, should make it easier to predict and shuffle through ideas).

Edited April 5, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

Okay.... think I found the dadophoroi.

 

This is them in Latin, see the similar yet different names?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cautes_and_Cautopates

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpens_Cauda

 

This was once a single constellation, but got chopped into two:

Serpens Caput, Serpens Cauda..... Which in English kinda looks like Cates and Cadupates, in terms of how they modify one another and remain phonetically somewhat similar. I don't mean to suggest they mean the same thing, but there is a pattern.

 

From what I've read, these two sit on the eleptic plane of the sun, which this picture describes:

 

http://moonblink.info/File/Graphics/diagrams/Orbits.png

 

So we have two guys leading the sun and moon from what is generally gathered from Mithraic Iconography.... one holding a torch up, another down.... one little guy for the sun, one for the moon.

 

So.... I'm then looking for a myth where two people/creatures are leading the sun and moon.

 

I didn't find that, but I did find a pick of two dogs CHASING the sun and the moon, Odin's two dogs, and their names coincidentally follow a somewhat similar formula:

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geri_and_Freki

 

So Odin, up in Scandinavia, somehow got Mithra's Raven, Sun, and the Dadophoroi with a echo of the phonetic patterns that emerged when Serpens was cut in half.

 

Those damn Swedes stole Mithras from the Romans. I mean, you can still see Mithras cape in the Odin icon going off into the sun....

 

I gotta ask.... how?

 

The route of this transmission if confusing me. It was a military and civil government religion.... died out. Vikings came later. I doubt missionary efforts to convert them in some far away land up north.

 

Goths within the Roman empire maybe. They served in the military, went back home, or... hard to say what home would be, they went north.

 

Or, some Viking fell his butt through a hole in a ground, landing on a statue, and saw all this scenery up on the walls, and copied it. But if so, how would he get the name pattern for the two wolves?

 

Another is, the cult of Mithras simply held out somewhere in Northern Europe, and it fell elsewhere, and the vikings or Germans came across it.

 

Another possibility is, there was once a text describing the cult of Mithras in detail, and they of all people inherited it. It could of been a manuscript on a shelf in some monastery, they found it and brought it home.

 

I haven't the slightest clue.

 

Anchorage, Alaska is at a similar latitude, and when I lived there I saw no snakes or scorpions, so doubt it make it over.

[Onasander]

https://books.google.com/books?id=gjq6rvoIRpAC&pg=PT42&lpg=PT42&dq=odin+mithras&source=bl&ots=dqofkt1CDm&sig=hCkOU7c8fxLR0a1qjcMcBgJw_lk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RcMhVePEGM62ogTz9ICoDA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAQ

 

I can't find the particular coin he mentions, and that image is a tad bit blury, but I found a similar one.

 

Raven, Bull, big headed guy.

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/wp-content/blogs.dir/417/files/2012/04/i-44350ecb459f8be36edec601dfc5c492-vadstena.jpg

 

I'm going to look into this author, Olof Sundqvist. Hope this isn't some ancient article.

Edited April 5, 2015 by Onasander

[Onasander]

http://sukat.su.se/resultat.jsp?ufilter=cn-expand-permute&ofilter=ou-expand-permute&cn-expand-permute=Olof+Sundqvist

 

I found his address, sent him an email. Waiting for confirmation I'm wrong about everything.

[Onasander]

Found this:

http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/orion.htm

 

Orion was blind, had two dogs, and sun restored his eyesight. Odin seems similar to this, but not necessarily to Mithras as I know him.

 

However, Orion does face down Taurus, the bull, and I do seem to remember long ago Mithras sits largely in Orion's constellation, but I can't recall where the bull fits in under him, much less where the two dogs are in relation to the snake. I'm having difficulty imagining where everything is.

 

I was googling moon over bull, man over bull.... doing a image search. I see occasionally a pic of Mithras with the bull over his back.... this stuff came up. This as well (doubt it is relevant, late southern Indian coin)

http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php/topic,29250.0.html?PHPSESSID=0373f4e646e2c3e5c6c5dd23b8da0617

 

I'll include it just incase someone sees a link to some aspect.

[Onasander]

This is from "Cow Sacrifice Replinishing Fields Dods"

 

I came up with a Roman Festival

 

The Robigalia

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/robigalia.html

 

It didn't occur to me, despite the obvious Zodiak encompassing the entire year, and sacrificial feasts, that the cultists might have festivals for every aspect of this festival.

 

If I remember back in my memory, it wasn't usually Cattle that was sacrificed, but ..... I fell asleep. Umm... wasn't usually cattle, but chickens and such from the bones recovered. I believe dogs too.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraic_mysteries#/media/File:Cautes_riding_bull,_Hermannstadt.jpg

 

Matches that Scandinavian coin, bug headed guy riding bull.

 

I'm going to sleep now.

[Onasander]

Hmmm.... This shoots the modern "Roman Origins" theory down for the Mithraic cult.

 

Porphyr lists in Fr. 60 (page 101 of Robert Petty's 'Fragments of Numenius of Apamea") that Eubulus, an Athenian poet, talked of the Mithraic cult and from what I've just seen poking around, wrote a book on it, mentioning he was in a cave.

 

Easy to dismiss? Perhaps, till you look at the meaning of Eubulus' name.

 

http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/EleusiniosEubouleus.html

 

Several aspects of the Mithraic iconography pops up.

 

I know gotta figure out how to say Eubulus in Old/Middle Persian to identify place names.

[Onasander]

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mehr-narseh

An Armenian Christian source, according to which an Zurvanite proselytizer, Mihr-Narseh, spoke of the words openly:

 

“ 'We do not worship, like you, the elements, the sun, the moon, the winds and the fire.'[4]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism_in_Armenia

 

I'm actually having a bit of difficulty figuring out who said this to who, was it Narsis saying it to the "Christian", as it makes absolutely no sense, or the reverse? It fits a Platonic oriented cult of Mithras exactly however, and would make a lot of sense in that context.