Message #134126

[Demiurge]

At his right stood an altar with fire; from the idol's mouth proceeded a ribbon or scroll extending over the fire."

This lion-headed deity can be no other than Jerome's "Pater Bromius," a Grecian title of Bacchus; and he, we are told, distinguished himself under that disguise in the famous war of the giants--


"Tu cum Parentis regna per arduum
 Cohors Gigantum scanderet impia,
 Rhætum retorsisti leonis
    Unguibus horribilique mala."
                        (Horace, Od. II. xix. 21-24.)

[paragraph continues] And, tracing back this composite figure to the real source of such iconology, it is found to be the very one under which "Nri-singha-avatar" is depicted. It was assumed by the deity in order to destroy the tyrant Hiransyakacipu, who had obtained the gift of invulnerability against all known beasts, either by day or night.

A Mithraic cave, with the contiguous buildings, was discovered at Spoleto in 1878. In the end wall were the usual three niches for the god and his torch-bearers. In front of them an altar inscribed "Soli invicto Mithræ sacrum." Close to the altar, a tall phallic stone, perforated with a square hole near the top--perhaps the "stone symbolizing the Birth of Mithras" mentioned by Firmicus. The cave, with the ground plan of the whole edifice is given in the 'Archæologia,' vol. 47, p. 205.



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