Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

190 Direct identifications of Zeus with the Sun

A papyrus of the second century A.D. found at Oxyrhynchos pre-
serves the following question addressed to his oracle:

To Zeus the Sun, the mighty Serapis, and to the gods that share his temple.
Nike asks whether it is expedient for her to buy from Tasarapion her slave
Sarapion also called Gaion. Grant me this1.

The so-called Anastasy papyrus in the British Museum, a book
of magical formulae written probably in the fourth century A.D.2,
equates Zeus the Sun not only with Sarapis but also with the
ancient Indo-Iranian god Mithras3, who under Chaldean influence
came to be regarded as the sun4, commencing one of its mystic
sentences with the words:

I invoke thee, O Zeus the Sun, Mithras, Sarapis, the Unconquered, etc.5

Iiepdiridt), Inscr. Gr. Sic. It. no. 2244 Auximum in Picenum (Iovi Soli Serapi Aa'HXty
2e/)d7ri5i).

So Dessau Inscr. Lat. sel. nos. 4398 Apulum in Dacia (Sarapidi Iovi Soli), 4399 Rome
(Sol. Serapi Iovi). Cp. ib. no. 4397 Sassoferrati in Umbria (Iovi Soli invicto Sarapidi).

1 A. S. Hunt in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri London 1911 viii. 250 no. 1149 Au 'HX/y
/AeyaXii? 2e/>a7r[t]5t k.t.X., cp. ib. viii. 24c) f. no. 1148.

2 F. G. Kenyon The Palaeography of Greek Papyri Oxford 1899 p. 116.

3 Dr J. H. Moulton Early Religious Poetry of Persia Cambridge 1911 p. 36 f. 'An
extremely important Aryan god whose province came very near that of Dyaus was Mithra
(Skt. Mitra, Av. MiOra etc.). He seems to have belonged to the upper air rather than
to the sun. Prof. E. V. Arnold says there is little support in the Veda for the solar
connexion, unless it be in hymns which compare Agni to Mitra. Nor is the Avestan
yazata decisively sun-like. His name has no very convincing cognates in Indo-European
languages, and we are rather tempted to speculate on a prehistoric link between the
Aryans and Babylon, or some source influenced by Babylon. The "firmament" of the
first chapter of Genesis was very prominent in early Semitic mythology ; and it is remark-
able that the Assyrian metru, " rain," comes so near to Mithra's name*. [*I owe this to
my colleague Prof. H. W. Hogg. See further p. 47 below. J. H. M.] If this is his
origin, we get a remarkable basis for the Avestan use of the word to denote a contract, as
also for the fact that the deity is in the Avesta patron of Truth, and in the Veda of
Friendship. He is "the Mediator" between heaven and earth, as the firmament was by
its position, both in nature and in mythology: an easy corollary is his function of
regulating the relations of man and man.'

F. Cumont Die Mysterien des Mithra12 trans. G. Gehrich Leipzig 1911 p. 1 ff. is still
content to regard Mithra as an Indo-Iranian god of light (' Beide Religionen erblicken in
ihm eine Lichtgottheit, welche zugleich mit dem Himmel angerufen wird, der dort Varuna,
hier Ahura heisst' etc.).

The now famous cuneiform records of Kappadokia show that Mitra, Varuna, Indra,
and Nasatya were already worshipped by the Mitani,. an Indo-Iranian people dwelling
next to the Hittites in the north of Mesopotamia, as far back as c. the fourteenth
century B.C. (E. Meyer ' Das erste Auftreten der Arier in der Geschichte ' in the Sitzungs-
ber. d. Aknd. d. Wiss. Berlin 1908 p. 146°. and in his Geschichte des Altertums Stuttgart
1907 i. 22. 579, 829, 837).

4 F. Cumont in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 3056 ff. Dr J. H. Moulton op. cit. p. 35:
' Mithra...is sufficiently solar to give his name to the Sun in modern Persian (Mihr).'

5 C. Wessely Griechische Zauberpapyrus Wien 1888 p. 103, 5 f. eirLKaKovixai. ae £ev •
7]\l€ • fxiOpa • craSpa7rt • olvlkt]T€ k.t.\.

Cp. F. Cumont Textes et monuments figure's relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra Bruxelles

1