Публикации автора

Justin the Philosopher, a second-century Christian author, discusses the cult of Mithras in his works First Apology on behalf of the Christians and Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Justin’s portrayal of Mithraic customs is traditionally interpreted in the light of his conception of imitatio diabolica, as the ἀρχή of pagan myths and beliefs. To illustrate the theory of diabolical imitation, Justin touches upon several features of Mithraic rituals and provides us with a few indications of Mithraic ethical teachings. Two curious accounts of Mithraic cave shrines in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (Justin. Dial. 70, 1–3; 78, 6) have not been closely examined by previous researchers and require our special attention. Justin draws a parallel between the Mithraic cave shrines and the prophecy of Isaiah (Isa. 33, 13–16), focusing on the prophet’s words concerning a cave and a cliff as he finds them analogous to Mithraic sanctums. Remarkably, Justin never refers to Mithraic temples as caves, but only as places, called so by Mithraists. He does not claim that the devil has taught Mithraists to perform rituals in caves, but insists that he has taught them to name their sanctuaries caves. Justin’s wording exposes his effort to accentuate the difference between the object (a shrine) and its name (cave). This indicates that Justin believed that Mithraists did not use natural caves as their sanctuaries, despite his knowledge of other aspects of this cult

Several ancient authors tell a puzzling story of treason to murder Alexander the Great by presenting him with poison or poisonous water carried in a curious vessel — a hoof of a horse, a mule, or an ass. Porphyry of Tyre, citing Kallimachos and Philo the Paradoxographer, gives us a reason to believe that the mention of hoof-made vessels was a misinterpretation of hornmade chalices, or put otherwise, drinking horns. Presuming that the vessel in question indeed was a drinking horn, we are left with an unusual image — Alexander the Great perished after drinking the poisonous water from the horn of a hornless animal. We can look into the development of this legend and propose its origins by examining mutual features of two distinct traditions — the Greek legend of the river Styx and its lethal streams and the Indo-Iranian tradition of several miraculous features of a unicorn’s horn, attested in Iranian, Indian, and Greek sources. After the survey of relevant sources, we see that the horn from Philo’s story represented a legendary present of Indian rulers intended to save Alexander the Great from harm. Various layers of misapprehension transformed the legendary gift into a device contracted to harm him. This way, the author demonstrates two points: 1) that the story told by Porphyry in Styg. 375F is a part of an Indo-Iranian tradition about unicorns and their miraculous features; and 2) that the legend of Alexander’s poisoning represents a transformed and misinterpreted story of Alexander’s grandest gift.