PART
2 – Ch.XIV.13
(KION OURANOU. The Sky Column on
in
the country of the Hyperboreans)
XIV.
13. Prometheus (Mithra) as theos ex
petras, invictus de
During the
Graeco-Roman antiquity there still existed a legend connected to the Pelasgian
theology from the Danube, which treated the birth of the god Mithra
(Prometheus) from rock, called in dogmatic sense theos ex petras (Firmicus, De err. prof. rel. c. 20), invictus de petra natus (Commodianus, Ed. Migne, Patr. curs.
ser. prim. lat. V. 210-211).
Various statues and
bas-reliefs from the Roman epoch show Mithra as a youth with long hair, or with
curly hair, naked or clothed in a sort of Daco-Phrygian costume, rising or
emerging into light from a stone pillar, while around the pillar is figured a
coiled serpent [1].
[1. A statue representing the birth of the god MIthra from the rock
has been discovered at Sarmizegetusa and is reproduced in Arch. Epigr. Mitth.
VII. p. 224 and in
The emergence of
Prometheus or Mithra from a rock pillar refers in fact to the same antique
legend communicated by Eschyl.
Mercury sent by
Jove to Prometheus, chained on Pharang, addresses him the following words:
“Firstly the father
of gods will shatter with his thunders and lightning this corner of Pharang,
and will hide your body in a womb of
rock, and after a long interval of time you will again come out into the
light and then the winged dog of Jove, the bloodthirsty aquila, will avidly rip
pieces off your body and will eat your black liver” (Prometheus vinctus, v.
1016 seqq).
After the doctrine
about the birth of the god Mithra from a rock pillar had been established as an
absolute religious truth, the Pelasgian theology had attributed a divine
character also to the pillar (the creative power) from which the god had been
born. “
This cult of
Prometheus or Mithra, emerged or born from a stone pillar is celebrated even
today in Romanian carols.
In one of these
religious hymns is said that God was enclosed into a rock pillar which was on a
height, on the lower part of the key of heaven, or in other words, in a rock
pillar from the region which the ancient Roman theology named Cardines mundi.
The text of this
Romanian carol, which by its contents appears as very archaic, is the
following:
High up at the key of heaven, good group was
assembled
Only Saints of
those saintly, and they read and prophesied
[2],
And they read of
Good God, but Good God they did not know.
- And Ion Sant – Ion…., spoke like this….
You read, prophesy,
and read of Good God,
But Good God you do
not know, while I come, and know him well,
Down at the key of heaven, in pillar of stone he is locked up.
- When the Saints
heard, they all jumped and flew,
High and higher
they rose, with clouds they mingled,
Low and lower they
descended, on pillar of stone they
dropped;
When they arrived
there, books in hands they took,
And read, and
prophesied, for three days and for three nights,
Pillar of stone in four was split, behold Good God escaped”
(Communicated
by the teacher T. Popescu from the
village Rasova,
[2. It means that the saints consulted oracle books. As
results from this carol, whose essence is epic-theogonic, the Pelasgian tribes
from near the
We note also that Abaris,
the renowned prophet and priest of Apollo had written, according to Suidas, a book of oracles in the
Scythian language].
As we see, the text
of this carol presents the release of the god Mithra from the pillar of stone
through the mysterious power of the ancient prayers or sacred formulae. (The
Latin race had always strongly believed in the miraculous power of the ancient
prayers and formulae – Pliny, II.
54; XXVIII. 3).
Another version
presents theos ex petras as in later legends, as God born from the rock.
A group of small
Saints, Lerului Domne, Domn in the sky,
Enquired after Good
God, enquired but found him not,
But Ilie [3], well he knows him….and they
talked and he told them….
See you that block of rock, from afar drop on it,
From nearby pray, rock in four split,
From there Good God is born, you will know him
when he’s born,
On your wings take
him, high and higher lift him,
High and higher to
the “lighion” (TN - ?), where there’s Saint Ion…
(Communicated
by the teacher Baiculescu, Baltati
village, Ramnicul-Sarat district).
[3. Saint Ilie is the god Helios (Sol),
whose eternal eye sees everything (Ovid,
Met. IV. 120; Homer, Hymn. in Cer.
v. 62). In a Romanian carol from Transilvania (Gaz. Trans. Nr. 281, 1899) the
divinity of the Sun is invoked under the name “