iatique qu'au moment ou Diocletien reconnaissait
officiellement en Mithra, le protecteur de l'empire reconstitue." See
also Cumont's Mysteres de Mithra, preface. The Roman Army, in fact,
stuck to Mithra throughout, as against Christianity; and so did the
Roman nobility. (See S. Augustine's Confessions, Book VIII, ch. 2.)

(3) Cumont indeed says that the identification of Mithra with the
Sun (the emblem of imperial power) formed one reason why Mithraism was
NOT persecuted at that time.

(4) Epist. cvii, ad Laetam. See Robertson's Pagan Christs, p.
350.

Nor was force the only method employed. IMITATION is not only the
sincerest flattery, but it is often the most subtle and effective way of
defeating a rival. The priests of the rising Christian Church were, like
the priests of ALL religions, not wanting in craft; and at this moment
when the question of a World-religion was in the balance, it was an
obvious policy for them to throw into their own scale as many elements
as possible of the popular Pagan cults. Mithraism had been flourishing
for 600 years; and it is, to say the least, CURIOUS that the Mithraic
doctrines and legends which I have just mentioned should all have been
adopted (quite unintentionally of course!) into Christianity; and still
more so that some others from the same source, like the legend of the
Shepherds at the Nativity and the doctrine of the Resurrection and
Ascension, which are NOT mentioned at all in the original draft of the
earliest Gospel (St. Mark), should have made their appearance, in the
Christian writings at a later time, when Mithraism was making great
forward strides. History shows that as a Church progresses and expands
it generally feels compelled to enlarge and fortify its own foundations
by inserting material which was not there at first. I shall shortly give
another illustration of this; at present I will merely point out
that the Christian writers, as time went on, not only introduced new
doctrines, legends, miracles and so forth--most of which we can trace to
antecedent pagan sources--but that they took especial pains to
destroy the pagan records and so obliterate the evidence of their own
dishonesty. We learn from Porphyry (1) that there were several elaborate
treatises setting forth the religion of Mithra; and J. M. Robertson adds
(Pagan Christs, p. 325): "everyone of these has been destroyed by the
care of the Church, and it is remarkable that even the treatise of
Firmic