Citation with stable link: Justin Nadeau, 'Egyptians, Phrygians, Assyrians and Persians: Firmicus Maternus on impious customs (mid-fourth century CE),' Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World, last modified August 14, 2024, https://philipharland.com/Blog/?p=17208.
Ancient author: Firmicus Maternus, On the Errors of Impious Rites / De errore profanarum religionis 1-6 (link; link to Latin).
Comments (by Justin Nadeau): We know nothing about Julius Firmicus Maternus beyond what he tells us in his writings. He was from Syracuse in Sicily and had practiced law at some point. Mention of other contemporaries in his writings indicate he was active in the time of Constantine I, who had tolerated worship of the Christians’ god.
The passage below is from one of two surviving works attributed to Maternus. The first work is called Mathesis, the longest surviving work in Latin on astrology (written in the 330s CE). That work presents itself as though it is a summary of what the Egyptian sages and Babylonian priests teach regarding the stars (Mathesis, book 1 proemium, 6). So, at that point in his development, Firmicus showed considerable respect for foreign wisdom from those sources.
The second work, partially cited below, was On the Errors of Impious Rites and was aimed at critiquing rites or mysteries, beginning with a focus on those with an ostensibly foreign origin (likely written in the mid-340s CE). Some time between these works, Firmicus had evidently adopted the Christian god, since the latter work is written from a Christan perspective even though it does not spell out the details of that perspective.
On the Errors of Impious Rites is presented as though it is a defence before the emperors. It seeks to identify the errors of prevailing rites associated with several previously dominant peoples, particularly Egyptians, Phrygians, Assyrians, and Persians. Excluded here is Marternus’ extensive discussion of the misguided rites of the Greeks and Romans. Throughout, Maternus is concerned to interpret the rites as references to the four elements in nature, but he suggests that these elements were improperly understood by the peoples in question.
Works consulted: P.F. Beatrice, “On the Meaning of ‘Profane’ in the Pagan-Christian Conflict of Late Antiquity: The Fathers, Firmicus Maternus and Porphyry before the Orphic ‘Prorrhesis’ (OF 245.1 Kern),” Illinois Classical Studies 30 (2005): 137–65 (link); J.R. Bram, Ancient Astrology, Theory And Practice: Matheseos Libri VIII by Firmicus Maternus (Park Ridge, NJ: Noyes Press, 1975) (link); C.A. Forbes, Firmicus Maternus: The Error of the Pagan Religions (New York, NY: Newman Press, 1970) (link);
Source of translation: R.E. Oster, Julius Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (MA Thesis, Houston, Texas, Rice University, 1971) (link), used with permission from Richard Oster, adapted.
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[Introduction to the errors of the peoples]
[Ostensibly addressing the Roman emperors:]
(1) That which the Creator . . . God accomplished (?) . . . in the creation of man, as we previously mentioned, with annual warnings about lost men, particularly must be revealed. . . . In evidence of the truth, (?) . . . with clear proofs . . . and with testimonies of examples, we will show that . . . it was invented and perfected (?) . . . through the devil . . . to pervert (?) . . . by blemished thinking of the spirit, by the hope of future good luck, and by twisted reasoning wretched men entangled with perpetual disasters. . . . No one (?). . . is to be found who doubts that there are four . . . principle (?). . . elements . . . of creation (?). . . . These are fire, air, water, and earth. However, these elements are different or perhaps contrary in their own property. So the peoples (gentes) are in error, peoples who, since they attribute pre-eminence to the elements even now, . . . reckon fire (?). . . as if it were the greatest god, as if the others had their essence from its very . . . heat (?). . . . They do not know that all elements are joined by reason of their own contrary nature and that these elements have God as their Creator. It is he who . . . created (?). . . and arranged everything with its own place and order, which we conceive by mind or by thinking, or doubtlessly which we also perceive with our eyes, put together and arranged by the divine power of his own Word.
[Egyptians’ mistaken customs]
(2) The inhabitants of Egypt, . . . recognizing the benefits (?). . . of water, worship it. They pray to the water. They venerate the water with a superstitious succession of prayers. However, in their sacred rites, which they call mysteries, they add tragic funerals and fearful struggles of a deadly disaster. The disaster was that one committed incest and adultery with his sister and his crime was avenged by the husband with harsh punishments. Isis is the sister, Osiris is the brother and Typhon is the husband. When Typhon learned that his wife Isis had been corrupted by the incestuous passions of her brother, he killed Osiris and mutilated him joint by joint and threw the writhing members of his poor body over all the banks of the Nile river. Isis, after rejecting Typhon and in order to bury her brother and consort, summoned as allies her sister Nephthys and Anubis the hunter to herself. It is for this reason that a dog’s head was placed on Anubis, because he, with the skill of a tracking hound found the parts of the mutilated body. When Osiris was found in this way, Isis delivered him for burial. Naturally, they were kings as they were also powerful kings among the Egyptians. But Osiris, apart from the incest which he committed with his sister, was just and for this reason was worshipped. Typhon, however, was fanatic, arrogant and outrageous and for this reason was shunned.
This is the focal point of the rite of Isis. They have an idol of Osiris buried in the holiest part of the temple. They mourn this with annual mournings. They shave their heads to lament the pitiable ruin of their king by means of the unsightliness of a disgraced head. They beat their chest, they lacerate their arms, and they tear open the scars of old wounds so that, through their annual mournings, the destruction of that deadly and pitiable death is reborn in their souls.
And when they had accomplished these things on certain days, then they pretend that they search for the remains of the mutilated body of Osiris and when they find it they rejoice as if the sorrow was appeased. Oh wretched and fallen humankind! In order to annually send funeral offerings in honour of your dead kings, while neglecting the greatest God who created all things with temperance of divine workmanship, you destroy your hope as well as your life. You are not corrected by the splendor of the light which is revealed to you, nor do you seek the signs of a regained freedom. Neither do you acknowledge the hope of salvation returned to you, nor do you, from repentance, request the forgiveness of past crimes. In vain you believe that this water which you worship will some time be beneficial to you. There is another water by which renewed men are reborn. Another force dries up this water which you worship every year by the drying up of the river bed, or the mournful blood of your king pollutes it. You despise that water which is on fire; it is adorned with the greatness of a spirit that should be revered, so that healthy sanity flows from this water over the old scars of conscience for believing men.
But these funerals and mournings are in reality funerals, funerals which happened and regarding which there are remains extant today, because the crematory of Osiris is in Egypt today and the remains of his cremated body are perceivable. The defenders of them wish to produce an explanation pertaining to nature, saying that Osiris is the seed of the fruits, that Isis is the earth, and that Typhon is the heat, because fruits which are ripened by heat are gathered for the life of men and, being divided, they are separated from a participation in the earth and when winter approaches they are planted again. They wish this to be the death of Osiris when they put back the fruits. Indeed, this is the discovery of Osiris when the fruits conceived from fertilizing nourishment of the earth begin again to be generated with yearly production.
Let’s grant that this is the true explanation for those rites of yours. Let’s grant that because of the fruits prayers are returned to the deity. Why do you add incest, why adultery, why do you add destruction consisting of wretched punishment? Why do you present a bad example from your own sacred rites to men make mistakes and desire to sin openly? The explanation pertaining to nature which you mentioned is obscured by a different type. Moreover, why should that which is known to all be hidden? Why do you wail over fruits? Why do you mourn over the “re-multiplying” seeds? All these things were given by the divine liberality of the greatest God for the livelihood of humanity. On account of this, thanksgivings must be given to the greatest God and the gracious gift of the greatest God must not be mourned.
Weep rather because you do wrong and always moan your sins with renewed mournings! Do not seek another’s funeral with yearly sacred rites. Rather, prepare consolations every year for your own funerals! You wretched man! You rejoice that you have found something – though I do not know what – when you destroy your own soul yearly on account of these sacred rites. You find nothing there except an image – an image that you yourself set up – which time and again you either search for or mourn over. Search rather for the hope of salvation! Search for a gleam of light! Search for that which either commends or restores you to the greatest God, and when you will have found the true way of salvation, rejoice and then with the excited freedom of speech proclaim, “We have found, we rejoice together.” Shout this, when after your repentance, you are freed from these disasters by the kindness of the greatest God.
[Phrygians’ mistaken customs]
(3) The Phrygians, who inhabit Pessinous [Ballıhisar, Turkey, location of a key temple of the Great Mother] around the banks of the river Gallus, attribute the origin of all the other elements to the earth.They wish the earth to be the mother of everything. Then, in order to make themselves an annual order of sacred rites for themselves, and with annual mournings, they consecrated the love of the rich woman who was once their queen and who tyrannically wanted to take vengeance upon the scorn of the loved youth. In order to satisfy the wrathful woman or rather to seek solace for the penitent one, they boast that the one whom a short time before they buried, now lived again. Since the spirit of the woman was burning from the impatience of excessive love, they built a temple for the dead youth.
Then, what the wrathful woman had done, because of the injustice of her rejected beauty, they want the priest appointed by them to suffer. So in the annual sacred rites, the procession of this very funeral is prepared with honour for the earth, so that when men are persuaded that they worship the earth, they are actually worshipping the ruin of a wretched funeral.
Also here, most holy emperors, in order that this error may be kept secret, they also want these sacred rites to consist of an explanation pertaining to nature. They want the earth to love the fruits. In fact, they wish Attis to be this very thing which is born from the fruits. Moreover, they want the punishment which he sustained to be that which the reaper does to the ripening fruit with the sickle. They compare his death to the planting of the gathered seed and his renewed life to the sown seed which are reborn with annual regularity.
Now I want them to respond to my questioning. Why combine this innocence of the seeds and fruits with a funeral, with death, with pride, with punishment and with love? Seriously, is there not anything else which one can say? Is there anything, which in giving thanks to the greatest God for the fruits, wretched humankind might do? You howl in order to rejoice. And when you saw true reason, you did not repent that you had sometimes done this. But you do this so that occupied with annual mournings you may always escape life and search for death.
Let them tell me! How did it benefit the fruits when they renew their bemoaning with annual howls, having been reborn to groan over the disaster of a funeral, which they say is composed by an explanation pertaining to nature? You moan and wail, and hide your wailings by another explanation. The farmer knows when to plow. He knows when to commit the grains to the furrows, and he knows when to collect the crops ripened by the flames of the sun. He knows when to grind up the dried grain. This is natural reason. These are true sacrifices which are fulfilled with the annual labor of men with healthy minds.
Divinity seeks this innocence, so that men may serve the ordained laws of nature in the collecting of fruits. Why are myths about wretched death sought for in the order of nature? Why is that which should not to be hidden is hidden with tears? Hence it is necessary for them to confess that these sacred rites are not in honour of the fruits, but were composed in honour of another death. For those who allot primary respect to this element say that the earth is the mother of all the gods. In fact, we neither refuse nor deny that she is the mother of their gods since they always make their own gods from things collected from this earth or from rocks or from wood.
The seas flow around the entire earth, and again, having been enclosed it is drawn together by the circle of the encircling ocean. Also, it is covered by the circular sublimity of the sky. It is blown throughout by the winds. It is sprinkled with rains and confesses its own fears with the quivers of perpetual movement. Consider what awaits you who worship these things, when your gods, by everyday confessions, betray to you their own weaknesses.
[Assyrians’ mistaken customs]
(4) The Assyrians and part of the Africans wish air to have the leadership of the elements and venerate this with an imagined allegorical representation. For they consecrated this same thing – namely air –with the name of Juno or the virgin Venus, supposing that at one time virginity was satisfying to Venus. Naturally they want Juno – in case incest is lacking – to become a wife from the sister of Jupiter. In fact, they made this element into a woman, having been influenced by a devotion that I am not familar with.
Because air is placed between the seas and sky, they address it with effeminate voices of the priests. Tell me! Is this a divinity which searches for the female in the male? Is this a divinity to whom the chorus of his own priests is unable to serve him unless they make their own face like a woman, polish their skin and shame the masculine sex with female ornaments? One is able to see wretched mockeries, with public lamentation, in these very temples. Men endure feminine things and uncover this stain of an impure and lewd body with a boastful display. They make public their own evil deeds and confess with the maximum stain of delight the crime of their defiled body.
They fix their styled hair like that of a woman, and having dressed in delicate robes, it is with difficulty, with a tired neck, that they uphold their head. And then when they have made themselves all together different from men, having been inspired with a song from the flutes, they call to their own goddess so that having been filled with a heinous spirit they predict the future, so to speak, to credulous men. What is this monster, or what is this beast? They deny that they are men, and they are not women. They wish that they were believed to be women, but a certain aspect of the body attests otherwise. It must also be considered what kind of divinity it is which is thus charmed by the association of an impure body, which follows after lewd members and which is pleased by the polluted contamination of the body.
Be ashamed before the greatest, you wretched men! God made you to be different from that. When your group approaches the judgment seat of the examining God, you will bring nothing with you which the God who made you can acknowledge.Abandon the error of such a disaster, and forsake once and for all the inclination of an unholy mind! Do not condemn the body, which God made, with the unholy law of the devil! Come to the aid of your disaster while time still permits it! God freely forgives and his mercy is rich.
After leaving the ninety-nine sheep, he searches for the one which is lost. When the prodigal son returns, the father gives clothes and prepares dinner. I do not want the large number of crimes to make you despair. The greatest God, through his own son Jesus Christ our lord, acquits those who are willing, and freely forgives those who repent. He does not demand much in order to forgive. With only faith and repentance you are able to redeem whatever you destroyed on account of the wicked persuasion of the devil.
[Persians and Magians’ mistaken customs]
(5) The Persian and all the Magians who live within the Persian region, prefer fire and think that fire should to be preferred to all elements. So they divide fire in two properties, transferring its nature to each of the two sexes, reckoning the essence of fire to the image of a man and a woman. They arrange a certain woman with a triple face, encumbering her with monstrous serpents.Therefore, they made this image so that it differs not in any respect from its author, the devil, but so that their own goddess, sprouting with serpents, might be adorned with the blemished marks of the devil.
In fact, while worshipping a man, an ox thief, they transfer his sacred rites to the property of fire. Just as his prophet, speaking, transmitted to us: “Oh initiate of the ox stealer, fortunate one of the noble father.” They call him Mithra. In fact, they transmit his sacred rites in hidden caves, so that they avoid the grace of the splendid and clear light, having been submerged in the shady filth of darkness. Oh true deification of divinity! Oh the lies of the pagan law must be avoided! You believe he is a god whose wrongdoings you confess, and so you who say that the sacred rites are performed correctly in these temples with the Persian rites of the Magians, why do you praise only these Persian rites. If you suppose that this is worthy of the Roman name to serve the laws and the sacred rites of the Persians. . . [two missing pages].
. . .having been armed with a bronze shield and covered with a breastplate, who is consecrated on the top of the highest citadel. There is also a third part which – in the rough and secret part of the woods–is allotted the rule over the wild beasts. The last part of the tripartite division is the one which points out the ways of the lusts and the deformed desires and the enticements of perverted passion. It is for this reason that they assign one part of the soul to the head so that it may seem to contain the anger of man in a certain way. They place the other part in the heart so that it appears to contain a variety of different understandings which with multiple intentions we conceive in the manner of woods. A third part is assembled in the liver, from where lust and passion are born. For the gathered fecundity of the productive seeds in there draws out the desire of passion by natural stimulus.
Diligently observe then why this very division is accomplished so that the reason of truth might easily fight this fiction. If the soul is divided and is separated from its own essence by a different kind of power, and having been dissolved with respect to its own category. It begins to be that which it was not and ceases to be what it had been. For one is mind, one is anger, and another is lust. Therefore, this very separation dissolves the soul and allows the greatest loss from this very division. Neither does this thing totally preserve its own appearance or form, which having been separated is divided into three contrary parts, and to speak more truly, is made mortal on account of this very division.
For everything which is able to be divided is body. Moreover, it is necessary that it be mortal. If, therefore, the soul is divided it is a body: if it is a body, it is also necessary that this very thing be mortal. These are the outstanding and noticeable lies of this error. The maximum benefit is conferred to us on account of its consecration. With the fantasies of these sacred rites of theirs, the soul seems to be mortal.
(6) And so, most holy emperors, these are the elements which are consecrated by ruined men. . . [omitted extensive discussion of errors related to Greek and Roman deities].