Description of the Plates... | Sacred Texts Archive

The Gnostics and Their Remains, by Charles William King, [1887], at sacred-texts.com

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Plate L

PLATE L.

MITHRAIC (continued).

1. The Mithraic Lion, moving through the stars of heaven. The reverse exhibits a complete assemblage of the Siglæ that are found, dispersed, upon so many talismans. That they stand for the names of deities and astral Powers may be guessed from the fact that Mohammedans still express Allah by a circle filled up with diagonal lines.

2. Lion-headed Man, doubtless a Leonticus (one of the grades in the Mithraic Mysteries), uttering, with uplifted hand, the inexplicable adjuration, "O, Centaur of God, Thou match for a hundred [demons]!" Here ἑκατοντομάχος is formed after the analogy of μονομάχος, "a match for one."

3. A Mobed (Zoroastrian priest or Magus) performing his nocturnal devotions before an altar, on which are set up various sacra, amongst which may be recognised the regular insignia of his profession, the Sword and the Divining-rods. Engraved upon the base of a calcedony cone, an early form of the signet in Assyria.

4. Horus, the Vernal Sun-god, making the gesture of adoration, his whip resting upon his left arm. He is seated upon the seed-vessel of the lotus, that aptest symbol of the Universe, in virtue of its, innumerable contents. In the long, clearly-cut legend that fills the exergue, no hitherto-explained formulæ are to be recognised.