See Franz Cumont, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (Brussels, 1896, 1899), which has superseded all publications on the subject; Albrecht Dieterich, Eine Mithrasliturgie (Leipzig, 1903). See also the translation of Cumont’s Conclusions (the second part of vol. i. of the above work, published separately 1902, under the title Les Mystères de Mithra), by T. J. McCormack (Chicago and London, 1903). Extended bibliography in Roscher’s Lexicon der Mythologie. (G. Sn.)
MITRA, RAJENDRA LALA (1824–1891), Indian Orientalist,
was born in a suburb of Calcutta on the 15th of February 1824,
of a respectable family of the Kayasth or writer caste of Bengal.
To a large extent he was self-educated, studying Sanskrit and
Persian in the library of his father. In 1846 he was appointed
librarian of the Asiatic Society, and to that society the remainder
of his life was devoted—as philological secretary, as vice-president,
and as the first native president in 1885. Apart from
very numerous contributions to the society’s journal, and to
the series of Sanskrit texts entitled “Bibliotheca indica,” he
published three separate works: (1) The Antiquities of Orissa
(2 vols., 1875 and 1880), illustrated with photographic plates,
in which he traced back the image of Jagannath (Juggernaut)
and also the car-festival to a Buddhistic origin; (2) a similarly
illustrated work on Bodh Gaya (1878), the hermitage of Sakya
Muni, and (3) Indo-Aryans (2 vols., 1881), a collection of
essays dealing with the manners and customs of the people
of India from Vedic times. He received the honorary degree
of LL.D. from the university of Calcutta in 1875, the
companionship of the Indian Empire when that order was founded
in 1878, and the title of raja in 1888. He died at Calcutta
on the 26th of July 1891.
MITRE (Lat. mitra, from Gr. μίτρα, a band, head-band,
head-dress), a liturgical head-dress of the Catholic Church,
generally proper to bishops.
1. Latin Rite.—In the Western Church its actual form is that of a sort of folding cap consisting of two halves which, when not worn, lie flat upon each other. These sides are stiffened, and when the mitre is worn, they rise in front and behind like two horns pointed at the tips (cornua mitrae). From the lower rim of the mitre at the back hang two bands (infulae), terminating in fringes. In the Roman Catholic Church mitres are divided into three classes: (1) Mitra pretiosa, decorated with jewels, gold plates, &c.; (2) Mitra auriphrygiata, of white silk, sometimes embroidered with gold and silver thread or small pearls, or of cloth of gold plain; (3) Mitra simplex, of white silk damask, silk or linen, with the two falling bands behind terminating in red fringes. Mitres are the distinctive headdress of bishops; but the right to wear them, as in the case of the other episcopal insignia, is granted by the popes to other dignitaries—such as abbots or the heads and sometimes all the members of the chapters of cathedral or collegiate churches. In the case of these latter, however, the mitre is worn only in the church to which the privilege is attached and on certain high festivals. Bishops alone, including of course the pope and his cardinals, are entitled to wear the pretiosa and auriphrygiata; the others wear the mitra simplex.
The proper symbol of episcopacy is not so much the mitre as the ring and pastoral staff. It is only after the service of consecration and the mass are finished that the consecrating prelate asperses and blesses the mitre and places on the head of the newly consecrated bishop, according to the prayer which accompanies the act, “the helmet of protection and salvation,” the two horns of which represent “the horns of the Old and New Testaments,” a terror to “the enemies of truth,” and also the horns of “divine brightness and truth” which God set on the brow of Moses on Mount Sinai. There is no suggestion of the popular idea that the mitre symbolizes the “tongues of fire” that descended on the heads of the apostles at Pentecost.
According to the Roman Caeremoniale the bishop wears the mitra pretiosa on high festivals, and always during the singing of the Te Deum and the Gloria at mass. He is allowed, however, “on account of its weight,” to substitute for the pretiosa the auriphrygiata during part of the services, i.e. at Vespers from the first psalm to the Magnificat, at mass from the end of the Kyrie to the canon. The auriphrygiata is worn during Advent, and from Septuagesima to Maundy Thursday, except on the third Sunday in Advent (Gaudete), the fourth in Lent (Laetare) and on such greater festivals as fall within this time. It is worn, too, on the vigils of fasts, Ember Days and days of intercession, on the Feast of Holy Innocents (if on a week-day), at litanies, penitential processions, and at other than solemn benedictions and consecrations. At mass and Vespers the mitra simplex may be substituted for it in the same way as the auriphrygiata for the pretiosa. The simplex is worn on Good Friday, and at masses for the dead; also at the blessing of the candles at Candlemas, the singing of the absolution at the coffin, and the solemn investiture with the pallium. At provincial synods archbishops wear the pretiosa, bishops the auriphrygiata, and mitred abbots the simplex. At general councils bishops wear white linen mitres, cardinals mitres of white silk damask; this is also the case when bishops and cardinals in pontificalibus assist at a solemn pontifical function presided over by the pope.
Lastly, the mitre, though a liturgical vestment, differs from the others in that it is never worn when the bishop addresses the Almighty in prayer—e.g. during mass he takes it off when he turns to the altar, placing it on his head again when he turns to address the people (see 1 Cor. xi. 4).
The origin and antiquity of the episcopal mitre have been the subject of much debate. Some have claimed for it apostolical sanction and found its origin in the liturgical head-gear of the Jewish priesthood. Such proofs as have been adduced for this view are, however, based on the fallacy of reading into words (mitra, infula, &c.) Origin and Antiquity. used by early writers a special meaning which they only acquired later. Mitra, even as late as the 15th century, retained its simple meaning of cap (see Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v.); to Isidore of Seville it is specifically a woman’s cap. Infula, which in late ecclesiastical usage was to be confined to mitre (and its dependent bands) and chasuble, meant originally a piece of cloth, or the sacred fillets used in pagan worship, and later on came to be used of any ecclesiastical vestment, and there is no evidence for its specific application to the liturgical head-dress earlier than the 12th century. With the episcopal mitre the Jewish miznephet, translated “mitre” in the Authorized Version (Exod. xxviii. 4, 36), has nothing to do, and there is no evidence for the use of the former before the middle of the 10th century even in Rome, and elsewhere than in Rome it does not make its appearance until the 11th.[1]
The first trustworthy notice of the use of the mitre is under Pope Leo IX. (1049–1054). This pope invested Archbishop Eberhard of Trier, who had accompanied him to Rome, with the Roman mitra, telling him that he and his successors should wear it in ecclesiastico officio (i.e. as a liturgical ornament) according to Roman custom, in order to remind him that he is a disciple of the Roman see (Jaffé, Regesta pont. rom., ed. Leipzig, 1888, No. 4158). This proves that the use of the mitre had been for some time established at Rome; that it was specifically a Roman ornament; and that the right to wear it was only granted to ecclesiastics elsewhere as an exceptional honour.[2] On the other hand, the Roman ordines of the 8th and 9th centuries make no mention of the mitre; the evidence goes to prove that this liturgical head-dress was first adopted by the popes some time in the 10th century; and Father Braun shows convincingly that it was in its origin nothing else than the papal regnum or phrygium which, originally worn only at outdoor processions and the like, was introduced into the church, and thus developed into the liturgical mitre, while outside it preserved its original significance as the papal
- ↑ Father Braun, S. J., has dealt exhaustively with the supposed evidence for its earlier use—e.g. he proves conclusively that the mitra mentioned by Theodulph of Orleans (Paraenes. ad episc.) is the Jewish miznephet, and the well-known miniature of Gregory the Great (not St Dunstan, as commonly assumed) wearing a mitre (Cotton MSS. Claudius A. iii.) in the British Museum, often ascribed to the 10th or early 11th century, he judges from the form of the pallium and dalmatic to have been produced at the end of the 11th century “at earliest.” The papal bulls granting the use of mitres before the 11th century are all forgeries (Liturgische Gewandung, 431–448).
- ↑ That it had been already so granted is proved by a miniature containing the earliest extant representations of a mitre, in the Exultete rotula and baptismal rotula at Bari (reproduced in Berteaux, L’Art dans l’Italie méridionale, I., Paris, 1904).
