art of the teachings revealed to candidates for initiation and
manifested itself also in the artistic embellishments of the temple.

In connection with a cult from Commagene we can observe rather closely how
the fusion of Parseeism with Semitic and Anatolian creeds took place,
because {147} in those regions the form of religious transformations was at
all times syncretic. On a mountain top in the vicinity of a town named
Doliche, a deity was worshiped who after a number of transformations became
a Jupiter Protector of the Roman armies. Originally this god, who was
believed to have discovered the use of iron, seems to have been brought to
Commagene by a tribe of blacksmiths, the Chalybes, who had come from the
north.[23] He was represented standing on a steer and holding in his hand a
two-edged ax, an ancient symbol venerated in Crete during the Mycenean age
and found also at Labranda in Caria and all over Asia Minor.[24] The ax
symbolized the god's mastery over the lightning which splits asunder the
trees of the forest amidst the din of storms. Once established on Syrian
soil, this genius of thunder became identified with some local Baal and his
cult took up all the Semitic features. After the conquests of Cyrus and the
founding of the Persian domination, this "Lord of the heavens" was readily
confounded with Ahura Mazda, who was likewise "the full circle of heaven,"
according to a definition of Herodotus,[25] and whom the Persians also
worshiped on mountain tops. When a half Persian, half Hellenic dynasty
succeeded Alexander in Commagene, this Baal became a _Zeus Oromasdes_
([Greek: Zeus Oromasdes], Ahura Mazda) residing in the sublime ethereal
regions. A Greek inscription speaks of the celestial thrones "on which this
supreme divinity receives the souls of its worshipers."[26] In the Latin
countries "Jupiter Caelus" remained at the head of the Mazdean
pantheon,[27] and in all the provinces the temples of {148} "Jupiter
Dolichenus" were erected beside those of Mithra, and the two remained in
the closest relations.[28]

The same series of transformations took place elsewhere with a number of
other gods.[29] The Mithra worship was thus formed, in the main, by a
combination of Persian beliefs with Semitic theology, incidentally
including certain elements from the native cults of Asia Minor. The Greeks
later translated the names of the Persian divinities into their language
and imposed certain forms of their mysteries on th