This little volume appears to have been written with the two aims of providing a simple and popular account of Mithraism and of demonstrating its inferiority to Christianity, both theologically and ethically. It provides no new facts about Mithraism and is evidently based in the main on the epoch-making studies of Cumont.

There are two versions of the birth of Mithra, one that he proceeded from an act of self-conception with the mother, the other that he was the product of incest between his father and the latter's mother. The author comments that 'in neither case is this what we would call a virgin-birth' and criticizes Jung's attempt to assimilate the myth to