Sacred mysteries…Hierophant…Mystagogue…Phaethon…Heliodromus…sun-runner… rite of passage…Mithraism
Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious ideology. Sacred mysteries may be either:
Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from non-believers, or lower levels of believers, who have not had an initiation into the higher levels of belief (the concealed knowledge may be called esoteric).
Beliefs of the religion which are public knowledge but cannot be easily explained by normal rational or scientific means.
Although the term "mystery" is not often used in anthropology, access by initiation or rite of passage to otherwise secret beliefs is an extremely common feature of indigenous religions all over the world.
A mystagogue or hierophant is a holder and teacher of secret knowledge in the former sense above. Whereas, mysticism may be defined as an area of philosophical or religious thought which focuses on mysteries in the latter sense above.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_mysteries
A. E. Waite wrote that the Hierophant:
…symbolizes also all things that are righteous and sacred on the manifest side. As such, he is the channel of grace belonging to the world of institution as distinct from that of Nature, and he is the leader of salvation for the human race at large. He is the order and the head of the recognized hierarchy, which is the reflection of another and greater hierarchic order; but it may so happen that the pontiff forgets the significance of his symbolic state and acts as if he contained within his proper measures all that his sign signifies or his symbol seeks to shew [sp] forth. He is not, as it has been thought, philosophy—except on the theological side; he is not inspiration; and his is not religion, although he is a mode of its expression.[3]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierophant#Rider_Waite_tarot
A mystagogue (from Greek: μυσταγωγός, mystagogos, "person who initiates into mysteries") is a person who initiates others into mystic beliefs, and an educator or person who has knowledge of the sacred mysteries of a belief system. Another word for mystagogue is hierophant.
Contents
1Origins
2Typologies
3See also
4References
Origins
In ancient mystery religions, a mystagogue would be responsible for leading an initiate into the secret teachings and rituals of a cultus. The initiate would often be blindfolded, and the mystagogue would literally "guide" him into the sacred space.
In the early Christian church, this same concept was used to describe role of the bishop, who was responsible for seeing to it that the catechumens were properly prepared for baptism. Mystagogical homilies, or homilies that dealt with the Church’s sacraments, were given to those in the last stages of preparation for full Church membership. Sometimes these mystagogical instructions were not given until after the catechumen had been baptized. The most famous of these mystagogical works are the "Mystagogical Homilies" of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, and the work, "On the Mysteries" by St. Ambrose of Milan.
Typologies
In various organizations, it is the role of the mystagogue to "mystify" pledges. The term is sometimes used to refer to a person who guides people through religious sites, such as churches, and explains the various artifacts. This branch of theology is at times called mystagogy.
In the United States versions of mystagogical legends predate European contact. Early Native American tribes around the Great Lakes region, taught that the mystagogue was a spiritual leader, and upon death would transform into a beast with many heads. The mystagogue would reappear in his beastly form and feed on those who strayed from the tribe if it was not in keeping with their religious customs.[1]
The historical tradition of the mystagogue has carried on today in one way through the fraternity system in American universities, that have historically held a position for a mystagogue at either the chapter or the national level.[2] The mystagogue is a person of great respect, and his knowledge concerning both the physical and spiritual matters of the organization is not questioned. In a way similar to that of some Native American traditions, the mystagogue in the fraternity system has the power to shut down parts of the fraternity which are not in keeping with customs or tradition.
Max Weber, considered to be one of the founders of the modern study of sociology, described the mystagogue as part magician and part prophet, and as one who dispensed "magical actions that contain the boons of salvation."[3]
According to Roy Wallis: "The primary criterion that Weber had in mind in distinguishing the prophet from the mystagogue was that the latter offers a largely magical means of salvation rather than proclaiming a radical religious ethic or an example to be followed."[4]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystagogue
Phaethon (/ˈfeɪ.əθən/; Ancient Greek: Φαέθων, romanized: Phaéthōn, pronounced [pʰa.é.tʰɔːn]), also spelled as Phaëthon, was the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios in Greek mythology. His name was also used by the Ancient Greeks as an alternative name for the planet Jupiter,[1] the motions and cycles of which were personified in poetry and myth.
Contents
1Mythology
1.1Plato’s Timaeus
1.2Ovid’s version
1.3Clement of Alexandria
1.4Suetonius
1.5Other ancient writers
2Post-classical works
3Shared name
4See also
5Notes
6References
7External links
Mythology
Phaethon was said to be the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios.[2][3] Alternatively, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Oceanid Merope,[4] of Helios and Rhodos (thus a full brother of the Heliadae)[5] or of Helios and Prote.[6]
Phaethon, challenged by Epaphus and his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was the sun god Helios. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a day.[7][8] According to some accounts Helios tried to dissuade Phaethon, telling him that even Zeus was not strong enough to steer these horses, but reluctantly kept his promise.[9] Placed in charge of the chariot, Phaethon was unable to control the horses. In some versions, the Earth first froze when the horses climbed too high, but when the chariot then scorched the Earth by swinging too near, Zeus decided to prevent disaster by striking it down with a thunderbolt.[10] Phaethon fell to earth and was killed in the process.[11]
Phaethon was the good friend or lover of Cycnus of Liguria, who profoundly mourned his death and was turned into a swan.[12] Phaethon’s seven sisters, the Heliades, also mourned his loss, keeping vigil where Phaethon fell to Earth until the gods turned the sisters into poplar trees, and their tears into amber.[13]
Plato’s Timaeus
In Plato’s Timaeus, Critias tells the story of Atlantis as recounted to Solon by an Egyptian priest, who prefaced the story by saying:
"There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story that even you [Greeks] have preserved, that once upon a time, Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals."[14]
The Fall of Phaëthon on a Roman sarcophagus (Hermitage Museum)
Ovid’s version
In the version of the myth told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Phaethon ascends into heaven, the home of his suspected father. His mother Clymene had boasted that his father was the Sun-God or Phoebus. Phaethon went to his father who swore by the river Styx to give Phaethon anything he would ask for in order to prove his divine sonship. Phaethon wanted to drive the chariot of the sun for a day. Phoebus tried to talk him out of it by telling him that not even Jupiter (the king of the gods) would dare to drive it, as the chariot was fiery hot and the horses breathed out flames. He said:
"The first part of the track is steep, and one that my fresh horses at dawn can hardly climb. In mid-heaven it is highest, where to look down on earth and sea often alarms even me and makes my heart tremble with awesome fear. The last part of the track is downwards and needs sure control. Then even Tethys herself, who receives me in her submissive waves, is accustomed to fear that I might dive headlong. Moreover, the rushing sky is constantly turning, and drags along the remote stars, and whirls them in rapid orbits. I move the opposite way, and its momentum does not overcome me as it does all other things, and I ride contrary to its swift rotation. Suppose you are given the chariot. What will you do? Will you be able to counter the turning poles so that the swiftness of the skies does not carry you away? Perhaps you conceive in imagination that there are groves there and cities of the gods and temples with rich gifts. The way runs through the ambush, and apparitions of wild beasts! Even if you keep your course, and do not steer awry, you must still avoid the horns of Taurus the Bull, Sagittarius the Haemonian Archer, raging Leo and Lion’s jaw, Scorpio’s cruel pincers sweeping out to encircle you from one side, and Cancer’s crab-claws reaching out from the other. You will not easily rule those proud horses, breathing out through mouth and nostrils the fires burning in their chests. They scarcely tolerate my control when their fierce spirits are hot, and their necks resist the reins. Beware, my boy, that I am not the source of a gift fatal to you, while something can still be done to set right your request!"[15]
The fall of Phaethon by Adolphe Pierre Sunaert
Phaethon was adamant. When the day came, the fierce horses that drew the chariot felt that it was empty because of the lack of the sun-god’s weight and went out of control. Terrified, Phaethon dropped the reins. The horses veered from their course, scorching the earth, burning the vegetation, bringing the blood of the Ethiopians to the surface of their skin and so turning it black, changing much of Africa into a desert, drying up rivers and lakes and shrinking the sea. Earth cried out to Jupiter who was forced to intervene by striking Phaethon with a lightning bolt. Like a falling star, Phaethon plunged blazing into the river Eridanos.
The epitaph on his tomb was:
Here Phaethon lies who in the sun-god’s chariot fared. And though greatly he failed, more greatly he dared.[16]
Phoebus, stricken with grief at his son’s death, at first refused to resume his work of driving his chariot, but at the appeal of the other gods, including Jupiter, returned to his task.
Clement of Alexandria
According to Clement of Alexandria in his Stromata, "…in the time of Crotopus occurred the burning of Phaethon, and the deluges of Deucalion.[17]
Suetonius
In The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius attributes to the emperor Tiberius the following repeated remark about the future emperor Gaius Caligula: "That to allow Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all men, and that he was raising a viper for the Roman people and a Phaethon for the world".[18]
Other ancient writers
Phaethon, by Gustave Moreau
Fragments of Euripides’ tragedy on this subject suggest that, in his account, Phaethon survives. In reconstructing the lost play and discussing the fragments, James Diggle has discussed the treatment of the Phaethon myth (Diggle 2004).
In the True History by the satirical Greek writer Lucian, Phaëthon is the king of the sun and is at war with the moon.
Post-classical works
Dante refers to the episode in the Inferno, in "Purgatorio" Canto IV and Paradiso Canto XVII of his Divine Comedy.
William Shakespeare uses the story of Phaethon in four places, most famously as an allegory in his play Richard II. He also makes Juliet wish "Phaëthon would whip [Apollo’s horses] to the west" as she waits for Romeo in Romeo and Juliet 3.2.3.[19] It also appears briefly in The Two Gentlemen of Verona 3.1.154, and twice in Henry VI, Part 3 (1.4.33 and 2.6.12)[20]
John Marston includes reference to Phaeton in The Malcontent whereby Mendoza’s monologue describes the ‘…sparkling glances (of women), ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless Phaeton!’ – Act 1, Scene 5
Jean-Baptiste Lully wrote a musical tragedy, Phaëton, in which he referred indirectly to the fate of Nicolas Fouquet, whose ambitions to imitate Louis XIV—The Sun King—brought about his downfall. This opera is also used in the second version of Paul Hindemith’s opera Cardillac (1952).
Camille Saint-Saëns wrote a symphonic poem entitled Phaéton in 1873.
Niccolò Jommelli wrote an opera Fetonte to an Italian-language libretto by Mattia Verazi using various sources, principally Ovid, for the myth of Phaeton. It was first performed at the Ducal Theatre, Ludwigsburg in February, 1768, where Duke Karl-Eugen of Württemberg maintained an opera troupe.
Wilhelm Waiblinger’s epistolary novel Phaëthon amalgamates the Phaethon myth with Goethe’s Werther as well as Hölderlin’s Hyperion.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe published a poetic reconstruction of Euripides’ fragmented tragedy in Kunst und Altertum (1823), which served as a basis for various full-scale dramatic adaptations such as Marie Wernicke’s Phaethons Sturz (1893), Karl Wilhelm Geißler’s Phaëthon (1889) and Arnold Beer’s Phaeton (1875).
Gerhart Hauptmann’s long poem Helios und Phaethon (1936) omits the cosmic disaster in order to focus on the relationship between godly father and mortal son.
In Otakar Theer’s symbolist tragedy Faëthón (1916), the hero epitomizes man’s revolt against the world order ("the gods") and against human destiny. The tragedy was adapted in 1962 into a celebrated eponymous radio play by Miloslav Jareš (director) and Jaromír Ptáček (dramaturge).[21]
Paul Goodman’s early Phaëthon, Myth (1934) juxtaposes the Phaethon myth with a grotesque version of a Christological narrative.
Benjamin Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for oboe, first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival on 14 June 1951, include the short piece Phaeton, which as a solo piece seems to focus on the individual lost in space rather than the furious effects emphasised by earlier instrumental renditions of the myth.
In Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, an in-universe opera is composed by the character of Richard Halley where Phaeton succeeds in his attempt to control the chariot of the sun, as an allegory for the power of mankind and individualism.
Donald Cotton wrote a comedy radio play ‘The Tragedy of Phaethon’ broadcast on BBC Network 3 on 10 February 1965.[22]
Angus Wilson’s novel Setting the World on Fire (1980) opens with the description of a Phaethon painting which proves pivotal to the protagonist’s emerging self-conception, leading up to his production of Lully’s Phaëton.
John C. Wright’s The Golden Oecumene Trilogy (2002) features a protagonist named Phaethon, whose father’s name is Helion. Mythical references abound.[23]
In 2002, Volkswagen introduced the VW Phaeton.
In 2012, former Disco Inferno frontman Ian Crause adapted the story of Phaethon as The Song of Phaethon for his first musical release in over a decade. Crause used the story as an analogy for Britain’s entry into the Second Gulf War.[24]
in 2016 Taffety Punk Theatre premiered Michael Milligan’s play "Phaeton" in Washington, DC.[25]
Shared name
The name "Phaethon", which means "Shining One",[26] was given also to Phaethon of Syria, to one of the horses of Eos (the Dawn), the Sun, the constellation Auriga, and the planet Jupiter, while as an adjective it was used to describe the sun and the moon.[27] In some accounts the planet referred to by this name is not Jupiter but Saturn.[28]
When 1 Ceres and 2 Pallas–the first asteroids–were discovered, astronomer Heinrich Olbers suggested that they were fragments of a much larger planet which was later named for Phaethon. However, the Phaeton hypothesis has been superseded by the accretion model, in which the asteroid belt represented the remainder of the protoplanetary disk that never formed a planet due to the gravity of Jupiter. However, fringe theorists still consider the Phaeton hypothesis likely.
In modern times, an asteroid whose orbit brings it close to the sun has been named "3200 Phaethon" after the mythological Phaethon.
The French form of the name "Phaethon" is "Phaéton". This form of the word is applied to a kind of carriage and automobile.[29][30]
An order, family, and genus of birds bear the name Phaethon in their taxonomic nomenclature, the tropicbirds.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaethon
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras is linked to a new and distinctive imagery, with the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice debated.[a] The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from about the 1st to the 4th century ce.[2]
Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake".[b] They met in underground temples, now called mithraea (singular mithraeum), which survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome,[3] and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far north as Roman Britain,[4](pp 26–27) and to a lesser extent in Roman Syria in the east.[3]
Mithraism is viewed as a rival of early Christianity.[5](p 147) In the 4th century, Mithraists faced persecution from Christians and the religion was subsequently suppressed and eliminated in the Roman empire by the end of the century.[6]
Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire.[7] The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull, and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun). About 420 sites have yielded materials related to the cult. Among the items found are about 1000 inscriptions, 700 examples of the bull-killing scene (tauroctony), and about 400 other monuments.[4](p xxi) It has been estimated that there would have been at least 680 mithraea in the city of Rome.[8][full citation needed] No written narratives or theology from the religion survive; limited information can be derived from the inscriptions and brief or passing references in Greek and Latin literature. Interpretation of the physical evidence remains problematic and contested.[c]
Contents
1Name
1.1Etymology of Mithras
2Iconography
2.1Bull-slaying scene
2.2Banquet
2.3Birth from a rock
2.4Lion-headed figure
3Rituals and worship
3.1Mithraeum
3.2Degrees of initiation
3.3Ritual re-enactments
3.4Membership
3.5Ethics
4History and development
4.1Mithras before the Roman Mysteries
4.2Beginnings of Roman Mithraism
4.2.1Earliest archaeology
4.2.2Earliest cult locations
4.3Classical literature about Mithras and the Mysteries
4.3.1Statius
4.3.2Justin Martyr
4.3.3Plutarch
4.3.4Dio Cassius
4.3.5Porphyry
4.3.6Mithras Liturgy
4.4Modern debate about origins
4.4.1Cumont’s hypothesis: from Persian state religion
4.4.2Criticisms and reassessments of Cumont
4.4.3Modern theories
4.5Later history
4.6Persecution and Christianization
5Interpretations of the bull-slaying scene
6Mithras and other gods
6.1Mithraism and Christianity
7See also
8Notes
9References
10Further reading
11External links
Name
The term "Mithraism" is a modern convention. Writers of the Roman era referred to it by phrases such as "Mithraic mysteries", "mysteries of Mithras" or "mysteries of the Persians".[1][10] Modern sources sometimes refer to the Greco-Roman religion as Roman Mithraism or Western Mithraism to distinguish it from Persian worship of Mithra.[1][11][12]
Etymology of Mithras
Main article: Mithras (name)
Bas-relief of the tauroctony of the mysteries, Metz, France.
The name Mithras (Latin, equivalent to Greek "Μίθρας"[13]) is a form of Mithra, the name of an old, pre-Zoroastrian, and, later on, Zoroastrian, god[d][14] — a relationship understood by Mithraic scholars since the days of Franz Cumont.[e] An early example of the Greek form of the name is in a 4th century bce work by Xenophon, the Cyropaedia, which is a biography of the Persian king Cyrus the Great.[15]
The exact form of a Latin or classical Greek word varies due to the grammatical process of declension. There is archaeological evidence that in Latin worshippers wrote the nominative form of the god’s name as "Mithras". However, in Porphyry’s Greek text De Abstinentia (Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων), there is a reference to the now-lost histories of the Mithraic mysteries by Euboulus and Pallas, the wording of which suggests that these authors treated the name "Mithra" as an indeclinable foreign word.[16]
Related deity-names in other languages include
Vedic Sanskrit Mitra, the name of a god praised in the Rigveda.[17][18][19] In Sanskrit, mitra means "friend" or "friendship".[20]
the form mi-it-ra-, found in an inscribed peace treaty between the Hittites and the kingdom of Mitanni, from about 1400 bce.[20][21]
Iranian Mithra and Sanskrit Mitra are believed to come from an Indo-Iranian word wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-Iranian/mitrás:mitrás, meaning "contract, agreement, covenant".[22]
Modern historians have different conceptions about whether these names refer to the same god or not. John R. Hinnells has written of Mitra / Mithra / Mithras as a single deity worshipped in several different religions.[23] On the other hand, David Ulansey considers the bull-slaying Mithras to be a new god who began to be worshipped in the 1st century bce, and to whom an old name was applied.[f]
Mary Boyce, a researcher of ancient Iranian religions, writes that even though Roman Mithraism seems to have had less Iranian content than historians used to think, nonetheless "as the name Mithras alone shows, this content was of some importance".[24]
Iconography
Relief of Mithras as bull-slayer from Neuenheim near Heidelberg, framed by scenes from Mithras’ life.
Much about the cult of Mithras is only known from reliefs and sculptures. There have been many attempts to interpret this material.
Mithras-worship in the Roman Empire was characterized by images of the god slaughtering a bull. Other images of Mithras are found in the Roman temples, for instance Mithras banqueting with Sol, and depictions of the birth of Mithras from a rock. But the image of bull-slaying (tauroctony) is always in the central niche.[9](p 6) Textual sources for a reconstruction of the theology behind this iconography are very rare.[25] (See section Interpretations of the bull-slaying scene below.)
The practice of depicting the god slaying a bull seems to be specific to Roman Mithraism. According to David Ulansey, this is "perhaps the most important example" of evident difference between Iranian and Roman traditions: "… there is no evidence that the Iranian god Mithra ever had anything to do with killing a bull."[9](p 8)
Bull-slaying scene
See also: Tauroctony
In every mithraeum the centrepiece was a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, an act called the tauroctony.[g][h] The image may be a relief, or free-standing, and side details may be present or omitted. The centre-piece is Mithras clothed in Anatolian costume and wearing a Phrygian cap; who is kneeling on the exhausted bull, holding it by the nostrils[4](p 77) with his left hand, and stabbing it with his right. As he does so, he looks over his shoulder towards the figure of Sol. A dog and a snake reach up towards the blood. A scorpion seizes the bull’s genitals. A raven is flying around or is sitting on the bull. One or three ears of wheat are seen coming out from the bull’s tail, sometimes from the wound. The bull was often white. The god is sitting on the bull in an unnatural way with his right leg constraining the bull’s hoof and the left leg is bent and resting on the bull’s back or flank.[i] The two torch-bearers are on either side are dressed like Mithras: Cautes with his torch pointing up, and Cautopates with his torch pointing down.[4](p 98–99) An image search for tauroctony will show many examples of the variations.[27] Sometimes Cautes and Cautopates carry shepherds’ crooks instead of torches.[28]
A Roman tauroctony relief from Aquileia (c. 175 CE; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
The event takes place in a cavern, into which Mithras has carried the bull, after having hunted it, ridden it and overwhelmed its strength.[4](p 74) Sometimes the cavern is surrounded by a circle, on which the twelve signs of the zodiac appear. Outside the cavern, top left, is Sol the sun, with his flaming crown, often driving a quadriga. A ray of light often reaches down to touch Mithras. At the top right is Luna, with her crescent moon, who may be depicted driving a biga.[29]
In some depictions, the central tauroctony is framed by a series of subsidiary scenes to the left, top and right, illustrating events in the Mithras narrative; Mithras being born from the rock, the water miracle, the hunting and riding of the bull, meeting Sol who kneels to him, shaking hands with Sol and sharing a meal of bull-parts with him, and ascending to the heavens in a chariot.[29] In some instances, as is the case in the stucco icon at Santa Prisca Mithraeum in Rome, the god is shown heroically nude.[j] Some of these reliefs were constructed so that they could be turned on an axis. On the back side was another, more elaborate feasting scene. This indicates that the bull killing scene was used in the first part of the celebration, then the relief was turned, and the second scene was used in the second part of the celebration.[31] Besides the main cult icon, a number of mithraea had several secondary tauroctonies, and some small portable versions, probably meant for private devotion, have also been found.[32]
Banquet
The second most important scene after the tauroctony in Mithraic art is the so-called banquet scene.[33] The banquet scene features Mithras and Sol Invictus banqueting on the hide of the slaughtered bull.[33] On the specific banquet scene on the Fiano Romano relief, one of the torchbearers points a caduceus towards the base of an altar, where flames appear to spring up. Robert Turcan has argued that since the caduceus is an attribute of Mercury, and in mythology Mercury is depicted as a psychopomp, the eliciting of flames in this scene is referring to the dispatch of human souls and expressing the Mithraic doctrine on this matter.[34] Turcan also connects this event to the tauroctony: The blood of the slain bull has soaked the ground at the base of the altar, and from the blood the souls are elicited in flames by the caduceus.[34]
Birth from a rock
Mithras rising from the rock (National Museum of Romanian History)
Mithras born from the rock (c. 186 CE; Baths of Diocletian)
Mithras is depicted as being born from a rock. He is shown as emerging from a rock, already in his youth, with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other. He is nude, standing with his legs together, and is wearing a Phrygian cap.[35]
However, there are variations. Sometimes he is shown as coming out of the rock as a child, and in one instance he has a globe in one hand; sometimes a thunderbolt is seen. There are also depictions in which flames are shooting from the rock and also from Mithras’ cap. One statue had its base perforated so that it could serve as a fountain, and the base of another has the mask of the water god. Sometimes Mithras also has other weapons such as bows and arrows, and there are also animals such as dogs, serpents, dolphins, eagles, other birds, lions, crocodiles, lobsters and snails around. On some reliefs, there is a bearded figure identified as Oceanus, the water god, and on some there are the gods of the four winds. In these reliefs, the four elements could be invoked together. Sometimes Victoria, Luna, Sol, and Saturn also seem to play a role. Saturn in particular is often seen handing over the dagger or short sword to Mithras, used later in the tauroctony.[35]
In some depictions, Cautes and Cautopates are also present; sometimes they are depicted as shepherds.[36]
On some occasions, an amphora is seen, and a few instances show variations like an egg birth or a tree birth. Some interpretations show that the birth of Mithras was celebrated by lighting torches or candles.[35][37]
Lion-headed figure
Main article: Arimanius
Drawing of the leontocephaline found at a mithraeum in Ostia Antica, Italy (190 CE; CIMRM 312)
Lion-headed figure from the Sidon Mithraeum (500 CE; CIMRM 78 & 79; Louvre)
One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline (lion-headed) or leontocephalus (lion-head).
His body is a naked man’s, entwined by a serpent (or two serpents, like a caduceus), with the snake’s head often resting on the lion’s head. The lion’s mouth is often open. He is usually represented as having four wings, two keys (sometimes a single key), and a sceptre in his hand. Sometimes the figure is standing on a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross. On the figure from the Ostia Antica Mithraeum (left, CIMRM 312), the four wings carry the symbols of the four seasons, and a thunderbolt is engraved on his chest. At the base of the statue are the hammer and tongs of Vulcan and Mercury’s cock and wand (caduceus). A rare variation of the same figure is also found with a human head and a lion’s head emerging from its chest.[38][39]
Although animal-headed figures are prevalent in contemporary Egyptian and Gnostic mythological representations, no exact parallel to the Mithraic leontocephaline figure has been found.[38]
Based on dedicatory inscriptions for altars,[k] the name of the figure is conjectured to be Arimanius, a Latinized form of the name Ahriman – a demonic figure in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Arimanius is known from inscriptions to have been a god in the Mithraic cult as seen, for example, in images from the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (CIMRM) such as CIMRM 222 from Ostia, CIMRM 369 from Rome, and CIMRM 1773 and 1775 from Pannonia.[40]
Some scholars identify the lion-man as Aion, or Zurvan, or Cronus, or Chronos, while others assert that it is a version of the Zoroastrian Ahriman or Vedic Aryaman.[41] Although the exact identity of the lion-headed figure is debated by scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change.[42]
Rituals and worship
According to M.J. Vermaseren and C.C. van Essen, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25.[l][m] However, Beck disagrees strongly.[45] Clauss states:
"the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of Natalis Invicti, held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras."[46]
Mithraic initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication,[47] and some grade rituals involved the recital of a catechism, wherein the initiate was asked a series of questions pertaining to the initiation symbolism and had to reply with specific answers. An example of such a catechism, apparently pertaining to the Leo grade, was discovered in a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus (Papyrus Berolinensis 21196),[47][48] and reads:
Verso
[…] He will say: ‘Where […]?’
‘[…] is he at a loss there?’ Say: ‘[…]’
[…] Say: ‘Night’. He will say: ‘Where […]?’
[…] Say: ‘All things […]’
‘[…] are you called?’ Say: ‘Because of the summery […]’
[…] having become […] he/it has the fiery ones
‘[…] did you receive?’ Say: ‘In a pit’. He will say: ‘Where is your […]?’
‘[…] [in the] Leonteion.’ He will say: ‘Will you gird […]?’
‘[…] death’. He will say: ‘Why, having girded yourself, […]?’
[…] this [has?] four tassels.
Recto
Very sharp and […]
[…] much. He will say: ‘[…]?’
‘[…] of the hot and cold’. He will say: ‘[…]?’
‘[…] red […] linen’. He will say: ‘Why?’ Say:
[…] red border; the linen, however, […]
‘[…] has been wrapped?’ Say: ‘The savior’s […]’
He will say: ‘Who is the father?’ Say: ‘The one who [begets] everything […]’
[He will say: ‘How] did you become a Leo?’ Say: ‘By the […] of the father […]’
Say: ‘Drink and food’. He will say: ‘[…]?’
[…] in the seven-[…]
Mithraic relief with original colors (reconstitution), c. 140 ce–160 ce; from Argentoratum. Strasbourg Archaeological Museum.
Almost no Mithraic scripture or first-hand account of its highly secret rituals survives;[25] with the exception of the aforementioned oath and catechism, and the document known as the Mithras Liturgy, from 4th century Egypt, whose status as a Mithraist text has been questioned by scholars including Franz Cumont.[n][49] The walls of mithraea were commonly whitewashed, and where this survives it tends to carry extensive repositories of graffiti; and these, together with inscriptions on Mithraic monuments, form the main source for Mithraic texts.[50]
Nevertheless, it is clear from the archaeology of numerous mithraea that most rituals were associated with feasting – as eating utensils and food residues are almost invariably found. These tend to include both animal bones and also very large quantities of fruit residues.[4](p 115) The presence of large amounts of cherry-stones in particular would tend to confirm mid-summer (late June, early July) as a season especially associated with Mithraic festivities. The Virunum album, in the form of an inscribed bronze plaque, records a Mithraic festival of commemoration as taking place on 26 June 184. Beck argues that religious celebrations on this date are indicative of special significance being given to the summer solstice; but this time of the year coincides with ancient recognition of the solar maximum at midsummer, whilst iconographically identical holidays such as Litha, Saint John’s Eve, and Jāņi are observed also.
For their feasts, Mithraic initiates reclined on stone benches arranged along the longer sides of the mithraeum – typically there might be room for 15 to 30 diners, but very rarely many more than 40 men.[4](p 43) Counterpart dining rooms, or triclinia, were to be found above ground in the precincts of almost any temple or religious sanctuary in the Roman empire, and such rooms were commonly used for their regular feasts by Roman ‘clubs’, or collegia. Mithraic feasts probably performed a very similar function for Mithraists as the collegia did for those entitled to join them; indeed, since qualification for Roman collegia tended to be restricted to particular families, localities or traditional trades, Mithraism may have functioned in part as providing clubs for the unclubbed.[51] However, the size of the mithraeum is not necessarily an indication of the size of the congregation.[30](pp 12, 36)
Each mithraeum had several altars at the further end, underneath the representation of the tauroctony, and also commonly contained considerable numbers of subsidiary altars, both in the main mithraeum chamber and in the ante-chamber or narthex.[4](p 49) These altars, which are of the standard Roman pattern, each carry a named dedicatory inscription from a particular initiate, who dedicated the altar to Mithras "in fulfillment of his vow", in gratitude for favours received. Burned residues of animal entrails are commonly found on the main altars indicating regular sacrificial use. However, mithraea do not commonly appear to have been provided with facilities for ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals (a highly specialised function in Roman religion), and it may be presumed that a mithraeum would have made arrangements for this service to be provided for them in co-operation with the professional victimarius[52] of the civic cult. Prayers were addressed to the Sun three times a day, and Sunday was especially sacred.[53]
It is doubtful whether Mithraism had a monolithic and internally consistent doctrine.[54] It may have varied from location to location.[55] However, the iconography is relatively coherent.[29] It had no predominant sanctuary or cultic centre; and, although each mithraeum had its own officers and functionaries, there was no central supervisory authority. In some mithraea, such as that at Dura Europos, wall paintings depict prophets carrying scrolls,[56] but no named Mithraic sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic scripture or teaching. It is known that initiates could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another.[4](p 139)
Mithraeum
See also: Mithraeum
A mithraeum found in the ruins of Ostia Antica, Italy.
Temples of Mithras are sunk below ground, windowless, and very distinctive. In cities, the basement of an apartment block might be converted; elsewhere they might be excavated and vaulted over, or converted from a natural cave. Mithraic temples are common in the empire; although unevenly distributed, with considerable numbers found in Rome, Ostia, Numidia, Dalmatia, Britain and along the Rhine/Danube frontier, while being somewhat less common in Greece, Egypt, and Syria.[4](pp 26–27) According to Walter Burkert, the secret character of Mithraic rituals meant that Mithraism could only be practiced within a Mithraeum.[57] Some new finds at Tienen show evidence of large-scale feasting and suggest that the mystery religion may not have been as secretive as was generally believed.[o]
For the most part, mithraea tend to be small, externally undistinguished, and cheaply constructed; the cult generally preferring to create a new centre rather than expand an existing one. The mithraeum represented the cave to which Mithras carried and then killed the bull; and where stone vaulting could not be afforded, the effect would be imitated with lath and plaster. They are commonly located close to springs or streams; fresh water appears to have been required for some Mithraic rituals, and a basin is often incorporated into the structure.[4](p 73) There is usually a narthex or ante-chamber at the entrance, and often other ancillary rooms for storage and the preparation of food. The extant mithraea present us with actual physical remains of the architectural structures of the sacred spaces of the Mithraic cult. Mithraeum is a modern coinage and mithraists referred to their sacred structures as speleum or antrum (cave), crypta (underground hallway or corridor), fanum (sacred or holy place), or even templum (a temple or a sacred space).[p]
In their basic form, mithraea were entirely different from the temples and shrines of other cults. In the standard pattern of Roman religious precincts, the temple building functioned as a house for the god, who was intended to be able to view, through the opened doors and columnar portico, sacrificial worship being offered on an altar set in an open courtyard—potentially accessible not only to initiates of the cult, but also to colitores or non-initiated worshippers.[58] Mithraea were the antithesis of this.[59]
Degrees of initiation
In the Suda under the entry Mithras, it states that “No one was permitted to be initiated into them (the mysteries of Mithras), until he should show himself holy and steadfast by undergoing several graduated tests.”[60] Gregory Nazianzen refers to the “tests in the mysteries of Mithras”.[61]
There were seven grades of initiation into Mithraism, which are listed by St. Jerome.[62] Manfred Clauss states that the number of grades, seven, must be connected to the planets. A mosaic in the Mithraeum of Felicissimus, Ostia Antica depicts these grades, with symbolic emblems that are connected either to the grades or are symbols of the planets. The grades also have an inscription beside them commending each grade into the protection of the different planetary gods.[4](pp 132–133) In ascending order of importance, the initiatory grades were:[4](pp 133–138)
GradeNameSymbolsPlanet or
tutelary
deity
1st
Corax, Corux, or Corvex
(raven or crow)Beaker, caduceusMercury
2nd
Nymphus, Nymphobus
(bridegroom)Lamp, hand bell, veil, circlet or diademVenus
3rd
Miles
(soldier)Pouch, helmet, lance, drum, belt, breastplateMars
4th
Leo
(lion)Batillum, sistrum, laurel wreath, thunderboltsJupiter
5th
Perses
(Persian)Hooked sword, Phrygian cap, sickle,
crescent moon, stars, sling, pouchLuna
6th
Heliodromus
(sun-runner)Torch, images of Helios, whip, robesSol
7th
Pater
(father)Patera, mitre, shepherd’s staff, garnet or
ruby ring, chasuble or cape, elaborate jewel-
encrusted robes, with metallic threadsSaturn
Spade, sistrum, lightning bolt
Sword, crescent moon, star, sickle
Torch, crown, whip
Patera, rod, Phrygian cap, sickle
Elsewhere, as at Dura-Europos, Mithraic graffiti survive giving membership lists, in which initiates of a mithraeum are named with their Mithraic grades. At Virunum, the membership list or album sacratorum was maintained as an inscribed plaque, updated year by year as new members were initiated. By cross-referencing these lists it is possible to track some initiates from one mithraeum to another; and also speculatively to identify Mithraic initiates with persons on other contemporary lists such as military service rolls and lists of devotees of non-Mithraic religious sanctuaries. Names of initiates are also found in the dedication inscriptions of altars and other cult objects. Clauss noted in 1990 that overall, only about 14% of Mithraic names inscribed before 250 ce identify the initiate’s grade – and hence questioned the traditional view that all initiates belonged to one of the seven grades.[63] Clauss argues that the grades represented a distinct class of priests, sacerdotes. Gordon maintains the former theory of Merkelbach and others, especially noting such examples as Dura where all names are associated with a Mithraic grade. Some scholars maintain that practice may have differed over time, or from one Mithraeum to another.
The highest grade, pater, is by far the most common one found on dedications and inscriptions – and it would appear not to have been unusual for a mithraeum to have several men with this grade. The form pater patrum (father of fathers) is often found, which appears to indicate the pater with primary status. There are several examples of persons, commonly those of higher social status, joining a mithraeum with the status pater – especially in Rome during the ‘pagan revival’ of the 4th century. It has been suggested that some mithraea may have awarded honorary pater status to sympathetic dignitaries.[64]
The initiate into each grade appears to have been required to undertake a specific ordeal or test,[4](p 103) involving exposure to heat, cold or threatened peril. An ‘ordeal pit’, dating to the early 3rd century, has been identified in the mithraeum at Carrawburgh. Accounts of the cruelty of the emperor Commodus describes his amusing himself by enacting Mithraic initiation ordeals in homicidal form. By the later 3rd century, the enacted trials appear to have been abated in rigor, as ‘ordeal pits’ were floored over.
Admission into the community was completed with a handshake with the pater, just as Mithras and Sol shook hands. The initiates were thus referred to as syndexioi (those united by the handshake). The term is used in an inscription by Proficentius[b] and derided by Firmicus Maternus in De errore profanarum religionum,[65] a 4th century Christian work attacking paganism.[66] In ancient Iran, taking the right hand was the traditional way of concluding a treaty or signifying some solemn understanding between two parties.[67]
Ritual re-enactments
Reconstruction of a mithraeum with a mosaic depicting the grades of initiation
Activities of the most prominent deities in Mithraic scenes, Sol and Mithras, were imitated in rituals by the two most senior officers in the cult’s hierarchy, the Pater and the Heliodromus.[68] The initiates held a sacramental banquet, replicating the feast of Mithras and Sol.[68]
Reliefs on a cup found in Mainz[69][70] appear to depict a Mithraic initiation. On the cup, the initiate is depicted as being led into a location where a Pater would be seated in the guise of Mithras with a drawn bow. Accompanying the initiate is a mystagogue, who explains the symbolism and theology to the initiate. The Rite is thought to re-enact what has come to be called the ‘Water Miracle’, in which Mithras fires a bolt into a rock, and from the rock now spouts water.
Roger Beck has hypothesized a third processional Mithraic ritual, based on the Mainz cup and Porphyrys. This scene, called ‘Procession of the Sun-Runner’, shows the Heliodromus escorted by two figures representing Cautes and Cautopates (see below) and preceded by an initiate of the grade Miles leading a ritual enactment of the solar journey around the mithraeum, which was intended to represent the cosmos.[71]
Consequently, it has been argued that most Mithraic rituals involved a re-enactment by the initiates of episodes in the Mithras narrative,[4](pp 62–101) a narrative whose main elements were: birth from the rock, striking water from stone with an arrow shot, the killing of the bull, Sol’s submission to Mithras, Mithras and Sol feasting on the bull, the ascent of Mithras to heaven in a chariot. A noticeable feature of this narrative (and of its regular depiction in surviving sets of relief carvings) is the absence of female personages (the sole exception being Luna watching the tauroctony in the upper corner opposite Helios).[4](p 33)
Membership
Another dedication to Mithras by legionaries of Legio II Herculia has been excavated at Sitifis (modern Setif in Algeria), so the unit or a subunit must have been transferred at least once.
Only male names appear in surviving inscribed membership lists. Historians including Cumont and Richard Gordon have concluded that the cult was for men only.[72][73]
The ancient scholar Porphyry refers to female initiates in Mithraic rites.[2] However, the early 20th-century historian A. S. Geden writes that this may be due to a misunderstanding.[2] According to Geden, while the participation of women in the ritual was not unknown in the Eastern cults, the predominant military influence in Mithraism makes it unlikely in this instance.[2] It has recently been suggested by David Jonathan that "Women were involved with Mithraic groups in at least some locations of the empire."[74]
Soldiers were strongly represented amongst Mithraists, and also merchants, customs officials and minor bureaucrats. Few, if any, initiates came from leading aristocratic or senatorial families until the ‘pagan revival’ of the mid-4th century; but there were always considerable numbers of freedmen and slaves.[4](p 39)
Ethics
Clauss suggests that a statement by Porphyry, that people initiated into the Lion grade must keep their hands pure from everything that brings pain and harm and is impure, means that moral demands were made upon members of congregations.[75] A passage in the Caesares of Julian the Apostate refers to "commandments of Mithras".[76] Tertullian, in his treatise "On the Military Crown" records that Mithraists in the army were officially excused from wearing celebratory coronets on the basis of the Mithraic initiation ritual that included refusing a proffered crown, because "their only crown was Mithras".[77]
History and development
Mithras before the Roman Mysteries
Mithras-Helios, with solar rays and in Iranian dress,[78] with Antiochus I of Commagene. (Mt. Nemrut, 1st Century bce)
According to the archaeologist Maarten Vermaseren, 1st century bce evidence from Commagene demonstrates the "reverence paid to Mithras" but does not refer to "the mysteries".[q] In the colossal statuary erected by King Antiochus I (69–34 BCE) at Mount Nemrut, Mithras is shown beardless, wearing a Phrygian cap[3][80] (or the similar headdress, Persian tiara), in Iranian (Parthian) clothing,[78] and was originally seated on a throne alongside other deities and the king himself.[81] On the back of the thrones there is an inscription in Greek, which includes the name Apollo Mithras Helios in the genitive case (Ἀπόλλωνος Μίθρου Ἡλίου).[82] Vermaseren also reports about a Mithras cult in 3rd century bce. Fayum.[83] R.D. Barnett has argued that the royal seal of King Saussatar of Mitanni from c. 1450 bce. depicts a tauroctonous Mithras.[84]
Beginnings of Roman Mithraism
The origins and spread of the Mysteries have been intensely debated among scholars and there are radically differing views on these issues.[85] According to Clauss, mysteries of Mithras were not practiced until the 1st century ce.[4] According to Ulansey, the earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the 1st century bce: The historian Plutarch says that in 67 bce the pirates of Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras.[86] However, according to Daniels, whether any of this relates to the origins of the mysteries is unclear.[r] The unique underground temples or mithraea appear suddenly in the archaeology in the last quarter of the 1st century ce.[88]
Earliest archaeology
Inscriptions and monuments related to the Mithraic Mysteries are catalogued in a two volume work by Maarten J. Vermaseren, the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae (or CIMRM).[89] The earliest monument showing Mithras slaying the bull is thought to be CIMRM 593, found in Rome. There is no date, but the inscription tells us that it was dedicated by a certain Alcimus, steward of T. Claudius Livianus. Vermaseren and Gordon believe that this Livianus is a certain Livianus who was commander of the Praetorian guard in 101 ce, which would give an earliest date of 98–99 ce.[90]
Votive altar from Alba Iulia in present-day Romania, dedicated to Invicto Mythrae in fulfillment of a vow (votum)
Five small terracotta plaques of a figure holding a knife over a bull have been excavated near Kerch in the Crimea, dated by Beskow and Clauss to the second half of the 1st century bce,[91] and by Beck to 50 bce–50 ce. These may be the earliest tauroctonies, if they are accepted to be a depiction of Mithras.[s] The bull-slaying figure wears a Phrygian cap, but is described by Beck and Beskow as otherwise unlike standard depictions of the tauroctony. Another reason for not connecting these artifacts with the Mithraic Mysteries is that the first of these plaques was found in a woman’s tomb.[t]
An altar or block from near SS. Pietro e Marcellino on the Esquiline in Rome was inscribed with a bilingual inscription by an Imperial freedman named T. Flavius Hyginus, probably between 80–100 ce. It is dedicated to Sol Invictus Mithras.[u]
CIMRM 2268 is a broken base or altar from Novae/Steklen in Moesia Inferior, dated 100 ce, showing Cautes and Cautopates.
Other early archaeology includes the Greek inscription from Venosia by Sagaris actor probably from 100–150 ce; the Sidon cippus dedicated by Theodotus priest of Mithras to Asclepius, 140–141 ce; and the earliest military inscription, by C. Sacidius Barbarus, centurion of XV Apollinaris, from the bank of the Danube at Carnuntum, probably before 114 ce.[95]
According to C.M.Daniels, the Carnuntum inscription is the earliest Mithraic dedication from the Danube region, which along with Italy is one of the two regions where Mithraism first struck root.[v] The earliest dateable mithraeum outside Rome dates from 148 ce.[w] The Mithraeum at Caesarea Maritima is the only one in Palestine and the date is inferred.[x]
Earliest cult locations
According to Roger Beck, the attested locations of the Roman cult in the earliest phase (c. 80-120 ce) are as follows:[99]
Mithraea datable from pottery
Nida/Heddemheim III (Germania Sup.)
Mogontiacum (Germania Sup.)
Pons Aeni (Noricum)
Caesarea Maritima (Judaea)
Datable dedications
Nida/Heddernheim I (Germania Sup.) (CIMRM 1091/2, 1098)
Carnuntum III (Pannonia Sup.) (CIMRM 1718)
Novae (Moesia Inf.) (CIMRM 2268/9)
Oescus (Moesia Inf.)(CIMRM 2250)
Rome(CIMRM 362, 593/4)
Classical literature about Mithras and the Mysteries
Mithras and the Bull: This fresco from the mithraeum at Marino, Italy (third century) shows the tauroctony and the celestial lining of Mithras’ cape.
According to Boyce, the earliest literary references to the mysteries are by the Latin poet Statius, about 80 ce, and Plutarch (c. 100 CE).[100]
Statius
The Thebaid (c. 80 ce[9](p 29) ) an epic poem by Statius, pictures Mithras in a cave, wrestling with something that has horns.[101] The context is a prayer to the god Phoebus.[102] The cave is described as persei, which in this context is usually translated Persian; however, according to the translator J. H. Mozley it literally means Persean, referring to Perses, the son of Perseus and Andromeda,[9](p 29) this Perses being the ancestor of the Persians according to Greek legend.[9](pp 27–29)
Justin Martyr
Writing in approximately 145 ce, the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr charges the cult of Mithras with imitating the Christian communion,
Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same things to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed, with certain incantations, in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn.[103]
Plutarch
The Greek biographer Plutarch (46–127 ce) says that "secret mysteries … of Mithras" were practiced by the pirates of Cilicia, the coastal province in the southeast of Anatolia, who were active in the 1st century bce: "They likewise offered strange sacrifices; those of Olympus I mean; and they celebrated certain secret mysteries, among which those of Mithras continue to this day, being originally instituted by them."[104] He mentions that the pirates were especially active during the Mithridatic wars (between the Roman Republic and King Mithridates VI of Pontus) in which they supported the king.[104] The association between Mithridates and the pirates is also mentioned by the ancient historian Appian.[105] The 4th century commentary on Vergil by Servius says that Pompey settled some of these pirates in Calabria in southern Italy.[106]
Dio Cassius
The historian Dio Cassius (2nd to 3rd century ce) tells how the name of Mithras was spoken during the state visit to Rome of Tiridates I of Armenia, during the reign of Nero. (Tiridates was the son of Vonones II of Parthia, and his coronation by Nero in 66 ce confirmed the end of a war between Parthia and Rome.) Dio Cassius writes that Tiridates, as he was about to receive his crown, told the Roman emperor that he revered him "as Mithras".[107] Roger Beck thinks it possible that this episode contributed to the emergence of Mithraism as a popular religion in Rome.[108]
Porphyry
Mosaic (1st century ce) depicting Mithras emerging from his cave and flanked by Cautes and Cautopates (Walters Art Museum)
The philosopher Porphyry (3rd–4th century ce) gives an account of the origins of the Mysteries in his work De antro nympharum (The Cave of the Nymphs).[109] Citing Eubulus as his source, Porphyry writes that the original temple of Mithras was a natural cave, containing fountains, which Zoroaster found in the mountains of Persia. To Zoroaster, this cave was an image of the whole world, so he consecrated it to Mithras, the creator of the world. Later in the same work, Porphyry links Mithras and the bull with planets and star-signs: Mithras himself is associated with the sign of Aries and the planet Mars, while the bull is associated with Venus.[110]
Porphyry is writing close to the demise of the cult, and Robert Turcan has challenged the idea that Porphyry’s statements about Mithraism are accurate. His case is that far from representing what Mithraists believed, they are merely representations by the Neoplatonists of what it suited them in the late 4th century to read into the mysteries.[111] However, Merkelbach and Beck believe that Porphyry’s work "is in fact thoroughly coloured with the doctrines of the Mysteries".[112] Beck holds that classical scholars have neglected Porphyry’s evidence and have taken an unnecessarily skeptical view of Porphyry.[113] According to Beck, Porphyry’s De antro is the only clear text from antiquity which tells us about the intent of the Mithraic Mysteries and how that intent was realized.[114] David Ulansey finds it important that Porphyry "confirms … that astral conceptions played an important role in Mithraism."[9](p 18)
Mithras Liturgy
In later antiquity, the Greek name of Mithras (Μίθρας ) occurs in the text known as the "Mithras Liturgy", a part of the Paris Greek Magical Papyrus (Paris Bibliothèque Nationale Suppl. gr. 574); here Mithras is given the epithet "the great god", and is identified with the sun god Helios.[115][116] There have been different views among scholars as to whether this text is an expression of Mithraism as such. Franz Cumont argued that it isn’t;[117] Marvin Meyer thinks it is;[118] while Hans Dieter Betz sees it as a synthesis of Greek, Egyptian, and Mithraic traditions.[119][120]
Modern debate about origins
Cumont’s hypothesis: from Persian state religion
Augustan-era intaglio depicting a tauroctony (Walters Art Museum)
4th-century relief of the investiture of the Sasanian king Ardashir II. Mithra stands on a lotus flower on the left holding a barsom.[78]
Scholarship on Mithras begins with Franz Cumont, who published a two volume collection of source texts and images of monuments in French in 1894-1900, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra [French: Texts and Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra].[121] An English translation of part of this work was published in 1903, with the title The Mysteries of Mithra.[122] Cumont’s hypothesis, as the author summarizes it in the first 32 pages of his book, was that the Roman religion was "the Roman form of Mazdaism",[123] the Persian state religion, disseminated from the East. He identified the ancient Aryan deity who appears in Persian literature as Mithras with the Hindu god Mitra of the Vedic hymns.[124] According to Cumont, the god Mithra came to Rome "accompanied by a large representation of the Mazdean Pantheon".[125] Cumont considers that while the tradition "underwent some modification in the Occident … the alterations that it suffered were largely superficial".[126]
Criticisms and reassessments of Cumont
Cumont’s theories came in for severe criticism from John R. Hinnells and R.L. Gordon at the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies held in 1971.[y] John Hinnells was unwilling to reject entirely the idea of Iranian origin,[127] but wrote: "we must now conclude that his reconstruction simply will not stand. It receives no support from the Iranian material and is in fact in conflict with the ideas of that tradition as they are represented in the extant texts. Above all, it is a theoretical reconstruction which does not accord with the actual Roman iconography."[z] He discussed Cumont’s reconstruction of the bull-slaying scene and stated "that the portrayal of Mithras given by Cumont is not merely unsupported by Iranian texts but is actually in serious conflict with known Iranian theology."[aa] Another paper by R.L. Gordon argued that Cumont severely distorted the available evidence by forcing the material to conform to his predetermined model of Zoroastrian origins. Gordon suggested that the theory of Persian origins was completely invalid and that the Mithraic mysteries in the West were an entirely new creation.[129]
A similar view has been expressed by Luther H. Martin: "Apart from the name of the god himself, in other words, Mithraism seems to have developed largely in and is, therefore, best understood from the context of Roman culture."[130](p xiv)
However, according to Hopfe, "All theories of the origin of Mithraism acknowledge a connection, however vague, to the Mithra/Mitra figure of ancient Aryan religion."[19] Reporting on the Second International Congress of Mithraic Studies, 1975, Ugo Bianchi says that although he welcomes "the tendency to question in historical terms the relations between Eastern and Western Mithraism", it "should not mean obliterating what was clear to the Romans themselves, that Mithras was a ‘Persian’ (in wider perspective: an Indo-Iranian) god."[131]
Boyce states that "no satisfactory evidence has yet been adduced to show that, before Zoroaster, the concept of a supreme god existed among the Iranians, or that among them Mithra – or any other divinity – ever enjoyed a separate cult of his or her own outside either their ancient or their Zoroastrian pantheons."[132] However, she also says that although recent studies have minimized the Iranizing aspects of the self-consciously Persian religion "at least in the form which it attained under the Roman Empire", the name Mithras is enough to show "that this aspect is of some importance". She also says that "the Persian affiliation of the Mysteries is acknowledged in the earliest literary references to them."[24]
Beck tells us that since the 1970s scholars have generally rejected Cumont, but adds that recent theories about how Zoroastrianism was during the period bce now make some new form of Cumont’s east-west transfer possible.[133] He says that
… an indubitable residuum of things Persian in the Mysteries and a better knowledge of what constituted actual Mazdaism have allowed modern scholars to postulate for Roman Mithraism a continuing Iranian theology. This indeed is the main line of Mithraic scholarship, the Cumontian model which subsequent scholars accept, modify, or reject. For the transmission of Iranian doctrine from East to West, Cumont postulated a plausible, if hypothetical, intermediary: the Magusaeans of the Iranian diaspora in Anatolia. More problematic – and never properly addressed by Cumont or his successors – is how real-life Roman Mithraists subsequently maintained a quite complex and sophisticated Iranian theology behind an occidental facade. Other than the images at Dura of the two ‘magi’ with scrolls, there is no direct and explicit evidence for the carriers of such doctrines. … Up to a point, Cumont’s Iranian paradigm, especially in Turcan’s modified form, is certainly plausible.[134][135][136]
He also says that "the old Cumontian model of formation in, and diffusion from, Anatolia … is by no means dead – nor should it be."[137]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism
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