Mithraic Mysteries

In every Mithraeum the centrepiece was a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, called the tauroctony.[31]

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[32] bull, holding it by the nostrils[32] 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.

The second most important scene after the tauroctony in Mithraic art is the so-called banquet scene.[42] The banquet scene features Mithras and the Sun god banqueting on the hide of the slaughtered bull.[42]

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, is wearing a Phrygian cap and is holding his legs together.[44]

According to M.J.Vermaseren, the Mithraic New Year and the birthday of Mithras was on December 25.[53][54] However, Beck disagrees strongly.[55] Clauss states: "the Mithraic Mysteries had no public ceremonies of its own. The festival of natalis Invicti [Birth of the Unconquerable (Sun)], held on 25 December, was a general festival of the Sun, and by no means specific to the Mysteries of Mithras."[56] Mithraic initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication,[57] 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.

It is doubtful whether Mithraism had a monolithic and internally consistent doctrine.[69] It may have varied from location to location.[70] However, the iconography is relatively coherent.[38] 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,[71] but no named Mithraic sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic scripture or teaching. It is known that intitates could transfer with their grades from one Mithraeum to another.[72]

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.

Membership

Only male names appear in surviving inscribed membership lists. Historians including Cumont and Richard Gordon have concluded that the cult was for men only.[96][97]

The ancient scholar Porphyry refers to female initiates in Mithraic rites.[5] However, the early 20th-century historian A.S. Geden writes that this may be due to a misunderstanding.[5] 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.[5] It has recently been suggested by David Jonathan that "women were involved with Mithraic groups in at least some locations of the empire."[98]

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.[99]

Origins

The origins and spread of the Mysteries have been intensely debated among scholars and there are radically differing views on these issues.[109] According to Clauss mysteries of Mithras were not practiced until the 1st century AD.[110] According to Ulansey, the earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the 1st century BC: the historian Plutarch (46 - 127 AD) says that in 67 BC the pirates of Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras.[111] However, according to Daniels, whether any of this relates to the origins of the mysteries is unclear.[112] The unique underground temples or Mithraea appear suddenly in the archaeology in the last quarter of the 1st century AD.[113]

Beck theorizes that the cult was created in Rome, by a single founder who had some knowledge of both Greek and Oriental religion, but suggests that some of the ideas used may have passed through the Hellenistic kingdoms. He observes that "Mithras — moreover, a Mithras who was identified with the Greek Sun god Helios" was among the gods of the syncretic Greco-Armenian-Iranian royal cult at Nemrut founded by Antiochus I of Commagene in the mid 1st century BC.[167] Michael Speidel associates Mithras with the Sun god Orion.[168] While proposing the theory, Beck says that his scenario may be regarded as Cumontian in two ways. Firstly, because it looks again at Anatolia and Anatolians, and more importantly, because it hews back to the methodology first used by Cumont.[169]

End

It is difficult to trace when the cult of Mithras came to an end. Beck states that "Quite early in the [fourth] century the religion was as good as dead throughout the empire."[181] Inscriptions from the 4th century are few. Clauss states that inscriptions show Mithras as one of the cults listed on inscriptions by Roman senators who had not converted to Christianity, as part of the "pagan revival" among the elite.[182] Ulansey holds that "Mithraism declined with the rise to power of Christianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when Christianity became strong enough to exterminate by force rival religions such as Mithraism."[183] According to Speidel, Christians fought fiercely with this feared enemy and suppressed it during the 4th century. Some Mithraic sanctuaries were destroyed and religion was no longer a matter of personal choice.[184] According to Luther H. Martin, Roman Mithraism came to an end with the anti-pagan decrees of the Christian emperor Theodosius during the last decade of the 4th century.[185]

At some of the mithraeums which have been found below churches, for example the Santa Prisca mithraeum and the San Clemente mithraeum, the ground plan of the church above was made in a way to symbolize Christianity's domination of Mithraism.[186] According to Mark Humphries, the deliberate concealment of Mithraic cult objects in some areas suggests that precautions were being taken against Christian attacks. However, in areas like the Rhine frontier, purely religious considerations cannot explain the end of Mithraism and barbarian invasions may also have played a role.[187]

Mithraism and Christianity

Early Christian apologists noted similarities between Mithraic and Christian rituals, but nonetheless took an extremely negative view of Mithraism: they interpreted Mithraic rituals as evil copies of Christian ones.[203][204] For instance, Tertullian wrote that as a prelude to the Mithraic initiation ceremony, the initiate was given a ritual bath and at the end of the ceremony, received a mark on the forehead. He described these rites as a diabolical counterfeit of the baptism and chrismation of Christians.[205] Justin Martyr contrasted Mithraic initiation communion with the Eucharist:[206]

Wherefore also the evil demons in mimicry have handed down that the same thing should be done in the Mysteries of Mithras. For that bread and a cup of water are in these mysteries set before the initiate with certain speeches you either know or can learn.[207]

Marvin Meyer comments that "early Christianity ... in general, resembles Mithraism in a number of respects – enough to make Christian apologists scramble to invent creative theological explanations to account for the similarities."[208]

Ernest Renan suggested in 1882 that, under different circumstances, Mithraism might have risen to the prominence of modern-day Christianity. Renan wrote: "if the growth of Christianity had been arrested by some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraic…"[209][210] However, this theory has since been contested: Leonard Boyle wrote in 1987 that "too much ... has been made of the 'threat' of Mithraism to Christianity,"[211] pointing out that there are only fifty known mithraea in the entire city of Rome. J. Alvar Ezquerra holds that since the two religions did not share similar aims, there was never any real threat of Mithraism taking over the Roman world.[212]

According to Mary Boyce, Mithraism was a potent enemy for Christianity in the West, though she is skeptical about its hold in the East.[213][214][215] Filippo Coarelli (1979) has tabulated forty actual or possible Mithraea and estimated that Rome would have had "not less than 680–690" mithraea.[10] Lewis M. Hopfe states that more than 400 Mithraic sites have been found. These sites are spread all over the Roman empire from places as far as Dura Europos in the east, and England in the west. He too says that Mithraism may have been a rival of Christianity.[12] David Ulansey thinks Renan's statement "somewhat exaggerated",[216] but does consider Mithraism "one of Christianity's major competitors in the Roman Empire".[216] Ulansey sees study of Mithraism as important for understanding "the cultural matrix out of which the Christian religion came to birth".[216]

On the basis of his astronomical interpretation of Mithraism, Ulansey argues for a "profound kinship between Mithraism and Christianity", in that Mithras, like Jesus Christ, was considered to be "a being from beyond the universe".[217] Ulansey suggests that these two figures, Mithras and Jesus, "are to some extent both manifestations of a single deep longing in the human spirit".[217]

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