mithras encyclopedia entry

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MithrasFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.Mithras was the central savior god of Mithraism, a syncretic Hellenistic mystery religion of male initiates that developedin the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC and was practiced in the Roman Empire from the 1stcentury BC to the 5th century AD. Parthian coins and documents bear a double date with a 64 year interval that representsMithra's ascension to heaven, traditionally given as the equivalent of 208 BC, 64 years after his birth.

The name Mithras was adapted from the Persian god Mithra, the mediator between Ahura Mazda and the earth, the

guarantor of human contracts, although in Mithraism much was added to the original elements of Mithra. However, someof the attributes of Roman Mithras may have been taken from other Eastern cults: for example, the heavy Mithraist use ofastrology strongly suggests syncretism with star-oriented Mesopotamian or Anatolian religions. At least some of thissyncretism may have already been underway when the cult was adopted in the West.

MithraismFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.Mithraism was an ancient Hellenistic religion, based on worship of a god called Mithras who apparently derives from thePersian god Mithra and other Zoroastrian deities.

Mithraism apparently originated in the Eastern Mediterranean around the first or second centuries BC. It was practiced inthe Roman Empire since the first century BC, and reached its apogee around the third through fourth centuries AD, whenit was very popular among the Roman soldiers. Mithraism disappeared from overt practice after the Theodosian decree of391 AD banned all pagan rites, and apparently became extinct shortly thereafter.

Principles of MithraismMithraism is best documented in the form it had acquired in the later Roman Empire. It was an initiatory 'mysteryreligion,' passed from initiate to initiate, like the Eleusinian Mysteries. It was not based on a supernaturally revealed bodyof scripture, and hence very little written documentatory evidence survives.

Soldiers appeared to be the most plentiful followers of Mithraism, and women were apparently not allowed to join.

[edit]The mithraeumIt is difficult for scholars to reconstruct the daily workings and beliefs of Mithraism, as the rituals were highly secret andlimited to initiated men. Mithras was little more than a name until the massive documentation of Franz Cumont's Textsand Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra was published in 1894-1900, with the first Englishtranslation in 1903.

However, it is known that the center of the cult was the mithraeum, either an adapted natural cave or cavern, preferablysanctified by previous local religious usage, or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark andwindowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural cave. When possible, the mithreum wasconstructed within or below an existing building. The site of a mithraeum may also be identified by its separate entrance orvestibule, its "cave", called the spelaeum or spelunca, with raised benches along the side walls for the ritual meal, and itssanctuary at the far end, often in a recess, before which the pedestal-like altar stood. Many mithraea that follow this basic

plan are scattered over much of the Empire's former area, particularly where the legions were stationed along the frontiers.

In every Mithraic temple, the place of honor was occupied by a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, called atauroctony, which is widely accepted nowadays as representations of the constellations rather than animal sacrifice(Ulansey, 1991). Mithras is associated with Perseus, whose constellation is above that of the bull. A serpent, a scorpion, adog, and a raven are present, also thought to represent associated constellations.

From the structure of the mithraea it is possible to surmise that worshippers would have gathered for a common mealalong the reclining couches lining the walls. It is worth noting that most temples could hold only thirty or fortyindividuals.

[edit]Mithraic ranksThe members of a mithraeum were divided into seven ranks. All members were apparently expected to progress throughthe first four ranks, while only a few would go on to the three higher ranks. The first four ranks seem to represent spiritual

progress, while the other three appear to have been specialized offices. The seven ranks were:

Corax (raven)


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Nymphus (bride)Miles (soldier)Leo (lion)Perses (Persian)Heliodromus (sun-courier)Pater (father)The new initiate became a Corax, while the Leo was an adept.

The titles of the first four ranks suggest the possibility that advancement through the ranks was based on introspection andspiritual growth.

[edit]The mythology of MithraismIn the absence of any Mithraist scripture, all we know about Mithras is what can be deduced from his images in themithraea that have survived.

Some depictions show Mithras carrying a rock on his back, much as Atlas did, and/or wearing a cape that had the starrysky as its inside lining. A bronze image of Mithras, emerging from an egg-shaped zodiac ring, found associated with amithraeum along Hadrian's Wall (now at the University of Newcastle), and an inscription from the city of Rome suggestthat Mithras may have been seen as the Orphic creator-god Phanes who emerged from the cosmic egg at the beginning oftime, bringing the universe into existence. This view is reinforced by a bas-relief at the Estense Museum in Modena, Italy,which shows Phanes coming from an egg, surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, in an image very similar to that at

Newcastle.

He is sometimes depicted as a man being born or reborn from a rock (the 'petra genetrix),typically with the snake Oroboroswrapped around it. It is commonly believed that the cave in Mithraism imagery represents the cosmos, and the rock is thecosmos seen from the outside; hence the description of this god as 'rising from the dead'. According to some accounts,Mithras died, was buried in a cavernous rock tomb, and was resurrected.

Another more widely accepted interpretation takes its clue from the writer Porphyry, who recorded that the cave picturedin the tauroctony was intended to be "an image of the cosmos." According to this view, the cave depicted in that imagemay represent the "great cave" of the sky. This interpretation was supported by research by K. B. Stark in 1869, withastronomical support by Roger Beck (1984 and 1988), David Ulansey (1989) and Noel Swerdlow (1991). Thisinterpretation is reinforced by the constant presence in Mitraic imagery of heavenly objects such as stars, the moon, andthe sun and symbols for the signs of the Zodiac.

One of the central motifs of Mithraism is the myth of sacrifice by Mithra of a sacred bull created by the supreme deityAhura Mazda, which Mithra stabs to death in the cave, having been instructed to do so by a crow, sent from Ahura Mazda.In this myth, from the body of the dying bull spring plants, animals, and all the beneficial things of the earth. It is thoughtthat the bull represents the constellation of Taurus, which due to precession of the equinoxes, at the start of the firstcentury, the sun was moving out of, into the constellation of Pisces.

In light of this interpretation, it has been suggested in recent times that the Mithraic religion is somehow connected to theend of the astrological "age of Taurus," and the beginning of the "age of Aries," which took place about the year 2000 BC.It has even been speclated that the religion may have originated at that time (although there is no record of it until the 2ndcentury BC).

The identification of an "age" with a particular zodiac constellation is based on the sun's position during the vernalequinox. Before 2000 BC, the Sun could have been seen against the stars of the constellation of Taurus at the time ofvernal equinox [had there been an eclipse]. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, on average every 2,160 years the Sunappears against the stars of a new constellation at vernal equinox. The current Astrological Age started when the equinox

precessed into the constellation of Pisces, in about the year 150 BC, with the 'Age of Aquarius' starting in 2600 AD.

Indeed, the constellations common in the sky from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC were Taurus the Bull, Canis Minor theDog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion. Further support for this theory is the presence of alion and a cup in some depictions of the tauroctony: indeed Leo (a lion) and Aquarius ("the cup-bearer") were theconstellations seen as the northernmost (summer solstice) and southernmost (winter solstice) positions in the sky duringthe age of Taurus.

The precession of the equinoxes was discovered, or at least publicized, by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2ndcentury BC. Whether the phenomenon was known by Mithraists previously is unknown. In any case, Mithras was


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presumed to be very powerful if he was able to rotate the heavens, and thus 'kill the bull' or displacing Taurus as thereigning image in the heavens.

Some commentators surmise that the Mithraists worshipped Mithras as the mediator between Man and the supreme Godof the upper and nether world. However, other commentators, inspired by James Frazer's theories, have labeled Mithras amystery religion with a life-death-rebirth deity, comparable to Isis, the resurrected Jesus or the Persephone/Demeter cult ofthe Eleusinian Mysteries.

[edit]History of Mithraism[edit]Mithraism before RomeMithraism is generally considered to be of Persian origins, specifically an outgrowth of Zoroastrian culture, though not ofZoroaster's teachings. For Zoroaster was a monotheist, for whom Ahuramazda was the One god. Darius the Great wasequally stringent in the official monotheism of his reign: no god but Ahuramazda is ever mentioned in any of thenumerous inscriptions that survive of his reign (521485 BC).

However, the official cult is rarely the sole religion in an area. The following inscription from Susa of Artaxerxes IIMnemon (404358 BC) demonstrates that not all the Achaemenid kings were as purely Zoroastrian as Darius the Great:

"Artaxerxes the Great King, [...] says: [...] By the favor of Ahuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra, this palace I built. MayAhuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra protect me from all evil, and that which I have built may they not shatter nor harm."

It is tempting to identify the Roman Mithras with the Persian Mithra, except that there is no known Persian legend or textabout Mithra killing a bull or being associated with other animals. On the other hand, there is a story of Ahriman, the evilgod in popular developments of Zoroastrianism, killing a bull. It is also hard to explain how the Sun-god Mithra wouldcome to be worshipped in the windowless, cave-like mithraeum.

A possible link between Persia and Rome, which could be the stage for these changes, may be the kingdoms of Parthia andPontus in Asia Minor. Several of their kings were called Mithradates, meaning "given by Mithra", starting withMithradates I of Parthia (died 138 BC). It would seem that, in those kingdoms, Mithra was a god whose power lent lustereven to a king. And it was at Pergamum, in the 2nd century BC, that Greek sculptors started to produce bas-relief imageryof Mithra Taurocthonos, "Mithra the bull-slayer." Although the cult of Mithras never caught on in the Greek homeland,those sculptures may indicate the route between Persian Mithra and Roman Mithras.

Around the first century AD, the Greek historian Plutarch wrote about pirates of Cilicia who practiced the Mithraic "secretrites" around 67 BC. Since Cilicia was the name of an area near Turkey and Greece, the Mithras mentioned by Plutarch

may have been worship of the Persian god Mithra; or may have been associated with Ahriman, the Persian god who killeda bull.

[edit]Mithraism in early RomeMithraism arrived fully mature at Rome with the return of the legions from the east in the first century BC. As an actiongod of armies and the champion of heroes, he appealed to the professional Roman soldiers, who carried his cult to Iberia,Britain, the German frontiers and Dacia.

The cult of Mithras began to attract attention at Rome about the end of the first century AD, perhaps in connection withthe conquest of then-Zoroastrian Armenia. The earliest material evidence for the Roman worship of Mithras dates fromthat period, in a record of Roman soldiers who came from the military garrison at Carnuntum near the Danube River inthe modern area of Hungary (the Roman province of Upper Pannonia). These soldiers fought against the Parthians andwere involved in the suppression of the revolts in Jerusalem from 60 A.D. to about 70 A.D. When they returned home,they made Mithraic dedications, probably in the year 71 or 72.

Statius mentions the typical Mithraic relief in his Thebaid (Book i. 719,720), around A. D. 80; Plutarch's Life of Pompeyalso makes it clear that the worship of Mithras was well known at that time.

By A. D. 200, Mithraism had spread widely through the army, and also among traders and slaves. The German frontiershave yielded most of the archaeological evidence of its prosperity: small cult objects connected with Mithra turn up inarchaeological digs from Romania to Hadrian's Wall.

[edit]Mithraism in the Roman Empire


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At Rome, the third century emperors encouraged Mithraism, because of the support which it afforded to the divine natureof monarchs. Mithras thus became the giver of authority and victory to the Imperial House. From the time of Commodus,who participated in its mysteries, its supporters were to be found in all classes.

Concentrations of Mithraic temples are found on the outskirts of the Roman empire: along Hadrian's wall in northernEngland three mithraea have been identified, at Housesteads, Carrawburgh and Rudchester. The discoveries are in theUniversity of Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, where a mithraeum has been recreated. Recent excavations in Londonhave uncovered the remains of a Mithraic temple near to the center of the once walled Roman settlement, on the bank of

the Walbrook stream. Mithraea have also been found along the Danube and Rhine river frontier, in the province of Dacia(where in 2003 a temple was found in Alba-Iulia) and as far afield as Numidia in North Africa.

As would be expected, Mithraic ruins are also found in the port city of Ostia, and in Rome the capital, where as many asseven hundred mithraea may have existed (a dozen have been identified). Its importance at Rome may be judged from theabundance of monumental remains: more than 75 pieces of sculpture, 100 Mithraic inscriptions, and ruins of temples andshrines in all parts of the city and its suburbs. A well-preserved late 2nd century mithraeum, with its altar and built-instone benches, originally built beneath a Roman house (as was a common practice), survives in the crypt over which has

been built the Church of San Clemente, Rome.

[edit]The demise of MithraismWorship of the sun (Sol) did exist within the indigenous Roman pantheon, as a minor part, and always as a pairing withthe moon. However, in the East, there were many solar deities, including the Greek Helios, who was largely displaced by

Apollo. By the 3rd century, the popular cults of Apollo and Mithras had started to merge into the syncretism known as SolInvictus, and in 274 CE the emperor Aurelian (whose mother had been a priestess of the sun) made worship of SolInvictus official. Subsequently Aurelian built a splendid new temple in Rome, and created a new body of priests to supportit (pontifex solis invicti), attributing his victories in the East to Sol Invictus. But none of this affected the existing cult ofMithras, which remained a non-official cult. Some senators held positions in both cults.

However, this period was also the beginning of the decline of Mithraism, as Dacia was lost to the empire, and invasions ofthe northern peoples resulted in the destruction of temples along a great stretch of frontier, the main stronghold of the cult.The spread of Christianity through the Empire, boosted by Constantine's tolerance of it from around 310 CE, also took itstoll - particularly as Christianity admitted women while Mithraism did not, which obviously limited its potential for rapidgrowth.

The reign of Julian, who attempted to restore the faith, and supress Christianity, and the usurpation of Eugenius renewedthe hopes of its devotees, but the decree secured by Theodosius in 394, totally forbidding non-Christian worship, may be

considered the end of Mithraism's formal public existence.

Mithraism still survived in certain cantons of the Alps into the 5th century, and clung to life with more tenacity in itsEastern homelands. Its eventual successor, as the carrier of Persian religion to the West, was Manichaeism, whichcompeted strenuously with Christianity for the status of world-religion.

[edit]ConnectionsThere is much speculation that Mithraic belief was influenced by Christian beliefs, or vice-versa. Ernest Renan, in TheOrigins of Christianity, promoted the idea that Mithraism was the prime competitor to Christianity in the second throughthe fourth century AD, although most scholars feel the written claims that the emperors Nero, Commodus, SeptimiusSeverus, Caracalla, and the Tetrarchs were initiates are dubious at best, and there is no evidence that Mithraic worshipwas accorded any official status as a Roman cult.

Bull and cave themes are found in Christian shrines dedicated to the archangel Michael, who, after the officialization ofChristianity, became the patron "Saint" of soldiers. Many of those shrines were converted Mithraea, for instance the sacredcavern at Monte Gargano in Apulia, refounded in 493. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Mithras cult wastransferred to the previously unvenerated archangel.

Bull and crypt are linked in the Christian saint Saturnin (frequently "Sernin" or "Saturninus") of Toulouse, France. TheMithraeum is retained as a crypt under his earliest church, evocatively named "Notre-Dame du Taur."

It has also been speculated that the ancient Orobouros of Mithraism (the serpent wrapped about to bite its own tail) wasadapted for a Christian symbol of the limited confines of time and space. The snake around a rock also is reminscent of theMidgard serpent Jormungand who was said to surround Midgard (the Earth) according to Norse traditions.


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[edit]Mithraic studiesThe First International Congress of Mithraic Studies was held in 1971 at Manchester, England.

Franz Cumont (1868 - 1947) was the main proponent of the theory that Mithraism came originally from Persia. Cumont'sstudent, Maarten J. Vermaseren, author of Mithras, the Secret God (1963), was very active in translating Mithraicinscriptions.

Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, Harvard University Press, 1987. A book, based on his Jackson Lectures at HarvardUniversity in 1982, dispels some misconceptions and stereotypes.

Mitra is an important deity of Persian and Indic culture; he appears in the Vedas as one of the Adityas, a solar deity andthe god of honesty, friendship, and contracts. In Iranian civilization, where his name was rendered as Mithra, he latercame into increased prominence as a major deity of Zoroastrianism. He can be identified with a proto-Indo-Iranian deitywhose name can be reconstructed as *Mitra.

In both cultures, he is distinguished by his close relationship with the god who rules over the asuras (Iranic ahuras) andprotects rta (Iranic asha): Varuna in India and Ahura Mazda in Iran.

The Hellenistic and Roman god Mithras, worshipped by male initiates from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD,combined the Persian Mithra with other Persian and perhaps Anatolian deities in a syncretic cult.

Etymology and OriginsThe Indo-Iranian word *mitra- could have two meanings:

covenant, compact, oath, or treatyfriendshipA general meaning of "alliance" might adequately explain both alternatives. The second sense tends to be emphasized inIndic sources, the first sense in Iranian.

The earliest known occurrence of the name Mitra is in a treaty inscription, ca 1400 BC, established between the Hittitesand the Hurrian kingdom of the Mitanni in the area southeast of Lake Van. The treaty is guaranteed by five Indo-Iraniangods: Indra, Mitra, Varuna and the twin horsemen, the Ashvins or Nasatya. The Hurrians, it appears, were being led by anaristocratic warrior caste worshipping these gods.

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Mitra in the VedasIn the Vedic hymns, Mitra is always invoked together with Varuna, so that the two are combined as 'Mitravaruna': Varunais lord of the cosmic rhythm of the celestial spheres, while Mitra brings forth the light at dawn, which was covered byVaruna. In the later Vedic ritual, a white victim is prescribed for Mitra, a dark one for Varuna.

In the Shatapatha Brahmana, the Paired One is analyzed as "the Counsel and the Power" Mitra being the priesthood,Varuna the royal power. As Joseph Campbell remarked, "Both are said to have a thousand eyes. Both are activeforeground aspects of the light or solar force at play in time. Both renew the world by their deed."

[edit]Mithra in the Iranian WorldThe reform of Zarathustra retained the multitudes of Iranian deities, reducing them, in a complex hierarchy, to"Immortals" and "Adored Ones" who were now conceived either under the rule of Ahura Mazda or of Ahriman, as all ofthe cosmos was now part of Good or part of Evil.

In the later parts of the Avesta, Mithra comes to the fore among the created beings. He gained the title of "Judge of Souls".As the protector of truth and the enemy of error, Mithra occupied an intermediate position in the Zoroastrian pantheon asthe greatest of the yazatas, the beings created by Ahura Mazda to aid in the destruction of evil and the administration ofthe world. He became the divine representative of Ahura-Mazda on earth, and was directed to protect the righteous fromthe demonic forces of Ahriman. He was thus a deity of truth and loyalty, and, by transfer to the physical realm, a god of airand light. As the enemy of darkness and evil spirits, he protected souls, a psychopomp accompanying them to paradise (aPersian concept and even a Persian word). Because light is accompanied by heat, he was the god of vegetation andincrease; he rewarded the good with prosperity and annihilated the bad. Mithras was called omniscient, undeceivable,infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting.


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By at least the Hellenistic era, Mithra was identified as the son of Anahita, a goddess with extensive parallels to NearEastern mother-deities who is not mentioned in the early Avesta. The largest temple with a Mithraic connection is theSeleucid temple at Kangavar in western Iran (c. 200 BC), which is dedicated to "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Motherof the Lord Mithras".

The birth of Mithra is celebrated at the eve of the winter solstice, called Shab-e Yalda in Persian, as befits a god of light.

As a god who gave victory, Mithra was prominent in the official cult of the first Persian empire, where the seventh month

and the sixteenth day of other months were consecrated to him. Mithra, the "Great King" was especially suited as atutelary god for a ruler: Royal names incorporating the god's name (e.g. "Mithradates") appear in royal names of Parthia,Armenia, and in Anatolia, in Pontus and Cappadocia.

His worship spread first with the empire of the Persians throughout Asia Minor, then throughout the empire of Alexanderand his successors. In Mesopotamia, Mithra was easily identified with Shamash, god of the sun and justice.

The Parthian princes of Armenia were hereditary priests of Mithra, and an entire district of this land was dedicated toAnahita. Many temples were erected to Mithra in Armenia, which remained one of the last strongholds of the Zoroastriancult of Mithra until it became the first officially Christian kingdom.

[edit]Temples to Mithra in Greater Ancient IranOther Mithraic temples mentioned by David Fingrut, 1993 (link): at Khuzestan; in central Iran near present-day Mahallat,

(a few columns still standing at the temple of Khorheh); at excavated Nisa in Turkmenistan, later renamed Mithradatkirt(Mithraic mausoleums and shrines); at Hatra in upper Mesopotamia (Mithraic sanctuaries and mausoleums).

[edit]Mithra in the Greco/Roman worldIn the Hellenistic culture, Mithra could be identified with Apollo - Helios. During the 2nd century BC, probably atPergamon, Hellenistic sculptors transformed the figure of Mitra/Helios into an iconic Mithras, the central god of a newsyncretic religion, Mithraism. Although this new cult never caught on in the Greek homeland, it was taken to Romearound the 1st century BC by, and was dispersed throughout the Roman Empire and embraced by emperors as an officialreligion.

This later career is more fully treated in the entry Mithras and Mithraism.

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ReferencesJoseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God (1964).Georges Dumzil, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty (1990). ISBN0942299132.Malandra, William, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion (1983). ISBN 0816611157

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