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Mithraism

Mithraism:Mithras and the Bull: This fresco from the mithraeum at Marino, Italy (3rd century) shows the tauroctony and the celestial lining of Mithras' cape
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Mithras and the Bull: This fresco from the mithraeum at Marino, Italy (3rd century) shows the tauroctony and the celestial lining of Mithras' cape

Mithraism was a mystery religion prominent in the Roman world. It is uncertain when it began; some say in the 1st century BC[1], some in the 1st century AD[2] to the 5th century AD. It was centered around worship of the god Mithras. Only limited information about Mithras has come down to us, and scholars disagree on how it should be interpreted. It was believed to have had a Persian origin, but whether this is really so is disputed: see Mithra. It is most famous for suggestions in ancient and modern times that it was a rival of or resembled Christianity.


Contents

Historical Background

Mithraism apparently originated in the Eastern part of today's Iran around the 7th century BC [citation needed]. It was practiced in the Roman Empire since the first century BC[citation needed], and reached its apogee around the third through fourth centuries AD, when it was very popular among the Roman soldiers. Mithraism disappeared from overt practice after the Theodosian decree of AD 391 banned all pagan rites, and it apparently became extinct thereafter.

Principles of Mithraism

The term "Mithraism" is modern. In antiquity, texts refer to "the mysteries of Mithras", and to its adherents, as "the mysteries of the Persians"[citation needed]. This latter epithet is significant, not for whether (or not) the Mithraists considered the object of their devotion a Persian divinity, but for the fact that the devotees were convinced that their religion was founded by Zoroaster. (Beck, 2002)

Mithraism is only documented in the form it had acquired in the Roman Empire. It was an initiatory 'mystery religion,' passed from initiate to initiate, like the Eleusinian Mysteries. It was not based on a supernaturally revealed body of scripture, and hence very little written documentary evidence survives.

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

The mithraeum

It is difficult for scholars to reconstruct the daily workings and beliefs of Mithraism, as the rituals were highly secret and limited to initiated men. Mithras was little more than a name until the massive documentation of Franz Cumont's Texts and Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra was published in 1894-1900, with the first English translation in 1903.

Religious practice was centered around the mithraeum, either an adapted natural cave or cavern or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark and windowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural cave. When possible, the mithraeum was constructed within or below an existing building. The site of a mithraeum may also be identified by its separate entrance or vestibule, its "cave", called the spelaeum or spelunca, with raised benches along the side walls for the ritual meal, and its sanctuary 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. Others may be recognized by their characteristic layout, even though converted as crypts beneath Christian churches.

In every Mithraic temple, the place of honor was occupied by a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, called a tauroctony. It has been proposed by David Ulansey that the tauroctony is a symbolic representation of the constellations rather than an originally Iranian animal sacrifice scene with Iranian precedents (Ulansey, 1991). Mithras is associated with Perseus, whose constellation is above that of the bull. A serpent, a scorpion, a dog, 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 meal along the reclining couches lining the walls. It is worth noting that most temples could hold only thirty or forty individuals.

The mithraeum itself was arranged as an 'image of the universe'. It is noticed by some researchers that this movement, especially in the context of mithraic soterism, seems to stem from the neoplatonic concept that the 'running' of the sun from solstice to solstice is a parallel for the movement of the soul through the universe, from pre-existence, into the body, and then beyond the physical body into an afterlife.

Reliefs on a cup found in Mainz (Beck, 2000), appear to depict a Mithraic initiation. On the cup, the initiate is depicted as led into a location where a Pater (see Mithraic ranks below) would be seated in the guise of Mithras with a drawn bow. Accompanying the Initiate is a 'Mystagogue', who explains the symbology 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.

Mithraic ranks

The members of a mithraeum were divided into seven ranks. All members were expected to progress through the first four ranks, while only a few would go on to the three higher ranks. The first four ranks represent spiritual progress—the new initiate became a Corax, while the Leo was an adept—while the other three have been specialized offices. The seven ranks were:

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

The iconography of Mithraism

In the absence of any Mithraist scripture, all we know about Mithras is what can be deduced from his images in the mithraea that have survived.

Mithraism:A statue of the tauroctony in the Vatican Museum. Note that Mithras is looking toward the bull instead of away, a stance rarely seen in the tauroctony.
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A statue of the tauroctony in the Vatican Museum. Note that Mithras is looking toward the bull instead of away, a stance rarely seen in the tauroctony.

Depictions show Mithras wearing a cape that in some examples can be seen the starry sky as its inside lining. A bronze image of Mithras, emerging from an egg-shaped zodiac ring, found associated with a mithraeum along Hadrian's Wall (now at the University of Newcastle). An inscription from the city of Rome suggest that Mithras may have been seen as the Orphic creator-god Phanes who emerged from the world egg at the beginning of time, 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[citation needed]), typically with the snake Oroboros wrapped around it. It is commonly believed that the cave in Mithraism imagery represents the cosmos, and the rock is the cosmos seen from the outside; hence the description of this god as 'rising from the dead'.

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

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

Tauroctony

One of the central motifs of Mithraism is the tauroctony, the myth of the slaying of a sacred bull. In the Graeco-Roman myth, Ahura Mazda sent a crow, which instructed Mithra to stab the animal for the sacrifice. This myth is one of the better indications that Graeco-Roman Mithras does not stem from Zoroastrian Mithra; since in later Zoroastrianism texts (Vendidad 21; Rivayat 386) and in Persian mythology it is Angra Mainyu (Ahriman in later Persian) who slays Gavyokdat, the primeval bull created by Ahura Mazda (cf: bas-relief from the Apadana Hall, Persepolis). In the Graeco-Roman myth, from the body of the dying bull spring plants, animals, and all the beneficial things of the earth. In contrast, in the Persian myth, Mah (the moon) rescues the essence of the dying primeval bull, and from it springs all animal creation.

It is thought that the bull represents the constellation of Taurus. However, in the period we are considering, the sun at the Vernal Equinox had left Taurus two thousand years before, and was in the process of moving from Aries to Pisces. In light of this interpretation, it has been suggested in recent times that the Mithraic religion is somehow connected to the end 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 speculated that the religion may have originated at that time (although there is no record of it until the 2nd century BC).

Main article: Precession of the equinoxes

The identification of an "age" with a particular zodiac constellation is based on the sun's position during the vernal equinox. Before 2000 BC, the Sun could have been seen against the stars of the constellation of Taurus at the time of vernal equinox [had there been an eclipse]. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, on average every 2,160 years the Sun appears 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 AD 2000. The exact date of the start of the ages is in question. Astrologer Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet holds that the Age of Pisces began in 234 BCE and the age of Aquarius started in 1926.

Indeed, the constellations common in the sky from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC were Taurus the Bull, Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion, all of which may be identified in the fresco from Marino, a standard Hellenistic iconography (illustration, above right). Further support for this theory is the presence of a lion and a cup in some depictions of the tauroctony: indeed Leo (a lion) and Aquarius ("the cup-bearer") were the constellations seen as the northernmost (summer solstice) and southernmost (winter solstice) positions in the sky during the age of Taurus.

The precession of the equinoxes was discovered, or at least publicized, by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC. (See Discovery of precession for more information.) Whether the phenomenon was known by Mithraists previously is unknown. In any case, Mithras was presumed to be very powerful if he was able to rotate the heavens, and thus 'kill the bull' or displacing Taurus as the reigning image in the heavens.

History of Mithraism

The putative East to West transfer

Although Roman Mithras is often considered to be of Persian origin, not least in antiquity, the assumption that Roman Mithras is specifically an outgrowth of Persian Zoroastrian culture probably cannot be sustained. The arguments against Mithras being of Zoroastrian origin are as follows:

Although these arguments can be explained away, the common traits or the absence thereof, cannot sustain or refute the connection by themselves.

Nonetheless, there is no evidence to rule out a general, non-Zoroastrian, influence on Roman Mithras. As Beck suggests, there is no reason to assume that a Persian or other Asian influence must perforce be an outgrowth of Zoroastrian culture: "Mithras — moreover, a Mithras who was identified with the Greek Sun god, Helios, which was one of the deities of the syncretic Graeco-Iranian royal cult founded by Antiochus I, king of the small, but prosperous "buffer" state of Commagene, in the mid first century BCE", and that it is not entirely implausible that such an intermediate form of Mithraism may have played a part in an east-to-west transfer.

That the kingdoms of Parthia and Pontus in Asia Minor may have been the sites for the development of a Roman Mithras is a legitimate assumption. Several of their kings were called Mithradates, meaning "given by Mithra", starting with Mithradates I of Parthia (died 138 BC). It would seem that, in those kingdoms, Mithra was a god whose power lent luster even to a king. And it was at Pergamum, in the 2nd century BC, that Greek sculptors started to produce the highly standardized bas-relief imagery of Mithra Tauroctonos, "Mithra the bull-slayer." Although Mithraism never caught on in the Greek homeland, those sculptures may indicate the route between Persian Mithra and Roman Mithras through the eastern Aegean.

The Greek historian Plutarch wrote[3] about pirates of Cilicia, the coastal province in the southeast of Anatolia, who practiced Mithraic "secret rites" around 67 BC: "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". Plutarch was convinced that the Cilician pirates had originated the Mithraic rituals that were being practiced in Rome by his day.

Another possible connection between a Persian Mithra and the Roman Mithras is a linguistic one, from a Manichean context. According to Sundermann , the Manicheans adopted the name Mithra to designate one of their own deities. Sundermann determined that the Zoroastrian Mithra, which in middle Persian is Mihr, is not a variant of the Parthian and Sogdian Mytr or Mytrg; though a homonym of Mithra, those names denote Maitreya. In Parthian and Sogdian however Mihr was taken as the sun and consequently identified as the Third Messenger. This Third Messenger was the helper and redeemer of mankind, and identified with another Zoroastrian divinity Narisaf (Sundermann, 1979). Citing Boyce [reference], Sundermann remarks, "It was among the Parthian Manicheans that Mithra as a sun god surpassed the importance of Narisaf as the common Iranian image of the Third Messenger; "among the Parthians the dominance of Mithra was such that his identification with the Third Messenger led to cultic emphasis on the Mithraic traits in the Manichaean god" (Sundermann, 2002)

Mithraism in Rome

Mithraism:Double-faced Mithraic relief. Rome, 2nd-3rd century CE. Louvre Museum. Front:Mithras killing the bull, being looked over by the Sun god and the Moon god. Back: Mithras banquetting with the Sun god, to celebrate his victory over the dark forces of the Universe.
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Double-faced Mithraic relief. Rome, 2nd-3rd century CE. Louvre Museum.
Front:Mithras killing the bull, being looked over by the Sun god and the Moon god.
Back: Mithras banquetting with the Sun god, to celebrate his victory over the dark forces of the Universe.

Cumont believed that Mithraism arrived at Rome with the return of the legions from the East in the first century BC, based on the belief that Mithras is the same as Mithra. But Clauss and others reject this idea.

Mithraism began to attract attention at Rome about the end of the first century AD. Statius mentions the typical Mithraic relief in his Thebaid (Book i. 719,720), around AD 80.

The earliest material evidence for the Roman worship of Mithras dates from that period, in a record of Roman soldiers who came from the military garrison at Carnuntum in the Roman province of Upper Pannonia (near the Danube River in modern Austria, near the Hungarian border). Other legionaries fought the Parthians and were 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.

By A. D. 200, Mithraism had spread widely through the army, and also among traders and slaves. During festivals all initiates were equals including slaves. The German frontiers have yielded most of the archaeological evidence of its prosperity: small cult objects connected with Mithras turn up in archaeological digs from Romania to Hadrian's Wall.

Mithraism in the Roman Empire

Mithraism:Sol Invictus on the reverse of this coin by usurper Victorinus.
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Sol Invictus on the reverse of this coin by usurper Victorinus.

At Rome, the third century emperors encouraged Mithraism[4]. According to the 4th century Historia Augusta, Commodus participated in its mysteries: Sacra Mithriaca homicidio vero polluit, cum illic aliquid ad speciem timoris vel dici vel fingi soleat ("He desecrated the rites of Mithras with actual murder, although it was customary in them merely to say or pretend something that would produce an impression of terror"; SHA, Commodus IX,6; translation Loeb, D. Magie).

Concentrations of Mithraic temples are found on the outskirts of the Roman empire: along Hadrian's wall in northern England three mithraea have been identified, at Housesteads, Carrawburgh and Rudchester. The discoveries are in the University of Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, where a mithraeum has been recreated. Recent excavations in London have 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 as seven hundred mithraea may have existed (a dozen have been identified). Its importance at Rome may be judged from the abundance of monumental remains: more than 75 pieces of sculpture, 100 Mithraic inscriptions, and ruins of temples and shrines in all parts of the city and its suburbs. A well-preserved late 2nd century mithraeum, with its altar and built-in stone benches, originally built beneath a Roman house (as was a common practice), survives in the crypt over which has been built the Basilica of San Clemente, Rome.

The demise of Mithraism

There is very little information about the decline of the religion. The edict of Theodosius I in 394 made paganism illegal. Official recognition of Mithras in the army stopped at this time, but we have no information on what other effect the edict had. Mithraism may have survived in certain remote cantons of the Alps and Vosges into the 5th century[5].

Connections

There is much debate on if Christianity is a re-branded version of many Mithraic beliefs. Ernest Renan, in The Origins of Christianity, promoted the idea that Mithraism was the prime competitor to Christianity in the second through the fourth century AD, although some scholars feel the written claims that the emperors Nero, Commodus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and the Tetrarchs were initiates are dubious as there is little evidence that Mithraic worship was accorded official status as a Roman cult.

Bull and cave themes are found in Christian shrines dedicated to the archangel Michael, who, after the legalization of Christianity, became the patron Saint of soldiers. Many of those shrines were converted Mithraea, for instance the sacred cavern at Monte Gargano in Apulia, refounded in 493. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mithraism was transferred to the previously unvenerated archangel.

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

Some would argue that because the Gospels are thought to have been mostly before 100 and that since very little is known of Roman Mithraism until after 100 that it is implausible to say that Christianity borrowed its doctrines from Mithraism; some have even suggested that Mithraism may have, in fact, borrowed elements from Christianity.[citation needed] But others suggest that it is more likely that similarities in practise go back to a common background in the Mediterranean world in the 1st century BC to 1st century AD. [6].

A better determinant of borrowing, is to compare core doctrines between Christianity and Mithraism. The adoption of imagery or icons or festivals is fairly peripheral (such as the adoption by christendom of winter solstice or Saturnalia festivals as Christmas) but seldom reflects basic religious tenets. A further example of this is the various gnostic cults (such as the Marcionites and Valentinians) which adopted the personage of Jesus or the concept of a Savior, yet did not adopt the underlying doctrinal elements.

Similarities to Christianity

Mithraism:Unbalanced scales.svg
The neutrality of this section is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

"The resemblances between the two hostile churches were so striking as to impress even the minds of antiquity" (Cumont, 193). Like Origen (an early Christian writer and in this respect a peculiarity among the other patristic writers), Mithraism held that all souls pre-existed in the ethereal regions with God, and inhabited a body upon birth. Similar to Pythagorean, Jewish, and Pauline theology, life then becomes the great struggle between good and evil, spirit and body, ending in judgment, with the elect being saved. "They both admitted to the existence of a heaven inhabited by beautiful ones. . .and a hell peopled by demons situate in the bowels of earth" (Cumont 191).

Both religions used the rite of baptism, and each participated in an outwardly similar type of sacrament, bread and wine. Both Mithra and Christ were supposedly visited by shepherds and Magi. It has been claimed that both Mithraism and Christianity considered Sunday their holy day, though for different reasons, although the evidence that Mithradists practiced weekly worship, any more than any other pagan religion of the time, is lacking. Many have noted that the title of Pope (father) is found in Mithraic doctrine and seemingly prohibited in Christian doctrine. The words Peter (rock) and mass (sacrament) have significance in Mithraism.

Mithraism and early Christianity considered abstinence, celibacy, and self-control to be among their highest virtues. Both had similar beliefs about the world, destiny, heaven and hell, and the immortality of the soul. Their conceptions of the battles between good and evil were similar (though Mithraism was more dualistic[1]), including a great and final battle at the end of times. Mithraism's flood at the beginning of history was deemed necessary because what began in water would end in fire, according to Mithraic eschatology. Both religions believed in revelation as key to their doctrine. Both awaited the last judgment and resurrection of the dead.

When inducted into the degree of Leo, he was purified with honey, and baptised, not with water, but with fire, as John the Baptist declared that his successor would baptise. After this second baptism, initiates were considered "participants," and they received the sacrament of bread and wine commemorating Mithra's banquet at the conclusion of his labors (Larson 190).

Although Christianity eventually rivaled the four-century-old cult of Mithra in Rome, they were practiced by different social classes. Mithra was popular among soldiers and had a certain elitism because it barred women, and like Gnosticism, it emphasized hidden knowledge. On the other hand, Christianity was a version that could be practiced by women and so it enjoyed a degree of populism. Under emperors like Julian and Commodus, Mithra became the patron of Roman armies (Cumont 87).

Mithra had no mother, but was miraculously born of a rock, or the petra genetix (de Riencourt 135). His worshipers partook of a sacramental meal of bread marked with a cross (Cumont 160). This was one of seven Mithraic ritual meals.

Mithra's cave-temple on the Vatican Hill was seized by Christians in 376 A.D. (J. Smith 146). The Mithraic festival of Epiphany, marking the arrival of sun-priests ("Magi") at the Savior's birthplace, was adopted by the Christian church only as late as 813 A.D. (Brewster 55).

Christianity may have emphasized common features that attracted Mithra followers, perhaps the crucifix appealed to those Mithra followers who had crosses already branded on their foreheads. In art Mithra, a sun god, was normally depicted with a halo representing the sun. In Christianity, the halo remains, but has lost its meaning because of the doctrinal prohibition against star gazing, as recorded in Halakaic sanctions.

Justin Martyr, in a discussion with the Jewish apologist Trypho, wrote: "'And when those who record the mysteries of Mithras say that he was begotten of a rock, and call the place where those who believe in him are initiated a cave, do I not perceive here that the utterance of Daniel, that a stone without hands was cut out of a great mountain, has been imitated by them, and that they have attempted likewise to imitate the whole of Isaiah's words? For they contrived that the words of righteousness be quoted also by them. . . . And when I hear, Trypho,' said I, 'that Perseus was begotten of a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counterfeited also this.'" (Dialogue with Trypho, LXXVIII). Tertullian gives a similar account.

According to Martin A. Larson, in The Story of Christian Origins (1977), the first example of mythological concept of the savior god which is present in many faiths including Christianity and Mithraism is Osiris. Larson concluded that the general concept of savior must have originated from the savior cult of Osiris. He also believed that the Essenes were Jewish Pythagoreans, whose members not only gave birth to Christianity as Essenes, but were directly influenced by Zoroastrian doctrine as Pythagoreans — a view probably shared by Cumont.[2] Mithraism, in Larson's view, was an established but exclusive sect devoted to social justice, and was assimilated by state-sponsored Christianity before being disposed of in name.

Places to see

Mithraic studies

The 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's student, Maarten J. Vermaseren, author of Mithras, the Secret God (1963), was very active in translating Mithraic inscriptions.

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

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ If we accept the testimony of Plutarch
  2. ^ If we accept the view of Clauss &c that Plutarch was mistaken, and the archaeology starts around 80 AD
  3. ^ Plutarch, Life of Pompey.
  4. ^ According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
  5. ^ F.Cumont, "The mysteries of Mithra", Eng. tr. p. 206, asserts "The cult of the Persian god possibly existed as late as the fifth century in certain remote cantons of the Alps and the Vosges. For example, devotion to the Mithraic rites long persisted in the tribe of the Anauni, masters of a flourishing valley, of which a narrow defile closed the mouth." No reference is given for this statement, however.
  6. ^ Manfred Clauss, "The Roman cult of Mithras", tr. Richard Gordon

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