Mithras and the Mithraism: The Roman Mystery Cult

Between the 1st century BCE and the 4th century CE, the cult of Mithra thrived around the Roman Empire. Some sources suggest that it could have been a rival religion to Christianity until it was stamped out through Christian persecution.

The Persian God Mithra

Mithraism centered on the god Mithra, a Persian god of Zoroastrianism, who was imported into the Roman Empire. However, it is unclear how closely the god venerated by the Romans resembled the ancient Persian deity.

The Persian god Mithra was a sun god, though he is not the god of the Sun, which is Hvare-Khshaeta. Rather he burns brightly and sees all. Nevertheless, Mithra is sometimes compared to the Babylonian sun god Shamash and the Greek sun god Apollo.

 He is also linked to oaths, justice, and contracts. He was seen as the protector of “asha,” which is “truth,” but is probably better interpreted as the proper order of the universe.

Mithra rarely appears in Zoroastrian texts, which has led to the suggestion that he was rejected by the prophet Zoroaster. An alternative suggestion is that he was absent because he was a mysterious and unknowable deity.

Nevertheless, in the Zoroastrian calendar, the 16^th day of each month and the seventh month of the year were protected by Mithra. These days reflect his position in the divine hierarchy. The 16^th is the first day of the second half of the month, and the seventh month is the first month of the second half of the year.

Mystery Cult

We actually do not know a huge amount about the cult of Mithra among the Romans because it was considered a mystery cult reserved for initiates. Knowledge of the cult was passed down through initiate practices rather than written down in scriptures. Consequently, what we know of the cult comes from archaeological remains of Mithraea, which include significant iconographic evidence, a few inscriptions, and commentary from external writers who did not have firsthand knowledge of the cult and had their own reasons for presenting the cult in a certain light.

It is said that when Christianity replaced the traditional Roman religion, focused on Jupiter, as the state religion of the Empire, it was competing with Mithraism for this role. But this is fairly unlikely since the secretive nature of Mithraism made it inappropriate for a state religion. In the traditional Roman cult, temples were constructed as houses of the gods, and they were designed for people to be able to see in and be awed, even if it was only priests and officials who entered the temples. In contrast, Mithraism was practiced in secret, underground temples. Members were also required to spear an oath of secrecy and dedication.

In addition, Mithraism was exclusive, notably not open to women. For most of the history of the cult, based on inscriptions of dedications made by members, membership was mostly limited to soldiers, merchants, and other “middle class” citizens. It only became popular with the elite, and also slaves and freedmen, during the 4th-century revival, when paganism was making a comeback.

Mithraea

Mithraea were underground temples where initiates of the cult of Mithraea met. They were the antithesis of Roman temples in that they were hidden from the eyes of the public. In design, they looked a lot like “dining clubs.” They were sized for 15-40 men and set up as dining areas with Roman-style low tables and couches. Getting together and dining seems to be one of the main ritual practices undertaken in the space.

Initiation

To become a member of the cult you have to become an initiate, and there were seven levels of initiation, associated with the different planetary gods. There does not seem to have been a limit to how many initiates of each level could be members of an individual Mithraea. Inscription evidence suggests that it was not uncommon for there to be clubs made up of first-level initiates, or in which everyone was considered a top-level initiate, “pater.” In these cases, there was a “pater partum,” to show that he was the one in charge among a group of top-level initiates.

Each level required certain initiation tests that could involve exposure to heat or cold, or threat of pain. Accounts of the reign of the emperor Commodus suggest that he amused himself by enacting Mithraic initiation rituals in homicidal form. His suggests that they were personally challenging, which appealed to the bloodthirsty emperor.

After completing the initiation rituals, the initiate would shake hands with the other initiates and become a “syndexioi,” which means “united by the handshake.”

A Mithraea from Ostia Antica near Rome has mosaics depicting the different levels of initiation with inscriptions that commend each grade to the protection of a different planetary god. The grades are as follows:

Grade	Name	Symbols	Planetary Protector
1	Coax	Raven, Beaker, Caduceus	Mercury
2	Nymphus	Lamp, Hand Bell, Veil, Circlet, Diadem	Venus
3	Miles	Pouch, Helmet, Lance, Drum, Belt, Breastplate	Marst
4	Leo	Batillum, Sistrum, Laurel Wrath, Thunderbolt	Jupiter
5	Perseus	Hooked Sword, Phrygian Cap, Sickle, Lunar Crescent, Stars, Sling, Pouch	Luna
6	Heliodromus	Torch, Helios, Radiate Crown, Ship, Robes	Sol
7	Pater	Patera, Mitre, Shepherd’s Staff, Garnet Ring, Cape, Jewel Encrusted Robes	Saturn

Mithraic Altars

Much of what we know about Mithraism comes from altars and reliefs found in the temples. While many reliefs survive, it seems that every single Mithraea focused on a singular altar relief in a central niche known as the Tauroctony, which is a scene of Mithras slaughtering a bull. While there is some variation, every depiction includes more or less the following details:

• Mithras closed in Anatolian costume wearing a Phrygian cap, keeling on an exhausted white bull that he holds by the nostrils with his left hand while stabbing it with his right hand.
• While slaughtering the bull, Mithras looks over his shoulder towards Sol, in the top left corner wearing a burning crown and often driving a quadriga chariot.
• In the top right is Luna, represented by her crescent moon, and sometimes driving a biga chariot.
• Beneath the bull, a dog and a snake reach up towards the blood, and ears of wheat emerge from the rear of the bull, either from his tail or from a wound.
• Two torch bearers, known as Cautes and Cautopates, hold torches, one pointing upwards and the other pointing downwards. They light the cavern in which the scene is set. Mithras seems to have dragged the full into the cabin after hunting it, riding it, and breaking it with his strength.
• Sometimes the cavern is surrounded by the 12 signs of the zodiac.

Other altar reliefs show a banquet scene of Mithras dining with Sol Invictus, a god that also became popular in the Roman Empire in the 2^nd century CE when Mithraism spread or Mithras being born from a rock. Some altars seem to have been designed as two sides so that they could be flipped, with the bull scene on one side, then flipped to show the banquet scene.

The evidence suggests that meat and fruits were placed on the altars, but not that animals were slaughtered within the Mithraea. This suggests that the club probably enlisted the services of special victim slaughterers, which was a specialist profession among the Romans, to deliver appropriate meat for offerings.

Lion Headed Figures

Another common feature found in these temples of Mithras were lion-headed figures with the body of a naked man entwined by a serpent and the head of a lion, usually with mouth open. The figure is also often represented with fur wings, two keys, a scepter, a globe inscribed with a diagonal cross, and other features such as a thunderbolt or wand.

Very little information exists on what this could represent, but the presence of an animal head suggests that it might have been borrowed by ancient Egyptian religion, which also fascinated the Romans who adopted the cults of Isis and Serapis.

Others suggest that this could be a representation of Ahriman, a demonic figure in Zoroastrianism, whose name does appear in a few Mithraic-related inscriptions.

Meaning of the Bull Scene

Scholars suggest that the bull scene, which was clearly the most important scene for the cult, represents an episode in Zoroastrian cosmology described in a text known as the “Bundahishn.” In this story, the demon Ahriman slays a primordial creature known as Gavaevodata, which was bovine. It is suggested that there must also be a version of the myth in which Mithras slaughters the bull. Or it is a corrupted Roman version of the story, as the Romans presented Mithras more as a Herculean-style hero than the Persian divinity.

It is also significant that neo-Platonic Greek writer Porphyry, writing in the 3^rd century CE, said that the original temple of Mithras was a cave consecrated by Zoroaster. These scenes are depicted in a cave and Mithraea also had cave-like qualities. It was a natural cave containing fountains and apparently an image of the whole world. When Zoroaster found it, he dedicated it to Mithras as a creator of the world. He also links the cult to the planets and zodiac signs, associating Mithras with Aries, the sign of the bull.

The Attraction of Mithraism

While it is unlikely that Mithraism was ever a viable Roman state religion alternative to Christianity, it did become extremely popular among pagans in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries CE, and enjoyed a revival during the 4^th century pagan revival why?

First, unlike Christianity which was fundamentally opposed to the traditional Roman religion since it excluded worship of the traditional Roman gods, Mithraism fit well within Roman paganism. Roman pagans did not place a limit on the number of gods that existed, and they were all worshipped in similar ways with offerings, which could be blood sacrifices or small cakes or anything else, to please the god.

You could worship as many gods as you like, and the Romans had no problem welcoming new gods into their pantheon as they expanded their territory and encountered new gods. It made sense that they might meet gods in Britain that they had never met before. The Romans also practiced syncretism, often assuming that the new gods they met were their own gods, just called by a different name and worshipped in a different way by a different culture.

You could worship new gods, as long as you worshipped the gods that ensured the health and safety of the Roman state, such as Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The crime was never worshipping foreign gods, such as Yahweh by the Jews, but rather refusing to worship the Roman gods and risking their wrath. This kind of behavior put everyone at risk.

Mithras was one more god that could be worshipped, and there is evidence of dedications to other Roman gods within Mithraea, and dedications to Mithras within other sanctuaries.

But the reason that Christianity was becoming popular, despite its problematic relationship to the old religion, was that it placed an emphasis on personal devotion and an individual relationship with God that was not mediated by complex state rituals and priesthoods based on traditional social hierarchies.

Mithraism also seems to have offered a more personal experience, which may be why it was initially attractive to the middle class, who were largely excluded from Rome’s official priesthoods that were reserved for the elite. Participants in Mithraism undertook personal prayers three times a day.

The secretive nature of the cult probably also appealed, which is the same reason that secret societies such as the Freemasons have been popular over the centuries.