Mithraism
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice remains debatable.[a] The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from 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 dedicated mithraea (singular mithraeum), underground temples that survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its center in Rome,[3] and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far east as Roman Dacia, 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.[c] 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.[d]
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][e] Modern sources sometimes refer to the Greco-Roman religion as Roman Mithraism or Western Mithraism to distinguish it from Persian worship of Mithra.[1][f]
Main article: Mithras (name)
The name Mithras (Latin, equivalent to Greek Μίθρας[11]) is a form of Mithra, the name of an old, pre-Zoroastrian, and, later on, Zoroastrian, god[g][h] – a relationship understood by Mithraic scholars since the days of Franz Cumont.[i] 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.[13]
The exact form of a Latin or classical Greek word varies due to the grammatical process of inflection. There is archaeological evidence that in Latin worshippers wrote the nominative form of the god's name as "Mithras". Porphyry's Greek text De Abstinentia (Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων), has 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.[j]
Related deity-names in other languages include:
- Vedic Sanskrit Mitra, "friend, friendship," as the name of a god praised in the Rigveda.[15][16][k][17]
In Sanskrit, mitra is an unusual name of the sun god, mostly known as "Surya" or "Aditya", however.[18]
- the form mi-it-ra-, found in an inscribed peace treaty between the Hittites and the kingdom of Mitanni, from about 1400 BCE.[l] between the king of the Hittites, Subbiluliuma, and the king of Mitanni, Mativaza. ... It is the earliest evidence of Mithras in Asia Minor.[18][19]
Iranian Mithra and Sanskrit Mitra are believed to come from the Indo-Iranian word mitrás, meaning "contract, agreement, covenant".[20]
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.[21] 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.[m]
Mary Boyce, an academic researcher on ancient Iranian religions, writes that even though Roman Mithraism seems to have had less Iranian content than ancient Romans or modern historians used to think, nonetheless "as the name Mithras alone shows, this content was of some importance".[n]