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MITHRA

The god Mithra has a complex past extending back to ancient India, where he was a god of truth and light. He also became very popular in Persia, where again he was associated with truth and with contracts between persons. During the Hellenistic period, there is evidence of a cult of Mithra at Commagene in the south of Turkey. Here, Mithra is identified with the sun, and astrology is used in the construction of what the cult perceived to be its cosmic dimensions.

How the mystery cult of Mithra arose in Rome in the late 1st century c.e. is unclear. Some would argue that the cult gradually developed from the Persian worship of Mithra, while others attribute the cult’s invention to an individual or a group of people acquainted with Persian religion. Indeed, there are similarities between the Persian worship of Mithra and the mystery cult, but there are also a great many differences. The iconography of the mystery cult, e.g., is pervaded by Greco-Roman astrological and astronomical images.

As the cult was closed and private, there is very little literary evidence describing how it functioned. There are, however, numerous Mithra monuments including the caves in which the members of the cult would worship their god. These caves (Mithraea) can be found in Rome and throughout the empire as the cult was very popular among soldiers, slaves, and freedmen. Only men could join the cult, and the iconography indicates that once initiated into the mysteries, a man could gradually ascend a symbolic ladder of grades. These initiation and ascension ceremonies were also connected with concerns about the afterlife.

With the triumph of Christianity, the worship of Mithra disappeared. Some Mithraea have been discovered, however, often underneath the churches that were built over them.

Alicia Batten

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MITHRA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)