The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire : Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun

Alexander R. Rumble and Roger Beck

2006 Oxford University Press USA

p 1 we should see this as a collaborative human enterprise of a particular time, place, culture constantly recreated and sustained by those who initiated into it.

This is a study in cognition, how the initiate gets to know the mysteries in the context of his life and the physical environment of the mithraeum, the cave in which he and his brothers are assembled.

Franz Cumont 2 volumes 1896, 1899

Beck 2004 astrological interpretations

Clauss 1990, 2000 Swerdlow 1991

5 problems with the traditional approach

`undervaluing of the literary text

`undervaluing of the design of the mithraeum

`a heuristic quest

`not taken seriously

`disregard for semiotics, semantics, how the iconography means

need a cognitive approach esp anthropology and psychology

we will look at a system of symbols

Origen says that the mysteries are cultivated rationally by the erudite but realised symbolically by the common people.

Much like the Pardes of Kabbalah ( the 4 interpretations of the Torah, concrete, symbolic, metaphorical, secret).

p 4 Clifford Geertz 1973 the symbolist approach

p 5-6 2 axioms in Mithraic cult

1. Deus sol invictus mithras- the gods cult title
2. harmony in tension of opposition eg Porphyry De antro nympharum, a list of fundamental opposites represented by Cautus with his raised torch and Cautopates with his torch lowered (note the similarity to Hermes Tris- the Kybalion)

eg ascent and descent

3. domains – the sacred story( the deeds of Mithras), the cosmos, the sublunary world and the destiny of human souls esp the initiated of Mithras

p 7 are related to specific structures 1. the physical structure of the icon of the taurocrony ( the banquet), 2 the physical structure of the mithraeum, 3, the organisational structure of the seven grades

p 7 4 modes. 1 ritual action, 2.. perception of meaningful iconography, 3 giving and receiving of words , 4 ethical behaviour( eg lions).

The first 3 are esoteric and the fourth is exoteric

p 14 Cumont- from Persia to Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Rome

p 22 Mithras killing the bull (sometimes with a dog, raven snake or scorpion) , the next icon is Mithras and the sun god having a meal in the hide of the bull. The cult of the meal, the banquet, was a sacrament

p 28 the origin is Mazda, Zoroastrianism, from Iran,

p 29 but Iranian Mithras is not a bull fighter and there is no zodiac,

p 30 the zodiac the sun god and the moon goddess, each of the grades is a planet. The mithraium is a model of the universe. In Gundel- the 11 of 29 archiform zodiacs are Mithraic, and 7 of the 36 ring zodiacs in stone, the 7 spheres mithraium in Ostia

p 31 the bull slayer, 12 zodiac, plus dog, snake, scorpion, raven a pair of twins, and not infrequently a cup and a lion. The bulls tail metamorphosed into an ear of wheat,

the heavens as the goal of the soul to escape the confines of terrestial mortality.

p 36 the lion of summer Leo overcomes the bull of spring Taurus.

p 37 the question is where is Mithras, as he moves across the zodiac, time across the year. Mithras is the sun and the bull is the mood which pursue each other across the heavens. In the eclipse there is victory of the sun over the moon. Thus Mithras is the unconquered sun

p 46 the idea of Mithras was superimposed by the Greek idea of the sage, a doctrine and teachers, and so became misrepresented booth socially and cognitively

Also read Roger Beek, 'Ritual, Myth, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel', Journal of Roman Studies 90 (2000): 17

Thoughts. Where ae the women in this religion. They are silent. Who cooks the meals for the feast?