19 Facts About Mithraic Mysteries

Mithraism, known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras.

Mithraic Mysteries is shown as emerging from a rock, already in his youth, with a dagger in one hand and a torch in the other.

Mithraic Mysteries is nude, standing with his legs together, and is wearing a Phrygian cap.

One of the most characteristic and poorly-understood features of the Mysteries is the naked lion-headed figure often found in Mithraic temples, named by the modern scholars with descriptive terms such as leontocephaline or leontocephalus .

Mithraic Mysteries's body is a naked man's, entwined by a serpent, with the snake's head often resting on the lion's head.

Related searches

Mithraic Mysteries is usually represented as having four wings, two keys, and a sceptre in his hand.

Mithraic Mysteries initiates were required to swear an oath of secrecy and dedication, and some grade rituals involved the recital of a catechism, wherein the initiate was asked a series of questions pertaining to the initiation symbolism and had to reply with specific answers.

In some mithraea, such as that at Dura Europos, wall paintings depict prophets carrying scrolls, but no named Mithraic Mysteries sages are known, nor does any reference give the title of any Mithraic Mysteries scripture or teaching.

Elsewhere, as at Dura-Europos, Mithraic Mysteries graffiti survive giving membership lists, in which initiates of a mithraeum are named with their Mithraic Mysteries grades.

Consequently, it has been argued that most Mithraic Mysteries rituals involved a re-enactment by the initiates of episodes in the Mithras narrative, a narrative whose main elements were: birth from the rock, striking water from stone with an arrow shot, the killing of the bull, Sol's submission to Mithras, Mithras and Sol feasting on the bull, the ascent of Mithras to heaven in a chariot.

Mithraic Mysteries'storians including Cumont and Richard Gordon have concluded that the cult was for men only.

Origins and spread of the Mithraic Mysteries have been intensely debated among scholars and there are radically differing views on these issues.

Inscriptions and monuments related to the Mithraic Mysteries are catalogued in a two volume work by Maarten J Vermaseren, the Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae .

Mithraic Mysteries's case is that far from representing what Mithraists believed, they are merely representations by the Neoplatonists of what it suited them in the late 4th century to read into the mysteries.

Mithraic Mysteries identified the ancient Aryan deity who appears in Persian literature as Mithras with the Hindu god Mitra of the Vedic hymns.

Mithraic Mysteries sanctuaries were destroyed and religion was no longer a matter of personal choice.

Mithraic Mysteries sees iconographic and mythological parallels between the two figures: both are young heroes, carry a dagger, and wear a Phrygian cap.

Mithraic Mysteries argues that a literal reading of the tauroctony as a star chart raises two major problems: it is difficult to find a constellation counterpart for Mithras himself and that, unlike in a star chart, each feature of the tauroctony might have more than a single counterpart.

Mithraic Mysteries described these rites as a diabolical counterfeit of the baptism and chrismation of Christians.