The Canon · No. 036
Mithraism
The Mysteries of Mithras
c.1st – c.4th c. CE · Classical Mediterranean · Extinct · The Roman empire, concentrated on the military frontiers
IV. THE CLASSICAL & IMPERIAL WORLD — c.200 BCE – 500 CE
How many
None.
Who began it
Unknown. The name derives from the Indo-Iranian god Mithra, but the Roman cult appears to be a new construction, not an import — the connection to Persian Mithra is a claim the Romans made about themselves and which specialists now largely doubt.
What it is for
Unclear, and honestly so. This is the best-attested mystery cult archaeologically and the worst-attested textually, because it was secret and its members wrote nothing that survives.
What it worships
Mithras, depicted almost invariably killing a bull — the tauroctony — while a dog and snake drink the blood, a scorpion attacks the bull's genitals, and two torchbearers, Cautes and Cautopates, stand with torches raised and lowered. Also Sol Invictus, with whom Mithras banquets.
What it holds
Unknown in detail. The leading modern reading, argued by David Ulansey and others, is that the tauroctony is a star map: every figure corresponds to a constellation lying on the celestial equator in the age of Taurus, and Mithras is the power capable of moving the cosmos itself — a response to Hipparchus' discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. It is an elegant theory and not universally accepted.
What it does
Meetings in a mithraeum, a small artificial cave with benches along the sides, holding perhaps thirty to forty men. Men only — no evidence of any female initiate anywhere. Seven grades of initiation: Corax (raven), Nymphus, Miles (soldier), Leo (lion), Perses, Heliodromus, Pater — each under a planet. Initiation ordeals involving heat, cold, blindfolding and simulated threat, attested in the Capua frescoes. Ritual meals of bread and wine, which Christian writers noticed with alarm.
After death
Probably an ascent of the soul through the seven planetary spheres, shedding a vice at each — Celsus describes a Mithraic ladder of seven gates. This is inference from Neoplatonic parallels rather than direct evidence.
Its texts
Nothing. Not one Mithraic scripture, liturgy or theological text survives. Everything is derived from about a thousand excavated monuments, inscriptions and hostile Christian remarks. This entry is included partly as a caution: a religion can vanish so completely that we have its buildings and not one of its sentences.
Its branches
None known; the cult was a network of independent cells with no central authority.
Of note
The claim that Christianity copied Mithraism — virgin birth, 25 December, twelve disciples, resurrection — circulates constantly online and is very largely false. Most of it derives from Franz Cumont's now-rejected 1900s reconstruction or from later invention. The real overlaps are a ritual meal and a shared religious vocabulary, both of which were common property in the period.
Its timeline
- c.80–100 CE First datable Roman evidence.
- c.150–250 CE Peak; mithraea from Hadrian's Wall to the Euphrates, concentrated in army camps, ports and among imperial slaves and freedmen.
- 307 CE Diocletian and colleagues dedicate an altar at Carnuntum to Mithras as protector of the empire.
- c.395–400 CE Mithraea are destroyed, often with deliberate desecration, and churches built over several of them.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.