The Mysteries Of Mithras

The Mithraic Mysteries or Mysteries of Mithras was a mystery religion practised in the Roman Empire, best attested in Rome and Ostia, Mauretania, Britain and in the provinces along the Rhine and Danube frontier. Today, the beliefs of this cult are also referred to as Mithraism, but this is a recent development.

Romans encountered worship of the deity Mithras as part of Zoroastrianism in the eastern provinces of the empire, particularly in Asia Minor (now modern Turkey).

Mithraism is best documented in the form it had acquired in the later Roman Empire. It was an initiatory 'mystery religion,' passed from initiate to initiate, like the Eleusinian Mysteries. It was not based on a supernaturally revealed body of scripture, and hence very little written documentary evidence survives. Soldiers appeared to be the most plentiful followers of Mithraism, and women were apparently not allowed to join.

Roman worship of Mithras began sometime during the early Roman empire, perhaps during the late first century of the Common Era (hereafter CE), and flourished from the second through the fourth century BCE. during which it came under the influence of Greek and Roman mythologies. The Mithraic cult maintained secrecy. Its teaching were only reveled to initiates.

The evidence for this cult is mostly archaeological, consisting of the remains of mithraic temples, dedicatory inscriptions, and iconographic representations of the god and other aspects of the cult in stone sculpture, sculpted stone relief, wall painting, and mosaic. There is very little literary evidence pertaining to the cult. Remains of Mithraic temples can be found throughout the Roman Empire, from Palestine across north of Africa, and across central Europe to northern England.

For over three hundred years the rulers of the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras. In Rome, more than a hundred inscriptions dedicated to Mithras have been found, in addition to 75 sculpture fragments, and aseries of Mithraic temples situated in all parts of the city. One of the largest Mithraic temples built in Italy now lies under the present site of the Church of St. Clemente, near the Colosseum in Rome.


It is known that the center of the cult was the Mithraeum, either an adapted natural cave or cavern, preferably sanctified by previous local religious usage, or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark and windowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural cave. When possible, the mithraeum was constructed within or below an existing building. The site of a mithraeum may also be identified by its separate entrance or vestibule, its "cave", called the 'spelaeum' or 'spelunca', with raised benches along the side walls for the ritual meal, and its sanctuary at the far end, often in a recess, before which the pedestal-like altar stood.

Many mithraea that follow this basic plan are scattered over much of the Empire's former area, particularly where the legions were stationed along the frontiers. Others may be recognized by their characteristic layout, even though converted as crypts beneath Christian churches.


In every Mithraic temple, the place of honor was occupied by a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, called a tauroctony. It has been more recently proposed that the tauroctony is a symbolic representation of the constellations rather than an originally Iranian animal sacrifice scene.


Mithras is associated with Perseus, whose constellation is above that of the bull. A serpent, a scorpion, a dog, and a raven are present, also thought to represent associated constellations.

From the structure of the mithraea it is possible to surmise that worshippers would have gathered for a common meal along the reclining couches lining the walls. It is worth noting that most temples could hold only thirty or forty individuals.

The members of a mithraeum were divided into seven ranks. All members were apparently expected to progress through the first four ranks, while only a few would go on to the three higher ranks. The first four ranks seem to represent spiritual progress, while the other three appear to have been specialized offices. The seven ranks were:

Corax (raven)
Nymphus (bride)
Miles (soldier)
Leo (lion)
Perses (Persian)
Heliodromus (sun-courier)
Pater (father)

The new initiate became a Corax, while the Leo was an adept. The titles of the first four ranks suggest the possibility that advancement through the ranks was based on introspection and spiritual growth.

In the absence of any Mithraist scripture, all we know about Mithras is what can be deduced from his images in the mithraea that have survived.

Some depictions show Mithras carrying a rock on his back, much as Atlas did, and/or wearing a cape that had the starry sky as its inside lining. A bronze image of Mithras, emerging from an egg-shaped zodiac ring, found associated with a mithraeum along Hadrian's Wall (now at the University of Newcastle), and an inscription from the city of Rome suggest that Mithras may have been seen as the Orphic creator-god Phanes who emerged from the cosmic egg at the beginning of time, bringing the universe into existence. This view is reinforced by a bas-relief at the Estense Museum in Modena, Italy, which shows Phanes coming from an egg, surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, in an image very similar to that at Newcastle.


He is sometimes depicted as a man being born or reborn from a rock (the 'petra genetrix), typically with the snake Ouroboros wrapped around it. It is commonly believed that the cave in Mithraism imagery represents the cosmos, and the rock is the cosmos seen from the outside; hence the description of this god as 'rising from the dead'. According to some accounts, Mithras died, was buried in a cavernous rock tomb, and was resurrected.

Another more widely accepted interpretation takes its clue from the writer Porphyry, who recorded that the cave pictured in the tauroctony was intended to be "an image of the cosmos." According to this view, the cave depicted in that image may represent the "great cave" of the sky. This interpretation was supported by research by K. B. Stark in 1869, with astronomical support by Roger Beck (1984 and 1988), David Ulansey (1989) and Noel Swerdlow (1991). This interpretation is reinforced by the constant presence in Mithraic imagery of heavenly objects - such as stars, the moon, and the sun - and symbols for the signs of the Zodiac.

One of the central motifs of Mithraism is the tauroctony, the myth of sacrifice by Mithra of a sacred bull created by the supreme deity Ahura Mazda, which Mithra stabs to death in the cave, having been instructed to do so by a crow, sent from Ahura Mazda. In this myth, from the body of the dying bull spring plants, animals, and all the beneficial things of the earth. It is thought that the bull represents the constellation of Taurus. However, in the period we are considering, the sun at the Vernal Equinox had left Taurus two thousand years before, and was in the process of moving from Aries to Pisces.

In light of this interpretation, it has been suggested in recent times that the Mithraic religion is somehow connected to the end of the astrological "age of Taurus," and the beginning of the "age of Aries," which took place about the year 2000 BC. It has even been speculated that the religion may have originated at that time (although there is no record of it until the 2nd century BC).

The identification of an "age" with a particular zodiac constellation is based on the sun's position during the vernal equinox. Before 2000 BC, the Sun could have been seen against the stars of the constellation of Taurus at the time of vernal equinox [had there been an eclipse]. Due to the precession of the equinoxes, on average every 2,160 years the Sun appears against the stars of a new constellation at vernal equinox. The current astrological age started when the equinox precessed into the constellation of Pisces, in about the year 150 BC, with the "Age of Aquarius" starting in AD 2600.

Indeed, the constellations common in the sky from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC were Taurus the Bull, Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion, all of which may be identified in the fresco from Dura-Europos, a standard Hellenistic iconography. Further support for this theory is the presence of a lion and a cup in some depictions of the tauroctony: indeed Leo (a lion) and Aquarius ("the cup-bearer") were the constellations seen as the northernmost (summer solstice) and southernmost (winter solstice) positions in the sky during the age of Taurus.

The precession of the equinoxes was discovered, or at least publicized, by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC. Whether the phenomenon was known by Mithraists previously is unknown. In any case, Mithras was presumed to be very powerful if he was able to rotate the heavens, and thus 'kill the bull' or displacing Taurus as the reigning image in the heavens.

Some commentators surmise that the Mithraists worshipped Mithras as the mediator between Man and the supreme God of the upper and nether world. Other commentators, inspired by James Frazer's theories, have additionally labeled Mithras a mystery religion with a life-death-rebirth deity, comparable to Isis, the resurrected Jesus or the Persephone/Demeter cult of the Eleusinian Mysteries.