The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras

(Note: complete documentation for the following essay can be found

in my book on Mithraism, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries,
and in my articles listed at the bottom of this page.)




The ancient Roman religion known as the Mithraic mysteries has captiated the
imaginations of scholars for generations. There are two reasons for this fascination. !irst,
like the other ancient "mystery religions," such as the #leusinian mysteries and the
mysteries of $sis, Mithraism maintained strict secrecy about its teachings and practices,
reealing them only to initiates. %s a result, reconstructing the beliefs of the Mithraic
deotees has posed an enormously intriguing challenge to scholarly ingenuity. &econd,
Mithraism arose in the Mediterranean world at e'actly the same time as did (hristianity,
and thus the study of the cult holds the promise of shedding ital light on the cultural
dynamics that led to the rise of Christianity.
)wing to the cult*s secrecy, we possess almost no literary eidence about the beliefs of
Mithraism. The few te'ts that do refer to the cult come not from Mithraic deotees
themseles, but rather from outsiders such as early Church fathers, who mentioned
Mithraism in order to attack it, and +latonic philosophers, who attempted to find support in
Mithraic symbolism for their own philosophical ideas. ,oweer, although our literary
sources for Mithraism are e'tremely sparse, an abundance of material eidence for the cult
e'ists in the many Mithraic temples and artifacts that archaeologists hae found scattered
throughout the Roman empire, from #ngland in the north and west to +alestine in the
south and east. The temples, called mithraea by scholars, were usually built underground in
imitation of caes. These subterranean temples were filled with an e'tremely elaborate
iconography: cared reliefs, statues, and paintings, depicting a ariety of enigmatic figures
and scenes. This iconography is our primary source of knowledge about Mithraic beliefs,
but because we do not hae any written accounts of its meaning the ideas that it e'presses
hae proen e'traordinarily difficult to decipher.

Underground Mithraic temple in Rome
The typical mithraeum was a small rectangular subterranean chamber, on the order of -.
feet by /0 feet with a vaulted ceiling. %n aisle usually ran lengthwise down the center of
the temple, with a stone bench on either side two or three feet high on which the cult*s
members would recline during their meetings. )n aerage a mithraeum could hold perhaps
twenty to thirty people at a time. %t the back of the mithraeum at the end of the aisle was
always found a representation11 usually a cared relief but sometimes a statue or painting11
of the central icon of Mithraism: the so1called tauroctony or "bull1slaying scene" in which
the god of the cult, Mithras, accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raen, and a scorpion, is
shown in the act of killing a bull. )ther parts of the temple were decorated with arious
scenes and figures. There were many hundreds11 perhaps thousands11 of Mithraic temples
in the Roman empire. The greatest concentrations hae been found in the city of Rome
itself, and in those places in the empire (often in the most distant frontiers) where Roman
soldiers11 who made up a ma2or segment of the cult*s membership11 were stationed.

Mithraeum in Capua, Italy
)ur earliest eidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the
first century 3.(.: the historian +lutarch says that in 4- 3.(. a large band of pirates based in
(ilicia (a proince on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites"
of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first
century %.5., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. $n
addition to soldiers, the cult*s membership included significant numbers of bureaucrats and
merchants. 6omen were e'cluded. Mithraism declined with the rise to power of
(hristianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when (hristianity became strong
enough to e'terminate by force rial religions such as Mithraism.
!or most of the twentieth century it has been assumed that Mithraism was imported from
$ran, and that Mithraic iconography must therefore represent ideas drawn from ancient
$ranian mythology. The reason for this is that the name of the god worshipped in the cult,
Mithras, is a Gree and !atin form of the name of an ancient $ranian god, Mithra7 in
addition, Roman authors themseles e'pressed a belief that the cult was $ranian in origin.
%t the end of the nineteenth century !ran8 (umont, the great 3elgian historian of ancient
religion, published a magisterial two1 olume work on the Mithraic mysteries based on the
assumption of the $ranian origins of the cult. (umont*s work immediately became accepted
as the definitie study of the cult, and remained irtually unchallenged for oer seenty
years.
There were, howeer, a number of serious problems with (umont*s assumption that the
Mithraic mysteries deried from ancient $ranian religion. Most significant among these is
that there is no parallel in ancient $ran to the iconography which is the primary fact of the
Roman Mithraic cult. !or e'ample, as already mentioned, by far the most important icon in
the Roman cult was the tauroctony. This scene shows Mithras in the act of killing a bull,
accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raen, and a scorpion7 the scene is depicted as taking
place inside a cae like the mithraeum itself. This icon was located in the most important
place in eery mithraeum, and therefore must hae been an e"pression of the central myth
of the Roman cult. Thus, if the god Mithras of the Roman religion was actually the $ranian
god Mithra, we should e'pect to find in $ranian mythology a story in which Mithra kills a
bull. ,oweer, the fact is that no such $ranian myth e'ists: in no known $ranian te't does
Mithra hae anything to do with killing a bull.

Mithras illing #ull
!ran8 (umont had responded to this problem by focusing on an ancient $ranian te't in
which a bull is indeed killed, but in which the bull1slayer is not Mithra but rather %hriman,
the force of cosmic eil in $ranian religion. (umont argued that there must hae e'isted a
ariant of this myth11 a ariant for which there was, howeer, no actual eidence11 in which
the bull1slayer had been transformed from %hriman to Mithra. $t was this purely
hypothetical ariant on the myth of %hriman*s killing of a bull that according to (umont lay
behind the tauroctony icon of the Roman cult of Mithras.
$n the absence of any conincing alternatie, (umont*s e'planation satisfied scholars for
more than seenty years. ,oweer, in 9:-9 the !irst $nternational (ongress of Mithraic
&tudies was held in Manchester #ngland, and in the course of this (ongress (umont*s
theories came under concerted attack. 6as it not possible, scholars at the (ongress asked,
that the Roman cult of Mithras was actually a new religion, and had simply borrowed the
name of an $ranian god in order to gie itself an e'otic oriental flaor; $f such a scenario
seemed plausible, these scholars argued, one could no longer assume without <uestion that
the proper way to interpret Mithraism was to find parallels to its elements in ancient $ranian
religion. $n particular, !ran8 (umont*s interpretation of the tauroctony as representing an
$ranian myth was now no longer un<uestionable. Thus from 9:-9 on, the meaning of the
Mithraic tauroctony suddenly became a mystery: if this bull1slaying icon did not represent
an ancient $ranian myth, what did it represent;
6ithin a few years after the 9:-9 (ongress, a radically different approach to e'plaining the
tauroctony began to be pursued by a number of scholars. $t is not an e'aggeration to say
that this approach has in 2ust the past few years succeeded in completely reolutioni8ing the
study of the Mithraic mysteries. %ccording to the proponents of this interpretation, the
tauroctony is not, as (umont and his followers claimed, a pictorial representation of an
$ranian myth, but is rather something utterly different: namely, an astronomical star map=
This remarkable e'planation of the tauroctony is based on two facts. !irst, eery figure
found in the standard tauroctony has a parallel among a group of constellations located
along a continuous band in the sky: the bull is paralleled by Taurus, the dog by (anis
Minor, the snake by ,ydra, the raen by (orus, and the scorpion by &corpio. &econd,
Mithraic iconography in general is peraded by e'plicit astronomical imagery: the 8odiac,
planets, sun, moon, and stars are often portrayed in Mithraic art (note for e'ample the stars
around the head of Mithras in the caring of the tauroctony illustrated aboe)7 in addition,
numerous ancient authors speak about astronomical sub2ects in connection with Mithraism.
$n the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher +orphyry, for e'ample, we find recorded a
tradition that the cae which is depicted in the tauroctony and which the underground
Mithraic temples were designed to imitate was intended to be "an image of the cosmos."
>ien the general presence of astronomical motifs in Mithraic art and ideology, the parallel
noted aboe between the tauroctony1figures and constellations is unlikely to be
coincidence.

Tauroctony encircled #y $odiac
My own research oer the past decade has been deoted to discoering why these particular
constellations might hae been seen as especially important, and how an icon representing
them could hae come to form the core of a powerful religious moement in the Roman
#mpire.
$n order to answer these <uestions, we must first hae in mind a few facts about ancient
cosmology. Today we know that the earth rotates on its a'is once a day, and reoles
around the sun once a year. ,oweer, >reco1Roman astronomy at the time of the Mithraic
mysteries was based on a so1called "geocentric" cosmology, according to which the earth
was fi'ed and immoable at the center of the unierse and eerything went around it. $n
this cosmology the unierse itself was imagined as being bounded by a great sphere to
which the stars, arranged in the arious constellations, were attached. &o, while we today
understand that the earth rotates on its a'is once eery day, in anti<uity it was belieed
instead that once a day the great sphere of the stars rotated around the earth, spinning on an
a'is that ran from the sphere*s north pole to its south pole. %s it spun, the cosmic sphere
was belieed to carry the sun along with it, resulting in the apparent moment of the sun
around the earth once a day.

This diagram shows the daily rotation of the cosmic sphere around the earth
according to the %geocentric% cosmology& As shown here, the sun is carried along #y
the cosmic sphere around the earth once a day& 'owever, as e"plained #elow, in the
%geocentric% cosmology the sun was also #elieved to possess a second movement
#eyond its daily rotation with the cosmic sphere( namely, its yearly revolution along
the circle of the %$odiac&%
$n addition to this daily rotation of the cosmic sphere carrying the sun along with it, the
ancients also attributed a second, slower motion to the sun. 6hile today we know that the
earth reoles around the sun once a year, in anti<uity it was belieed instead that once a
year the sun11 which was understood as being closer to the earth than the sphere of the
stars11 traeled around the earth, tracing a great circle in the sky against the background of
the constellations. This circle traced by the sun during the course of the year was known as
the "8odiac"11 a word meaning "liing figures," which was a reference to the fact that as the
sun moed along the circle of the 8odiac it passed in front of twele different constellations
which were represented as haing arious animal and human forms.

)odiac *circle of +, figures- with sun in Aries& In the %geocentric% cosmology the sun
was #elieved to move along this circle around the earth once a year& The other cosmic
circle shown here, parallel to the earth.s e/uator, is called the %celestial e/uator&%
3ecause the ancients belieed in the real e'istence of the great sphere of the stars, its
arious parts11 such as its a'is and poles11 played a central role in the cosmology of the
time. $n particular, one important attribute of the sphere of the stars was much better known
in anti<uity than it is today: namely, its e<uator, known as the "celestial e<uator." ?ust as the
earth*s e<uator is defined as a circle around the earth e<uidistant from the north and south
poles, so the celestial e<uator was understood as a circle around the sphere of the stars
e<uidistant from the sphere*s poles. The circle of the celestial e<uator was seen as haing a
particularly special importance because of the two points where it crosses the circle of the
8odiac: for these two points are the e<uino'es, that is, the places where the sun, in its
moement along the 8odiac, appears to be on the first day of spring and the first day of
autumn. Thus the celestial e<uator was responsible for defining the seasons, and hence had
a ery concrete significance in addition to its abstract astronomical meaning.
%s a result, the celestial e<uator was often described in ancient popular literature about the
stars. +lato, for e'ample, in his dialogue Timaeus said that when the creator of the unierse
first formed the cosmos, he shaped its substance in the form of the letter @, representing the
intersection of the two celestial circles of the 8odiac and the celestial e<uator. This cross1
shaped symbol was often depicted in ancient art to indicate the cosmic sphere. $n fact, one
of the most famous e'amples of this motif is a Mithraic stone caring showing the so1called
"lion1headed god," whose image is often found in Mithraic temples, standing on a globe
that is marked with the cross representing the two circles of the 8odiac and the celestial
e<uator.

!ion0headed god standing on glo#e with crossed circles
)ne final fact about the celestial e<uator is crucial: namely, that it does not remain fi'ed,
but rather possesses a slow moement known as the "precession of the e<uino'es." This
moement, we know today, is caused by a wobble in the earth*s rotation on its a'is. %s a
result of this wobble, the celestial e<uator appears to change its position oer the course of
thousands of years. This moement is known as the precession of the e<uino'es because its
most easily obserable effect is a change in the positions of the e<uino'es, the places where
the celestial e<uator crosses the 8odiac. $n particular, the precession results in the e<uino'es
moing slowly backward along the 8odiac, passing through one 8odiacal constellation
eery A,940 years and through the entire 8odiac eery A.,:A0 years. Thus, for e'ample,
today the spring e<uino' is in the constellation of +isces, but in a few hundred years it will
be moing into %<uarius (the so1called "dawning of the %ge of %<uarius"). More to our
point here, in >reco1Roman times the spring e<uino' was in the constellation %ries, which
it had entered around A,000 3.(.
$t is this phenomenon of the precession of the e<uino'es that proides the key to unlocking
the secret of the astronomical symbolism of the Mithraic tauroctony. !or the constellations
pictured in the standard tauroctony hae one thing in common: namely, they all lay on the
celestial e<uator as it was positioned during the epoch immediately preceeding the >reco1
Roman "%ge of %ries." 5uring that earlier age, which we may call the "%ge of Taurus,"
lasting from around B,000 to A,000 3.(., the celestial e<uator passed through Taurus the
3ull (the spring e<uino' of that epoch), (anis Minor the 5og, ,ydra the &nake, (orus the
Raen, and &corpio the &corpion (the autumn e<uino'): that is, precisely the constellations
represented in the Mithraic tauroctony.

In the a#ove diagram the celestial e/uator intersects the $odiac in Aries& This was the
situation during the %Age of Aries&% The sun is here pictured *in Aries- as it was
located on the day of the spring e/uino" in that age&

'ere the cosmic a"is has wo##led, so that the celestial e/uator intersects the $odiac in
Taurus00 the situation during the %Age of Taurus&% The sun is here pictured *in
Taurus- as it was located on the day of the spring e/uino" in that age& In this %Age of
Taurus% the celestial e/uator passed through Taurus, Canis Minor, 'ydra, Corvus,
and 1corpio( precisely the constellations pictured in the Mithraic #ull0slaying icon&
$n fact, we may een go one step further. !or during the %ge of Taurus, when the e<uino'es
were in Taurus and &corpio, the two solstices11 which are also shifted by the precession11
were in Ceo the Cion and %<uarius the 6aterbearer. ($n the aboe diagram of the "%ge of
Taurus," Ceo and %<uarius are the northernmost and southernmost constellations of the
8odiacal circle respectiely11 these were the positions of the summer and winter solstices in
that age.) $t is thus of great interest to note that in certain regions of the Roman empire a
pair of symbols was sometimes added to the tauroctony: namely, a lion and a cup. These
symbols must represent the constellations Ceo and %<uarius, the locations of the solstices
during the %ge of Taurus. Thus all of the figures found in the tauroctony represent
constellations that had a special position in the sky during the %ge of Taurus.
The Mithraic tauroctony, then, was apparently designed as a symbolic representation of the
astronomical situation that obtained during the %ge of Taurus. 3ut what religious
significance could this hae had, so that the tauroctony could hae come to form the central
icon of a powerful cult; The answer to this <uestion lies in the fact that the phenomenon of
the precession of the e<uino'es was unknown throughout most of anti<uity: it was
discoered for the first time around 9AD 3.(. by the great >reek astronomer ,ipparchus.
Today we know that the precession is caused by a wobble in the earth*s rotation on its a'is.
,oweer, for ,ipparchus11 because he held to the ancient geocentric cosmology in which
the earth was belieed to be immoable11 what we today know to be a moement of the
earth could only be understood as a moement of the entire cosmic sphere. $n other words,
,ipparchus*s discoery amounted to the discoery that the entire unierse was moing in a
way that no one had eer been aware of before=
%t the time ,ipparchus made his discoery, Mediterranean intellectual and religious life
was peraded by astrological beliefs. $t was widely belieed that the stars and planets were
liing gods, and that their moements controlled all aspects of human e'istence. $n
addition, at this time most people belieed in what scholars call "astral immortality": that is,
the idea that after death the human soul ascends up through the heaenly spheres to an
afterlife in the pure and eternal world of the stars. $n time, the celestial ascent of the soul
came to be seen as a difficult oyage, re<uiring secret passwords to be recited at each leel
of the 2ourney. $n such circumstances, ,ipparchus*s discoery would hae had profound
religious implications. % new force had been detected capable of shifting the cosmic sphere:
was it not likely that this new force was a sign of the actiity of a new god, a god so
powerful that he was capable of moing the entire unierse;
,ipparchus*s discoery of the precession made it clear that before the >reco1Roman period,
in which the spring e<uino' was in the constellation of %ries the Ram, the spring e<uino'
had last been in Taurus the 3ull. Thus, an obious symbol for the phenomenon of the
precession would hae been the death of a bull, symboli8ing the end of the "%ge of Taurus"
brought about by the precession. %nd if the precession was belieed to be caused by a new
god, then that god would naturally become the agent of the death of the bull: hence, the
"bull1slayer."
This, $ propose, is the origin and nature of Mithras the cosmic bull1slayer. ,is killing of the
bull symboli8es his supreme power: namely, the power to moe the entire unierse, which
he had demonstrated by shifting the cosmic sphere in such a way that the spring e<uino'
had moed out of Taurus the 3ull.
>ien the perasie influence in the >reco1Roman period of astrology and "astral
immortality," a god possessing such a literally world1shaking power would clearly hae
been eminently worthy of worship: since he had control oer the cosmos, he would
automatically hae power oer the astrological forces determining life on earth, and would
also possess the ability to guarantee the soul a safe 2ourney through the celestial spheres
after death.
That Mithras was belieed to possess precisely such a cosmic power is in fact proen by a
number of Mithraic artworks depicting Mithras in arious ways as haing control oer the
unierse. !or e'ample, one scene shows a youthful Mithras holding the cosmic sphere in
one hand while with his other hand he rotates the circle of the 8odiac.

Mithras holding cosmic sphere and rotating $odiac
%nother image shows Mithras in the role of the god %tlas, supporting on his shoulder the
great sphere of the unierse, as %tlas traditionally does.

Mithras as Atlas
% further e'ample is proided by a number of tauroctonies that symboli8e Mithras*s cosmic
power by showing him with the starry sky contained beneath his flying cape (see
illustration at #eginning of article).
$f Mithras was in fact belieed to be capable of moing the entire unierse, then he must
hae been understood as in some sense residing outside of the cosmos. This idea may help
us to understand another ery common Mithraic iconographical motif: namely, the so1
called "rock1birth" of Mithras. This scene shows Mithras emerging from the top of a
roughly spherical or egg1shaped rock, which is usually depicted with a snake entwined
around it.

Roc02irth of Mithras
%s $ mentioned preiously, the tauroctony depicts the bull1slaying as taking place inside a
cae, and the Mithraic temples were built in imitation of caes. 3ut caes are precisely
hollows within the rocky earth, which suggests that the rock from which Mithras is born is
meant to represent the Mithraic cae as seen from the outside. Now as we saw earlier, the
ancient author +orphyry records the tradition that the Mithraic cae was intended to be "an
image of the cosmos." )f course, the hollow cae would hae to be an image of the cosmos
as seen from the inside, looking out at the enclosing, cae1like sphere of the stars. 3ut if the
cae symboli8es the cosmos as seen from the inside, it follows that the rock out of which
Mithras is born must ultimately be a symbol for the cosmos as seen from the outside. This
idea is not as abstract as might first appear, for artistic representations of the cosmos as seen
from the outside were in fact ery common in anti<uity. % famous e'ample is the "%tlas
!arnese" statue, showing %tlas bearing on his shoulder the cosmic globe, on which are
depicted the constellations as they would appear from an imaginary antage point outside
of the unierse.

Atlas 3arnese statue, ,nd century A&4&
That the rock from which Mithras is born does indeed represent the cosmos is proen by
the snake that entwines it: for this image eokes unmistakeably the famous )rphic myth of
the snake1entwined "cosmic egg" out of which the unierse was formed when the creator1
god +hanes emerged from it at the beginning of time. $ndeed, the Mithraists themseles
e'plicitly identified Mithras with +hanes, as we know from an inscription found in Rome
and from the iconography of a Mithraic monument located in #ngland.
The birth of Mithras from the rock, therefore, would appear to represent the idea that he is
in some sense greater than the cosmos. (apable of moing the entire unierse, he cannot be
contained within the cosmic sphere, and is therefore depicted in the rock1birth as bursting
out of the enclosing cae of the unierse, and establishing his presence in the transcendent
space beyond the cosmos.
This imaginary "place beyond the unierse" had been described iidly by +lato seeral
centuries before the origins of Mithraism. $n his dialogue +haedrus (AB-31() +lato
enisions a 2ourney by a soul to the outermost boundary of the cosmos, and then gies us a
glimpse of what the soul would see if for a brief moment it were able to "look upon the
regions without." ")f that place beyond the heaens," says +lato,
none of our earthly poets has yet sung, and none shall sing worthily. 3ut this is
the manner of it, for assuredly we must be bold to speak what is true, aboe all
when our discourse is upon truth. $t is there that true being dwells, without
colour or shape, that cannot be touched7 reason alone, the soul*s pilot, can
behold it, and all true knowledge is knowledge thereof.

2eyond the heavens
$ would suggest that the awe1inspiring <uality of +lato*s ision of what is beyond the
outermost boundary of the cosmos also lies behind the appeal of Mithras as a diine being
whose proper domain is outside of the unierse. %s the te't from +lato shows, the
establishment by ancient astronomers of the sphere of the stars as the absolute boundary of
the cosmos only encouraged the human imagination to pro2ect itself beyond that boundary
in an e'hilarating leap into an infinite mystery. There beyond the cosmos dwelled the
ultimate diine forces, and Mithras*s ability to moe the entire unierse made him one with
those forces.
,ere in the end we may sense a profound kinship between Mithraism and (hristianity. !or
early (hristianity also contained at its core an ideology of cosmic transcendence. Nowhere
is this better e'pressed than in the opening of the earliest gospel, Mark. There, at the
beginning of the foundation story of (hristianity, we find ?esus, at the moment of his
baptism, haing a ision of "the heaens torn open." ?ust as Mithras is reealed as a being
from beyond the unierse capable of altering the cosmic spheres, so here we find ?esus
linked with a rupture of the heaens, an opening into the numinous realms beyond the
furthest cosmic boundaries. +erhaps, then, the figures of ?esus and Mithras are to some
e'tent both manifestations of a single deep longing in the human spirit for a sense of
contact with the ultimate mystery.