Mithras Revisited

Posted on December 17, 2002 in Myths & Mysticism

We will sing a song of Mithras

Let us sing a song of Mithras

But there is no rhyme for Mithras!

Still he’s good enough for me.

–Gimme That Real Old Time Religion
I’ve got a couple of books on Mithras, one of which is popular and old, the other of which says that based on new evidence and understandings, the older book is entirely wrong.
Current scholarship holds that we don’t know jack about Mithras.
Oh, we’ve found a lot of underground temples, most of which are cooly decorated with creatures of the Zodiac, some guy wearing a snake-adorned headpiece, and Mithras running a vermin-infested butcher shop.  The old god or some god with the same name still hangs around South Asia, particularly in India, Pakistan, and Iran where he runs his own operation TIPS.  “You better be careful,” Parsee mothers tell their naughty children.  “Mithras is watching you.”
But the Mithras of conteporary Parsees doesn’t bear more than superficial resemblance to the Mithras who became such a hit with soldiers and other Roman citizens.  The Romans loved to assimilate new gods:  the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Lydians, the Egyptians all handed over deities as tribute to their new rulers who tweaked the personalities and even the appearance around to suit themselves.  Around the time of Christ, as they occupied a few provinces adjacent to Persia, they picked up Mithras, gave him a Roman profile and a Phrygian cap and welcomed him to the pantheon.
The Romans, I guess, were the original New Agers:  they loved any new fad, especially if it involved rituals (secret or not), a chance to show off their artistic skills, grab souvenirs to bring home from the sacred places, and give them a warm fuzzy feeling all over.
Scholars now believe that Roman worship of Mithras involved an initiation ritual which showed future souls who would be detached from their cadavers how to find their way to the proper ladders that led to the good afterlife.  They also believe that Mithraism put a heavy emphasis on astrology:  zodiac signs appear in just about every Mithraium, often surrounding the statue showing Mithras slaying the Bull.  Several other animals — creatures of the night sky such as scorpions and snakes (Draco) — sink their teeth into the bull as Mithras slits the poor bovine’s throat.  Pits found on the site may have served as initiation chambers where the male cult followers were buried and then resurrected.
These are guesses.  A few contemporaries wrote briefly on the subject of their Mithraic rivals, but no scripture from the religion has survived, the temple frescoes bear no captions, and we are thus like strangers flipping through a family album full of people we don’t know, doing things that may have been either funny or sad to them.  We have no clue.
Guess I will have to stick with deities about whom we know about to give our whole heart:
Thanks to great Quetzacoatl
And his sacred axolotl
And his gift of chocolatl
And please pass some down to me!
Except, you know, Quetzacoatl had nothing to do with bringing chocolate into the world.  Sigh.  What some filk singers will do for a rhyme!


The little piece on how Christianity ripped off Zoroastrianism is still in the works.  Fascinating stuff!