Mithraic Mysteries and the Cult of Empire Written by Charles Scaliger 09:35
The
proud Roman general stood with his commanders and retinue as the wild
hillsmen, dressed in the ragged but still-flamboyant clothes of
corsairs, fell before him in turn, begging for clemency. It was about 75
B.C. in the rugged hills near Coracesium in Cilicia, an untamed region
along the coast of southwestern Asia Minor, and the Cilician pirates,
possibly the most successful race of brigands the world has ever seen,
were surrendering to the Roman general Pompey.
Pompeius
Magnus, as he was afterwards styled, would go on to conquer the Levant
and to challenge Julius Caesar for supremacy over the fledgling Roman
Empire, but his lightning-swift campaign against the Cilician pirates
was perhaps his finest moment. The pirates, taking advantage of Roman
naval weakness during a span of decades that saw Rome wracked by civil
war, had controlled much of the Mediterranean, as far west as the
Balearic Islands.* Now, thanks to Pompey’s masterful combination of
resolute military action and unconditional clemency for all pirates who
surrendered to him in person, the once-feared Cilicians were admitted
to the Roman Empire and given the opportunity to live respectable
lives. Most, according to Plutarch’s account of events, accepted
Pompey’s offer. They were resettled in various parts of the Roman
dominion, bringing their families and possessions with them. They also,
according to Plutarch, brought with them a peculiar system of
religious beliefs and practices, one of the so-called “mystery cults”
typical of the pre-Christian Mediterranean.
The cult of the
Mithras was doubtless regarded at first as just another Oriental
import, a product of Mediterranean multi-culturalism. But it grew into
the most formidable occult secret society in the ancient world,
claiming emperors and legionaries alike in its membership. At the peak
of its power and influence — when it held hostage the very machinery of
empire — it threatened to fling the Roman world back to its pagan
roots and to eradicate the young Christian faith.
No one knows the precise origins of the cult devoted to the Persian
deity Mithras, which came to be known as the Mithraic mysteries or
Mithraism. Plutarch says only that the Cilician pirates “offered strange
sacrifices upon Mount Olympus, and performed secret rites or religious
mysteries, among which those of Mithras have been performed to our own
time [i.e., the second century A.D., roughly two centuries after
Pompey’s time], having received their previous institution from them.”
It is also possible that the mysteries of Mithras, like certain other
mystery cults in Roman dominions, were popularized by the mysterious
“Chaldeans,” itinerant sorcerers from the East who were periodically
expelled from Roman territory for encouraging the formation of
subversive cultic secret societies.
From Persian Antiquity
The name of Mithras is the Latinized equivalent of Mithra, an important
deity in Persian Zoroastrianism. This god was worshipped far back into
remotest antiquity by the ancestors of the Persians and Indians alike
(in the Vedic Hymns of ancient India, he is known as Mitra, ‘the
friend’). To the Persians, he was the god of oaths and covenants, and
was worshipped far and wide across central Asia and the Middle East,
from Armenia to the empire of Kushan in modern-day Afghanistan.
The mystery cult, meanwhile, was a distinctively Mediterranean form of
religious worship, a cult within a cult, as it were, in which esoteric
beliefs withheld from the general populace were taught and secret rites
performed. Among the ancient Greeks, the mysteries of Eleusis or
Demeter proved most enduringly popular, while in Egypt, the mysteries
of Isis reigned supreme. On Asia Minor the mysteries of Cybele, a
goddess popular with the Phrygians, flourished.
One particular mystery cult — that of Bacchus, the god of wine and
revelry — acquired a sinister reputation in Rome in the second century
B.C. Introduced by a mysterious Greek immigrant, the cult of Bacchus
allegedly practiced human sacrifices and all manner of debauchery at its
secret nighttime orgies. And the cult sought not only to corrupt Roman
morals but also to take control of Roman government. “Never,” said
Spurius Postumius, the Roman consul who first exposed the cult of
Bacchus before the Roman Senate in 186 B.C., “has there been so much
wickedness in this commonwealth, never wickedness affecting so many
people, nor manifesting itself in so many ways.... Their [the Bacchan
votaries’] impious conspiracy still confines itself to private outrages,
because it has not yet strength enough to overthrow the state. But the
evil grows with every passing day.... It aims at the supreme power of
the state.” Fortunately for Rome, the Senate heeded Postumius’ warning
and suppressed the cult of Bacchus. But the episode showed the potency
of cultic secret societies, and their potential, at least in the
ancient Mediterranean world, to unravel moral fabric and even threaten
the integrity of the state.
The mystery
cult of Mithras appears to have been structurally a Roman innovation,
using certain features of Persian religion and mythology for its own
purposes. Unfortunately, we know little about its growth or operations
until more than a century after Pompey. Not until the ascendancy of
Nero does the name Mithra reappear in Rome.
One of the accomplishments of Rome’s evilest emperor was to bring the
Armenian king Tiridates to Rome for his coronation. As Tiridates
prostrated himself before the Roman emperor, he informed Nero that he
would worship him as he worshipped the great god Mithra (in a stroke of
historical irony, a later Armenian king of the same name, Tiridates the
Great, converted to Christianity and was responsible for Armenia’s
becoming the first state to embrace the new religion). Nero in his turn
is supposed to have expressed great interest in being inducted into the
mysteries of Zoroastrianism by the magi who accompanied Tiridates to
Rome. Whether the Armenian king was an adherent of the mystery cult per
se, or whether Nero became himself a devotee, is impossible to prove.
But the episode suggests that, at very minimum, the worship of Mithra
was a familiar concept in Rome by the mid-first century A.D.
What the archaeological record bears out is that Mithraism was becoming
widespread in the Roman Empire by the end of the first century of our
era. The earliest Mithraic temples, or mithraea, of which we have
record date from roughly 90 to 110 A.D., in the German provinces. The
mysteries of Mithras must have been well-established by that time in the
Roman heartland, the Italian peninsula. By the middle of the second
century, the cult had spread throughout Roman territory, from the Middle
East to the British Isles, displaying a vitality that only the young
Christian faith could match.
Imperial Sponsors
The cult of Mithras seems to have begun in the Roman military,
eventually becoming a cult not only of Roman legionaries, but of
merchants and government officials as well. Nero was the first Roman
emperor whose name was associated with the god Mithras, but he was far
from the last.
The turning point for Mithraism, which apparently
enjoyed at least a measure of tolerance from the Roman government from
its inception, was the administration of the emperor Commodus, the
bestial son of Marcus Aurelius, who reigned from 180 to 190 A.D.
Commodus is remembered chiefly for his savagery and many perversions,
exceptional even by the standards of Roman emperors. Possessed of none
of the equanimity and wisdom of his father nor of the saintly virtues
of his grandfather, the aptly named Pius Antoninus, Commodus managed to
undo in a few short, blood-soaked years much of the progress logged by
Roman civilization during the previous several generations of
comparative peace and progress. He was also the first Roman emperor of
record to have been a full-blown initiate into the mysteries of
Mithras. Commodus, says Franz Cumont, a pioneer in modern Mithraic
studies, “was admitted among their adepts and participated in their
secret ceremonies, and the discovery of numerous votive inscriptions,
either for the welfare of this prince or bearing the date of his reign,
gives us some ink-ling of the impetus which this imperial conversion
imparted to the Mithraic propaganda. After the last of the Antonine
emperors had thus broken with the ancient prejudice, the protection of
his successors appears to have been definitely assured to the new
religion.”
While we have no details of
how Commodus’ involvement in the secret cult may have influenced his
policymaking, his association with Mithras set a disturbing precedent —
namely, that most emperors associated with the cult displayed more
than ordinary levels of brutality and depravity, and a peculiar animus
for Christianity.
Of the beliefs and
rituals of Mithraism, we know very little, despite the abundant
archaeological evidence. Mithraism has left us no religious texts
comparable to, say, the epistles of Paul, the Talmud, or the patristic
writings. We do know that it was a secret religious society to which
only men were admitted. According to St. Jerome, there were seven
initiatory grades in Mithraism, beginning with Corax (raven). The
others, from lowest to highest, were Nymphus (bridegroom), Miles
(soldier), Leo (lion), Perses (Persian), Heliodromus (sun-runner), and
Pater (father). Of these the first two appear to have been preparatory
levels, and induction into the rank of Miles was the real starting point
for progression within the Mithraic hierarchy.
Mithraism had a belief system characterized by vivid myths and
maddeningly obscure symbolism. A typical mithraeum, an underground house
of worship used by devotees of Mithras, was constructed to resemble a
world-cavern, a metaphor of the cosmos favored in the ancient Middle
East. The dominant feature of every mithraeum was a depiction, usually
carved in stone, of the central myth of Mithras: the tauroctony or
slaying of the bull of heaven. Mithras is depicted as a youthful hero
wearing a characteristic Phrygian cap, killing the bull with a dagger.
Surrounding and harassing the hapless bull are a dog, scorpion, raven,
and snake, while flanking the scene stand two other youths holding
torches (dadophori), Cautes and Cautopates, of whom the latter holds his
torch with the tip pointed earthward.
Devilish Details
The precise meaning of this remarkable tableau is still disputed;
nowhere in the Persian Zoroastrian canon as we have received it is there
any reference to Mithra slaying a bull. Cumont perceived in Cautes and
Cautopates, with their opposing torches, an allusion to the radical
dualism of the Zoroastrian faith, the notion that good and evil must be
regarded as opposite and completely equal forces.
In the vivid
paintings on the walls of the well-preserved mithraeum at Dura-Europos
in Syria, there are also images of Mithras as an equestrian hunter —
the famous “mighty hunter” motif associated with Mesopotamian monarchs
and gods since time immemorial — and of Mithras forging his pact with
the sun god Sol, whence Mithras’ most famous epithet, “Sol Invictus,”
or “Unconquerable Sun.”
The other
characteristic piece of Mithraic iconography, the so-called
leontocephalous or lion-headed deity entwined with serpents, is easier
to interpret. This terrifying figure, displayed in many surviving
mithraea, has been identified with the Greek Kronos and Egyptian Kore,
the god of time, but in several mithraea, this idol is captioned “Deus
Arimanius.” Arimanius is the Latin form of Persian Ahriman, meaning
“evil spirit.” Ahriman was the Satan of Zoroastrianism, and his presence
in Mithraic sancta speaks volumes about the real nature of this
mystery cult. Moreover, in the traditional Zoroastrian religion, it is
Ahriman — not Mithra — who, according to historian of religion Yuri
Stoyanov, “brings death to the ‘Lone-Created’ bull in the violent act
of the first ‘creative murder’ which sparked off the cycle of being and
generation.” In Stoyanov’s view:
The Mithraic Deus Arimanius is thus taken to show that Roman Mithraism derived from pre-Zoroastrian and later forbidden daevic
[i.e., diabolical] forms of Mithra-worship which were associated with
the dreaded ‘mystery of the sorcerers’ and which were sustained in
Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.
Of the rites
and observances of Mithraism we know comparatively little. From images
in a Mithraic grotto at modern-day Capua, we learn that initiates were
blindfolded and subjected to various severe trials by a mystagogus
in a white tunic. It appears, from the testimony of Tertullian, that
initiates underwent various purification ceremonies, swore oaths of
secrecy, and received brands on the hands or forehead betokening their
membership in the order. According to M. J. Vermaseren, “on several
[ancient] portraits, even on portraits of emperors, these tattoo marks
are clearly visible, but on the forehead, in place of the hands.”
A much more abominable practice, human sacrifice, may have been
associated with Mithraism as well, though few modern researchers, aside
from the scrupulous Vermaseren, bother to acknowledge it. The Christian
historian Socrates, in the fourth or fifth century, alleged that
Greeks in Alexandria “killed men” while celebrating the mysteries,
despite the fact that human sacrifice had been explicitly forbidden in
Roman dominions since at least the time of Tiberius. At a mithraeum in
Saarburg, the skeleton of a man between 30 and 40 years old was
discovered lying face downwards with his wrists manacled behind his back
with an iron chain — very likely a Mithraic sacrificial victim. Human
sacrifices to Mithras have also been ascribed — although never proven —
to two Roman emperors and Mithras devotees, Commodus and Julian.
Son of God vs. “Sun God”
It appears that, from the time of Commodus onward, nearly every Roman
emperor was associated with the cult of Mithras in some way. In the
early third century, a shrine to Mithras was built on the grounds of the
palace of the Augusti. Elagabalus, another exceptionally depraved
ruler in the tradition of Nero and Commodus, replaced Jupiter with the
Unconquerable Sun, Deus Sol Invictus, as the head of the Roman
pantheon, while Aurelian instituted an imperial cult dedicated to the
same god. Diocletian, Licinius, and Galerius dedicated a temple to
Mithras in Carnuntum in 307 A.D.; it was Galerius, moreover, who
instituted one of the greatest persecutions against the Christians,
because of his well-documented zeal for pagan tradition and worship.
Constantine the Great, too, was at least associated with the cult of
the Unconquerable Sun/Mithras, though whether he was an initiate into
the mysteries is unclear. Rome’s last pagan emperor, Julian, was
inducted into the mysteries of Mithras while yet in his teens by
Maximus of Ephesus, and in his efforts to suppress Christianity and to
restore paganism to full flower, compelled the citizens at
Constantinople — by then the capital of the empire — to worship
Mithras.
The early Christian church regarded the cult of Mithras
as its mortal enemy. The mythology and liturgy of Mithraism were held
up as deliberate mockeries of Christian doctrine and sacraments. The
youthful hero-god Mithras was believed to be a caricature of Jesus
Christ, while Mithraic initiatory rites were considered counterfeit
baptisms. It is possibly Mithraism that the author of the Book of
Revelation had in mind in associating the harlot of Babylon with
“mystery,” and the Antichrist with the infamous “mark of the beast”
(which mark, analogous to the brands inflicted on Mithraic initiates,
was to be placed on the right hand or on the forehead). Whatever the
case, there is every likelihood that, had not Constantine and all of
his successors save Julian not chosen to adopt Christianity, the
Western world might very well have become Mithraic instead.
The demise of Mithraism was as shrouded in obscurity as its origins.
After the death of Julian during his unsuccessful campaign in Persia,
the recrudescent mysteries of Mithras were swiftly suppressed. Julian’s
Mithraic preceptor Maximus was put to death along with other
unrepentant votaries of Mithras, but whether the cult managed to
disappear underground or otherwise reinvent itself and persist in some
other guise is unknown. Some have suggested a continuity of tradition
between Mithraism and Manichaeism, the so-called “religion of light”
founded by the Persian heretic Mani and promulgated across much of the
Orient. Others have found in the underground heresies of Medieval
Europe, especially the Paulicians and the Bogomils, lineal successors
to Mithraism and the other mystery cults.
Whatever its final fate, the cult of Mithras is perhaps the
best-documented instance of a cult of empire, a secret, oath-bound
society of elites that, for several centuries, was the power behind the
throne of the mightiest realm the world had ever seen. It was
apparently the mysteries of Mithras that gave cohesion to Rome’s
far-flung legions and ideological grounding for the autocratic behavior
of her emperors. If the emperor was the embodiment of the
Unconquerable Sun, who could pretend to stand against him? From what
little we have been able to glean of the religion of Mithras and of its
most prominent imperial adherents, we are fortunate that this last and
greatest of the ancient mystery cults did not carry the day in its
epic struggle with Christianity for the hearts and minds of Rome.
