Tracing the links between the cult of Mithras and the Proud Boys’ quest for identity, power, and belonging. How ancient rituals and brotherhood ideals resurface in radical modern movements.
The scholiast Lactantius Placidus comments on Statius’ passage identifying the Sun as Titan, Osiris, and Mithras, interpreting the Persian cave figure with the bull.
This monograph presents the findings from Robert J. Bull's 1973 excavation of the Mithraeum in Caesarea Maritima, Israel, including stratigraphic analyses, studies of frescoes and and insights into the site's historical significance.
Roger Beck describes Mithraism from the point of view of the initiate engaging with the religion and its rich symbolic system in thought, word, ritual action, and cult life.
Porphyry states that the Mithraists “perfect their initiate by inducting him into a mystery of the descent of souls and their exit back out again, calling the place a ‘cave’.”
India, beyond all other countries on the face of the earth, is preeminently the home of the worship of the Phallus—Linga puja. It has been so for ages and remains so still.
A first distinction can be made between the rituals of the Mithraic cult. The initiates commemorate the sacrifice of the Bull followed by the sacred banquet. In addition, there is a set of initiatory practices aimed at the incorporation and progression of members into the community.
Why did the Romans worship a Persian god? This book presents a new reading of the Mithraic iconography taking into account that the cult had a prophecy.
Mithras explores the history and practices of the ancient mystery religion Mithraism, looking at both literary and material evidence for the god Mithras and the reception and allure of his mysteries in the present.
Over the course of the second century CE, worship of the Persianate god Mithras swept across the whole of the Roman Empire. With its distinctive traces preserved in the material record—including cave-like sanctuaries and images of Mithras stabbing a bul…
In this work, Attilio Mastrocinque cautions against an approach to Mithraism based on the belief that this mystic cult resembles Christianity. While both Christian and pagan authors testified that Mithraic elements were indeed borrowed, according to Attil…
The Roman cult of Mithras was the most widely-dispersed and densely-distributed cult throughout the expanse of the Roman Empire from the end of the first until the fourth century AD, rivaling the early growth and development of Christianity during the sam…
