Candles in the Dark and Spice from the @ Mystery

Candles in the Dark and Spice from the Orient: Mystery Cults

                                              

Rome did not sit entirely happily with the East. In the 1st century AD, the memories of the notorious Egyptian queen Cleopatra, whose seduction of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had such a devastating effect upon Roman politics late in the previous century, were still fresh and raw. There was prejudice against the perceived effeteness and decadence of the painted and perfumed Oriental 

In his Satires, Juvenal poked fun at Eastern customs and religion. In the particularly scornful verse quoted at the beginning of this article he probably echoed the prejudices of many of his contemporaries. But the traditions of the East did undoubtedly penetrate the Roman Empire, even as far to the north as Britain. These exotic religions arrived there with army units recruited in the eastern provinces, like Anatolia and Syria, and with merchants, oriental entrepreneurs who sought new markets for their wares. So it is unsurprising that archaeological evidence for these cults is clustered in large entrepôts like London and, above all, on military sites, particularly on Hadrian’s Wall.

was an exacting religion that accepted only those capable of the kind of physical stamina and endurance that Mithras himself demonstrated in his wrestle with a great bull. Mithras was sent to earth as the emissary of the great Iranian creator-god, Ahura Mazda, to hunt and slay the divine bull so that its life-blood would revitalize the earth and humankind; he was a guider of souls, teaching people the right path, that of goodness.

So, unlike most other religions in the Roman Empire, it was a cult whose adherents were required to live a life of merit, and furthermore to undergo a complicated series of seven initiation rites. The Christian leader and writer Saint Jerome wrote in the early 4th century AD of ‘the monstrous images there by which worshippers were initiated as Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Perseus, Sun Runner and Father’. Jerome was born in c. 348 AD in Dalmatia, but taken to Rome early in his life, to be taught by the greatest theologians of the time. As an ardent and outspoken Christian leader, he was both appalled by and scornful of Mithraism, which seemed to him to represent a twisted and wicked travesty of monotheism that set itself up to rival Christianity. iosd that true ancent story by god