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Notes
Plutarch, fr. 157 Sandbach, 15-25 (On the Festival of the Images at Plataeae), transl. F. Sandbach.
I warmly thank Claudia Beltrão and Federico Santangelo for their invitation, their incomparable hospitality, and many thoughtful discussions … not to mention the careful correction of the English form.
See Bérard et al. 1984 (Engl. transl. Bérard et al. 1989).
See Zanker 1988; Hölscher 2004 and 2018; Elsner 2007.
Beck 2006, 24.
Consequently it addresses neither the many pending issues pertaining to the Roman cult of Mithras nor its contradictory interpretations, except when images are concerned.
See Belayche, Massa 2021a.
See e.g. Turcan 1993, 45: “Le mithriacisme nous est accessible surtout et directement par l’iconographie” (italics mine), and infra n. 14.
See F. Cumont’s letter to A. Loisy on August 7, 1909: “Vous trouverez quelques indications réunies dans les Monum. Myst. de Mithra, I, p. 324-5 avec les renvois nécessaires. Vous verrez que c’est maigre” (italics mine). See Clauss 2001 (first German ed. 1990), 102: “Rather oddly, initiation is one of the aspects of the mysteries of Mithras the literary sources do not mention”. On the epigraphical evidence, see Belayche forthcoming.
Euboulos’ and Pallas’ works (τὰ περὶ τῶν τοῦ Μίθρα συναγαγὼν μυστηρίων, Porphyry, De abstinentia 2, 56, 11) possibly through Numenius: see Turcan 1975, 23-43.
Cumont 1899, 53. Cumont had a “Winckelmannian” approach to iconography: see the appendix on “l’art mithriaque” in Cumont 1913, ed. 2013, 221-238. There is no need to recall the foundational place of F. Cumont as the initiator of Mithraic studies; see a letter of A. Loisy (July 31, 1909): “C’est vous qui êtes Mithra”.
Cumont 1899, XII.
Bonnet 1997.
Cumont 1913, Les Mystères de Mithra, p. 101 (italics mine) and 172: “représenter sur la pierre non seulement les divinités, mais la cosmogonie des mystères et les épisodes de la légende de Mithra jusqu’à l’immolation suprême du taureau”. For Turcan 1993, Mithraic images are “de véritables ‘histoires saintes’ en images”, with a Christian flavour in the expression. See also Bremmer 2014, 131, who designates the birth of Mithras (from the rock) as “a kind of ‘immaculate conception’”.
For a recent critique of this method see Beck 2006, 17-25; see also Adrych et al., 2017, 9-10, with a valuable emphasis on the point that many Mithraic reliefs had been restored along a modern (Cumontian) model of the Mithras mysteries, and these restorations corroborate a debatable reconstruction (19-24).
The first known dated relief (CIMRM 594), that of Alcimus, a slave vilicus of the Praetorian Prefect Ti. Claudius Livianus, was dedicated c. 102 Sol(i) M(ithrae). Campbell 1968, 291-293, also focusing on the tauroctony reliefs and frescoes, reads “some form of an initiation rite”, telete (laying on of hands; pouring on of water; purification) in scenes from predellas; for the Capuan frescoes see infra.
Cumont 19274 [2006], 5, read the Zend Avesta as a literal account, a “commentaire pour interpréter la masse considérable de monuments figurés” (italics mine).
See e.g. Clauss 2001, 102: “the fancifulness of [the Christian] accounts of the supposed tests of courage growths with their date of composition”.
On philosophical texts, see the caveat of Van Nuffelen 2011, 47: “the fact that we are dealing with philosophical reinterpretations of mystery cults should warn us against naïvely using descriptions of mystery cults by philosophers as unequivocal evidence for their real functioning”. This point was demonstrated by Turcan 1975.
Cf. e.g. the mithraea of Felicissimus and of the Sette Sfere in Ostia. Gordon 1996, 20, initiated the reading of the grades as “modelled upon the structure of the cosmos”.
For a definition of the term, Bianchi 1965, esp. 155: “nous entendons par ‘initiation’ l’accession rituelle d’un individu ou d’un groupe homogène dans un état, ou plus spécifiquement, dans un corps sacralement qualifié et religieusement ‘autre’”. On the intersection between rites de passage and initiations, see Graf 2003.
Cf. Chalupa 2008 and Adrych 2021. I concur with Alvar 2008, who, after devoting eight pages to the grades, states: “I think it more realistic to discuss Mithraic initiation not primarily in terms of the grades” (371).
Aelius Aristides, Ἐλευσίνιος (Or. 22), 2.
See e.g. Martin 2006, based on the theorical model of Whitehouse 2004.
For the mysteries of Mithras, Bowden 2010, 181-197; Martin 2015; Panagiotidou-Beck 2017. On mithraea as space, Gordon 2017.
Cf. Simmel 1950.
See also the case of Ephesos, where the μυστήρια of Artemis are delineated only by a specific group of ritual agents who seem to be involved in regular ritual gestures, opposite to their mystike performance at Mount Solmissos: see Belayche 2016.
Gordon 1996 and Beck 2006.
See the debate on the interpretation of the frescoes of the so-called Villa of the Mysteries (Villa Item) at Pompei (70-60 BCE): some scholars interpret them as displaying a Dionysiac initiation (e.g. Sauron 1998), while others argue for the sequence of a wedding ceremony displayed in the Roman matron’s apartments (Veyne et al. 1998, 13-153 and Veyne 2016).
Burkert 1987.
For the “mystericization” in the second century CE, see Belayche, Massa and Hoffmann 2021.
See Belayche 2006, 2008, 2017 and 2021a.
AnHiMA (UMR 8210, Paris), “Les ‘cultes à mystères’ (mystèria, teletai, orgia, etc.) et leurs acteurs spécialisés” (2014-2018), https://www.anhima.fr/spip.php?article1164, last accessed 15.04.21.
Cf. Belayche-Massa 2021b.
Cf. F. Cumont’s letter to A. Loisy (August 7, 1909) on the mysteries of Mithras: “Rien de plus mystérieux que le rituel de ces mystères”.
For instance that of Neuenheim (today in the Museum of Karlsruhe): CIMRM II, 1289. The precursor of a post-Cumontian and astronomic reading is Gordon 1996. The approach was further developed in Beck 2006. On the use of these images, see recently Mastrocinque 2017, who builds his “different account” (an Augustan propaganda discourse) upon them. On the tauroctony and the methodological problems that its reading presents, see Adrych et al. 2017.
Alvar 2008, 351-358, studies the common meals with sacrifices as “a communicative institution” (355).
Yet R. Beck proposed to combine the two readings on the Mainz krater. See infra n. 92.
Too long to be quoted in extenso: see firstly the foundational reexamination in Burkert 1987; Cosmopoulos 2003; Bowden 2010 (with a cognitivist approach); Bremmer 2014, with light focus on images, 135-137.
See e.g. Blakely 2009; Martin-Velasco-Garcia 2016; Belayche-Massa 2016; Philonenko-Lehmann-Pernot 2017.
Beck 1998 convincingly proposed that they might have been invented within Roman astrological circles, like that of the Balbilli, connected both to Commagene and Egypt, and possibly familiar with Chaldaean magi that came to Rome with the king Tiridates of Armenia during the reign of Nero, see Pliny, Natural History 30, 6, 1. Under Domitian, see Statius, Thebaid, 1, 719-720: Persei sub rupibus antri/indignata sequi torquentem cornua Mithram (“Mithras, that beneath the rocky Persean cave strains at the reluctant-following horns”, transl. LCL).
Cumont 1913 [2013], 29. Nevertheless scholars still read them through the Greek model, e.g. Bremmer 2014, 133 : “the inventor of the Mithras Mysteries may well have been influenced by the fact that the Eleusinian and Samothracian Mysteries had only two grades”.
Considering the loss of Euboulos’ work (see supra n. 10), this categorization goes back to the Christian authors of the second half of the second century (Justin, Tertullian, etc.): Massa 2016. Some reflections on its significance in Alvar 2008, 6-14.
He equated them with “Oriental religions”: “Toutes les dévotions venues du Levant ont pris la forme de mystères” (2006, XXXIX-XLIV). Sfameni Gasparro 2003, 130, goes as far as arguing that the mysteries of Mithras were the model of “mystery” because of their complete secrecy: “Solo per il mitraismo sarebbe legittimo usare la definizione di ‘religione di mistero’”.
On Mithras see now Alvar 2008, 74-106, “who essentially resumes Cumont” (78), but with a focus on new astronomic insights.
Cumont 19274 [2006], 44-67. This theme was at the core of the conference held in Rome in 1979, whose proceedings were published as Bianchi-Vermaseren 1982, with many contributions that argued for a conception of this-wordly salvation.
See Bonnet-Rüpke-Scarpi 2006 and Bonnet-Pirenne-Delforge-Praet 2009. On the mysteries of Mithras, see Belayche-Mastrocinque, “Introduction historiographique”, in Cumont 1913 [2013], XIII-LXXXVIII.
See infra n. 90-92.
Cf. e.g. Maar-Burda 2004; Stiegler 2008; Bräunlein 2009; Bérard 2018, esp. 15-35 (“Iconographie – Iconologie – Iconologique”).
For instance on images of gods: see Mylonopoulos 2010, 201 and Estienne et al. 2014.
See Belayche-Massa 2016, 7-19.
Plotinus, Enneads 6.9.11. Cf. Sudas s.v. μυστήρια (μυστήριον/α comes from μυέω, “closing the lips or eyes”) See Motte 1986 and Montiglio 2000, 23-31 (“Closing One’s Lips, Closing One’s Eyes: Silence in the Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries”).
Strabo 10.3.9 [C 467]: “the secrecy (ἥ τε κρύψις) with which the sacred rites (ἡ μυστικὴ τῶν ἱερῶν) are concealed induces reverence for the divine (σεμνοποιεῖ τὸ θεῖον) since it imitates the nature of the divine, which is to avoid being perceived by our human senses (μιμουμένη τὴν φύσιν αὐτοῦ φεύγουσαν ἡμῶν τὴν αἴσθησιν)”, transl. LCL.
We have only one epigraphical “report” of these meetings (in fact a poetic text by the Father Proficentius), which does not allude to religious considerations, but to the joyful conviviality of the syndexi: CIMRM 423; cf. Belayche forthcoming. The point is confirmed by the types of ceramics found within excavated mithraea: see e.g. Klenner 2019, 307 and 381.
IG II2 1110, 16-17 (= I.Eleusis 513): τὰ ἀπόρρητα τῆς κατὰ τὰ μυστήρια τελετῆς (“the secret rites of the initiation during the Mysteries”).
Psellus, Commentary on Iohannes Climachus = Aristotle, Peri philosophias fr. 15b, Ross: ἐν ἐκείναις γὰρ τυπούμενος ὁ τελούμενος τὰς θεωρίας ἦν, ἀλλ' οὐ διδασκόμενος. See also Synesius of Cyrene, Dion 8, 5-8 = Aristotle, Peri philosophias fr. 15, Ross: οὐ μαθεῖν […] ἀλλὰ παθεῖν.
This does not disregard the fact that books may have also been used during the ceremonies: for the Dionysiac mysteries see Massa 2013.
Sopater, Rhetores Graeci, 8, p. 115 (ed. Walz), transl. Burkert 1987, 90.
See Belayche 2021b.
These features are displayed from Plato onwards, infra n. 75. See Ustinova 2017, 113-168 (“Telestic mania and near-death experience”) who takes for granted ancient textual evidence.
Ps.-Demetrius of Phaleron, On Style, 101.
Plotinus, Enneads, 5, 1, 7, 33 (on the generation from Cronos); for Eleusis, Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus. 2, 12, 2 (the abduction of Persephone and the wandering of Demeter). See Nilsson 1953, 180: “Mystery rites were, when represented, generally concealed in a mythical guise”. Mysteries were so strongly connected with a pathway to truth that hidden discourses were presented as full of truth: “a suggestion of truth”: Van Nuffelen 2007.
Clement of Alexandria, Proptrepticus, 2.13.1, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation for the Gospel 2.3. 9-10 (transl. LCL), in a section entitled “On the unspeakable rites and the secret mysteries of the polytheistic imposture” (Περὶ τῶν ἀπορρήτων τελετῶν καὶ τῶν κρυφίων μυστηρίων τῆς πολυθέου πλάνης); see also Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 15.1.2; see Massa 2016 and 2018.
Talgam-Weiss 2004.
Belayche-Massa 2021b, 7-22.
Plutarch, fr. 157 Sandbach, 15-25 (On the Festival of the Images at Plataeae), ap. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 3, Prooem. For mystery-like discourses on the philosophical progression, Roskam 2001 and Martin-Velasco-García Blanco 2016.
Plutarch, On Talkativeness 7.505F.
See Massa 2018 and Veymiers 2021.
Cf. Kerényi 1967, for an interpretation of the μύησις as an experience of “seeing the unseen”. See also Sabbatucci 1965, 147 on Eleusis (“luce, visione dell’alterità […], illuminazione […], salvezza futura”); Clinton 2003; and Petridou 2013.
IG II2 3764 (in 217/218); see also 3662, 5 (end of the second-beginning of the third century).
Cf. IG II2 3639 and 3411 (the hierophant who initiated the emperor Commodus).
Varro, quoted by Augustine, Civ. D. 7.20. In Mithraic rituals tradere is the regular verb for expressing initiation or the grant of a new grade: CIMRM 400-405, from 357 to 376 CE in Rome.
Ps.-Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, 5.8.39. See Zamagni 2018, 298-299 on this passage.
IG II2 3661, 3-4 (end of the second-beginning of the third century). In literature, see Euripides, Hippolytus 25: “to see and celebrate the holy mysteries (σεμνῶν ἐς ὄψιν καὶ τέλη μυστηρίων)”, transl. LCL; Andocides, On the Mysteries, 31: “you are here as initiates who have seen the rites of the Two Goddesses” (μεμύησθε καὶ ἑοράκατε τοῖν θεοῖν τὰ ἱερά), transl. LCL slightly modified; and so on.
Plato, Phaedrus, 250bc and 265b, and Aristotle, Peri philosophias, fr. 15b, Ross (quoted by Psellus, Commentary on Iohannes Climachus): “the mind experiences enlightenment (αὐτοῦ παθόντος τοῦ νοῦ τὴν ἔλλαμψιν)”. See Croissant 1932, 145-146, and Bernabé 2016, 27-42.
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 3.352B: ὥσπερ ἐν κίστῃ καὶ περιστέλλοντες, τὰ μὲν μέλανα καὶ σκιώδη τὰ δὲ φανερὰ καὶ λαμπρὰ τῆς περὶ θεῶν ὑποδηλοῦντες οἰήσεως, οἷα καὶ περὶ τὴν ἐσθῆτα τὴν ἱερὰν ἀποφαίνεται, transl. LCL.
The Eleusinian formula (τὸ σύνθημα Ἐλευσινίων μυστηρίων): Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 2.21.2, points to it: “I fasted, I drank the kykeon, I have taken from the chest, I worked and deposited in the kalathos, and from the basket to the chest” (ἐνήστευσα, ἔπιον τὸν κυκεῶνα, ἔλαβον ἐκ κίστης, ἐργασάμενος ἀπεθέμην εἰς κάλαθον καὶ ἐκ καλάθου εἰς κίστην); the kiste supported some kind of manipulation by the mystai, before becoming a visual marker, see infra n. 85. On the κίσται μυστικαί, see Plutarch, Life of Phocion, 28.5 and Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. 2.22.4.
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 27, 361E, transl. LCL.
Pausanias 1.38.7; see Clinton 2003.
Cf. Lucian, The Parliament of the Gods 11.1-6: αἰνίγματα revealed to initiates during mysteria; and supra n. 77.
It may be noted that Porphyry, On Abstinence 4.16, states that those who receive the Lion grade (ὅ τε τὰ λεοντικὰ παραλαμβάνων) are bestowed with all sorts of animal forms (περιτίθεται παντοδαπὰς ζῴων μορφάς). See Turcan 1968, 37-38.
Respectively: CIMRM 1896 fig. 491 rev.; Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones veteris et novi Testamenti 114.11: “Certains battent des ailes comme des oiseaux et imitent le cri du corbeau, d’autres au contraire rugissent à la manière des lions” (transl. Sources chrétiennes 512); Cumont 1899, 8. See Burkert 1987, 93: “More graphic and hence less likely to reproduce mere fantasy”. But Gordon 2019, 469 rightly doubts that it was an actual banquet of worshippers.
See e.g. Bérard-Bron-Pomari 1987.
Cf. Gordon 1996, 46: “the opacity of iconography”.
See supra n. 76. Images of kistai, torches, wheat, and other objects related to the cult of Demeter were publicly displayed on the main buildings of the sanctuary: Mylonas 1961, fig. 55-57. For images of kistai/baskets on Attic votive reliefs, see Hamilton 2009.
Considering that it is not a traditional Egyptian object, one may wonder if the Graeco-Roman Isiac worshippers borrowed it as an actual ritual object or in order to visually endow their cult with a mystery-like image, and thus vest their foreign and new cult with respectability.
See respectively the papers by Jaccottet 2021, Van Haeperen 2021, and Veymiers 2021.
Mithras himself can yield a torch: see the relief on an altar from Apulum (Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, inv. no. 7274). Moreover, there was a practical necessity in the dark mithraea.
See Vermaseren-Van Essen 1965, 160-162 (the East wall); recently see Moormann 2011, 163-183. In the mithraeum of Dura too the grades are acclaimed (Cumont 1975): however, this says nothing about the initiation ritual stricto sensu. The remarkable archaeological study of the Mithraeum II at Güglingen – a valuable comparandum because of its rigorous methods – attests to sacrifices only and rejects the spatial possibility of processions, Klenner 2019.
Minto 1924. For the frescoes see Campbell 1968, 294-300 and Vermaseren 1971, 24-51, with a synoptic chart of the successive panels at 25 fig. 5. More recently a detailed study by Gordon 2009, with 296 fig. 16.3: “a schematic representation of the arrangement of the scenes on the podium frescoes”.
Bull et al. 2017. This final report presents significant differences with the preliminary reports, which are now outdated.
Dated to 120-140 CE (Mainz, Archäologische Denkmalpflege Inv. FM 83-101); Beck 2000 and Huld-Zetsche 2008.
Gordon 2009, on the basis of the Capuan frescoes, argues that Mithraic identity and teaching were transmitted through the suffering body in a “théâtre de la terreur” (M. Foucault); his parallel with Christian martyrs is less convincing.
This is the case with the Eleusinian model, but the Mithras cult has its own genesis.
The Isiac model built after Apuleius, Metamorphoses XI, is not relevant, because the three initiations of Lucius concern two different places and two different deities.
See e.g. Clauss 2001, 102-105, and Alvar 2008, 346-349 and esp. 371-376. On the procession, see Beck 2006, 123-133 and 2008, 154-157, who puts forward the hypothesis of a symbolical representation of the astronomical solar journey.
Vermaseren 1971, 48: “any of the descriptions in the ancient authors concerning initiations in the Mithraic mysteries are really useful for the interpretation of these unique Capuan frescoes”.
Vermaseren 1971, 38-39 (italics mine). Tertullian, De corona 15.3-4: “some soldier of Mithras, who, at his initiation in the gloomy cavern, in the camp, it may well be said, of darkness, when at the sword's point a crown is presented to him, as though in mimicry of martyrdom, and thereupon put upon his head, is admonished to resist and cast it off, and, if you like, transfer it to his shoulder, saying that Mithras is his crown. etc.” (italics mine). In the recently published Mithräum II from Güglingen (Germany), Klenner 2019, two swords (“die Deponierung des Kultschwertes aus dem ersten Tempel unter dem Fundament des neuen Altares”, 143 and 251-257, “Theaterschwert”?), a bow and arrows (“Reflexbogen”, 257-258) and a rayed iron crown (“Strahlenkrone”, 259-261) are interpreted as artefacts for the initiatory ritual; for Tertullian, 368-369 (“ergibt sich, daß die Archäologie hier die Schriftquellen bestätigen kann”). See also Hensen 2013, 65, for the theatrical sword of the Riegen mithraeum. I do not need to delve here on the discussion of signare frontibus, see Renaut 2007.
Vermaseren 1971, 41: “it is with this statement as a starting point that one must try to explain Tertullian’s difficult text”. The imitatio diabolica is a current Christian pattern: see Massa 2016.
Vermaseren 1971, 40 (“the second part of the text gives a further comment”).
See also Campbell 1968, 292-293, who interprets a motif of the tauroctony reliefs as a “coronation” in the Telete related to the Heliodromus.
See Gordon 2009, 300. The figure is already wearing a Phrygian cap: Campbell 1968, 300.
Tertullian, De praescr. haer. 40.4.
Vermaseren 1971, 42.
For Campbell 1968, 297, “a ceremonial slaying of the initiate” on the model of Mithras’ slaying of the bull; he calls into play SHA Commodus 9.5 – yet the anecdote might be in keeping with the portrait of a “bad emperor”.
Vermaseren 1971, pl. XXVI.
See e.g. Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones veteris et novi Testamenti 114.11: “On leur voile les yeux […] d’autres encore, les mains liées par des boyaux d’animaux, sont poussés au-dessus de fosses remplies d’eau, lorsque arrive quelqu’un armé d’un glaive, rompant les susdits boyaux, qui se proclame libérateur” (transl. Sources chrétiennes 512).
See the following note. Cf. Alvar 2008, 371 (“to underline the role of fear, submission and endurance in Mithraic rituals of this type”) and 373 (“these scenes imply fear and suffering as an essential part of Mithraic initiation”).
Aelius Aristides, Orations 50 (Sacred Tales 4), 7. See the well-known fragment of Plutarch, De anima (fr. 178 Sandbach), ap. Stobaeus, 4.52.49: “The soul suffers as do those who have been initiated into the great Mysteries (οἱ τελεταῖς μεγάλαις κατοργιαζόμενοι), that is why the words and the actions of dying (τελευτᾶν) and performing the rituals (τελεῖσθαι) resemble each other. At first there was wanderings and exhausting walks, and unfulfilled and unclear journeys (τινὲς ὕποπτοι πορεῖαι καὶ ἀτέλεστοι). Before the end (πρὸ τοῦ τέλους αὐτοῦ) come all terrible things, terror and trembling and sweat and awe (φρίκη καὶ τρόμος καὶ ἱδρὼς καὶ θάμβος). But after this, a marvelous light (φῶς τι θαυμάσιον) appears …”
Gordon 2009, 303: “a structure of oppositions”.
Elsner 2003, 126.
Other proposals of identification of the grades can be only hypothetical in absence of their visual markers, like those known from the mithraeum of Felicissimus in Ostia, whatever view one might take in the debates on their meaning: see Gordon 2013.
Already by the first editor H.G. Horn (Horn 1994, esp. 25-28); then, e.g., Beck 2008, 149-150 and Alvar 2008, 348-349: face A depicts “a Pater and a Heliodromus, namely representatives of the two highest grades, endorsing the promotion of a worshipper to the inferior grade Miles, followed by a mystagogue, i.e. the man responsible for accompanying and protecting the initiate.”
Beck 2008, 148.
See supra n. 61.
Beck 2008, 149-154.
See Gordon 2009, 297 (“tests were not standardized between temples, and each Mithraic community devised its own forms of initiation”) and Gordon 2019, 466-467.
See Belayche, Massa 2016b and Belayche-Massa 2021a.
Bull et al. 2017.
Moormann 2011, 182; Gordon 2001, 80. Both scholars made comparisons with the Capuan frescoes and the Mainz vessel.
The illumination of the room on the Summer solstice (Bull et al. 2017, 61-62) is fascinating. Yet it is probably a fantasy, because the mithraeum was settled in a vaulted room beneath a portico, thus with no opening towards the sky: Burrell 1993.
Campbell 1968 proposed a typology.
See Elsner 2003, 127: “a single and recognizable empire-wide form of Mithraism or to the desire of various ad hoc sects and groups to aspire to a vision of unity while in fact practising and believing whatever they liked.”
See Baratte 2001 and Gawlikowski 2007. We can also recall the iconographic diversity in the Ostian mithraea.
Bull et al. 2017, 47: “Taken together, the three panels represent an initiation”.
Bull et al. 2017, 44: “The elements of this scene depict a procession. The composition has parallels to known images of initiation practices (Sta Maria Capua Vetere, Konjic) and should therefore be interpreted as a scene from an initiation ritual”.
The editors acknowledge the point at 44: “processions as part of the preparation for the cult meal and ritual”. See on Güglingen Klenner 2019, 377-386.
See supra n. 54. Elsner 2003 stresses the use of art as a means “to help establish a more coherent sense of community and identity among existing members” (125).
The distinction between the various stages is made through the change of garments: see Gawlinski 2012.
Bull et al. 2017, 45-46.
Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.13.5: sicut aridae et ardentis naturae sacramenta leones Mithrae philosophantur. The verb itself prevents a literal use of the passage. Contra Klenner 2019, 376 (“diese Feuerprobe”).
Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs 15 (transl. R. Lamberton, New York, 1983, with slight changes); see also 17 (passim): “Étant donné donc que le miel est utilisé pour purifier, pour protéger de la corruption et pour donner le plaisir qui attire vers la génération (Λαμβανομένου τοίνυν καὶ ἐπὶ καθαρμοῦ τοῦ μέλιτος καὶ ἐπὶ φυλακῆς σηπεδόνος καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς δι´ ἡδονῆς εἰς γένεσιν καταγωγῆς) […] Pour cette raison aussi, c’est dans les cratères et les amphores que les abeilles déposent leur miel, car les cratères portent le symbole des sources […] tandis que les amphores (τῶν δ´ ἀμφιφορέων) sont le symbole des récipients dans lesquels nous puisons l'eau qui vient des sources.” (transl. T. Dorandi, Paris, 2019).
Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 17: “just as a krater is set beside Mithras to stand for a spring (καθὼς παρὰ τῷ Μίθρᾳ ὁ κρατὴρ ἀντὶ τῆς πηγῆς τέτακται).” (transl. R. Lamberton). There is a strong scholarly consensus on considering Porphyry’s information as second hand. See Akçay 2019, 64: “we cannot disregard the view that Porphyry (and Eubulus) offer their own Platonising interpretation of scraps of information picked up at second or third hand about the mysteries”.
The point has been closely studied, from Lamberton 1986 to Akçay 2019.
Bull et al. 2017, 46.
See Belayche 2009.
Cf. I.Stratonikeia 22, 23, 25, 27, 30. Laumonier 1958, 255, stresses the “fête-beuverie”.
Klenner 2019, 153 (“Für die Mithräumsdecke wählte man also nicht spezifisch sakrale Themen, sondern durchaus beliebte, profane Muster”) and 161 (“Entgegen der allgemeinen Vorstellung, Mithräen wären im Inneren mit Sternenhimmeln bemalt gewesen, orientierte man sich mit der Wahl der Dekoration eher an den für die Wohnkultur der Zeit üblichen Motiven”).
See Massa 2017.
Some answers will be put forward in a forthcoming monograph: F. Massa, Les cultes à mystères dans l’empire romain : païens et chrétiens en compétition.
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