Mithraism In Ancient Rome

In addition to these gods and divinities, mystery religions began to appear around Rome inspired by the different cultural beliefs of conquered lands. One of these mystery religions was Mithraism. Mithraism was possibly brought from the Middle East back to Rome by Soldiers that converted while on campaign. Mithraism was the worship of Mithras who, according to The Macmillan Encyclopedia (2003), “was regarded as the eternal enemy of evil, whose sacrifice of a bull symbolized the regeneration of life” (Mithraism). Mithras eternally fighting evil aligned with the Roman army’s belief that they were righteous in their imperial conquests and battles. Figure 1 A depiction of a Mithraic bull sacrifice. Similar scenes were placed in temples to Mithras.
The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Myth (1996) suggests that there were different levels of initiation and that there was a level that only the Emperor could reach because it insured his immortality (Mithras). Perhaps if the Emperor was not a follower of Mithras, the Praetorian Guard believed it was their right to replace him with a better suited leader that was Mithraic. While the religion of Mithraism was mysterious, it did have an appeal that the common Roman beliefs did not. It was common belief that only the gods could live forever and that humans worshiped those gods in the hope that their lives would be improved before they died. Mithraism and other mystery religions introduced something different: the belief in life after death can be attained by ordinary people. As mentioned earlier, there was a level that only the emperor could reach, however, if a person followed through initiation and made ceremonial sacrifices, he could attain a place in the afterlife. This was a huge lure to the mystery religions and many Roman citizens began following the mystery cults like Mithraism. These cults included the cult of Isis from Egypt, and the Eleusinian mystery cult from Greece. These Mystery religions and the new belief in a life after death paved the way for
The group followed the teachings of a man named Jesus and proclaimed that he was the son of the one true God. Gods having human children was nothing new to the Romans, who claimed divine ancestors, but the belief in only one god was new and shocking. Faithful Christians would not pray to the Roman gods because doing so would be worshiping false idols; which are considered a sin in Christian faith. Overall, the Christians’ refusals to pray to the state gods lead the Romans to persecute them during the early years of the