The Mithras Cult: Rome's Zoroastrian Underground
The Religion That Almost Won Before Christianity conquered Rome, another Eastern religion dominated the Roman military, the merchant class, and the imperial administration: The Mysteries of Mithras. From the 1st to the 4th century CE, Mithraic temples (mithraea) spread throughout the Roman Empire — from Britain to Syria, from Germany to North Africa. Hundreds of underground temples. Thousands of initiates. A complete religious system with rituals, grades of initiation, and cosmic mythology.
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The Religion That Almost Won Before Christianity conquered Rome, another Eastern religion dominated the Roman military, the merchant class, and the imperial administration: The Mysteries of Mithras. From the 1st to the 4th century CE, Mithraic temples (mithraea) spread throughout the Roman Empire — from Britain to Syria, from Germany to North Africa. Hundreds of underground temples. Thousands of initiates. A complete religious system with rituals, grades of initiation, and cosmic mythology. Then Christianity became the state religion, and Mithraism vanished — its temples buried, its texts destroyed, its memory erased. But Mithras was Mithra — a Zoroastrian yazata. And what the Mithras cult taught shaped Christianity in ways that persist today.
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Avesta