Mithras and Christianity | Constantine and Roman Religion скачать в хорошем качестве

Mithras and Christianity | Constantine and Roman Religion

Roman Mithraism, like Iranian Mithraism, was a religion of loyalty toward the king. One Mithraic hymn begins: “Thou hast redeemed us by shedding the eternal blood.” Known as Mithras in the Roman Empire during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, this deity was honored as the patron of loyalty to the emperor. After the acceptance of Christianity by the emperor Constantine in the early 4th century, Mithraism rapidly declined. Mithraism, the worship of Mithra, the Iranian god of the sun, justice, contract, and war in pre-Zoroastrian Iran. Ancient texts refer to ablutions (baptism) and purifications and chastisements, to fetters and liberation, and to certain ceremonial passwords. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mith... It seems to have been encouraged by the emperors, especially Commodus (180–192), Septimius Severus (193–211), and Caracalla (211–217). Most adherents of Mithra known to us from inscriptions are soldiers of both low and high rank, officials in the service of the emperor, imperial slaves, and freedmen (who quite often were very influential people)—persons who probably knew which god would lead them to quick promotion. Dedications to Mithra appear again between about 357 and 387, but only at Rome. The dedicators all come from the old pagan aristocracy of the city of Rome, which in this period was in open opposition to the new Christian emperor at Constantinople. In these inscriptions, however, Mithra is only one of many traditional pagan gods. The Mithraic mysteries had gradually faded long before. And when the Roman opposition was defeated, pagan worship was suppressed altogether. Mithras and the sun god - The cult of Mithras "you saved us with the outpouring of blood" is taken to refer to Mithras's tauroctony. Mithraic sanctuaries and dedications to Mithra are numerous at Rome and Ostia, along the military frontier, in Britain, and on the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates. Few dedications are found in peaceful provinces; when they do occur, the dedicator is usually a provincial governor or an imperial official. Within a few generations, the Roman world had completely assimilated the Persian god. When Diocletian attempted a renewal of the Roman state and religion, he did not forget Mithra. In 307 CE, in a dedication from Carnuntum (at the Danube, near Vienna), Diocletian and his colleagues dedicated an altar to Mithra as the patron of their empire (fautori imperii sui).