Mithra
Mithra was the most important
Zoroastrian
god on the side of Truth. He was the god of contracts and keeping your
promises, like the German god
Tyr.
He's related to the
Hindu
god Mitra, mentioned in the
Rig
Veda, who was also a god of honesty and contracts. Because the farming
people of the
Persian Empire were
always fighting with the
nomads
around them, Mithra also began to represent civilization, order, and living
in one place as opposed to crime, confusion, and always moving around
(this is from the point of view of the settled people! the nomads weren't
really criminals).
The Persian army, and later the
Parthian
and the
Sassanian armies, believed
that since Truth was on their side, so was Mithra, and West Asian soldiers
often sacrificed to Mithra and prayed to him.
When Roman soldiers
fought in the East (that is, in West Asia), they saw their enemies
praying to Mithra. They thought he must be a very strong god, and
began trying to take him over for themselves.
An underground mithraeum in Ostia
By the 200's
AD there were shrines to
Mithra all over the
Mediterranean
coasts and all through Europe, everywhere that soldiers were stationed.
There was even a complicated set of rituals you could go through that
would make Mithra like you more and think you were special, which involved
things like pulling out your hairs one by one.
When
Christianity
became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 300's
AD,
people worshipped Mithra less and less, and by 400 AD you hardly hear
of Mithra anymore in Europe or around the Mediterranean. In West Asia,
where
Zoroastrianism continued to be
the official state religion until nearly 700 AD, Mithra also continued
to be worshipped. But when
Islam
came to West Asia about 700, and Zoroastrianism declined, so did the worship
of Mithra.
To find out more about Mithra, check out these books from Amazon.com
or from your library:
Zoroastrianism,
by Paula Hartz (updated 2004). For kids.
The
Usborne Book of World Religions, by Susan Meredith (1996). For kids.
An
Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion: Readings from the Avesta and
Achaemenid Inscriptions, by William Malandra (1983). A nice clear
explanation of ancient Zoroastrianism.
The
Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries, by Manfred Clauss
(2001). This is mainly about Roman Mithraism, not the original god in
Persia.
Ancient
Mystery Cults, by Walter Burkert (reprinted 1989). Burkert is a
leading expert in ancient religion, and this is a great book! One of
the chapters of this book is on Mithraism. Too hard for kids.
