Sorry. I'll hold back till tomorrow. Shouldn't have been interfering with Mithra/Mithras. I thought you were done... Wetman 22:23, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I just did a major rewrite of the pages Mithraism, Mithras, and Mithra. For lack of time, I have to stop now; please have a look and fix as approriate.

AFAIK, there is only a thin connection (little more than a borrowed name) between the Persian "Mithra" and the Roman "Mithras", so it seems best to have two separate pages for them, with due explanations and pointers.

Presently all the information on Roman "Mithras" is in a section of the Mithraism page, so that Mithras is little more than a disambiguation page. Perhaps this is OK, or perhaps that section could be extracted and made into a full Mithras page; I can see advantages and disadvantages in either choice.

There are many rough spots in these pages, especially Mithraism. The explanation of strological "ages" and precession is clearly broken, but I do not know enough of astronomy to fix it. Some of the details of Mithraism sound highly suspicious, and may be just extreme "new age" beliefs or unproven speculation. As for the information on the Mithra page, I have absolutely no knowledge of Zoroastrism so it is just the original contents (minus what seemed to be Roman-related stuff).

I may have lost some links, especially to the foreign Wikipedias. I may try to fix some of the links-to-here later today. Thanks for the patience...

Jorge Stolfi 23:44, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I tried to smooth out the section =Mithraism before Rome=, and trimmed heavily the following text which does not seem to be germane to the argument:

After the collapse of the Achaemenid dynasty, the rule of Alexander's successors the Seleucid dynasty found itself with a formidable enemy in the , one of whose most able kings bore the name Mithradates I (died 138 BC), a name proudly born by several of his successors. The Near Eastern tradition of bearing the name of one's god was of millenial standing. ... In the Anatolian kingdom of Pontus, a series of kings bore the name, notably Mithradates VI ("the Great"), king of Pontus, who died in 63 BCE.

Jorge Stolfi 05:30, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The following seriously needs support (cut from article for now):

===Holidays and rituals===

Mithraism celebrated the anniversary of Mithras's resurrection, similar to the Christian Easter. They held services on Sunday. Rituals included a Eucharist and six other sacraments that corresponded to later Christian rituals. Some individuals who are skeptical about stories of Jesus' life suspect that Christianity may have appropriated many details of Mithraism in order to make their religion more acceptable to Pagans. St. Augustine even stated that the priests of Mithras worshipped the same God as he did.<!--Someone should check these statements...--&gt

[by User:Bacchiad]

Thanks to User:Bacchiad for spotting and excising the Roman mythology from the Persian Mithra page. However now we have two problems:

1. There are two descriptions of Roman Mithras, one in a section of Mithraism, another in Mithras. The Mithraism section claims that all we know is what we can deduce from mithraeum iconography. The Mithras page has a lot of detail presented categorically, as if it were common knowledge. So which version is correct? I recall a Scientific American article o years ago which seemed to agree with the former. So what are the sources for the Mithras page?
2. The Persian Mithra page is now rather weak. Perhaps some material from Zoroastrianism can be transplanted into it?

All the best,
Jorge Stolfi 15:34, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I merged Mithra into Mitra. Seemed like a shame to have two separate pages for gods with such obvious cognate features and rich opportunities for comparison. Added a little bit; I think there's more meat now. Perhaps a similar merge-job should be done on the even-more-obviously-related Mithras and Mithraism?

As for the "all we know about Mithraist belief we know from iconography" line, I'm pretty sure I added it. It's marginally overstated. There are two fragments of works about Mithras quoted by Neoplatonists; they're not very extensive and have very heavy Middle Platonist biases. Difficult to a whole lot from them, but they are there. Other than that, the only information about beliefs comes from iconography. Please do edit for all necessary clarifications. Bacchiad 20:06, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"The titles of the first four ranks suggest the possibility that advancement through the ranks was based on introspection and spiritual growth, as these titles seem to correspond respectively to the Jungian concepts of the shadow, the anima, the persona, and the self (Personally, I'm not buying this last sentence)."

Personal comments here? I'm just going to delete everything after the first comma. Jungian psychology decidedly postdates Mithraism. :) Guest, Oct. 16 2004, 4:21 UTC