This volume is a study of the religious system of Mithraism, one of the "mystery cults" popular in the Roman Empire contemporary with early Christianity. Roger Beck describes Mithraism from the point of view of the initiate engaging with the religion and its rich symbolic system in thought, word, ritual action, and cult life. He employs the methods of anthropology of religion and the new cognitive science of religion to explore in detail the semiotics of the Mysteries' astral symbolism, which has been the principal subject of his many previous publications on the cult.

The author provides the first complete English commentary on one of the most important texts of the history of religions in late antiquity: the so-called "Mithras Liturgy", a magic Graeco-Egyptian papyrus from the 4th century A.D., written from the inner perspective by an initiated devotee of the god Helios-Mithras-Aion and containing an esoteric ritual instruction for an ascension to and consultation with the god. In addition to an introduction into the history of research since Albrecht Dieterich's famous work "Eine Mithrasliturgie" (1903), the volume contains the Greek text and the English translation, an analysis of the literary composition, and a commentary establishing the text and contextualizing it in relation to Egyptian religion, Mithraism, hermeticism and gnosticism. At the end of the book there is a bibliography and a Greek word-index.

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Product Description: This collection of 9 essays, dating mostly from 1972-1980, examines the way in which images contributed to the creation of religious meanings in the Graeco-Roman world. Special attention is paid to Mithraism's notion of the sacred space, its use of metaphors taken from the natural world, and its ideals of social action...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Known as Mitra to the Indians, Mithra and Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) to the Iranians, and Mithras to the Romans, this is the oldest of all living deities. Mithras was recognized as the greatest rival of Christianity, a greater threat even than the religion of Isis...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)