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Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries (Greek: μυστήρια), were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). The main characteristic of these religious schools was the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice ...
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity ( yazata ) Mithra , the Roman Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice ...
In the Greco-Roman world, the mystery religions were those that required initiation, as distinguished from public rites that were open to all; the Greek word for "mystery", mysterion, comes from mystēs, "initiate." (The contemporary English meaning of "something unknown or hard to know" developed from the secrecy surrounding the arcane ...
Roman statue of Isis, second century CE. Greco-Roman mysteries were voluntary, secret initiation rituals. [2] They were dedicated to a particular deity or group of deities, and used a variety of intense experiences, such as nocturnal darkness interrupted by bright light, or loud music or noise, that induced a state of disorientation and an intense religious experience.
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Mithras stock epithet is Sol Invictus, "invincible sun".However, Mithras is distinct from both deities known as Sol Invictus, and they are separate entities on Mithraic statuary and artwork such as the tauroctony, hunting scenes, and banquet scenes, in which Mithras dines with Sol. [10] Other scenes feature Mithras ascending behind Sol in the latter's chariot, the deities shaking hands and the ...
Jupiter Dolichenus was a Roman god whose mystery cult was widespread in the Roman Empire from the early-2nd to mid-3rd centuries AD. Like several other figures of the mystery cults, Jupiter Dolichenus was one of the so-called 'oriental' gods; that is Roman re-inventions of ostensibly foreign figures in order to give their cults legitimacy and ...
Tenney Frank suggests that some form of Dionysian worship may have been introduced to Rome by captives from the formerly Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy, captured from the Carthaginians in 209 BC. [1] Like all mystery cults, the Bacchanalia were held in strict privacy, and initiates were bound to secrecy; what little is known of the ...