equinoxes by postulating that a previously unknown god was responsible for the grad-
ual movement of Earth’s axis (the stars and planets, which were now relegated to posi-
tions of lesser importance, had earlier been identified by the Stoics as gods who con-
trolled human fate). This new god, who was clearly more powerful than all the other
gods in the heavens because he controlled the very axis of the universe, was linked by
these Stoics with the chief local deity, Sandan, who had earlier been identified with
the Greek hero Perseus, as well as with the Persian Mithra (hence the name Mithras).
The link between Sandan/Mithras and Perseus is an important key to unlock-
ing the meaning of the tauroctony. In his constellation, Perseus is pictured with an
upheld knife and is located immediately above the constellation Taurus. It is thus not
difficult to imagine the scene in the star map as leading to the scene in the tauroctony,
in which the knife is plunged into the bull. What, however, is the significance of this
sacrifice?
Several thousand years ago—during the period when Mithraism emerged—the
Sun was positioned at the beginning of the constellation Aries during the spring
equinox. Because of the precession of equinoxes, the spring equinox moves slowly
backward through the constellations of the zodiac, so that approximately every 2,000
years the equinox begins taking place in an earlier constellation. It has been occurring
in Pisces for the past 2,000 years and will begin to occur in the constellation Aquarius
in the near future (which is the background for current speculations about the so-
called Age of Aquarius). This also means that the spring equinox occurred in the sign
Taurus several thousand years prior to the Hellenistic period. Ulansey takes this infor-
mation and postulates that the tauroctony represented Mithras’s destruction of the
earlier Age of Taurus.
Ulansey’s theory is far more intricate, and his argument far more nuanced,
than can be developed here. The theory also leaves some questions unanswered: How
did a religion originally devised by a group of intellectuals in Tarsus become one of the
most popular religions of the Roman Empire? What did the rituals and other concrete
practices of Mithraism actually involve? How did Mithraism change over time? Even
though these questions are not addressed, and although many particulars of Ulansey’s
analysis are open to criticism, the starting place of his discussion—that much of
Mithraism’s core symbolism is astrological and related to the precession of equinox-
es—can be regarded as firmly established.
Sources:
Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra.Chicago: Open Court, 1903. Reprint, New York:
Dover, 1956.
Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient
World.New York: Oxford, 1989.
MIXEDAPPLICATION
Mixed application (applying) is when two planets are moving into an aspect with
each other while one is in retrograde motion.
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [457]
Mixed Application