behaviour. The external case is more interesting. Were there occasions
when the Mithraists’ ideal world conflicted either with the actual com-
mon world of Greco-Roman society or with the ideal constructions of other
religions? The latter question is more easily answered. Mithras in the myth
steals the bull that he slays: he is boöklopos,the cattle thief. He is also wor-
shipped in “caves,” in places of darkness, even though he is a sun god, a
god of light. Christian polemicists turned both of these elements in the
Mithraists’ constructed world against them (see, e.g., Firmicus Maternus,
Err. prof. rel.5.2).
The former question, about conflicts between the Mithraic world and
the real social world, has to be answered with an argument from silence.
There are no reports of any friction, any collisions, at all. No one has sug-
gested that this is simply due to the paucity of external evidence concern-
ing the cult. The Mithraists made no secret of their construction of
themselves as “Persians” worshipping a “Persian” god. Yet Persia, histori-
cally, was Rome’s most formidable enemy. This can only mean that the
Mithraists were such transparently loyal citizens of the Roman Empire
that they and their constructed world posed no threat, whether in reality
or in perception, to the common social order. In Lightstone’s terms, in its
values and in its postulated social relationships, the world of the Mithraists
was entirely congruent with the normative world of the Empire.
nora
(Nora)
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