Talk:Mithras Liturgy

Summary?

The article could probably use more description of the liturgy itself. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:03, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Having read it just now in Betz's Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, I wonder about the claim that the text is "generally now considered" as having "no connection to Mithraism." Betz treats it as Mithraic, pointing out for instance that known depictions of Mithras seem reflected in such descriptions as "a god … having a bright appearance, youthful, golden-haired, with a white tunic and golden crown and trousers, and holding in his right hand a golden shoulder of a young bull." He also points to 620ff and the seven gods in relation to the seven grades of initiation, referencing articles by Beck, Merkelbach, and others. This doesn't contradict its being a product of syncretism, but I'm also starting to grow suspicious of that word, since orthodoxy is not a characteristic of ancient religion in Greece and Rome, and most everything eventually becomes "syncretized" in some sense, even traditional Roman cult (the so-called "religion of Numa") in the hands particularly of Augustus. So I'm not sure that it's correct to imply that Mithraism has nothing to do with the text. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:38, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Good point. That everyone objected to Dieterich's idea was just my impression from the stuff I read (see the links lower). The sentence was merely intended to summarise the discussion lower down. But it's obvious that it needs to change somehow -- you're the second person to see a problem here -- even if the sentiment is factually correct. (And I could be wrong, of course!)

On the content of the Mithras Liturgy -- well, my eyes kept closing when I read it, so it would be hard for me to summarise it. But anyway, what we probably need is a WP:RS summary of its content.

I (possibly wrongly) got the impression that Helios-Mithras was just a power-word in the text, which (I believe) also contains stuff from Judaism and Christianity? You're right about syncretism; but I'd understood this as "syncretism to the point of madness" stuff, where everything is just material for the magician, and who cares what it means, the words are not a liturgy for a congregation or a priest, but a spell to be incanted by a magician.

But I may be talking tosh, and do say if so. I'm new to this one, and have no fixed views. (And we definitely ought to include that Betz quote, then!) Roger Pearse (talk) 18:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey, just getting back to this.

Tosh is my second language. I wouldn't care to argue that it's a "liturgy" from the Mithraic mysteries as would've been revealed to initiates. On the other hand, there's a reference to a "fellow initiate"; I no longer have Preisendanz's Greek text at hand to see whether that's actually mystes. Maybe it's a syncretic magic spell; then again, if the Mithraic mysteries were a self-conscious theological invention of the 1st century drawing on more than one tradition, they're inherently syncretic. Whatever it is, it's an unusually full and complete example of a magic ritual, and the structure is standard for what I know of Roman religion, with a quite lengthy invocatio, then a sort of narrative middle in the description of the desired epiphanies, and concluding preces, plus specific rituals and the making of a phylactery, with lines from the Iliad, no less. Part of the procedure requires ritual silence, which is a frequent condition of both "legitimate" public religion in ancient Rome and of various mysteries. It's also an interesting text because of its use of insufflation, in conjunction with the concept of pneuma. It has the requisite voces magicae meant to sound sorta like Egyptian, or Hebrew, or whatever (again a characteristic of syncretic Hellenistic magic); some say the voces magicae of the papyri are incantations corrupted over time, with some scholars expending a great deal of linguistic gymnastics to show what they might originally have been, while others think they're just made up purely for their sound.

The liturgy has a passage that's key (I think; it's been a while since I looked into this concept of voces magicae) to the purpose of voces in the magic texts: I invoke the immortal names, living and honored, which never pass into mortal nature and are not declared in articulate speech by human tongue or mortal speech or mortal sound, followed by a truly delirious string of vowels. This seems to have to do with the theology of language, about which I know nothing except the non-theological manifestation in Epicureanism, which is that the most basic elements of language (phonetic or alphabetic) are the "atoms" of language. I've wondered whether the vowel strings in carmina represent musical pitches, but contrary to my other remarks here, this is not something I've seen in scholarship: it's the dreaded OR.

Anyway, compared to a lot of the PGM, a discernible cosmology seems to be in effect, and it does have a passage that seems typical of mystery religions: "O lord, while being born again, I am passing away; while growing and having grown, I am dying; while being born from a life-generating birth, I am passing on, released to death — as you have founded, as you have decreed, and have established the mystery." This kind of language appears in the so-called Orphic gold tablets (for which we lack a sufficient article), though the theology is different.

So although I haven't researched this liturgy in particular, in the context of my readings on the subject of Hellenistic and Near Eastern magic, I would question whether scholars who are too certain it has nothing to do with the Mithraic mysteries might not be overly skeptical. There's also a passage Betz notes as possibly representing or alluding to the seven grades of initiates. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting indeed. So you reckon it might be possible? The stuff I'm reading rather suggests not, but clearly there is more to this than I thought. You clearly know more about this than I do! Roger Pearse (talk) 19:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

 

(to Cynwolfe)

There is no evidence of "seven grades of initiates" in the Mithraic mysteries. The evidence is of "seven grades", and nobody knows for sure what those were grades of. No ancient source claims that adherents were initiated seven times.

[advocatus diaboli]: Drawing upon the modern consensus, going back to to Nock's analysis of Apuleius Met. XI, that initiation into mysteries in the Roman period was an unusual, expensive undertaking, Clauss (Cultores Mithrae, 1992) treats the seven grades as grades of priesthood, i.e. an adherent was initiated only once.

There is no hard evidence to support this approach either, but the point is: it is not wise to assume that the seven grades are those of initiates.

So, please be careful. While it is no doubt tempting to evaluate a primary source, subtleties (like the "seven grades of x") require a great deal of background knowledge to handle correctly.

NB: grades are not mentioned at all in the text. The number seven occurs repeatedly (several groups of seven invocations, seven astrological bodies, seven sounds etc), but that is insufficient to reasonably consider allusions to seven grades, leave alone seven grades of initiates (!) in the Mithraic mysteries (!). (Skepticism is also appropriate re: speculations over the text's repeated use of the number three). -- 77.183.149.235 (talk) 14:45, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

 

 

(to both Cynwolfe and Roger Pearse)

As far as their opinion on the text's "Mithraic" nature is concerned,...

• ... it doesn't matter whether Meyer or Alvar or any other Tom/Dick/Harry thinks the text is Mithraic.
• ... it also does not matter that Rietzenstein, Betz, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff or Burkert think the text is not Mithraic
       (side note: Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Burkert are explicitely mis-identified by the article as "Mithraic scholars" even though they are not that. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was not even a scholar of Roman religion).
• .... important is only what the experts on the subject think (e.g. Cumont though dated; Nilsson though dated; Beck, Clauss, Gordon, ...).

Its ok to give Dieterich, Meyer, Alvar, Rietzenstein, Betz, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,^[really?!] Burkert et al a voice.

But it is not ok to give them equal validity (WP:GEVAL) (as far as an opinion on its "Mithraic" nature is concerned).

-- 77.183.149.235 (talk) 14:45, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Deletions

The recent deletions are pretty radical, and I'm hoping the editor will engage in discussion here to improve the article. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:17, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they are radical, and they come from a single-purpose account. Another editor, CivilizedEducation, has expressed concerns about them in a comment he put on his recent edit. My own view is that a WP article is there to provide information. It is just not good enough to say that if they want to know more, they can read the references. I don't say the pre-deletion text couldn't be improved, I just don't think the deletions have improved it at all. Kalidasa 777 (talk) 02:17, 9 May 2011 (UTC)