Cracking the tauroctony symbolism of the mithraic cult

The one thing which made me to scratch my head was the tauroctony symbolism in the mithraic cult. I was aware of David Ulansey's astronomical/astrological interpretation (Mithras and the Hypercosmic Sun) but if taurocotony (which encompasses with in itself the entire main message of the mithraic cult) was just about astrology what was the whole point in keeping this knowledge so secret and why call it a mystery if there were no esoteric secrets embedded in their religion? So just like Roger Beck and others I was not entirely satisfied with Ulansey's astrological interpretation and always thought there was something more to it.

As a sun worshiper and as a follower of Helios-Mithras it was a big embarrassment for me that I was not able to crack the hidden mystery behind the tauroctony owing to its unique artefact among all the sun cult religions of the great antiquity. Therefore I decided to extract more information on the subject.

The one thing which everyone have undermined except G.R.S Mead was Porphyry's knowledge on the mithraic cult. Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs. I think Porphyry is right tauroctony actually represents the cosmogony of the mithraic cult. Its a map which provides esoteric pathways to heaven and hell from the cave of mithras which is the entire empirical world or earth. One argument of Porphyry which is most convincing is how he interprets the symbolism of Cautes and Cautopates holding the torch downwards and upwards respectively like mirror images of one another.

"Caves, therefore, in the most remote periods of antiquity were consecrated to the Gods, before temples were erected to them. Hence, the Curetes in Crete dedicated a cavern to Jupiter; in Arcadia, a cave was sacred to the Moon, and to Lycean Pan; and in Naxus, to Bacchus. But wherever Mithra was known, they propitiated the God in a cavern. With respect, however, to the Ithacensian cave, Homer was not satisfied with saying that it had two gates, but adds that one of the gates was turned towards the north, but the other which was more divine, to the south. He also says that the northern gate was |26 pervious to descent, but does not indicate whether this was also the case with the southern gate. For of this, he only says, "It is inaccessible to men, but it is the path of the immortals." 

........Theologists therefore assert, that_these two gates are Cancer and Capricorn; but Plato calls them entrances. And of these, theologists say, that Cancer is the gate through which souls descend; but Capricorn that through which they ascend. Cancer is indeed northern, and adapted to descent; but Capricorn is southern, and adapted to ascent (note 12). The northern parts, likewise, pertain to souls descending into generation. And the gates of the cavern which are turned to the north are rightly said to be pervious to the descent of men; but the southern gates are not the avenues of the Gods, but of souls ascending to the Gods. On this account, the poet does not say that they are the avenues of the Gods, but of immortals; this appellation being also common to our souls, which are per se, or essentially, immortal. 

It is said  that Parmenides mentions these two gates in his treatise "On the Nature of Things", as likewise that they are not unknown to the Romans and Egyptians. For the Romans celebrate their Saturnalia when the Sun is in Capricorn, and during this festivity, slaves wear the shoes of those that are free, and all things are distributed among them in common; the legislator obscurely signifying by this ceremony that through this gate of the heavens, those who are now born slaves will be liberated through the Saturnian festival, and the house attributed to Saturn, i.e., Capricorn, when they live again and return to the fountain of life. Since, however, the path from Capricorn is adapted to ascent, hence the Romans denominate that month in which the Sun, turning from Capricorn to the east, directs his course to the north, Januanus, or January, from janua, a gate.

          - Porphyry on the Cave of the Nymphs

Which makes sense because we have a crab placed near the bull's genitals on the left hand side which represents the northern gate where the souls descend to earth and we all know from astrology that the sign of Cancer which is my birth sign too is represented by a crab and we have a goat placed on the right hand side of the bull which represents the southern Capricorn gate where souls ascend to heaven which is the path of immortals.

Ascension to heaven for the sole sake of achieving immortality is also the main purpose of Mithras liturgy which Meyer Marvin believes belongs to the core tenets of the Mithraic cult and I too believe we should treat this ascension very seriously because even Yajnavalkya who received the fresh portions of the Shukla Yajurveda and the Ishavashya Upanishad from the Sun god, Savitr ascended to heaven and each god starting from god of Earth, god of Water, god of Air, god of Fire, god of Space, god of Sense organs, god of Mind, god of Intellect and finally the god of time whom we call Aion was revealed to him at each of the heavens and only then in the end after the revelation of Aion, Helios-Mithras the ego was revealed to him. Some of the gods also appeared in pairs of syzgies or with their male and female consorts as believed in the Valentinian gnostic sects and is one of the reasons why I believe in Valentinianism so strongly.

The symbols in Tauroctony could mean anything and can be interpreted in any way we want but this interpretation by Porphyry and G.R.S Mead who has shed more light on Porphyry's interpretation (G.R.S Mead, The mysteries of Mithra) seems to be the best esoteric interpretation we have on the subject.

Revering emperor Julian and Saint Paul together

     Julian the Emperor and Saint Paul of Tarsus, the two most charismatic influential figures in the history of the western world. There can be no other joy in the world when you have these two personas standing beside you. Julian representing Helios-Mithras was an initiate of Mithraism and Saint Paul of Tarsus representing Christ was the second founder of Christianity who wrote some of the fantastic passages in all of Bible.

Saint Paul predated Julian but Julian who was raised under the tutelage of Christian teachers was very much aware of Saint Paul's writings. Julian being a Gentile was very much disinterested and irritated by the dogmatic exoteric interpretation of the Bible which his Christian teachers were shoving onto his throat. Unfortunately, Julian never encountered the esoteric Gnostic Paul in his studies of Christian scriptural texts and held a negative view on Paul due to his dogmatic orthodox Christian upbringing who portrayed Paul in a rather uninteresting way to him. Had if Julian encountered the Gnostic Paul the relationship between Julian and Paul would be something completely different.

Mithraism and Christianity the two rival religions competing for the world dominion could never ever have gone together hand in hand because each of these two religions claimed two entirely different divinities, Mithras and Jesus respectively as the sole path for the salvation and immortality of the human race. Christians could never ever accept Mithras and delineate from Jesus and Gentiles could never ever accept the exclusive worship of Jehovah, the God of the Jews as their heavenly holy father. So these two faiths were mutually exclusive either there has to be one or the other. As usual Christian church fathers being threatened by Mithraism charged them with devil worship since they do not know anything else other than to show such cheap shallow display of ignorance which many Christian pastors often do till this day. Similarly Julian rejected Christianity by claiming Jehovah as one of the terrestrial gods out of many and denied him as the supreme god of the Cosmos.

If Julian's reign had continued the western world would have worshiped Mithras and instead of a church across their streets there would have been mithraeums erected with tauroctony depicted on its walls. The chaldean oracles would have been the canonical scripture of their daily prayers. As it turned out as we all know Julian died and the dogmatic orthodox Christianity triumphed.

So how can the relationship between these two representatives of a rival faith be strengthened, pacified and changed from being rival enemies to friends. Julian and the Paul of orthodox Christianity would continue to remain as rivals and they never like to see each other faces in future but Julian and the Gnostic Paul will embark on a new journey of friendship which is everlasting due to the sincere efforts of a pious 2nd century, Syrian Christian mystic named, Valentinus.

Mithraism and Valentinian Gnostic Christianity can indeed be reconciled into a single common faith destroying every other faith in the world including secularism. One can imagine the power of Jesus and Mithras combined into one producing a new generation of pneumatic Pagan Gnostic Valentinian Christians. Its a irony that the followers of Julian and Paul worshiped the same heavenly father and yet remained as rivals throughout the ages most probably because they didn't had the technology and information which we have now compared to the past.

Mithras Liturgy - Mithraism

According to Max Muller, the proto Indo-Iranian religion started off as sun worship and later branched into independent religions of the Persian god of Mithra and the Vedic god of Mitra. Mithraism was one of the most popular religions of the roman imperialism along side Christianity and the origin of Mithraism in Rome is still under dispute (See - Mithraic Mysteries and Mithraism and Christianity ).

What is Mithras Liturgy?

The Papyrus 

The text is a segment of the "Great Magical Papyrus of Paris", sandwiched between two sections of Homeric quotations. The Papyrus was acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1857. It most likely originally came from Thebes in Egypt. It can be dated on paleographical grounds to early fourth century, but the text presupposes a much longer process of development. The origin is most likely around 100-150, then it was used in a ritual context in an Egyptian Mithras Cult from 150-200. This is followed by a period of adaptation and development by magicians from 200-300. As it is now "the text is thoroughly Hellenistic-Egyptian without any traces of Christian, Christian-Gnostic, or Neo-Platonic influences, although traditions of Middle Stoicism are apparent, as is a certain closeness to Hermeticism"(9). The author was most likely an expert on magical materials and had expertise as a literary scholar and writer. He has examined several versions of the text and offers learned comments on it.

A review of Hans Dieter Betz, The "Mithras Liturgy". Text, translation and commentary.

It was first coined as Mithras Liturgy by the german scholar Albrecht Dieterich. The Germans were always interested in these things and they are still interested in it even to this date. It was later translated into english by Hans Dieter Betz who also a german scholar. Here is an abstract pdf review of his book.  Hans Dieter Betz PDF.

Marvin Meyer - About Marvin Meyer who was interviewed in various TV channels like the National Geographic for the documentary of Gospel of Judas is a strong proponent of this view.

Marvin Meyer is certain that the text has connections to Mithraism and believes that it "contributes a great deal to the study of magic, miracle, and ritual in religions in antiquity and late antiquity, including Christianity, and the stories of miracles attributed to Jesus and others may profitably be studied with texts like the Mithras Liturgy at hand."

Marvin Meyer argues that "early Christianity ... in general, resembles Mithraism in a number of respects – enough to make Christian apologists scramble to invent creative theological explanations to account for the similarities".

So there is evidence that these varieties of Mithraism which were being practiced in Egypt and in the Greco-Roman religions had its roots in the orthodox Mithraism of the Iranians and of the Aryans of the far east.

Marvin Meyer has translated the text. Marvin Meyer's original Translation of Mithras Liturgy

As you can see the text of Mithras Liturgy appears from no where in between a section of Greek homeric writings about Zeus. The egyptian scholar seems to have had an habit of collecting religious rituals and clearly mentions about Helios-Mithras-Aion, the god to whom the text and the ritual is addressed to.

The ritual is about achieving immortality by ascension of the soul into different realms, an epiphany which is a common feature in orthodox Mithraism where Mithras appear to help the initiate to guide him into a safe passage to the highest pleroma of the supreme God and these similar experiences have been documented by the later gnostic traditions where the term Aeons appear instead of Mithras to guide them into a safe passage upto the pleroma of God. This is a common feature to be seen in the orthodox Mitraism of the Vedic period and is still very much alive up until this age.

Similar experiences of the ascent to heaven is claimed by Paul (Corinthians). Ascent to heaven by the Gnostic Paul

The text's immediate context is a magical handbook, but it "stands out like an intruder from another world" with no parallel in other magical papyri. The wider context is Hellenistic mystery cults. Not much Egyptian religion appears and there is no evidence of Neo-platonic influence. The philosophy, being Stoic, could indicate an origin in the milieu prior to Neo-platonism. The ritual of rebirth is based in processes of generation and regeneration. The cosmology is Greek in origin, not Egyptian. It seems to reflect a nascent Hermeticism of the first or second century, but it has not developed into Gnosticism.

Similar parallels can be seen in the works of a scholar from Bangalore named Devudu Narasimha Shastry(1920-1970's) who was well versed in these mystery religions and clearly describes the ascent of an initiate into higher realms. What is more interesting is that he too lived his life based on stoic principles and that confirms the stoic philosophy inherent in all varities of Mithraic religions.

The scholar seemed to have behaved with a calm mind even after hearing the news of his son's death which came through a letter while he was away with his wife for a religious program and on that particular day he seemed to have given the most outstanding speech of his life and later when his wife came to know about this she had fell down unconscious and the scholar didn't even attended his son's funeral.

An example of extreme stoicism in these traditions

The stoic philosophy is quite inherent in these religions.

Now these things do deserve explanations and challenges our accepted worldviews and these things are bothering me from quite some time. The ritual might look magical to us but to those who have understood its deeper meaning knows the rational importance of such rituals. A collaborative work is needed to reconstruct the practical knowledge of such rituals and I don't even know where to begin searching for it. These claims do suggest that a God hypothesis is an equally competing hypothesis to explain our origins in the cosmos, its not the job of scientists to figure out this, this is a completely different numinous world and has nothing do with science, its the job of theologians and theists and they need to scratch their heads. There is an equal possibility that religion might provide us with true immortality. There is lots of evidence for god and one can see how silly it is for one to demand empirical evidence for god when the very realm of god is non-empirical.

We have already lost a lot of knowledge and by suppressing such thinking we will lose it forever and New Atheists and people who directly attack faith have to address such things if they ever want to succeed in their campaign of intolerance towards religions.