The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Slightly rubbed, otherwise very good and clean. / Leicht berieben, sonst sehr gut und sauber. - Contents: 1. Introduction to Interpreting the Mysteries: Old Ways, New Ways -- 2. Old Ways: The Reconstruction of Mithraic Doctrine from Iconography -- 3. The Problem of Referents: Interpretation with Reference to What? -- 4. Doctrine Redefined -- 5. The Mithraic Mysteries as Symbol System: I. Introduction and Comparisons -- 6. Cognition and Representation -- 7. The Mithraic Mysteries as Symbol System: II. The Mithraeum -- 8. Star-Talk: The Symbols of the Mithraic Mysteries as Language Signs -- 9. The Mithraic Mysteries as Symbol System: III. The Tauroctony -- 10. Excursus: the esoteric quartering, a lost helicoidal model of lunar motion, and the origin of the 'winds' and 'steps' of the Moon. The identity of 'Antiochus the Athenian'. - As the capstone of thirty years of research and publication on the cult and its religion, Roger Beck puts forward a radically new description of the �Mysteries of Mithras�. The Mysteries are presented from, the perspective of the initiate as a complex system of symbols created, apprehended, and trahsinitted not only in the extraordinarily rich and detailed iconography, but also in ritual action and language, in cult life and hierarchy, and in the design of meeting places (mithraea). After a programmatic introductory chapter, the next three chapters constitute a detailed critique of the current view of Mithraism as a belief system with an esoteric doctrine. Chapter 5 discusses Mithraism as a symbol system in the manner of the symbolist anthropologists, particularly Clifford Geertz. Comparisons are made between Mithraic culture and the culture of the Chamulas of southern Mexico. In Chapter 6 Beck introduces: the methods of the new cognitive science of religion to explore the making oF representations in the Mysteries and the cognitive processes by which the initiate apprehendi the system of symbols. In the following chapter these methods are applied to the initiate�s recognition of his mithraeum as (in Porphyry�s words), �an image of the;cosmos for induction into a mystery of the descent and return of souls�. Ritual action is emphasized rather than teaching. The final two chapters are devoted to Mithraism�s rich astral symbolism and to a discussion on whether, on both ancient and modern semiotic criteria, it might function as a quasi-language. The symbols of the tauroctony (the icon of the bull-killing Mithras) are explicated as signs with multiple meanings in a multi-layered text rather than simple identifiers of particular constellations. - Roger Beck is Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto. ISBN 9780198140894