04-20-2012, 11:57 PM
What was the relation between the worship of Sol Invictus and the Mithraic cult?
I know that Sol features in the Mithraic tableau - although in exactly what capacity seems unclear - and that the names were sometimes conflated: 'Deus Sol Invictus Mithras', for example. Later Roman syncretism is a shifty field, but I was wondering more about the practical expressions of devotion to one or both gods.
Would an initiate of Mithras also be a devotee of Sol Invictus, or vice versa? Was there also a cult of Sol, or was Mithraism the cultic version of Sol-worship? Or did Romans see the two dieties as essentially the same? Mithras was (in 308) invoked as the patron god of the tetrarchy, which seems odd for a cult diety, unless this was seen by the invoking emperors as somehow identical to the official state worship of Sol...
Thanks - Nathan
I know that Sol features in the Mithraic tableau - although in exactly what capacity seems unclear - and that the names were sometimes conflated: 'Deus Sol Invictus Mithras', for example. Later Roman syncretism is a shifty field, but I was wondering more about the practical expressions of devotion to one or both gods.
Would an initiate of Mithras also be a devotee of Sol Invictus, or vice versa? Was there also a cult of Sol, or was Mithraism the cultic version of Sol-worship? Or did Romans see the two dieties as essentially the same? Mithras was (in 308) invoked as the patron god of the tetrarchy, which seems odd for a cult diety, unless this was seen by the invoking emperors as somehow identical to the official state worship of Sol...
Thanks - Nathan
Nathan Ross
