Mithras

n. Mythology
The ancient Persian god of light and guardian against evil, often identified with the sun.

[Greek Mithrās, from Avestan Mithrō and Old Persian Mithra.]

Mithras, ancient Indo-Iranian god of light and truth, in the Zoroastrian religion the ally of the good power Ahuramazda. His cult came to Rome in the second half of the first century BC in the form of a mystery religion, confined exclusively to men, which offered a happy life to its devotees, with secret rites and various stages of initiation. It was attractive to merchants and soldiers, and soon spread through the Roman empire, flourishing in the important cities and sea-ports of the western Mediterranean. The cult included a form of baptism and a communal meal. Mithras was depicted with a bull which he was said to have captured and sacrificed; the temples of Mithras were built underground in artificial caves recalling the cave in which Mithras had originally killed the bull. Taurobolium, bull-slaying, was part of his ritual, as it was of Cybelē. Mithras seems to have been identified with the sun.

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A Near Eastern god found in the Persian world and Asia Minor who also assumed considerable importance in the Roman world, especially amongst soldiers and in military circles. Mithras is portrayed as a young man wearing a Phrygian cap, usually crouched on the back of a bull which he is killing by a thrust to the neck with a short sword. David Ulansey has convincingly identified Mithras with Perseus and shown how the tauroctony embodies cosmic symbolism relating to a secret knowledge of the precession of the heavens and Mithras himself as the ruler of the cosmos (kosmokrator). Mithraism was a mystery cult that flourished alongside early Christianity and showed many similarities to it. As in all mystery cults the rites were kept secret such that the truth and benefits came only to initiated believers who had to pass through a series of seven grades of initiation. The disciple also underwent baptism, took part in the re-enactment of a sacred meal, and bore the seal of his discipleship on his body.

IN BRIEF: n. - Ancient Persian god of light and truth.

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The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: ancient Persian god of light and truth; sun god
  Synonym: Mithra

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