Mithra and the Bull

In the past couple of decades Mithraism as a Persian religion of antiquity prior to the common era has come under assault, with its main scholar, Franz Cumont, likewise assailed. The argument is based chiefly on the bull-slaying iconography, in which Mithra is depicted as standing on the bull, in the process of slitting its throat, imagery found within the Roman Mithraism and seemingly absent from the Persian version. As Srivastava relates:

There is one significant difference between Indian Mitra and Mithraic Mithra. Mithra is credited with the slaying of the bull, but we do not find any reference to this legend in the Puranas or other literature. No representation of this episode is found in the Indian art, though it was frequently represented in the arts of Asia Minor and Rome. There are many rites of initiation which are not traceable in the Puranas.

Based on this apparent absence, it has been argued that Roman Mithraism is a "new religion" similar only in name to Persian Mithraism. The argument is in the main unconvincing and seems to be motivated by Christian backlash attempting to debunk the well-founded contention that Christianity copied Mithraism in many germane details. In reality, the bull-slaying motif and ritual existed in numerous cultures prior to the Christian era, regardless of whether or not it is depicted in literature or iconography in Persia. In fact, the bull motif is a reflection of the Age of Taurus, around 4500-2300 BCE, one of the 2,150-year ages created by the precession of the equinoxes.

As we have seen, rather than it being a "discovery" by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2^nd [3^rd?] century, the knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes extends back thousands of years, possibly to the Age of Gemini or even earlier, as evinced by notable astronomers such as Dr. Krupp. [chk] That the ancients followed precessional ages is revealed abundantly in the archaeological record. For example, the sacred bull motif is found in numerous places around the "known world" precisely during the Age of Taurus. The change between the ages of Taurus and Aries is recorded even in the Bible, at Exodus 12, where Moses institutes the sacrifice of the lamb or ram instead of the bull. Clearly, something is amiss with our historical chronology; keeping in mind the massive destruction of culture and the pervasive tendency towards secrets and mysteries, it is wise not to take sudden "discoveries" of this sort on face value.

The discernment of the Mithraic bull as representing the sign and age of Taurus is likewise not new; indeed, in the 18^th century Dupuis insisted upon the identification, as did Volney. By the end of the 19^th century, Bunsen also wrote about the Taurean bull, first speaking of Buddha as represented by the Lamb, but not the Bull, unlike Mithra:

Buddha is never represented as a bull, like Mithras and the more ancient solar heroes of the time when Taurus was the spring equinoctial sign.

Bunsen further says:

Like Ormuzd, Mithras is represented riding on the bull, and Jehovah is described as riding on the Cherub, Kirub or bull. This bull is almost certainly the constellation of Taurus; and the same Mithraic representation connects with the bull a scorpion, evidently the opposite constellation. Also the Hebrews knew traditions according to which the Memra or Word of God, the Messiah, was symbolised first by fire, that is, by the fiery or brazen serpent, which probably pointed to lightning, and later the Hebrews symbolised the Word by the sun.

In addition to the bull motif are the degrees of initiation within Mithraism, which Volney names as the "raven, griffin, soldier, lion, Persian, courier of the sun, and father." He further states:

The real initiation was called sacramentum, possibly from the oath not to divulge the doctrine and rites of which the initiate gained knowledge. The various steps were accompanied by ablutions and aspersions, signifying the purging away of sins. It would seem that on attaining the rank of soldier, the candidate was branded with a hot iron.

In his "Letter to Laeta," Jerome relates the levels of Mithraic initiation as "Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Perseus, Sun, Crab, and Father." Like the bull, these initiation degrees have been determined to represent constellations, as part of the Mithraic "star map," as demonstrated most recently by David Ulansey. In an article excerpted from his book, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, Ulansey says:

For the constellations pictured in the standard tauroctony have one thing in common: namely, they all lay on the celestial equator as it was positioned during the epoch immediately preceeding the Greco-Roman "Age of Aries." During that earlier age, which we may call the "Age of Taurus," lasting from around 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the celestial equator passed through Taurus the Bull (the spring equinox of that epoch), Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion (the autumn equinox): that is, precisely the constellations represented in the Mithraic tauroctony.

In this "Age of Taurus" the celestial equator passed through Taurus, Canis Minor, Hydra, Corvus, and Scorpio: precisely the constellations pictured in the Mithraic bull-slaying icon.

Thus all of the figures found in the tauroctony represent constellations that had a special position in the sky during the Age of Taurus. The Mithraic tauroctony, then, was apparently designed as a symbolic representation of the astronomical situation that obtained during the Age of Taurus.

Regarding the slaying of the Mithraic Bull, Freke and Gandy remark:

Scholars now understand that altar-pieces representing Mithras slaying a bull are actually star maps depicting the ending of the Age of Taurus.

As can be seen, the conclusion is that the various Mithraic initiation levels are derived from the skies during the Taurean Age, some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Another explanation would be that those who created these levels "backdated" their symbolism.

Mithra's slaying of the Bull was an act that became as central to Mithraism as was the crucifixion to Christianity. The bull represented rebirth, fertility and fecundity, with his blood corresponding to the wine of the mysteries. The sacrifice of the bull was reenacted in the Mithraic baptism, a mystery rite in which the initiates were splattered with the blood. The initiate was then said to have been "born again." Concerning the Mithraic ritual, Halliday says:

Naturally enough, the baptism of bull's blood came to be interpreted in a more spiritual sense than that of its originally magical purpose. The bath of bull's blood cleansed the initiate from sin; its performance was regarded as the day of his spiritual birth; he was reborn into eternity

The Mithra-Bull motif, in which the god seeks out, grabs the bull by the horns and then mounts it, resembles the Zen Buddhist story regarding the sage in search of his "bull," which represents himself. Indeed, in slaying the Heavenly Bull, Mithra is essentially sacrificing himself, in order to save the world:

The bull appears to signify the earth or mankind, and the implication is that Mithra, like Christ, overcame the world; but in the early Persian writings Mithra himself is the bull, the god thus sacrificing himself, which is a close approximation to the Christian idea.

That Mithra is himself the bull is further evident from Robert Graves's assertion that the "Persian Mithras was also eaten in bull form."

As noted, because Mithraic art of the Persians and Indians does not depict Mithra with the Bull, it is claimed that Indo-Persian Mithraism is not the same as that of Rome. In reality, the bull was sacred to the sun god and was an early solar symbol because of its connection to agriculture, in drawing the plough, which is why the time of planting is called "Taurus" and is represented by the bull. In actuality, the solar-bull motif is found in very ancient cultures, including the Sumerian, upon whose seals is depicted the flaming "Bull of Heaven," representing the sun's "fierce aspect." Such a depiction obviously represents the sun in the Age of Taurus, demonstrating again that the ancients at least 4,000 years ago knew about the precession of the equinoxes. Indeed, long before the Christian/Roman Mithraic era, numerous gods were worshipped in the form of the bull, including Zeus and his Indian counterpart, Shiva, as well as the Egyptian gods Min, Ra and Amen, the latter of whom was called "the young bull with sharp pointed horns." The very ancient Osiris and the later Egyptian god Apis likewise were depicted as bulls, as was Osiris's Greek counterpart, Dionysus/Bacchus. A number of goddesses also were represented as cows, such as Neith and Hathor.

Regarding the bull motif in India, Srivastava states:

In the Rig Veda, Surya is called a bull. In the Atharveda, Rohitathe Sungodis addressed as the bull arranging the day and night, and in many rites the bull is a symbol of the Sun.

It is suggested that the unicorn or urus bull so profusely represented on the Indus seals may have been a symbol of the Sungod. There is a curious object with rays in association with the Urus-bull, which may be taken as the Sun-disc.

In the Atharvaveda, the Indian sun god Rohita is called "a bull or the bull of prayers." Rohita is identified with the sacrifice, offering himself and a "primaeval sacrifice," from which all are born and the universe is created. In the Rig Veda, the fire and sun god Agni is "often invoked as 'the Bull,'" which is a symbol of the god's strength, as well as of the fire and sun god(s).

Furthermore, as Srivastava relates, the bull motif is "profusely presented" in the imagery of, and as an object of worship in, the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley, which is conservatively dated to 2500-1700 BCE. In fact, the taurine solar symbol x is found repeatedly on ancient pottery in the Indus Valley.

In the Indian text Taiit. Brahmana (ii. 7, 11, 1), the sun and storm god Indra is described as a bull, and bulls were sacrificed to him. Muir translates:

"Indra invited them to the ceremony when pacified, for the kayasubhiya is used for pacification. Hence these bulls are to be offered both to Indra and the Maruts. Three are sacrificed on the first day, as many on the second and third; on the last day five are immolated."

Hence, in the millennium or millennia prior to the common era, and in the culture that spawned the Persian, appears the motif of the sun god as the bull, performing a sacrifice or sacrificing himself for the welfare of the universe. Concerning the Mithra myth and its connection to both India and Persia, Rev. Lundy provides interesting assertions:

inasmuch as the Persian Fire-worship and the main part of the Persian religion were derived from India, the sacrifice, death, and Resurrection of Mithra become but counterparts of Vishnu's incarnation, sacrifice, etc., in Krishna.

Here Lundy is maintaining that the Persian Mithra was sacrificed and resurrected, and that the motif corresponds to the "life" of Krishna, another Indian sun god. As we have seen, Mithra is himself the bull, who is sacrificed for the welfare of the world, a common theme concerning the sun god. Furthermore, Higgins quotes his "learned friend" Colonel Tod as saying (Trans. Asiat. Soc., II, 279):

The Bull was offered to Mithras by the Persians, and opposed as it now appears to the Hindu faith, he formerly bled on the altars of the sun God (Bal-iswara), on which the Buld-dan (offering of the bull) was made.

From this quote as well we can conclude that ancient Indians likewise sacrificed bulls, in this case to Baliswara, the Indian version of Baal (+ Osiris), who is also the Bull. As Bel/Baal, Mithra was associated with the Bull long anterior to the Christian era. Writing decades before the era of Cumont, Col. Tod also asserts that the bull was sacrificed to Mithra by the Persians.

In reality, bulls were sacrificed in many cultures millennia prior to the common era, including on the Greek island of Crete, some 4,000 years ago. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, composed more than 4,000 years ago (one account puts Gilgamesh at c. 3120 BCE), and on Akkadian cylinder seals of the same age, the Sumero-Babylonian demigod/hero Gilgamesh is represented as wrestling and killing the "Bull of Heaven," which is the sign of Taurus and essentially the same motif as Mithra slaying the bull. Regarding this ancient bull-slaying motif in the Near East, Robertson remarks:

The origin of the symbolism [of the Bull] goes back to an ancient Assyrian cult which produced monuments of a divine or kingly personage slaying a lion or a bull by thrusting a sword through him.

The sacrifice to, or reverence of, the bull in can also be found in an image (c. 1400 BCE) from the palace of Alaa Hyk in Turkey, near Bogaz-Ky, where the Hittite-Mitanni tablets were found. In this relief, a man and priestess approach a bull on a pedestal in front of an altar. Each figure has its arm raised, as if to sacrifice the bull. In the Hurrian mythology, the god Teshub has attached to his chariot two bulls representing Night and Day. Teshub, James relates, was "frequently depicted standing on a bull." Thus, in the area where the "Roman" Mithra arose we find images of a deity riding in a chariot and standing on a bull, as well as the bull-slaying ritual, more than one to two millennia before the Christian era.

This bloody sacrifice, also a baptism, occurred in many non-Mithraic cultures, with both human and animal victims. During this ceremony, participants would cry, to the effect, "Let his blood be upon us and our children!"a ritual response designed to provide expiation and fertility. Bulls were particularly favored in this ritual because of the copious amounts of blood. Although it may not be found in Persian iconography or literature, the bull sacrifice was "frequently represented" and abundantly practiced in Asia Minor. As is the case with the bull-standing imagery, this rite with the bull as sacrificial victim doubtlessly came into the Roman world from the Near East, "like the rest of the Attis-Kybele cult" of Phrygia. Guignebert elaborates upon the Asian bull sacrifice and baptism:

In the Phrygian cult of Cybele and Attis, but not in that alone, for we find it in various other Asiatic cults and in that of Mithra, a singular ceremony, called the taurobolium, took place. It formed part of the mysterious initiatory rites exclusively reserved for believers. A deep pit was sunk in the precincts of the temple into which the initiated descended and it was then covered over with a grating upon which a bull was solemnly sacrificed; its blood flowed like red rain into the pit and fell on the naked person of the novitiate, endeavoring to bathe all parts of his body in it. This baptism accomplished, the genital organs of the animal sacrificed were deposited in a sacred vessel to be presented as an offering to the goddess, after which they were buried beneath a memorial altar.

Concerning this Phrygian rite, Robertson states:

The great vogue of the Phrygian institutions of the Taurobolium and Criobolium, or purification by the blood of bulls and rams, must have reacted on Mithraism even if it were not strictly of Mithraic origin. Mithra, like Osiris and Dionysus, was the bull as well as the God to whom the bull was sacrificed

As noted, this gory rite was common, taking place perhaps annually or more in some areas, depending on the need. Moreover, such expiatory sacrifices were practiced every 20 years as part of the Pagan mysteries, as Taylor relates:

Prudentius informs us that in these religious ceremonies the Pagan priests, or whoever was ambitious of obtaining a mystical regeneration, excavated a pit, into which he descended. The pit was then covered over with planks, which were bored full of holes, so that the blood and what not of the goat, bull, or ram that was sacrificed upon them, might trickle through the holes upon the body of the person beneath; who, having been thus sanctified, and born again, was obliged ever to walk in newness of life

This ritual can also be found abundantly in the culture from which Christianity purportedly sprang. The Jewish sacrifice and blood baptism are reflected at Exodus 24:6-8:

And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words."

The purpose of this rite is not only to perform ritual magic that provides future abundance or the cleansing of sins, but also to intimidate the people through gore into obeying the priesthood. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, this sanguine sacrifice is addressed, as the author usurps it with the sacrifice of Christ (9:22). Concerning Hebrews, Weigall says:

in the Epistle to the HebrewsChrist is described as the High Priest who, to put away sin, sacrificed Himself. Similarly, Mithra sacrificed a bull, but this bull, again, was himself

The sprinkling of blood finds its way into the New Testament at Hebrews 12:24, and 1 Peter 1:2, the latter of which refers to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. This bloody practice is clearly pre-Christian and thus not copied by Paganism from Christianity; indeed, the opposite is the case, with a substitution of the "Lamb of God" for the Bull and Jesus Christ for Mithra.

As demonstrated, the sacrifice of the bull is ancient, found in the very areas in which Mithraism thrived, from Indian to Phrygia. Furthermore, in the Assyro-Babylonian area are non-Mithraic images of kings or gods standing on the bull, showing that the motif existed centuries or millennia BCE. Obviously, from the Phrygian cap and cloak he wears, as well as the Mesopotamian bull-standing motif and this blood-splattering ritual, among other doctrines, the Mithra inherited by the Romans was originally Eastern, and not created by the Romans during the Christian era.

Concerning Mithra and the Bull, Drews says:

Mithras too offers himself for mankind. For the bull whose death at the hands of the God takes the central position in all the representations of Mithras was originally none other than the God himself--the sun in the constellation of the Bull, at the spring equinox

Berry relates that the taurbolium or bull-slaying was committed on "Black Friday," i.e., "Good Friday," the same as the death day for Attis and Jesus. Berry also states that Mithras was "mourned for" and "placed in a sacred rock tomb called 'Petra,' from which he was removed after three days in a great festival of rejoicing."

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