Bibliography on the Cult of Mithras

The cult of Mithras is relevant to the early history of Christianity, in that they were both salvation (or “mystery”) religions, and both had a rite called the “Lord’s supper”.

I have compiled a bibliography below.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beck, R. 1977. “Interpreting of Mithras in the Roman Orient. The Problem of Origin,” Journal of Mithraic Studies 2.1: 53–68.

Beck, R. 1992. “The Mithras Cult as Association,” Studies in Religion21: 3–13.

Beck, R. 1996. “The Mysteries of Mithras,” in John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson (eds.), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, Routledge, London and New York. 176–185.

Beck, Roger L. 2000. “Ritual, Myth, Doctrine, and Initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New Evidence from a Cult Vessel,” The Journal of Roman Studies 90: 145–180.

Beck, Roger L. 2004. “Dancing at the Spirit Gates: A Mithraic Ritual Recovered from Proclus (in Remp. 2. 128. 26ff. Kroll),” in Rory B. Egan and Mark Joyal (eds.), Daimonopylai. Essays in Classics and the Classical Tradition Presented to Edmund G. Berry, University of Manitoba, Centre for Hellenic Civilization, Winnipeg, Manitoba. 1–6.

Beck, Roger. 1998. “The Mysteries of Mithras: A New Account of their Genesis,” Journal of Roman Studies 88: 115–128.

Clauss, Manfred. 2000. The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries (trans. Richard Gordon), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.

Court, John M. 2001. “Mithraism Among the Mysteries,” in Dan Cohn-Sherbok and John M. Court (eds.), Religious Diversity in the Graeco-Roman World. A Survey of Recent Scholarship, Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield. 182–195.

Duthoy, R. 1969. The Taurobolium. Its Evolution and Terminology, Brill, Leiden.

Gordon, Richard. 1988. “Authority, Salvation and Mystery in the Mysteries of Mithras,” in J. Huskinson, M. Beard and J. Reynolds (eds.), Image and Mystery in the Roman World. Three Papers Given in Memory of Jocelyn Toynbee, Sutton, Gloucester. 45–88.

Lennon, Jack. 2010. “Jupiter Latiaris and the «taurobolium»: Inversions of Cleansing in Christian Polemic,” Historia 59.3: 381– 384.

McLynn, Neil B. 1996. “The Fourth-Century Taurobolium,”Phoenix 50: 312–330.

Moore, Clifford Herschel. 1924. “The Duration of the Efficacy of the Taurobolium,” Classical Philology 19: 363–365.

Rutter, Jeremy B. 1968. “The Three Phases of the Taurobolium,”Phoenix 22: 226–249.

Stoholski, Mark. 2007. “‘Welcome to Heaven, Please Watch Your Step’: The ‘Mithras Liturgy’ and the Homeric Quotations in the Paris Papyrus,” Helios 34.1: 69–95.

Swerdlow, N. M. 1991. “On the Cosmical Mysteries of Mithras,” Classical Philology 86: 48–63.

Wiens, D. H. 1980. “Mystery Concepts in Primitive Christianity and its Environment,” ARNW II.23.2: 1248–1284.