Breaking a Metanarrative in Mithraic Studies: A Transmission From Colonial to Post-Colonial Approaches

The most important feature distinguishing the god Mithra from other gods is his appearance in different religious traditions of the ancient world. The god Mithra is seen firstly in the Vedic tradition, later appears in the Avestan texts and Persian royal inscriptions, and ultimately emerges as the focus of a mystery cult in the Roman Empire. The dilemma over Mithra’s origin and his transmission from one culture to another offers another enigmatic query in Mithraic studies.
For many years, Mithraic scholars studied Roman Mithraic archeological remains with an understanding based on Iranian sources such as the Avestan texts, the royal inscription and the Pahlavi literature. However, as of the1970s, new studies took ancient Greco-Roman astrology into consideration. This has largely challenged the previously held idea of the mystery cult of Mithra having oriental origins. As a result of this new scholarly approach, Classicists now understand the Mystery cult of Mithras in the Roman Empire as a celestial religion with a complex cosmology, similar to the mystery cults of Cybele or Isis.
Yet among Iranologists the main emphasis has remained on interpreting and grasping the cultic features of the Roman Mithraism based on the Iranian creation myth and mythology. In fact, Iranologists have even altered their interpretations of the Iranian sources to match with the Roman archeological remains of the cult in some cases. This situation, since the 70s, simply reflects the fact that there has not been an effective communication link between the Iranologists and Classicists. Now, after 40 years, remodeling the methodology of Mithraic studies seems necessary in order to bridge the gap between the Iranologist studies and the works of Mithraic scholars.
This paper surveys the dominant trends in Mithraic studies over the past century. It also examines the dialectic between theory and the historical contexts cultivating it. This is an endeavor to deconstruct the history of Mithraic studies in order to discover what set of socio-political discourses have encouraged these methodologies and theoretical approaches. What are the key concepts in Mithraic studies, and how are they constructed? What are the main directions of Mithraic studies and why?