Doctrine Redefined
This chapter redefines ‘doctrine’ in the context of Mithraism. The old scholarly view that something equivalent to creedal propositions can be found in Mithraism is challenged, as is its ancestor, the ancient philosophical view of ‘reason for the wise, symbols for the vulgar’. If Mithraic teaching is to be recovered, it is better sought in the one area where there is agreement between substantial archaeological evidence, the design and structure of mithraea, and substantial evidence from an ancient text, Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs. This combination of evidence lets us know that in the mithraeum, as ‘an image of the universe’, the Mithraists ‘inducted initiates into a mystery of the descent and departure of souls’, i.e. a soul journey into and out of mortal existence.
Keywords: doctrine, Porphyry, On the Cave, mithraeum, image of universe, soul journey
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .