Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [317]
Apuleius conveys something about the behavior of young men by turning Lucius into an ass, as a result of his unbridled libido. The remedy to this condition is a very real religious conversion to the cult of the goddess Isis. In chapter 11 of the novella, a priest of Isis explains that the goddess has special care of her devotees, changing them from stupid creatures at the mercy of blind fate to mature people whose destiny is ruled by the goddess’s providence. “For hostile fate has no power over those whose lives have been claimed by the majesty of our goddess…. Now you have been received into the protection of a Fortune who is not blind, but sees, and who illumines the other gods too with the radiance of her light.”67 The goddess promises her personal protection to the character Lucius as a remedy against blind fate. Initiation into her mysteries, described in only the most general way, eventually brings him across the threshold between life and death. The author Apuleius apparently underwent a similar experience of maturation as the character Lucius. Lucius says that he crossed the threshold of Proserpina and saw the sun at night (so he must be in the underworld). Some kind of immortalization ritual was part of his religious transformation. Exactly what, we do not know. But the original myth of Isis and Osiris was concerned with the immortality of the Pharaoh, linked with the flooding of the Nile, effected by means of the priesthood of Osiris.68 The salvation of the goddess starts in this life because she saves Lucius from being blindly buffeted by fortune into a man with a destiny and significance as a devotee.
Another important mystery religion among the many was the religion of Mithras. It was named for the Persian god Mithra, the god of contracts. In its Roman form, however, Mithras was far more than that. In this secret underground cult, Mithras became a god who offered solar salvation. According to the myth, Mithras was born from a rock in a cave. His most famous feat was killing Taurus the bull in a famous taurobolium (bull-throwing) scene found in almost every Mithraeum. In the scene Mithras is shown quite realistically above the back of the bull, with a starry cape (depicting the milky way) billowing out behind him. He slays a bull with a dagger in the back of the neck while he turns away from the bull’s head, normally with sheaves of wheat emerging where the bull’s blood ought to be. The iconography is still somewhat mysterious to us, as it is rarely explained by any contemporary documents.
The mystery religion of Mithras was very widespread indeed, found in almost all of the major cities of the Roman Empire. It was very popular among the Roman legions for Mithraic speleia (caves, another name for the Temple) are found all along the borders of the Roman Empire and near major encampments of the army. Along with the taurobolium we often find representations of Mithras and Helios shaking hands, which allowed Dieterich to identify a famous Paris Magical Papyrus as a Mithras Liturgy. That identification was due, in the first instance, to the appearance of both divinities in the story of the heavenly journey found in a papyrus and the attempt of the ritual to produce an immortalization. But the identification has proven extremely controversial. On the other hand, the emperor was often identified with Sol Invictus or Helios, the sun. The clasped hands showing greeting and agreement between Mithras and Helios may well depict the importance of the army to the survival of the emperor; it would certainly explain the imperial patronage and the popularity in the army. Depictions from Mithraea also suggest the ranks of the initiates and the felicities that they found in the cult-transformation, heavenly journey, immortalization. The imagery of the taurobolium seems to have calendrical, astrological implications,