Abstract of today's workshop paper:
The Iranian origin of the Roman cult of Mithras, once a fact, is now generally regarded as a mere shibboleth. A LAR-inspired approach, however, cannot aim in historicist spirit to adjudicate such issues, but focuses rather on the fact of appropriation itself. What value did the idea of ‘Persia’ have for the efforts of the small-time leaders (‘religious providers’, in Weberian terms, ‘mystagogues’) of religious associations configuring a deity named Mithras, invictus Mithras, Sol invictus Mithras …? As a ‘Persian’ deity whose cult first appears in the West c.80-100 CE, Mithras slipped into a complex frame already prepared by Classical, Hellenistic and Roman discourses of ‘intra-cultural connectivity’, by virtue of which the figure could shift effortlessly between Us and Them. ‘Persianism’ provided such small-time ‘mystagogues’ with the codes for specific experiences, forms of embodiment, expressive media they required to provide interesting religious experiences in implicit competition with other similar agents of the holy.
The Iranian origin of the Roman cult of Mithras, once a fact, is now generally regarded as a mere shibboleth. A LAR-inspired approach, however, cannot aim in historicist spirit to adjudicate such issues, but focuses rather on the fact of appropriation itself. What value did the idea of ‘Persia’ have for the efforts of the small-time leaders (‘religious providers’, in Weberian terms, ‘mystagogues’) of religious associations configuring a deity named Mithras, invictus Mithras, Sol invictus Mithras …? As a ‘Persian’ deity whose cult first appears in the West c.80-100 CE, Mithras slipped into a complex frame already prepared by Classical, Hellenistic and Roman discourses of ‘intra-cultural connectivity’, by virtue of which the figure could shift effortlessly between Us and Them. ‘Persianism’ provided such small-time ‘mystagogues’ with the codes for specific experiences, forms of embodiment, expressive media they required to provide interesting religious experiences in implicit competition with other similar agents of the holy.
No comments:
Post a Comment