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E. Cohen, Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda: CDL Press 1993), pp. 319²21. 40 Amar Annus at the gate of apogenesis (south and hot). With Cautopates one enters life, with Cautes one leaves it. ) The gates of souls, according to Porphyry·VDFFRXQW-24) are situated in Cancer and Capricorn. According to Beck, this was justified by the logic of planetary houses. Cancer was the gate of descent because the Moon has Cancer as her house. Moon, as a manifestly genetic power, is the closest to the earth, the locus of our mortality.

The associations of the torchbearers certainly extended beyond the natural phenomena and encompassed the concerns inherent in the Mysteries as a religion of salvation. Porphyry, De antro 24, if read with an important emendation of the text (Beck 1984: 2053), links the torchbearers also «WRWKH PHFKDQLVPVDQGURXWHVRI JHQHVLVDQGDSRJHQHVLVIRUWKH KXPDQ soul, the processes which are ultimately controlled by Mithras in his median position whithin the cosmos, his ´VHDW RI WKH HTXLQR[HVµ 6LJQLILFDQWO\ LW LV Cautopates who is placed at the gate of genesis (north and cold) and Cautes _____________ 36 See M.

4). The rite of bull-killing The mysteries of Mithras were one of the greatest mystery cults of late antiquity, with enormous popularity and spread all over the Roman Empire. Mithra of the ancient Iranian mythology is much different from the Mithras of the Roman mystery cult. Much speaks in favour of a reinvention of the cult in the West rather than continuity of ancient Persian, that is, Avestan doctrines. As was shown above, some elements in Mithraic Mysteries and other mystery cults as well as in Neoplatonic philosophy may still derive from the East in their original form, if a phenomenon I term Irano-Mesopotamian syncretism will be accepted.