ABSTRACT
Owing to the relatively late epoch of their propagation, the Mysteries of Mithra escaped the persecutions that had been the destiny of the other Oriental cults that had preceded them in Rome, especially that of Isis. For the general acceptance of the doctrine a theory far less crude than that of the Alexandrian epiphany was needed. According as the Syrian religions, and especially the Mysteries of Mithra, were propagated in Rome, the ancient Mazdean theory, more or less tainted with Semitism, found increasing numbers of champions in the official Roman world. The reign of Commodus, from which the triumph at Rome of the Oriental cults and especially of the Mithraic Mysteries dates, we see the emperors officially taking the titles of pius, felix, and invictus, which appellations from the third century on regularly formed part of the imperial protocols. The psychology taught in the Mysteries furnished a rational explanation of this consubstantiality and supplied it almost with a scientific foundation.
