Editing Mithraism (section)

===Ritual re-enactments===
[[File:Bible museum - Mithrasheiligtum.jpg|thumb|Reconstruction of a mithraeum with a mosaic depicting the grades of initiation]]
Activities of the most prominent deities in Mithraic scenes, Sol and Mithras, were imitated in rituals by the two most senior officers in the cult's hierarchy, the ''Pater'' and the ''Heliodromus''.<ref name=Beck-2004-InPlcLion/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 288–289}} The initiates held a sacramental banquet, replicating the feast of Mithras and Sol.<ref name=Beck-2004-InPlcLion/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 288–289}}

Reliefs on a cup found in [[Mainz]]<ref name=Beck-2000>{{cite journal |last=Beck |first=Roger |year=2000 |title=Ritual, myth, doctrine, and initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New evidence from a cult vessel |journal=The Journal of Roman Studies |issue=90 |pages=145–180 |doi=10.2307/300205 |volume=90 |jstor=300205 |s2cid=161475387 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Merkelbach |first=Reinhold |year=1995 |title=Das Mainzer Mithrasgefäß |language=de |trans-title=The Mithras vessel from Mainz |journal=Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik |issue=108 |pages=1–6 |url=http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads/1995/108pdf/108001.pdf |access-date=17 October 2008 |archive-date=18 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718201632/http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads/1995/108pdf/108001.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> appear to depict a Mithraic initiation. On the cup, the initiate is depicted as being led into a location where a ''Pater'' would be seated in the guise of Mithras with a drawn bow. Accompanying the initiate is a [[mystagogue]], who explains the symbolism and theology to the initiate. The Rite is thought to re-enact what has come to be called the 'Water Miracle', in which Mithras fires a bolt into a rock, and from the rock now spouts water.

Roger Beck has hypothesized a third processional Mithraic ritual, based on the Mainz cup and Porphyrys. This scene, called 'Procession of the Sun-Runner', shows the ''Heliodromus'' escorted by two figures representing Cautes and Cautopates (see below) and preceded by an initiate of the grade ''Miles'' leading a ritual enactment of the solar journey around the mithraeum, which was intended to represent the cosmos.<ref>{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Luther H. |year=2004 |section=Ritual competence and Mithraic ritual |editor-last=Wilson |editor-first=Brian C. |title=Religion as a Human Capacity: A festschrift in honor of E.&nbsp;Thomas Lawson |publisher=BRILL |page=257}}</ref>

Consequently, it has been argued that most Mithraic rituals involved a re-enactment by the initiates of episodes in the Mithras narrative,<ref name=Clauss-2000/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 62–101}} a narrative whose main elements were: birth from the rock, striking water from stone with an arrow shot, the killing of the bull, Sol's submission to Mithras, Mithras and Sol feasting on the bull, the ascent of Mithras to heaven in a chariot. A noticeable feature of this narrative (and of its regular depiction in surviving sets of relief carvings) is the absence of female personages (the sole exception being [[Luna (goddess)|Luna]] watching the 
tauroctony in the upper corner opposite [[Helios]], and the presumable presence of [[Venus (mythology)|Venus]]  as patroness of the ''nymphus'' grade).<ref name=Clauss-2000/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 33}}