The Mithras Liturgy: Text, Translation, and Commentary

Hans Dieter Betz provides the first complete English commentary on one of the most important texts of the history of religions in late antiquity: the so-called Mithras Liturgy , a magic Graeco-Egyptian papyrus from the 4th century AD, written from the inner perspective by an initiated devotee of the god Helios-Mithras-Aion and containing an esoteric ritual instruction for an ascension to and consultation with the god. In addition to an introduction into the history of research since Albrecht Dieterich’s famous work Eine Mithraslithurgie (1903), the volume contains the Greek text and the English translation, an analysis of the literary composition, and a commentary establishing the text and contextualizing it in relation to Egyptian religion, Mithraism, hermeticism and gnosticism. At the end of the book there is a bibliography and a Greek word-index.