Divinity of the Eastern Antiquity from which the worship resulted from a mixture from the religions Hindu woman, Persian and Syrian woman.

In Veda and Avesta, god, son of the Aditi goddess, who, with her seven brothers, forms the group of Aditya.

The called Indo-Iranian divinity Mitra (“the Friend”) in Sanskrit and Mithra into avestic is described in Veda and Avesta as being the god of the contracts and solidarity. If its role is remained secondary in India, where its worship as that of his/her Varuna brother declined very quickly, it was not the same in Iran, where it took an increasing importance and where it was the object of a very popular worship; this worship, transported out of the limits of Persia and decorated foreign elements, became the core of a religion with initiation and esoteric teaching, known under the name of mithriacism.

The admirers of Mithra recognized a divinity single, expressed by the light of the stars, especially of the Sun, shining and invincible, enemy of the night and the demons. Mithra, angel of the light, were a servant of the supreme god Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd) and the intercessor of the men near him.

This religion was very austere; the initiates all - the men, mithriacism not making a place with the women - were subjected to tests, then baptized by sprinkling with the blood of a bull sacrificed (taurobole) to become “brothers-in-arms”. The priests, who preached justice and solidarity, taught that by the practice of certain rites of purification, abstinence and communion one could take part in the nature of the luminous and immortal stars.

The mithriacism was spread initially in Asia Mineure, in Egypt, then in Italy where it was brought by the Roman legions and from where it passed in Beats, Germanic and Spain. It held head with Christianity to the IV ^E century, time against which it ran up against persecutions of the Théodose emperor, of which an edict, in 391, prohibited “pagan worships” and sacrifices under penalty of death. The Julien emperor, on the other hand, was an admirer of Mithra.

The god is generally represented under the features of a capped young man of a Phrygian cap and dressed in a floating coat, a short tunic and Eastern pants; he stabs a bull which he embanked. In Rome, the temple of Mithra was dug under the mount Capitolin, the mysteries mithriaques celebrating itself in a cave, near a source.