Dictionary

Mithraicist en · NOUN

Etymology

From Mithras + -ic + -ist.

Meanings

1. A member of the cult of Mithras (Mithraism or Mithraicism).
   • And, as the leading words of the passage upon which the allusion turns are comitantia and beneficium, we have no alternative but to take these to be expressions received amonst the Mithraicists—part, in fact, of their sacred terminology. 1871, Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, page 12:
   • What for me is conclusive is this concatenation of details: sun, ascension, liberation from bonds; Isis is not a solar deity, she does not carry the name "Mithras," which is an Iranian name, and it seems to me that when you have Mithras as sun, Mithras as savior, Mithras as aiding in the ascent of the soul, and Mithras as liberating from bonds, that is too much to assume to be invented independently by western Mithraicists and Iranians. 1991, Bruce Lincoln, Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology & Practice, page 88:
   • In this way a man might continue a Mithraicist and yet accept all the doctrines of Christianity, as the priests of that religion in their last days assured the incredulous Augustine. 1887, Charles William King, The Gnostics and Their Remains: Ancient and Mediaeval, page xviii:

Forms