Mithraicist

English

Etymology

Mithras +‎ -ic +‎ -ist

Noun

Mithraicist (plural Mithraicists)

1. A member of the cult of Mithras (Mithraism or Mithraicism).
   • 1871, Archaeologia, Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, page 12:

     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.

   • 1887, Charles William King, The Gnostics and Their Remains: Ancient and Mediaeval, page xviii:

     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.

   • 1991, Bruce Lincoln, Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology & Practice, page 88:

     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.