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“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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ThePapalCount on Rome Shot 85: “St Mary Major is a beautiful church which honors Our Lady and the largest in Rome -hence the title “major”–…”
Semper Gumby on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “Fr. Z: Thank you for the tribute to Fr. Capodanno. You ask an excellent question regarding Fr. Capodanno’s motivations, why…”
teomatteo on Rome Shot 85: “When I see that ceiling… can’t get the FarSide outta my mind. “Although history has long forgotten them, Lambini &…”
Tito Edwards on “Let’s stop demanding perfection from potential allies.”: “The Remnant has done a good job of keeping their website spiffy. Compared to The Wanderer, The Remnant is ‘Google’…”
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “Semper: ME: ““It doesn’t matter who is in the White House…” He has a point.” YOU: Ok…let’s go with the…”
bigtex on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 1st Sunday of Lent 2021: “Suburbanbanshee – I’m not at all surprised you feel that way. I’d imagine women must use similar rationalizations, before deciding…”
Semper Gumby on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “Fr. Z thank you for your reply. You wrote: “Hang on. Hahn wasn’t saying that he and we want privatization…”
Ms. M-S on LENTCAzT 2021: 08 – Ember Wednesday 1st Week of Lent: “A prayer on the way to Mass”: “Thanks, Fr. Z.”
Katherine on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “I appreciate the concept that one should read a book with the audience for that book in mind. Many years…”
Katherine on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “Ryguy is not just a friend, but a close friend of Mr. McGinley. . He appears in this combox thread…”
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.: “Semper: You: “Around ten minutes in Hahn states, in a misguided effort to sum things up, “We all agree on…”
William Tighe on WDTPRS 22 Feb – Feast of the Cathedra of Peter (2002MR): Antioch or Rome or… somewhere else?: “I agree with George Edmundson, whose book one may read here: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edmundson/church.html that St. Peter’s first stay in Rome (the…”
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Don’t rely on popes, bishops and priests.
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”
- Fulton Sheen
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Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
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- “The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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As for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
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Recent Posts
- VIDEO PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land: Day 4
- LENTCAzT 2021: 08 – Ember Wednesday 1st Week of Lent: “A prayer on the way to Mass”
- Rome Shot 85
- Rome Shot 84
- VIDEO PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land: Day 3
- LENTCAzT 2021: 07 – Tuesday 1st Week of Lent: “Lord, Jesus teach to pray better in all circumstances”
- WDTPRS 22 Feb – Feast of the Cathedra of Peter (2002MR): Antioch or Rome or… somewhere else?
- LIVE VIDEO – 22 Feb 2021 – 1200 NOON CST – Traditional Latin Mass – Cathedra of Peter
- “Gregorian Mass” match ups: available priests with people who have requests
- VIDEO PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land: Day 2
- LENTCAzT 2021: 06 – Monday 1st Week of Lent: “It had to happen to me!”
- VIDEO PILGRIMAGE to the Holy Land: Day 1
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 1st Sunday of Lent 2021
- LENTCAzT 2021: 05 – 1st Sunday of Lent: “Our Sire God being first served.”
- Rome Shot 83
- 20 Feb – Feast of Sts Francisco and Jacinta of Fatima – We need their intercession now more than ever.
- CQ CQ CQ: Ham Radio – #ZedNet reminder – Sunday 21 Feb ’21
- Daily Rome Shot 82
- WDTPRS – 1st Sunday of Lent (TLM): our season of transforming mystery
- Terrific podcast at Crisis with Scott Hahn. Don’t delay.
- WDTPRS – 1st Sunday of Lent (N.O.): our season of transforming mystery
- LENTCAzT 2021: 04 – Saturday after Ash Wednesday: “The Lenten journey enables us to look upon our brethren with new eyes.”
- YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS
- ASK FATHER: Is confirmation necessary for ordination?
- LIVE VIDEO – 19 Feb 2021 – 1200 NOON CST – Traditional Latin Mass – Friday after Ash Wednesday
- Daily Rome Shot 81
- AUDIO: Way of the Cross in different versions read by Fr. Z
- LENTCAzT 2021: 03 – Friday after Ash Wednesday: “St. Charles Borromeo went to confession every day.”
- ASK FATHER: Does a stillborn baby have to be baptized?
- Daily Rome Shot 80
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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Some Blogs I Keep Track Of
- A Clerk of Oxford
- Acton Institute Power Blog
- Anecdotal Evidence
- Art of Manliness
- Bonfire of the Vanities
- C-Fam: Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute
- Campus Notes (Card. Newman Society)
- CATHOLIC UNDERGROUND
- Charlotte was Both
- Courageous Priest
- Cowgirl’s Country Life
- Creative Minority Report
- Da mihi hanc aquam
- Eclectic Orthodoxy
- Edward Feser
- Ephemeris
- FIRST THINGS – “On The Square”
- Fr. Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment
- Fr. Ray Blake – St. Mary Magdalen
- Fr. T. Finigan – The hermeneutic of continuity
- Gandalf's Gallery – ART!
- Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog
- Holy Cards For Your Inspiration
- Hugh Hewitt
- ignatius his conclave
- In the Light of the Law
- Jihad Watch
- Jimmy Akin
- Laudator Temporis Acti
- Lifesite
- Liturgical Arts Journal
- Luther Insult Generator
- Maranatha.it
- Messa in latino (In Italian)
- Mulier Fortis
- Musica Sacra
- New Liturgical Movement
- Opus Bono Sacerdotii
- OUP Blog
- Our Word And Welcome To It
- Paternosters
- Rorate Caeli
- Sancte Pater
- Shakespeare Insult Generator
- Sympotica graecolatina
- The ASK FATHER Question Box
- The Curt Jester
- The Integrated Catholic Life
- The Lion and the Cardinal
- The Motley Monk
- Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
- Underground Thomist
- Vultus Christi
Categories
Useful WDTPRS References
- Acta Apostolicae Sedis ONLINE
- Ages of US Bishops & Empty sees
- Benedict XVI’s letter about SSPX excomm’s
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
- CDF Decree – Cum sanctissima
- CDWDS – NOTITIAE
- Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
- Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine by Ernout & Meillet
- Enchiridion Indulgentiarum in Latin
- Evil Overlord List
- Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott
- Gildersleeve’s Latin Grammar
- Holy See’s response to clerical abuse of minors
- Iota Unum by Romano Amerio
- Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary
- Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi: Praesertim ad res ecclesiasticas investigandas pertinens
- Liber Hymnarius
- NOTITIAE RESPONSE DATABASE
- NOTITIAE Responses
- PATROLOGIA GRAECA
- PATROLOGIA GRAECA (bis)
- PATROLOGIA LATINA
- PATROLOGIA LATINA (bis)
- Pont. Comm. Ecclesia Dei (site)
- Pres. Obama's PRO-ABORTION record
- Real Time USA National Debt Clocks
- Souter’s A glossary of later Latin to 600 A.D
- The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Ratzinger
- Universae Ecclesiae
- Year for Priests Indulgences
- YELLOW DOG
Blogs by priests
- CATHOLIC UNDERGROUND
- Fr. Barnes
- Fr. Brown
- Fr. Cusick – Meeting Christ in the Liturgy
- Fr. Eric Sternberg
- Fr. Faulkner – Father Talks Too Fast
- Fr. Finelli
- Fr. Finnegan – Valle Adurni
- Fr. Forde
- Fr. John Holloway
- Fr. Leake
- Fr. Moyle
- Fr. Newman – Ecclesia Semper Reformanda
- Fr. Ray Blake – St. Mary Magdalen
- Fr. Rowe
- Fr. Runyon
- Fr. S. Wang – Bridges and Tangents
- Fr. Somerville-Knapman
- Fr. T. Finigan – The hermeneutic of continuity
- Fr. Thompson
- Fr. Tunink
- Fr. Worthley
- Fr. Zehnle
- These Stone Walls
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Some Useful Liturgical Books
- ACTA SANCTORUM
- CDF Decree – Cum sanctissima
- Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year: According to the Modern Roman Rite: A Manual for Clergy and All Involved in Liturgical Ministries [Elliott]
- Learning To Serve [Illustrated] [Carmody]
- Manual of Episcopal Ceremonies (in 2 vols) [Rettger – Stehle]
- Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal [Doyle]
- The Celebration of the Mass (A Study of the Rubrics of the Roman Missal) [O'Connell]
- The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described [Fortescue – O`Connell – Reid]
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What people say about Fr. Z
"The great Father Zed, Archiblogopoios" - Fr. John Hunwicke
"Some 2 bit novus ordo cleric" - Anonymous
"Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a traditionalist blogger who has never shied from picking fights with priests, bishops or cardinals when liturgical abuses are concerned." - Kractivism
"Father John Zuhlsdorf is a crank"
"Father Zuhlsdorf drives me crazy"
"the hate-filled Father John Zuhlsford" [sic]
"Father John Zuhlsdorf, the right wing priest who has a penchant for referring to NCR as the 'fishwrap'"
"Zuhlsdorf is an eccentric with no real consequences" - HERE
- Michael Sean Winters
"Fr Z is a true phenomenon of the information age: a power blogger and a priest." - Anna Arco
“Given that Rorate Coeli and Shea are mad at Fr. Z, I think it proves Fr. Z knows what he is doing and he is right.” - Comment
"Let me be clear. Fr. Z is a shock jock, mostly. His readership is vast and touchy. They like to be provoked and react with speed and fury." - Sam Rocha
"Father Z’s Blog is a bright star on a cloudy night." - Comment
"A cross between Kung Fu Panda and Wolverine." - Anonymous
Fr. Z is officially a hybrid of Gandalf and Obi-Wan XD - Comment
Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a scrappy blogger popular with the Catholic right. - America Magazine
RC integralist who prays like an evangelical fundamentalist. -Austen Ivereigh on Twitter
[T]he even more mainline Catholic Fr. Z. blog. -Deus Ex Machina
“For me the saddest thing about Father Z’s blog is how cruel it is.... It’s astonishing to me that a priest could traffic in such cruelty and hatred.” - Jesuit homosexualist James Martin to BuzzFeed
"Fr. Z's is one of the more cheerful blogs out there and he is careful about keeping the crazies out of his commboxes" - Paul in comment at 1 Peter 5
"I am a Roman Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
I am a TLM-going Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
And I am in a state of grace today, in no small part, because of your blog."
- Tom in comment
"Thank you for the delightful and edifying omnibus that is your blog."- Reader comment.
"Fr. Z disgraces his priesthood as a grifter, a liar, and a bully. - - Mark SheaSpam blocked
Fr. Z’s Blog is a Founding Member of…
Our Lady of the Clergy, Pray for us!
The sermon for me was the couple a few rows ahead in a sparsely attended Mass in a beach vacation community in a freezing rain-pelted building. She was so diminutive and skinny I thought at first she was a child. He slowly and carefully helped her off with her coat and when she lowered herself onto a seat one away from him, he helped her move closer and took her hand in is. Without drawing attention he aided her to sit and stand, then up to Communion where he stood behind her and put his arms around her to guide the Host to her mouth.
I nearly opted for Mass online because of the weather, the Franciscan Novus Ordo Mass without kneelers, and the well sung but awful music (looking at you Marty Haugen) at church on this island.
I am sorry I don’t remember the sermon, but I can’t forget how the man moved with a measured patience and tenderness as he got her in and out of the car in a storm to get to church and then saw to it that she participated in the Mass. With humility, I reflect on how little effort I put into Mass, yet was shown Christ three rows ahead of me today.
TODAY’S ROME SHOT is the exterior of the Italian parliament. The lower house of the Italian government meets here. The senate meets in buildings between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona, a walk-able distance away.
This building is close to the Church of St Ignatius Loyola — not the Gesu Church but Sant Ignazio. A beautiful church whose exterior is totally unimpressive but the interior is stunning. You often walk by this” lower house of deputies” walking between Trevi and the Spanish Steps and the Pantheon/Navona areas There is usually a high security presence here especially when the House is sitting.
oh..let me add……the clock face features prominently in several background shots in the film Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. (you can also purchase theatre posters of this film all over the city featuring the two stars on a Vespa and the clock in the background)
Attendance at our 8:00 a.m. Mass was pretty good considering the fact that there was snow and slick streets in our hilly neighborhood.
The obelisk in front of Parliament honors Pharaoh Psamtik II of the 26th Dynasty in the sixth century BC. Before the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, brought it to Rome in 10 BC it stood at Heliopolis in Egypt. The hieroglyphs on the obelisk are mainly a list of the Pharaoh’s many names (“king of Upper and Lower Egypt” “who seizes the White Crown and unites the Double Crown” “Golden Horus”).
Augustus annexed Egypt to the new Empire. Several more obelisks arrived in Rome, and a pyramid, the Pyramid of Cestius, was built about the same time. Virgil and Strabo toured Egypt. Augustus’ daughter Julia decorated part of the villa at Boscotrecase (near Mt. Vesuvius) with depictions of Egyptian dieties such as Isis, Sobek and Anubis. Plutarch wrote “On Isis and Osiris.”
The Isis cult was banned in the late 4th century by Theodosius.
Semper: And… the significance of the obelisk and time?
It could be that more than one star is available.
Pliny wrote about this obelisk in Natural History, 36:
“Above all, there came also the difficult task of transporting obelisks to Rome by sea. The ships used attracted much attention from sightseers. That which carried the first of two obelisks was solemnly laid up by the deified Augustus in a permanent dock at Puteoli, to celebrate the remarkable achievement; but later it was destroyed by fire. The ship used by the Emperor Gaius for bringing a third was carefully preserved for several years by the deified Claudius, for it was the most amazing thing that had ever been seen at sea. Then caissons made of cement were erected in its hull at Puteoli; whereupon it was towed to Ostia and sunk there by order of the emperor, so to contribute to his harbour-works.
“Then there is another problem, that of providing ships that can carry obelisks up the Tiber; and the successful experiment shows that the river has just as deep a channel as the Nile. The obelisk placed by the deified Augustus in the Circus Maximus was cut by King Psemetnepserphreus, who was reigning when Pythagoras was in Egypt, and measures 85 feet and 9 inches, apart from its base, which forms part of the same stone. The obelisk in the Campus Martius, however, which is 9 feet less, was cut by Sesothis. Both have inscriptions comprising an account of natural science according to the theories of the Egyptian sages.
“The one in the Campus was put to use in a remarkable way by the deified Augustus so as to mark the sun’s shadow and thereby the lengths of days and nights. A pavement was laid down for a distance appropriate to the height of the obelisk so that the shadow cast at noon on the shortest day of the year might exactly coincide with it. Bronze rods let into the pavement were meant to measure the shadow day by day as it gradually became shorter and then lengthened again. This device deserves to be carefully studied, and was contrived by the mathematician Novius Facundus. He placed on the pinnacle a gilt ball, at the top of which the shadow would be concentrated, for otherwise the shadow cast by the tip of the obelisk would have lacked definition. He is said to have understood the principle from observing the shadow cast by the human head.
“The readings thus given have for about thirty years past failed to correspond to the calendar, either because the course of the sun itself is anomalous and has been altered by some change in the behaviour of the heavens or because the whole earth has shifted slightly from its central position, a phenomenon which, I hear, has been detected also in other places. Or else earth-tremors in the city may have brought about a purely local displacement of the shaft or floods from the Tiber may have caused the mass to settle, even though the foundations are said to have been sunk to a depth equal to the height of the load they have to carry.”
Thus Pliny. In the 1970s the German archaeologist Edmund Buchner while excavating in Rome theorized that this obelisk was situated to cast a shadow on September 23, Emperor Augustus’ birthday, into the altar of the nearby Ara Pacis. A reasonable theory by Buchner given his excavations revealed various lines and zodiac signs and the Imperial cult.
Recently, Buchner’s theory has been challenged. Some say the obelisk served as a simple meridian line. A team led by Indiana University professor Bernard Frischer recently developed a 3D simulation to estimate the obelisk’s original position and opined that the obelisk’s shadow falls on the altar of the Ara Pacis on October 9, the festival of Apollo (there are several weak spots in his paper and Frischer fails to make his case, despite the media publicity given his 3D simulation).
Regardless, the obelisk was brought from Egypt to glorify the first Emperor (“deified” according to Pliny) and reinforce the Emperor cult.
The obelisk of Psamtik II is in the Piazza Montecitorio. It’s original location in Rome was the Campus Martius, where Augustus erected it in 10 BC upon its arrival from Heliopolis. Sometime around the 10th century the obelisk toppled over and was damaged. Pope Sixtus V in the 16th century unsuccessfully tried to repair and raise it. In the 18th century Pope Pius VI successfully raised the obelisk in the Piazza Montecitorio.
Today the original site, Campus Martius, is home to the 8th century Church of Santo Stefano del Cacco and the 14th century Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
Santa Maria sopra Minerva was built over the ruins of a temple known as an “Iseum” dedicated not to Minerva but to Isis. Santo Stefano del Cacco was built over a “Serapeum”- a temple dedicated to Serapis.
The cult of Serapis syncretized two Egyptian deities, Apis (a bull) and Osiris (brother and husband of Isis), with two Greek dieties, Zeus and Dionysus. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in the 4th century BC a dynasty of Greek rulers, the Ptolemies, built a large Serapeum in the port city of Alexandria. The cult of Serapis spread to other Greek colonies and eventually to Rome.
The cult of Isis differed from the syncretistic Serapis cult. The Egyptian goddess Isis had a cult for some three thousand years before the Greeks arrived in Egypt. Isis was one of the nine dieties that comprised the Ennead of Heliopolis. The Ennead were vital to the creation myths of the ancient Egyptians. Isis was the “throne goddess” and mother of each Pharaoh. Isis is mentioned frequently in the Pyramid Texts, the oldest collection of Egyptian funerary texts (these texts were spells and chants inscribed in hieroglyphs on the walls of tombs and on sarcophagi, intended to aid the dead on their journey to the stars). In these texts Isis was associated with the star Sirius and her brother and husband Osiris with the constellation Orion.
Then, a few centuries before the Greeks arrived in Egypt the role of Isis in Egyptian mythology transformed markedly. Isis “absorbed” deities such as Hathor, Nut and Maat. Isis became identified with creating the world, the sky, victory and safe voyages at sea. The last two attributes proved popular with numerous Roman soldiers and sailors when the Isis cult spread from Greece to Sicily to the Roman mainland, particularly Pompeii, and along trade routes to Gaul, the Rhine and England (there was an Iseum in London). The cult of Isis, after some conflict, acquired acceptance in the Greek and Roman pantheons.
Two examples: the Navigium Isidis, an annual Roman festival on March 5 honoring Isis; and Josephus, in The Wars of the Jews, describes the triumphant scene in Rome soon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD:
“Now all the soldiery marched out beforehand by companies, and in their several ranks, under their several commanders, in the night time, and were about the gates, not of the upper palaces, but those near the temple of Isis; for there it was that the emperors had rested the foregoing night. And as soon as ever it was day, Vespasian and Titus came out crowned with laurel, and clothed in those ancient purple habits which were proper to their family, and then went as far as Octavian’s Walks; for there it was that the senate, and the principal rulers, and those that had been recorded as of the equestrian order, waited for them.”
Some Roman coins featured the syncretistic Serapis, a deity that combined Egyptian and Greek deities:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/reverse_serapis.html
Serapis involved the Apis bull. A coin minted during the reign of Julian the Apostate with the Apis bull itself:
https://www.livius.org/pictures/a/egypt/apis-coin/
In ancient Egypt the Apis bull was sacred as a sign of fertility and strength. There was one living Apis bull, carefully selected, at any given time. The Apis bull was well cared for and participated in the Pharaoh’s Sed festival. When the bull eventually died of natural causes it was buried at Memphis-Saqqara, not far from Heliopolis. The Apis bull was sometimes also worshipped in Iseums.
In the late 1st century AD (basic elements may date to the 1st century BC, probably due to the influence of Serapeum) another competitor to Christianity arose in Rome: the mystery cult of Mithras. Mithraism also involved a bull, though in Mithraism the bull was sacrificed. The mystery cult was secretive, it held its rituals privately in “Mithraeum.” Mithraeum were generally caves, but there were also buildings, similar to lodges. A summarized description of a Mithraeum in Germany:
“Richard Gordon wrote a summary for the Electronic Journal of Mithraic Studies, which is reproduced here as the EJMS site is now heavily corrupt and the .doc file now inaccessible.”
…
“There seem to have been at least two building phases. In the first, the floor was evidently constructed of wooden boards.”
…
“At a later point still, a secondary wall was built about 1m away from the ‘threshold’ (i.e. the W. end-wall) abutting onto the podia-walls. Between the ‘threshold’ and this secondary wall was a large block of stone, on end, that apparently acted as a step.”
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=supp_Germany_Guglingen_Mithraeum1
The mystery cult of Mithras had seven levels of initiation, and members were known as “syndexioi” due to a secret handshake that members used for identification.