For over three
hundred years the rulers of the
In
One of the largest
Mithraic temples built in
The widespread
popularity and appeal of Mithraism as the final and most refined form of
pre-Christian paganism was discussed by the Greek historian Herodotus, the
Greek biographer Plutarch, the neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, the Gnostic
heretic Origen, and
The faithful
referred to Mithras (REMEMBER, 4,000 years ago!) as "the Light of the
World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between
heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity. According to Persian
mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The
god remained celibate throughout his life, and valued self-control,
renunciation and resistance to sensuality among his worshippers. Mithras
represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was encouraged in order to
unify against the forces of evil.
The worshippers of
Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They
believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their
suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation
in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgement in which
the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the
existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.
Purification
through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part
in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and
blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was
celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god
had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before
ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.
However, it would
be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single
fore-runner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were
plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and
Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Many classical heroic figures, such
as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the
union of a virgin mother and divine father. Virtually every pagan religious
practice and festivity that couldn't be suppressed or driven underground was
eventually incorporated into the rites of Gentile Christianity as it spread
across
The Lord's supper
was not invented by Paul, but was borrowed by him from Mithraism, the mystery
religion that existed long before Christianity and was Christianity's chief
competitor up until the time of
Believers in
Mithras were rewarded with eternal life. Part of the Mithraic communion liturgy
included the words, "He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood,
so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know
salvation."
Originally Mithra
was one of the lesser gods of the ancient Persian pantheon, but he came to be
regarded as the spiritual Sun, the heavenly Light, and the chief and also the
embodiment of the seven divine spirits of goodness; and already in the time of
Jesus he had risen to be co-equal with, though created by, Ormuzd
(Ahura-Mazda), the Supreme Being [J.M. Robertson, Pagan Christs, p. 290.], and Mediator between him and man
[Plutarch, /Isis et Osiris/, ch. 46; Julian, /In regem solem/, chs. 9, 10,
21.]. He appears to have lived an incarnate life on earth, and in some unknown
manner to have suffered death for the good of mankind, an image symbolizing his
resurrection being employed in his ceremonies [Tertullian, /Praescr/., ch.
40.].
Mithra was born
from a rock [Firmicus, /De errore/, xxi.; etc.], as shown in Mithraic
sculptures, being sometimes termed ''the god out of the rock'', and his worship
was always conducted in a cave; and the general belief in the early Church that
Jesus was born in a cave is a direct instance of the taking over of Mithraic ideas.
The words of Paul, "They drank of that spiritual rock ... and that rock
was Christ'' [I Corinthians x. 4.] are borrowed from the Mithraic scriptures;
for not only was Mithra "the Rock'', but one of his mythological acts,
which also appears in the acts of Moses, was the striking of the rock and the
producing of water from it which his followers eagerly drank. Justin Martyr
[Justin Martyr, /Dial. with Trypho/, ch. 70.] complains that the prophetic
words in the Book of Daniel [Daniel ii. 34.] regarding a stone which was cut
out of the rock without hands were also used in the Mithraic ritual; and it is
apparent that the great importance attached by the early Church to the supposed
words of Jesus in regard to Peter -- "Upon this rock I will build my
church" [Matthew xvi. 18.] -- was due to their approximation to the
Mithraic idea of the /Theos ek Petras/, the "God from the Rock''. Indeed,
it may be that the reason of the Vatican hill at Rome being regarded as sacred
to Peter, the Christian "Rock'', was that it was already sacred to Mithra,
for Mithraic remains have been found there.
The chief incident
of Mithra's life was his struggle with a symbolical bull, which he overpowered
and sacrificed, and from the blood of the sacrifice came the world's peace and plenty,
typified by ears of corn. The bull appears to signify the earth or mankind, and
the implication is that Mithra, like Jesus, overcame the world; but in the
early Persian writings Mithra is himself the bull [J.M. Robertson, /Pagan
Christs/, p. 298.], the god thus sacrificing himself, which is a close
approximation to the Christian idea. In later times the bull is interchangeable
with a ram; but the zodiacal ram, Aries, which is associated with Mithra, was
replaced by a lamb in the Persian zodiac [Bundahish, ii. 2.], so that it is a
lamb which is sacrificed [Garucci, /Les Myste`res du Syn. Phrygien/, p. 34.],
as in Easter concept of Jesus. That this sacrifice had originally a human
victim, and that it later involved the idea of the sacramental death of a human
being, is clear from the fact that the Church historian, Socrates, believed
that human victims were still sacrificed in the Mithraic mysteries down to some
period before A.D. 360 [Socrates, /Eccles. Hist., bk. iii., ch. 2.].
Thus the paramount
Christian idea of the sacrifice of the lamb of God was one with which every
worshipper of Mithra was familiar; and just as Mithra was an embodiment of the
seven spirits of God, so the slain Lamb in the Book of Revelation has seven
horns and seven eyes "which are the seven spirits of God'' [Revelation v.
6.]. Early writers say that a lamb was consecrated, killed, and eaten as an
Easter rite in the Church; but Easter was a Mithraic festival [Macrobius,
/Saturnalia/, i. 18.], presumably of the resurrection of their god, and the
parallel is thus complete, in which regard it is to be noted that in the
Seventh Century the Church endeavored without success to suppress the picturing
of Jesus as a lamb, owing to the paganism involved in the idea [Bingham,
/Christian Antiq./, viii. 8, sec. 11; xv. 2, sec. 3.].
The ceremonies of
purification by the sprinkling or drenching of the novice with the blood of
bulls or rams were widespread, and were to be found in the rites of Mithra. By
this purification a man was "born again" [Beugnot, /Hist. de la Dest.
Du Paganisme/, i. p. 334.], and the Christian expression "washed in the
blood of the Lamb" is undoubtedly a reflection of this idea, the reference
thus being clear in the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "It is not
possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins". In
this passage the writer goes on to say: "Having boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath
consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh ... let us draw
near ... having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies
washed with pure water" [Hebrews x. 19.]. But when we learn that the
Mithraic initiation ceremony consisted in entering boldly into a mysterious underground
"holy of holies", with the eyes veiled, and there being sprinkled
with blood, and washed with water, it is clear that the author of the Epistle
was thinking of those Mithraic rites with which everybody at that time must
have been so familiar.
Another ceremony in
the religion of Mithra was that of stepping across a channel of water, the
hands being entangled in the entrails of a bird, signifying sin, and of being
"liberated" on the other side; and this seems to be referred to by
Paul when he says: "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" [Galatians v.
1.].
Tertullian
[Tertullian, /Praescr./, ch. 40.] states that the worshippers of Mithra
practiced baptism by water, through which they were thought to be redeemed from
sin, and that the priest made a sign upon the forehead of the person baptized;
but as this was also a Christian rite, Tertullian declares that the Devil must
have effected the coincidence for his wicked ends. "The Devil'', he also
writes, "imitates even the main parts of our divine mysteries", and
"has gone about to apply to the worship of idols those very things of
which the administration of Christ's sacraments consists".
In this rite he
must be referring both to the baptismal rite and also to the Mithraic
eucharist, of which Justin Martyr [Justin Martyr, /1 Apol./, ch. 66.] had
already complained when he declared that it was Satan who had plagiarized the
ceremony, causing the worshippers of Mithra to receive the consecrated bread
and cup of water. The ceremony of eating an incarnate god's body and drinking
his blood is, of course, of very ancient and originally cannibalistic
inception, and there are several sources from which the Christian rite may be
derived, if, as most critics think, it was not instituted as an actual ceremony
by Jesus; but its connection with the Mithraic rite is the most apparent.
The worshippers of
Mithra were called "Soldiers of Mithra", which is probably the origin
of the term "Soldiers of Christ'' and of the exhortation to Christians to
"put on the armour of light" [Romans xiii. 12. Compare also Ephesians
vi. 11, 13.], Mithra being the god of Light. As in Christianity, they
recognized no social distinctions, both rich and poor, freemen and slaves,
being admitted into the Army of the Lord. Mithraism had its austerities,
typified in the severe initiation rites endured by a "Soldier of
Mithra"; and the Epistle to Timothy, similarly, exhorts the Christian to
"endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" [2 Timothy ii.
3.]. It also had its nuns and its male celibates [Tertullian, /Prascr./, ch.
40.]; and one of its main tenets was the control of the flesh and the
repudiation of the world, this being symbolized in the initiation ceremony, whereat
a crown was offered to the novice, who had to reject it, saying, as did the
Christians, that it was to a heavenly crown that he looked. We hear, too, of
hymns which could be used with equal propriety by Christians and Mithraists
alike [/Rev. Arch./, vol. xvii. (1911), p. 397.]. The Mithraic worship always
took place in caves, these being either natural or artificial. Now the early
Christians, openly and for no reasons of secrecy or security, employed those
subterranean rock chambers known as catacombs both for their burials and for
public worship. Like the Mithraic caves, these catacombs were decorated with
paintings, amongst which the subject of Moses striking the rock, which, as I
have said above, has a Mithraic parallel, is often represented. The most
frequent theme is that of Jesus as the Good Shepherd; and although it is
generally agreed that the figure of Jesus carrying a lamb is taken from the
statues of Hermes Kriophoros [Pausanias, iv. 33.], the kid-carrying god, Mithra
is sometimes shown carrying a bull across his shoulders, and Apollo, who, in
his solar aspect and as the patron of the rocks [/Hymn to the Delian Apollo./],
is to be identified with Mithra, is often called "The Good Shepherd".
At the birth of Mithra the child was adored by shepherds, who brought gifts to
him [/Encyc. Brit./, 11th ed., vol. xvii., p. 623.].
The Hebrew Sabbath
having been abolished by Christians, the Church made a sacred day of Sunday,
partly because it was the day of the resurrection, but largely because it was
the weekly festival of the sun; for it was a definite Christian policy to take
over the pagan festivals endeared to the people by tradition, and to give them
a Christian significance. But, as a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day
of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as
/Dominus/, "Lord'', Sunday must have been "the Lord's Day" long
before Christian times. December 25th was the birthday of the sun-god, and
particularly of Mithra, and was only taken over in the Fourth Century as the
date, actually unknown, of the birth of Jesus.
The head of the
Mithraic faith was called /Pater Patrum/, "Father of the Fathers",
and was seated at Rome; and similarly the head of the Church was the /Papa/, or
"Father", now known as the Pope, who was also seated at Rome. The
Pope's crown is called a tiara, but a tiara is a Persian, and hence perhaps a
Mithraic, headdress. The ancient chair preserved in the
Source:
1. http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/mithra.htm