Interesting essay on Mithras

by expatbrit 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  expatbrit

  Been doing a bit of reading on Mithras.

  This essay contains some interesting information. Count the parallels between the legends of Mithras and that of Christ.

  One of the "proofs" given to show that the gospels must be divinely inspired is that relatively simple men of the first century could not have fabricated such a powerful mythos. A simpler explanation is that they merely made use of thousands of years of pre-existing religious ideas, shaping them to fit their own needs, as follows.

  Expatbrit

  The Legend of Mithras

  We often hear about how many of the traditions, rites and symbols of modern day "Christian" holidays have their roots in paganism. Recently I came across the writing of historian Franz Cumont, who is consider by many to be the leading research authority on Roman Paganism. I was introduced to an ancient religion called Mithrasism. The following is the first in a series of articles I will be running about this and ancient paganism in subsequent issues. I have chosen this issue to begin with the story of Mithras' birth because it coincides with the Yule/Christmas season.

  I often wondered why December 25th was chosen to celebrate the birth of Christ. If the accounts in the Bible are correct, the time of Jesus birth would have been closer to mid-summer, for this is when shepherds would have been "tending their flocks in the field" and the new lambs were born. Strange enough I found an ancient pagan religion, Mithrasism, which dates back over 4,000 years that also celebrated the birth of their "saviour" on that date.

  According to the Book of Origins, the Canon of the Mithrasic faith, "the universe was created through Mithras, and Mithras was born into the world to save humanity from the attacks of the evil one, Ahriman, who was opposed to human beings. Mithras released the goodness Ahriman had stolen from humanity, and then died to the world, going to the underworld to destroy the servants of Ahriman and bind Ahriman there forever. Then He returned to the earth to teach humanity His commandments and begin Mysteries and Rites which would help humans remember His acts on our behalf. Because of His actions, we can choose good without the overwhelming power of evil, even though evil's influence can still seem powerful because our minds believe it is. Because of His teachings, we know that the purpose of our lives is to serve others in the name of Mithras." The followers refer to Him as the "Light of the World" a phrase often used also in Christian faith when referring to Christ.

  Persian legends of Mithras says that He was born of the Sun God and a virgin mother, called "the Mother of God", on December 25th. They saw him as a symbol of justice, truth, and loyalty. He was considered the saviour of humankind, and stories abound of His healing the sick, raising the dead, and performing miracles (making the blind see and the lame walk). Throughout His lifetime, He was seen as a protector of human souls, a mediator between "heaven" and "earth" and was even associated with a "holy trinity". He remained celibate,until the ripe old age of 64, throughout his life and preached the virtues of ethics, moral behavior, and good will.

  The name Mithras comes from the Persian word for contract. Mithras was the guardian of contracts, the promise keeper; keeper of the covenant with mankind. Persians believed to break a contract would lead to bad luck for the entire land.

  Ancient Persians believed in a "celestial heaven" and hell. They believed that they would be judged by their god and granted justice of "eternal salvation. On judgement day, the faithful dead would be resurrected and light would triumph over darkness. They took part in ritual purification or baptism, held Sundays sacred, drank wine and ate bread as a symbol of the body and blood and even took part in ritualistic purging (purification rites such as flagellation).

  In their legends, Mithras had an "earthly mission' to accomplish. He then was put to death on a cross and buried in a cave (some legends have Him held up in a cave to be reborn once a year).He then "rose from the dead" and took part in a last supper with his 12 disciples (often associated with the 12 signs of the zodiac) and then ascended to the heavens to watch over His "flock" from above.

  Since these legends date back over 2,000 years earlier than the legends of Christ and even earlier than some of the "ancient" religions associated with many pagan rituals, one is compelled to contemplate the origins of our traditions today.
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  ZazuWitts

  Hi Expatbrit,

  Many years ago, after exiting the Borg, I spent copious amounts of time looking into other religions, ancient legends, etc. Some kind of quest...? I remember reading much of what you posted above. Made me wonder then, and your post makes me wonder now. Hmmmmmmmm. Ty:)
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  uncle_onion

  Where did you get that info from? I need it! Can the info be verified by Museums etc?

  BTW Simon, I prefer this board to H20!

  UO

  Edited by - uncle_onion on 22 March 2001 4:14:19
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  Norm

  Hi Expatbrit,

  Very interesting material you presented. A year ago I read a book by A. N. Wilson with the title: “Paul – The mind of the Apostle” which I found very interesting.

  Paul was living in the very centre of the Mithraism worship in that part of the world, the port city of Tarsus. In the introduction to the book it says:

  Jesus was no Christian, and his friends made no effort to break away from Jesus's religion, Judaism. What we call Christianity began with a Jew from Eastern Turkey known to the world as Paul of Tarsus. It is to Paul that the world can be grateful for making the Judaeo﷓Christian inheritance to non﷓Jews.
  This book tells a story not of a man who set out to found a new religion called Christianity but of a visionary Jew who had a revolutionary idea of what it meant to be Jewish, and of what was happening to the world in his own time, during the reign of the Emperor Nero.
  Paul's ideas' were fashioned not simply by books of the Bible, but by the experience of living where and when he did. This story brings to life the places in which Paul evolved his world changing ideas. The story takes us to the newly built Hellenized Jerusalem, one of the greatest cities of the Near East; to Antioch, the cradle of Gentile Christianity; to the great trading centres of Corinth and Ephesus; to Rome itself. This is a book which combines social history with detective work in order to reconstruct the world in which Paul lived - a world of roads, superstition, trade - a world which Paul was convinced was momently coming to an end. The tension between the Roman Emperors and the Jews is the political fact which broods over a story that is many-faceted, colourful and strange.
  Paul has had many detractors, believing him to be the originator of the Christian prejudice against women and homosexuals, or the bigoted theologue who distorted the message of Jesus. This book sees a different Paul, the first of the great romantic poets, the man who made the crucified Jesus his inner light and in so doing preserved the image of Christ the Saviour for posterity.

  I must say I agree with the author in this. Christianity was undoubtedly inspired by Paul, although he had no long term plans about any church but like so many other confused believers was consumed by the idea of an imminent end of the present system.
  Anyway, in Wilson comments on Mithraism he says:

  Like any great port, Tarsus had a mixed population. The ancient writers speak of Tarseans as pirates, seafarers and worshippers of Mithras.4 It was probably Pompey's soldiers, in their Eastern campaigns, who first introduced this cult to the Roman people. It became especially popular in the army, most of whom, in the first century, were Asiatics. Archaeologists show that Tarsus was a centre of keen Mithraic worship until the downfall of the Empire. The most distinctive feature of Mithraic worship is that the initiates either drank the blood of the sacred bull or drank a chalice of wine as a symbolic representation of blood. The steer would be held over a platform and ritually slain. Under the platform stood the initiate, who would be literally bathed in the blood which dripped down from the platform. He would rub the blood in his eyes, ears and nostrils. The taurobolium as the Roman called it, like the sacred meals of other cults, symbolized the transfer of life and power. `From the blood bath, he emerged confident that his was now the invincible might of the bull." If Paul's parents were Jewish, they would have been disgusted by the idea of the cult of Mithras, since the drinking of blood is one of the most fundamental taboos in Jewish life. But for those who practised the religion of Mithras, it was a commemoration of the life﷓principle itself. From the bull slain by Herakles, for example, flowed not merely blood but life, corn, plenteousness. It symbolised the springing up of new life beyond the grave.' A. N. Wilson, “Paul – The mind of the Apostle” page. 25-26

  Paul would also have been familiar with another cult which symbolism also reminds us a lot about the Jesus cult that was to be formed later. This was the Herakles or the Hercules cult:

  Wilson says:

  The Mithraic rites and the worship of Herakles might therefore have had much in common, and it would have been perfectly possible for a citizen of Tarsus to worship at both the shrines of the bull and of his slayer.

  Any child born or brought up inTarsus could not fail to have been impressed by the great religious ceremonies which took place there in honour of Herakles. Devotions to particular gods often took localised form. Just as in later ages there was Our Lady of Lourdes and Our Lady of Fatima, so the cult of the demigod hero Herakles had its own local flavouring wherever it flourished. The Tarsean Herakles had probably begun life as a vegetation deity called Sandan, but Dio Chrysostom tells us that he was worshipped with all the honours normally accorded to Herakles. The cult owes much to the dying and rising to life again of other Mediterranean vegetation gods - the Syrian Adonis, the Babylonian Thammuz, the Egyptian Osiris.

  Every autumn in Tarsus the boy Paul would have seen the great funeral pyre at which the god was ritually burnt. The central mystery of the ritual was that the withering heat of the summer sun had brought the god to his death but that he would rise to life again in the spring, at about the time when the Jews were celebrating the Passover. From inscriptions in Tarsus we know that Herakles, in his dying and descent into Hades, was regarded as a divine saviour.

  The Tarseans worshipped saviour gods (theoi soteres). From the stories we know of Herakles, this is not surprising. In the Alkestis of Euripides, for example, Herakles volunteers to go down into `the sunless palace' of Persephone and Pluto to ask for Alkestis, the lately dead wife of his friend Admetus. The scene in which Herakles returns and hands over to Admetus the veiled and silent figure of a woman whom he does not recognise, does not dare to hope, to be his lost Alkestis, is one of the most powerful and moving in the whole of Greek tragedy. At the heart of this myth is the most primitive fear - that of death - and the most primitive hope - of immortality. Admetus asks Herakles how he brought her out of darkness and into light. The son of God (Zeus) replies, 'I joined a struggle with the Lord of Spirits', that is, with Death itself. As the Chorus concludes, the Gods manifest themselves in many different forms (pollai morphai ton daimonion).8

  Paul was to develop into a richly imaginative, but confused, religious genius who was able to draw out a mythological and archetypical significance from the death of a Jewish hero, Jesus of Nazareth. In the town where he grew up, as in all the towns of the ancient world (save Jerusalem), `the gods were not jealous . . . They insisted that they must be offered punctiliously all honours due to,them but they did not worry about what honours were paid to other gods or to men."

  It is perhaps necessary at this early stage of a story which concerns a religious genius to point out one very obvious fact about religions in the ancient world, and that is that they were mutually tolerant of one another, and that worshippers were eclectic, moving from one shrine or cult to the next without the slightest feeling of inconsistency. In twentieth century English it is possible to ask the question, `What is your religion?', expecting the answer, `I am a Presbyterian' or `I am a Moslem'. It is highly debatable whether such a sentence, with such a sense, could be translated into Latin or into Greek, for the words refgio and eusebeia do not in the imaginative worlds inhabited by Latin or Greek speakers encompass or denominate some exclusive set of values or beliefs of a kind which would be the equivalent of a modern Christian or post-Christian religion. A. N. Wilson, “Paul – The mind of the Apostle” page. 26-27.

  It seems that people was far more practical about their religion in those days. They didn’t have to slaughter each other because they worshiped the wrong God, which was such a popular pastime with the Jewish people.

  Anyway, it is pretty clear that Christendom is based on what they today call “pagan” religions and that it has a “pagan” origin, and is of course just as infested with myth and superstition as it’s contemporary but today forgotten religions. It is amazing that it has been able to keep millions living in our modern world in the same grip of superstition as those living thousands of years ago.

  Norm.
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  TheHighPriest

  Hi Expatbrit,

  There are many God characters with simmilar traits I'll only count a few I believe UB can give more examples.

  Buddha was born of the virgin Maya, who was considered the "Queen of Heaven."
  He was of royal descent.
  He crushed a serpent's head.
  He performed miracles and wonders, healed the sick, fed 500 men from a "small basket of cakes," and walked on water.
  He abolished idolatry, was a "sower of the word," and preached "the establishment of a kingdom of righteousness."
  He taught chastity, temperance, tolerance, compassion, love, and the equality of all.
  He was transfigured on a mount.
  Sakya Buddha was crucified in a sin-atonement, suffered for three days in hell, and was resurrected.
  He ascended to Nirvana or "heaven."
  Buddha was considered the "Good Shepherd", the "Carpenter", the "Infinite and Everlasting."
  He was called the "Savior of the World" and the "Light of the World.

  "Horus was born of the virgin Isis-Meri on December 25th in a cave/manger, with his birth being announced by a star in the East and attended by three wise men.
  He was a child teacher in the Temple and was baptized when he was 30 years old.
  Horus was also baptized by "Anup the Baptizer," who becomes "John the Baptist."
  He had 12 disciples.
  He performed miracles and raised one man, El-Azar-us, from the dead.
  He walked on water.
  Horus was transfigured on the Mount.
  He was crucified, buried in a tomb and resurrected.
  He was also the "Way, the Truth, the Light, the Messiah, God's Anointed Son, the Son of Man, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Word" etc.
  He was "the Fisher," and was associated with the Lamb, Lion and Fish ("Ichthys").
  Horus's personal epithet was "Iusa," the "ever-becoming son" of "Ptah," the "Father."
  Horus was called "the KRST," or "Anointed One," long before the Christians duplicated the story.

  Krishna was born of the Virgin Devaki ("Divine One")
  His father was a carpenter.
  His birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds, and he was presented with gold, frankincense and myrrh.
  He was persecuted by a tyrant who ordered the slaughter of thousands of infants.
  He was of royal descent.
  He was baptized in the River Ganges.
  He worked miracles and wonders.
  He raised the dead and healed lepers, the deaf and the blind.
  Krishna used parables to teach the people about charity and love.
  "He lived poor and he loved the poor."
  He was transfigured in front of his disciples.
  In some traditions he died on a tree or was crucified between two thieves.
  He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven.
  Krishna is called the "Shepherd God" and "Lord of lords," and was considered "the Redeemer, Firstborn, Sin Bearer, Liberator, Universal Word."
  He is the second person of the Trinity, and proclaimed himself the "Resurrection" and the "way to the Father."
  He was considered the "Beginning, the Middle and the End," ("Alpha and Omega"), as well as being omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.
  His disciples bestowed upon him the title "Jezeus," meaning "pure essence."
  Krishna is to return to do battle with the "Prince of Evil," who will desolate the earth.

  And Mithra

  Mithra was born on December 25th.
  He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.
  He had 12 companions or disciples.
  He performed miracles.
  He was buried in a tomb.
  After three days he rose again.
  His resurrection was celebrated every year.
  Mithra was called "the Good Shepherd."
  He was considered "the Way, the Truth and the Light, the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah."
  He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.
  His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.
  Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was resurrected.
  His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper."

  One wonders at the simmilarity of these characters especially since they all preceed Christ, but if you throw in the worshippers of the Sun you get these characteristics:

  The sun "dies" for three days on December 22nd, the winter solstice, when it stops in its movement south, to be born again or resurrected on December 25th, when it resumes its movement north.
  In some areas, the calendar originally began in the constellation of Virgo, and the sun would therefore be "born of a Virgin."
  The sun is the "Light of the World."
  The sun "cometh on clouds, and every eye shall see him."
  The sun rising in the morning is the "Savior of mankind."
  The sun wears a corona, "crown of thorns" or halo.
  The sun "walks on water."
  The sun's "followers," "helpers" or "disciples" are the 12 months and the 12 signs of the zodiac or constellations, through which the sun must pass.
  The sun at 12 noon is in the house or temple of the "Most High"; thus, "he" begins "his Father's work" at "age" 12.
  The sun enters into each sign of the zodiac at 30°; hence, the "Sun of God" begins his ministry at "age" 30.
  The sun is hung on a cross or "crucified," which represents its passing through the equinoxes, the vernal equinox being Easter, at which time it is then resurrected.

  It's all very facinating alright.

  THP

  http://www.truthbeknown.com/origins.htm
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  ShaunaC

  Thanks all for posting this info. Very Fascinating!

  Do know of any books which discuss the similarities of all these legends to the story of Christ in the Bible?

  Thanks,
  Shauna
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  Tina

  wow expat Interesting stuff! And great replies!!!
  (Putting on my thinking cap Class),thanks,Tina