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Author: NOVO
Last Updated November 6th, 2003
Updated June 15th, 2001
Mithra
(Mitra)
When the Aryan Sun God Barun is mentioned, he is mentioned with Mithra. Mithra is also the Sun God of the Aryans. Mithra and Barun seem to be twin concepts. Both Indian and Persian Aryans worshipped Mithra and Varuna, but with varying degree of importance. The Persians worshipped Mithra, called Ahura Mithra, as the chief deity and Varuna was the chief deity of the Indian Aryans. Other Aryan tribes even further west, as the Mittani, also worshipped Indrah, Varuna (Barun) and Mitra (Mithra). Today the name Mithra is forgotten and so is his religion. However, it may be that, Mithra quietly survives through one of the largest religions, incognito.
Mithra’s earliest record comes from the Vedas and the Persian Litterature from about 1400 BC. Today these ancient Gods have lost their place as supreme deities. In India, the Aryans after a period of demonizing Shiva (Shib) accepted Shiva as their chief God and in ancient Persia, when Zoroastrianism became the dominant religion, Mithra was relegated. Ahura Mithra in the holy book of Zeroastrians is a minor God with a minor function.
However, Mithra religion did not die with the disappearance of Mithraism in Persia. It simply migrated. Mithraists fled from Persia and took with them their faith to different lands. The greatest and longest lasting impact of this exodus was on Rome. In the first century B.C. Mithraism was introduced to Rome and became very popular as the cult of the “Sol Invictus”, which means the invincible Sun.
A most interesting thing is that Mithra’s story is very similar to that of Jesus and Mithra is older. Mithra was born of a virgin in a stable attended by shepherds on the winter solstice – which was quite often on the 25th of December in the Julian calendar. In 270 A.D. Emperor Aurelian even officially had declared 25th December to be the birthday of Mithra.
Mithraists believed that Mithra had not died but had ascended to heaven and would return at the end of time when the world would be destroyed by fire to physically resurrect the dead for a final judgement. The good would be sent to heaven and the bad to hell.
The similarity to the Christian belief and tradition is uncanny. Christians believe that Jesus was born on the 25th of December in a stable and that his mother, Mary, was a virgin. This date for Jesus’ birthday was fixed much later in 313 A.D. by Emperor Constantine, who was a follower of Mithra when he adopted the cult of Christianity as the state religion for Rome.
Being the Sun God, Mithra was worshipped on Sundays. That was their day of rest. Original Christians worshipped on Saturdays keeping the Israeli tradition. Constantine also changed the Christian weekly holy day from Saturday to Sunday.
The most interesting similarity is that the Mithra religion was ruled from the Vatican Hill by a leader called Papa (Pope). There are other startling similarities. Like Jesus, Mithra was worshipped as the saviour who granted his followers immortal life following baptism. On Sundays the followers of Mithra celebrated sacramenta which was a consecrated meal of bread and wine and was called Myazda which is exactly the same as the Catholic Missa (Mass). They used bells, candles, incense, and holy water for this. And this was in remembrance of the last supper of Mithra!
Another great similarity is in what is believed about the bread and wine. At the last supper Jesus said that salvation is for those who eat the flesh (bread) and blood (wine) of Jesus. Mithra supposedly said something quite the same: those who did not eat his flesh (bread) and drink his blood (wine) would not know salvation.
Many of the Christian traditions that are almost identical to Mithraism do not even have any roots in the Bible. These traditions and beliefs of Mithraism were exclusive to Mithraism until the fourth century A.D. and were not part of Christianity. These similarities are more than coincidence as Constantine directly added some of the Mithra traditions to Christianity.
Had Constantine amalgamated the two religions, Mithraism and the Jesus’s religion, into one Christian religion? The survival of so many elements of Mithraism through Christianity and the changes made by Constantine clearly suggest this. The making of Sunday as the sacred day and keeping the mass (Sunday service) and appointing the 25th of December, Mithra’s birthday as Jesus’ and most importantly, making the pope the head of the Christian church certainly points to amalgamation. (It is said that the garb of the pope comes from before Christianity.)
Through these moves Constantine guaranteed the survival of Mithraism and worship of Mithra. The ancient Aryan Sun God survives even today. Christianity is his vessel and Christians follow Mithra quite unaware of the fact. He just has a new heritage and lineage of the Jewish persuasion and a new name: Jesus.
Sources:
Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (1903)
M. J. Vermaseren, Mithras, the Secret God (1963)
David Ulansey, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries (1989)
http://www.atheist-community.org/mithra.htm
http://web.infoave.net/~toolong/solinvictus.html
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Basic Hindu Concepts by NOVO
Written in May, 2000
Last Updated August 3rd, 2000
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2008/10/11
Neo Pagan Mithraism
Read only the posted articles.
If you wish to click to linked pages,save this blog in your bookmark and return from your bookmark to this blog
IN CELEBRATION OF MITHRAS GOD OF THE LIGHT ALSO KNOWN AS "THE SOL INVICTUS - THE INVINCIBLE SUN"
INTRODUCTION TO MITHRAISM
"I would be lying if I affirmed that the strong affinity for my personal philosophical creed with Neo-Platonism was due to the study of the doctrine itself, I can say that I was “born” with a similar vision. Next to my philosophical-metaphysical creed, I believe, there was missing a fundamental pillar. It is safe to say that what was lacking was an official ancient religion that would represent the philosophical-cosmic aspects of Neo-Platonism and in general ancient Pagan culture. Having been born in Rome, I was greatly perplexed about the lack of a unique religion in Roman paganism. It was frustrating to think that an Empire so large, potent and revolutionary, like the Roman Empire, was composed of various sparse and diverse cults in such vast territory, without a peculiar belief. To me this was nonsense, something else more needed to be.
Therefore my spiritual search continued incessantly during my adolescent years. This search led me to India where I spent various years of my youth, although I had undeniable and deep mystic inner experiences, I still had to find an adequate place for my spiritual creed and a satisfactory answer to my question on the metaphysical nature of things and God. Among the discovery of the Indu Gods pantheon and multiple philosophies, my thoughts, as in an obstinate loop, continued to show me the vague nature of this universe and God. In India I arrived at the top of my spiritual search, landing at the harsh shore of "Advaita Vedanta", the pure metaphysical doctrine of Shankara.
Like Shankara, I was fully convinced that mayan reality was surely a real-surreal manifestation, however experienced as real through the senses but also illusory given its relative and temporary nature.
Still, something continued to pull me towards a different goal. I would return to Italy without certainty and involved in a metaphysical doubt : Is matter and its realm of existence an illusory kingdom and deceptive, that should be transcended and avoided carefully ?
The revolutionary answer, above all, was very close to me, it was located exactly under my feet, in my native city, buried in the underground of Rome and hidden in the penumbra-shadow of the secular and compliant silence of the Roman Catholicism. Mithraism was brutally covered up by the Christian repression and cancelled from history, when the early Christian Emperors of the Roman Empire built the Christian Churches over the Mitraic Temples with stolen pagan marble. It was there that “Solar Logos” under the identity of the “Sol Invictus” continuously celebrated his eternal ritual surrounded by the underground silence and forgotten by the masses.
I will never forget my surprise when exploring the underground-subterranean in Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port of Rome, I found myself in a small underground temple, in front of the statue of a young triumphant God in the act of symbolically sacrificing a bull that lay as if hypnotized at the God’s feet ; It was my first encounter with Mithras the official God of the Roman Empire religion : Mithraism.
And with it, the reply to the question-dilemma arrived magically : matter and spirit are united indissolubly in an alchemical and eternal cosmic merger !
A pagan Mithraic message : One should celebrate his incarnation in this life, while looking at the spiritual attainments that are expected in the afterlife …
That is, in my opinion, the essence of Roman Mithraism, harmonizing the "vertical" ascension of the anima-soul to the One-God with the celebration of the "horizontal" material plane, that still a manifestation-emanation of the One-God, now incarnated and differentiated in the matter.
Therefore Mithraism was the great official religion of the Roman Empire, its propagation in every part of the empire is proven by the many underground Mithraic temples, called Mithraeum that can be found abundantly in Europe, Africa and Asia minor. Little do we know of this religion, we know that it was a Solar cult prevalently mysterious possessing strong symbolic cosmic content. In its secret initiations it would stress discipline, courage, and no material attachment to its affiliates, that were of any social class: slaves, soldiers, merchants, emperors, they were all equal in front of Mithras.
Nevertheless because of the ruthless and widespread repressions caused by the first Christian emperors of the falling Roman Empire, Mithraism found itself practically robbed of it’s documents and church-temples. So much so that our perception and vision of Mithraism is surely limited, incomplete and blurry. It is almost as if Christianity would suddenly disappear with all of its documents, doctrines and we would find ourselves in a remote future seeing Christian churches and cathedrals without knowing exactly what they really represented.
Although absurd, this is what really happened to Mithraism, that was the Christianism of that time !
We were deprived of the religion of our fathers, if we consider the Roman Empire in its vastness comprised a great part of the world of that time.
It would be interesting then to reconstruct on the basis of what we know, what was the great religion that preceded and shaped Christianity.
Recognize that using the symbols and rituals of Mithraism Jesus Christ, and then the apostle San Paolo of Tarso ( port of Asia Minor, center of excellence of the Roman Mithraism at the time ) shaped and built the new emerging Christian religion.
The parallels are so impressive and evident that I believe that Christianity is not only built on Mithraism, but actually it's mainly Mithraism added with a revolutionary emphasis on love among beings.
Therefore it seems to rebirth in Christ the Mithraic hero in which not only shines the light of “Sol Invictus” as pure cosmic energy, but also the new revolutionary power of Christ's love.
Unfortunately we do not know what elements were cancelled from Mithraism, and for love of the truth in order to render justice to this veil of silence over Mithraism I wish to attempt to revive this ancient religion, to penetrate in its mysteries ....
It is time to return to the first Mithraic “churches”, the cosmic temples of our ancestors, to re-illuminate the Pagan torch of the divine Mithraism."
– PR Los Angeles / Oct / 2007
neopagan.com © All rights reserved - 2007
IN CELEBRATION OF MITHRAS GOD OF THE LIGHT ALSO KNOWN AS "THE SOL INVICTUS - THE INVINCIBLE SUN"
INTRODUCTION TO MITHRAISM
"I would be lying if I affirmed that the strong affinity for my personal philosophical creed with Neo-Platonism was due to the study of the doctrine itself, I can say that I was “born” with a similar vision. Next to my philosophical-metaphysical creed, I believe, there was missing a fundamental pillar. It is safe to say that what was lacking was an official ancient religion that would represent the philosophical-cosmic aspects of Neo-Platonism and in general ancient Pagan culture. Having been born in Rome, I was greatly perplexed about the lack of a unique religion in Roman paganism. It was frustrating to think that an Empire so large, potent and revolutionary, like the Roman Empire, was composed of various sparse and diverse cults in such vast territory, without a peculiar belief. To me this was nonsense, something else more needed to be.
Therefore my spiritual search continued incessantly during my adolescent years. This search led me to India where I spent various years of my youth, although I had undeniable and deep mystic inner experiences, I still had to find an adequate place for my spiritual creed and a satisfactory answer to my question on the metaphysical nature of things and God. Among the discovery of the Indu Gods pantheon and multiple philosophies, my thoughts, as in an obstinate loop, continued to show me the vague nature of this universe and God. In India I arrived at the top of my spiritual search, landing at the harsh shore of "Advaita Vedanta", the pure metaphysical doctrine of Shankara.
Like Shankara, I was fully convinced that mayan reality was surely a real-surreal manifestation, however experienced as real through the senses but also illusory given its relative and temporary nature.
Still, something continued to pull me towards a different goal. I would return to Italy without certainty and involved in a metaphysical doubt : Is matter and its realm of existence an illusory kingdom and deceptive, that should be transcended and avoided carefully ?
The revolutionary answer, above all, was very close to me, it was located exactly under my feet, in my native city, buried in the underground of Rome and hidden in the penumbra-shadow of the secular and compliant silence of the Roman Catholicism. Mithraism was brutally covered up by the Christian repression and cancelled from history, when the early Christian Emperors of the Roman Empire built the Christian Churches over the Mitraic Temples with stolen pagan marble. It was there that “Solar Logos” under the identity of the “Sol Invictus” continuously celebrated his eternal ritual surrounded by the underground silence and forgotten by the masses.
I will never forget my surprise when exploring the underground-subterranean in Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port of Rome, I found myself in a small underground temple, in front of the statue of a young triumphant God in the act of symbolically sacrificing a bull that lay as if hypnotized at the God’s feet ; It was my first encounter with Mithras the official God of the Roman Empire religion : Mithraism.
And with it, the reply to the question-dilemma arrived magically : matter and spirit are united indissolubly in an alchemical and eternal cosmic merger !
A pagan Mithraic message : One should celebrate his incarnation in this life, while looking at the spiritual attainments that are expected in the afterlife …
That is, in my opinion, the essence of Roman Mithraism, harmonizing the "vertical" ascension of the anima-soul to the One-God with the celebration of the "horizontal" material plane, that still a manifestation-emanation of the One-God, now incarnated and differentiated in the matter.
Therefore Mithraism was the great official religion of the Roman Empire, its propagation in every part of the empire is proven by the many underground Mithraic temples, called Mithraeum that can be found abundantly in Europe, Africa and Asia minor. Little do we know of this religion, we know that it was a Solar cult prevalently mysterious possessing strong symbolic cosmic content. In its secret initiations it would stress discipline, courage, and no material attachment to its affiliates, that were of any social class: slaves, soldiers, merchants, emperors, they were all equal in front of Mithras.
Nevertheless because of the ruthless and widespread repressions caused by the first Christian emperors of the falling Roman Empire, Mithraism found itself practically robbed of it’s documents and church-temples. So much so that our perception and vision of Mithraism is surely limited, incomplete and blurry. It is almost as if Christianity would suddenly disappear with all of its documents, doctrines and we would find ourselves in a remote future seeing Christian churches and cathedrals without knowing exactly what they really represented.
Although absurd, this is what really happened to Mithraism, that was the Christianism of that time !
We were deprived of the religion of our fathers, if we consider the Roman Empire in its vastness comprised a great part of the world of that time.
It would be interesting then to reconstruct on the basis of what we know, what was the great religion that preceded and shaped Christianity.
Recognize that using the symbols and rituals of Mithraism Jesus Christ, and then the apostle San Paolo of Tarso ( port of Asia Minor, center of excellence of the Roman Mithraism at the time ) shaped and built the new emerging Christian religion.
The parallels are so impressive and evident that I believe that Christianity is not only built on Mithraism, but actually it's mainly Mithraism added with a revolutionary emphasis on love among beings.
Therefore it seems to rebirth in Christ the Mithraic hero in which not only shines the light of “Sol Invictus” as pure cosmic energy, but also the new revolutionary power of Christ's love.
Unfortunately we do not know what elements were cancelled from Mithraism, and for love of the truth in order to render justice to this veil of silence over Mithraism I wish to attempt to revive this ancient religion, to penetrate in its mysteries ....
It is time to return to the first Mithraic “churches”, the cosmic temples of our ancestors, to re-illuminate the Pagan torch of the divine Mithraism."
– PR Los Angeles / Oct / 2007
neopagan.com © All rights reserved - 2007
If you wish to click to linked pages,save this blog in your bookmark and return from your bookmark to this blog
IN CELEBRATION OF MITHRAS GOD OF THE LIGHT ALSO KNOWN AS "THE SOL INVICTUS - THE INVINCIBLE SUN"
INTRODUCTION TO MITHRAISM
"I would be lying if I affirmed that the strong affinity for my personal philosophical creed with Neo-Platonism was due to the study of the doctrine itself, I can say that I was “born” with a similar vision. Next to my philosophical-metaphysical creed, I believe, there was missing a fundamental pillar. It is safe to say that what was lacking was an official ancient religion that would represent the philosophical-cosmic aspects of Neo-Platonism and in general ancient Pagan culture. Having been born in Rome, I was greatly perplexed about the lack of a unique religion in Roman paganism. It was frustrating to think that an Empire so large, potent and revolutionary, like the Roman Empire, was composed of various sparse and diverse cults in such vast territory, without a peculiar belief. To me this was nonsense, something else more needed to be.
Therefore my spiritual search continued incessantly during my adolescent years. This search led me to India where I spent various years of my youth, although I had undeniable and deep mystic inner experiences, I still had to find an adequate place for my spiritual creed and a satisfactory answer to my question on the metaphysical nature of things and God. Among the discovery of the Indu Gods pantheon and multiple philosophies, my thoughts, as in an obstinate loop, continued to show me the vague nature of this universe and God. In India I arrived at the top of my spiritual search, landing at the harsh shore of "Advaita Vedanta", the pure metaphysical doctrine of Shankara.
Like Shankara, I was fully convinced that mayan reality was surely a real-surreal manifestation, however experienced as real through the senses but also illusory given its relative and temporary nature.
Still, something continued to pull me towards a different goal. I would return to Italy without certainty and involved in a metaphysical doubt : Is matter and its realm of existence an illusory kingdom and deceptive, that should be transcended and avoided carefully ?
The revolutionary answer, above all, was very close to me, it was located exactly under my feet, in my native city, buried in the underground of Rome and hidden in the penumbra-shadow of the secular and compliant silence of the Roman Catholicism. Mithraism was brutally covered up by the Christian repression and cancelled from history, when the early Christian Emperors of the Roman Empire built the Christian Churches over the Mitraic Temples with stolen pagan marble. It was there that “Solar Logos” under the identity of the “Sol Invictus” continuously celebrated his eternal ritual surrounded by the underground silence and forgotten by the masses.
I will never forget my surprise when exploring the underground-subterranean in Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port of Rome, I found myself in a small underground temple, in front of the statue of a young triumphant God in the act of symbolically sacrificing a bull that lay as if hypnotized at the God’s feet ; It was my first encounter with Mithras the official God of the Roman Empire religion : Mithraism.
And with it, the reply to the question-dilemma arrived magically : matter and spirit are united indissolubly in an alchemical and eternal cosmic merger !
A pagan Mithraic message : One should celebrate his incarnation in this life, while looking at the spiritual attainments that are expected in the afterlife …
That is, in my opinion, the essence of Roman Mithraism, harmonizing the "vertical" ascension of the anima-soul to the One-God with the celebration of the "horizontal" material plane, that still a manifestation-emanation of the One-God, now incarnated and differentiated in the matter.
Therefore Mithraism was the great official religion of the Roman Empire, its propagation in every part of the empire is proven by the many underground Mithraic temples, called Mithraeum that can be found abundantly in Europe, Africa and Asia minor. Little do we know of this religion, we know that it was a Solar cult prevalently mysterious possessing strong symbolic cosmic content. In its secret initiations it would stress discipline, courage, and no material attachment to its affiliates, that were of any social class: slaves, soldiers, merchants, emperors, they were all equal in front of Mithras.
Nevertheless because of the ruthless and widespread repressions caused by the first Christian emperors of the falling Roman Empire, Mithraism found itself practically robbed of it’s documents and church-temples. So much so that our perception and vision of Mithraism is surely limited, incomplete and blurry. It is almost as if Christianity would suddenly disappear with all of its documents, doctrines and we would find ourselves in a remote future seeing Christian churches and cathedrals without knowing exactly what they really represented.
Although absurd, this is what really happened to Mithraism, that was the Christianism of that time !
We were deprived of the religion of our fathers, if we consider the Roman Empire in its vastness comprised a great part of the world of that time.
It would be interesting then to reconstruct on the basis of what we know, what was the great religion that preceded and shaped Christianity.
Recognize that using the symbols and rituals of Mithraism Jesus Christ, and then the apostle San Paolo of Tarso ( port of Asia Minor, center of excellence of the Roman Mithraism at the time ) shaped and built the new emerging Christian religion.
The parallels are so impressive and evident that I believe that Christianity is not only built on Mithraism, but actually it's mainly Mithraism added with a revolutionary emphasis on love among beings.
Therefore it seems to rebirth in Christ the Mithraic hero in which not only shines the light of “Sol Invictus” as pure cosmic energy, but also the new revolutionary power of Christ's love.
Unfortunately we do not know what elements were cancelled from Mithraism, and for love of the truth in order to render justice to this veil of silence over Mithraism I wish to attempt to revive this ancient religion, to penetrate in its mysteries ....
It is time to return to the first Mithraic “churches”, the cosmic temples of our ancestors, to re-illuminate the Pagan torch of the divine Mithraism."
– PR Los Angeles / Oct / 2007
neopagan.com © All rights reserved - 2007
IN CELEBRATION OF MITHRAS GOD OF THE LIGHT ALSO KNOWN AS "THE SOL INVICTUS - THE INVINCIBLE SUN"
INTRODUCTION TO MITHRAISM
"I would be lying if I affirmed that the strong affinity for my personal philosophical creed with Neo-Platonism was due to the study of the doctrine itself, I can say that I was “born” with a similar vision. Next to my philosophical-metaphysical creed, I believe, there was missing a fundamental pillar. It is safe to say that what was lacking was an official ancient religion that would represent the philosophical-cosmic aspects of Neo-Platonism and in general ancient Pagan culture. Having been born in Rome, I was greatly perplexed about the lack of a unique religion in Roman paganism. It was frustrating to think that an Empire so large, potent and revolutionary, like the Roman Empire, was composed of various sparse and diverse cults in such vast territory, without a peculiar belief. To me this was nonsense, something else more needed to be.
Therefore my spiritual search continued incessantly during my adolescent years. This search led me to India where I spent various years of my youth, although I had undeniable and deep mystic inner experiences, I still had to find an adequate place for my spiritual creed and a satisfactory answer to my question on the metaphysical nature of things and God. Among the discovery of the Indu Gods pantheon and multiple philosophies, my thoughts, as in an obstinate loop, continued to show me the vague nature of this universe and God. In India I arrived at the top of my spiritual search, landing at the harsh shore of "Advaita Vedanta", the pure metaphysical doctrine of Shankara.
Like Shankara, I was fully convinced that mayan reality was surely a real-surreal manifestation, however experienced as real through the senses but also illusory given its relative and temporary nature.
Still, something continued to pull me towards a different goal. I would return to Italy without certainty and involved in a metaphysical doubt : Is matter and its realm of existence an illusory kingdom and deceptive, that should be transcended and avoided carefully ?
The revolutionary answer, above all, was very close to me, it was located exactly under my feet, in my native city, buried in the underground of Rome and hidden in the penumbra-shadow of the secular and compliant silence of the Roman Catholicism. Mithraism was brutally covered up by the Christian repression and cancelled from history, when the early Christian Emperors of the Roman Empire built the Christian Churches over the Mitraic Temples with stolen pagan marble. It was there that “Solar Logos” under the identity of the “Sol Invictus” continuously celebrated his eternal ritual surrounded by the underground silence and forgotten by the masses.
I will never forget my surprise when exploring the underground-subterranean in Ostia Antica, the ancient Roman port of Rome, I found myself in a small underground temple, in front of the statue of a young triumphant God in the act of symbolically sacrificing a bull that lay as if hypnotized at the God’s feet ; It was my first encounter with Mithras the official God of the Roman Empire religion : Mithraism.
And with it, the reply to the question-dilemma arrived magically : matter and spirit are united indissolubly in an alchemical and eternal cosmic merger !
A pagan Mithraic message : One should celebrate his incarnation in this life, while looking at the spiritual attainments that are expected in the afterlife …
That is, in my opinion, the essence of Roman Mithraism, harmonizing the "vertical" ascension of the anima-soul to the One-God with the celebration of the "horizontal" material plane, that still a manifestation-emanation of the One-God, now incarnated and differentiated in the matter.
Therefore Mithraism was the great official religion of the Roman Empire, its propagation in every part of the empire is proven by the many underground Mithraic temples, called Mithraeum that can be found abundantly in Europe, Africa and Asia minor. Little do we know of this religion, we know that it was a Solar cult prevalently mysterious possessing strong symbolic cosmic content. In its secret initiations it would stress discipline, courage, and no material attachment to its affiliates, that were of any social class: slaves, soldiers, merchants, emperors, they were all equal in front of Mithras.
Nevertheless because of the ruthless and widespread repressions caused by the first Christian emperors of the falling Roman Empire, Mithraism found itself practically robbed of it’s documents and church-temples. So much so that our perception and vision of Mithraism is surely limited, incomplete and blurry. It is almost as if Christianity would suddenly disappear with all of its documents, doctrines and we would find ourselves in a remote future seeing Christian churches and cathedrals without knowing exactly what they really represented.
Although absurd, this is what really happened to Mithraism, that was the Christianism of that time !
We were deprived of the religion of our fathers, if we consider the Roman Empire in its vastness comprised a great part of the world of that time.
It would be interesting then to reconstruct on the basis of what we know, what was the great religion that preceded and shaped Christianity.
Recognize that using the symbols and rituals of Mithraism Jesus Christ, and then the apostle San Paolo of Tarso ( port of Asia Minor, center of excellence of the Roman Mithraism at the time ) shaped and built the new emerging Christian religion.
The parallels are so impressive and evident that I believe that Christianity is not only built on Mithraism, but actually it's mainly Mithraism added with a revolutionary emphasis on love among beings.
Therefore it seems to rebirth in Christ the Mithraic hero in which not only shines the light of “Sol Invictus” as pure cosmic energy, but also the new revolutionary power of Christ's love.
Unfortunately we do not know what elements were cancelled from Mithraism, and for love of the truth in order to render justice to this veil of silence over Mithraism I wish to attempt to revive this ancient religion, to penetrate in its mysteries ....
It is time to return to the first Mithraic “churches”, the cosmic temples of our ancestors, to re-illuminate the Pagan torch of the divine Mithraism."
– PR Los Angeles / Oct / 2007
neopagan.com © All rights reserved - 2007
The Catholic University of Missoury -Mithraism
Read only the posted articles.
If you wish to click to linked pages,save this blog in your bookmark and return from your bookmark to this blog
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Mithraism
Pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra
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Mithraism. A pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra. It entered Europe from Asia Minor after Alexander's conquest, spread rapidly over the whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repres-ive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. Of late the researches of Cumont have brought it into prominence mainly because of its supposed similarity to Christianity.
ORIGIN. The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god Mithra occurs in the religion and the sacred books of both races, i.e. in the Vedas and in the Avesta. In Vedic hymns he is frequently mentioned and is nearly always coupled with Varuna, but beyond the bare occurrence of his name, little is known of him; only one, possibly two, hymns are dedicated to him (Rigveda, III, 59). It is conjectured (Oldenberg, "Die Religion des Veda," Berlin, 1894) that Mithra was the rising sun, Varuna the setting sun; or, Mithra, the sky at daytime, Varuna, the sky at night; or, the one the sun, the other the moon. In any case Mithra is a light or solar deity of some sort; but in Vedic times the vague and general mention of him seems to indicate that his name was little more than a memory. In the Avesta he is much more of a living and ruling deity than in Indian piety; nevertheless, he is not only secondary to Ahura Mazda, but he does not belong to the seven Amshaspands or personified virtues which immediately surround Ahura; he is but a Yazad, a popular demigod or genius. The Avesta however gives us his position only after the Zoroastrian reformation; the inscriptions of the Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century B.C.) assign him a much higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis (Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithra is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water. Independently of the Zoroastrian reform, Mithra retained his place as foremost deity in the northwest of the Iranian highlands. After the conquest of Babylon this Persian cult came into contact with Chaldean astrology and with the national worship of Marduk. For a time the two priesthoods of Mithra and Marduk (magi and chaldiei respectively) coexisted in the capital and Mithraism borrowed much from this intercourse. This modified Mithraism travelled farther northwestward and became the State cult of Armenia. Its rulers, anxious to claim descent from the glorious kings of the past, adopted Mithradates as their royal name (so five kings of Georgia, and Eupator of the Bosporus). Mithraism then entered Asia Minor, especially Pontus and Cappadocia. Here it came into contact with the Phrygian cult of Attis and Cybele from which it adopted a number of ideas and practices, though apparently not the gross obscenities of the Phrygian worship. This Phrygian-Chaldean-Indo-Iranian religion, in which the Iranian element remained predominant, came, after Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western World. Hellenism, however, and especially Greece itself, remained remarkably free from its influence. When finally the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum, occupied Asia Minor and stationed two legions of soldiers on the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism in the West was secured. It spread rapidly from the Bosporus to the Atlantic, from Illyria to Britain. Its foremost apostles were the legionaries; hence it spread first to the frontier stations of the Roman army.
Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion: Mithra, its hero, was especialiy a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and bravery; the stress it laid on good-fellowship and brotherliness, its exclusion of women, and the secret bond amongst its members have suggested the idea that Mithraism was Masonry amongst the Roman soldiery. At the same time Eastern slaves and foreign tradesmen maintained its propaganda in the cities. When magi, coming from King Tiridates of Armenia, had worshipped in Nero an emanation of Mithra, the emperor wished to be initiated in their mysteries. As Mithraism passed as a Phrygian cult it began to share in the official recognition which Phrygian worship had long enjoyed in Rome. The Emperor Commodus was publicly initiated. Its greatest devotee however was the imperial son of a priestess of the sun-god at Sirmium in Pannonia, Valerian, who according to the testimony of Flavius Vopiscus, never forgot the cave where his mother initiated him. In Rome, he established a college of sun priests and his coins bear the legend "Sol, Dominus Imperii Romani". Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius built at Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra with the dedication: "Fautori Imperii Sui". But with the triumph of Christianity Mithraism came to a sudden end. Under Julian it had with other pagan cults a short revival. The pagans of Alexandria lynched George the Arian, bishop of the city, for attempting to build a church over a Mithras cave near the town. The laws of Theodosius I signed its death warrant. The magi walled up their sacred caves; and Mithra has no martyrs to rival the martyrs who died for Christ.
DOCTRINE. The first principle or highest God was according to Mithraism "Infinite Time"; this was called Greek: Aion or Saeculum, Greek: Kronos or Saturnus. This Kronos is none other than Zervan, an ancient Iranian conception, which survived the sharp dualism of Zoroaster; for Zervan was father of both Ormuzd and Ahriman and connected the two opposites in a higher unity and was still worshipped a thousand years later by the Manichees. This personified Time, ineffable, sexless, passionless, was represented by a human monster, with the head of a lion and a serpent coiled about his body. He carried a scepter and lightning as sovereign god and held in each hand a key as master of the heavens. He had two pair of wings to symbolize the swiftness of time. His body was covered with zodiacal signs and the emblems of the seasons (i.e. Chaldean astrology combined with Zervanism). This first principle begat Heaven and Earth, which in turn begat their son and equal, Ocean. As in the European legend, Heaven or Jupiter (Oromasdes) succeeds Kronos. Earth is the Spenta Armaiti of the Persians or the Juno of the Westerns, Ocean is Apam-Napat or Neptune. The Persian names were not forgotten, though the Greek and Roman ones were habitually used. Ahura Mazda and Spefita Armaiti gave birth to a great number of lesser deities and heroes: Artagnes (Hercules), Sharevar (Mars), Atar (Vulcan), Anaitis (Cybele), and so on. On the other hand there was Pluto, or Ahriman, also begotten of Infinite Time. This Incarnate Evil rose with the army of darkness to attack and dethrone Oromasdes. They were however thrown back into hell, whence they escape, wander over the face of the earth and afflict man. It is man's duty to worship the four simple elements, water and fire, air and earth, which in the main are man's friends. The seven planets likewise were beneficent deities. The souls of men, which were all created together from the beginning and which at birth had but to descend from the empyrean heaven to the bodies prepared for them, received from the seven planets their passions and characteristics. Hence the seven days of the week were dedicated to the planets, seven metals were sacred to them, seven rites of initiation were made to perfect the Mithraist, and so on. As evil spirits ever lie in wait for hapless man, he needs a friend and savior who is Mithra. Mithra was born of a mother-rock by a river under a tree. He came into the world with the Phrian cap on his head (hence his designation as Pileatus, the Capped One), and a knife in his hand. It is said that shepherds watched his birth, but how this could be, considering there were no men on earth, is not explained. The hero-god first gives battle to the sun, conquers him, crowns him with rays and makes him his eternal friend and fellow; nay, the sun becomes in sense Mithra's double, or again his father, but Greek: `Hlios Mithras is one god. Then follows the struggle between Mithra and the bull, the central dogma of Mithraism. Ahura Mazda had created a wild bull which Mithra pursued, overcame, and dragged into his cave. This wearisome journey with the struggling bull towards the cave is the symbol of man's troubles on earth. Unfortunately, the bull escapes from the cave, whereupon Ahura Mazda sends a crow with a message to Mithra to find and slay it. Mithra reluctantly obeys, and plunges his dagger into the bull as it returns to the cave. Strange to say, from the body of the dying bull proceed all wholesome plants and herbs that cover the earth, from his spinal marrow the corn, from his blood the vine, etc. The power of evil sends his unclean creatures to prevent or poison these productions but in vain. From the bull pro teed all useful animals, and the bull, resigning itself to death, is transported to the heavenly spheres. Man is now created and subjected to the malign in influence of Ahriman in the form of droughts, deluges, and conflagrations, but is saved by Mithra. Finally man is well established on earth and Mithra returns to heaven. He celebrates a last supper with Helios and his other companions, is taken in his fiery chariot across the ocean, and now in heaven protects his followers. For the struggle between good and evil con tinues in heaven between the planets and stars, and on earth in the heart of man. Mithra is the Mediator (Greek: Mesites) between God and man. This function first arose from the fact that as the light-god he is supposed to float midway between the upper heaven and the earth. Likewise a sun-god, his planet was supposed to hold the central place amongst the seven planets. The moral aspect of his mediation between god and man cannot be proven to be ancient. As Mazdean dualists the Mithraists were strongly inclined towards asceticism: abstention from food and absolute continence seemed to them noble and praiseworthy, though not obligatory. They battled on Mithra's side against all impurity, against all evil within and without. They believed in the immortality of the soul; sinners after death were dragged to hell; the just passed through the seven spheres of the planets, through seven gates opening at a mystic word to Ahura Mazda, leaving at each planet a part of their lower humanity until, as pure spirits, they stood before God. At the end of the world Mithra will descend to earth on another bull, which he will sacrifice, and mixing its fat with sacred wine he will make all drink the beverage of immortality. He will thus have proved himself Nabarses, i.e."never conquered".WORSHIP., there were seven degrees of initiation into the Mithraic mysteries. The consecrated one (mystes) became in succession crow (corax), occult (cryphius), soldier (miles), lion (leo), Persian (Perses), solar messenger (heliodromos), and father (pater). On solemn occasionsthey wore a garb appropriate to their name and uttered sounds or performed a gestures in keeping with what they personified. "Some flap their wings as birds imitating the sound of a crow, others roar as lions", says Pseudo-Augustine (Quaest. Vet. N. Test. in P.L., XXXIV, 2214). Crows, occults and soldiers formed the lower orders, a sort of catechumens; lions and those admitted to the other degrees were participants of the mysteries. The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called "Pater Patrum" or "Pater Patratus." The members below the degree of pater called one another "brother," and social distinctions were forgotten in Mithraic unity. The ceremonies of initiation for each degree must have been elaborate, but they are only vaguely known lustrations and bathings, branding with red hot metal, anointing with honey, and others. A sacred meal was celebrated of bread and haoma juice for which in the West wine was substituted. This meal was supposed to give the participants supernatural virtue. The Mithraists worshipped in caves, of which a large number have been found. There were five at Ostia alone, but they were small and could perhaps hold at most 200 persons. In the apse of the cave stood the stone representation of Mithra slaying the bull, a piece of sculpture usually of mediocre artistic merit and always made after the same Pergamean model. The light usually fell through openings in the top as the caves were near the surface of the ground. A hideous monstrosity representing Kronos was also shown. A fire was kept perpetually burning in the sanctuary. Three times a day prayer was offered the sun towards east, south, or west according to the hour. Sunday was kept holy in honor of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as mediator. The December 25 was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter sun, unconquered by the rigors of the season. A Mithraic community was not merely a religious congregation; it was a social and legal body with its decemprimi, magistri, curatores, defensores, and patron. These communities allowed no women as members. Women might console themselves by forming associations to worship Anaitis-Cybele; but whether these were associated with Mithraism seems doubtful. No proof of immorality or obscene practices, so often connected with esoteric pagan cults, has ever been established against Mithraism; and as far as can be ascertained, or rather conjectured it had an elevating and invigorating effect on its followers. From a chance remark of Tertullian (De Praescriptione, xl) we gather that their "Pater Patrum" was only allowed to be married once, and that Mithraism had its virgines and continentes; such at least seems the best interpretation of the passage. If, however, Dieterich's Mithras's liturgy be really a liturgy of this sect, as he ably maintains, its liturgy can only strike us as a mixture of bombast and charlatanism in which the mystes has to hold his sides, and roar to the utmost of his power till he is exhausted, to whistle, smack his lips, and pronounce barbaric agglomerations of syllables as the different mystic signs for the heavens and the constellations are unveiled to him.
RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY., A similarity between Mithra and Christ struck even early observers, such as Justin, Tertullian, and other Fathers, and in recent times has been urged to prove that Christianity is but an adaptation of Mithraism, or at most the out-come of the same religious ideas and aspirations (e.g. Robertson, "Pagan Christs", 1903). Against this erroneous and unscientific procedure, which is not endorsed by the greatest living authority on Mithraism, the following considerations must be brought forward. (I) Our knowledge regarding Mithraism is very imperfect; some 600 brief inscriptions, mostly dedicatory, some 300 often fragmentary, exiguous, almost identical monuments, a few casual references in the Fathers or Acts of the Martyrs, and a brief polemic against Mithraism which the Armenian Eznig about 450 probably copied from Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) who lived when Mithraism was almost a thing of the past—these are our only sources, unless we include the Avesta in which Mithra is indeed mentioned, but which cannot be an authority for Roman Mithraism with which Christianity is compared. Our knowledge is mostly ingenious guess work; of the real inner working of Mithraism and the sense in which it was understood by those who professed it at the advent of Christianity, we know nothing. (2) Some apparent similarities exist; but in a number of details it is quite as probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. Tertullian about 200 could say: "hesterni sumus et omnia vestra implevimus" ("we are but of yesterday, yet your whole world is full of us"). It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which filled the whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by another religion which was quite popular during the third century. Moreover the resemblances pointed out are superficial and external. Similarity in words and names is nothing; it is the sense that matters. During these centuries Christianity was coining its own technical terms, and naturally took names, terms, and expressions current in that day; and so did Mithraism. But under identical terms each system thought its own thoughts. Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ; but Mithra originally only in a cosmogonic or astronomicalsense; Christ, being God and man, is by nature the Mediator between God and man. And so in similar instances. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples. Mithra saved the world by sacrificing a bull; Christ by sacrificing Himself. It is hardly possible to conceive a more radical difference than that between Mithra taurochtonos and Christ crucified. Christ was born of a Virgin; there is nothing to prove that the same was believed of Mithra born from the rock. Christ was born in a cave; and Mithraists worshipped in a cave, but Mithra was born under a tree near a river. Much has been made of the presence of adoring shepherds; but their existence on sculptures has not been proven, and considering that man had not yet appeared, it is an anachronism to suppose their presence. (3) Christ was an historical personage, recently born in a well known town of Judea, and crucified under a Roman Governor, whose name figured in the ordinary official lists. Mithra was an abstraction, a personification not even of the sun but of the diffused daylight; his incarnation, if such it may be called, was supposed to have happened before the creation of the human race, before all history. The small Mithraic congregations were like masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essentially exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.
J.P. ARENDZEN
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Mithraism
Pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra
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Mithraism. A pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra. It entered Europe from Asia Minor after Alexander's conquest, spread rapidly over the whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repres-ive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. Of late the researches of Cumont have brought it into prominence mainly because of its supposed similarity to Christianity.
ORIGIN. The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god Mithra occurs in the religion and the sacred books of both races, i.e. in the Vedas and in the Avesta. In Vedic hymns he is frequently mentioned and is nearly always coupled with Varuna, but beyond the bare occurrence of his name, little is known of him; only one, possibly two, hymns are dedicated to him (Rigveda, III, 59). It is conjectured (Oldenberg, "Die Religion des Veda," Berlin, 1894) that Mithra was the rising sun, Varuna the setting sun; or, Mithra, the sky at daytime, Varuna, the sky at night; or, the one the sun, the other the moon. In any case Mithra is a light or solar deity of some sort; but in Vedic times the vague and general mention of him seems to indicate that his name was little more than a memory. In the Avesta he is much more of a living and ruling deity than in Indian piety; nevertheless, he is not only secondary to Ahura Mazda, but he does not belong to the seven Amshaspands or personified virtues which immediately surround Ahura; he is but a Yazad, a popular demigod or genius. The Avesta however gives us his position only after the Zoroastrian reformation; the inscriptions of the Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century B.C.) assign him a much higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis (Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithra is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water. Independently of the Zoroastrian reform, Mithra retained his place as foremost deity in the northwest of the Iranian highlands. After the conquest of Babylon this Persian cult came into contact with Chaldean astrology and with the national worship of Marduk. For a time the two priesthoods of Mithra and Marduk (magi and chaldiei respectively) coexisted in the capital and Mithraism borrowed much from this intercourse. This modified Mithraism travelled farther northwestward and became the State cult of Armenia. Its rulers, anxious to claim descent from the glorious kings of the past, adopted Mithradates as their royal name (so five kings of Georgia, and Eupator of the Bosporus). Mithraism then entered Asia Minor, especially Pontus and Cappadocia. Here it came into contact with the Phrygian cult of Attis and Cybele from which it adopted a number of ideas and practices, though apparently not the gross obscenities of the Phrygian worship. This Phrygian-Chaldean-Indo-Iranian religion, in which the Iranian element remained predominant, came, after Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western World. Hellenism, however, and especially Greece itself, remained remarkably free from its influence. When finally the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum, occupied Asia Minor and stationed two legions of soldiers on the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism in the West was secured. It spread rapidly from the Bosporus to the Atlantic, from Illyria to Britain. Its foremost apostles were the legionaries; hence it spread first to the frontier stations of the Roman army.
Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion: Mithra, its hero, was especialiy a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and bravery; the stress it laid on good-fellowship and brotherliness, its exclusion of women, and the secret bond amongst its members have suggested the idea that Mithraism was Masonry amongst the Roman soldiery. At the same time Eastern slaves and foreign tradesmen maintained its propaganda in the cities. When magi, coming from King Tiridates of Armenia, had worshipped in Nero an emanation of Mithra, the emperor wished to be initiated in their mysteries. As Mithraism passed as a Phrygian cult it began to share in the official recognition which Phrygian worship had long enjoyed in Rome. The Emperor Commodus was publicly initiated. Its greatest devotee however was the imperial son of a priestess of the sun-god at Sirmium in Pannonia, Valerian, who according to the testimony of Flavius Vopiscus, never forgot the cave where his mother initiated him. In Rome, he established a college of sun priests and his coins bear the legend "Sol, Dominus Imperii Romani". Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius built at Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra with the dedication: "Fautori Imperii Sui". But with the triumph of Christianity Mithraism came to a sudden end. Under Julian it had with other pagan cults a short revival. The pagans of Alexandria lynched George the Arian, bishop of the city, for attempting to build a church over a Mithras cave near the town. The laws of Theodosius I signed its death warrant. The magi walled up their sacred caves; and Mithra has no martyrs to rival the martyrs who died for Christ.
DOCTRINE. The first principle or highest God was according to Mithraism "Infinite Time"; this was called Greek: Aion or Saeculum, Greek: Kronos or Saturnus. This Kronos is none other than Zervan, an ancient Iranian conception, which survived the sharp dualism of Zoroaster; for Zervan was father of both Ormuzd and Ahriman and connected the two opposites in a higher unity and was still worshipped a thousand years later by the Manichees. This personified Time, ineffable, sexless, passionless, was represented by a human monster, with the head of a lion and a serpent coiled about his body. He carried a scepter and lightning as sovereign god and held in each hand a key as master of the heavens. He had two pair of wings to symbolize the swiftness of time. His body was covered with zodiacal signs and the emblems of the seasons (i.e. Chaldean astrology combined with Zervanism). This first principle begat Heaven and Earth, which in turn begat their son and equal, Ocean. As in the European legend, Heaven or Jupiter (Oromasdes) succeeds Kronos. Earth is the Spenta Armaiti of the Persians or the Juno of the Westerns, Ocean is Apam-Napat or Neptune. The Persian names were not forgotten, though the Greek and Roman ones were habitually used. Ahura Mazda and Spefita Armaiti gave birth to a great number of lesser deities and heroes: Artagnes (Hercules), Sharevar (Mars), Atar (Vulcan), Anaitis (Cybele), and so on. On the other hand there was Pluto, or Ahriman, also begotten of Infinite Time. This Incarnate Evil rose with the army of darkness to attack and dethrone Oromasdes. They were however thrown back into hell, whence they escape, wander over the face of the earth and afflict man. It is man's duty to worship the four simple elements, water and fire, air and earth, which in the main are man's friends. The seven planets likewise were beneficent deities. The souls of men, which were all created together from the beginning and which at birth had but to descend from the empyrean heaven to the bodies prepared for them, received from the seven planets their passions and characteristics. Hence the seven days of the week were dedicated to the planets, seven metals were sacred to them, seven rites of initiation were made to perfect the Mithraist, and so on. As evil spirits ever lie in wait for hapless man, he needs a friend and savior who is Mithra. Mithra was born of a mother-rock by a river under a tree. He came into the world with the Phrian cap on his head (hence his designation as Pileatus, the Capped One), and a knife in his hand. It is said that shepherds watched his birth, but how this could be, considering there were no men on earth, is not explained. The hero-god first gives battle to the sun, conquers him, crowns him with rays and makes him his eternal friend and fellow; nay, the sun becomes in sense Mithra's double, or again his father, but Greek: `Hlios Mithras is one god. Then follows the struggle between Mithra and the bull, the central dogma of Mithraism. Ahura Mazda had created a wild bull which Mithra pursued, overcame, and dragged into his cave. This wearisome journey with the struggling bull towards the cave is the symbol of man's troubles on earth. Unfortunately, the bull escapes from the cave, whereupon Ahura Mazda sends a crow with a message to Mithra to find and slay it. Mithra reluctantly obeys, and plunges his dagger into the bull as it returns to the cave. Strange to say, from the body of the dying bull proceed all wholesome plants and herbs that cover the earth, from his spinal marrow the corn, from his blood the vine, etc. The power of evil sends his unclean creatures to prevent or poison these productions but in vain. From the bull pro teed all useful animals, and the bull, resigning itself to death, is transported to the heavenly spheres. Man is now created and subjected to the malign in influence of Ahriman in the form of droughts, deluges, and conflagrations, but is saved by Mithra. Finally man is well established on earth and Mithra returns to heaven. He celebrates a last supper with Helios and his other companions, is taken in his fiery chariot across the ocean, and now in heaven protects his followers. For the struggle between good and evil con tinues in heaven between the planets and stars, and on earth in the heart of man. Mithra is the Mediator (Greek: Mesites) between God and man. This function first arose from the fact that as the light-god he is supposed to float midway between the upper heaven and the earth. Likewise a sun-god, his planet was supposed to hold the central place amongst the seven planets. The moral aspect of his mediation between god and man cannot be proven to be ancient. As Mazdean dualists the Mithraists were strongly inclined towards asceticism: abstention from food and absolute continence seemed to them noble and praiseworthy, though not obligatory. They battled on Mithra's side against all impurity, against all evil within and without. They believed in the immortality of the soul; sinners after death were dragged to hell; the just passed through the seven spheres of the planets, through seven gates opening at a mystic word to Ahura Mazda, leaving at each planet a part of their lower humanity until, as pure spirits, they stood before God. At the end of the world Mithra will descend to earth on another bull, which he will sacrifice, and mixing its fat with sacred wine he will make all drink the beverage of immortality. He will thus have proved himself Nabarses, i.e."never conquered".WORSHIP., there were seven degrees of initiation into the Mithraic mysteries. The consecrated one (mystes) became in succession crow (corax), occult (cryphius), soldier (miles), lion (leo), Persian (Perses), solar messenger (heliodromos), and father (pater). On solemn occasionsthey wore a garb appropriate to their name and uttered sounds or performed a gestures in keeping with what they personified. "Some flap their wings as birds imitating the sound of a crow, others roar as lions", says Pseudo-Augustine (Quaest. Vet. N. Test. in P.L., XXXIV, 2214). Crows, occults and soldiers formed the lower orders, a sort of catechumens; lions and those admitted to the other degrees were participants of the mysteries. The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called "Pater Patrum" or "Pater Patratus." The members below the degree of pater called one another "brother," and social distinctions were forgotten in Mithraic unity. The ceremonies of initiation for each degree must have been elaborate, but they are only vaguely known lustrations and bathings, branding with red hot metal, anointing with honey, and others. A sacred meal was celebrated of bread and haoma juice for which in the West wine was substituted. This meal was supposed to give the participants supernatural virtue. The Mithraists worshipped in caves, of which a large number have been found. There were five at Ostia alone, but they were small and could perhaps hold at most 200 persons. In the apse of the cave stood the stone representation of Mithra slaying the bull, a piece of sculpture usually of mediocre artistic merit and always made after the same Pergamean model. The light usually fell through openings in the top as the caves were near the surface of the ground. A hideous monstrosity representing Kronos was also shown. A fire was kept perpetually burning in the sanctuary. Three times a day prayer was offered the sun towards east, south, or west according to the hour. Sunday was kept holy in honor of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as mediator. The December 25 was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter sun, unconquered by the rigors of the season. A Mithraic community was not merely a religious congregation; it was a social and legal body with its decemprimi, magistri, curatores, defensores, and patron. These communities allowed no women as members. Women might console themselves by forming associations to worship Anaitis-Cybele; but whether these were associated with Mithraism seems doubtful. No proof of immorality or obscene practices, so often connected with esoteric pagan cults, has ever been established against Mithraism; and as far as can be ascertained, or rather conjectured it had an elevating and invigorating effect on its followers. From a chance remark of Tertullian (De Praescriptione, xl) we gather that their "Pater Patrum" was only allowed to be married once, and that Mithraism had its virgines and continentes; such at least seems the best interpretation of the passage. If, however, Dieterich's Mithras's liturgy be really a liturgy of this sect, as he ably maintains, its liturgy can only strike us as a mixture of bombast and charlatanism in which the mystes has to hold his sides, and roar to the utmost of his power till he is exhausted, to whistle, smack his lips, and pronounce barbaric agglomerations of syllables as the different mystic signs for the heavens and the constellations are unveiled to him.
RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY., A similarity between Mithra and Christ struck even early observers, such as Justin, Tertullian, and other Fathers, and in recent times has been urged to prove that Christianity is but an adaptation of Mithraism, or at most the out-come of the same religious ideas and aspirations (e.g. Robertson, "Pagan Christs", 1903). Against this erroneous and unscientific procedure, which is not endorsed by the greatest living authority on Mithraism, the following considerations must be brought forward. (I) Our knowledge regarding Mithraism is very imperfect; some 600 brief inscriptions, mostly dedicatory, some 300 often fragmentary, exiguous, almost identical monuments, a few casual references in the Fathers or Acts of the Martyrs, and a brief polemic against Mithraism which the Armenian Eznig about 450 probably copied from Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) who lived when Mithraism was almost a thing of the past—these are our only sources, unless we include the Avesta in which Mithra is indeed mentioned, but which cannot be an authority for Roman Mithraism with which Christianity is compared. Our knowledge is mostly ingenious guess work; of the real inner working of Mithraism and the sense in which it was understood by those who professed it at the advent of Christianity, we know nothing. (2) Some apparent similarities exist; but in a number of details it is quite as probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. Tertullian about 200 could say: "hesterni sumus et omnia vestra implevimus" ("we are but of yesterday, yet your whole world is full of us"). It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which filled the whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by another religion which was quite popular during the third century. Moreover the resemblances pointed out are superficial and external. Similarity in words and names is nothing; it is the sense that matters. During these centuries Christianity was coining its own technical terms, and naturally took names, terms, and expressions current in that day; and so did Mithraism. But under identical terms each system thought its own thoughts. Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ; but Mithra originally only in a cosmogonic or astronomicalsense; Christ, being God and man, is by nature the Mediator between God and man. And so in similar instances. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples. Mithra saved the world by sacrificing a bull; Christ by sacrificing Himself. It is hardly possible to conceive a more radical difference than that between Mithra taurochtonos and Christ crucified. Christ was born of a Virgin; there is nothing to prove that the same was believed of Mithra born from the rock. Christ was born in a cave; and Mithraists worshipped in a cave, but Mithra was born under a tree near a river. Much has been made of the presence of adoring shepherds; but their existence on sculptures has not been proven, and considering that man had not yet appeared, it is an anachronism to suppose their presence. (3) Christ was an historical personage, recently born in a well known town of Judea, and crucified under a Roman Governor, whose name figured in the ordinary official lists. Mithra was an abstraction, a personification not even of the sun but of the diffused daylight; his incarnation, if such it may be called, was supposed to have happened before the creation of the human race, before all history. The small Mithraic congregations were like masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essentially exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.
J.P. ARENDZEN
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Mithraism
Pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra
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Mithraism. A pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra. It entered Europe from Asia Minor after Alexander's conquest, spread rapidly over the whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repres-ive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. Of late the researches of Cumont have brought it into prominence mainly because of its supposed similarity to Christianity.
ORIGIN. The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god Mithra occurs in the religion and the sacred books of both races, i.e. in the Vedas and in the Avesta. In Vedic hymns he is frequently mentioned and is nearly always coupled with Varuna, but beyond the bare occurrence of his name, little is known of him; only one, possibly two, hymns are dedicated to him (Rigveda, III, 59). It is conjectured (Oldenberg, "Die Religion des Veda," Berlin, 1894) that Mithra was the rising sun, Varuna the setting sun; or, Mithra, the sky at daytime, Varuna, the sky at night; or, the one the sun, the other the moon. In any case Mithra is a light or solar deity of some sort; but in Vedic times the vague and general mention of him seems to indicate that his name was little more than a memory. In the Avesta he is much more of a living and ruling deity than in Indian piety; nevertheless, he is not only secondary to Ahura Mazda, but he does not belong to the seven Amshaspands or personified virtues which immediately surround Ahura; he is but a Yazad, a popular demigod or genius. The Avesta however gives us his position only after the Zoroastrian reformation; the inscriptions of the Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century B.C.) assign him a much higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis (Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithra is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water. Independently of the Zoroastrian reform, Mithra retained his place as foremost deity in the northwest of the Iranian highlands. After the conquest of Babylon this Persian cult came into contact with Chaldean astrology and with the national worship of Marduk. For a time the two priesthoods of Mithra and Marduk (magi and chaldiei respectively) coexisted in the capital and Mithraism borrowed much from this intercourse. This modified Mithraism travelled farther northwestward and became the State cult of Armenia. Its rulers, anxious to claim descent from the glorious kings of the past, adopted Mithradates as their royal name (so five kings of Georgia, and Eupator of the Bosporus). Mithraism then entered Asia Minor, especially Pontus and Cappadocia. Here it came into contact with the Phrygian cult of Attis and Cybele from which it adopted a number of ideas and practices, though apparently not the gross obscenities of the Phrygian worship. This Phrygian-Chaldean-Indo-Iranian religion, in which the Iranian element remained predominant, came, after Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western World. Hellenism, however, and especially Greece itself, remained remarkably free from its influence. When finally the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum, occupied Asia Minor and stationed two legions of soldiers on the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism in the West was secured. It spread rapidly from the Bosporus to the Atlantic, from Illyria to Britain. Its foremost apostles were the legionaries; hence it spread first to the frontier stations of the Roman army.
Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion: Mithra, its hero, was especialiy a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and bravery; the stress it laid on good-fellowship and brotherliness, its exclusion of women, and the secret bond amongst its members have suggested the idea that Mithraism was Masonry amongst the Roman soldiery. At the same time Eastern slaves and foreign tradesmen maintained its propaganda in the cities. When magi, coming from King Tiridates of Armenia, had worshipped in Nero an emanation of Mithra, the emperor wished to be initiated in their mysteries. As Mithraism passed as a Phrygian cult it began to share in the official recognition which Phrygian worship had long enjoyed in Rome. The Emperor Commodus was publicly initiated. Its greatest devotee however was the imperial son of a priestess of the sun-god at Sirmium in Pannonia, Valerian, who according to the testimony of Flavius Vopiscus, never forgot the cave where his mother initiated him. In Rome, he established a college of sun priests and his coins bear the legend "Sol, Dominus Imperii Romani". Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius built at Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra with the dedication: "Fautori Imperii Sui". But with the triumph of Christianity Mithraism came to a sudden end. Under Julian it had with other pagan cults a short revival. The pagans of Alexandria lynched George the Arian, bishop of the city, for attempting to build a church over a Mithras cave near the town. The laws of Theodosius I signed its death warrant. The magi walled up their sacred caves; and Mithra has no martyrs to rival the martyrs who died for Christ.
DOCTRINE. The first principle or highest God was according to Mithraism "Infinite Time"; this was called Greek: Aion or Saeculum, Greek: Kronos or Saturnus. This Kronos is none other than Zervan, an ancient Iranian conception, which survived the sharp dualism of Zoroaster; for Zervan was father of both Ormuzd and Ahriman and connected the two opposites in a higher unity and was still worshipped a thousand years later by the Manichees. This personified Time, ineffable, sexless, passionless, was represented by a human monster, with the head of a lion and a serpent coiled about his body. He carried a scepter and lightning as sovereign god and held in each hand a key as master of the heavens. He had two pair of wings to symbolize the swiftness of time. His body was covered with zodiacal signs and the emblems of the seasons (i.e. Chaldean astrology combined with Zervanism). This first principle begat Heaven and Earth, which in turn begat their son and equal, Ocean. As in the European legend, Heaven or Jupiter (Oromasdes) succeeds Kronos. Earth is the Spenta Armaiti of the Persians or the Juno of the Westerns, Ocean is Apam-Napat or Neptune. The Persian names were not forgotten, though the Greek and Roman ones were habitually used. Ahura Mazda and Spefita Armaiti gave birth to a great number of lesser deities and heroes: Artagnes (Hercules), Sharevar (Mars), Atar (Vulcan), Anaitis (Cybele), and so on. On the other hand there was Pluto, or Ahriman, also begotten of Infinite Time. This Incarnate Evil rose with the army of darkness to attack and dethrone Oromasdes. They were however thrown back into hell, whence they escape, wander over the face of the earth and afflict man. It is man's duty to worship the four simple elements, water and fire, air and earth, which in the main are man's friends. The seven planets likewise were beneficent deities. The souls of men, which were all created together from the beginning and which at birth had but to descend from the empyrean heaven to the bodies prepared for them, received from the seven planets their passions and characteristics. Hence the seven days of the week were dedicated to the planets, seven metals were sacred to them, seven rites of initiation were made to perfect the Mithraist, and so on. As evil spirits ever lie in wait for hapless man, he needs a friend and savior who is Mithra. Mithra was born of a mother-rock by a river under a tree. He came into the world with the Phrian cap on his head (hence his designation as Pileatus, the Capped One), and a knife in his hand. It is said that shepherds watched his birth, but how this could be, considering there were no men on earth, is not explained. The hero-god first gives battle to the sun, conquers him, crowns him with rays and makes him his eternal friend and fellow; nay, the sun becomes in sense Mithra's double, or again his father, but Greek: `Hlios Mithras is one god. Then follows the struggle between Mithra and the bull, the central dogma of Mithraism. Ahura Mazda had created a wild bull which Mithra pursued, overcame, and dragged into his cave. This wearisome journey with the struggling bull towards the cave is the symbol of man's troubles on earth. Unfortunately, the bull escapes from the cave, whereupon Ahura Mazda sends a crow with a message to Mithra to find and slay it. Mithra reluctantly obeys, and plunges his dagger into the bull as it returns to the cave. Strange to say, from the body of the dying bull proceed all wholesome plants and herbs that cover the earth, from his spinal marrow the corn, from his blood the vine, etc. The power of evil sends his unclean creatures to prevent or poison these productions but in vain. From the bull pro teed all useful animals, and the bull, resigning itself to death, is transported to the heavenly spheres. Man is now created and subjected to the malign in influence of Ahriman in the form of droughts, deluges, and conflagrations, but is saved by Mithra. Finally man is well established on earth and Mithra returns to heaven. He celebrates a last supper with Helios and his other companions, is taken in his fiery chariot across the ocean, and now in heaven protects his followers. For the struggle between good and evil con tinues in heaven between the planets and stars, and on earth in the heart of man. Mithra is the Mediator (Greek: Mesites) between God and man. This function first arose from the fact that as the light-god he is supposed to float midway between the upper heaven and the earth. Likewise a sun-god, his planet was supposed to hold the central place amongst the seven planets. The moral aspect of his mediation between god and man cannot be proven to be ancient. As Mazdean dualists the Mithraists were strongly inclined towards asceticism: abstention from food and absolute continence seemed to them noble and praiseworthy, though not obligatory. They battled on Mithra's side against all impurity, against all evil within and without. They believed in the immortality of the soul; sinners after death were dragged to hell; the just passed through the seven spheres of the planets, through seven gates opening at a mystic word to Ahura Mazda, leaving at each planet a part of their lower humanity until, as pure spirits, they stood before God. At the end of the world Mithra will descend to earth on another bull, which he will sacrifice, and mixing its fat with sacred wine he will make all drink the beverage of immortality. He will thus have proved himself Nabarses, i.e."never conquered".WORSHIP., there were seven degrees of initiation into the Mithraic mysteries. The consecrated one (mystes) became in succession crow (corax), occult (cryphius), soldier (miles), lion (leo), Persian (Perses), solar messenger (heliodromos), and father (pater). On solemn occasionsthey wore a garb appropriate to their name and uttered sounds or performed a gestures in keeping with what they personified. "Some flap their wings as birds imitating the sound of a crow, others roar as lions", says Pseudo-Augustine (Quaest. Vet. N. Test. in P.L., XXXIV, 2214). Crows, occults and soldiers formed the lower orders, a sort of catechumens; lions and those admitted to the other degrees were participants of the mysteries. The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called "Pater Patrum" or "Pater Patratus." The members below the degree of pater called one another "brother," and social distinctions were forgotten in Mithraic unity. The ceremonies of initiation for each degree must have been elaborate, but they are only vaguely known lustrations and bathings, branding with red hot metal, anointing with honey, and others. A sacred meal was celebrated of bread and haoma juice for which in the West wine was substituted. This meal was supposed to give the participants supernatural virtue. The Mithraists worshipped in caves, of which a large number have been found. There were five at Ostia alone, but they were small and could perhaps hold at most 200 persons. In the apse of the cave stood the stone representation of Mithra slaying the bull, a piece of sculpture usually of mediocre artistic merit and always made after the same Pergamean model. The light usually fell through openings in the top as the caves were near the surface of the ground. A hideous monstrosity representing Kronos was also shown. A fire was kept perpetually burning in the sanctuary. Three times a day prayer was offered the sun towards east, south, or west according to the hour. Sunday was kept holy in honor of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as mediator. The December 25 was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter sun, unconquered by the rigors of the season. A Mithraic community was not merely a religious congregation; it was a social and legal body with its decemprimi, magistri, curatores, defensores, and patron. These communities allowed no women as members. Women might console themselves by forming associations to worship Anaitis-Cybele; but whether these were associated with Mithraism seems doubtful. No proof of immorality or obscene practices, so often connected with esoteric pagan cults, has ever been established against Mithraism; and as far as can be ascertained, or rather conjectured it had an elevating and invigorating effect on its followers. From a chance remark of Tertullian (De Praescriptione, xl) we gather that their "Pater Patrum" was only allowed to be married once, and that Mithraism had its virgines and continentes; such at least seems the best interpretation of the passage. If, however, Dieterich's Mithras's liturgy be really a liturgy of this sect, as he ably maintains, its liturgy can only strike us as a mixture of bombast and charlatanism in which the mystes has to hold his sides, and roar to the utmost of his power till he is exhausted, to whistle, smack his lips, and pronounce barbaric agglomerations of syllables as the different mystic signs for the heavens and the constellations are unveiled to him.
RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY., A similarity between Mithra and Christ struck even early observers, such as Justin, Tertullian, and other Fathers, and in recent times has been urged to prove that Christianity is but an adaptation of Mithraism, or at most the out-come of the same religious ideas and aspirations (e.g. Robertson, "Pagan Christs", 1903). Against this erroneous and unscientific procedure, which is not endorsed by the greatest living authority on Mithraism, the following considerations must be brought forward. (I) Our knowledge regarding Mithraism is very imperfect; some 600 brief inscriptions, mostly dedicatory, some 300 often fragmentary, exiguous, almost identical monuments, a few casual references in the Fathers or Acts of the Martyrs, and a brief polemic against Mithraism which the Armenian Eznig about 450 probably copied from Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) who lived when Mithraism was almost a thing of the past—these are our only sources, unless we include the Avesta in which Mithra is indeed mentioned, but which cannot be an authority for Roman Mithraism with which Christianity is compared. Our knowledge is mostly ingenious guess work; of the real inner working of Mithraism and the sense in which it was understood by those who professed it at the advent of Christianity, we know nothing. (2) Some apparent similarities exist; but in a number of details it is quite as probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. Tertullian about 200 could say: "hesterni sumus et omnia vestra implevimus" ("we are but of yesterday, yet your whole world is full of us"). It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which filled the whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by another religion which was quite popular during the third century. Moreover the resemblances pointed out are superficial and external. Similarity in words and names is nothing; it is the sense that matters. During these centuries Christianity was coining its own technical terms, and naturally took names, terms, and expressions current in that day; and so did Mithraism. But under identical terms each system thought its own thoughts. Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ; but Mithra originally only in a cosmogonic or astronomicalsense; Christ, being God and man, is by nature the Mediator between God and man. And so in similar instances. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples. Mithra saved the world by sacrificing a bull; Christ by sacrificing Himself. It is hardly possible to conceive a more radical difference than that between Mithra taurochtonos and Christ crucified. Christ was born of a Virgin; there is nothing to prove that the same was believed of Mithra born from the rock. Christ was born in a cave; and Mithraists worshipped in a cave, but Mithra was born under a tree near a river. Much has been made of the presence of adoring shepherds; but their existence on sculptures has not been proven, and considering that man had not yet appeared, it is an anachronism to suppose their presence. (3) Christ was an historical personage, recently born in a well known town of Judea, and crucified under a Roman Governor, whose name figured in the ordinary official lists. Mithra was an abstraction, a personification not even of the sun but of the diffused daylight; his incarnation, if such it may be called, was supposed to have happened before the creation of the human race, before all history. The small Mithraic congregations were like masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essentially exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.
J.P. ARENDZEN
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Mithraism
Pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra
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Mithraism. A pagan religion consisting mainly of the cult of the ancient Indo-Iranian Sun god Mithra. It entered Europe from Asia Minor after Alexander's conquest, spread rapidly over the whole Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repres-ive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. Of late the researches of Cumont have brought it into prominence mainly because of its supposed similarity to Christianity.
ORIGIN. The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god Mithra occurs in the religion and the sacred books of both races, i.e. in the Vedas and in the Avesta. In Vedic hymns he is frequently mentioned and is nearly always coupled with Varuna, but beyond the bare occurrence of his name, little is known of him; only one, possibly two, hymns are dedicated to him (Rigveda, III, 59). It is conjectured (Oldenberg, "Die Religion des Veda," Berlin, 1894) that Mithra was the rising sun, Varuna the setting sun; or, Mithra, the sky at daytime, Varuna, the sky at night; or, the one the sun, the other the moon. In any case Mithra is a light or solar deity of some sort; but in Vedic times the vague and general mention of him seems to indicate that his name was little more than a memory. In the Avesta he is much more of a living and ruling deity than in Indian piety; nevertheless, he is not only secondary to Ahura Mazda, but he does not belong to the seven Amshaspands or personified virtues which immediately surround Ahura; he is but a Yazad, a popular demigod or genius. The Avesta however gives us his position only after the Zoroastrian reformation; the inscriptions of the Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century B.C.) assign him a much higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis (Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithra is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water. Independently of the Zoroastrian reform, Mithra retained his place as foremost deity in the northwest of the Iranian highlands. After the conquest of Babylon this Persian cult came into contact with Chaldean astrology and with the national worship of Marduk. For a time the two priesthoods of Mithra and Marduk (magi and chaldiei respectively) coexisted in the capital and Mithraism borrowed much from this intercourse. This modified Mithraism travelled farther northwestward and became the State cult of Armenia. Its rulers, anxious to claim descent from the glorious kings of the past, adopted Mithradates as their royal name (so five kings of Georgia, and Eupator of the Bosporus). Mithraism then entered Asia Minor, especially Pontus and Cappadocia. Here it came into contact with the Phrygian cult of Attis and Cybele from which it adopted a number of ideas and practices, though apparently not the gross obscenities of the Phrygian worship. This Phrygian-Chaldean-Indo-Iranian religion, in which the Iranian element remained predominant, came, after Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western World. Hellenism, however, and especially Greece itself, remained remarkably free from its influence. When finally the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum, occupied Asia Minor and stationed two legions of soldiers on the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism in the West was secured. It spread rapidly from the Bosporus to the Atlantic, from Illyria to Britain. Its foremost apostles were the legionaries; hence it spread first to the frontier stations of the Roman army.
Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion: Mithra, its hero, was especialiy a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and bravery; the stress it laid on good-fellowship and brotherliness, its exclusion of women, and the secret bond amongst its members have suggested the idea that Mithraism was Masonry amongst the Roman soldiery. At the same time Eastern slaves and foreign tradesmen maintained its propaganda in the cities. When magi, coming from King Tiridates of Armenia, had worshipped in Nero an emanation of Mithra, the emperor wished to be initiated in their mysteries. As Mithraism passed as a Phrygian cult it began to share in the official recognition which Phrygian worship had long enjoyed in Rome. The Emperor Commodus was publicly initiated. Its greatest devotee however was the imperial son of a priestess of the sun-god at Sirmium in Pannonia, Valerian, who according to the testimony of Flavius Vopiscus, never forgot the cave where his mother initiated him. In Rome, he established a college of sun priests and his coins bear the legend "Sol, Dominus Imperii Romani". Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius built at Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra with the dedication: "Fautori Imperii Sui". But with the triumph of Christianity Mithraism came to a sudden end. Under Julian it had with other pagan cults a short revival. The pagans of Alexandria lynched George the Arian, bishop of the city, for attempting to build a church over a Mithras cave near the town. The laws of Theodosius I signed its death warrant. The magi walled up their sacred caves; and Mithra has no martyrs to rival the martyrs who died for Christ.
DOCTRINE. The first principle or highest God was according to Mithraism "Infinite Time"; this was called Greek: Aion or Saeculum, Greek: Kronos or Saturnus. This Kronos is none other than Zervan, an ancient Iranian conception, which survived the sharp dualism of Zoroaster; for Zervan was father of both Ormuzd and Ahriman and connected the two opposites in a higher unity and was still worshipped a thousand years later by the Manichees. This personified Time, ineffable, sexless, passionless, was represented by a human monster, with the head of a lion and a serpent coiled about his body. He carried a scepter and lightning as sovereign god and held in each hand a key as master of the heavens. He had two pair of wings to symbolize the swiftness of time. His body was covered with zodiacal signs and the emblems of the seasons (i.e. Chaldean astrology combined with Zervanism). This first principle begat Heaven and Earth, which in turn begat their son and equal, Ocean. As in the European legend, Heaven or Jupiter (Oromasdes) succeeds Kronos. Earth is the Spenta Armaiti of the Persians or the Juno of the Westerns, Ocean is Apam-Napat or Neptune. The Persian names were not forgotten, though the Greek and Roman ones were habitually used. Ahura Mazda and Spefita Armaiti gave birth to a great number of lesser deities and heroes: Artagnes (Hercules), Sharevar (Mars), Atar (Vulcan), Anaitis (Cybele), and so on. On the other hand there was Pluto, or Ahriman, also begotten of Infinite Time. This Incarnate Evil rose with the army of darkness to attack and dethrone Oromasdes. They were however thrown back into hell, whence they escape, wander over the face of the earth and afflict man. It is man's duty to worship the four simple elements, water and fire, air and earth, which in the main are man's friends. The seven planets likewise were beneficent deities. The souls of men, which were all created together from the beginning and which at birth had but to descend from the empyrean heaven to the bodies prepared for them, received from the seven planets their passions and characteristics. Hence the seven days of the week were dedicated to the planets, seven metals were sacred to them, seven rites of initiation were made to perfect the Mithraist, and so on. As evil spirits ever lie in wait for hapless man, he needs a friend and savior who is Mithra. Mithra was born of a mother-rock by a river under a tree. He came into the world with the Phrian cap on his head (hence his designation as Pileatus, the Capped One), and a knife in his hand. It is said that shepherds watched his birth, but how this could be, considering there were no men on earth, is not explained. The hero-god first gives battle to the sun, conquers him, crowns him with rays and makes him his eternal friend and fellow; nay, the sun becomes in sense Mithra's double, or again his father, but Greek: `Hlios Mithras is one god. Then follows the struggle between Mithra and the bull, the central dogma of Mithraism. Ahura Mazda had created a wild bull which Mithra pursued, overcame, and dragged into his cave. This wearisome journey with the struggling bull towards the cave is the symbol of man's troubles on earth. Unfortunately, the bull escapes from the cave, whereupon Ahura Mazda sends a crow with a message to Mithra to find and slay it. Mithra reluctantly obeys, and plunges his dagger into the bull as it returns to the cave. Strange to say, from the body of the dying bull proceed all wholesome plants and herbs that cover the earth, from his spinal marrow the corn, from his blood the vine, etc. The power of evil sends his unclean creatures to prevent or poison these productions but in vain. From the bull pro teed all useful animals, and the bull, resigning itself to death, is transported to the heavenly spheres. Man is now created and subjected to the malign in influence of Ahriman in the form of droughts, deluges, and conflagrations, but is saved by Mithra. Finally man is well established on earth and Mithra returns to heaven. He celebrates a last supper with Helios and his other companions, is taken in his fiery chariot across the ocean, and now in heaven protects his followers. For the struggle between good and evil con tinues in heaven between the planets and stars, and on earth in the heart of man. Mithra is the Mediator (Greek: Mesites) between God and man. This function first arose from the fact that as the light-god he is supposed to float midway between the upper heaven and the earth. Likewise a sun-god, his planet was supposed to hold the central place amongst the seven planets. The moral aspect of his mediation between god and man cannot be proven to be ancient. As Mazdean dualists the Mithraists were strongly inclined towards asceticism: abstention from food and absolute continence seemed to them noble and praiseworthy, though not obligatory. They battled on Mithra's side against all impurity, against all evil within and without. They believed in the immortality of the soul; sinners after death were dragged to hell; the just passed through the seven spheres of the planets, through seven gates opening at a mystic word to Ahura Mazda, leaving at each planet a part of their lower humanity until, as pure spirits, they stood before God. At the end of the world Mithra will descend to earth on another bull, which he will sacrifice, and mixing its fat with sacred wine he will make all drink the beverage of immortality. He will thus have proved himself Nabarses, i.e."never conquered".WORSHIP., there were seven degrees of initiation into the Mithraic mysteries. The consecrated one (mystes) became in succession crow (corax), occult (cryphius), soldier (miles), lion (leo), Persian (Perses), solar messenger (heliodromos), and father (pater). On solemn occasionsthey wore a garb appropriate to their name and uttered sounds or performed a gestures in keeping with what they personified. "Some flap their wings as birds imitating the sound of a crow, others roar as lions", says Pseudo-Augustine (Quaest. Vet. N. Test. in P.L., XXXIV, 2214). Crows, occults and soldiers formed the lower orders, a sort of catechumens; lions and those admitted to the other degrees were participants of the mysteries. The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called "Pater Patrum" or "Pater Patratus." The members below the degree of pater called one another "brother," and social distinctions were forgotten in Mithraic unity. The ceremonies of initiation for each degree must have been elaborate, but they are only vaguely known lustrations and bathings, branding with red hot metal, anointing with honey, and others. A sacred meal was celebrated of bread and haoma juice for which in the West wine was substituted. This meal was supposed to give the participants supernatural virtue. The Mithraists worshipped in caves, of which a large number have been found. There were five at Ostia alone, but they were small and could perhaps hold at most 200 persons. In the apse of the cave stood the stone representation of Mithra slaying the bull, a piece of sculpture usually of mediocre artistic merit and always made after the same Pergamean model. The light usually fell through openings in the top as the caves were near the surface of the ground. A hideous monstrosity representing Kronos was also shown. A fire was kept perpetually burning in the sanctuary. Three times a day prayer was offered the sun towards east, south, or west according to the hour. Sunday was kept holy in honor of Mithra, and the sixteenth of each month was sacred to him as mediator. The December 25 was observed as his birthday, the natalis invicti, the rebirth of the winter sun, unconquered by the rigors of the season. A Mithraic community was not merely a religious congregation; it was a social and legal body with its decemprimi, magistri, curatores, defensores, and patron. These communities allowed no women as members. Women might console themselves by forming associations to worship Anaitis-Cybele; but whether these were associated with Mithraism seems doubtful. No proof of immorality or obscene practices, so often connected with esoteric pagan cults, has ever been established against Mithraism; and as far as can be ascertained, or rather conjectured it had an elevating and invigorating effect on its followers. From a chance remark of Tertullian (De Praescriptione, xl) we gather that their "Pater Patrum" was only allowed to be married once, and that Mithraism had its virgines and continentes; such at least seems the best interpretation of the passage. If, however, Dieterich's Mithras's liturgy be really a liturgy of this sect, as he ably maintains, its liturgy can only strike us as a mixture of bombast and charlatanism in which the mystes has to hold his sides, and roar to the utmost of his power till he is exhausted, to whistle, smack his lips, and pronounce barbaric agglomerations of syllables as the different mystic signs for the heavens and the constellations are unveiled to him.
RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY., A similarity between Mithra and Christ struck even early observers, such as Justin, Tertullian, and other Fathers, and in recent times has been urged to prove that Christianity is but an adaptation of Mithraism, or at most the out-come of the same religious ideas and aspirations (e.g. Robertson, "Pagan Christs", 1903). Against this erroneous and unscientific procedure, which is not endorsed by the greatest living authority on Mithraism, the following considerations must be brought forward. (I) Our knowledge regarding Mithraism is very imperfect; some 600 brief inscriptions, mostly dedicatory, some 300 often fragmentary, exiguous, almost identical monuments, a few casual references in the Fathers or Acts of the Martyrs, and a brief polemic against Mithraism which the Armenian Eznig about 450 probably copied from Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) who lived when Mithraism was almost a thing of the past—these are our only sources, unless we include the Avesta in which Mithra is indeed mentioned, but which cannot be an authority for Roman Mithraism with which Christianity is compared. Our knowledge is mostly ingenious guess work; of the real inner working of Mithraism and the sense in which it was understood by those who professed it at the advent of Christianity, we know nothing. (2) Some apparent similarities exist; but in a number of details it is quite as probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity. Tertullian about 200 could say: "hesterni sumus et omnia vestra implevimus" ("we are but of yesterday, yet your whole world is full of us"). It is not unnatural to suppose that a religion which filled the whole world, should have been copied at least in some details by another religion which was quite popular during the third century. Moreover the resemblances pointed out are superficial and external. Similarity in words and names is nothing; it is the sense that matters. During these centuries Christianity was coining its own technical terms, and naturally took names, terms, and expressions current in that day; and so did Mithraism. But under identical terms each system thought its own thoughts. Mithra is called a mediator; and so is Christ; but Mithra originally only in a cosmogonic or astronomicalsense; Christ, being God and man, is by nature the Mediator between God and man. And so in similar instances. Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples. Mithra saved the world by sacrificing a bull; Christ by sacrificing Himself. It is hardly possible to conceive a more radical difference than that between Mithra taurochtonos and Christ crucified. Christ was born of a Virgin; there is nothing to prove that the same was believed of Mithra born from the rock. Christ was born in a cave; and Mithraists worshipped in a cave, but Mithra was born under a tree near a river. Much has been made of the presence of adoring shepherds; but their existence on sculptures has not been proven, and considering that man had not yet appeared, it is an anachronism to suppose their presence. (3) Christ was an historical personage, recently born in a well known town of Judea, and crucified under a Roman Governor, whose name figured in the ordinary official lists. Mithra was an abstraction, a personification not even of the sun but of the diffused daylight; his incarnation, if such it may be called, was supposed to have happened before the creation of the human race, before all history. The small Mithraic congregations were like masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essentially exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.
J.P. ARENDZEN
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Types of christianity and thier origins
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Major Types of Christianity
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By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17
Complete Pages:
Mithraism & Pre-Christianity2002
The Ebionites, early Jewish Christians2006
Arian Christianity of the 3rd-8th Century2008
The Marcionites, 2nd Century Christians2006
How Modern Christianity Began: The Cappadocian-Nicene-Pauline Amalgamation of 380CE2008
The Rise of Literalist Christianity2003
This page:
Christianity is Massively Varied
The Earliest Christianities:
Mithraism & Christianity (-200BCE +)
Ebionite Christians (1st-4th Century)
Arian Christians (2nd-8th Century)
Marcionite Christians (2nd-5th Century)
Roman/Pauline Christianity (4th Century +)
What Was the Original Christianity?
More Lost Variants:
The Cathars / Albigenses
The Waldenses (12th Century)
Fundamentalist Christianity (1600CE)
Christianity is Massively Varied
Christianity is not a single, ancient religion. It is a series of religions all given the same name. Many assume that only modern Christianity to be what Christianity is. Some historical forms of Christianity have made more sense, and some have made less sense, than the Christian mythology that is common today.
“In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365.”
"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p2
“'Christianity' as a single religion is not 2,000 years old. A series of varied different religions, flowing on from one another, have all called themselves "Christian". Rightly so. But the beliefs and form has changed so much from time to time that it is best to consider Christianity a series of religions and the word "Christianity" to be an umbrella term for multiple faiths all of which have the same name but different beliefs.”
"History of Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2003)
Unfortunately for hundreds of years until the Enlightenment, it was thought that modern-day Christianity in its various forms, represented early Christianity. It hardly does. Not only is Christianity now varied, but it has always been highly varied.
“The historian, in speaking of Christianity, has to be careful to recognize the very great changes that it has undergone, and the variety of forms that it may assume even at one epoch.”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p290
“In the first few centuries CE there really was no such thing as 'the Church', only competing factions, of which the Literalists were one.”
"Jesus Mysteries" by Freke & Gandy [Book Review] (1999), p266
So what were the original, ancient forms of Christianity like? What happened to them? We will see!
Mithraism & Christianity (-200BCE +)
Many have realized that as Christianity copied, re-named and inherited many Pagan myths, such as those of Mithraism, that it is hard to pin down a "start" date for Christian ideas. If you go back far enough, Christian history is actually pagan history.
“Jesus, son of the Hebrew sky God, and Mithras, son of Ormuzd are both the same myth. The rituals of Christianity coincide with the earlier rituals of Mithraism, including the Eucharist and the Communion in great detail. The language used by Mithraism was the language used by Christians. [...] The idea of a sacrificed saviour is Mithraist, so is the symbolism of bulls, rams, sheep, the blood of a transformed saviour washing away sins and granting eternal life, the 7 sacraments, the banishing of an evil host from heaven, apocalyptic end of time when God/Ormuzd sends the wicked to hell and establishes peace. Roman Emperors, Mithraist then Christian, mixed the rituals and laws of both religions into one. Emperor Constantine established 25th of Dec, the birthdate of Mithras, to be the birthdate of Jesus too. The principal day of worship of the Jews, The Sabbath, was replaced by the Mithraistic Sun Day as the Christian holy day. The Catholic Church, based in Rome and founded on top of the most venerated Mithraist temple, wiped out all competing son-of-god religions within the Roman Empire, giving us modern literalist Christianity.”
"Mithraism & Early Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)
Ebionite Christians (1st-4th Century)
Ebionite Christians believed that all the Jewish Laws had to be obeyed; including the Sabbath and circumcision for all males. As such, they considered St Paul to be the archenemy of Christianity as he taught that people did not have to obey the Law in order to be saved. They believed Jesus was Human, and adopted by God as a perfect sacrifice.
“The Ebionites were some of the original Christians: Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. They populated the legendary Jerusalem Church. 'Ebionite' was sometimes used as a term to describe all Christians. Those who we now know as Pauline Christians opposed the Ebionites, after discovering them and realizing that their beliefs differed. Authors such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, and many other intolerant "heresy-hunters" wrote at great length against the Ebionites. Many of the claims made against them were based on misunderstandings of their beliefs, and many anti-Ebionite claims were plainly ridiculous. [Ehrman, 2003]. Pauline Christians eradicated the Ebionites, burning all of their books (none survived) and harassing and arresting the people until none were left. They edited Luke 2:32 and 2:48 where Joseph was twice called the 'father' of Jesus so that it did not say so, and they also edited Luke 3:22 where it plainly stated, in accordance with Ebionite beliefs, that God adopted Jesus. Pauline Christians, as non-Jewish Romans, handily came across a mistranslated prophecy that said Jesus would be born of a virgin (like other Roman sons-of-gods), adding a whole two chapters to the beginning of Matthew to prove their point. These edits, now they are uncovered, show that the Ebionites were treated very cruelly and unfairly, and that the original readings of Matthew and Luke both support Ebionite Christianity, rather than the Pauline Christianity that the West has inherited.
If we were to guess which group was the more austere, holy and godly, we would have to guess it was the Ebionites rather than the Pauline Christians who slaughtered, slandered and oppressed them. Unfortunately the victors get to write history, and it is Pauline Christianity that became the legacy of the Roman Empire. After the fourth century, the Ebionites were vanquished.”
"The Ebionites: Early Jewish Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
Arian Christians (2nd-8th Century)
As Jewish Christianity began to develop its own character, Jesus was no longer considered to be just a man. He had a special relationship with god, and was perhaps conceived of by God before anything was created. But he was not an eternal man nor a god.
“Arianism describes the pre-trinitarian doctrine of a holy, but not a godly, Jesus. It is not always adoptionism and not always monotheistic, either. It was defined by a negative principal (that logically Jesus can't be God and still suffer on the cross). If Jesus was God (i.e., perfect), Arians realized, what chance would any Human have of imitating him? Although Arian-sounding theologies existed from the second century onwards, it only became a wide point of contention after the third century. In the third century Origen of Alexandria, the greatest theologian of his time, had declared that the Father was Greater than the Son1. This principal was later named after its principal proponent and most articulate defender, Arius (256-336CE). It was opposed by Athanasius, who became a Nicene Christian from 325CE. In the Roman Empire, Arian Christianity was supplanted by intolerant Nicene Christianity by the 5th century, but remained the most popular form of Christianity amongst the tribes surrounding the empire, until the 8th century. [...]
The eventual victory of the Cappadocian Nicene faith from 380CE meant that as the Empire collapsed, the Christianity that was left behind was the dark, violent, centralized type that did not tolerate dissent. By the late fourth century, a recognizable Roman Catholic Church had emerged. The doctrine of the Trinity had been created, and the vengeful violence of Nicene Christianity was in full, open, bloody view. Anti-semitism was given its official sanction. The edited Nicene Creed was the only form of belief that was to be tolerated. Inquisitors began reviewing religious beliefs, condemning victims to imprisonment, torture and public execution for failing to believe the right things. This state of affairs persisted and plunged Christian societies into a 1000-year long dark ages. If the Arians had survived the onslaught and been the religion that the Empire left behind, we would have been left with a Christianity that would have left a glowing legacy of Jesus. Instead, the Nicene's violence and intolerance won out, and the 'ages of faith' that resulted darkened humanity from the fifth until the fifteenth century.”
"Arian Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
Marcionite Christians (2nd-5th Century)
Marcionites believed that the God of the Old Testament was a different God to the new testament. Their reasoning is sensible, and their collection of Christian books into a canon was the first ever collection.
“At one point, the early Christian writings that were collected by Marcion, along with his own writings, were all destroyed. A domineering early Catholic Church, the Pauline Christians, committed themselves to a long-term campaign against these early Christians. Tertullian produced five volumes attacking Marcionism and distributed them throughout the Roman Empire. The honest intellectual and rational approach of Marcion to the Old Testament and the saving grace of Jesus were lost, burnt and oppressed by the more violent and aggressive Pauline Christians. It is ironic that in the name of 'good works', Pauline Christians murdered and tortured those who believed differently to themselves... if it is true, as Jesus says and as Marcion pointed out, that good trees do not produce rotten fruit, then have we ended up with a rotten tree grown from a rotten fruit, instead of the real Christianity as espoused by Jesus?
If it is Christian duty to 'turn the other cheek', 'resist not evil', 'love your enemies' and 'love your neighbours as yourself', then it is clear that the Pauline Christians, who eliminated Marcionism and got to choose the books of the Bible, were not the true Christians.”
"The Marcionites: 2nd Century Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
Roman Christianity / Pauline Christianity (4th Century +)
St. Paul: History, Letters, Influences and Instructions; Gnosticism and Mithraism
“The gnostic Mithraists and Jewish Ebionites formed the very first Christians of the first century, with practices and beliefs based respectively on Gnostic and Judaistic rituals, symbols and practices. Pauline Christians dispensed with the difficult Jewish laws and became popular amongst gentiles, soon out-numbering the Jewish Christians, causing them to be secluded and eventually suppressed. Increasing literalism amongst roman converts then led the Pauline Christians to become obsessed with enforcing their literal interpretation of Christianities original stories, causing another huge rift with older gnostic-style Christians. With Roman power behind their printing press and the favour of Emperors, the Pauline-Nicene Christians wiped out the gnostics, annihilated the Arians after long bloody campaigns, and murdered and burnt the Marcionites and many other small sects, to leave themselves as the sole Christians within the Roman Empire, free to edit their own books to 'prove' how all their predecessors had been wrong. The three Cappadocian scholars promoted the Holy Spirit to the godhead to create a Trinity, which was codified strictly in to the Nicene Creed of 381, which went to careful lengths to disclaim against 'heresy'. Emperor Theodosius published a series of forceful edicts intolerant of all non-Nicene sects. This state of affairs persisted in the West for over a thousand years from the 5th century.
Despite the number of denominations that now exist, Christian diversity has never again regained the richness it had in the first few centuries. Christianity has remained, in the West, the Pauline, Cappadocian, Nicene victor that emerged from the ashes of Christian groups within the Roman Empire and Judea. It is a shame that it appears the most worldly, least spiritual, most power-hungry, least tolerant, most violent and least honest form of Christianity is the one that survived those brutal battles of the first few centuries.”
"Cappadocian/Nicene Modern Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
What Was the Original Christianity?
We have described the Ebionites, the Marcionites, touched upon the Gnostics, and the Pauline Christians. Who were the original Christians? The Pauline Christians, Greek-speaking and with Roman power, rose to power and eliminated the others in the most un-Christian way. These were the late-comers to Christendom of these four groups. The methodical historian Bauer has studied this question at great length:
“Bauer proceeds by looking at certain geographical regions of early Christendom for which we have some evidence - particularly the city of Edessa in eastern Syria, Antioch in western Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome. For each place, he considers the available Christian sources and subjects them to the closest scrutiny, demonstrating that contrary to the reports of Eusebius, the earliest and/or predominant forms of Christianity in most of these areas were heretical (i.e., forms subsequently condemned by the victorious party). Christianity in Edessa, for example, a major centre for orthodox Christianity in later times, was originally Marcionite; the earliest Christians in Egypt were various kinds of Gnostic, and so on. Later orthodox Christians, after they had secured their victory, tried to obscure the real history of the conflict. But they were not completely successful, leaving traces that can be scrutinized for the truth.”
"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p174
I will now summarize some contenders and explain if they could have been the true source of Christianity:
Ebionite Christians were the true Christians: Aramaic-speakers like Jesus and his apostles, they would have been the Jewish witnesses to Jesus' ministry and preaching. From this starting point, Jesus' teachings spread. They also, however, spread from Saul of Damascus, who renamed himself Paul and who preached an anti-Ebionite version of Christianity for the gentiles, which was much easier to follow and more popular.
The Marcionites were converts to Christ, who believed truly that he had been adopted by God at his baptism, and that he had come to abolish the laws of the Old Testament, thereby defeating the evil god of the old testament. Such gnostic beliefs may be the original form of Christianity as we shall see, but Marcionism itself can only be a later re-expression of it, and no historian thinks that the Marcionites were the original Christians.
Gnostic Christians: With stories, myths and beliefs that are exactly the same as Christian ones in many of the little details, gnostic beliefs manage to pre-date Christians ones by over 200 years. They understood what the stories of the NT really meant. Jesus didn't really exist, but was a collection of such earlier stories, rewritten in Greek, with Greek names. This is the approach taken by historians such as Freke & Gandy.
Pauline / Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centres of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, invent doctrines such as the Trinity, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was, yet most modern denominations took Cappadocian-Nicene Pauline Christianity as their starting point (and few have moved far from it).
The Cathars / Albigenses
The Marcionites of the 2nd century were lost to oppression, however, their form of Christianity was not completely eradicated. The Paulicians (followers of Marcion) and Manicheans fused to form the Bulgarian Bogomils, who like their founding sects, were oppressed. But the Bogomiles were carried by Crusaders to Italy and France, where their gnostic-seeming beliefs flourished and were widely accepted.
“The most interesting, and also the largest, of the heretical sects were the Cathari, who, in the South of France, are better known as Albigenses. [Their beliefs] were widely held in Northern Italy, and in the South of France they were held by the great majority [...]. The cause of this wide diffusion of heresy was partly disappointment at the failure of the Crusades, but mainly moral disgust at the wealth and wickedness of the clergy. [...] The Church was rich and largely worldly; very many priests were grossly immoral. [...] The more the Church claimed supremacy of religious grounds, the more plain people were shocked by the contrast between profession and performance. [...]
It seems that the Cathari were dualists and that, like the Gnostics, they considered the Old Testament Jehovah a wicked demiurge, the true God being revealed in the New Testament. They regarded matter as essentially evil, and believed that for the virtuous there is no resurrection of the body. The wicked, however, will suffer transmigration into the bodies of animals. On this ground they were vegetarians, abstaining even from eggs, cheese and milk. They ate fish, however, because they believed that fishes are not sexually generated. All sex was abhorrent to them [...]. They accepted the New Testament more literally than did the orthodox; they abstained from oaths, and turned the other cheek.”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p438-439
The Waldenses (12th Century)
A popular heresy was the "Waldenses".
“These were the followers of Peter Waldo, an enthusiast who in 1170, started a 'crusade' for observance of the law of Christ. He gave all his goods to the poor, and founded a society called the 'Poor men of Lyons', who practised poverty and a strictly virtuous life. At first they had papal approval, but they inveighed somewhat too forcibly against the immorality of the clergy, and were condemned by the Council of Verona in 1184. Thereupon they decided that every good man is competent to preach and expounded the Scriptures; they appointed their own ministers, and dispensed with the services of the Catholic priesthood. [...] All this heresy alarmed the Church, and vigorous measures were taken to suppress it. [Pope] Innocent III considered that heretics deserved death, being guilty of treason to Christ. He called upon the king of France to embark upon a crusade against the Albigenses [which affected the Waldenses also], which was done in 1209. It was conducted with incredible ferocity; after the taking of Carcassonne, especially, there was an appalling massacre. [...]”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p440
Fundamentalist Christianity
Fundamentalist Christianity has been around for five hundred years, and stands in stark contrast to all the original forms of Christianity, it represents the newest form of Christianity, comparable in all ways to strict fundamentalist Islam. This rapidly growing approach to Christianity looks set to become mainstream Christianity within this century, as all liberal churches are declining, just like Mithraist Christians, Jewish Christians and other Christians all declined under the violent assault of Pauline Christianity.
The Rise of Literalist Christianity
The growth of Church of England Fundamentalism
References: (What's this?)
Ehrman, Bart "Lost Christianities" (2003 hardback). Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter "The Jesus Mysteries" (1999). Text taken from 2000 paperback edition. Published by Thorsons, London. [Book Review]
Hodge, Stephen "Dead Sea Scrolls" (2001). Published by Piatkus books, London UK. Paperback first edition. [Book Review]
McCall, Andrew "The Medieval Underworld" (1979). Quotes from 2004 Sutton Publishing softback edition.
O'Toole, Edward "Sophia Bestiae" (2006 Jun 06). Published by Aestheteka Press. Quotes taken from a pre-release edition.
Rubenstein, Richard E. "When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome" (1999). First Harvest edition, 2000. Published by Harcourt, Inc.
Russell, Bertrand "History of Western Philosophy" (1946). Quotes from 2000 edition published by Routledge, London, UK.
Notes:
2006 Aug 14: Added section: Who Were the Original Christians?
2008 May 16: Added ref to new page on Arian Christianity.
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By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17
© 2006 Vexen Crabtree. All rights reserved.
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Major Types of Christianity
Read / Write Comments
By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17
Complete Pages:
Mithraism & Pre-Christianity2002
The Ebionites, early Jewish Christians2006
Arian Christianity of the 3rd-8th Century2008
The Marcionites, 2nd Century Christians2006
How Modern Christianity Began: The Cappadocian-Nicene-Pauline Amalgamation of 380CE2008
The Rise of Literalist Christianity2003
This page:
Christianity is Massively Varied
The Earliest Christianities:
Mithraism & Christianity (-200BCE +)
Ebionite Christians (1st-4th Century)
Arian Christians (2nd-8th Century)
Marcionite Christians (2nd-5th Century)
Roman/Pauline Christianity (4th Century +)
What Was the Original Christianity?
More Lost Variants:
The Cathars / Albigenses
The Waldenses (12th Century)
Fundamentalist Christianity (1600CE)
Christianity is Massively Varied
Christianity is not a single, ancient religion. It is a series of religions all given the same name. Many assume that only modern Christianity to be what Christianity is. Some historical forms of Christianity have made more sense, and some have made less sense, than the Christian mythology that is common today.
“In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365.”
"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p2
“'Christianity' as a single religion is not 2,000 years old. A series of varied different religions, flowing on from one another, have all called themselves "Christian". Rightly so. But the beliefs and form has changed so much from time to time that it is best to consider Christianity a series of religions and the word "Christianity" to be an umbrella term for multiple faiths all of which have the same name but different beliefs.”
"History of Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2003)
Unfortunately for hundreds of years until the Enlightenment, it was thought that modern-day Christianity in its various forms, represented early Christianity. It hardly does. Not only is Christianity now varied, but it has always been highly varied.
“The historian, in speaking of Christianity, has to be careful to recognize the very great changes that it has undergone, and the variety of forms that it may assume even at one epoch.”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p290
“In the first few centuries CE there really was no such thing as 'the Church', only competing factions, of which the Literalists were one.”
"Jesus Mysteries" by Freke & Gandy [Book Review] (1999), p266
So what were the original, ancient forms of Christianity like? What happened to them? We will see!
Mithraism & Christianity (-200BCE +)
Many have realized that as Christianity copied, re-named and inherited many Pagan myths, such as those of Mithraism, that it is hard to pin down a "start" date for Christian ideas. If you go back far enough, Christian history is actually pagan history.
“Jesus, son of the Hebrew sky God, and Mithras, son of Ormuzd are both the same myth. The rituals of Christianity coincide with the earlier rituals of Mithraism, including the Eucharist and the Communion in great detail. The language used by Mithraism was the language used by Christians. [...] The idea of a sacrificed saviour is Mithraist, so is the symbolism of bulls, rams, sheep, the blood of a transformed saviour washing away sins and granting eternal life, the 7 sacraments, the banishing of an evil host from heaven, apocalyptic end of time when God/Ormuzd sends the wicked to hell and establishes peace. Roman Emperors, Mithraist then Christian, mixed the rituals and laws of both religions into one. Emperor Constantine established 25th of Dec, the birthdate of Mithras, to be the birthdate of Jesus too. The principal day of worship of the Jews, The Sabbath, was replaced by the Mithraistic Sun Day as the Christian holy day. The Catholic Church, based in Rome and founded on top of the most venerated Mithraist temple, wiped out all competing son-of-god religions within the Roman Empire, giving us modern literalist Christianity.”
"Mithraism & Early Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2002)
Ebionite Christians (1st-4th Century)
Ebionite Christians believed that all the Jewish Laws had to be obeyed; including the Sabbath and circumcision for all males. As such, they considered St Paul to be the archenemy of Christianity as he taught that people did not have to obey the Law in order to be saved. They believed Jesus was Human, and adopted by God as a perfect sacrifice.
“The Ebionites were some of the original Christians: Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. They populated the legendary Jerusalem Church. 'Ebionite' was sometimes used as a term to describe all Christians. Those who we now know as Pauline Christians opposed the Ebionites, after discovering them and realizing that their beliefs differed. Authors such as Tertullian, Origen of Alexandria, and many other intolerant "heresy-hunters" wrote at great length against the Ebionites. Many of the claims made against them were based on misunderstandings of their beliefs, and many anti-Ebionite claims were plainly ridiculous. [Ehrman, 2003]. Pauline Christians eradicated the Ebionites, burning all of their books (none survived) and harassing and arresting the people until none were left. They edited Luke 2:32 and 2:48 where Joseph was twice called the 'father' of Jesus so that it did not say so, and they also edited Luke 3:22 where it plainly stated, in accordance with Ebionite beliefs, that God adopted Jesus. Pauline Christians, as non-Jewish Romans, handily came across a mistranslated prophecy that said Jesus would be born of a virgin (like other Roman sons-of-gods), adding a whole two chapters to the beginning of Matthew to prove their point. These edits, now they are uncovered, show that the Ebionites were treated very cruelly and unfairly, and that the original readings of Matthew and Luke both support Ebionite Christianity, rather than the Pauline Christianity that the West has inherited.
If we were to guess which group was the more austere, holy and godly, we would have to guess it was the Ebionites rather than the Pauline Christians who slaughtered, slandered and oppressed them. Unfortunately the victors get to write history, and it is Pauline Christianity that became the legacy of the Roman Empire. After the fourth century, the Ebionites were vanquished.”
"The Ebionites: Early Jewish Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
Arian Christians (2nd-8th Century)
As Jewish Christianity began to develop its own character, Jesus was no longer considered to be just a man. He had a special relationship with god, and was perhaps conceived of by God before anything was created. But he was not an eternal man nor a god.
“Arianism describes the pre-trinitarian doctrine of a holy, but not a godly, Jesus. It is not always adoptionism and not always monotheistic, either. It was defined by a negative principal (that logically Jesus can't be God and still suffer on the cross). If Jesus was God (i.e., perfect), Arians realized, what chance would any Human have of imitating him? Although Arian-sounding theologies existed from the second century onwards, it only became a wide point of contention after the third century. In the third century Origen of Alexandria, the greatest theologian of his time, had declared that the Father was Greater than the Son1. This principal was later named after its principal proponent and most articulate defender, Arius (256-336CE). It was opposed by Athanasius, who became a Nicene Christian from 325CE. In the Roman Empire, Arian Christianity was supplanted by intolerant Nicene Christianity by the 5th century, but remained the most popular form of Christianity amongst the tribes surrounding the empire, until the 8th century. [...]
The eventual victory of the Cappadocian Nicene faith from 380CE meant that as the Empire collapsed, the Christianity that was left behind was the dark, violent, centralized type that did not tolerate dissent. By the late fourth century, a recognizable Roman Catholic Church had emerged. The doctrine of the Trinity had been created, and the vengeful violence of Nicene Christianity was in full, open, bloody view. Anti-semitism was given its official sanction. The edited Nicene Creed was the only form of belief that was to be tolerated. Inquisitors began reviewing religious beliefs, condemning victims to imprisonment, torture and public execution for failing to believe the right things. This state of affairs persisted and plunged Christian societies into a 1000-year long dark ages. If the Arians had survived the onslaught and been the religion that the Empire left behind, we would have been left with a Christianity that would have left a glowing legacy of Jesus. Instead, the Nicene's violence and intolerance won out, and the 'ages of faith' that resulted darkened humanity from the fifth until the fifteenth century.”
"Arian Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
Marcionite Christians (2nd-5th Century)
Marcionites believed that the God of the Old Testament was a different God to the new testament. Their reasoning is sensible, and their collection of Christian books into a canon was the first ever collection.
“At one point, the early Christian writings that were collected by Marcion, along with his own writings, were all destroyed. A domineering early Catholic Church, the Pauline Christians, committed themselves to a long-term campaign against these early Christians. Tertullian produced five volumes attacking Marcionism and distributed them throughout the Roman Empire. The honest intellectual and rational approach of Marcion to the Old Testament and the saving grace of Jesus were lost, burnt and oppressed by the more violent and aggressive Pauline Christians. It is ironic that in the name of 'good works', Pauline Christians murdered and tortured those who believed differently to themselves... if it is true, as Jesus says and as Marcion pointed out, that good trees do not produce rotten fruit, then have we ended up with a rotten tree grown from a rotten fruit, instead of the real Christianity as espoused by Jesus?
If it is Christian duty to 'turn the other cheek', 'resist not evil', 'love your enemies' and 'love your neighbours as yourself', then it is clear that the Pauline Christians, who eliminated Marcionism and got to choose the books of the Bible, were not the true Christians.”
"The Marcionites: 2nd Century Christians" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)
Roman Christianity / Pauline Christianity (4th Century +)
St. Paul: History, Letters, Influences and Instructions; Gnosticism and Mithraism
“The gnostic Mithraists and Jewish Ebionites formed the very first Christians of the first century, with practices and beliefs based respectively on Gnostic and Judaistic rituals, symbols and practices. Pauline Christians dispensed with the difficult Jewish laws and became popular amongst gentiles, soon out-numbering the Jewish Christians, causing them to be secluded and eventually suppressed. Increasing literalism amongst roman converts then led the Pauline Christians to become obsessed with enforcing their literal interpretation of Christianities original stories, causing another huge rift with older gnostic-style Christians. With Roman power behind their printing press and the favour of Emperors, the Pauline-Nicene Christians wiped out the gnostics, annihilated the Arians after long bloody campaigns, and murdered and burnt the Marcionites and many other small sects, to leave themselves as the sole Christians within the Roman Empire, free to edit their own books to 'prove' how all their predecessors had been wrong. The three Cappadocian scholars promoted the Holy Spirit to the godhead to create a Trinity, which was codified strictly in to the Nicene Creed of 381, which went to careful lengths to disclaim against 'heresy'. Emperor Theodosius published a series of forceful edicts intolerant of all non-Nicene sects. This state of affairs persisted in the West for over a thousand years from the 5th century.
Despite the number of denominations that now exist, Christian diversity has never again regained the richness it had in the first few centuries. Christianity has remained, in the West, the Pauline, Cappadocian, Nicene victor that emerged from the ashes of Christian groups within the Roman Empire and Judea. It is a shame that it appears the most worldly, least spiritual, most power-hungry, least tolerant, most violent and least honest form of Christianity is the one that survived those brutal battles of the first few centuries.”
"Cappadocian/Nicene Modern Christianity" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)
What Was the Original Christianity?
We have described the Ebionites, the Marcionites, touched upon the Gnostics, and the Pauline Christians. Who were the original Christians? The Pauline Christians, Greek-speaking and with Roman power, rose to power and eliminated the others in the most un-Christian way. These were the late-comers to Christendom of these four groups. The methodical historian Bauer has studied this question at great length:
“Bauer proceeds by looking at certain geographical regions of early Christendom for which we have some evidence - particularly the city of Edessa in eastern Syria, Antioch in western Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Rome. For each place, he considers the available Christian sources and subjects them to the closest scrutiny, demonstrating that contrary to the reports of Eusebius, the earliest and/or predominant forms of Christianity in most of these areas were heretical (i.e., forms subsequently condemned by the victorious party). Christianity in Edessa, for example, a major centre for orthodox Christianity in later times, was originally Marcionite; the earliest Christians in Egypt were various kinds of Gnostic, and so on. Later orthodox Christians, after they had secured their victory, tried to obscure the real history of the conflict. But they were not completely successful, leaving traces that can be scrutinized for the truth.”
"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003), p174
I will now summarize some contenders and explain if they could have been the true source of Christianity:
Ebionite Christians were the true Christians: Aramaic-speakers like Jesus and his apostles, they would have been the Jewish witnesses to Jesus' ministry and preaching. From this starting point, Jesus' teachings spread. They also, however, spread from Saul of Damascus, who renamed himself Paul and who preached an anti-Ebionite version of Christianity for the gentiles, which was much easier to follow and more popular.
The Marcionites were converts to Christ, who believed truly that he had been adopted by God at his baptism, and that he had come to abolish the laws of the Old Testament, thereby defeating the evil god of the old testament. Such gnostic beliefs may be the original form of Christianity as we shall see, but Marcionism itself can only be a later re-expression of it, and no historian thinks that the Marcionites were the original Christians.
Gnostic Christians: With stories, myths and beliefs that are exactly the same as Christian ones in many of the little details, gnostic beliefs manage to pre-date Christians ones by over 200 years. They understood what the stories of the NT really meant. Jesus didn't really exist, but was a collection of such earlier stories, rewritten in Greek, with Greek names. This is the approach taken by historians such as Freke & Gandy.
Pauline / Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centres of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, invent doctrines such as the Trinity, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was, yet most modern denominations took Cappadocian-Nicene Pauline Christianity as their starting point (and few have moved far from it).
The Cathars / Albigenses
The Marcionites of the 2nd century were lost to oppression, however, their form of Christianity was not completely eradicated. The Paulicians (followers of Marcion) and Manicheans fused to form the Bulgarian Bogomils, who like their founding sects, were oppressed. But the Bogomiles were carried by Crusaders to Italy and France, where their gnostic-seeming beliefs flourished and were widely accepted.
“The most interesting, and also the largest, of the heretical sects were the Cathari, who, in the South of France, are better known as Albigenses. [Their beliefs] were widely held in Northern Italy, and in the South of France they were held by the great majority [...]. The cause of this wide diffusion of heresy was partly disappointment at the failure of the Crusades, but mainly moral disgust at the wealth and wickedness of the clergy. [...] The Church was rich and largely worldly; very many priests were grossly immoral. [...] The more the Church claimed supremacy of religious grounds, the more plain people were shocked by the contrast between profession and performance. [...]
It seems that the Cathari were dualists and that, like the Gnostics, they considered the Old Testament Jehovah a wicked demiurge, the true God being revealed in the New Testament. They regarded matter as essentially evil, and believed that for the virtuous there is no resurrection of the body. The wicked, however, will suffer transmigration into the bodies of animals. On this ground they were vegetarians, abstaining even from eggs, cheese and milk. They ate fish, however, because they believed that fishes are not sexually generated. All sex was abhorrent to them [...]. They accepted the New Testament more literally than did the orthodox; they abstained from oaths, and turned the other cheek.”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p438-439
The Waldenses (12th Century)
A popular heresy was the "Waldenses".
“These were the followers of Peter Waldo, an enthusiast who in 1170, started a 'crusade' for observance of the law of Christ. He gave all his goods to the poor, and founded a society called the 'Poor men of Lyons', who practised poverty and a strictly virtuous life. At first they had papal approval, but they inveighed somewhat too forcibly against the immorality of the clergy, and were condemned by the Council of Verona in 1184. Thereupon they decided that every good man is competent to preach and expounded the Scriptures; they appointed their own ministers, and dispensed with the services of the Catholic priesthood. [...] All this heresy alarmed the Church, and vigorous measures were taken to suppress it. [Pope] Innocent III considered that heretics deserved death, being guilty of treason to Christ. He called upon the king of France to embark upon a crusade against the Albigenses [which affected the Waldenses also], which was done in 1209. It was conducted with incredible ferocity; after the taking of Carcassonne, especially, there was an appalling massacre. [...]”
"History of Western Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell (1946), p440
Fundamentalist Christianity
Fundamentalist Christianity has been around for five hundred years, and stands in stark contrast to all the original forms of Christianity, it represents the newest form of Christianity, comparable in all ways to strict fundamentalist Islam. This rapidly growing approach to Christianity looks set to become mainstream Christianity within this century, as all liberal churches are declining, just like Mithraist Christians, Jewish Christians and other Christians all declined under the violent assault of Pauline Christianity.
The Rise of Literalist Christianity
The growth of Church of England Fundamentalism
References: (What's this?)
Ehrman, Bart "Lost Christianities" (2003 hardback). Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Freke, Timothy & Gandy, Peter "The Jesus Mysteries" (1999). Text taken from 2000 paperback edition. Published by Thorsons, London. [Book Review]
Hodge, Stephen "Dead Sea Scrolls" (2001). Published by Piatkus books, London UK. Paperback first edition. [Book Review]
McCall, Andrew "The Medieval Underworld" (1979). Quotes from 2004 Sutton Publishing softback edition.
O'Toole, Edward "Sophia Bestiae" (2006 Jun 06). Published by Aestheteka Press. Quotes taken from a pre-release edition.
Rubenstein, Richard E. "When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome" (1999). First Harvest edition, 2000. Published by Harcourt, Inc.
Russell, Bertrand "History of Western Philosophy" (1946). Quotes from 2000 edition published by Routledge, London, UK.
Notes:
2006 Aug 14: Added section: Who Were the Original Christians?
2008 May 16: Added ref to new page on Arian Christianity.
Read / Write Comments
By Vexen Crabtree 2006 Jun 17
© 2006 Vexen Crabtree. All rights reserved.
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