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Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter, Mithra has Risen!

[Found somewhere on the Internet]

The Vatican was built upon the grounds previously devoted to the worship of Mithra (600 B.C.). The Orthodox Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version. Virtually all of the elements of Orthodox Christian rituals, from miter, wafer, water baptism, alter, and doxology, were adopted from the Mithra and earlier pagan mystery religions. The religion of Mithra preceded Christianity by roughly six hundred years. Mithraic worship at one time covered a large portion of the ancient world. It flourished as late as the second century. The Messianic idea originated in ancient Persia and this is where the Jewish and Christian concepts of a Saviour came from. Mithra, as the sun god of ancient Persia, had the following karmic similarities with Jesus:

(1)Mithra was born on December 25th as an offspring of the Sun. Next to the gods Ormuzd and Ahrimanes, Mithra held the highest rank among the gods of ancient Persia. He was represented as a beautiful youth and a Mediator. Reverend J. W. Lake states: "Mithras is spiritual light contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labors the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with heaven's own light; the Eternal will receive all things back into his favor, the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the Good, his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace, in relation to man he is the life-giver and mediator" (Plato, Philo, and Paul, p. 15).

(2)He was considered a great traveling teacher and masters. He had twelve companions as Jesus had twelve disciples. Mithras also performed miracles.

(3)Mithra was called "the good shepherd,” "the way, the truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” “Messiah." He was identified with both the lion and the lamb.

(4)The International Encyclopedia states: "Mithras seems to have owed his prominence to the belief that he was the source of life, and could also redeem the souls of the dead into the better world ... The ceremonies included a sort of baptism to remove sins, anointing, and a sacred meal of bread and water, while a consecrated wine, believed to possess wonderful power, played a prominent part."

(5)Chambers Encyclopedia says: "The most important of his many festivals was his birthday, celebrated on the 25th of December, the day subsequently fixed -- against all evidence -- as the birthday of Christ. The worship of Mithras early found its way into Rome, and the mysteries of Mithras, which fell in the spring equinox, were famous even among the many Roman festivals. The ceremonies observed in the initiation to these mysteries -- symbolical of the struggle between Ahriman and Ormuzd (the Good and the Evil) -- were of the most extraordinary and to a certain degree even dangerous character. Baptism and the partaking of a mystical liquid, consisting of flour and water, to be drunk with the utterance of sacred formulas, were among the inauguration acts."

(6)Prof. Franz Cumont, of the University of Ghent, writes as follows concerning the religion of Mithra and the religion of Christ: "The sectaries of the Persian god, like the Christians', purified themselves by baptism, received by a species of confirmation the power necessary to combat the spirit of evil; and expected from a Lord's supper salvation of body and soul. Like the latter, they also held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the 25th of December.... They both preached a categorical system of ethics, regarded asceticism as meritorious and counted among their principal virtues abstinence and continence, renunciation and self-control. Their conceptions of the world and of the destiny of man were similar. They both admitted the existence of a Heaven inhabited by beatified ones, situated in the upper regions, and of a Hell, peopled by demons, situated in the bowels of the earth. They both placed a flood at the beginning of history; they both assigned as the source of their condition, a primitive revelation; they both, finally, believed in the immortality of the soul, in a last judgment, and in a resurrection of the dead, consequent upon a final conflagration of the universe" (The Mysteries of Mithras, pp. 190, 191).

(7)Reverend Charles Biggs stated: "The disciples of Mithra formed an organized church, with a developed hierarchy. They possessed the ideas of Mediation, Atonement, and a Savior, who is human and yet divine, and not only the idea, but a doctrine of the future life. They had a Eucharist, and a Baptism, and other curious analogies might be pointed out between their system and the church of Christ (The Christian Platonists, p. 240).

(8)In the catacombs at Rome was preserved a relic of the old Mithraic worship. It was a picture of the infant Mithra seated in the lap of his virgin mother, while on their knees before him were Persian Magi adoring him and offering gifts.

(9)He was buried in a tomb and after three days he rose again. His resurrection was celebrated every year.

(10)McClintock and Strong wrote: "In modern times Christian writers have been induced to look favorably upon the assertion that some of our ecclesiastical usages (e.g., the institution of the Christmas festival) originated in the cultus of Mithraism. Some writers who refuse to accept the Christian religion as of supernatural origin, have even gone so far as to institute a close comparison with the founder of Christianity; and Dupuis and others, going even beyond this, have not hesitated to pronounce the Gospel simply a branch of Mithraism" (Art. "Mithra").

(11)Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was resurrected. His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day." The Mithra religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper."

(12)The Christian Father Manes, founder of the heretical sect known as Manicheans, believed that Christ and Mithra were one. His teaching, according to Mosheim, was as follows: "Christ is that glorious intelligence which the Persians called Mithras ... His residence is in the sun" (Ecclesiastical History, 3rd century, Part 2, ch. 5).

"I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths." - Mithraic saying

"I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star." - Jesus, (Rev. 22:16)

[What a coincidence…. Or should I say a whole string of ‘coincidences’.]

8 comments:

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

Fascinating stuff. I discovered a lot of that not too long after de-converting.

CyberKitten said...

Too strange isn't it - and, I think, blows many of Christianities so-called 'unique' claims so far out of the water that they *never* come down again.

[laughs]

The verification for this is "sabati"

[rotflmao]

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

There are several books on both sides of the Jesus myth issue.

My verification word earlier was vellum. I like when it's an actual word.

Thomas Fummo said...

On the topic of religion what's your view on Epicurus?
for mine, check out my latest comic, I'd like to know your opinion.

my word verification is 'whimam'.
sigh. why bother.

Karla said...

"The earliest mithrea are dated to the early second century, but the vast majority of texts are dated after AD140. Most of what we have as evidence of Mitharism comes in the second, third, and fourth centuries AD. That's bascially what's wrong with the theories about Mithraism influencing the beginnings of Christianity." -- Edwin M. Yamauchi PH.D. retired of Miami University of Ohilo (author of 17 books regarding antiquity and has studied twenty two languages -- a very accomplished scholar.)

Another scholar, the late Dr. Ronald Nash says, "The flowering of Mithraism occurred after the close of the New Testament canon, too late for it to have influenced the development of the first-century Christianity."

Also, just an aside, December 25 is not seen as the realistic day Jesus was born, but it was a day chosen by the church by Christian emperors and popes to take a date used by pagans and appropriate it for Christian use.

Also Mithras did not sacrifice himself, he killed a bull.

This theory regarding Mithras began in 1910 and was well refuted back in the day, but is still promulgated as if it had not been today. I would wager that most the people you find writing books or articles on the internet about such things don't have any credentials in ancient languages.

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

There are a whole slew of dying and rising stories that predate Mithra and Christ. When I was a Christian I made the argument that all these stories (false of course) were pointing the way to the true event: the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Seems rather silly in retrospect, sort of like the creationists who claim that fossils were planted by Satan to lead us astray or by God to test our faith.

Cognitive dissonance is bliss.

Karla said...

Mike I thought it was a beautiful shadow having the similarities in the nature religions/mystery religions. However, I recently read that most of those post-date Christianity, except for those that are tied to the seasons. I'm not sure yet on the reality of the dates, I want to research that. It's something I was recently thinking about. It would make sense that God was speaking to people the mysteries of things to come.

CyberKitten said...

karla said: However, I recently read that most of those post-date Christianity....

and

It would make sense that God was speaking to people the mysteries of things to come.

So... either the Mithra stories post-date Christianity & are therefore influenced by it or they pre-date Christianity which was God's way of giving people advanced warning of Christs arrival?

You are *so* funny Karla [rotflmao] It can't be that it pre-dates Christianity & therefore influenced it... [laughs]