jgibson000

Where oh where do you get this stuff?

:banghead: :banghead:

Have you ever actually read anything of any merit on the history of persecution of Christians before Constantine?

Fer chirssakes, Cllive, will you please get yourself to a library!!

JG

Clivedurdle

It was of course one sided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia_of_Alexandria

And the idea of treachery is from Pliny!!

andrewcriddle

To clarify my position.
I think the idea that Mithraism (or proto-Mithraism) developed in Commagene is rather plusible. What I doubt is it spreading to Italy in the 1st century BCE.

As a speculation about the spread of Mithraism among the Roman legions, one possibility might be the merging of the Commagene army with Roman forces from the beginning of the rule of Tiberius.

IIUC you would agree that we have solid evidence of Christianity from the time of Trajan, (Pliny's letters) less than one hundred years after its origin. We have other evidence generally dated earlier. With Mithraism we have a gap of over 125 years from the events alleged by Plutarch to really anything else relevant.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

It is very possible that at the time of Plutarch writing (Trajan's reign) some of the places where the Pirates had been resettled, were claiming to be the place where Mithraism originated. Such claims are likely to be legendary.

Andrew Criddle

spin

I understand, yet I don't find your doubt based on anything tangible.

It's a fair speculation.

Literary evidence. As to archaeological evidence, Mithraism comes in much better than christianity. There was no literary tradition to maintain Mithraism, so your comparison doesn't seem particularly helpful.


spin

youngalexander

Cricket?

Clivedurdle

I was wondering if that would get a response!:devil1:

Many years ago the Observer had an article that Cricket was Christ's Wicca. I have not been able to find the article.

Cricket is an amazingly sophisticated ritualistic game and we probably in our western secular mind sets ignore the deep ritual and meaning and yes religious symbolism behind it.

I think there is something about our brains that loves this stuff - Mithras, Cricket and Freemasonry and High Catholicism may not be directly related but maybe predictable from how especially male brains work. There are more than enough similarities to classify them as a group like mammals.

And because there is a historic track maybe they are evolutionary outgrowths.

Andrew I am puzzled at what the problem is you have with Mithras or a romanised version spreading. It was an incredibly powerful ritual culminating in the initiate becoming one with the sun. The Roman centurians would have loved it and it would have spread like wild fire.


The legions went all over the place - we have the triumvirate leading all of this. We have the Cicillians as a major threat to Rome. We have plenty of evidence. What is the problem with joining up the dots here?

http://www.intute.ac.uk/artsandhuman...e.pl?id=202083

I would assume there are clear connections at least from Alexander and very likely Darius.

Roger Pearse

Lack of evidence.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Clivedurdle

Please see edited post above - what is that if not evidence?

andrewcriddle

Can we plausibly have fully developed Mithraism without archaeologically recognisable Mithraea ?

If we're talking about proto-Mithraism with the emphasis on proto then it would seem much more plausible.

It is quite plausible IMO that Pompey's resettlement of the pirates was an important factor in bringing some sort of knowledge of Mitra/Mithra to Italy, and that this knowledge was a necessary precondition of the later rise of full blown Mithraism.

What I find much less likely is that the Pirates were already practising some sort of cult of Mithras as slayer of the cosmic bull and that Pompey transported Mithraism in this sense to Italy.

Andrew Criddle