ph2ter

Blindness in the Acts is caused by the bright light:
"Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. " or
"I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions."

Also the same pattern regarding blindness can be observed in the Acts when Elymas the sorcerer was blinded by Paul. The sequence is the same. Only difference is that the one who made Elymas blind is not Christ but Paul and nothing is said who will be guiding Elymas.

"When they had gone through the island to Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of understanding. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul, and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation) withstood them, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith. But Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fastened his eyes on him, and said, "Full of all deceit and all cunning, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Now, behold, the hand of the Lord is on you, and you will be blind, not seeing the sun for a season!"
Immediately there fell on him a mist and darkness. He went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Then the proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord."

Roger Pearse

I'm not a great fan of repeating myself. I will do so once.

Please verify your facts. Vermaseren's book is not reliable.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Christianity did not become the state religion in the time of Constantine.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

gentleexit

and Mithras was far from dead or unsung. You have to look to the latter part of the fourth century for any "cleaning up".

My only point with Constantine's caves was that caves very much figured in Christian consciousness at the point they were raised up - irrespective of what their gospels said. And you don't have to look to Mithras for caves. Look at Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs. Beyond Homer's cult cave, yes he has Zoroaster and Mithras but Ceres, Plato too. You have a common motif and it is impossible to assign origin or the reason for adoption in a particular instance. In fact, given its popularity, its absence would be noteworthy.

ph2ter

If you don't believe to Vermaseren that the light was important in the birth myth of Mithras and that the red flames shoot all around the petra genetrix at Dura Europos, maybe this other book would be reliable enough to you:

The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries, Manfred Clauss, Richard Gordon, Taylor & Francis, 2001
http://books.google.hr/books?id=PCjFb2nxryEC
page 129:
In the port-town of Rusicade in Numidia there was found a conical Rock encircled by a snake, the bottom part of a rock birth monument. The marble block has been hollowed out at the rear, and several perforations made through to the face of the 'rock' amid the serpent coils. If a lamp or torch was placed inside the rear aperture, the light would shine through the little perforations, or even flames issue forth, just as on relief from Civitas Montanensium in Moesia Superior (Golema Kutlovica, Bulgaria)(fig 97). Mithras is god born from the rock, a god of Light: at Rusicade, his followers could experience the birth of this light out of the rock for themselves.
The importance of lighting-effects such as these should not be underestimated: we may recall the point quoted earlier from Servius/Donatus, that in religious contexts simulation is allowed to be veridical.

fig 97. Civitas Montanensium in Moesia Superior/Golema Kutlovica, Bulgaria: detail of the Rock-birth from a cult relief (V2237). Flames issue from the ground below. At Dura Europos, more naturalistically, fire comes shooting out of the rock as Mythras' body emerges (V42.5). Both of these are no doubt reproductions of the mythic narrative, otherwise represented 'symbolically by the torch with which he is born. A papyrus glossary calls Mithras 'the Persian Prometheus' (P.Oxy 15: 1802 1.82)

Roger Pearse

Good. That is a much better source, and indeed useful and interesting. Notice the references to specific inscriptions and sources; that is what we need to see when claims about ancient texts are made. Note also in the first passage that the artefact is interpreted by the idea that Mithras was born in light, and the theory advanced that this meant that initiates could experience this: the data does not actually say either.

Clauss is an excellent and up-to-date source, written precisely to deal with an outbreak of myth-making. If people follow him they won't fall into the unfortunate ideas that we were discussing earlier on.

How these details help the argument above I do not see, unless I missed the passage in the bible where Jesus is born from a rock with flames shooting out around him. You will need to do this recheck for all the points about Mithras you mentioned earlier, of course.

The type of fallacious argument that may being made here -- I've not read all the posts -- is wearily familiar to some of us, and it would be nice if it was (a) made explicit and (b) renounced. The trick used is to blur categories and select and omit data in order to claim that two different things which can be made by these methods to sound similar in some way are "the same". This is a method of argument more notable for the ingenuity of those propounding it than their interest in accuracy. The polemicist usually then goes on to insinuate the classic fallacy that similarity means connection and derivation, despite the lack of evidence for either and often the presence of solid evidence against which he ignores. (With a manufactured similarity, no less!). Having committed two fallacies, the boring ones start telling lies about Jesus because they all hated going to Sunday school (or some other equally tedious personal hate-motive), while the more interesting ones then move from their claim that pyramids in Egypt plus pyramids in Mexico proves connection, to say that they have thus proven that Atlantis existed and god was an astronaut.

If these are the arguments, please spare us, hmm? If you want to talk about Mithras, on the other hand, go ahead.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

ph2ter

From what I wrote here about Mithras I think I didn't deserve such treatment from you. The aim of this forum is to explore different ideas about Jesus and not to write a strict scientific work with all the references already put in place.

Notice that the artefact is interpreted by the idea that Mithras was born in light. Also, Mithras is born in a cave, nobody denies that or I am not aware of.
I was curious about Justin Martyr's conviction that Jesus was born in a cave, although the Gospels do not mention that detail. Where did he find that?
Then I did mention the Protoevangelium of James which says also that Jesus was born in a cave and connects that event with a great light. Nowhere I suggested that Jesus was born from a rock with flames. My suggestion is that those two elements: a cave and a light came from the cult of Mithras. Justin Martyr was aware of that similarity and that similarity made troubles to him.
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew which is an extension of the Protevangelium of James goes even further in that direction when it states that as soon as Jesus was born 'he stood upon his feet':
And when he had thus said, the angel ordered the beast to stand, for the time when she should bring forth was at hand; and he commanded the blessed Mary to come down off the animal, and go into a recess under a cavern, in which there never was light, but always darkness, because the light of day could not reach it. And when the blessed Mary had gone into it, it began to shine with as much brightness as if it were the sixth hour of the day. The light from God so shone in the cave, that neither by day nor night was light wanting as long as the blessed Mary was there. And there she brought forth a son, and the angels surrounded Him when He was being born. And as soon as He was born, He stood upon His feet, and the angels adored Him, saying: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good pleasure.

Those are my arguments for the borrowings. Somebody can present the arguments for some other source of those two elements or may believe that Jesus was really born in a cave near Bethelehm.

We can recheck in the same way the other points which I mentioned about Mithras. It would be interesting to see where I was wrong, and where I was correct. Of course, the Mithras cult is problematic from tha start because it was a secret cult and that is limitation which will prevent us to be absolutely sure about anything.

GakuseiDon

There is a lot of bad information out there on Mithras, so I agree with Roger: it is important to check references. And if you've checked them, that it can only be for the good if you cite where you get the information from.

I'm not doubting you, but where have you shown that Mithras was born in a cave? AFAICS, Mithras was formed from solid rock (was the rock in a cave?) and people were initiated in caves. But where is Mithras said to be born in a cave?

Many people used caves in those days, to store supplies and keep animals, as well as living spaces. So it wouldn't have been unusual.

robto

Justin dates to the mid-2nd century, while the Gospels are usually dated before 120 AD. If Prot. James represents borrowing from the Mithras cult (an interesting hypothesis, but hardly something we can consider as proven), it seems that borrowing was a 2nd-century phenomenon, and not part of the original 1st century Jesus myth.

To put it another way, I don't think what you've written provides evidence that the Jesus story of the canonical Gospels was influenced by Mithraism.

aa5874

There seems to be some similarity with rituals of Jesus believers and Mithraism. And one would expect Jesus believers may claim that their mode of worship preceeded those of Mitraism when it could really be the other way around.

Even Tertullian seemed to think that some ritual of Mithraism were copying those of Jesus believers.

Tertullian in "De Corona" 15