premjan

Mithras was said to be a predecessor of even Ahura Mazda / Zarathustra, and the contribution of the latter was to soften the harsh patriarchal nature of the Mithraism.

Evoken

Actually if I am not mistaken and as far I can remember, there is not relationship between the Persian and Roman Mithras. There is a topic in this forum in which the issue was discussed, try a search for it.

premjan

The contribution of Zoroastrianism was to change the old patriarchal Mithras into the son of Ahura Mazda, so I would be surprised if there was no relation between the Persian and Roman Mithras (of course the Roman version was likely more of a New Age sort of one).

Cynthia of Syracuse

This will probably get a better response in BC&H.

Toto

Actually, we don't think that Mithraistic theology was combined into or was the source of the Jesus myth. But we know realtively little about Mithraism in the first century Roman Empire. We do know that a lot of the material on the web claiming that Christians plagiarized everything from Mithraism is inaccurate.

We do know that Justin Martyr noticed some similarities between Mithraic rituals and the Eucharist, which he attributed to Satan. We also think that Constantine did his best to muddle the differences between the religions of Christianity, Sol Invictus, and Mithra, but that was well after Christianity was in existence.

We are all waiting for CX to produce the defininive guide to Mithraism. Until then, you can search for Mithra in this forum and find some recent threads, such as this one:

Mithra

or this web site that seems to be relatively up to date: Mithraism

andrewcriddle

One particular difficulty with the idea that Mithraism was a source for NT ideas is that there is very little evidence for Mithraism in the Roman Empire before say the time of Nero.

This would not in principle prevent Mithraism from being used by the Gospel writers, but it does make influence on Paul implausible on straight chronological grounds.

Andrew Criddle

premjan

well, there was that story of how the first church was a mithraeum, was that accurate?

andrewcriddle

see http://roma.katolsk.no/clemente.htm

Simplified version San Clemente in Rome maybe the earliest Christian place of worship in Rome going back to the second century.

Originally it was a private house used for Christian worship next door to a Mithraeum also constructed in the second century.

When Christianity became officially legal in the early 4th century the 'house church' was replaced by a proper custom built church.

When in the late 4th century Christianity became the official religion the Mithraeum was demolished and San Clemente church enlarged so that the remains of the Mithraeum were beneath the new and bigger San Clemente.

Andrew Criddle

seachelle76

Here is another interesting link about Mithraism:
Mithraism In History And Archaeology

premjan

Mithras the stern lawgiver corresponds to the Greek Apollo and the Indian Varuna. The pleasure-loving and brilliant Indra is probably Dionysius (what was the Persian/Roman equivalent of Dionysius?) later supplanted by Krishna who is similar to Hercules. Ahura is a transcendent God, Ahriman is the Devil (Satan). Interestingly, Ahriman is represented by a leontocephalic (lion-headed) figure similar to the Hindu God Narasimha (man-lion) which seems a continuation of the animus between Iranian and Indian myth (Daevas are devils in the former, but Devas are deities in the latter). Asuras are demons in India, but Ashur is a God of Assyria.