Gawen

Same here. So I'll chalk it up to someone who doesn't know what he's talking about. I should have known better, the guy wrote just to matter of factly.
So, only Buddists type teachings are in the NT as far as Jesus allegedly spoke? (which is how I come to understand it)

I thank you all for your help.

rlogan

Gawen - I'm just a "street person" too. The people here are (for the most part) wonderful resources. I wouldn't say that there's only Buddist-type teachings, no.

I'd say the jury is still out on mithraism. That article talked more about the cosmological source for the Mithraic artifacts we find in their temples as opposed to what traditions they held. So I'd suggest researching further. It does seem that peddlers of junk mithraic science have overspoken their case. That does not mean that there is no early integration of certain mithraic traditions.

Cheers...

SLD

I think part of the problem is that there appears to be two very different Mithraic religions. One is Persian and pre-dates the Romans, but the other is invented by Romans in the early first century. It is this second one that bears the most resemblance to Christianity. Roman Mithraism talks more of a virgin birth, while Persian talks of a rock birth (which is nonetheless attended by Shepherds). Roman Mithraism calls Mithras, "the way the truth and the light." Persian Mithras is the God of Contracts and Shepherds. But even with Mithraic similarities it is hard to say that they influenced Christianity and not other way around. We dont have any Roman Mithraic sources before about 200 AD, IIRC.

What we do know, GakuseiDon, is that the celebration of the mass and Eucharist predates Christianity. Cicero discusses it, calling it a symbolic eating rather than the actual body and blood of the God as the Christians were later to insist: ""How can a man be so stupid as to imagine that which he eats to be a God?" It was a common rite of many Mystery Cults - so much so that ancient apologists argued that other Mystery Cults stole it from Christianity by using the Devil to bring it back to them from the future so they could riddle Christianity later when the time came. Check this link out in the Library: http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...6/chap27.shtml

SLD

{edited to fix link - Toto}

spin

Some information that comes to mind about Mithraism (all of which must be checked, as it is from memory):

1) Mithra came to Rome after Julius Caesar put down the Cilician pirates (ca 50 BCE?);

2) Mithraism was almost exclusively among Roman soldiery (so when one says that Romans worshipped Mithra, it basically means Roman soldiers did);

3) there is almost no primary evidence about Mithraism;

4) much of our knowledge comes from interpreting Mithraea and the scant literature which comments on Mithraism;

5) the reason why so many mithraea have been preserved is because xians built churches over them as a sign of victory of the church.

For a discussion on Mithraism and xianity to have much relevance, one needs to specify just which primary sources are really being used, and what is only interpretation and reconstruction in a xian world.


spin

Toto

This is not a reliable source. Check out the disclaimer at the beginning, and do not rely on this source in any debates.

spin

Oh, and one other point,

6) beside the name, Mithra, there is nothing that has been seen directly in the Roman cult of Mithra which is similar to Indo-Aryan literature on the god.


spin

rlogan

Yes, SLD - Ulasney made a point of Roman Mithraism borrowing the Persian name, but maybe not much else. I had read earlier about the virgin birth too - but my source was Wheless and then some web sites of less than scholarly stature. After coming to grips with the secrecy of the cult, I'm just cautious now about what to believe.

And Spin, soldiers seemed to be the primary attendees but also Traders. Merchant class. Their "temples" were underground, and yes many Xian churches were built over them.

The only unquestionable primary sources are artifacts. Ulasney showed a deep cosmological understanding to the detail of precession - and it was in fact this discovery that was the basis of the Roman Mithraism.

In short, this was a "cult" that had extremely accurate knowledge of celestial movements.

spin

Yes, I've seen a lot of them. The important notion seems to be that the cult was only adult male and of people who weren't representative of the average Roman. There were quite a few mithraea at Ostia Antica, and there's your possible trader/merchant tie-in.

But there really isn't that much to be seen. What can be eked from the symbolism (and there's no Barron's Notes on this stuff), is mainly interpretation. There is no source to support the interpretative framework developed by scholars. It is at best interesting.

Well, thank heavens. Astronomical observations have been pretty good since the Babylonians watched Venus carefully and the Egyptians got the year down to 365 days. Most religious cults were quite attentive to astronomical phenomena.


spin

rlogan

Agreed, Spin.

What strikes me is that the Christians as a group demonstrate decisively less cosmological acumen and culture than the groups they co-opt.

spin

Could be, but the cultic calendar is decidedly seasonal/astronomical, partly because of what it stole from the Jewish calendar, and then what it obtained from the Roman calendar. Then again, xianity does lean toward the mystery cult for its emphasis. Our problem is to understand into just what context the religion actually developed in order to make too many definitive conclusions, and I think we only have a few glimmers.


spin