GakuseiDon

I'd like to keep some focus on pagan beliefs, and the applicability of Doherty's use of them to support his theory.

I propose this thought experiment: let's say that a new pagan text, dating to around the First Century CE is discovered. In it, it describes stories about a previously unknown god, who was born of a mortal woman (like a Dionysus), castrated (like an Attis) and killed by dismemberment (like an Osiris).

When scholars examine these stories, would they think "The pagans may have thought that these events actually happened, but in another "dimension""? Have ANY scholars put forward such a position?

GakuseiDon

I missed this one. I actually think David Ulansey supports me. I'm interested in why you think his article doesn't.

Does Ulansey believe that there was a bull, except that it was in another dimension? Or does he believe the myth of Mithras killing the bull was allegorical for the actions of cosmic forces? AFAICS it is the latter, which IMHO supports me.

Compare these two quotes from Doherty:

This (my emphasis in both passages):

For the average pagan and Jew, the bulk of the workings of the universe went on in the vast unseen spiritual realm (the "genuine" part of the universe) which began at the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven. Here a savior god like Mithras could slay a bull, Attis could be castrated, and Christ could be hung on a tree by "the god of that world," meaning Satan

... with this:

However, no Christian writer or hymnist expresses the view that the Christ myth is allegorical or symbolic. Paul seems to have very much believed in the divine Jesus' literal suffering at the hands of the demon spirits.

Where did people place Mithras's killing of the bull? On earth, in a non-earthly dimension or as allegorical?

Where did people place Osiris's dismemberment? On earth, in a non-earthly dimension or as allegorical?

I can find evidence for beliefs in the first and last options, but nothing for the middle one. This is where I believe Doherty is having it both ways: he has created the middle category to support his ideas on Paul ("born of woman", "in the flesh"), but he is using the last and the first categories as evidence.

jgibson000

Strictly speaking, no account of Dionysis testifies or recounts that a woman gave him birth. Semele is killed before she can give birth to Dionysis, while Dionysus is still gestating, and long before he had come to term.

Jeffrey

jakejonesiv

Hi GDon,

As you know, I am forced to disagree with Earl on certain points.

But with all due respect, I think that it is a mistake for you to form your theory based on opposition to Earl's theory, and to selectively omit Judaism and early Christianity from the evidence. Your points must stand on their own before they can be used to refute Earl.

My own viewpoint is that myths can be conceived to occur anywhere, in the heavens, in the stars, on earth, and under the earth. You seem to be arguing the opposite, that the ancients only believed myths that were conceived to have happened on the earth, and that myths that were said to have occcured in the heavens were clearly understood to have been "allegorical/symbolic/just stories, so didn't literally occur."

I will submit to you that such a position is a bit rash considering all the religions, cults, and sects that populated the Roman empire around the turn of the era. How can you speak for all Christians, much less all pagans?

In particular, your theory does not withstand scrutiny when compared with the beliefs of at least some early Christians.(I will define early Christians as up through the 3rd century, including heretics).

Certain early Christians/Jews believed that God not only had a general presence (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 2:6; Isaiah 66:1; Jeremiah 23:24). but a particluar presence in heaven. In this presence, spiritual entities called angels were believed to have access, to come to and go on missions, and were involved in certain activities, such as beholding the face of God. (Matthew 18:10).
In addition, certain early Christians believed in the myth that certain spirits sinned and were being confined to Tarturus (2 Pet. 2:4, Jude 6). That leads us to the myth of the Watchers and the similar Grigori (2 Enoch 18:3) in the Enochian literature, a myth that your theory would struggle to account for.

But back to my first example in an earlier post. Did early Christians believe that the assembly of God in heaven with the angels, and Satan described in the book of Job was literally true? You answered that you didn’t know. But that just evades the question. If any early Christian believed it have occured in heaven and to be literally true, you theory is damaged.

Have you read Epistle to the Philippians, attributed to Ignatius, chapters IV through XI?

Comments?

Jake Jones IV

youngalexander

The weather turned fiendishly hot again, so I have been cooling my heals by the pool, mulling it over, and keeping an eye on the thread. Mithras sent me off again re-reading Ulansey and Clauss and other stuff. We are having a cool break today (only 30C) before it heats up again and I head off for a fortnight on hols. Thus I thort that I had better get this post in.

I have been endeavouring to express my unease at the concept of an 'average pagan' apparently believing a restricted set of notions to the effect that ...the options are "the myths of the gods either happened on earth, or were allegorical thus never happened at all". Also, that a placement of pagan gods in "the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven" was not unreasonable, in certain instances.

In the first place I do not think that 'average pagan' is any more meaningful than 'average Christian', either in the 1st cent C.E. or now. If such fellows could be sed to exist, then they are far closer to illiterate peasants/slaves/soldiers than the likes of Plutarch or the writers of religious tractates.

Secondly, why does the choice have to be either "occurred on earth" or "allegorical/symbolic/just stories, so didn't literally occur"? I have pointed out several which clearly do not occur on earth, are not allegoric, and give every appearance of being taken literally.

Thirdly (and I have been meaning to say this for some time), an allegory is "a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning". If the allegory is set upon earth, the hidden meaning which it contains may well be located elsewhere, in the spheres of the gods, for instance. We cannot just airily dismiss it as of no consequence. They must have meant something to someone, and the most literal minded would be the 'average pagan'.

Mystery religions in particular operated upon many levels. Hence the requirement of initiation and progression thru the various levels. Yes, I know that you and Doherty apparently agree that
Nevertheless, a pagan mythic allegory does not imply that the real (hidden) meaning was not thort of as having occurred literally. Unfortunately, the nature of mystery religions was such that virtually no interpretable records have come down to us. Except, perhaps, for Mithraism. If Ulansey's theory is correct, then we are in a very good position to understand in some detail the abundant iconography which is extant. That understanding points to a literal set of actions in a celestial location.

Before we proceed to that, however, I shall discuss the questions after the quote above.
It is clear that before the time of Ptolemy (2nd cent C.E.), and no doubt for some time after, there was little agreement as to the details of Greaco-Roman cosmology. There was a general agreement concerning the seven 'planets' (Moon, Sun Venus Mercury, Mars Jupiter & Saturn) and the fixed stars (firmament) as the eighth. The mechanisms regulating the planetary motions were however subject to considerable debate because none of them could accurately predict those motions.

I think that the result of this was that there was no 'standard' theological concept of the cosmology other than a vague adherence to the seven gods & their spheres, and the fixed celestial sphere and whatever lay beyond. We have seen that the Gnostic and Hermetic writers in the Nag Hammadi had a quite diverse understanding of these matters. In none of the writings, articles and books I have been reading since we began this have I seen much, if any mention of sublunary. The general impression I get is that 'celestial' seems to cover any implied location.

Ulansey has an interesting essay which gives a summary of Greaco-Roman thort at the time CULTURAL TRANSITION AND SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION
The form which such experiences of transformation could take varied from tradition to tradition, but the general trend of a widespread search for the new and unusual-- contact with which would create a sense that a personal transformation had indeed taken place-- is clear. As the New Testament scholar Dieter Georgi says,

If I were asked to describe the main characteristic of Hellenistic culture between Alexander and Constantine, I would answer that it was committed to experiment with transcendence, literally as well as metaphorically. It represented a multifarious exploration of the limits and possibilities of humanity. It was a laboratory of the extraordinary. [7]

The implication of this in our context is that you cannot simply pin the location of pagan gods down to a neat location such as earth or sublunary or above the firmament. As I have sed at least twice, I think that the pagans thort of their gods in many diverse locations - all over the deck. As has been sed above
As far as the mythicist case is concerned it is certainly a tricky one to argue - mainly thru lack of data. Altho I am about to have another go directly. You may have thort that the Gnostics were a trifle left field, but let's face it, they are probably a good deal closer to Paul than the 'average pagan'. As to Doherty, I think that he is probably too cramped in the consideration of sublunar. Perhaps this is because of Paul, but it is certainly unnecessarily restrictive re the general run of pagan god. Yet "the lowest level of the "air" and extended ever upward through the various layers of heaven" is his, and so is 'dimension'. I think maybe he needs to re-express this part with a more consistent terminology.

I think that your case ultimately does not work, which is why I joined the debate. In the first place you are attempting to straightjacket pagan ideas into Pauline cosmology, and there is no reason why they should conform. Or rather, there is no reason why we should accept your case when they do not so conform! Secondly it seems to me that you are arguing a false dichotomy with this "either on earth or allegory, thus unreal" line. It breaks down, as I sed above, because an allegory has a hidden meaning and it is that meaning which is important, not where the allegory is placed.

GakuseiDon

Out of interest, which points are they?

I'm not really sure what you mean here. I'm not omitting early Christianity from the evidence, I'm seeing whether Doherty's appeal to pagan's ideas of where their gods played out their myths is backed up by the evidence. Ultimately if I am right we can see how this impacts on Doherty's theory. At that stage we can compare with early Christianity.

No, I think you may have the wrong idea of what I am saying. I'm saying that those myths that appeared to take place on earth were either placed on earth, or the stories were thought to be allegorical. Obviously myths that are set in heaven weren't thought to have taken place on earth, nor thought to have been allegorical.

I gave an example in my thought experiment earlier: a god born of a woman (Jeffrey is right that Dionysus never actually got that far, but the comparison is close enough for my purposes), castrated and dismembered. Would scholars analyse the text to see if the people of the time thought that the myth took place in a non-earthly dimension? I believe that they wouldn't, because this is a concept that Doherty has made up.

Paul's Jesus was born of a woman, broke bread with people, suffered in the flesh -- Doherty has appealed to pagan beliefs to support his notion that there was a "dimension in the sphere of flesh" that wasn't on earth, but I don't see anything to support this. From what I've seen, pagans around Paul's time thought that the stories either took place on earth, or they were just stories and didn't happen at all. Doherty is proposing that they believed that the events really did occur, but just not on earth.

I can't. But I'm saying let's look at the evidence instead of "grokking" Doherty's theory and assuming he is right. I can show from a number of sources now where pagans seemed to place the stories of their gods on earth. What I am looking for are pagan beliefs that the stories of their gods took place in a "dimension in the sphere of flesh" that wasn't on earth.

Can you explain why? I haven't really looked into the underworld, and the Grigori were placed on earth, and then in heaven after their death. There is no doubt that there was wider discrepencies about what was above the firmament than below, but I'm only focussing on what was below the firmament.

I think I can see now why you might think so. Perhaps I confused matters by talking about the "stories of the gods", since there are stories about them doing things above the firmament also. But unless Doherty is claiming that Christ was crucified above the firmament -- which he doesn't do, for good reason -- the events there are largely irrelevant AFAICS.

I hadn't, but I read it just now. There is nothing there either for or against Doherty or me AFAICS. Is there something there that you find pertinent?

GakuseiDon

The only one that has come up is the Egyptian story that Plutarch recounts where the sun is playing checkers with the moon. Given the context, this appears to be allegorical. Just earlier Plutarch talks about a man called "sword" and says that he wasn't really a sword, but that the name matched his personality.

I'm being a little misleading by always calling it allegory. Sometimes the stories are just rejected as embellished history. But I don't really want to keep writing "allegory/symbolic/fiction". Perhaps "non-literal" might be better.

I'm not dismissing it as of no consequence, but simply as no consequence for Doherty's idea that the "average pagan" thought that these myths really happened somewhere, just not on earth.

Yes, but not a literal Mithras killing a literal bull, correct? The story is allegorical for the actions of cosmic forces changing the universe.

True enough, but I am looking for indications of pagan belief where the god is born of a woman, lived in the flesh, broke broke and drank wine, was buried and resurrected, and it was thought that these events DIDN'T take place on earth.

Strangely enough, I believe that Paul would agree with your last sentence. But I don't believe that I am arguing a false dichotomy. From what I can see, especially in the Second Century literature where Christians with philosophical training wrote letters attacking the pagan gods, pagans placed the "fleshly" stories of their gods on earth or as non-literal stories. They didn't place them in a "non-earthly dimension". Pagans reading Paul's letters would have assumed that Paul placed Jesus on earth.

Brother Daniel

(First, I'll confess I haven't read the whole thread. If my present comment addressed ground already covered, I apologize for that.)
Crumble? Not at all. You're strengthening Doherty's case by removing an unnecessary complication. To repeat what I said on your previous thread on this topic:

jakejonesiv

Are you serious?

Jake Jones IV

youngalexander

From Ulansey's essay CULTURAL TRANSITION AND SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION
The fact that this new cosmology arose simultaneously with the cultural transformation of the Hellenistic age created a synergism in which the questing spirits of the Hellenistic world-- those who, in Dieter Georgi's words, were living in a "laboratory of the extraordinary"-- could create remarkable new symbolic systems merging cosmological speculations with ideas, intuitions, and images arising from the experience of dwelling in a culture undergoing a tremendous and rapid metamorphosis.

For example, as we mentioned earlier, the old cosmology often located the home of the gods on the top of a great mountain at the center of the earth. But in the new cosmology, in which the earth was understood as a globe dwarfed in magnitude by the great sphere of the heavens, the great mountain of the gods suddenly became merely a microscopic bump on the surface of the earth-- no longer a proper habitation for the divine forces who were in control of the universe. As a result, during the Hellenistic age we find the emergence of imagery in which the gods come to seen as dwelling in the realm of the stars, no longer nearby and accessible but now reachable only through extraordinary means.

Thort experiment anyone?
Clauss = Manfred Clauss: The Roman Cult of Mithras

You are an 'average pagan'.
Clauss: You are perhaps soldiers, members of the imperial administration in the clerical and sub-clerical grades, slaves and freedmen belonging to the domus Caesaris and private households, and ordinary citizens.
Not an initiate, but perhaps a novitiate of Mithras. You are familiar with some of the iconography associated with the sacred narrative. For instance,

Mithras born from the rock:
Apart from his phrygian cap, he appears naked from the waist up, bursting from the rock with a dagger in his right hand and a torch in the left.

What do we make of this? Well, we know of his ancient Persian associations, that he is 'creator of light', indeed a sun-god, and that he brings life by slaying the bull, hence the dagger.
Clauss: ...the rock-birth is the {second} most frequently represented event of the myth

Where do we suppose that this birth takes place?
Is it earth? Had the fecund rock given birth to Mithras?
Is this allegory? If so, of what?
Do we even care that much?
Clauss: ...it was in most cases ..., social risers who turned to this Roman cult;
A more savvy novitiate might have understood it as Clauss does:
The multi-layered quality of Mithraic symbolism ... represented and understood not only as the kosmos but also as the earth, on many images it is encircled by a serpent, a creature associated with the earth.

Sol Invictus Mithras
Clauss: Mithras is Sol, and at the same time Sol is Mithras' companion.
A series of reliefs on a column:
Sol ascending in his chariot with Mithras
Mithras and Sol clasping hands - the handshake signifying contract
Sol kneeling before Mithras in obeisance

Where do we suppose that this takes place?
Two sun gods, cannot be earth surely. Perhaps the second sphere?
Is it allegory?
What does it signify? Clauss doesn't know!

Mithras Slays the Bull
Clauss: ... it is the image that is most commonly found:
Beneath the arching roof of the cave, Mithras, with an easy grace and imbued with youthful vigour, forces the mighty beast to the ground, kneeling in triumph with his left knee on the animal's back or flank, and constraining it's rump with his almost fully extended right leg. Grasping the animal's nostrils with his left hand ... the god plunges the dagger into its neck with his right hand.
This is accompanied by considerable additional iconography.

Where does this take place?
Well, the sacred bull has plenty of precedent on earth. Yet as jakejonesiv has sed, with scorpions hanging off its nuts, dogs licking the blood and a serpent, torchbearers, the zodiac, Oceanus, Luna and what-have-you lurking near, it is likely that even the most dimwitted pagan might have figured out that something deeper was meant.
The question is, what and where? Clauss doesn't know!

These are just the more prominant features which would have confronted the uninitiated. I suggest that none of them would be taken at face value, but their meaning is obscure, to say the least.

Contrast that with an initiate. Clauss:
...there were seven initiatory grades...
In addition to the ordinary members of the cult, then, who were content simply to be initiated, there was a sort of hierarchy of offices or priesthoods. For these priests, theological, ritual, and surely also astronomical and astrological knowledge was required.

Rock-Birth: The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras (3rd image from bottom)
That the rock from which Mithras is born does indeed represent the cosmos is proven by the snake that entwines it: for this image evokes unmistakeably the famous Orphic myth of the snake-entwined "cosmic egg" out of which the universe was formed when the creator-god Phanes emerged from it at the beginning of time. Indeed, the Mithraists themselves explicitly identified Mithras with Phanes, as we know from an inscription found in Rome and from the iconography of a Mithraic monument located in England.

The birth of Mithras from the rock, therefore, would appear to represent the idea that he is in some sense greater than the cosmos. Capable of moving the entire universe, he cannot be contained within the cosmic sphere, and is therefore depicted in the rock-birth as bursting out of the enclosing cave of the universe, and establishing his presence in the transcendent space beyond the cosmos.

Thus the Rock-Birth is not set on earth, nor is it allegoric. Understood at the higher level, whichever that may have been, it is a literal representation of the true status of the Mithras.

Sol Invictus Mithras: MITHRAS, THE HYPERCOSMIC SUN, AND THE ROCKBIRTH Ulansey
We see here, of course, a striking parallel with the Mithraic evidence in which we also find two suns, one being Helios the sun-god (who is always distinguished from Mithras in the iconography) and the other being Mithras in his role as the "unconquered sun." On the basis of my explanation of Mithras as the personification of the force responsible for the precession of the equinoxes this striking parallel becomes readily explicable. For as we have seen, the "hypercosmic sun" of the Platonists is located beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, in Plato's hyperouranios topos. But if my theory about Mithras is correct (namely, that he was the personification of the force responsible for the precession of the equinoxes) it follows that Mithras--as an entity capable of moving the entire cosmic sphere and therefore of necessity being outside that sphere--must have been understood as a being whose proper location was in precisely that same "hypercosmic realm" where the Platonists imagined their "hypercosmic sun" to exist. A Platonizing Mithraist (of whom there must have been many-- witness Numenius, Cronius, and Celsus), therefore, would almost automatically have been led to identify Mithras with the Platonic "hypercosmic sun," in which case Mithras would become a second sun besides the normal, visible sun. Therefore, the puzzling presence in Mithraic ideology of two suns (one being Helios the sun-god and the other Mithras as the "unconquered sun") becomes immediately understandable on the basis of my theory about the nature of Mithras.

There were no doubt various levels of understanding here. Yet again, not on earth, not allegoric, direct, literal cosmic location - provided one is an initiate.

Mithras Slays the Bull
Perhaps so. It certainly retains many 'Persian' influences. Yet this does not conflict with Ulansey's theory. The Roman version really only takes off from the beginning of the 2nd cent C.E..

I see little point in regurgitating Ulansey's site, but instead will address GDon's reaction to it.
It is the latter of course, for the uninitiated. However, the point that you are missing is that the constellations were not just a bunch of stars to the ancients, but literally a bull, a dog, a scorpion etc.. So that when Mithras moved the celestial equator from the "Age of Taurus" to the "Age of Aries", he literally killed the bull. This was no ordinary event. The fixed stars were the firmament, heaven which provided the one stable element of the cosmos. They did not move, unlike the planets which were corrupt and unstable, the fixed stars were immutable. Yet, Mithras moved them. He literally slew the bull.

Not on earth, not allegoric for an initiate, a literal cosmic event of supreme moment.

Christianity was not a mystery cult. It did not proceed via doctrinal secrecy and arcane allegory. The mystery cults did, but only in order to exclude outsiders. To the initiated their teachings made perfect literal sense - afterall, they actually believed this stuff. A point which you may have overlooked.