vid

I didn't know about this piece of evidence for Mithra - Sol Invictus connection. Any thoughts? Do you accept this as evidence the two cults mixed?

Huon

Here is a page dedicated to Mithras cult :
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/bull_killer/

There are a dozen or so temples of Mithras which have been found in the Roman Empire. They are linked to the occupation of the town by a roman legion.

avi

Thank you, Huon.

One can also search the forum for Mithras, quite a few threads on this topic. It is particularly useful, in my opinion, to explore the findings at Dura Europos, with regard, not only to Mithraism, Judaism, and other Semitic trends, including worship of Bal, but also to the theory, accepted by most forum members, that this ancient city, initially constructed by one of Alexander's generals, represents the third century site, of a Christian house of worship. (I am skeptical of that claim, but won't revisit the issue here.)

Mithraic worship sites have been excavated throughout the broader Roman empire, including Scotland, Ireland, England, Wales, France and so on....

From Huon's link:
I disapprove of this wording.

a. no evidence whatsoever, of any 1st century CE practice of Christianity. No coins, no tombs, no temples, no pottery, no mosaics. We begin to see these type of objects in the 2nd century, not the first.
b. worship of Isis predates the Roman Empire;
c. if Mithras is coming from Persia, then it originated long before the Roman conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Daniel 2:34, and Isaiah 33 then, I take it, must represent the original story.

Really?

Sure?

Certain?

Was not Daniel composed about the same time as the Persian conquest of Jerusalem with the consequent destruction of the temple, and the forced emigration to Babylon, in the sixth century BCE? Is there any evidence that the Jews adopted alien religious traditions, particularly Zoroastrianism, into their own practices and beliefs?

addressing the OP, thanks again Huon....

I would have written it differently:

"Mithras was not the only deity, with whom Jesus shared similarities."

I write it this way, altering Carly Silver's text, because, in my opinion, Mithras predates Jesus. I see the Christians accepting the ideas of Mithras, rather than the other way around.

This then, raises the question, whether or not some of these "Mithraic" notions, aka "Christian" ideas, aren't originally derived from either or both Hinduism and/or Zoroastrianism. The most important lesson of Dura Europos, in my opinion, is that our rigid view of the world, today, 21st century, is incompatible with life back then, at least in Mesopotamia, where many different religions were tolerated and consequently flourished. Some flavor of Christianity may have been among them. The evidence, unlike the prejudice of today, reveals that it was the Christians who borrowed from the other religions, rather than serving as contributors, to the practices of those other traditions, as Carly Silver has suggested.

I find this a more balanced, and more informative, web site about Mithraism:
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religi...sm/m_m/pt8.htm

avi

Huon

avi, I agree with your remarks concerning the relations between christianity and Mithraïsm. The myth of Mithras is older than the various stories concerning Jesus (mythical or historical).

The birthdate of Mithras was december 25, eh, eh...

Roger Pearse

The Wikipedia Mithras article was hijacked by a pair of trolls back in March, so has been carefully poisoned with unreliable material, formatted to look like the reliable material. But this particular bit of information was by me, pre-hijack, and I verified it all and indeed obtained the text of the inscription.

What it is not, tho, is evidence about the late Roman sun god, Sol Invictus, any more than for Sol, the early Roman sun god. This is a common confusion among people who don't speak Latin, and think of "sol invictus" as purely a name. But the words "sol invictus" are simply Latin for "the unconquered sun". This phrase was one of the titles of Mithras, and is also given to Apollo, I believe.

It's probably best to date this later rather than earlier, since it is unlikely that this is the very oldest evidence of Mithras, which is what a date of 80 AD would involve.

I hope this helps!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

The Persian deity Mitra or Mithra is not the same as Roman Mithras. The latter is not attested in the historical record before about 80 AD. The copies of the evidence for the former is mostly very late indeed, although some of it clearly dating back to early Indo-Iranian times.

No ancient source records this, unfortunately -- it's a myth, arising in modern times from a careless reading of some speculation by Franz Cumont ca. 1900.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

avi

Thank you Roger. Your input is ALWAYS desirable.

I confess that I am even more ignorant than usual, on this topic.

Why do you state, unequivocally, that Mitra is NOT equal to Mithras? What evidence do you possess to refute the notion, which in my oblivion, I had thought was universally accepted, that Mithraism was nearly two thousand years old, by the time the Romans adopted it, and spread it to Britain, and throughout the Roman empire?

Is there a dispute about the interpretation of the ancient Hittite clay tablets here?

Is "tauroctony" unique to the Roman empire version of Mithraism? What little, I have read, suggests the contrary. In particular, I think I have read, that the Persian reformer, Zarathustra, founder of Zoroastrianism, sought to eliminate the blood sacrifices of bulls, and establish monotheism, praising only the Hindu Ahuramazda, and relegating Mithra to the background.

If this attestation is correct, (based, apparently, on the reconstructed "Gathas", written in an obscure, ancient Persian dialect), then one of the central themes of "Roman" Mithraism, would represent a tradition dating back a thousand years before the Roman empire.

Are we very sure, that Franz Cumont was "careless"? I don't know, Roger, but, I think he was rather widely regarded, in his time, as a formidable scholar, much as was his British counterpart, a generation earlier, Joseph Lightfoot. Am I in error on this point, Roger?

I think Cumont, like Lightfoot, did the best he could, with the data before him.

avi

Roger Pearse

You're very kind. Mithras is something I researched, after getting interested a few years ago, so (unusually for me) I am up to date on the scholarship.

That link is a pirate version of Maarten Vermaseren's "Mithras: the secret god", which is almost 60 years old now.

Mithraic studies originates with Franz Cumont, ca. 1900, who collected ALL the data. The Romans called Mithras the Persian god, and naturally Cumont presumed that Mithras was borrowed from Zoroastrianism. Vermaseren, Cumont's pupil, merely repeats the consensus of that period.

But something was wrong. Over the century after Cumont, archaeologists found more and more remains of Mithraea, etc. But ... none of them were in Persia. The underground temples are very distinctive, but all of them are in Roman territory. In fact the remains spread out from Rome itself, rather than come from the East.

Other problems were noticed. The central myth is of Mithras killing the bull. This is not found in Zoroastrianism. Mithras also has the deity Areimanios, which is the Greek name for Ahriman. But Mithras is not dualist; and Areimanios, far from being the evil principle, is a time god.

And so it went on. In 1971 there was a revolt against the Cumontian ideas, and the separateness of Roman Mithras was pretty much established (you will find the older ideas in non-specialist works even today, tho). There may still be some kind of link -- but the actual evidence of connection doesn't go any further than the borrowed names. And the trouble is that there is quite a lot of pseudo-Zoroaster literature, also with borrowed names, in Greek, which has nothing to do with Zoroastrianism either.

So it's safest to treat the two as distinct.

Something I did was look through all the references in his work to 25 Dec. It all boils down to one unreferenced statement that presumably Mithras took part in the solar festival on that date.

Not a bit. He was a GREAT scholar. He founded the whole field. But, because he was starting everything, he had to find a narrative into which to plug the evidence, and, in the course of tryingt o make stuff fit together, would soemtimes say more than the data really said. No blame to HIM; but quite a bit to those such as Vermaseren who didn't have the drains up and check.

Better, even: for Cumont assembled all the data then known.

All the best,

Roger

avi

Thanks, once more, for your input, Roger.

Here is a web page, which cites YOUR web page, so cannot be too terrible!!!!

It is a tad out of date, but, still has some interesting data. Perhaps it is well known to you, and my suggesting this site is rather absurd, nevertheless, I would profit from your refuting the fundamental claim of the site, namely, that several ancient authors, including Plutarch, Porphyry, Lactantius Placidus, Celsus, and Julius Firmicus Maternus claim (long before the dispute of the 20th century) that ritual bull killing originates with Mithraic practices in ancient Persia, including cave based ceremonies.

avi

aa5874

It has been ESTABLISHED that MITHRAISM PREDATED the BELIEF in the Jesus story.

Please stop your nonsense. Justin Martyr has ALREADY destroyed your FLAWED opinion 1800 years ago.

The claim that Mithras was born in a rock or cave was BEFORE the Jesus story was written where Jesus was also born in a cave.

The ritual of the EUCHARIST was practised in MITHRAISM BEFORE the Belief in the Jesus story.

"Dialogue with Trypho" Justin Martyr is claiming that the Mysteries of Mithras used Hebrew Scripture, like Daniel and Isaiah, not the Gospels.

Let's not waste time.

The claim that the Jesus story originated in the 1st century BEFORE the Fall of the Temple and BEFORE Mithraism is also historically unsubstantiated.