Peter Kirby

I refrained from intervening because I was expecting someone to provide the quote, so that the response that a different item was in mind would be closed off. But I suppose it would not be right to keep you waiting for information on the reference.

Freke and Gandy write (The Jesus Mysteries, p. 49): "An inscription reads: 'He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation.' This may sound like a Biblical quotation from Jesus, but it is actually the Mystery godman Mithras speaking! It is, however, uncannily similar to the passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus likewise announces..."

The footnote refers to "Godwin, J. (1981), 28." The book is titled Mystery Religions in the Ancient World. Godwin himself says that the quote is from a "Persian Mithraic text," not an ancient inscription, without giving any details about the origin or dating of the text. It turns out that it is actually a medieval text and that the words are attributed to Zarathustra.

Here's a link:

http://www.farvardyn.com/mithras4.htm

"Justin records that on the occasion of the meal the participants used certain formulae comparable with the ritual of the Eucharist, and in this connection mention may be made of a medieval text, published by Cumont, in which of Christ is set beside the sayings of Zarathushtra. The Zardusht speaks to his pupils in these words: 'He who will not eat of my body and drink of my blood, so that he will be made one with me and I with him, the same shall not know salvation....'"

The moral of the story is: don't accept second hand quotes.

best,
Peter Kirby

GakuseiDon

Thanks, Peter - very interesting.

SLD

Sorry to take so long to respond GD but I was looking for where I read that there was an inscription, and I'm embarassed to admit this, but I cannot find the reference, although I did unmistakably read this somewhere. I will withdraw the claim that there is a Mithraic inscription to this until I find where I got it from. It is possible it came from the same source that Peter Kirby writes about.

Nevertheless, the Eucharistic meal of eating the body and drinking the blood of some dead God clearly predates Christianity. Even Cicero mentions it and ridicules the idea that the God actually becomes the flesh and the wine the blood of God.

SLD

lpetrich

And where does Cicero do that? Please point me to an exact quote or to somewhere in his writings. He may have written about that question in On the Gods.

SLD

The quote is: "How can a man be so stupid as to imagine that which he eats to be a God?" - Cicero, De Natura Deorum, III. xvi. 41

GakuseiDon

Yes, in this you are correct. Cicero was referring to adherents of agriculture gods like Osiris, where the grain symbolises rebirth. Some of the adherents claimed that the grain took on the properties of the god himself.

Sojourner553

According to Tertullian, the similarities
between the Church sacraments and those of the mystery religions was due to the mischief of Satan:

"Satan imitates the sacraments of God. ("Dei sacramenta Satanas affectat ".




How many sacraments were there of early Christians? I can think of only two: baptism and the Eucharist.


Get any others?

Tertuillian said "sacraments" (ie plural)--which I interpreted as BOTH baptism and the last supper. The connotation would also seems to me to apply to ALL sacraments (ie both of them)

You have a better interpretation?

Sojourner