SLD

I once read, The Mythmaker - Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyamm Maccoby. An interesting book that actually started me on my journey away from Christianity and towards freethinking.

However, in it, Maccoby makes the claim that Paul invented Christianity as a sort of Mystery Cult and that there were many mystery cults with similar rites and beliefs as Christianity.

Unfortunately, Maccoby doesn't list them and didn't use footnotes. I am curious, exactly which Mystery Cults had Eucharistic Rites, i.e. where the body of the dead god was eaten and the blood was drunk to wash away one's sins.

And also, how do we know this and whether they were copying Christianity or vice versa?

SLD

Sojourner553

There are a number of good books on the mystery religions. All historians agree they are centuries older than Christianity.

By the way -- Why focus only on the Eucharist? Mostl serious scholars agree that the celebration of December 25th as the birth of the savior came from Mithraism.

Here are some summaries:

http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/EUCHARIS.TXT
http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GREEK3.TXT

History of how mystery religions were displaced by Christianity:

http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/SUCCESS.TXT

(These are chapters taken from:

http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html

Bobzammel

The December 25th thingy is never actually stated in the New Testament, so the argument there is a little weak.
As for the Eucharist, it's interesting to note that the OT forbids the drinking of blood--symbolic or otherwise. Sometimes meals were associated with God but mainly in the Festival sense.

mike_decock

Do you happen to know where that practice is forbidden in the OT?

-Mike...

SLD

Maccoby focuses on the Eucharist and makes the same point that Bob made in his post that it is forbidden in the OT. Maccoby emphasized that the Eucharist was a big part of the mystery cult symbology. I realize that there were many mystery cults centuries before Christianity, the question then is how many had similar rites as Christianity and in particular the Eucharist.

Fundamentalist Christian apologists claim that they other mystery cults copied the Eucharist from Christianity. I did some further research since posing my original question and found that Justin Martyr an early Christian apologist blamed the similarities in mystery cults and Christianity as evidence of the influence of the devil. I also found a Martin Luther King statement arguing that God allowed the early mystery cults in order to pave the way for Christianity. Still it doesn't answer my question about Mystery Cults that had the Eucharist.

Thanks for the links. I'll check those out.

SLD

Clara Listensprechen

Other readings I've done (again, in a number of old out of print books I cannot refer you to, and for which there is no Internet link) suggest that Christianity was a secretive religion in its early days, which is why Rome regarded it as politically suspicious, an impression not helped by the Christian-persecuting-pro-Roman-rule Sadducees that kept telling Rome this line taken from Jesus' references to some other kingdom.

Rituals conducted in catacombs were not as a result of persecution, but elicited it.

SLD

Those links were outstanding sojourner.

I hadn't realized that Cicero had also commentecxd on the silliness of the Eucharist. I wonder how fundys respond to his remarks. Or do they still cling to Justin Martyr's Theories that these are evidence of the Devil's influence in an attempt to deceive believers. It's great when you gain control of the whole state apparatus and can suppress all opposing doctrines.

SLD

Peter Kirby

What's the source for the quote of Cicero? What's the context? Sounds interesting.

best,
Peter Kirby