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Was Mithras resurrected as Jesus?

• Message 1.聽

  Posted by simonphd (U10648841) on Wednesday, 12th December 2007

  This is my first post, hopefully the first of many. As it's coming to Christmas I was wondering about some of the origins of Christianity and particlularly if there is any truth to what I read in relation to Mithras, the Persian and Roman religious figure. Was Mithras born of a virgin, did he have 12 disciples representing the 12 signs of the zodiac, was he born december 25th, did he rise after 3 days etc? Any help would be much appreciated.

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Xenos5 (U1814603) on Thursday, 13th December 2007

  Welcome to the board simonphd
  
  I'm sure you'll get lots of learned responses to this.
  
  Just to kick things off, it looks like you're citing some features of the biblical jesus and asking if they also pertain to mithras ?
  
  If that's what you're doing - sensible question I'd say - you've let a red herring slip in. Jesus was not born on Dec 25. (I think the accepted date is in September). Dec 25 was a pre-existing 'pagan' festival, which was appropriated by the Christian church. Although the popular language uses terms like "Christ was born today", "today is Jesus's birthday", etc, a well-informed Christian will happily say hat Dec 25 is the day we celebrate the birth of Christ - not actually meant to literally be his birthdate.
  
  Others will give a better account of what was previoulsy celebrated onn Dec 25. I have two ideas - th Roman festival of Saturnalia (where gifts wee given) and the Celtic feast of Bealtain (not sure of spelling). But not sure exactly how these two relate to each other or to the date of Dec 25.
  
  Cheers,
  
  Xenos

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Mick_mac (U2874010) on Thursday, 13th December 2007

  Hi Simon,
  
  Welcome to these boards.
  
  I can't really answer your question but there are some knowledgeable characters on here who might.
  
  I do remember reading somewhere that Mithras, Mitra, and even the Irish mythological Midir, were all developments from a very ancient common Indo-European deity, and there certainly are points of similarity between them.
  
  As to Jesus I would not be at all surprised if aspects of his story were similar also. Afterall, Christianity was very adept at absorbing pagan religion into its own terms of expression and Rome was a centre for the worship of Mithras at precisely the time when Christianity was introduced to the capital of the Roman Empire. becoming a major religion of the

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• Message 4

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  Posted by simonphd (U10648841) on Thursday, 13th December 2007

  Hi Xenos,
  
  Thanks for the post. Yes- of course you're right. What I meant was to say that Mithras, I believe, was supposedly born around the time of the winter solstice.
  
  I should have said also that what prompted me to look into this was Stephen Fry's QI, in which he mentioned these facts relating to Mithras. You can watch the short video on youtube at .
  
  Thanks.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Friday, 14th December 2007

  I too recall seeing that QI programme and it prompted me at the time to try to check whether it was true. After a few unsuccessful searches, I ended up checking the Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisations which is very informative on a range of subjects and usually gives details of supporting evidence. Unfortunately, it gave disappointingly little supporting evidence of the claims made by Stephen Fry because, essentially, nobody really knows that much about the cult of Mithras. There are so few written records that nobody knows much about the cult despite the archaeological remains evidencing its existence. The OCCC specifically cautions against making comparisons with Christianity and that is in connection with a quote about Mithras 鈥渟aving us with the spilled blood鈥� The blood, of course, is from the sacrificed bull.
  There is mention of Mithras being born of a rock 鈥� whatever that means, but no mention of any of the other things recounted by QI.
  
  It's a pity QI didn鈥檛 reveal the source of their information because I have still not bee able to find anyone else who confirms it. I suspect it may be that some speculation or theory may have been used as evidence for the purposes of TV entertainment.
  
  My own view is that it would be a strange thing for the early Christians to do. They were very adept at using existing beliefs as already mentioned in appropriating the midwinter festivals for Christmas. However, Mithras was a secretive, male only religion which was particularly popular amongst Roman soldiers. Quite the opposite of what Christianity clamed to be.
  
  Incidentally, Beltane was the Celtic spring festival, not the midwinter one. Samhain was celebrated at what is now Hallowe'en and is the nearest Celtic festival to midwinter. Imbolc was celebrated at the start of February and Lughnasa at the start of August. The pagan midwinter festivals were more Germanic. Indeed, the British tradition of decorating Christmas Trees only arrived here with Prince Albert who brought the custom with him.
  

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  Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 14th December 2007

  Hi TonyG,
  
  I might be wrong, but I'm sure that I read that Mithraism, although popular with soldiers, appears to have been more of an "officer-class" religion.
  
  Cheers,
  
  
  RF

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  Posted by Jim Reuss (U10298645) on Friday, 14th December 2007

  Are there any decent discussions of Mithraism by historians that anyone can link to?

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Xenos5 (U1814603) on Friday, 14th December 2007

  TonyG
  
  Thanks for correcting my own 'red herring' about Beltane !
  
  X

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• Message 9

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Sunday, 16th December 2007

  I might be wrong, but I'm sure that I read that Mithraism, although popular with soldiers, appears to have been more of an "officer-class" religion.聽
  
  I think you atr correct in that that theory has been proposed. Whether it is accurate or not seems to be open to debate. Certainly, though, the Mithraic temples which have been excavated are quite small which implies (but does not prove) that it was a cult for a select few, which would again imply that it was for upper classes which in remote places like Hadrian's Wall would mean army officers.
  
  As for places where Mithraism can be discussed, I don't know of any and I suspect that anyone holding themselve sout as being an expert on the beliefs and traditions of Mithraism should be regarded with the same caution as modern day druids who use an invented tradition. The only article of any length I have ever come across is in the Oxford Companion to Classical Civilisaiotn and that only runs to a couple of pages.
  
  There is even uncertainty as whether Mithraism as practiced within the Roman empire is a Persian religion, as suggested by Mithras's costume seen in statues, or a Romanised version, as suggested by the way the Romans adopted other religious entities such as the Greek pantheon.
  
  All that seems to be known with any great certainty is that he was a god of light or sun and he slew or sacrificed a bull. His statues (there is one in the British Museum) show a dog and a snake as well and sometimes two lesser divinities (not twelve) but it does not seem clear what the significance of these companions is.
  
  In terms of Christianity, I think QI have stretched a theory into fact here. The only part which seems believable is that, as a god of sun, his feast day may well have been celebrated at the winter solstice which is near enough December 25th. Personally, I think the early Christian Church would have been more likely to adopt 25th December to convince the masses of Germanic pagans who were entering the empire in the 5th and 6th centuries to convert rather than to try to convert a relatively small number of elite cultists. Happy to be proven wrong if anyone has any evidence to the contrary.
  

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  Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 16th December 2007

  There is an interesting chapter on Mithras in Paul Kriwaczek's `In Search of Zarathustra', published 2002.
  
  In this he looks for parallels between the Roman cult of Mithras and the followers of Zoroaster. The paucity of his sources suggests not a lot is known about the cult of Mithras.
  
  He postulates that the decline of Roman Mithraism is closely connected with the decline and collapse of the Empire. He also argues that the widespread adoption of Christianity within the Empire was due to a perception that the Christian message was based on reality as opposed to a myth. Matter of opinion, I suppose.
  
  There are distinct parallels between the Christian story and other religious myths of the same period. Not only is there the Mithraic cult but also the cult of Baldur. This suggests some sort of cultural issue at the time: perhaps connected with the assertion of Divinity by the Roman emperors.

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  Posted by Barry_Monkey2 (U912349) on Monday, 17th December 2007

  If you are interested in the historical study of Mithraism I would recommend two authors and their respective works; firstly, Franz Cumont, an early pioneer whose works have become essential reading (if a little dated now), and secondly David Ulansey, who has developed a radical (well, fairly) new interpretation of Mithraism as an astrological mythology, in which the Tauroctomy is linked to the movements of stars and constellations.

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  Posted by Plato's Atlantis (U13721555) on Sunday, 30th November 2008

  JESUS was Julius Caesar from a book by Francesco Carotti( 1999.)But that has been largely overlooked by the Grand public.
  
  However learning from false traditions is a nice history lesson for otherwise unheard of tales !

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• Message 13

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  Posted by SafricanAndy (U7173046) on Sunday, 30th November 2008

  Hi and welcom simonphd!
  
  The following site is quite informative:
  
  
  It argues that Roman Mithraism was not simply an offshoot of Zoroastrianism (the view presented by Cumont), from Persia, but had Graeco-Roman roots, that differed considerably from the supposed Iranian roots, not least of all, the iconographic variation i.e the bull-slaying scene etc. (which has no equivalent in Zoroastrianism...
  
  As to why Jesus' birthday is celebrated on the 25th of December, the same as that of Mithras: well, the fact that christianity "absorbed" pagan elements I think is sometimes used quite generally. If you consider Jesus as a solar deity, which he originally was, there could be no other date to celebrate his birth but the winter solstice. Whether he was an historical figure or not (I opt for the latter, my opinion), he was then at least viewed as such at one point in time...I have no doubt that there was "cross-pollination" between different religions, but also there were mythological motifs that were just so common bewteen the different cults, they have to have had come from "parent" religions...

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• Message 14

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  Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Sunday, 30th November 2008

  Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:45 GMT, in reply to simonphd in message 1
  
  I did quite a lot of research on Mithraism and its alleged links with Christianity for my Religious Studies A-level (many moons ago, it seems). Ulansey's book 'The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries' was very helpful indeed!
  
  To be honest, there are some parallels, but they are at best superficial. Certainly their 'official' birthday seems to have been 25th December; however, on the one hand Christianity adopted an already popular pagan feast. On the other, Mithraism became associated with Sol the Sun God (as he already seems to have been a god of light) and therefore nicked his birthday (the Feast of Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun).
  
  There does seem to have been a shared meal, but this was known in various religious, and there is no reason to think it had the same significance as the Eucharist does in Christianity.
  
  Ulansey's theory, in essence, was that Roman Mithraism was adopted from the Cilicians of modern Turkey. They had taken the Zoroastrian worship of Mitra, and combined it with the Perseus and Astrological cults which were all the rage in their native land (particularly in Tarsus, of St Paul fame - though one shouldn't read any significance into that!). The tauroctony - the image of Mithras slaying the bull that appeared in every Mithraeum (temple to Mithras) - is thus a star map. The bull is Taurus, Mithras is Perseus, the scorpion is Scorpio etc etc.
  
  Of course, all this is conjecture. Mithraism was very much a mystery cult. So far as we know, nothing was ever written by an insider, at least not that has survived. So the evidence we have left is basically archaeological, plus some written sources which are probably largely hearsay; some are by Christian writers who were themselves aware of the supposed similarities and thus suspected Mithraism of being a deliberate parody of their own sacred rites. This alone suggests that there was no link between the two.
  
  Although the Museum of Antiquities at Newcastle University has now closed, their virtual Mithraeum still exists online! At the Museum they had a full-sized reconstruction of the Carrawburgh Mithraeum, which has been turned into a virtual version here: (you need to select 'The Virtual Mithraeum') The Museum's collections are being moved to the new Great North Museum next door (which opens next year), and I understand there were plans for a new Mithraeum to be erected there. Whether that's happened or not I don't know - it would be a shame if it hasn't, because the MoA one was great!

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