Transcription
[Music] of Christianity and the two basic questions that usually pop into people's minds when they see the title of the talk. The first is: Is he actually going to argue that Christianity somehow owes a debt to the Mithraic cult? The second question that usually comes to mind is: What on earth is Mithraism? Because generally, I would assume most people have not heard of Mithraism, or if you have heard of it, you may not know a whole lot about it. But by the end of the presentation, I hope that you will actually know a good deal about it—maybe more than you want to know. Like I said, I'm going to talk very quickly, so if I lose anybody, I apologize up front. You could always pick up the recording and try to hear what you missed because it's very difficult to get this talk into the 50-minute time frame, so I'm just going to move rather quickly.
First, we want to talk about the major problem, which is the issue of Christian borrowing. We want to know to what extent Christianity is actually indebted to the cult of Mithras. I may use interchangeable terms: the cult of Mithras, Mithraism; that all refers to the same thing. What you see over here are two illustrations, two visuals. Here's a picture of a Mithraic initiate from the Dura Europos Mithraeum in Syria, and here is a Greco-Roman version of the seated Christ. This type of parallel is not what I'm going to be talking about; this is simply an artistic parallel. But a lot of people jump on artistic parallels to try to prove some kind of dependence between Christianity and earlier paganism. But the actual parallels that we're concerned with are a little bit more substantial.
There are several accusations: first, that Mithraism and Christianity actually exhibit parallels in myth, ritual, and message; second, that Mithraism predates Christianity; and third, that Christianity has borrowed from Mithraism. Now, first, we're going to deal with the issue of dependence and chronology. If Christianity actually has dependence on Mithras, then Mithraism must predate Christianity. Of course, Mithraism does predate Christianity; it does not guarantee that there is some kind of borrowing or constitute proof of dependence. However, if Mithraism does not predate Christianity, then, of course, Christianity could not have borrowed from it. So we're going to first investigate the issue of whether or not Mithraism comes before Christianity chronologically.
But there are other necessary conditions. If Mithraism does predate Christianity, we want to show that not only does it have prior existence, but we also would need to prove that the adherents of Christianity and Mithraism have actually had some kind of contact, that the stories, rituals, and beliefs of the two sects actually had what we call real and significant parallels—not just general cursory similarities, because those won't prove anything. That there's really no better candidate to understand Christianity than Mithraism, and that there is some kind of oral or literary dependence of the latter upon the former. Okay, so those are all in addition to chronological priority.
First, I want to talk about the mystery cults. Mithraism is actually grouped with what's called a mystery cult, ancient mystery religion. A mystery cult, if you haven't heard of it, is really an example of a phenomenon that we see in world religions. You could find all over the place movements away from a traditional, impersonal type of devotion or religious activity towards a more personal, intimate approach to the divine. The earliest attempts at a more intimate approach towards religion can be seen in Islam, the Sufi movement; we see it in Buddhism, we see it in Hinduism, and we also saw it in early Greco-Roman religion.
So the mystery cults of the Greco-Roman world, which originated probably as early as the 7th century BC, were a form of personal religion that was different from the traditional state cult, which demanded certain things as far as your actions go to show that you are a member of society but didn't really ask much of you as far as your belief system. What you believe at home is irrelevant to the cult activity that you engage in as a member of society. So mystery religions are different; you don't have to participate; this is purely voluntary. They do shoot for some type of union with the divine, some type of intimacy with a deity of some sort. The main focus of most of these cults is through an initiation ceremony, where there's often some kind of secret information given to you—not necessarily teaching, but the revelation of some secret truth, maybe a sacred object. Then people are sworn to secrecy to maintain the secret, which is one of the reasons we don't have a whole lot of information on any particular mystery cult, because the people took the vow of secrecy fairly seriously.
The idea of an initiation and vow of secrecy actually constitutes this group identity that members of the cult have with one another. So not all the cults actually ended up with a community where you meet on a regular basis with other members; you could do this maybe once and then go back to your normal life, but you're still bound by this basic identity to this vow of secrecy. One of the major themes for most of the mystery religions has to do with the seasonal cycle, the natural cycle of death and rebirth of nature. There's often a promise of salvation, but what we mean by the term salvation is not necessarily the Christian understanding of eternal life or forgiveness of sins or anything like that. Salvation could be as general as some type of temporary blessing; it could be healing from sickness; it could be from any number of things. Generally, most of these cults lack doctrine; that's not true of all of them. The Orphic cult, the Pythagoreans, or various cults actually had belief systems or teachings, but most of them did not.
Christianity is often grouped with mystery cults, but there are some distinctives, and I may mention that as we go. So let's turn to Mithraism itself. What are the parallels that are commonly expounded by modern critics? First, let's look at the general story that is talked about popularly about Mithras. It is said that he was born of a virgin, born in a cave, born on December 25th. His birth was witnessed by three shepherds; three Persian Magi brought gifts to him as an infant. He is accompanied by twelve companions or disciples when he was later ministering publicly. He raised the dead, healed the blind, expelled demons, held the keys of the kingdom, died, and was resurrected. He celebrated a Last Supper with his companions before he ascended into the heavens. So if his story sounds familiar, it just means you've read the Gospels, and this is a challenge I think Christians need to be able to deal with and answer.
Also, we have parallels in ritual and tradition. The initiation of Mithraic initiates went through some kind of water baptism, whatever that means. The accusation that there was a Lord's Supper or a communal meal shared by various initiates also exists. You have the more regular observances, like the Sabbath observance, which would have been gathering together as a community on Sunday, the day of the Sun, and the annual observance of the birth of Mithras on December 25th. There is also an observation of the resurrection and ascension at the time of the spring equinox, which would coincide with the Christian celebration of Easter. So we're going to talk about all these and start first again with the dating issue, which I mentioned. Can we distinguish the Mithraic cult from earlier Mithra worship? Because there's actually no debate about the antiquity of the god known as Mithras, but we want to know: Is Mithraism, the Greco-Roman cult, a direct outgrowth of the earlier Mithra worship, and does this later cultic form actually predate Christianity?
Let's start by looking at its antiquity. The earliest references to Mithra as a god actually come in the Hittite culture in Hittite writings, and he's basically an Indo-Aryan deity. Some people put his origin at least as the 3rd millennium BC, so this obviously predates Christianity. The Hittites, which I have on the map here, show you the extent of the Hittite Empire at its height, which was in central Anatolia, modern Turkey, with the capital being Hattusa. The actual earliest writing mentioning the name Mithra comes from the 14th century BC, from a treaty between King Suppiluliuma of the Hittites and the Mitanni King, Monta Wazza, when the Mitanni were located in northern Mesopotamia. So we have, again, the name show up very early in history.
In India, we have the word Mitra, a little bit of a different pronunciation than Mithra. Mithra is an Indo-Aryan deity, and he was part of a triad of gods: Mitra, Varuna, and Indra, being three of the key deities. We see them in the Rig Veda, which are the earliest of the Vedic scriptures, dating back to a time between 1500 and 1000 BC. We see over and over again this conjoined form of the names Mitra and Varuna, which seems to indicate the real importance of the god Mitra, since Varuna was one of the supreme deities in the religion—basically a sun god type of figure. But he's not necessarily a personification of the sun; his main focus is on his ethical nature because his name doesn't refer to the sun as much as it refers to this issue of covenant and contract. So he was a god of treaties, which is one of the reasons we see him show up in the Hittite treaty.
In Persia, we see the name Mithra show up in Persian writings, which again is a cognate of the Mitra we see in the Vedas. The Persian god Ahura Mazda, who becomes most familiar in the Zoroastrian tradition, was worshiped prior to Zoroastrianism. Some suggest under the name of Varuna; some simply think he was referred to as Ahura. The Greco-Ahura, and again the conjunctive form of the name indicates that even within Persia, Mithra was second in the pantheon as the most important deity. But eventually, there's actually the picture I should point out. What it is is the Ascension of the king Ardashir; it's a Sasanian period Persian relief sculpture. In the middle, you see Ahura Mazda, and behind him, you see the figure of Mithra with the rays of the sun sort of coming out of his crown.
Later, when Zoroastrianism emerged, which would then be around 600 BC, we do not see the name Mithra in the earliest Zoroastrian texts, which are the Gathas, the hymns that are attributed to Zarathustra himself. But we do see his name appear in later Avesta texts as second only to the wise Lord in a work called the Yast, which was from the 5th century. It says where Mazda said to Zarathustra, "Despot Amon, when I created Mithra of the wide pastures, I made him most automata, as worthy of worship and praise as myself," which shows you the lofty position of the god Mithra in the tradition. Additionally, the descriptions of him in the Avesta coincide with what we see in the Vedas of India. He resides in this great palace, commands a team of immortal horses that pulls a chariot of the sun. He again is still associated with the sun, but he is not personified as the sun, and he's a judge of the dead. But his primary epithet is most commonly titled as "Lord of the Wide Pastures," and he's not a deity in Zoroastrianism because Zoroastrianism is essentially a monotheistic religion and more of a dualism. But he's part of a group of beings known as the Yazatas, which are sort of spirits worthy of worship, and they are basically akin to the angels that we find in Judeo-Christian tradition.
Now, the spread of the Greco-Roman cult: we got to look at the earliest references to the Persian god among Greek and Latin writers. The earliest reference we have in that world is from Herodotus, the father of history. When he talks about Mithras, he refers to him as a goddess who was similar to the goddess Aphrodite. So clearly, in the 5th century BC, the Greeks weren't very familiar with the god, or he would not have made such a careless mistake. He's actually from Asia Minor, so he's not from the Greek mainland; they're actually closer to the East. Strabo actually calls Mithras, you sometimes see the "s" on the end of the name now, which is going to become in the Roman world associated with the god Helios, the sun god. Plutarch calls him a mediator between the darkness and the light. Quintus Rufus, who was writing about the time of Alexander the Great, actually talked about the Persian king in the 4th century BC, who passed around the ranks of armed men praying to the sun and Mithras and the sacred eternal fire. So he again knows the association between the sun and this particular god.
Now, as far as the Roman cult goes, I'm going to make an argument that the Roman cult has its origins no later than the late 1st century AD and most significantly through the 4th century AD when it really spreads. Its form in the West is very different from anything we see in the East. It's a cult that's only open to men, incredibly popular with the Roman soldiers, formed a type of secret society that did meet on a regular basis and did have certain teachings associated with it. It actually had an ethical slant, unlike a lot of the mystery cults, and the epical tended to be an emphasis on the issue or virtue of duty, which would be obviously popular with the soldiers. And of course, they had a permanent brotherhood, more common than you find in other religions.
I've already mentioned there are a number of emperors that are actually cited as initiates into the Mithraic cult. The earliest and questionable in this yet is the Emperor Nero in the mid-1st century AD. Commodus, we know, is a known participant in the late 2nd century. I think the picture of him over here is a little different than if you're familiar with Commodus from the movie Gladiator; it doesn't look anything like Joaquin Phoenix up there. But Septimius Severus and Caracalla, father and son, late 2nd, early 3rd century, were initiates. Diocletian, Constantius Chlorus, Galerius, and Maximian were known initiates in the early 4th century, right prior to the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire. We're going to talk about that in a little bit later.
Now, as far as Roman Mithras' association with the sun goes, he was associated with the sun in the Mithraic cult, but he's always distinct from the sun. In various illustrations, you see the god Mithras depicted next to the god Sol or Helios, and you can always identify Mithras by the little Persian cap, which makes him look a little bit like a dwarf, but sort of cute. So again, he's not a personification of the sun, but he is associated with it. Even here, the emperor Elagabalus in the early 3rd century attempted to move the Roman religion towards a worship of the sun god almost exclusively. It was sort of a henotheistic movement that he was attempting. He brought the Syrian sun god Elagabal to Rome and worshipped him as Deus Sol Invictus, which means the unconquerable sun god. By the end of the century, the emperor Aurelian makes the sun cult an official cult of the Roman state, and Sol Invictus becomes very popular. Of course, Mithras, being associated with the sun god, ends up having this additional title added to him: "Unconquered Bull Son." So we're going to see the term "the Unconquered One" apply to the god Mithras himself.
Now, as far as Mithraic studies have gone, ever since the late 1800s, the dominant school of thought has been influenced by Franz Cumont, who was a scholar on Mithraism. He basically saw the Roman cult having its origins in Zoroastrianism, and he believed that since Mithras originated in Persian Mithra, the cult likewise originated in the Eastern Roman provinces. He believed that the Romans adopted the god of their enemies when the Romans were starting to conscript soldiers from the regions of Anatolia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and places like that. There are three main pieces of evidence that he points out: there's a belief among the Roman writers and the Church Fathers that the cult was of Persian origin; the ancient Persian Mithra was an Indo-Aryan deity; and there are the use of several Iranian words in the Roman mysteries. So he believed this was all proof that it originated in Zoroastrianism.
Now, the supposed transmission was that the Roman Mithraic cult emerged from Zoroastrianism as it was imported to Anatolia by the Magi, or the priestly caste within Persia. The proof of supposed Zoroastrian worship was indicated by the fact that you have a number of kings in that region named Mithridates, literally "the gift of Mithras." Cumont believed this is proof because of the popularity centuries before the Christian era. So he doesn't want to suggest the chronology that places Mithras prior to Christianity, which we have to deal with.
The most devastating or most helpful piece of evidence for Cumont's theory is from Plutarch in his Life of Pompey. Here, Plutarch is writing in the late 1st century, early 2nd century AD, and in his account of the life of Pompey, he talks about the Cilician pirates whom he defeats. Pompey was a Roman general around 65 BC, and what he did is he settled them in Greece. He says they offered strange sacrifices of their own at Olympus and celebrated there certain secret rites, among which those of Mithras continued to the present time, having been first instituted by them. Okay, so Pompey's quote makes it seem like the cult existed in the 1st century BC prior to Christianity. So we're going to need to talk about that quote in a little bit.
Julius Firmicus Maternus, 4th century AD, says to him, "They gave the name Mithras and celebrated his rites in secret caves. When you affirm, therefore, that the temples and Magian rites are duly performed after the Persian ceremonial, why do you confine your approval to these Persian rites alone if you think it not derogatory to the Roman name to adopt Persian cults and Persian laws?" So here's the common belief that these mysteries are Persian in origin.
Now, there are a number of different disagreements by modern scholars with Cumont. Ever since the early Freya conferences, people have started to question the relationship between the god of the Roman god Mithras and the Persian Mithra. The Roman mystery Mithras is different from Mithras found in the Avesta. He is a salvific figure in the mystery cult, where he was not a salvific figure in the Persian tradition. There's no evidence that Mithra ever had his own cult within Persian Zoroastrianism. A very important scholar of religion, R.C. Signer, actually says that there is a great difference between the Roman mysteries and "any form of Iranian religion we know of from the original sources." So we can't really find a substantial predecessor to Roman Mithraism in the regions that we've been looking for it.
The extent that these Asiatic names, the Asiatic kings bearing the name Mithridates, is actually maybe less useful than establishing an early date as once thought. This is called a theophoric name—a name that bears the name of a god. It's really no indication of the bearer's actual religious beliefs. It's almost like somebody today being named Christopher, and you assume he must be a Christian missionary of some sort. But of course, that doesn't really show anything about the person's particular beliefs, and it would be the same back then. All inscriptions that we found from the region of these kings simply show Mithras as one god among the larger pantheon; he doesn't really stand out in any particular way. There's no indication of a mystery cult attached to his religion, and there's no evidence of Zoroastrian worship anywhere in the East that employs the kind of iconography that we're going to notice in the Roman cult, and I'll talk about iconography in a little bit.
Now, what do we do with Plutarch's account? Plutarch again gave us the account of the settling of the Cilician pirates in Greece, and we do know where they were settled. They were settled in a region known as Dime, which is in Achaea and northern Peloponnesus, right in that region. This particular passage is not as powerful as it would seem based on a couple of factors. First of all, Pompey is writing about a century and a half after the events occurred, and a lot of scholars have suggested that Pompey may be confusing the mystery cult during his own time with maybe some earlier form of Mithra worship that may have been going on because we find no evidence of the Mithraic activities in these regions, which scholars think should show up if that's actually what was imported at the time. Okay, so Plutarch really doesn't establish what Cumont thought it established.
Basically, since the first International Congress of Mithraic studies, scholars have begun to question whether or not the Mithraic cult is a new religion in the Roman Empire that had been simply created by employing a Persian god simply to bring out some kind of exotic appeal. There have been two basic conferences in '71 and '75, and scholars have basically rejected all the key elements of the Cumont hypothesis. When the Cumont hypothesis goes, the chronology basically goes with it. So we need to talk about what exactly is the date that we could say for Mithraism. The key evidence is going to be supported by literary and archaeological pieces.
As far as literary evidence goes, we don't have a whole lot. There's no text from within the cult that has survived, and there are very few literary references outside the cult. But as far as archaeological evidence goes, we've got a ton. We've got Mithraic temples, inscriptions, and plenty of relief sculpture and other kinds of art that go as well. So first, look at the literary pieces. Diocasius, who is a Roman historian centered in the 3rd century AD, does talk about a king known as Tiridates visiting the court of Nero in 66 AD. He says Tiridates addressed Nero this way: "I have come to thee, my god, to worship thee as I do Mithras." So obviously, he was a worshipper of Mithras. Pliny, who's writing as a contemporary of the event, says that the Magi suggested that the Magi have actually initiated Nero into their banquets. And in Statius, who's writing also around the same time, seems to be aware of a part of the Mithraic myth. He talks about "beneath the rocky Persian caves straining at the reluctant following horns," and I'll tell you what that refers to later. But these are again key pieces that seem to show that Mithras was coming into Rome at least in the mid-1st century.
Well, what do we make of these passages? As far as Diocasius and Pliny go, it's not clear that this guy Tiridates was anything more than a normal worshipper of Mithras. It doesn't mean he was initiated into a Mithraic cult of any sort. There's no basis for determining the nature of the rites that they initiated Nero into, which is why I said we don't know if he was really initiated into the cult. The Magi were supposedly the ones that initiated Nero into something, but the text actually has a very vague linguistic sense. The word "Magi" in Latin could refer to a banquet of the Magi, or it could refer to an assembly of magical banquets. So we don't even know what he was talking about. In fact, the passage in Pliny is talking about Mithras in the Roman Empire, so we may not be talking about Magi at all. But we also know that if the Magi were priests, this doesn't fit what we know about Mithraism because Roman Mithraism didn't have a clergy. So this obviously is not Mithraism that Nero is involved with.
As far as Statius goes, I'm going to spend as much time here, but it does seem to show a knowledge of the key myth or the key part of the story. But there's some debate as to what kind of date this actually establishes. Some people think if he is referring to the Mithras story, then the Mithraic cult may date between 69 and 96 AD. If it's sort of referring to something other than that, they'll push the date back to the early 2nd century, around the time of Hadrian. Okay, so again, we still haven't established a date earlier than the late 1st century either way we go.
As far as archaeological evidence goes, Mithraism is a Mithraic temple. This is the key element and place where people would worship as Mithraic initiates. In the city of Ostia, which is the port of Rome itself, the most important seaport in the Roman Empire, there are over fourteen excavated temples, all dating between 150 and 268 AD. There's a complete absence of these temples throughout the empire prior to 140 AD, so we're talking 2nd century for all of these remains. Due to the central importance of the Mithraic structure, scholars don't really believe that there could be a developed form of Mithraism prior to that structure. It's not like Christians worshipping in a church; we know Christians worshipped in homes. But it doesn't seem to be the case that Mithraic initiates did such a thing. There have been very few Mithraic remains that have actually been found in the regions nearest to Persia, such as Mesopotamia and Palestine. In particular, it's important in Asia Minor, where Cumont says it originated. There's no Mithraic monuments at all found in Persia, which again goes contrary to Cumont's hypothesis that it was from Iran and this thing eventually spread.
As far as the Mithraic remains in the rest of the empire go, the majority of sites are in the West, primarily in Italy, Germany, and the Balkans, where the brunt of these things are found. There's actually only four Mithraic monuments found in Asia Minor, and all of them date after 150 AD. The earliest archaeological evidence we do have actually comes from Hungary at a place called Carnuntum, and as early as 72 is the earliest possible date for these particular pieces of information. It was at a military base where the 15th Legion was stationed. This particular juncture of the Roman Empire did spend time in the East fighting the Parthians around 66 BC and also participated in the revolt of the Jews in 66 to 70. Some people think that they're the ones that brought the cult into Europe for the first time, but we still don't know where they got it from. If they did pick it up, some people actually suggested that the people they did come in contact with were not Mithraic initiates and may have taken Christian ideas and sort of brought them back to Europe and mingled them with some kind of Mithraic idea and originated the idea there, but that's just speculation. We don't know where they would have picked it up.
There lies the description that we have actually early in the second century. So basically, in conclusion, taking into consideration all the Mithraic remains throughout the entire Roman Empire and beyond, scholars have actually failed to identify any material dating prior to the late 1st century AD, which doesn't give us the date that we need to say it precedes Christianity. Now, as far as other problems for the issue of theft, Mithraism has basically eluded detection in every area in which it must have existed if it's going to have influence on Christianity. In spite of the god Mithras' long history, there's no evidence of Mithraic mysteries prior to the advent of Christianity.
To sort of again sum up the evidence at this point, very little material has been found linking Mithraic rites to the region at birth. Remember, I said not only do we have to have it predate Christianity, we actually have to have it exist in a region that would influence early Christians, which would have been Judea and Palestine. Okay, so evidence of Mithraism is lacking throughout most of the eastern provinces. You do have scarce remains in Palestine and Syria—only six known sites in those particular regions, most of them in Syria—and the earliest of these falls in the second century and well after the Christian New Testament was written. All the evidence unearthed in Syria happens to show signs of Roman iconography, not eastern iconography, and the only Mithraic remains that's ever been found about Palestine wasn't even built until the 4th century, so we're talking several centuries after Christianity when it was in that particular region.
Okay, the evidence in the Western Empire really doesn't help at all. Now, at this point, I think you might be saying, if you're familiar enough with logical arguments, you may be saying I'm making a fallacious argument to ignorance—that I'm saying that because I don't find any evidence for Mithraism, therefore it could not have existed prior to Christianity. It may sound like I'm saying that, but I realize that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Okay, I don't know exactly how to prove the non-existence of the cult, but what the issue is that I'm trying to bring up is the burden of proof really isn't on me to prove it didn't exist. The burden of proof is on those that try to study Mithraism to prove it did exist prior to Christianity, and what I've been trying to do is show you that every piece of evidence that they use fails when we examine it carefully. Okay, so I don't think they prove their case, and I don't think Mithraism actually existed prior to the early or late 1st century.
But to be generous, let's assume that it did. Okay, I'm not saying it did; let's just assume that it does predate Christianity. We still have other things to deal with, like the parallels. Okay, so let's reconstruct the story of Mithras. There wasn't much myth; we know that we don't have good evidence of what the story was in its complete form because they didn't leave us any texts. So we're going to piece together what we can from the Church Fathers and other sources. So let's deal with the issue of the virgin birth. Justin Martyr, writing in the early 2nd century, says this about the birth of Mithras: "Those who record the mysteries of Mithras say that he was begotten of a rock and called the place where those who believe in him are initiated a cave." And when I hear Tertullian say that Perseus has begotten a virgin, I understand the deceiving serpent counterfeited this also. And he does mention a virgin birth with Perseus, but when it comes to Mithras, he simply says he was born from a rock, which is not exactly the same thing.
Looking at some other texts, Commodianus in the 3rd century says this: "The Unconquered One was born from a rock. If he's regarded as a god, moreover, he still depicts him also as a thief. If he were a god, he certainly did not live by theft; surely he was of the earth and of a monstrous nature, and he turned other people's oxen into caves," just as it was with the son of Vulcan. So again, the same idea. Jerome, late 4th, early 5th century, writes, "Heathen fables relate how Mithras interrupts Phonius, were begotten of the soil and stone or earth by raging lust." Now, if anybody's familiar with the character of Erichthonius from Greek mythology, it is obviously a figure that was born from the earth, but it was not in any way some kind of virgin conception. There's obviously a sexual aspect to that story; I'm not going to recount the tale, but if you're interested, you could find that.
So the idea of a virgin birth isn't really supported by any of these things. What we end up having also verified in iconography is the birth of a young man, never a baby. There's no nativity scene; he springs basically naked from the rock. I apologize for the graphic nature of some of the depictions, but he's usually depicted carrying a torch and a dagger, representing the sun and the sacrifice of the bull that we're going to see in mythology. Now, I've seen plenty of nativity scenes, and I'm familiar with gold and frankincense and myrrh, but I have never seen a picture of baby Jesus with a blowtorch and a sword, so the parallel is a little bit exaggerated.
The virgin birth, I think, is also further brought about by this connection with Zoroastrianism, which we already talked about because in Zoroastrianism, there is a savior figure known as Saoshyant, who is an eschatological figure, a prophetic figure that was virgin-born. You actually have three figures in the Zoroastrian tradition: Saoshyant, Ashavahista, and Sauron, who are all virgin-born; they're all descendants of the prophet Zarathustra himself. An interesting scenario in the Denkard says this: "Then a maiden, who is Shimanabhu, walks up to the water. She, that is the mother of the famous Saoshyant, then she sits in the water and drinks, since she kindles in a high degree those germs which were the third of the last of the righteous." She was dropping forth originally, though she was 15 years old. The girl has not before that associated with men or afterwards when she becomes pregnant; has she done so before the time when she gives birth? So it's clearly a virgin birth scenario, and we say the same exact thing with Ashavahista and with Sauron himself.
Okay, but what proof does this give us? Not much. Zoroastrianism, I don't think, impacted Mithraism. First of all, the text that we're looking at is a late Pahlavi text, dating to the 9th century AD, much too late to impact Christian writings on the theology behind it. It dates to the Sasanian period of the 6th century AD, so we're talking again 500 years after Christian texts were already written. As far as the reference to Saoshyant in the Gathas, which do predate Christianity, the references to Saoshyant versus Zarathustra is in no way a virgin-born character. Okay, so there's no evidence of a virgin birth at all.
What about the death of Mithras? Comparisons, I think, between the death of Mithras and the death of Christ are misleading. There's absolutely no reference to the death of Mithras that can be found in Mithraic art or in any surviving literary references. So since Mithras is not a dying god, some people have actually tried to assume that the idea of a suffering savior somehow can extend to Mithras and the fact that Mithras has this wonderful struggle with a bull as if that's going to count as a comparison between the story of him and Jesus. So I think that stretches it. Of course, as far as the resurrection goes, if he doesn't have a death, it's hard to have a resurrection, and there's again no evidence of a resurrection for the god as well. The concept of rebirth is absent from early Mithraism, and a belief in the astrological ascent of the soul is something that was also added late to Mithraism.
Now, here's the central story that we do know, and we have plenty of evidence for it. It's called the Tauroctony. There are over 500 images of Mithras slaying the bull. All of them have the same basic elements: you've got the raven, the scorpion, the snake, the dog, Mithras astride the bull with a dagger slaying the bull. Sometimes you have grain sprouting from its tail, sometimes from its wound. The uniformity of the depiction basically shows that these all have really spiritual significance, which is why all these images never vary much except for maybe the head position of the god. So we can look at a number of illustrations, whether it's from freestanding sculpture, mosaics, frescoes, relief sculpture; they're the same all over the place.
Now, again, sort of against Cumont's hypothesis, this is not an Eastern motif. The iconography is purely stylistically Roman. There's no Near Eastern predecessors. It seems to be a Roman victory motif that's being copied here, and this particular one is from the Basilica Ulpia of the Emperor Trajan, which is in the city of Rome itself, where you see a winged victory figure slaying a bull or getting ready to slay a bull. So again, that's more proof that what's going on in the cult is of Roman origin, not Eastern origin. Okay, that seems to be the central story. Now, scholars have not been able to identify where the story comes from. They've looked in primitive traditions in the East to try to find a parallel. They've suggested several of them. Ahriman's slaughter of the primordial bull is probably the most commonly associated, but none of these parallels actually correspond to what's going on in Mithras' story. First of all, Ahriman is their version of Satan within Zoroastrianism; it has nothing to do with being a salvific figure. Any of the other parallels that we find are either too general—simply a sacrifice of an animal for food or something like that—or they're too late to have any impact on Mithraism. Besides that, I'm sorry, Mithras is generally revered as a protector of cattle in the earlier form, not a slayer of cattle.
Now, as far as the ritual similarity goes, Mithraism involved initiation—probably more initiations than any of the other mystery cults. It's a little bit like the Masonic tradition, where you've got levels of initiation. So the Corax would be where you start out; hopefully, you'll be initiated up to the level of Pater at some point. But again, there's no clergy, several different grades and initiations. All we get as far as baptism and initiation goes: Tertullian, one of the Church Fathers, writes this: "The nations who are strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers ascribe to their idols the imbuing of waters with the selfsame efficacy. So they do, but they cheat themselves with waters which are widowed for washing, as the channel for which they are initiated into some sacred rites of some notorious Isis or Mithras. The gods themselves likewise they honor by washings." So he does tell us that the initiates of Mithraism, as well as Isis, initiate some kind of water ceremony.
What does that prove? According to a classical scholar known as Walter Burkert, he is an authority on mystery religions. He actually says this: "There is as yet no philosophical historical proof that such passages as those found in the New Testament are directly derived from pagan mysteries, nor should they be used as the exclusive key to the procedures and ideology of the mysteries." It's appropriate to emphasize in this connection that there's hardly any evidence for baptism in pagan mysteries, though this has often been claimed. Of course, there are various forms of purification or sprinkling or washing with water, as in almost all other cults, but such procedures should not be confused with baptism proper—merging into a river or basin as a symbol of starting a new life. So again, the whole idea that these washing ceremonies are universal in religion all over the world doesn't mean they mean the same thing as Christian baptism goes. Okay, so we don't need to posit some kind of copying from one of these cults for the idea of Christian baptism at all, and he doesn't believe we should.
What about the Tauroctony? Okay, the New Testament does mention being washed in the blood of the Lamb, and we do know that there was a rite called the Tauroctony, which was a bull's blood baptism that actually occurred in Mithraism. Here you see an initiate underneath a grate where the bull is actually being sacrificed above him, and the blood would pour down on him. Okay, now this is a repeatable event in this particular tradition, but it again comes late to Mithraism, and it comes from another cult, which was the cult of Cybele, where we see the same thing originated, but not until around 160 AD. So again, this is well after any of the New Testament documents are written. So when they write, you know, being washed in the blood, they weren't borrowing that phrase from the Mithraic cult. This whole idea is much too late to again influence New Testament authors.
Communion: what about the idea of a communal meal? Church Fathers saw a parallel here. Justin Martyr, again 2nd century, writes: "He said, 'This is my blood,' referring to Jesus at the Last Supper, and gave it to them alone, which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done, for that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystical rites of one who is being initiated." You either know or can learn. So here, he's not talking about red wine, but bread and water. Again, they obviously had some kind of—I'm sorry, I shouldn't use the term sacrament—some kind of ceremony involved with these things.
In the Santa Prisca Mithraeum, which is in Rome, you have an inscription that reads, "Us, too, you have saved after having shed the eternal blood." The question is, does this evidence indicate an identical rite in symbolism and meaning that would require some kind of dependence? To Christianity, borrow it? There are really several problems. There's no evidence that the blood that we're spoken of in this inscription belongs to Mithras; most likely, it's the bull's blood that's being talked about, not a slain Savior but a sacrificial animal. There's no evidence that the meal was sacramental in the sense that Christians view communion. There's no evidence that the communal meal was for all initiates, for certain initiates at certain levels, and there's no evidence that the eating of the bull's flesh and blood brought some kind of spiritual salvation. So those are all just leaps, and one of the big problems with most theories is that anytime we start using Christian terminology and a Christian understanding when we look at these older cults, we end up sort of by accident reading our understandings back into these things. So because we decided we're going to call it a communion, it brings certain mental baggage with it, and we shouldn't assume that it's the same thing as Christian communion just because we're using these terms. It's a big mistake that we often make.
Again, eating this sacrificial victim is commonplace to all animal sacrifice throughout the world, especially in the Greco-Roman world. You don't just sacrifice an animal and burn it; you sacrifice an animal, burn parts, and eat the rest. So that's normal in the context of the pagan religion. What about Christmas? We talked about the idea of December 25th being the birth of Mithras long before it became the birth of Jesus, and I'm not going to argue against that. I don't think there's a problem here; it's just irrelevant to the conclusion that the New Testament somehow borrowed from Mithraism because the narrative of Christ's birth dates back to the first century, while December 25th being recognized as the birthday of the god Mithras doesn't show up until the 3rd century during the time of Aurelian when the Sol cult became officially recognized by Rome. So we don't have that early enough to impact the New Testament, and of course, the New Testament doesn't mention anything about December 25th. The fact that we celebrate December 25th as the birth of Jesus has nothing to do with Scripture. The earliest references we have to December 25th come in the 4th century during the time of Constantine, who also was a devotee of Sol Invictus early before he became a Christian. The West eventually did settle on the date of December 25th, though there was a lot of debate in the early church, and it seems to show it's a victory of Christianity over pagan worship, not the adoption of pagan worship, but the replacement of pagan worship. There's no way this impacts anything in Christian theology, so again, the date is irrelevant.
As far as Sunday worship goes, again, a lot of people blame Constantine for moving the day of worship from the Jewish Sabbath to the day of the Sun, but I think that's a little bit of an overstatement. We do again know that he was an initiate, but I don't think he moved the date, and there are a few reasons for this. First of all, even if the day did move, it has nothing again to do with the New Testament borrowing from Mithraism. We do see passages in the New Testament that indicate that the first day of the week is a special day basically because Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week. As far as the early 2nd century church goes, Justin Martyr affirms that Christians were meeting on the day of the Sun, Sunday, the first day of the week, much earlier, several centuries before Constantine. Now, I didn't say they were only meeting on the day of the Sun; a lot of people believe they met on the Sabbath and on Sunday, twice a week. But by the time we get to Constantine, all he did was declare it a day of rest so as not to disturb the Christians that were already doing this. They were already meeting on this day, so he didn't borrow it from Mithraism, but they got it from the idea of the resurrection on the first day.
Let's finish up with this little part. Like I said, we don't need to posit some kind of borrowing from Mithraism to understand where the ideas of Christianity come from. Christianity is best understood in light of first-century Judaism, the Second Temple period Judaism. Unlike Mithras, we have a figure of Jesus who is a historical figure whose life is well documented. Every key element in his story is actually foreshadowed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He was a Jewish rabbi; he had Jewish followers. The initiation of the Lord's Supper is best understood in the context of the Jewish Passover meal, not the Mithraic communion. The sacrificial aspect of his death is likewise best understood in light of temple sacrifice, Old Testament images, substitutionary atonement, and especially the Passover lamb, not Mithraic slaying of a bull. An immersion baptism, the font of the New Testament, finds its roots in Jewish practice, the practice of baptizing proselytes and even sects like the Essenes, who used ritual bathing regularly. Okay, so I don't think we need to look for Mithraism as a source of joy. Christianity is purely rooted in Judaism and in the revelation that God gave to the Hebrew people.
If you're interested in more on this particular topic, I do have a little bit for suggested reading. Walter Burkert's book on ancient mystery cults is highly recommended. He is not writing from a Christian point of view; he's a purely objective scholar, and a lot of the stuff he writes is very helpful to the Christian position. I have an article published in the Christian Apologetics Journal back in 2007, where I cover most of the same things I talked about in this particular talk, and not quite as much depth; it's a short article. William Alondra is an expert in Iranian religion; if you're interested in more on the Zoroastrian tradition and stuff that was going on in Persia, he's a good source there. I can't recommend Ronald Nash highly enough. The Gospel and the Greeks is probably one of the best books on dealing with Christianity and mystery religions in general and all kinds of accusations of Christian borrowing from the Greco-Roman world. And then one of my favorite scholars, Edmond Yamaguchi, who wrote a book called Persian the Bible, where he deals with the issue of Mithraism at one point, and maybe a few pages he deals with it, but again, a good Christian scholar.