Christianity Origin Of

[eddiesmith]

The main body of Christian belief is in fact not originally Christian at all, and a surprisingly large part of it was drawn from the Persian cult of Mithras, which originated around 2000 BC.

The similarities between this pre-Christian religion and Christianity:

-Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God
- The Mithraic cult believed in a celestial heaven and a hell;
- The Mithraic cult taught that its followers would have immortality and eternal salvation;
- The Mithraic cult taught that there would be a final day of judgment in which the dead would resurrect, and a final conflict between good and evil that would destroy the existing order;
- The Mithraic cult required its followers to be baptized;
- The Mithraic cult had a ceremony in which followers drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of Mithras;
- The Mithraic cult held Sundays as a sacred day;
- The Mithraic cult celebrated the birthday of their god annually on December the 25th;
- The Mithraic cult taught that after their god's earthly mission had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.

 

[Markus6]

I thought it all came from Horus. Gee am I confused now.

 

[FreeinChrist]

The main body of Christian belief is in fact not originally Christian at all, and a surprisingly large part of it was drawn from the Persian cult of Mithras, which originated around 2000 BC.

The similarities between this pre-Christian religion and Christianity:

-Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God
- The Mithraic cult believed in a celestial heaven and a hell;
- The Mithraic cult taught that its followers would have immortality and eternal salvation;
- The Mithraic cult taught that there would be a final day of judgment in which the dead would resurrect, and a final conflict between good and evil that would destroy the existing order;
- The Mithraic cult required its followers to be baptized;
- The Mithraic cult had a ceremony in which followers drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of Mithras;
- The Mithraic cult held Sundays as a sacred day;
- The Mithraic cult celebrated the birthday of their god annually on December the 25th;
- The Mithraic cult taught that after their god's earthly mission had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.

Where is your source?


Check this article out:

http://tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html

In particular, you wrote:
"- The Mithraic cult had a ceremony in which followers drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of Mithras;"

What I found is:

13. His religion had a eucharist or "Lord's Supper," at which Mithra said, "He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved."

This saying is appealed to also by Freke and Gandy [Frek.JM, 49], and it took me some digging to discover it's actual origin. Godwin says that the reference is from a "Persian Mithraic text," but does not give the dating of this text, nor say where it was found, nor offer any documentation; that I found finally in Vermaseren [Verm.MSG, 103] -- the source of this saying is a medieval text; and the speaker is not Mithras, but Zarathustra! Although Vermaseren suggested that this might be the formula that Justin referred to (but did not describe at all) as being part of the Mithraic "Eucharist," there is no evidence for the saying prior to this medieval text. (Freke and Gandy, and now Acharya, try to give the rite some ancestry by claiming that it derives from an Iranian Mithraic ceremony using a psychadelic plant called Haoma, but they are clearly grasping at straws and adding speculations of meaning in order to make this rite seem similar to the Eucharist.) This piece of "evidence" is far, far too late to be useful -- except as possible proof that Mithraism borrowed from Christianity! (Christianity of course was in Persia far earlier than this medieval text; see Martin Palmer's Jesus Sutras for details.)
The closest thing that Mithraism had to a "Last Supper" was the taking of staples (bread, water, wine and meat) by the Mithraic initiates, which was perhaps a celebration of the meal that Mithra had with the sun deity after slaying the bull. However, the meal of the initiates is usually seen as no more than a general fellowship meal of the sort that was practiced by groups all over the Roman world -- from religious groups to funereal societies. [MS.348]

 

[xristos.anesti]

And I thought it came from the dude cutting up kebabs next door to Johno's pub!



Seriously, where do we get people like this in CHRISTIANS ONLY SECTION of the CHRISTIAN FORUMS?!

 

[tulc]

Seen this?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm
I found it very interesting.
tulc(especially the relation to Christianity part)

 

[Ceridwen]

Throughout Pagan mythology, you find the story of the incarnation, death and resurrection of God, whereby God imparts upon us the divine life. This doesn't mean that Christianity drew from fictional and incorrect stories. What it means is that the Christian story is one written in the fabric of existence, and that even those without access to the Christian truth hear the echoes of it when they attempt to think about the deepest realities.

A God who condescends to raise us up, who spills his life blood to give us life -- this is the story that created the universe. If it is found in Pagan myth, this just serves to confirm the truth of Christianity. Cheers.

 

[Oblio]

The cult of Mithrias actually spawned from Christianity.

 

[Rowan]

All these things prove to me are that these concepts are innate.

Gee, I wonder why...

 

[E.C.]

And the conspiracy theories keep on a-coming...


About this one:

- The Mithraic cult celebrated the birthday of their god annually on December the 25th;

Is this Old Calendar or New Calendar?

 

[Oblio]

William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th
because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.

A Mistake

The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars ...

Entire article Calculating Christmas

William J. Tighe, a Touchstone correspondent, is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College. He refers interested readers to Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year (The Liturgical Press).

 

[tulc]

I thought it originated in a manger in Bethlehem, on a cross and from an empty tomb?
tulc(just a thought)

 

[BrendanMark]

William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th
because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.

A Mistake

The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars ...

Entire article Calculating Christmas

William J. Tighe, a Touchstone correspondent, is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College. He refers interested readers to Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year (The Liturgical Press).

The birthday for the Roman sun god, Sol Invictus, was introduced by the emperor Aurelian in 274ad on 25 December – the birth of the Sun (winter solstice in the Julian calendar). Christ was identified by Jerome (amongst others) as Sol Justitiae (Mal 4:2), the Sun of Justice who would shine forth in glory upon return (see De Solsticia). The first recorded Christian Christmas in Rome we know of was as early as 336 (see McCluskey’s Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe or, if you have the language skill, see Botte, Origines de la Noël), and we have copies of Augustine’s Christmas sermons comparing pagan worship of the visible sun, Sol Invictus, with Christian worship of the Sun of Justice, Sol Justitiae. Christ was compared directly to the Sun of the regular day by Zeno of Verona: as the sun sets and rises again so did the Son die and rise again. The twelve apostles were compared to the twelve signs of the zodiac—and therefore twelve months—and the twelve hours of daylight. This was in the tradition of the Jewish Philo of Alexandria, who had compared the twelve Patriarchs and the twelve tribes of Israel to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The year-long progress of the Sun through the zodiac was analogous to the year-long progress of Christ’s active teaching.

This early aspect of Christian worship in which the Sun was appropriated from pagan ritual and from scriptural texts to provide a spiritual symbol of Christ, flavours much of the development of the early Christian calendar.
Stephen C McCluskey Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe [1998 Cambridge p25]

Of course, this includes Christmas, the winter solstice or, as Joseph Campbell has pointed out, three days after the solstice of the 22nd—the moon dies and is reborn in three days—and so did Jesus die and rise on the third day! However, in ancient times the solstice was 25th December.

In Alexandria and other places in the Hellenic world, the birth of Christ was celebrated on 6 January, in opposition to pagan celebrations of the birth of a sun god celebrated on the same date. The growing light on this date, twelve days after the nominal Julian date for the solstice, 25 December, came to symbolize for later interpreters the victory of Christ, the light of the world, and his twelve apostles over the darkness.
Stephen C McCluskey Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe [1998 Cambridge p26]

The four points of dividing the seasons in antiquity was not on the first of the month, rather 25 March, 24 June, 24 September and 25 December marked the equinoxes and solstices until Christian times, when symbolism was overlayed to make the dates more significant. Thus 25 March is the day of the conception of Jesus, 24 June the birthday of John the Baptist and 24 September the conception of the Baptist.

It soon became a commonplace to compare the two solstices, noting that John and his light declined from his birth at midsummer, while Christ’s grew from his birth in the dark of winter. As John said of Jesus, “he must grow greater, while I must diminish” (John 3:30).
Stephen C McCluskey Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe [1998 Cambridge p27]