Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth > Pagan Christs

Mithras 1400 BC - a non-dying, unresurrected non-savior

Mithras Pagan Christs
Was Jesus new? Was Jesus unique? Let's talk Pikachu's choice of the Pagan "godman" (pfft) Mithras.

He is right that Mithras was originally Persian, before Rome. However he is fudging with the data to say, When the Christ myth was new Mithras and Mithraism were already ancient. As I note in my article on Mithra the Roman Mithra was not contiguous with the Persian one. This was held by the "original" Mithraic scholar, Cumont, but has since been abandoned by current Mithraic scholars, notably David Ulansey, but also quite clearly by members of the Mithraic Congress. Pikachu is also fudging when he says that the Persian Mithra was Worshiped [sic] for centuries as God's Messenger of Truth. He was called the Upholder of Truth, and also Lord of the Contract; he was kind of like the fairy godmother who stood over your shoulders making sure you kept to your contracts; if you didn't, he and his sidekick Victory would come down in his boar's head chariot and kick your butt. Not exactly "God's Messenger for Truth" (a religious message of salvation) in the sense that Jesus is held to be in Christianity. Got to wonder what bucket Pikachu had his head in on this one.

Dating Mithras

Persia
Contrary to Pikachu, in Persia Mithras does not "fade into prehistory" -- the date he gives, 3000 BC, is false. Mithra is first mentioned in a treaty dated to 1400 BC

Rome
Plutarch (Pompey, 24, 7) and
Servilius (Georgics, 4, 127) did indeed say Pompey imported Mithraism into Rome after defeating the Cilician pirates around 70 BC -- this is standard from Ulansey, the leading expert on Mithra today, but it is also not the same Mithra as the Persians worshipped.

Even if Mithras appears epigraphically in the circles of the Roman emperor in the first century AD -- Pikachu's citations of Latin inscriptions noting that Mithra was in the "circles" of the Roman Emperor, and had statues, it is of no relevance if Mithra isn't comparable -- and that's the case as we show in detail in the linked article above.

It's not quite correct to say that Christian apologist Justin Martyr (1 Apologia, 66, 4) denounces the devil for having sent a God so similar to Jesus -- yet preceding him. In the citation listed, here is what Justin actually says: 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 mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. There's nothing here about "similar to Jesus" or "preceding him" -- Justin is upset about then-present imitators, and there is no evidence here that the Mithraic rite preceded the Christian one. But we'll get more on that when we slap Pikachu down on his Eucharist page.

Sadly there's not any proof that Mithraism "comforted million of souls" as Pikachu claims. There are no numbers out there for Mithraism; it was Christianity's leading rival, but to what extent numerically just isn't known; Pikachu just pulled the "millions" estimate out of his rear end, like he does so many of his "facts". So likewise the claim, Early Christians established the dominance of their religion by exterminating Mithras' faithful, razing His temples, burning His sacred texts. Given the number of Mithraeums still around, that's a real laugh. But now to some of these claimed parallels:

It is NOT true that
He was buried in a tomb from which He rose again from the dead -- this was not celebrated "yearly" or at all. As the Mithraic scholar Gordon puts it quite bluntly in Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World, "there is no death of Mithras" -- so there sure as heck ain't no tomb, nor a rising, nor a yearly celebration.

And what about the birth of Mithras on December 25th, and Jesus on the same date? Put it this way, as Glenn Miller does: "...the Dec 25 issue is of no relevance to us--nowhere does the NT associate this date with Jesus' birth at all." This is something the later church did, wherever they got the idea from -- not the apostolic church, and if there was any borrowing at all, everyone did it, for Dec. 25th was "universally distinguished by sacred festivities" [Cumont, 196] being that it was (at the time) the winter solstice. So, scratch that as an issue. Pikachu is otherwise wrong to say that Mithras was born in a cave, on December 25th, of a virgin mother. He was not born in a cave, but from a rock; we don't know that it was Dec. 25th until Roman times; and since mom was a rock -- well, I guess a rock could be technically a virgin, but then so is your living room sofa.

Mithras did not "come from heaven to be born as a man, to redeem men from their sin." He never set foot on earth in Roman Mithraism; his deed was done in the heavens, where he killed Taurus the Bull as part of the precession of the equinoxes. He did nothing about human sin, period. He was never known as "Savior," "Son of God," "Redeemer," and "Lamb of God", not in Persia or in Rome. In Persian/Vedic incarnations he did sweep down to earth on a chariot to kick butt, but he was never "born" on earth. Pikachu is pulling these factoids out of his behind, or else from the work of 19th century freethinkers who simply made it up -- not Mithraic scholars.

His followers did not "keep the Sabbath holy" -- the Sabbath was Satruday; Sunday is not a Sabbath, though it is the day that Mithraists in Rome did their stuff. However, all the evidence for this postdates Christianity. As far as eating sacramental meals in remembrance of Him, this is half-true as evidence dictates. 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 celebreation 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. So contrary to Pikachu, there was more than "bread and water," or wine; but it was not symbolic of the body and blood of the sacred bull.

Baptism in the blood of the bull (taurobolium) -- was not "early" and
Baptism "washed in the blood of the Lamb" -- was not late... evidence for the former is not found until documents postdating Christianity. Baptism by water may well have been recorded by the Christian author Tertullian, but it was also recorded by Paul (1 Cor. 1), ordered by Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20) and preceded by Jewish ritual immersions such as those performed at Qumran. More on that when we get to what Pikachu says about baptism.

There is no evidence that Mithraic rituals brought about the transformation and Salvation of His adherents -- we know nothing about Mithraic soteriology, though like many mystery religions it probably taught an ascent of the soul of the adherent into the realm of the divine. This was called apotheosis and it is entirely unlike Christian resurrection. We close with the biggest boner of all from Pikachu: What he says is From the wall of a Mithraic temple in Rome: "And thou hast saved us by shedding the eternal blood." -- is actually a piece of graffitti found in the Santa Prisca Mithraeum (a Mithraist "church" building, if you will -- so much for all of them being razed!), dated no earlier than 200 AD. Note that this refers to Mithra spilling the blood of the bull -- not his own -- and that (according to the modern Mithraic "astrological" interpretation) this does not mean "salvation" in a Christian sense (involving freedom from sin) but an ascent through levels of initiation into immortality.

Per above, Pikachu is in gross error about "great Mithraic festivals" celebrating his death and resurrection, and the one about the birth is irrelevant.