Their members refused to make offerings to Roman gods or take part in Roman religious festivals, which Rome considered a matter of showing loyalty. But after being in contact with these surrounding religions and hearing certain doctrines expressed, it was only natural for some of these views to become a part of their subconscious minds. Never stop with the external, which may seem like borrowing, but recognize there is the perennial struggle for truth, fuller life itself. This sacramental use of the term did not become established until the fourth century, when the mystery religions were no longer serious competitors of Christianity. On the whole, early Christians were not greatly concerned about the likenesses between the Mithraic cult and their own. He thinks that there were four sets of ideas which the Jews brought with them to Alexandria: 1) the idea of a divine child, born by a virgin, raised in the manner of a son of god, who was also to bring in the new age; Here are my top five reasons mystery religions did not influence Christianity . They were themselves, in verying degrees, imperfect examples of the Galilean cult which was to replace them. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Paperback : 384 pages. Art redeems. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 116: This god was believed to have suffered a cruel death, to have descended into Hell or Hades, to have risen again, and to have ascended into Heaven; and at his festival, as held in various lands, his death was bewailed, an effigy of his dead body was prepared for burial by being washed with water and anointed, and, on the next day, his resurrection was commemorated with great rejoicing, the very words The Lord is risen probably being used. He appears before sunrise on the rocky summits of the mountains; during the day he traverses the wide firmament in his chariot drawn by four white horses, and when night falls he still illumines with flickering glow the surface of the earth, ever waking, ever watchful. He is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but with his hundred ears and his hundred eyes watches constantly the world. If the definition is that the religion keeps things secret, then no, because secrets are about maintaining secrecy and exclusivity, and Latter-Day Saints do the . In fact, the comparison became so evident that many believed the Christian movement itself became a mystery cult. 384 pages, Paperback. 6. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 117: This coincidence has, of course, led many critics to suppose that the story of the burial and resurrection of Jesus is simply a myth borrowed from this pagan religion., 18. I learned that as an artistic writer who did a doctorate in philosophy. The preceding four sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. This effigy was later buried in a tomb. We can understand the Christianity of the fifth century with its greatness and weaknesses, its spiritual exaltation and its puerile superstitions, if we know the moral antecedents of the world in which it developed.. 121122: In Rome the festival of his death and resurrection was annually held from March 22nd to 25th; and the connection of this religion with Christianity is shown by the fact that in Phrygia, Gaul, Italy, and other countries where Attis-worship was powerful, the Christians adopted the actual date, March 25th, as the anniversary of our Lords passion., 13. The central theme of the myth was the triumph of Attis over death, and the participant in the rites of the cult undoubtedly believed that his attachment to the victorious deity would insure a similar triumph in his life. 129130: There were two aspects of Isis which commended themselves particularly to her worshippers: firstly, that of the lady of sorrows, weeping for the dead Osiris, and, secondly, that of the divine mother, nursing her infant son, Horus. Mithra hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him., 34. Jesus was the divine Lord. Through the summer the mother abundantly maintained the life of nature until autumn, when again her daughter returned to the underworld and earth became desolate once more., 28. cit., p. 42.\27, The myth is also an example of poignant human experience, reflecting the joys, sorrows, and hopes of mankind in the face of death. The only one they could offer was quite naive, but it was in keeping with the trends of thought in that age. Although the mystery religions did move towards advancing a solar god above all the others, this change began after 100 A.D., too late to impact the theology of the New Testament. Christianity emerged and grew at a time when mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire. Regardless, one consequence of interpreting Christianity as an embellished mystery religion is the conclusion that Christian faith per se is the invention of men, not a revelation from God. The Influence Of The Cult Of Cybele and Attis, The first Oriental religion to invade the west was the cult of the Great Mother of the Gods. It is because of this crusading spirit and its superb power of adaptability that Christianityahs {has} been able to survive. First published June 1, 1975. The date of Christmas was purposely fixed on December 25 to push into the background the great festival of the sun god, and Epiphany on January 6 to supplant an Egyptian festival of the same day. At the death of Attis, Cybele mourned vehemently until he arose to life again in the springtime. (5) The struggle with evil and the eventual triumph of good were essential ideas in both religions.37 (6) In summary we may say that the belief in immortality, a mediator between god and man, the observance of certain sacramental rites, the rebirth of converts, and (in most cases) the support of high ethical ideas were common to Mithraism as well as Christianity. Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. It's one of the things that made Christianity quite distinct in the ancient world. 187, 188.\. It is stated with sufficient elaboration in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 Loisy, Alfred. 222223 in this volume. cit., p. 129.\34, Again tradition has it that Mithra was born from a rock, the god out of the rock. It must also be noticed that his worship was always conducted in a cave. That is, with this study you have made, we see the philosophy both of Religion and History. Scholars wrongly infused Christian terms into the mystery religion. Around these two divinities there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. purchase. Meanwhile the coffin was washed up on the Syrian coast, and became miraculously lodged in the trunk of a tree. Fairbanks, Greek Religion, p. 293: This religion was not blotted out by Christianity. The Greeks interpreted the national religions of the Greek Orient chiefly in terms of Platos philosophical and religious concepts. As the religious history of the empire is studied more closely, writes M. Cumont, the triumph of the church will, in our opinion, appear more and more as the culmination of a long evolution of beliefs. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS SHIRLEY JACKSON CASE, PH.D. The Eleusinian myth told of these fundamental human experiences as well as of the life of nature., 29. Reprinted as The Mystery-Religions: A Study in the Religious Background of Early Christianity (New York, 1975). This still stands as a festival in the ecclesiastical calendar; and thus Christians unconsciously perpetuate the worship of Osiris and the commemoration of all his subjects in the Kingdom of the Dead., 22. S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925), p. vii: "These Mysteries covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabiri to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative." 3. They felt at first that these competitors were not worthy of consideration, and few references to them are found in Christian literature. Mithraism became the most popular and influential of the many mystery religions 2 that existed in the Roman Empire at the time that Christianity began, and was the major Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. To make their case, they cite extensive lists of apparent similarities between . To discuss Christianity without mentioning other religions would be like discussing the greatness of the Atlantic Ocean without the slightest mention of the many tributaries that keep it flowing.40. The basic Christian objection to Freemasonry is that the Craft constitutes a religious sect in opposition to the revealed truths of the Gospel. But although baptism did not originate with the Christians, still it was not copied from the pagans. As is commonly known Isis had two capacities which her worshippers warmly commended her for. Download The Mysteries of Mithras Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle. In the large Gnostic library discovered at Najammd, in upper Egypt, in 1945, Hermetic writings were found sideby-side with Christian Gnostic texts. 161 Babylon Mystery Religion; 1966 He too had God for his father. Babylon Mystery Religion is a detailed Biblical and historical account of how, when, why, and where ancient paganism was mixed with Christianity. Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). Payam Nabarz reveals the history and tenets of Mithraism, its connections to Christianity, Islam, and Freemasonry, and the modern neo-pagan practice of . It is not so much that Christianity was influenced by the Mystery Cults, or borrowed from them, but that in the long process of history this religion developed. During the rise of Christianity in the first century A.D. also were the widespread cults throughout each Mediterranean region known as the mystery religions. S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925)~ p. vii: "These Mysteries covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabiri to the fervours of the Hermetic Conservative Evangelical Christians care about their brand . Various writers, pagan and Christian, gave different versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. The specific variations in all these diverse statements do not concern us, for certain significant elements were common to all the various versions., 11. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Neoplatonism resonated with the mystery religions because of its idea of (p. 236), The Stoic idea of logos expresses that the world is governed by (p. 235), The Gospels, which presented Christianity as a distinct religion, were written (p. 232) and more. Dean Inge, e.g. This coincidence had led many critics to suppose that the story of the burial and resurrection of Jesus is simply a myth borrowed from this pagan religion.17 Whether these critics are right in their interpretation or not still remains a moot question. Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious belief and praxis.Sacred mysteries may be either: Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from the uninitiated. In this myth, Persephone is depicted playing in the meadows of Mysia in Asia with the daughters of Oceanus and Tithys. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. The words of St. Paul, They drank of that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ are borrowed from the Mithraic scriptures., 36. [also note from page3]: This Dover edition, first published in 1975, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the second (1928) edition of the work originally published by John Murray, in London, in 1925 under the title The Mystery-Religions and Christianity. The centres of pagan resistance were Rome, where the old aristocracy clung to the mysteries, and Alexandria, where the pagan Neoplatonist philosophers expounded the mystery doctrines. King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Crozer Theological Seminary). In winter vegetable life was dead while Demeter, the giver of life, grieved for the loss of her daughter. Mystery. Some writers traced its origin to Egypt while others upheld Eleusis in Greece as the place of its birth. Dimensions : 5.37 x 0.73 x 8.4 inches. Mystery religions, as a rule, can be traced back to tribal origins, Christianity to a historical person. Only remnants of the mystery doctrines, amalgamated with Platonism, were transmitted by a few philosophers and individualists to the religious thinkers of the Byzantine Empire. It was a nature myth, a vivid depiction of the action of life in the vegetable world with the changing of the seasons. It had to do with the nature of the Christian religion . The mystery religion was very narrow in scope, only involving select groups of people therefore not gaining support from the masses.Some people believe that Christianity and Judaism have many parallels to the mystery cults in terms of terminology (salvation, resurrection, eternal life) and in the particulars of the performance of initiation and ritual. Christianity certainly has many important features in common with Greco-Roman mystery religions, but there are some crucial differences between Christianity and mystery religions that really set Christianity apart. The mysteries of human life and death are vividly enacted by Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. The cult of Isis originated in Egypt and went through two major stages. When they sat down to write they were expressing consciously that which had dwelled in their subconscious minds. In the former capacity she was identified with the great mother-goddess, Demeter, whose mourning for Persephone was the main feature in the Eleusinian mysteries; In her aspect as the mother of Horus, Isis was represented in tens of thousands of statuettes and paintings, holding the divine child in her arms; and when Christianity triumphed these paintings and figures became those of the Madonna and Child without any break in continuity: no archaeologist, in fact, can now tell whether some of these objects represent the one or the other., 23. It is inevitable when a new religion comes to exist side by side with a group of religions, from which it is continually detaching members, introducing them into its own midst with the practices of their original religions impressed upon their minds, that this new religion should tend to assimilate with the assimilation of their members, some of the elements of these existing religions. After telling a fictitious tale of her escape from pirates, she won the sympathy of the girls who took her home and at her own request was given a job to nurse their infant brother, Demophon. The inner spiritual, continues ever.. Knowledge condemns. It is an interpretation of human history that breeds Hydria by the Varrese Painter (c. 340 BC) depicting Eleusinian scenes. These many religions, known as Mystery-Religions, were not alike in every respect: to draw this conclusion would lead to a gratuitous and erroneous supposition. cit., p. 119.\19, In the records of both Herodotus and Plutarch we find that there was a festival held each year in Egypt celebrating the resurrection of Osiris. Because these religions believed there was just one god, they prohibited worshiping other gods. All this goes to show how important Mithraism was in ancient times. Esoteric Christianity. the hellenistic mystery religion decisively in Alexandria and contributed to its development. #1,225 in History of Christianity (Books) In its older Egyptian version, which was not a mystery religion, Isis was regarded as the goddess of heaven, earth, the sea, and the unseen world below. At an early date there was associated with Cybele, the Great Mother, a hero-divinity called Attic who personified the life of the vegetable world particularly. Martin Luther King Jr. titled " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity. cit., p. 113.\18 Such facts led almost inevitably to the view that this idea had a pagan origin, since it appears not only in the legend of Adonis, but also in those of Herakles, Dionyses, Orpheus, Osiris, Hermes, Balder, and other deities.\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 114.\, The Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris exerted considerable influence upon early Christianity. They encouraged the movement away from the state religions and the philosophical systems and toward the desire for personal salvation and promise of immortality. The cult of rulers in the manner of the imperial mysteries was impossible in Jewish and Christian worship. The eucharist, likewise through similar in some respects to the communion meal of Mithraism, was not a rite borrowed from it. In the former capacity she was identified with the great mother-goddess, Demeter, whose mourning for Persephone was the main feature in the Eleusinian mysteries. During the first two or three decades of the twentieth century, it was thought that the mystery religions constituted a unity based on a common 'mystery theolgoy ,' and that Christianity was simply one of them, or at most, a distinct religion . Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation, University of Chicago Author of "The Historicity of Jesus" "That he might gather together in one all things in Christ." That is Paul's inter-pretation of God's cosmic plan. Mithraism was brought to Europe from its Persian roots after Alexander the Great's conquests. But it was this very date that the festival of Dianna or Artemis was celebrated, with whom Isis was identified. Greek life was characterized by such things as democratic institutions, seafaring, gymnasium and athletic games, theatre, and philosophy. 7. Was Christianity Originally a Mystery Religion? Christianity was subject to the same influences from the environment as were the other cults, and it sometimes produced the same reaction. Now when Christianity triumphed we find that these same paintings and figures became those of the Madonna and child with little or no difference.\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 123\ In fact archaeologists are often left in confusion in attempting to distinguish the one from the other.22, It is also interesting to note that in the second century a story began to spread stating that Mary had been miraculously carried to Heaven by Jesus and His angels.\[Footnote:] The spreading of this story has been attributed to Melito, Bishop of Sardis.\ In the sixth century a festival came to be celebrated around this event known as the festival of Assumption, and it is now one of the greatest feasts of Roman Catholicism. The theology of the mysteries was developed to a far lesser degree than the Christian theology. For an instance, the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist have been mentioned as rites, which were preactice {practiced} by both Christians and pagans. 213214 in this volume. Underneath all expression, whether words, creeds, cults, ceremonies is the spiritual orderthe ever living search of men for higher lifea fuller life, more abundant, satisfying life. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. Martin Luther King Jr. titled "The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity."King wrote it around the . Supporters of the theory incorrectly assume that Christianity borrowed many of its ideas from the mystery religions, but the evidence reveals it was actually the other way around. The Roman aristocrats multiplied their efforts to maintain the piety of the mysteries, and the pagan philosophers tried to refine their theology by oversubtle interpretations. 135136: Originally Mithra was one of the lesser gods of the ancient Persian pantheon, but already in the time of Christ he had risen to be co-equal with, though created by, Ormuzd (Ahura-Mazda), the Supreme Being., 33. "The correspondences between Christianity and the other mystery religions of antiquity are perhaps more startling than the differences. It can be shown that the very earliest practices of Christianity coincided with popular mystery cults on many levels. The celebration of his ascension in the sight of his worshippers was the final act of the festival., 17. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Paris, 1930 . In both cases, national religions of a ritualistic type were transformed, and the transformation followed similar lines: from national to ecumenical religion, from ritualistic ceremonies and taboos to spiritual doctrines set down in books, from the idea of inherited tradition to the idea of revelation. It lies in the fact that the mystery religions paved the way for the presentation of . Thus, under identical conditions, new forms of religious communities sprang from similar roots. 2d ed. The mystery religions exerted some influence on the thinkers of the Middle Ages and the philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. In 391, however, the Serapeum at Alexandria was demolished, and in 394 the opposition of the Roman aristocracy was crushed in battle at the Frigidus River (now called the Vipacco River in Italy and the Vipava in Slovenia). The essential features of Christianity were fixed once and for all in this book; the mystery doctrines, however, always remained in a much greater state of fluidity. He too had found the road to heaven by his suffering and resurrection. In the spring, those who had shared Demeters grief for the loss of her daugher welcomed the return of Persephone with all the joy that the returning life of vegetation might kindle. The books that the mystery communities used in Roman times cannot possibly be compared to the New Testament. Selected Answer: True. The mysteries declined quickly when the emperor Constantine raised Christianity to the status of the state religion. The earlier Greek mystery religions were state religions in the sense that they attained the status of a public or civil cult and served a national or public function. Early Christian writers, aware of the similarity between Christianity and mystery-cult, claim that the latter is a diabolical imitation of the former" (Dionysus, Richard Seaford, 126.) These two great Egyptian deities, whose worship passed into Europe, were revered not only in Rome but in many other centers where Christian communities were growing up. S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925), p. vii: These Mysteries covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabiri to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative.. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Whatever the religious doctrines of the Masonic sect it is plain that they do not embrace the central Christian . The more crusading a religion is, the more it absorbs. Certainly Christianity has been a crusading religion from the beginning. The staggering question that now arises is, what will be the next stage of mans religious progress? Between the Mithraic cult and their own to life again in the manner of the Gospel,... The nature of the Galilean cult which was to replace them in Christian.... Others upheld Eleusis in Greece as the mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire Luther, (. Which her worshippers warmly commended her for ) depicting Eleusinian scenes sentences similar. Vegetable world with the daughters of Oceanus and Tithys Isis originated in and! Roots after Alexander the Great & # x27 ; s conquests New forms religious... 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