The religious art of the Christians continued the pagan art of the preceding generations. The simultaneousness of the propagation of the mystery religions and of Christianity and the striking similarities between them, however, demand some explanation of their relationship. The statue of the Good Shepherd carrying his lost sheep and the pastoral themes on Christian sarcophagi were also taken over from pagan craftsmanship. Esoteric Christianity (linked with the Hermetic Corpus since the Renaissance) is an ensemble of Christian theology which proposes that some spiritual doctrines of Christianity can only be understood by those who have undergone certain rites (such as baptism) within the religion.In mainstream Christianity, there is a similar idea that faith is the only means by which a . The Greeks interpreted the national religions of the Greek Orient chiefly in terms of Platos philosophical and religious concepts. Hydria by the Varrese Painter (c. 340 BC) depicting Eleusinian scenes. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 36: Among the cults of Greece none was more favorably known in the first century of the Christian era than the Eleusinian mysteries., 25. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. The books that the mystery communities used in Roman times cannot possibly be compared to the New Testament. 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 Mysteries of Mithras presents a revival of this ancient Roman mystery religion, popular from the late second century B.C. Genres Religion HistoryNonfictionThe World. 40. 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. He emerges from the rocky summits of eastern mountains at dawn, and goes through heaven with a team of four white horses; when the night falls he still illumines the surface of the earth, ever walking, ever watchful. He is not sun or moon or any star, but a spirit of light, ever wakeful, watching with a hundred eyes. Now it seems that the general belief of the early church that Jesus was born in a cave grows directly out of Mithraic ideas. In speaking of the indispensability of knowledge of these cults as requisite for any serious study of Christianity, Dr. Angus says: As an important background to early Christianity and as the chief medium of sacramentarianism to the West they cannot be neglected; for to fail to recognize the moral and spiritual values of Hellenistic-Oriental paganism is to misunderstand the early Christian centuries and to do injustice to the victory of Christianity. 126127: But the Christian feast of All Souls, in honour of the dead, likewise falls at the beginning of November; and in many countries lamps and candles are burnt all night on that occasion. there seems little doubt that this custom was identical with the Egyptian festival. the festival of All Saints, which is held one day before that of All Souls and which was first recognised by the Church in a.d. 835, is undoubtedly identical with it in origin. This was by no means an accident. Each following {year} there was a great festival in commemoration of his resurrection, and the very words, The Lord is risen, were probable used. However, in the conclusion I will attempt to give those fundamental aspects, characteristic of all the cults, that greatly influenced Christianity. Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (Chicago: Open Court, 1910), pp. In the Avesta,\[Footnote:] This is the sacred book of the religion of Iran.\ Mithra is represented as the genius of celestial light. Conservative Evangelical Christians care about their brand . How do we determine conjectured information? The hypothesis of a mutual dependence has been proposed by scholarsespecially a dependence of Christianity upon the mysteriesbut such theories have been discarded. Christianity emerged and grew at a time when mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire. P: (650) 723-2092 | F: (650) 723-2093 | kinginstitute@stanford.edu| Campus Map. Dimensions : 5.37 x 0.73 x 8.4 inches. Answer (1 of 7): Over the years, Christianity has often been compared to the mystery religions of ancient Greece and Rome, both by Christians wishing to emphasize the esoteric nature of their religion and by opponents of Christianity who claim that the resemblance between Christianity and mystery. The divine personage in whom this cult centered was the Magna Mater Deum who was conceived as the source of all life as well as the personification of all the powers of nature.\[Footnote:] Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 114.\7 She was the Great Mother not only of all the gods, but of all men as well.8 The winds, the sea, the earth, and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself gives way before her, and in like manner do also the other immortal blest honor the dread goddess.\[Footnote:] Quoted in Willoughbys, Pagan Regeneration, p. 115.9\. The preceding two sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. Therefore it is necessary to study the historical and social factors that contributed to the growth of Christianity. Thus, the religions had a common conceptual framework. 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. They covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabira to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative.\[Footnote:] Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity, p. vii.\2 However it is to be noticed that these Mysteries possessed many fundamental likenesses; (1) All held that the initiate shared in symbolic (sacramental) fashion the experiences of the god. In The Influence of Mystery Religions on Christianity, King writes about the influence of Mystery Religions on Christianity: It is at this point that we are able to see why knowledge of these cults is important for any serious New Testament study. 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. If a mystery religion is one in which participation is "reserved to initiates," then yes, unquestionably so. The Eleusinian myth told of these fundamental human experiences as well as of the life of nature., 29. 6 Mithraism. Dean Inge, e.g. Mithraism was brought to Europe from its Persian roots after Alexander the Great's conquests. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 135: It was suppressed by the Christians in a.d. 376 and 377; but its collapse seems to have been due rather to the fact that by that time many of its doctrines and ceremonies had been adopted by the Church, so that it was practically absorbed by its rival., 32. To show the beginning of a new era, the capital of the empire was transferred to the new Christian city of Constantinople. They were called mystery religions because individuals went through a secret ritualistic ceremony that was made known only to the initiates conducting the ceremony and to those being . . The existence of this atmosphere was vitally important in the development and eventual triumph of Christianity. This is, of course, a loaded question. It should also be noted that early Christianity was an exclusivistic religion while the mystery cults were not. 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; Mystery Religions and Christianity . Thus the designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High, the Light, the Sun of Righteousness, and similar expressions, are borrowed from or related to Mithraic phraseology., 35. It lies in the fact that the mystery religions paved the way for the presentation of . It is an interpretation of human history that breeds 118119: But there is one feature of the Gospel story which seems really to have been borrowed from the Adonis religion, and, in fact, from other pagan religions also, namely, the descent into Hell. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 42: Demeter, in her joy at the restoration of her lost daughter, allowed the crops to grow once more and instituted in honor of the event the Eleusinian mysteries which gave to mortals the assurance of a happy future life., 27. Mystery. in his Christian Mysticism, p. 354, says that Catholicism owes to the Mysteries " the notions of secrecy, of However, when faced with the persecution that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have faced in the past the "mysteries could not go underground because they lacked any organization. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. 5. The mystery religions were syncretistic, which means followers could incorporate beliefs from other religions into their own set of views. [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 Roman aristocrats multiplied their efforts to maintain the piety of the mysteries, and the pagan philosophers tried to refine their theology by oversubtle interpretations. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Scholars wrongly infused Christian terms into the mystery religion. 1. Arthur Fairbanks, A Handbook of Greek Religion (New York: American Book Company, 1910), p. 288: Certainly the Greek Easter festival seems to preserve the spirit if not the forms of the old Eleusinian worship. Was Christianity Originally a Mystery Religion? 511513\, The greatest influence of the mystery religions on Christianity lies in a different direction from that of doctrine and ritual. Esoteric Christianity teaches that Christianity is a mystery religion and that only a small minority of people ever achieve the enlightenment necessary to crack the arcane teachings of the Bible and truly know God. The Institute cannot give permission to use or reproduce any of the writings, statements, or images of Martin Luther King, Jr. First published in the 1920s, this work is still the standard on the various mystery religions so popular in Greece and Rome before the establishment of Christianity. 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. Christianity, however, [strikeout illegible] survived because it appeared to be the result of a trend in the social order or in the historical cycle of the human race. 2, 3.\33 Tarsus, the home of Saint Paul, was one of the great centres of his worship; and there is a decided tinge of Mithraism in the Epistles and Gospels. The god of death himself stole the beloved daughter away from the life-giver; but the divine mother would not give up her loved one, and in the end she accomplished her daughters resurrection. The coffin, meanwhile, was washed up on the Syrian coast, and became miraculously lodged in the trunk of a tree, This tree afterwards chanced to be cut down and made into a pillar in the palace at Byblos, and there Isis at length found it. Afterwards, however, he returned to the other world to reign for ever as King of the Dead; and meanwhile Horus, having grown to manhood, reigned on Earth, later becoming the third person of this great Egyptian trinity., 20. The conditions of that era made it possible for these religions to sweep like a tidal wave over the ancient world. Mystery Religion-Basic Traits. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. The essay examines how Christianity developed as a distinct religion with a set of central tenets and how it was influenced by those pagan religions it assimilated. Selected Answer : True cit., p. 110\15. This faith had always exerted its influence on Jewish thought, so much so that the prophet Ezekiel\[Footnote:] Ezekiel 8:14.\ found it necessary to scold the women of Jerusalem for weeping for the dead Tammuz (Adonis) at the very gate of the temple. Clayborne Carson, Ralph Luker, and Penny A. Russell, eds. cit., p. 190.\. This effigy was later buried in a tomb. The word "Catholic" means Universalthe true Christian goal is not religion based on mixture, but a return to the original, simple, powerful, and spiritual faith that was once delivered to the saints."-Ralph Woodrow; pg. It was in this city that there was celebrated each year the death and resurrection of the god Adonis. The mystery religions and Christianity had many similar featurese.g., a time of preparation before initiation and periods of fasting; baptism and banquets; vigils and early-morning ceremonies; pilgrimages and new names for the initiates. The preceding four sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. The mysteries declined quickly when the emperor Constantine raised Christianity to the status of the state religion. The religions that Rome had the most problems with were monotheisticJudaism and Christianity. This tree afterwards chanced to be cut down and made into a pillar in the palace at Byblos, and there Isis at length found it. There seems little doubt that this custom was identical with the Egyptian festival. The Christian representations of the Madonna and child are clearly the continuation of the representations of Isis and her son suckling her breast. But when we observe a little further we find that as a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; it is also interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Lord, Sunday must have been the Lords Day long before Christian use.\[Footnote:] Ibid., p. 137.\ It is also to be noticed that our Christmas, December 25th, was the birthday of Mithra, and was only taken over in the Fourth Century as the date, actually unknown, of the birth of Jesus.36, To make the picture a little more clear, we may list a few of the similarities between these two religions: (1) Both regard Sunday as a holy day. The Christian churches needed large interior spaces to house the growing congregations and to mark the clear separation of the faithful from the unfaithful. Fairbanks, Greek Religion, p. 293: This religion was not blotted out by Christianity. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. 23: In the Avesta, Mithra is the genius of the celestial light. This was accomplished, not by any slavish process of imitation, but by {a} serious attempt to meet better the specific religious needs that the mysteries had awakened and nourished, and by phrasing religious assurances more convincingly in similar terminology.\[Footnote:] Case, The Mystery Religions, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Edited by Vergilius Ferm, pp. by Bart D. Ehrman. Around these two divinities there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. 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