* MITHRAS
* 9/2=20 * Iranian/Roman * domains gone *
*
Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras
* Heathen
Religions * Mithraism
* Urantia - pg 1081
* The story of Mithras begins with the Demiurge oppressing mankind. Mithras is
incarnated from a rock on 25 December, the old date considered for the winter
solstice. He enters the world, observed by lowly shepherds, on the darkest day
of the year - he is the Light of the World. During his incarnation he helps mankind
like Orpheus and carries out miracles like Jesus. In an abstract way, he dies
for the good of mankind. He kills the sacred bull, the equinoctial sun which revivifies
the earth, but the bull is an aspect of himself, for he is the sun. So he kills
himself, just as God, the Father, kills himself by offering himself as a victim
in his aspect as God, the Son. As an annual sun god he is resurrected. His mission
done he holds a last supper with his disciples and returns to Heaven, the level
beyond the cosmos, in the solar chariot. He will be victorious over evil at the
last battle and will sit in judgement on mankind, when he will lead the Chosen
Ones over a river of fire to immortality.
* Mithras gained the title
of 'Judger of Souls'. He became the divine representative of Ahura-Mazda on earth,
and was directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces of Ahriman.
Mithras was called omniscient, undeceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and
never-resting.
In the Avesta, the holy book of the religion of Zarathustra,
Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras in order to guarantee the authority
of contracts and the keeping of promises. The name Mithras was, in fact, the Persian
word for 'contract'. The divine duty of Mithras was to ensure general prosperity
through good contractual relations between men. It was believed that misfortune
would befall the entire land if a contract was ever broken. Ahura-Mazda was said
to have created Mithras to be as great and worthy as himself. He would fight the
spirits of evil to protect the creations of Ahura-Mazda and cause even Ahriman
to tremble. Mithras was seen as the protector of just souls from demons seeking
to drag them down to Hell, and the guide of these souls to Paradise. As Lord of
the Sky, he took the role of psycho pomp, conducting the souls of the righteous
dead to paradise.
According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was
actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra.
Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a
fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have
conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of
Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan.
* Mithras became omniscient,
the god of light, the Heavenly Light, a spiritual Sun, the enemy of darkness and
therefore of evil and hence the god of battles and of military victory. Mithras
was the god of contracts and oaths, he embodied the seven divine spirits of goodness,
he protected the righteous in this world and helped them into the next. He sent
rain from Heaven and light from the sun and helped mankind by slaying the primaeval
bull fertilising the earth. He was the Logos (the Word).
* The supermundane
sun, the Good or the True Being which reigned over this transcendental region
was seen by the Mithraists as Mithras. Thus his appeal was as the god who helped
and protected the soul in reaching the highest heaven, beyond the dome of the
stars.
* If Mithras was seen as a spiritual sun, a god of the whole cosmos,
then he must have been understood in a transcendental sense as outside of the
cosmos. This explains the Mithraic motif of the birth of Mithras from a rock.
Mithras emerges from the top of a round rock, which is usually shown Orphic style
with a snake around it. The Orphics also had an idea of a spiritual sun. Indeed
Mithras is sometimes shown being born from a cosmic egg, just as Phanes is born
of the cosmic egg in Orphic representations. The Mithraic cave and the Orphic
cosmic egg both were the cosmos. In the rock-birth scenes Mithras is almost always
shown holding a torch, the symbol of a sun.
* Mithraic imagery is largely
astronomical. The setting is a cave encircled by the chariot of the sun and the
signs of the zodiac. The Neoplatonic philosopher, Porphyry, says the cave of the
tauroctony, which the domed Mithraic grottoes were meant to imitate, was the cosmos.
The zodiac, planets, sun, moon, and stars are commonly portrayed in Mithraic art.
Mithras himself was usually shown as slaying the cosmic bull created by Ormuzd,
the God of Light, to prevent Ahriman from slaying it, but occasionally he was
depicted as Sol. The grotto mural showed the bull's blood re-entering the earth
yielding ears of corn. Thus the bull is the Sun's gift of spring fertility to
the crops and animals, representing life, vitality, vigour, peace and plenty.
In its developed form the mural represents the self-sacrifice of the god for the
redemption of believers.
* The sun itself was considered to be "the
eye of Mithras". The Persian crown, from which all present day crowns are
derived, was designed to represent the golden sun-disc sacred to Mithras.
As a deity connected with the sun and its life-giving powers, Mithras was
known as 'The Lord of the Wide Pastures' who was believed to cause the plants
to spring forth from the ground. In the time of Cyrus and Darius the Great, the
rulers of Persia received the first fruits of the fall harvest at the festival
of Mehragan. At this time they wore their most brilliant clothing and drank wine.
In the Persian calendar, the seventh month and the sixteenth day of each month
were also dedicated to Mithras.
The Babylonians also incorporated their
belief in destiny into the Mithraic worship of Zurvan, the Persian god of infinite
time and father of the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. They superimposed astrology,
the use of the zodiac, and the deification of the four seasons onto the Persian
rites of Mithraism.
"Astrology, of which these postulates were
the dogmas, certainly owes some share of its success to the Mithraic propaganda,
and Mithraism is therefore partly responsible for the triumph in the West of this
pseudo-science with its long train of errors and terrors."
Franz
Cumont, French Mithraic researcher
Les Mysteres de Mithra, p.125
* The faithful referred to Mithras as "the Light of the World",
symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth
and was a member of a Holy Trinity. According to Persian mythology, Mithras was
born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The god remained celibate throughout
his life, and valued self-control, renunciation and resistance to sensuality among
his worshippers. Mithras represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was
encouraged in order to unify against the forces of evil.
The worshippers
of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They
believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering
and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world
to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgment in which the dead would
resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all
things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.
* Sacrificial
offerings of cattle and birds were made to Mithras, along with libations of Haoma,
a hallucinogenic drink used by Zoroastrian and Hindu priests, equated with the
infamous hallucinogen 'Soma' described in the Vedic scriptures. Before daring
to approach the altar to make an offering to Mithras, Persian worshippers were
obliged to purge themselves by repeating purification rituals and flagellating
themselves. These customs were continued in the initiation ceremonies of the Roman
neophytes.
* According to the Greek historian Plutarch (46-125 A.D.),
Mithras was first introduced into Italy by pirates from Cilicia (south-east Turkey)
who initiated the Romans into the secrets of the religion. These pirates performed
strange sacrifices on Mount Olympus and practiced Mithraic rituals, which according
to Plutarch "exist to the present day and were first taught by them".
However, there were many foreign cults in Italy at that time, and these early
Mithraists did not attract much attention.
It is one of the great of
ironies of history that Romans ended up worshipping the god of their chief political
enemy, the Persians. The Roman historian Quintius Rufus recorded in his book History
of Alexander that before going into battle against the 'anti-Mithraean country'
of Rome, the Persian soldiers would pray to Mithras for victory. However, after
the two enemy civilizations had been in contact for more than a thousand years,
the worship of Mithras finally spread from the Persians through the Phrygians
of Turkey to the Romans.
The Romans viewed Persia as a land of wisdom
and mystery, and Persian religious teachings appealed to those Romans who found
the established state religion uninspiring.
* The vast extent of the
Roman colonies formed links between Persia and the Mediterranean and caused the
diffusion of the Mithraic religion into the Roman world.
Mithraism became
a military religion under the Romans. The many dangers to which the Roman soldiers
were exposed caused them to seek the protection of the gods of their foreign comrades
in order to obtain success in battle or a happier life through death. The soldiers
adopted the Mithraic faith for its emphasis on victory, strength, and security
in the next world. Temples and shrines were dedicated to Mithras across the empire.
In 67 B.C., the first congregation of Mithras-worshipping soldiers existed in
Rome under the command of General Pompey.
* The Babylonian astrological
influence within Mithraism established a solar henotheism as the leading religion
at Rome. In 218 the Roman Emperor Heliogabalus (placed upon the throne at age
14) attempted to elevate his god, the Baal of Emesa to the rank of supreme divinity
of the empire by subordinating the entire ancient pantheon. Heliogabalus was soon
assassinated for his aspiration of a solar henotheism, but half a century later
his attempt inspired emperor Aurelian to initiate the worship of the Sol invictus.
Worshipped in an elaborate temple, magnificent plays were held in honour
of this deity every fourth year. Sol invictus was also elevated to the supreme
rank in the divine hierarchy, and became the special protector of the emperors
and the empire. Many Mithraic reliefs showed scenes of Mithras and Sol sharing
a banquet over a table draped with the skin of the bull.
Soon after,
the title of Sol invictus was transferred to Mithras. The Roman emperors formally
announced their alliance with the sun and emphasized their likeness to Mithras,
god of its divine light. Mithras was also unified with the sun-god Helios, and
became known as 'The Great God Helios-Mithras'. Emperor Nero adopted the radiating
crown as the symbol of his sovereignty to exemplify the splendour of the rays
of the sun, and to show that he was an incarnation of Mithras. He was initiated
into the Mithraic religion by the Persian Magi brought to Rome by the King of
Armenia. Emperors from that time onwards proclaimed themselves destined to the
throne by virtue of having been born with the divine ruling power of the sun.
* Initiates of the Mysteries of Mithras had to be ritually pure and were
purified by baptism. There were seven levels of initiation, one for each of the
seven levels of the planets, the highest level being that of the Father, Pater.
On achieving the level of initiation called Miles or soldier, the mystae of Mithras
were symbolically branded, the priest making the sign of the cross upon their
foreheads to redeem their sins and to mark them as soldiers of Mithras ready to
fight the Good Fight. Tertullian, a third century Christian from North Africa,
complains that the Devil was imitating the Christians' divine mysteries because
initiates of the Mithraic religion were baptised in this way.
Christians
use the expressions soldiers of Christ and put on the armour of light, somewhat
inappropriate metaphors for a religion of love, one might think, but entirely
appropriate to their Mithraic origins. Above the rank of Leo votaries were called
participants because they participated in a sacred meal. Below the rank of Leo
they were called servants and served the higher levels - the similarity with Essenism
is striking. The Mithraic sacred meal was essentially identical to the Christian
Eucharist. Justin Martyr complained that Satan had copied the Christian Eucharist
because the adherents of Mithras also partook of consecrated bread and water symbolic
of the incarnate god's body. The bread consisted of wafers - each marked with
a cross!
* An attraction for the Romans of Oriental religions was that
they had a long history and their gods a reputation for wisdom. This was true
of Mithraism. Mithras was a redeemer but also offered a role model as an epitome
of morality. Mithraism began to spread because it appealed to three main groups
of people; to the merchant classes who valued its demand for high moral standards
and therefore honesty, to the lowly and humble such as the slaves and particularly
to the military. Adherents were all male and were sworn to secrecy. It had strong
elements of Freemasonry in its organisation.
Females worshipped Cybele,
Isis and later, Jesus. Mithraism had no extensive priestly caste. Each small group
of worshippers had a father. Major centres of worship had a father of fathers,
equivalent to a Christian bishop. It always remained a private religion, never
receiving huge state patronage, so the shrines and churches of Mithras remained
humble and the worshippers pious and egalitarian. In Mithraic churches noble,
freedman and slave met as equals. Mithraism had its male celibates and expected
its initiates to repudiate worldly offerings expecting instead heavenly wealth.
* Beyond the heavens - I would suggest that the awe-inspiring quality
of Plato's vision of what is beyond the outermost boundary of the cosmos also
lies behind the appeal of Mithras as a divine being whose proper domain is outside
of the universe. As the text from Plato shows, the establishment by ancient astronomers
of the sphere of the stars as the absolute boundary of the cosmos only encouraged
the human imagination to project itself beyond that boundary in an exhilarating
leap into an infinite mystery. There beyond the cosmos dwelled the ultimate divine
forces, and Mithras's ability to move the entire universe made him one with those
forces.
Here in the end we may sense a profound kinship between Mithraism
and Christianity. For early Christianity also contained at its core an ideology
of cosmic transcendence. Nowhere is this better expressed than in the opening
of the earliest gospel, Mark. There, at the beginning of the foundation story
of Christianity, we find Jesus, at the moment of his baptism, having a vision
of "the heavens torn open." Just as Mithras is revealed as a being from
beyond the universe capable of altering the cosmic spheres, so here we find Jesus
linked with a rupture of the heavens, an opening into the numinous realms beyond
the furthest cosmic boundaries. Perhaps, then, the figures of Jesus and Mithras
are to some extent both manifestations of a single deep longing in the human spirit
for a sense of contact with the ultimate mystery.
* The earliest remains
of a church building, at Dura-Europos, date from 230 AD, and nothing else is found
until the end of the third century, yet there are very many earlier Mithraeums.
Plainly the worship of Mithras was well ahead of the worship of Jesus. In any
case there is a dated pre-Christian Mithraic inscription of Antiochus I of Commagene
(69-34 BC) in eastern Asia Minor, almost a century before the crucifixion. There
were worshippers of Mithras in Rome in Pompey's time (67 BC). There is a first
century inscription contemporary with the earliest Christians from Cappadocia
and one from Phrygia dated to AD 77-78. Sanctuaries to Mithras existed in Rome
and Ostia in the first century. Another inscription in Rome dates to Trajan's
reign (AD 98-117), and the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, mentions Mithraism
in about 140 AD. Despite this Christians say the real diffusion of Mithraism only
begins at the end of the first century.
* In the fourth century Constantine
effectively merged Mithraism with Christianity and the other solar cults of the
Empire under the control of the Christian bishops. Patriarchal pagan purists as
well as worshippers of Isis defied official syncretism for a few hundred more
years but after the beginning of the fifth century, the bishops were confident
enough to purge pagan religions. Paganism survived precariously for a while but
illegally.
Mithraism eventually died out after its suppression by the
Christians in 376-377 AD. By then its doctrines and ceremonies
had been absorbed into Christianity so it had little basis for an independent
existence. The two religions had almost everything in common: a divine Lord who
offered men salvation; a sacramental meal; baptism; the idea of the believers
being crusaders against evil; an ultimate judgement of the soul; ideas of Heaven
and Hell; a high moral code.
Ernest Renan, a Catholic scholar who wrote
a famous Life of Jesus, believed that if it were not for Christianity we should
all today be worshippers of Mithras. The reasons for the success of Christianity
were its overwhelmingly syncretic nature, the admission of women, the expropriation
of the Jewish Scriptures, and the claim that the Christian incarnate god was a
historic figure.
Augustine of Hippo, St Augustine, admits
that the two religions had effectively merged when he claimed in his book, The
City of God, that "The priests of Mithras and I worship the same God."
* 
* CYBELE * 19=8/2 * Phrygian * 
* 
* 
* VARUNA * 21=4/8 * a god in Hinduism who first appears in the
early Vedas as a Sky God - later to become the all seeing deity. Varuna seems
to be one of the most important of the Vedic gods. In pre-Vedic times, he was
the supreme lord of the cosmos, the keeper of divine order, the bringer of rain.
The god-sovereign, the personification of divine authority. He is the ruler of
the sky realm and the upholder of cosmic and moral law (r ta). 
