This is Chapter Four of the book Jesus Potter, Harry Christ (2011), by Derek Murphy.
CHAPTER FOUR
Going Pagan: The Forgotten Prefigures of Christ
“The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian.” St. Augustine, 464AD.
AT TRINITY COLLEGE IN DUBLIN there is a medieval manuscript called the Book of Leinster which was compiled around 1160. In it we meet the Irish mythological hero, Cúchulainn, known for his terrifying battle frenzy or ríastrad, which turns him into an unrecognizable monster. Cúchulainn’s violent rage could only be soothed by women and cold water:
He sets off on a foray and kills the three sons of Nechtan Scéne, who had boasted they had killed more Ulstermen than there were Ulstermen still living. He returns to Emain Macha in his battle frenzy, and the Ulstermen are afraid he will slaughter them all. Conchobar’s wife Mugain leads out the women of Emain, and they bare their breasts to him. He averts his eyes, and the Ulstermen wrestle him into a barrel of cold water, which explodes from the heat of his body. They put him in a second barrel, which boils, and a third, which warms to a pleasant temperature.[i]
Fans of Marvel Comic’s The Incredible Hulk might have already noticed the similarities between Cúchulainn and Dr. Bruce Banner’s alter ego. The parallels are fascinating and demand the question, are the similarities purely coincidental? Given the difference in geography and time, we might assume so. On the other hand, the story of Leinster may have remained for centuries in the “collective unconscious,” or even been passed down from mothers to sons as a bedtime story, before unconsciously popping up as the big green monster. However, if it could be shown that one of the creators of the Marvel character was Irish or had studied Irish myths of that time period, and was most likely familiar with the story of Leinster, then of course we could make a pretty strong argument that The Incredible Hulk was a deliberate re-telling of the myth for a more modern audience.
A similar situation develops when we look at the parallels between Jesus Christ and Harry Potter. Harry Potter came almost 2,000 years after Jesus Christ, and since J.K. Rowling grew up in a Christian society, we might charge her with borrowing biblical or Christian imagery (and in fact, she’s admitted as much).
But what if these same symbols could also be applied to even earlier figures? Osiris, for example, or Gilgamesh, who we know came about 2,000 years before Jesus. The problem, of course, is that while Harry Potter or The Incredible Hulk are obviously fictional characters, Jesus Christ is assumed to be a historical figure – which makes direct comparisons all the more challenging.
Given a parallel so precise that it is unlikely to be coincidental, in two literary traditions from civilizations that were known to have been in contact with each other, originality should be given to the historically earlier instance. If it can be shown that the gospel writers were already familiar with stories that parallel the gospel accounts of Jesus Christ from contemporary mythologies, (such as Attis, Orpheus, Mithras, Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysus, or Asclepius), it is very likely that Christianity adapted or assimilated portions of these mythologies into their own literary creations. This idea is not at all challenged by academics today, who, as we have seen, agree that in order to discover what was unique about Christianity (and thus might have come from a historical founder), we must first identify what was obviously borrowed or included.
However, at the same time, conservative biblical scholars or Christian apologists have been careful to refute claims of similarity that can weaken the supremacy and historical validity of Jesus Christ. This defensive position is somewhat justified, as Christ-Myth researchers have sometimes taken unfounded, sweeping liberties and minimized all differences in order to fit their theories. Nevertheless, these criticisms are usually leveled against the idea of similarity, rather than any particular similarities, and are invariably founded on the same set of (flawed) arguments.
The first is simply the reiteration of the historical Jesus. Taking support from the academia’s continued pursuit of a historical founder for Christianity, potential similarities (when used to question the Jesus of history) are immediately repudiated because “no serious scholar doubts the historical Jesus.” However, this merely ignores the otherwise very troubling evidence, and is no improvement from Justin Martyr’s original argument dealing with the same similarities: Jesus was real, while all other instances (of crucified saviors) were symbolic, and thus not equal. The only explanation ever put forward by Christians as to why pagan mythology and earlier saviors are so similar to the later, actual, life of Jesus is Justin’s concept of “Diabolical Mimicry,” which blames the similarities on wicked demons who were commissioned by Satan to spread similar stories throughout the world in a sort of pre-emptive attack against Christianity:
But those who hand down the myths which the poets have made, adduce no proof to the youths who learn them; and we proceed to demonstrate that they have been uttered by the influence of the wicked demons, to deceive and lead astray the human race. For having heard it proclaimed through the prophets that the Christ was to come, and that the ungodly among men were to be punished by fire, they put forward many to be called sons of Jupiter, under the impression that they would be able to produce in men the idea that the things which were said with regard to Christ were mere marvelous tales, like the things which were said by the poets. (Justin Martyr, First Apology, LIV)
C.S. Lewis’ later acceptance of pagan Christs is virtually the same, although rather than blaming them on Satan, he sees it as only natural that God would create these mythical parallels, which were then actually and historically fulfilled. The only possible way to explain the similarities between Jesus and earlier figures not rooted in faith, however, is that the gospel writers copied from other sources – a natural, common and exceedingly probable solution.
The second tactic of modern apologists is to claim that no such similarities exist at all; they are all fabrications of modernity. To this end, they take any specific comparison and demonstrate the ways in which the apparent similarity is actually completely different – or else they undermine the research of the scholar making the claims. Although it is true that a great deal of the early arguments from similarity used poor translations or texts which are now no longer available, we know already from early sources, both Christian and pagan, that Jesus Christ was similar to other gods and that this was recognized at the time. These similarities caused controversy and discord between Christians and pagans for several centuries – as Frazer points out, for example, using the following example of Attis:
In point of fact it appears from the testimony of an anonymous Christian, who wrote in the fourth century of our era, that Christians and pagans alike were struck by the remarkable coincidences between the death and resurrection of their respective deities, and that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter controversy between the adherents of the rival religions, the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ was a spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians asserting with equal warmth that the resurrection of Attis was a diabolical counterfeit of the resurrection of Christ. In these unseemly bickerings the heathen took what to a superficial observer might seem strong ground by arguing that their god was the older and therefore presumably the original, not the counterfeit, since as a general rule an original is older than its copy. This feeble argument the Christian easily rebutted. They admitted, indeed, that in point of time Christ was the junior deity, but they triumphantly demonstrated his real seniority by falling back on the subtlety of Satan, who on so important an occasion had surpassed himself by inverting the usual order of nature.[ii]
Notice how, even as late as the fourth century, when the similarities between rival faiths continued to be a source of conflict, Christians still relied on Diabolical Mimicry rather claim historical priority.
Finally, critics argue that the Jews (and following them, the Christians), who were so careful to abstain from pagan worship of any kind (for example, choosing to be martyred rather than worshiping false idols) would never have adopted obviously pagan religious features. Therefore any potential similarities must be coincidental, because the opposite is unthinkable. This argument ignores the fact that, even if choosing to refuse them, the Jews would have already been familiar with most of these mythological figures, making their later acceptance of Jesus Christ all the more difficult. On the other hand, despite their restrictions and prohibitions, there are numerous examples of the Jewish people accepting and adopting pagan customs.
In Ezekiel, Yahweh points out the women of Israel mourning the death of Tammuz at the temple gates, the men prostrating before the rising sun in the inner court of the Temple of Yahweh, and the worshipping of carved idols of “every kind of reptile and repulsive animal” (Ezekiel 8:10-16). In Genesis, Rachel steals her father’s idols, hides them in her camel cushion, and pretends she was “as women are from time to time” so that he wouldn’t find them (Genesis 31:46). The Israelites, after leaving Egypt, made a golden calf to worship (Exodus 32). While it’s true that The Old Testament is a collection of prohibitions against idolatry, this is likely due to the fact that the Jewish people were otherwise quick to assimilate into their environments and abandon their iconoclastic religion.
In the syncretism and convergence of cultures brought about by the Greek and Roman empires, we find several Jewish writers who were fully at home in pagan society, interpreted the scriptures metaphorically, and found no conflict between their faith and the beliefs of contemporary philosophers or mystery religions. Philo of Alexandria, to give one example, used allegory to fuse and harmonize Stoic philosophy with Jewish exegesis.
Having knowledge that a controversy over the physical nature of Jesus Christ existed in the earliest days of Christianity, testimony of a conflict based around similarities in rival traditions, and examples of Jews worshipping idols or blending their native religion with paganism, we are well justified in looking for the similarities which were so obvious to those more familiar with the original pagan and Christian sources. Although some parallels will be obvious, others need may need elucidation. For example, Gilgamesh’s plant of immortality gets eaten by a snake, and Osiris’s phallus gets eaten by a fish; taken literally, there is not enough similarity here to argue for a relationship. But if these myths are understood according to their symbolic meaning, then the precise details are less important than the theme (the loss of immortality).
As for the dating, it will be shown conclusively that central ideas shared between paganism and Christianity predate Jesus Christ by several centuries, if not millennia. The order of these ideas will be presented in this chapter, as far as possible, from earliest to latest. This way we can see, not only that certain elements extend quite far back in time, but also how they evolved and mutated into diverse cultural manifestations. Keep in mind that some of these stories were used to justify religious ritual and practice for thousands of years; and that such practices found in one historical period cannot be assumed to have existed during a different period. At the same time, basic features of these traditions, despite minor differences in practice, are likely to be homogenous. While some of these figures are almost definitely historical, and others completely mythological, the line is often blurred: even the most extremely fictional characters were thought by ancient cultures to have once been historical rulers or kings, while the very historical figures are so wrapped up in mythology it is almost impossible to see them clearly. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but simply represents the most interesting and relevant figures to the present study.
Gilgamesh
As was pointed out earlier, the epic of Gilgamesh is not only one of the oldest recorded stories known to man, but was also familiar to Israel and may have been rewritten into the Old Testament. It should come as no surprise that elements from the epic of Gilgamesh might have crept into several other literary traditions.
It is likely that the story of Gilgamesh was used as a framework for religious rites or cult practices, as copies have been found in temples; copying the text may have been part of the training process for temple-astrologers.[iii] According to Sumerian cosmology, when Ea had created man, he mixed the blood of a god (who was slaughtered for the purpose) in with the clay, so that humans would have a divine spirit. However, the blood was not the best material: “In one tradition, at least, he was the leader of the rebels, who had instigated a mutiny.”[iv] Therefore men were made part divine, but also flawed and wayward. This theme (humanity receiving the divine spirit from a rebellious god who receives punishment) is found in several later traditions. Prometheus, for example, steals fire from the gods to give to humans. Interestingly the link could also be made to the character of Satan, who gives humanity the tree of knowledge so that they may become “like gods” and is then tormented by God for his transgression.
If Gilgamesh ever existed as an actual king (as tradition maintains), he would have flourished around 2750BC.[v] According to the myth, Gilgamesh was a tyrant whose mother was a goddess. He was a cruel ruler, forcing his people into labor and freely exercising his kingly right to sleep with girls on their wedding day. The people prayed to the gods to make a rival for Gilgamesh, and they created Enkidu – a creature that was half bull, half human. Enkidu was an idyllic spirit, living in harmony with nature. Gilgamesh ordered the harlot Shamhat to seduce him, which would weaken him by alienating him from nature. They coupled for seven days and seven nights. In language reminiscent of the biblical garden story, Enkidu finds himself a “changed but wiser creature.”[vi] Shamhat brings him to society, but he has trouble eating bread, drinking out of glasses, or wearing clothes. (Could Gilgamesh also be the root of the modern Tarzan story?) Enkidu challenges Gilgamesh and they fight, but recognize each other’s greatness and decide, rather than destroy each other, to work together and practice heroic virtue.
Thus begins a series of their adventures and conquests. First, they destroy the dragon (or ogre) Humbaba in the cedar forest, preferring fame to security, a dedication that may call Achilles or Beowulf to mind. In the next episode, Gilgamesh dresses so attractively that the goddess Ishtar (Ianna) wants to marry him, but he refuses her. In retribution, she asks permission from the great father god Anu to have the “Bull of Heaven” at her disposal to slay Gilgamesh. At first he says no, but she (as a goddess of the underworld) threatens to bring up all the dead so that they outnumber and consume the living. Anu relents and gives her the bull, however, Gilgamesh and Enkidu overpower and butcher it. Enkidu cuts off the leg of the bull and throws it at Ishtar as a terrible insult. Ishtar, after mourning the death of the bull, has the gods convene to decide on a punishment – they choose to kill Enkidu. Gilgamesh tries to bring him back to life in vain. Enkidu’s death instills in him a terrible fear of death, and so he begins a quest for immortality.
Only one man he knew of had ever been immortal – the Babylonian Noah named Utnapishtim (or Atrahasis), who, along with his wife, became immortal after the flood. Therefore, Gilgamesh determines to seek him out. First, he travels to the edge of the ocean that surrounds the world, where he encounters the wise Shiduri; she tells him he must find Ur-shanabi, the ferryman of Utnapishtim. Ur-shanabi takes him to Utnapishtim’s enchanted realm, and Gilgamesh hears the flood story. The gods had decided to destroy mankind, but one god, Ea, was friendly with Utnapishtim and determined to save him. Speaking to him indirectly (Utnapishtim was told to go into a reed hut first), Ea told him to disregard his possessions and construct an ark according to exact specifications, and to gather the seed of all living creatures, his wife, adequate supplies and a crew. Rains came, and then receded. The ark landed on a mountain. Utnapishtim sent out first a dove, then a swallow, then a raven, and determined that the earth was dry. He then got out and sacrificed to the gods, who hovered over the sweet-smelling sacrifice like flies. Utnapishtim and his wife became immortal.
They tell Gilgamesh to stay awake for seven days to see if he is worthy of becoming immortal as well, but he fails the test. Next, they groom him and give him a magical garment that won’t get dirty, and prepare him for his return journey. Utnapishtim’s wife discloses a secret mystery of the gods – a plant at the bottom of the sea that gives immortality – so he puts rocks on his feet and goes down to get it. Unfortunately he decides to save the plant for later and a snake eats it. Although he loses physical immortality, later versions of the story have Gilgamesh become a deified ruler of the shades in the underworld, and “give verdicts” or judge the dead.[vii]
The Gilgamesh myth almost certainly influenced the Old Testament, hence certain themes were bound to be included in the gospel stories of Jesus as well. A few key motifs will prove constructive: the creation of humanity from a fallen god; the quest for immortality in order to rescue or be with a loved one; a plant of immortality that is lost due to the meddling serpent; the slaying of the bull of heaven. These themes will be explored in more detail.
Dionysus
Despite obvious similarities between Dionysus and Jesus Christ, like wedding wine miracles and Jesus’ statements about being “The one true vine,” these two figures may seem poles apart: Jesus the meek and humble savior, and Dionysus the ecstatic, sexually active founder of wild, drunken revelry. However on closer examination, there are themes that run between the literary traditions of both figures that are closely tied. While it cannot be claimed that Jesus is nothing more than a pagan god of wine, parallels do exist and were easily identified by both believers and critics of the early Christian movement. These similarities have also been noted by modern researchers.
Dionysus, like Jesus, was son of the divine ruler of the world and a mortal mother, appeared in human form among mortals, was killed and restored to life. Early Christian writers, aware of the similarity between Christianity and mystery-cult, claim that the latter is a diabolical imitation of the former.[viii]
The correspondences between Christianity and the other mystery religions of antiquity are perhaps more startling than the differences. Orpheus and Christ share attributes in the early centuries of our era; and of all the major ancient deities, Dionysus has the most in common with the figure of Christ.[ix]
Dionysus was born from a mortal woman, Semele, Daughter of the King of Thebes, and Zeus, the Father of the Gods. Hera, Zeus’s jealous wife, planted seeds of doubt in the young mother’s mind, and Semele demanded that Zeus come down and take responsibility. However, as no mortal can stand the sight of Zeus without dying, she was burnt up by his firebolts. Zeus rescued the child and sewed him up in his thigh until he was ready to be born.
In another version of the story, which ties Dionysus even more closely to his sacred mysteries, Dionysus was son of Zeus and Persephone, queen of the underworld. The jealous Hera this time sent the Titans to rip the child to pieces by distracting it with toys and mirrors. After they’d dismembered him, the Titans ate all the pieces – except the heart, which was saved. Zeus destroyed the Titans with lightning, and it was out of their ashes that humanity was created. The heart was used to impregnate Semele, who gave birth to Dionysus again. In either version of the story, Dionysus was “twice born” – a title that would later be used frequently in conjunction with his role in the sacred mysteries; initiates of which were said to be “born again.” This story has been interpreted as the founding myth for many ancient spiritual traditions, in particular Orphism: it explains why sin or evil came into the world, and how humans are special in all of creation. As Guthrie explains, “Our nature therefore is twofold, born of Titans, wicked sons of earth, but there is in us something of a heavenly nature too, since there went to our making fragments of the body of Dionysus, son of Olympian Zeus, on whom the Titans had made their impious feast.”[x] Morford and Lenardon in Classical Mythology reflect,
Surely this is one of the most significant myths in terms of the philosophy and religious dogma that it provides. By it human beings are endowed with a dual nature – a body gross and evil (since we are sprung from the Titans) and a soul that is pure and divine (for after all the Titans had devoured the god). Thus basic religious concepts (which lie at the root of all mystery religions) are accounted for: sin, immortality, resurrection, life after death, reward, and punishment.[xi]
On a deeper level, Dionysus was identified as a powerful force that governed and controlled the universe. He was not only the “divine spark” inside of humanity – he was also the beacon for ethical and moral action, as well as the gateway to eternal salvation. This is the standard, orthodox reading of Dionysus as attested by the following passages:
Dionysus can free us, wherefore we call him “liberator,” Dionysus the immortal, the resurrected, of whose nature there is yet a small part in each and every one of us. Knowing all this, what other aim can we have in life but to purge away as far as possible the Titanic element in us and exalt and cherish the Dionysiac?[xii]
As son and heir of the cosmic deity, Zeus, Dionysus is also a creative deity, but creative through thought, as it were. He produces the idea of the world, and his knowledge sustains it in all its reality.[xiii]
In this way, the Orphic Bible provided the divine authority for belief in an immortal soul; the necessity for keeping this soul pure despite the contamination and degradation of the body; the concept of a kind of original sin; the transmigration of the soul to an afterlife of reward or punishment; and finally, after various stages of purification, an apotheosis, a union with the divine spirit in the realms of the upper aether.[xiv]
Despite his divinity, Dionysus lived among humans “not as a god but in disguise as a man”;[xv] and was somehow closer to humanity than any other deity. Stories of his life on earth, notably The Bacchae by Euripides, (which premiered at the Theatre of Dionysus in 406BC), make it clear that Dionysus’ true power was only recognized by his closest followers. Like Jesus, Dionysus freely allows himself to be captured and persecuted by his enemies, before finally revealing himself in his glory.
Apparently powerless submission (in the Homeric Hymn to the pirates, in Bacchae to King Pentheus) is transformed into its opposite by epiphany, an emotive transformation that is in some respects comparable to the release of Paul and Silas in the Acts of the Apostles. Chased away or imprisoned by mere mortals, but comes back in triumph: associated with victory.[xvi]
The Bacchae’s description of Dionysus submitting to his captors is eerily similar to the same motif in the Christian tradition. When the guard delivers him to Pentheus, he says:
Pentheus, here we are, having hunted the quarry you sent us after, and our efforts have not been unsuccessful. But we found this wild beast tame – he did not attempt to flee, but gave me his hands willingly; he did not even turn pale, but kept the flush of wine in his cheeks. With a smile he bade me tie him up and lead him away and waited for me, thus making my task easy. (Bacchae 434-442)
Dionysus goes through a trial of sorts, where he refuses to answer Pentheus’ questions directly, and instead antagonizes the ruler. Then he is put in prison, at which point there is an earthquake. Pentheus grabs a sword and rushes in, but Dionysus greets him calmly and promises he will not try to escape. This episode, although of course very different from that of Jesus, who is crucified, is remarkably similar to Acts of the Apostles 16:25-9. When Paul and Silas are imprisoned, singing to their god in the darkness, there is an earthquake. The doors open and the chains fall away from the prisoners. The jailor seizes a sword, and runs in to find that Paul and the prisoners are still there. Seaford concludes that the author of Acts borrowed directly from the Bacchae:
These similarities are too numerous to be coincidental. How are we to explain them? One possibility is that they derive from knowledge of the Bacchae. The Bacchae was indeed well known at this period: for instance, we hear of it being recited in Corinth in the first century AD… Moreover, in one version of the conversion of Saul the lord says to him ‘It is hard for you to kick against the goads’ (26:14). This expression occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, but it does occur in early Greek literature, notably when Dionysus says to his persecutor Pentheus ‘Do not kick against the goads, a mortal against a god’ (Bacchae 796).[xvii]
There are other similarities between the life of Dionysus and the life of Jesus as well. Dionysus was a wanderer; his cult emphasized mobility. He does not give instructions for building a temple (as does Demeter in the Homeric hymns to Demeter, or Yahweh in the Old Testament). Worship of Dionysus was roofless – outdoors, in a temple under open sky; just like the early Christian practice, which was originally against the setting up of churches or worshiping indoors.
Dionysus is not only associated with but often actually identified with the animals that represent him, mostly the bull; just as he is associated and identified with wine. Dionysian cults ate raw flesh, and Dionysus himself could be called “eater of raw flesh.”[xviii] In the version cited by Frazer, Dionysus tried to evade the attacks of the Titans by changing forms: first a young man, then a lion, horse, and serpent. “Finally, in the form of a bull, he was cut into pieces by the murderous knives of his enemies.”[xix] Consequently, when we find that followers of Dionysus followed a cultic ritual of dividing up a bull and eating its raw flesh, and drinking wine in thanksgiving and remembrance of their god, it is not a stretch to argue that they believed they were eating the body and blood of their savior in order to reach a spiritual communion.
When we consider the practice of portraying the god as a bull or with some of the features of the animal, the belief that he appeared in bull form to his worshipers at the sacred rites, and the legend that in bull form he had been torn to pieces, we cannot doubt that in rending and devouring a live bull at this festival the worshipers of Dionysus believed themselves to be killing the god, eating his flesh, and drinking his blood.[xx]
Although Dionysus was not crucified, certain aspects of his worship have early Christian parallels. When Dionysus was torn apart by the Titans, a pomegranate tree sprouted from his blood. This is probably the root of the tradition of worshiping Dionysus in the form of a tree.
Maximus of Tyre writes that ‘the peasants honour Dionysus by planting in the field an uncultivated tree-trunk, a rustic statue’ (2.1), and according to Plutarch (Moralia 675) all Greeks sacrifice to Dionysus as tree god (Dendrites). Pausanias reports that two images of Dionysus at Corinth were made from this very tree: the Delphic oracle had ordered the Corinthians to find the tree and ‘worship it equally with god.’ (2.2.7)[xxi]
Likewise, Jesus is celebrated as the Tree of Life – a redemptive symbol counteracting the original Tree of Knowledge that led to the fall into sin. Countless churches in Christendom have worshiped relics or magical pendants made of wood purported to be from the original cross. Within early Christian communities, Jesus was even considered to have been hung on a tree rather than crucified. “It was the God of our ancestors who raised up Jesus, whom you executed by hanging on a tree” (Acts, 5:30).
Dionysus was a god of resurrection, and like other figures he descended into Hell and returned.
It is no accident that Dionysus is linked with Orpheus and Demeter and the message that they preached. He is in his person a resurrection-god; the story is told that he went down into the realm of the dead and brought back his mother, who in this account is usually given the name Thyone.[xxii]
Dionysus was also considered a great social leveler: in his festivals and ceremonies, there was no distinction given to class or rank. Dionysus “gave the pain-removing delight of wine equally to the wealthy man and to the lesser man” (Bacchae 421-3). He was also credited with freedom from prison, releasing slaves, as a liberator, and “in general resolved conflicts between peoples and cities, and created concord and much peace in place of civil conflicts and wars.”[xxiii] He was worshiped by everybody equally, all mixed up in a mob; this inclusiveness was a feature which “may not have appealed to some aristocrats.”[xxiv]
And then there are the wine miracles. It was Dionysus who brought wine to the aristocratic wedding of Peleus and Thetis; and during a festival at Elis, three pots were put inside the Dionysus temple behind closed doors and miraculously filled with wine – a feat similar to Jesus’ later miracle at the wedding in Cana. This act of Jesus, as well as his claim of being the “True Vine” (John 15:1), may have been direct attempts to usurp the powers and influence of Dionysus.
Another similarity emerges if we take theological liberties. Dionysus wanted to lay with the wife of King Oeneus (of Calydon in Aetolia). Oeneus, whose name means “wine man,” tactfully withdrew; for this he was rewarded with the gift of the vine, which benefited the whole community. Stories of gods fertilizing the wife of the king and producing a divine prince who becomes a savior/redeemer are not uncommon; in the epic of Gilgamesh, the tyrant king takes advantage of this principle, assuming the role of the god to have intercourse with brides on their wedding night. When applied to the Christian birth story, it could be argued that Joseph “made way” for God/the Holy Spirit to impregnate Mary, who produced Jesus, the True Vine.
Dionysus was also important to the Eleusinian and other mysteries as savior, liberator and ruler of the underworld. His name was a magical password of freedom; initiates who underwent mysteries were promised eternal life, and given special gold leaves that acted as passports into the next life. One of these, found at Pelinna in Thessaly and dating to the late fourth century BC, reads “Tell Persephone that Bakchios himself freed you” (Bakchios/Bacchus is the Roman name for Dionysus).[xxv]Interestingly, it is probably Dionysus’ role as ruler of the underworld and keeper of the dead that has been transfigured into the modern conception of Satan: Dionysus, as Bacchus, the bull or “the horned one” ruling over the underworld may have inspired the later Christian conception of the horned ruler of the underworld.
According to the doctrine of these mysteries (referred to in Plato), the soul is “imprisoned” in the body for an ancient crime or guilt, symbolized by the Titans’ murder of Dionysus (Cratylus 400c; Phaedo 62b). Humans, by being made from the remains of the Titans, have inherited this guilt; but also been given the gift of the Dionysian element, which, if cultivated, can result in eternal life.
The 5th century Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus regarded Plato as following Orphic myths and interpreting mystic doctrine. In this interpretation, according to Proclus, the dismemberment of Dionysus means that body and soul are divided into many bodies and souls, whereas the undivided heart of Dionysos, from which Athena recomposed his body, is cosmic mind of intellect (nous). In Neoplatonist philosophy nous is undivided; it comprehends in one act of intelligence all intelligible things; and it is merged with but superior to the soul.[xxvi]
There is no doubt that Dionysus, including his critical role in afterlife beliefs, came before Jesus. His name first appears on clay tablets from the Greek bronze age 3000 years ago.[xxvii] Poetry from the 6th century BC claims that Dionysus gave wine as “joy and burden”[xxviii] and the Bacchae, published in 405 BC, was an increasingly popular and well-known piece of literature. Although Jesus is certainly much more than any of these similarities, it is impossible to make the claim that early Christians were unaware of Dionysus, whose public processions were large, loud and involved the entire community.
When Christianity was establishing itself in the ancient Mediterranean world, the cult of Dionysus was its most geographically widespread and deeply rooted rival. And so the Christian church, while enclosing the revolutionary ethics of its gospels within the necessity of social control, was influenced by Dionysaic cult as well as opposing it.[xxix]
In fact, according to 2 Maccabees 6.7, the Jews themselves were compelled under Seleucid King Antiochus IV (175-164BC) to wear ivy wreaths and walk in procession in honor of Dionysus, an act which may have had lasting consequences: “Tacitus writes that various features of Jewish cult – the music of pipes and drums, ivy crowns, and the golden vine at the temple – give rise to the view that the Jews worship Liber Pater (Dionysus), the conqueror of the East.”[xxx]
How do we explain the similarities? There are really only two possibilities: either Jesus, aware of Dionysus, set himself up purposely to steal his rival’s spotlight, or early Christian writers included these stories and motifs into the gospel story to make their savior more competitive.
Pythagoras
Pythagoras is one of the most intriguing and mysterious figures in ancient history. Although today known mostly by his mathematical legacy, he was much more than a philosopher or mathematician – he was also the founder of a very secretive spiritual cult with serious political influence, focusing on initiation of the worthy, purification, and salvation.
Born around 570BC, Pythagoras emigrated to Croton in Southern Italy, and there founded a movement that was a blend of politics and mysticism. “Without a doubt, Pythagoras aimed for a viewpoint of the divine, and the opinions he expressed were taken by his followers as sacred revelations.”[xxxi]Although it is difficult to separate the man from the myth, there are striking parallels between Jesus and Pythagoras; most likely due to the extensive influence Pythagoreanism seems to have had on the Greco-Roman world through other mystery cults and schools of philosophy, especially Orphism and Platonism.
It is said that when Pythagoras arrived in Croton, he first appeared to the fishermen on the outskirts of the city and performed a miraculous sign; he told them exactly how many fish were in their nets, and he was right (they counted). News of the miracle spread into city and prepared the way for him.[xxxii] In the gospels of Luke and John, Jesus performs a similar miracle, although instead of counting the fish, he causes the fisherman to catch a great quantity. In Luke, this happens at the beginning of his ministry (5:1-11); in John, it occurs after Jesus had resurrected. Interestingly, we are even given the precise number of fish caught: “Simon Peter went aboard and dragged the net ashore, full of big fish, one hundred and fifty-three of them” (John 21:1-14).
Although we are not given the exact number of fish in the Pythagorean story, the Pythagoreans regarded 153 as a sacred number due to its use in a mathematical ratio called “the measure of the fish,” which produces the mystical symbol of the Vesica Pisces – the intersection of two circles which yields a fish-like shape. It is unlikely that the Christian use of this number is accidental.
Pythagoreans believed (much like Orphics and modern day Buddhists) in reincarnation, or a wheel of rebirth. They were vegetarians and tried to cultivate purity. Although the soul was immortal, it had to be freed from the contaminating influences of the body. Only a “lover of wisdom” leading the best of lives could escape the prison of the body at the moment of death and break free of the cycle.
Tradition holds that Pythagoras gained his mystical knowledge by spending seven years in the underworld or land of the dead. Diogenes Laertius records the claim of Hieronymus, who said “that when he descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and gnashing its teeth; and that of Homer suspended from a tree, and snakes around it, as a punishment for the things that they had said of the Gods”[xxxiii]. Laertius also mentions how Austophon says in his Pythagorean:
He said that when he did descend below
Among the shades in Hell, he there beheld
All men who e’er had died; and there he saw,
That the Pythagoreans differ’d much
From all the rest; for that with them alone
Did Pluto deign to eat, much honouring
Their pious habits. (Diogenes Laertius, XX)
There is also the story told by Hermippus, about how when Pythagoras returned from the underworld, he was considered a God.
Pythagoras came up again after a certain time, lean, and reduced to a skeleton; and that he came into the public assembly, and said that he had arrived from the shades below, and then he recited to them all that had happened during his absence. And they, being charmed by what he told them, wept and lamented, and believed that Pythagoras was a divine being; so that they even entrusted their wives to him, as likely to learn some good from him; and that they too were called Pythagoreans. And this is the story of Hermippus. (Diogenes Laertius, XXI)
According to legend, in a past life Pythagoras had been a son of Hermes named Aethalides. Hermes promised him any gift (except immortality), and Aethalides/Pythagoras wished to remember everything, even after death. Thus, Pythagoras remembered all of his previous lives. While staying at Argos, for example, he saw a shield from the spoils of Troy nailed up to the wall. He began to weep, claiming that the shield had been his in a last life when his name was Euphobus and that he had used it at the battle of Troy. He even offered proof: his previous name, Euphobus, was written on the inside. They took the shield down from the wall and found the name written as he had claimed.[xxxiv] In another story, he recognizes the reincarnation of an old friend in a stray dog.
And once, they say, when he passed by a dog which was being maltreated, he pitied the animal and said these words: “Stop! Don’t beat him! For he is the soul of a friend whom I recognized straight away when I heard his voice.”[xxxv]
Pythagoras believed that the entire universe was musical: each planet made a certain vibrational frequency as it passed through the heavens, and everything on earth could be assigned to one of these seven frequencies: there are 7 notes on a scale, 7 colors of the rainbow, and 7 primary organs of the body.
According to a legend told by Iambliochos, when Pythagoras heard the different sound made by hammers in a forge, he realized that tones can be expressed in quantitative relationships, and hence in numerical values and geometrical measures. Using stringed instruments, he then discovered the connection between vibration frequencies and pitch. The whole world, according to Pythagoras’ theory, consisted of harmony and number.[xxxvi]
This life, Pythagoras claimed, was a sentence for a sin or evil done at the mythical level in pre-history. Therefore, we should do our time well and get out quickly, rather than avoiding our punishments and stretching the sentence out longer. Earth was not meant to be enjoyed: “Do not assist a man in laying a burden down; for it is not proper to be the cause of not laboring (also translated as ‘idleness’ or ‘lack of effort’); but assist him in taking it up.”[xxxvii] Christianity has parallels in its monasticism, valuation of the poor, the weak and the suffering, and ascetic traditions. There are also passages like the following:
Then, speaking to all, he said, “if anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, will save it. What benefit is it to anyone to win the whole world and forfeit or lose his very self.” (Luke 9:23-26)
The life of a Pythagorean was “governed by strict rules and routines that covered a wide range of issues, everything from dietary restrictions to purification rites to religious taboos to the observance of decorous behavior, not to mention a host of magical practices.”[xxxviii] These pedantic rules inspired a constantly introspective lifestyle:
Tradition does mention, though, a great number of taboos and prescriptions, such as ‘Do not wear a ring’, ‘Do not step over a broom’, ‘don’t use cedar, laurel, myrtle, cypress or oak to cleanse your body or clean your teeth: they are for honouring the gods’. The observance of all these rules must have made the life of the Pythagorean an extremely self-conscious one, in which a moment of carelessness could be fatal.[xxxix]
Although the similarities between the actual life of Pythagoras and Jesus may be limited, it is interesting to notice the parallels between the two movements each figure left behind. As we shall see, it was the bureaucratic organization of the Christian movement, more than the originality of its beliefs or practices, which really ensured its survival; this organization may have had its roots in Pythagoreanism. As Professor Konstantine Boudouris of the University of Athens reports, the Pythagorean communities were “unions of people, the members of which had accepted certain principles and doctrines, and who lived, thought, and acted collectively, and whose acts were dictated or related to the beliefs that they had accepted.”[xl] The chief characteristic of the Pythagorean movement, however was secrecy – with underground political motivations:
While the overall tone of Pythagoras’ teaching appears concerned with morality, virtue, and religious piety, the mission of the secret group seems to have been the infiltration and takeover of the government. Thus, it functioned as a political conspiracy on the one hand, while on the other projecting the outward appearance of a bona fide political association.[xli]
The speeches ascribed to Pythagoras that have been handed down to us are nothing particularly special: be good, honor your elders, refrain from evil, etc. There was certainly more to the movement than his words of wisdom (although there may have been much that was lost). The power of the movement was in its initiations and secrecy. Membership was extremely selective, and the initiation process not for the faint of heart. There was first a series of tests for candidates, followed by a background check involving the applicant’s personal life, relationships and behavior: “Did he talk too much or laugh on the wrong occasions? How did he get along with other students? What, for example, made him happy or sad?”[xlii] Finally there was a physical examination. If he passed these preliminaries, he was sent away for three years and totally ignored, but secretly watched (not unlike Tyler Durton’s modern day initiation cult rendition in Fight Club).
If they were admitted, candidates had to turn over all of their belongings – money, properties and income – to a special board of trustees,[xliii] and for the first 5 years, they took a vow of silence. If they were later rejected from the higher levels of initiation, they had their investments returned in double but were treated as if they were dead by members. Likewise, in the earliest periods of Christianity, such socialist practices were also the rule, and strictly enforced. Luke has Jesus caution, “None of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns” (Luke 14:33), and according to the Acts of the Apostles, “And all who shared the faith owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and distributed the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed” (Acts 2:44). Acts also relates the curious incident of Ananias and Sapphira, new converts to Christianity who secretly held back some of their earnings rather than sharing it with the Church. Their transgression was punished by a miraculous execution – they fell down dead when confronted by Peter.
Like the Pythagorean cult, the early church had “administrators” who were responsible for maintaining the wealth and finances of the community. This feature of early Christianity didn’t last (later converts were allowed to keep their property), but its presence and inclusion into the Bible suggests external influences. Although Judaism, especially during the decades surrounding the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, did have socialistic sects where Christianity may have found this feature, these sects were themselves more similar to Pythagoreanism than to traditional Judaic worship.
According to Josephus, the Essenic communities shared all of their property and wealth communally, had no personal possessions, did not sacrifice animals, and focused on cleansings and purity. After a three year probation, newly joining members would take an oath that included the commitment to practice piety towards “the Deity” and righteousness towards humanity, to maintain a pure life-style, to abstain from criminal and immoral activities, to transmit their rules uncorrupted and to preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the Angels (The Wars of the Jews, 2.137–142). They also believed in the immortality of the soul and that they would receive their souls back after death (Antiquities of the Jews, 18.18, The Wars of the Jews. 2.153–158).
Another source of commonality is the theme of secrecy, with truth being revealed only to an inner group.
The notion that Pythagoras founded a movement whose mission was the “education and enlightenment of the masses” is wonderfully romantic, yet the very sources who have sought to convey this impression have also persevered old sayings that paint a very different picture.[xliv]
The eventual fall of Pythagoreanism may have been due to the contradiction inherent in a selective, spiritual minority ruling the alienated majority. Likewise, although Jesus Christ is often heralded for his democratic inclusion of all people, there are passages in the Bible which make it clear that not everybody would make it into the kingdom, but only the worthy, and characterize the Christian cult as a small, non-inclusive group of separatists: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16). Moreover, Jesus frequently speaks in riddles and parables, which he later explains only to his inner group of disciples. Although in theory a community of brothers, it should not be forgotten that Christianity was managed by a select authoritarian group that demanded absolute allegiance and complete surrender of personal property, and which quickly grew in wealth and power.
Finally, like Christians, Pythagoreans were taught to fight against sin and lawlessness. They even had a custom of confessing each day’s sins:
As soon as they got up in the morning, members were required to disclose to one another a detailed account of the activities and events of the previous day. Supposedly, this exercise had a twofold aim: to train a person’s memory and to teach him to assess his conduct, in order to, as Diodorus says, “gain knowledge and judgment in all matters.”[xlv]
Some of these lifestyle choices, beliefs and practices would become fairly common in the centuries before and after the coming of Jesus Christ; mostly in various mystery cults and religions. Their inclusion into Christianity is not surprising, and yet proved problematic for the early church, who constantly needed to differentiate themselves somehow from other groups who believed very similar things and practiced similar rituals and habits.
The powerful figure of Pythagoras would grow to supernatural proportions; as we have seen, he was believed to have been born of a God (Hermes, in a previous life), descended into the underworld, and taught specific instructions about surviving after death. In the religious-political system that he created, Christianity had a ready template for its own organization.
Orpheus
Orpheus is the figure credited with a new type of spirituality which began to permeate Greece in around the 6th century BC. He is chiefly considered a prophet, magician, astrologer and musician. The movement known as Orphism, as well as various pieces of poetry known as “Orphica” are ascribed to him. Even in antiquity, Orpheus was regarded as the founder of mystery religions; the first to reveal to men the meaning of rites of initiation. He is chiefly regarded as a human figure – a prophet of Dionysus – however his story is so blended with mythology that it is impossible to say whether or not he ever truly existed. According to Jan Bremmer in The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, Orpheus was a mythological figure created as a mouthpiece for certain developing ideas resulting from the blending of Pythagoreanism and Bacchic ideologies: “Orphism was a product of Pythagorean influence on Bacchic mysteries in the first quarter of the fifth century… but Pythagoras belongs to history, and Orpheus to myth.”[xlvi] For other scholars, Orpheus was the prophet who turned the Dionysian spirituality into an organized way of living:
From the fourth century BC, the killing of Dionysus by the Titans made it possible to explain the state of man, thrown into the world, and was at the origin of the way of life invented by Orpheus for the salvation of the individual soul.[xlvii]
His father was Apollo (or Oeagrus, a Thracian river god) and his mother was Calliope, the muse of epic poetry. His magic power was his perfection of music – with his song and lyre he allured the trees, the savage animals, and even the insensate rocks to follow him (Ovid, Metamorphoses XI). The power of Orpheus’ music has its roots in the Pythagorean belief that the universe is made up of vibrations like a musical chord: different notes produced the different states of matter. Plants, animals, metals and gemstones were in harmony with the frequencies produced by the planets and could be used in a sort of sympathetic magic.
Orpheus plays the same instrument as his father Apollo, symbolizing the music of the seven planets and the universal laws of septenary manifestation whose knowledge gives magical power over all created things. Orpheus could charm beasts, plants and even the denizens of the Underworld, i.e. he understood the laws of sympathy and harmony that link every level of creation, and was able to put them to use.[xlviii]
His music also allowed him to perform miraculous feats; for example, when he sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, Orpheus muted out the Sirens’ seductive call with his own music, and, according to some accounts, also calmed the guardian dragon to sleep so that Jason could retrieve the Golden Fleece.[xlix] The most famous story about Orpheus, however, is his descent into the Underworld to save his wife, Eurydice (also known as Agriope).
While she was escaping from Aristaeus (son of Apollo), Eurydice fell into a nest of vipers and was bitten on the heel. Orpheus mourned her with a song that was so touching that all the gods and nymphs wept. At their insistence, he traveled to the Underworld to try to save her. He used his music to soften the hearts of Persephone and Hadesas well as Charon, the boatman of the river Styx, and Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guards the gates. In fact, everybody in Hell ceased momentarily from their constant torment to listen to the beautiful music. Persephone and Hades allowed him to retrieve Eurydice from the dead, but on one condition: she was to follow behind him and he must refrain from turning around and checking on her. But he was so anxious that he turned around too early, and she disappeared forever. This motif is similar to many other stories in world literature, including the Genesis episode of Lot and his wife.
Orpheus finally met his death at the hands of Thracian Maenads for failing to honor Dionysus (apparently, at the end of his life Orpheus became monotheistic and worshiped only Apollo). In another version, the Ciconian women, also Dionysus’ followers, were angry at him for refusing their advances (he’d forsworn women after the death of Eurydice) and threw sticks and stones at him. At first, his beautiful music stopped the projectiles like a magic shield, but the enraged women then tore him apart – just like Pentheus in The Bacchae, and also reminiscent of Dionysus’ first death at the hands of the Titans. The Muses gathered up his pieces and buried them beneath Mount Olympus. His head floated to the island of Lesbos, where it prophesied until it was silenced by Apollo.
Orphism, a religious movement that emerged around 600BC, claims to have at its core the revelations given by the head of Orpheus in the cave of Lesbos, after it had been detached from his body. These records – known as the Orphica – are a collection of hymns and poetry.
Orphism developed an elaborate cosmogony (a theory explaining the creation of the universe) based on the mythical death of Dionysus. As we have seen, the killing and eating of Dionysus by the Titans, and Zeus’s subsequent destruction of the Titans (from whose ashes rose the human race), gave humanity a dual nature: both Dionysiac (divine and good) and Titan (earthly and evil).
Orphic belief and ritual existed in some form in the fifth century BC, being referred to by Herodotus and Euripides and others. It is a question therefore of how much of the belief and ritual concerning Dionysus goes back to that time – a time when Dionysus was one of the chief gods of every Greek city, worshipped at seasonal festivals with elaborate public rites and with another kind of belief, the local myths pertaining to each festival. Perhaps unexpectedly, it is archaeology which in recent decades has contributed striking details of Orphic belief and ritual: they draw us especially to this matter of Dionysus. The Derveni papyrus, recovered from a funeral pyre in Thessaly, contains a truncated commentary by a ritual adept upon an Orphic creation story dated to c. 500BC or even the sixth century.[l]
Through initiation into the Orphic mysteries, and by living an ascetic life of abstention from meat, wine and sexual activity, individuals sought to suppress their earthly natures and cultivate their divine, Dionysian, selves. Full liberation of the soul could be achieved only through a cycle of incarnations. Orpheus’ descent into and return from the underworld gave him unique knowledge and wisdom of the afterlife; hence his followers believed he could act as an intermediary with the forces below.
The secrets of Hades were in his possession. He could tell his followers what the fate of their souls would be, and how they should behave to make it the best possible. He had shown himself capable of melting the hearts of the powers below, and might be expected to intercede again on their own behalf if they lived the pure life according to his precepts. That was the important thing. The reason which once took him there was secondary.[li]
Orphism seems to have had a missionary basis, and spread rapidly. Plato mentions traveling priests, from 400BC or earlier, selling spells and initiation rites into the Orphic way of life. Initiates were taught to control their passions, have respect for all life and refrain from eating meat (because of their belief in transmigration). The object was to free their souls from the cycle of rebirth. Once freed, they could ascend up to “ultimate bliss on the Isles of the Blessed or in the realm of the starry ether.”[lii] Jan Bremmer claims that the Orphic reservation of an especially desirable afterlife only for initiates, or worthy persons, later influenced Christian ideas concerning the afterlife:
It is in the fifth century, then, in Orphic-Pythagorean milieus that the contours of the later Christian distinction between heaven and hell first become visible.[liii]
In Orphic teachings, “man is suddenly promoted to the climax of creation. Moreover, we can observe that the diversity of the Greek pantheon has been reduced to a virtually monotheistic rule by Zeus, although Dionysus, whose position in the normative Greek pantheon was more ‘eccentric’, is also indispensable.”[liv] Orphics dressed in white to demonstrate their aspirations to purity, and followed strict rules of propriety. Free will and personal responsibility were also essential and important parts of the Orphic code.[lv]
What distinguished Orpheus from other pagan heroes was his meekness and humility, traits that today are usually believed to have been unique to Jesus Christ:
The influence of Orpheus was always on the side of civilization and the arts of peace. In personal character he is never a hero in the modern sense. His outstanding quality is gentleness amounting at times to softness.[lvi]
Although Orpheus cannot be said to have resurrected or come back from the dead (at least not since the first time he did it, when rescuing Eurydice), we do have the curious prophecies of his disembodied talking head, which gave the bulk of his teachings after he’d been violently murdered. Strikingly, Christianity has its own version of a miraculous talking head. Herod’s stepdaughter, Salome, is said in Matthew 14:8 and Mark 6:25 to have asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter; the presentation of this head often appears in art. In medieval times it was rumored that The Knights Templar had possession of the talking head of St. John, and multiple records from the Inquisition in the early 1300s make reference to some form of head being worshiped by the Knights.
Guthrie suggests that Orpheus’ magical pacification of animals and the forces of nature were the inspiration of Jesus’ similar power.
The common representation of him sitting playing his lyre surrounded by beasts wild and tame who are lulled into amity by his music suggests naturally the picture of the lion and the lamb lying down together.[lvii]
In fact, many early Christians seemed only too ready to make this identification themselves; the motif of Orpheus playing his lyre has been found intermingled with other symbolism in Christian catacombs, as noted by Littleton in Gods, Goddesses and Mythology:
As an allegory, the pagan story even found its way into early Christian iconography. In the catacombs of Jerusalem, for example, Jesus was depicted in the guise of Orpheus with the lyre. In some later Christian tombs, Orpheus is shown delivering the Sermon on the Mount or acting as “the Good Shepherd.”[lviii]
This is less surprising when we consider that the Old Testament already had a musical shepherd of its own:
It was easy to see in the characteristic picture of Orpheus not only a symbol of the Good Shepherd of the Christians (and we remember the Orphic bukoloi), but also parallels to the lore of the Old Testament. It too had, in the person of David, its magical musician playing among sheep and the wild beasts of the wilderness, and the resemblance did not pass unnoticed.[lix]
A final bit of interesting trivia is Orpheus’ personal antagonism towards women, and their resentment of it leading to his violent death, which was used to justify sexist cultural practices. The ritual of tattooing among Thracian women, for example, was said to be the punishment inflicted on them by their husbands for the murder of Orpheus.[lx] Thus, we have women being blamed and punished for a mythological event; not unlike Christianity’s subordination of women – “the weaker sex” – for Eve’s fall and the temptation of Adam.
Orpheus, a meek and humble bringer of peace, founded a mystery cult of spiritual initiation aimed at eternal salvation based on ritual purity, moral behavior and self-control, after he’d suffered a violent death at the hands of his enemies. He descended into Hell and returned, had unrivalled magical powers, and promised salvation to his followers. It’s no wonder that early Christians identified him with Jesus Christ.
Asclepius
It is perhaps telling that Asclepius is so little known in modern society. While most people are familiar with other Greek and Roman gods – Athena, Zeus, Aphrodite – and Christ myth theorists talk passionately about the similarities between Mithras, Attis, Osiris and other dying and resurrecting gods, the name “Asclepius” has almost completely disappeared outside of academic references. And yet, Asclepius was the largest and most persevering challenge to early Christianity:
The correspondence between Christianity and the other mystery religions of antiquity are perhaps more startling than the differences. Orpheus and Christ share attributes in the early centuries of our era; and of all the major ancient deities, Dionysus has most in common with the figure of Christ. It was the son of Apollo, however, Asclepius, the kindly healer and miracle worker, who posed the greatest threat to early Christianity.[lxi]
As we have seen, the claim of Christ’s historical nature, above all else, was crucial for distinguishing him from the beliefs of the pagans. All apparent similarities between Jesus and pagan gods could be explained away with diabolical mimicry and the assertion that, while other gods were mythological symbols, Jesus was a real human being. However, apart from the tenacity of his followers, the proof that Jesus Christ was historical – the signs he gave that he was who he claimed to be – were his miracles; notably, his miraculous healings. Jesus restored sight to the blind, he raised the dead, he cured the sick, he cleansed lepers, and he healed paralytics. These healings are reported in the gospels as signs of his divinity; they are the proof that Jesus was the son of God.
However, long before the Christian movement, Asclepius was universally known as the expert of medicine and healing. And he wasn’t considered just a myth: Asclepius was believed to have been a real man, who died a real death, but then came back. Whether “resurrected” or “ascended into heaven,” after death he was (reportedly) physically present in his temples to affect miraculous healings. Asclepius was widely believed to provide actual, physical healings, which were directly experienced by many people. He was a living god, prayed to, worshiped, and intimately familiar to every Greek and Roman citizen of the pagan world.
His mother was Coronis, daughter of Phelgyas in Thessaly, (or Arsinoe, daughter of Leucipuus) and his father was Apollo. Apollo loved Coronis, but her father made her marry another man. Apollo cursed the raven who brought the tidings – made it black instead of white – and killed Coronis. Her father placed her on a funeral pyre, but as she was burning Apollo recovered the baby from her womb and brought it to Chiron, the Centaur, by whom the baby was raised and taught the arts of healing. Asclepius became such a great surgeon that he even gained the power to raise the dead – a power for which Zeus struck him down with a lightning bolt:
And having become a surgeon, and carried the art to a great pitch, he not only prevented some from dying, but even raised up the dead; for he received from Athena the blood that flowed from the veins of the Gorgon, and while he used the blood that flowed from her left side for the bane of mankind, he used the blood that flowed from her right side for salvation, and by that means he raised the dead. But Zeus, fearing the men might acquire the healing art from him and so come to the rescue of each other, smote him with a thunderbolt. Angry on that account, Apollo slew the Cyclops who had fashioned the thunderbolt for Zeus.[lxii]
After his death he ascended into heaven (was placed in the stars) and thus became an immortal god. It was said that he was born as a man, died a mortal death and was resurrected.[lxiii]
In another version of the story, Asclepius was the son of Phlegys (who came to Peloponnesus) and Apollo; she bore the child, but exposed him on a mountain. A goat gave him milk, a watchdog of the herd guarded him, and a goatherd found him. Still later, Priscus, contemporary of Cicero, says he was born of uncertain parents, exposed, nourished by a dog, found by some hunters, and turned over to Chiron for medical training. He lived at Epidaurus, but was from Messenian. Cicero claims he was buried at Cynosura.[lxiv] These increasingly detailed reports are the result of an attempt to classify or catalog mythology into a rational account of history. Whether or not Asclepius actually lived as a historical person remains unclear.
At any rate, Asclepius proved an extremely popular and powerful deity in the classical era. Pindar has Apollo give his approval for the worship of his son, citing the fact that Asclepius restores sight to the blind, makes the lame get up and walk, and raises the dead:
If, then, the son of Coronis accomplished anything meet for a god; if he restored to the blind the sight which had slipped away from their eyes; if he bade the dead return to life; if, making the lame swift of foot, he commanded them to go home rejoicing, then let him be enriched with our due admiration, too; if he was in high repute among some of the most feeble, let him, too, be praised as most nobly going about the task of his medical skill. Yes let him not dishonor the “understand thyself.”[lxv]
The story of Asclepius was known at least five centuries before Christianity. In Aeshylus’ play, Agamemnon (458BC), it is clear that Asclepius was chiefly known for his ability to raise the dead, and his subsequent punishment: “But man’s dark blood, once it hath flowed to the earth in death, who by chanting spells shall call it back? Even him who possessed the skill to raise from the dead – did not Zeus put a stop to him as a precaution?” (1019-24).
Homer sang of Asclepius as one of the fighters before Troy (T135), and according to Plato, Socrates’ last words were “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it” (Phaedo, 118). These references show just how integral Asclepius was to the ancient world. Although the meaning of Socrates’ last words remains unclear, it may have something to do with Asclepius’ role as protector and guardian of the dead. Asclepius’ symbol was a snake climbing a pole; it continues to be used by many modern health organizations.
The temples of Asclepius served as hospitals in ancient times. Priests went through rigorous medical training. The sick or injured would come for incubation or a “sleeping-cure.” While they slept they would receive the god’s instructions in dream – or sometimes even experience some kind of psychic surgery, where they experienced the god cutting them open. When they woke up, if they were not already miraculously cured, the priests would interpret the dream and prescribe a remedy. The effects of these cures are corroborated by the hundreds of ex-voto offerings that were left at temple sites by the healed:
They were of terracotta, marble, bronze, silver or even gold, depending on the means of the faithful whose prayers had been granted, but chiefly of clay, the majority of the clientele of the island in the Tiber being of humble estate. There were feet, hands, breasts, intestines, viscera in an open torso, genital organs, eyes, ears, mouths… Above all, it was necessary to demonstrate gratitude by way of an inscribed tablet bearing the account of the miraculous treatment.[lxvi]
These very detailed descriptions of prescriptions and healings were further affirmed with the claim that the healing took place in the presence of a crowd and that the healed publicly gave thanks for the cure.
Asclepius was unlike the other pagan gods, whose stories were full of indiscretions and selfish acts; there was nothing in the Asclepius myth that was in the least reminiscent of the divine legends ascribed to the other deities such as thieving, wenching or dealing deceitfully:
Granted that the tradition is fragmentary, that stories may have been current which are not preserved, there can have been no stories of love affairs or of dissension, tales amoral in tone or character. Otherwise it would be incomprehensible that the Christian polemic, eager as it was to find fault with the outrageous behavior of the pagan gods, does not refer to any derogatory incident in the life of Asclepius, the most dangerous enemy of Christ.[lxvii]
Moreover, Asclepius was unique in offering a more personal, humane relationship to the divine. Since the 5th century BC, philosophers had been arguing that true gods should be free from envy or malice, and were seeking an individual relationship with the divine rather than collective worship.
There was a craving for a personal relationship to the deity, and the belief in divine providence progressed steadily. In such a world it was natural that Asclepius found favor, for if any god was interested in the private needs of men, in their most personal affairs, if any god showed providence, it was Asclepius.[lxviii]
Asclepius only healed the pure of heart and mind. He healed the poor and he did it for free, out of love and kindness. Images of Asclepius show him as youthful and bearded. He “radiates dignity mixed with compassion; eyes turned upward looking saintly and benign. Curly locks falling over the back and down to the eyebrows.”[lxix] He was fond of children.
The similarities between Asclepius and Jesus Christ did not go unnoticed. Justin Martyr cites Asclepius’ healing miracles, and argued that the resurrection of Jesus was no different from Asclepius dying but being raised to heaven:
And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was produced without sexual union, and that He was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing new and different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter… Asclepius, who, though he was a great healer, was struck by a thunderbolt, and ascended to heaven. (First Apology, 21:1-2)
When we say that He (Jesus) made well the lame and the paralytic and those who were feeble from birth and that he resurrected the dead, we shall seem to be mentioning deeds similar to and even identical with those which were said to have been performed by Asclepius. (First Apology, 22:6)
Asclepius was also, like Jesus, given the power to cast out demons, as is mentioned by the apologist Lactantius in his Divine Institutions:
Behold, someone excited by the impulse of the demon is out of his senses, raves, is mad: let us lead him into the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; or since Jupiter knows not how to cure men, into the fane of Asclepius or Apollo. Let the priest of either, in the name of his god, command the wicked spirit to come out of the man.[lxx]
Likewise, in the apocryphal work The Acts of Pilate, possibly written in the 4th century AD, when Jesus is accused of being “a sorcerer, and by Beelzebub the prince of the devils he casteth out devils, and they are all subject unto him,” Pilate responds, “It is not possible to cast out devils in the name of an impure spirit but rather in the name of the god Asclepius” (Acts of Pilate).
Asclepius was given power over the elements, as testified by a passage from Aristides (530BC-468BC) which prefigures the calming of the seas miracle which Jesus will later perform: “Now I have heard some people saying that, when they were at sea and in the midst of a storm, the god appeared to them and stretched forth his hand.”[lxxi] He was even regarded as a muse for inspired writings, as testified by Libanius:
‘And he not without the aid of the gods’ says Homer, ‘nor do you (Acacias) write these words without the influence of Asclepius, for manifestly he joined with you in the writing. It is, of course, fitting for him, as the son of Apollo, to have some of the cultural talent of his father and to apportion it to whomever he desires. How then would it be possible for him not to assist you in these discourses concerning himself?[lxxii]
His role as healer was sometimes expanded into a universal force – Asclepius could thus be considered a ruling or governing principle that kept the universe itself in order and governed all things. According to Aristides, Asclepius was “the one who guides and rules the universe, the savior of the whole and the guardian of the immortals.”[lxxiii] Julianus says “shall I now go on to tell you how Helius took thought for the health and safety of all by begetting Asclepius to be the savior of the whole world?”[lxxiv]
Later, the Neoplatonists expanded this idea. Asclepius was the soul of the world, who held creation together and kept the universe healthy and young.[lxxv] At the same time, despite this supernatural role, Asclepius always remained a humble healer. Scholar Emma J. Edelstein gives the following overview of the similarities between Jesus Christ and the Roman god of healing:
Christ did not perform heroic or worldly exploits; he fought no battles; he concerned himself solely with assisting those who were in need of succor. So did Asclepius. Christ, like Asclepius, was sent into the world as a helper of men. Christ’s life on earth was blameless, as was that of Asclepius. Christ in his love of men invited his patients to come to him, or else he wandered about to meet them. This, too, could be said of Asclepius. All in all, it is not astonishing that Apologists and Church Fathers had a hard stand in their fight against Asclepius, in proving the superiority of Jesus, if moral reasoning alone was to be relied upon. The nature of the godhead of the two saviors was indisputably identical: both were man-gods. Sonof God and mortal woman, the story of Christ’s birth in many ways resembled the birth saga of divine Asclepius. God died… through god had risen to heaven, immortal on account of virtue. Human and divine, Asclepius was called a ‘terrestrial and intelligible’ god.[lxxvi]
According to Diogenes Laertius, Phoebus gave to mortals Asclepius and Plato, the one to save their souls, the other to save their bodies. Jesus will become both; however, could the stories, healings, philosophy and world view of Jesus Christ have emerged spontaneously and fully developed without the centuries of competing traditions? When the apostles preached that a man in Jerusalem had healed the sick, raised the dead, resurrected and ascended into heaven, would these claims have astounded anyone already familiar with the many miracles of Asclepius?
Osiris
Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead, and also a vegetation and resurrection god. Although the story of Osiris is already told in the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt (2400BC), his popularity exploded when his cult (or rather, the cult of Isis, which included him and his son Horus) was imported into the Roman empire. The main story of Osiris, which features his death and resurrection, as well as the magical healing powers of Isis and the birth of their son, Horus, is as follows:
Osiris was the great benefactor of humanity; he gave humankind laws, the institution of marriage, civil organization, taught them agriculture, and how to worship the gods. “He conquered the nations everywhere, but not with weapons, only music and eloquence.”[lxxvii] He ruled the land in peace with his consort (wife/sister) Isis. However, his brother Seth (in earlier versions Typhon), was filled with envy and malice, and decided to kill him. Knowing that Osiris was more powerful, Seth designed a clever trap: he made a beautiful chest out of wood, exactly the size of Osiris, and promised it as a gift to whomever it fit. Everybody tried, but nobody could fit in the box. Finally, Osiris tried; but as soon as he lay down inside, Seth with his companions closed the lid, nailed it shut and threw the chest in the Nile river. Isis wept and mourned, tearing her hair and beating her breast. Dressed in black, with shorn hair, she wandered up and down the banks of the Nile, searching in vain for the body of Osiris. The chest had come to rest on the bank of the river, and the power inside was so great that a large tree blossomed; the chest became part of the tree trunk, which was then used as a column in a palace. Isis discovered the truth, and with a wave of her magic wand, split open the column, revealing the wooden coffin. She took the body of Osiris and hid it in a swamp. But Seth found it (as he was out hunting a wild boar) and tore it into 14 pieces. Isis in her magnificent power found the pieces and put them together again, with the exception of the phallus, which was eaten by a fish. She raised Osiris from the dead, at least enough to impregnate her, and he became the ruler of the underworld. Isis then fled with her infant son Horus into hiding, in fear of Seth. However, when Horus grows up and is strong enough, he will return to defeat Seth and avenge the death of his father. According to Witt, “On this founding myth was built a robust system of Egyptian religious belief and ritual, which included the suffering and burial of Osiris, the mourning of Isis, the birth of the divine child, and then the exuberant celebration of his return.”[lxxviii] German professor of Egyptology Jan Assman explains these rituals further:
The rejoicing of the triumph of Horus is the precise counterpart of the mourning over the death of Osiris. Both are extreme and all encompassing. Just as the death plunges the entire world into the depths of despair, so the triumph transports it into the heights of rapture. The two emotions belong together as a pair at the beginning and the end of the story that transpires between them. The entire land participated in the story in an annual cycle of festivals, and all who took part in them experienced them.[lxxix]
Osiris is undoubtedly a vegetation god, sometimes associated with corn or grain, but he could also be a solar deity, “bringing light and food especially to those Yonder, the denizens of the netherworld, as he makes his nocturnal journey through their midst in his boat.”[lxxx]
When he was called “the Great Green” he was the life-giving fresh water of the river and under this aspect even the salt water of the sea. Manifested in the grain he was the “Bread of Life,” and as with other gods of Egypt he could be addressed as a bisexual being: “You are Father and Mother of men. They live from your breath and eat of the flesh of your body.”[lxxxi]
At the same time, as ruler of the underworld, he was “the resident king of the dead, true of heart and voice, watching with an eye that was never at rest over the rewards of those who came into his realm.”[lxxxii] The story of his resurrection had been used for millennia to justify the potential for life after death.
Osiris was the dying and rising god, the mythic precedent and guarantee that one could say to the deceased king, and later to every person, “Stand up!” The fact that he had risen invested these words with meaning. As is well known, this role of Osiris has led to his being classified with a series of “dying and rising” vegetation gods from western Asia: Tammuz, Attis, Adonis. This might be true to a certain extent. Without doubt, Osiris had a relationship with the agricultural cycle and other processes of death and rebirth in nature.[lxxxiii]
According to Frazer, Egyptians were sometimes entombed with life-sized effigies of Osiris, which were hallowed out; then sealed inside in a water tight compartment were placed water, dirt and barley seed, which would “live forever.”
In laying their dead in the grave they committed them to his keeping who could raise them from the dust to life eternal, even as he caused the seed to spring from the ground. Of that faith the corn-stuffed effigies of Osiris found in Egyptian tombs furnish an eloquent and unequivocal testimony. They were at once an emblem and an instrument of resurrection.[lxxxiv]
The annual commemoration of the Osiris story was an enormous cultural event; it retraced the passion, death and resurrection of the god, and was celebrated even in the Roman capital (the Egyptian cult was established in Rome around 50BC). The Iseum of Pompeii was decorated with two paintings of the passion of Osiris.[lxxxv] According to Witt, Isis would discover she was pregnant on the 3rd of October, and rose up the new god Horus in an egg. The search for Osiris’ body lasted until the 3rd of November, followed by the embalmment of the body. The mummified body was entombed on the 21st December, and two days later, on the 23rd, Isis would bring forth her child, “23 December being in the Egyptian Calendar the date of the simultaneous burial and rebirth of the Sun God. Of cardinal importance for the chronology of the whole tale is the winter solstice.”[lxxxvi] The precise dates are difficult to determine, as Egypt used a shifting calendar. Dowden argues that the mourning period lasted three days:
For three days his dismemberment at the hands of his enemy Seth or Typhon is mourned; then he is found by Isis and reassembled… This is the experience which is shared in some way by those who have been initiated into the secrets of the religion, maybe the Melanephoroi (‘wearers of black’) whom inscriptions mention: it is a death and resurrection, despair and new hope story.[lxxxvii]
Osiris had his own mysteries, and followers of the Egyptian cult believed that they could, like Osiris, find eternal life after death. He was called “The Good Shepherd” and is always shown with the Crook and Flail; shepherd’s tools that became symbols of leadership carried by the pharaohs. Gordon claims that the idea of an afterlife, as either a reward or punishment based on the merits of each individual, is unique to Egypt:
Egyptian religion developed a kind of Passion Play concerning Osiris, the god of the dead, showing his suffering, death, and revival. Each dead person was identified with Osiris on the assumption that the deceased would undergo, but emerge triumphant like Osiris from, a trial full of vicissitudes to qualify for life eternal… This fully developed concept of personal judgment, whereby each man enters paradise if his character and life on earth warrant it, appears quite remarkable when we consider that centuries later there was still no such idea in Mesopotamia or Israel.[lxxxviii]
Assman stresses the mourning of Osiris’ suffering, noting that followers practiced castration:
In the innermost part of their temples they buried an idol of Osiris: This they annually mourned, they shaved their heads, they beat their breast, tore their members, etc., in order to bewail the pitiful fate of their king… the defenders of this mourning and those funerals give a physical explanation: the seed, they say, is Osiris, the earth Isis, the heat Typhon. And because the fruit is ripe as a result of the heat, it is collected for the living of men and thus separated from earth’s company, and when winter comes it will be sowed into the earth in what they interpret as the death and burial of Osiris. But the earth will become pregnant and bring forth new fruits.”[lxxxix]
Osiris’ son, Horus (known as Harpocrates by the Greeks), an infant god described in the Pyramid Texts as “the young one with his finger in his mouth,” was a favorite figure of paganism in the time of Christ.[xc] Even as a young child, he was given absolute power. “He shall rule over this earth… He will be your master, this god who is but an embryo.”[xci]
The birth story of Horus (the massacre of infants, retreat into hiding, triumphant return), is very similar to that of Jesus. Horus was reborn every year on January 6th [xcii] – the date on which the birthday of Jesus was celebrated for centuries until 354AD, when the bishop of Rome ruled in favor of December 25th. Some statues of Isis with the baby Horus in her lap are nearly indistinguishable from those of Mary and Jesus and were accidentally worshipped in Christian churches for centuries.
When the Egyptian cult was introduced to Greece and Rome, Horus became identified with Apollo, Heracles, Eros (god of love) and the sun.
The Beloved and indeed Only Begotten Son of the Father, the Omnipotent Child, he has under his control the circuit of the solar disk and so assumes the lotus which itself is the emblem of the rising Sun.[xciii]
Demonstrating the trend towards religious synthesis, Horus assimilated the roles and symbols of other gods. In the depictions of Horus found in Pompeii, “He can don the wings of Eros, anticipating the angel-iconography of Christianity, and in his left hand carry the cornucopia of Bacchus. He possesses the quiver of Apollo and the fawnskin of Dionysus.”[xciv] When Horus grows up, he defeats the dragon/crocodile Seth in a magnificent battle. This battle almost certainly influenced Christian iconography:
In the period during which Christianity was establishing itself as a world religion the figure of Horus/Harpocrates in conjunction with that of a crocodile typified the triumph of good over evil, exactly the same as the victory over the dragon by the saintly combatants Michael and George… Moreover, the dragon was pyrrhous in color: and Plutarch thrice applies the same epithet to the complexion of Seth-Typhon.[xcv]
It was Isis, however, as great mother-goddess, who was the most powerful of the trilogy. Isis gives Horus his powers, and it was Isis who restored life to Osiris. She was a gifted healer – priests of her temples had to study six branches of medical science: anatomy, pathology, surgery, pharmacology, ophthalmology and gynaecology.[xcvi]
She was the great sorceress. The art of medicine was hers. Horus, the child born weak, is named ‘son of an enchantress’. It is to Isis the divine sorceress that the great god Re is forced to reveal the secret of his name. Her magical nature renders her potentially hermaphrodite. So she is not bound by the normal law of sex. She can resuscitate the dead Osiris and by spells obtain the gift of a son. We learn that she discovered health-giving drugs and simples as well as the elixir of life. Like Apollo and Asclepius she was an expert in making men well when they betook themselves to her temples, where after incubation they could look forward in hope to gain a cure. Skilful as healer and discoverer of the mysteries of birth, life and death, she was the lady who saved. She resurrected. The gates of Hell, besides salvation, were in her hands.[xcvii]
Isaic temples held mysteries of redemption involving “living water,” challenging initiation rites, and obedience.
Certainly, Isis gives her children the sure hope of eternal salvation: but in return she demands from them unquestioning, even blind obedience, just as she subjects them to the most grueling tests before they reach their haven of rest.[xcviii]
She had the power to control “demons” (elements) and “nature” (astrology).[xcix] She loved sinners; according to Lucius, in Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, “Thou doest always bestow thy dear love on wretched men in their mishaps.”[c] She also made her mysteries available to rich and poor alike, “not just to the affluent citizen who made his fortune in shipping but even to the man of lowly birth and the down-trodden slave.”[ci] One inscription to her, found at the temple of Neith at Sais, reads “I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my robe has never yet been uncovered by mortal men.”[cii] Like Horus and Osiris, Isis increasingly usurped the roles, symbols and powers of other gods; she became all things to all people.
After this with her untold wealth of titles she could take the one that pleased her best. She could assume the eagle of Zeus and the dolphin of Poseidon, the lyre of Apollo and tongs of Hephaestus, the wand of Hermes, the thyrsus of Bacchus and the club of Heracles.[ciii]
The similarities between the Egyptian cult and Christianity are many: the entire birth story, as well as the Christian iconography of the infant Jesus; the triumph of good over evil; the death and resurrection; the “Great Virgin” and “Mother of God” (Isis was called both before the Christian era). Most importantly the emotional catharsis involved, which is also to be found in most other mystery traditions, in mourning the death and then celebrating the return of the deity. Some researchers claim that the Egyptian myth is unique because it has two generations:
If we are somewhat reminded of the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter Sunday, it should again be stressed that in the myth of Osiris, we are dealing with two generations. The god who triumphs is a different one from the god who is killed.[civ]
However, Horus grows up to become Osiris every year, and makes a new Horus; if you combine Horus and Osiris together into one figure, you’d create a figure much like Jesus Christ. Of course, the story is very different; the details of Jesus’ life and personality so clearly presented in the gospels make him dissimilar to the Egyptian myth. But we must ask, what is most relevant to the figure of Jesus Christ – the historical details that make him an ordinary man, or his death and resurrection, role in salvation, and divinity?
Tammuz (Adonis)
Tammuz (Sumerian Dumuzi) was the consort of Ishtar. He is mentioned, already in the Epic of Gilgamesh, as a suffering lover of the goddess, a shepherd beloved and scapegoat of the netherworld. When Ishtar tries to become Gilgamesh’s lover, he points out that her past lovers have not fared well. “Dumuzi, the lover of your youth, year upon year, to lamenting you doomed him.”[cv] When Gilgamesh is mourning the death of Enkidu, he presents a carnelian flute for “Dumuzi, shepherd beloved of Ishtar,” so that he may welcome his friend and walk at his side.[cvi] Thus Dumuzi, who has been considered as a historical king that entered into sexual union with the goddess, was also viewed as a suffering god in his own right. The great age of this cult is attested by the Uruk Vase of the outgoing fourth millennium BC, which depicts the central event of the rite of the sacred marriage.[cvii]
His demise is tied to the story of Ianna’s descent into the underworld. The reason she gives for entering the underworld is to attend her brother-in-law’s funeral rites (Gugalana, the Bull of Heaven which had just been killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu). After she decides to go down into the Great Below, she leaves instructions for her rescue in case she does not return. (Incidentally, the Underworld or the Great Below is, for gods who reside above in heaven, actually the earth.) As she descends, she is required to remove one of her seven layers of clothing at each of the seven gates, until she stood before Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld, naked and humble. Ereshkigal “fixed the eye of death” upon her and she was turned into a corpse, and hung from a hook on the wall like a piece of rotting meat.
After three days and three nights, her servant Ninshubar, following instructions, tried to persuade the gods to save her. Only one, Enki, agreed to help. He fashioned two sexless creatures from the dirt under the fingernails of the gods, and gave them the food and water of life to sprinkle on Ianna’s corpse. She returned to life, and Ereshkigal agreed to release her, but she had to provide another in her place. When she came back to heaven she found Dumuzi enjoying himself in her absence (on her throne or under a tree), rather than mourning for her, and “fixed the eye of death” upon him. The demons took him down to Hell; however his sister loved him so much she wanted to go in his place.
So, Dumuzi spends half of the year in the underworld, while his sister spends the other half. During the time that Dumuzi is in the underworld, his lover Ianna misses him; this infertile time is fall and winter. When Dumuzi returns from the underworld and he is with Ianna, their love fills the world with life, causing spring and summer. The poetry of their love is graphic – but also reminiscent of the biblical Song of Songs.
My untilled land lies fallow.
As for me, Inanna,
Who will plow my vulva!
Who will plow my high field!
Who will plow my wet ground!
Great Lady, the king will plow your vulva.
I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva.
Make your milk sweet and thick, my bridegroom.
My shepherd, I will drink your fresh milk.
Wild bull, Dumuzi, make your milk sweet and thick.
I will drink your fresh milk.
Let the milk of the goat flow in my sheepfold.
Fill my holy churn with honey cheese.
The cult of Dumuzi is primarily a (tragic) romance – a story of betrothment and sexual awakening, but also mourning as the groom dies.
The cult comprises both the happy celebrations of the marriage of the god with Ianna (who originally, it seems, was the goddess of the communal storehouse) and bitter laments when he dies as the dry heat of summer yellows the pastures and lambing, calving, and milking come to an end.[cviii]
This story is similar to the myth of Demeter and Persephone; both explain the coming of winter through a goddess grieving for a lost loved one, who then returns. At the same time, Dumuzi was revived by Ianna after death (as his sister was allowed to take his place for half of each year), and so he is also a returning vegetation god.
The cult rituals for Dumuzi began with laments sung as a sacred cedar tree was cut down in the compound of the temple Eanna in Uruk. The rite closed with a triumphant procession that followed the god downstream. According to Jacobson, Dumuzi could represent the sap lying dormant in the rushes and trees during the dry season but reviving, to the profound relief and joy of the orchardman, with the river’s rise.[cix]
The mourning of Tammuz was a widespread annual ritual, which even appears in the Bible. Yahweh, giving Ezekiel a tour of the idolatry being practiced by the Israelites, points out the women sitting by the entrance to the north gate of the Temple of Yahweh, weeping for Tammuz. “Son of man, do you see that?” he says, “You will see even more loathsome things than that” (Ezek. 8:14).
Much later, in Greek communities, Tammuz was called Adonis and considered a consort of Aphrodite (Roman Venus). The cult of Adonis existed in Sappho and Lesbos as early as 600BC. As Adonis is a mutation or evolved form of Tammuz, in a different cultural setting, the two figures are not exactly the same.
The cult of Aphrodite’s paramour Adonis held a special appeal for Greek women, combining the erotic adoration of a beautiful youth with the emotional catharsis of lamentation for his death. The Adonis cult was an early import from the Levant, probably via Cyprus, but while many of the outward forms remained the same, its cultural context and significance changed. Adonis was modeled upon Tammuz, the consort of Ishtar whose death was annually lamented by women, and his name is a direct borrowing of the West Semitic adon, Lord.[cx]
There are multiple versions of Adonis’ birth story, but the commonly accepted version is that Aphrodite urged Myrrha to commit incest with her father, Theias. Myrrha slept with her father in the darkness, until he used an oil lamp to learn the truth and chased after her with a knife. Aphrodite turned Myrrha into a myrrh tree, out of which Adonis was born (either when Theias shot an arrow in the tree, or when a boar tore off the bark with its tusks). He was such a beautiful baby that Aphrodite locked him in a trunk and gave him to Persephone – queen of the underworld – for safe keeping; however Persephone was so enthralled by him that she refused to return him. Finally Zeus decided that he would be shared – six months with Aphrodite, who later seduced him, and six months with Persephone.[cxi]
Adonis met his death by a wild boar. According to Ovid in The Metamorphoses, Aphrodite (Roman Venus), who’d been pricked by Eros’ arrow of love, specifically warned him to be careful and stay away from wild beasts:
The wild and large are much too wild for you;
My dear, remember that sweet Venus loves you,
And if you walk in danger, so does she.
Nature has armed her monsters to destroy you –
Even your valour would be grief to me.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses X)
But the young Adonis ignored her warning (due to “pride and manliness”) and headed off into the wood with his hunting dogs, where he woke the great boar who pierced his white loins with a powerful thrust. Adonis bled to death.
Although the cult of Tammuz “enjoyed near-universal recognition in Mesopotamia and his festival was so important that a Babylonian month was named after him,”[cxii] worship of Adonis, while popular, rarely gained state sponsorship. It was viewed as a foreign cult; moreover Adonis was mostly mourned by women, in rituals not tied to a sanctuary, temple or sacred space.
Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens… the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god.[cxiii]
To perform the Adonia, which took place in late summer, women ascended to the roof, where they sang dirges, cried out in grief, and beat their breasts. Greek poetess Sappho mentions that the women tore their garments, a standard sign of mourning.
O Forest-maidens, smite on the breast,
Rend ye the delicate-woven vest!
Let the wail ring wild and high:
‘Ah for Adonis!’ cry.[cxiv]
Other features of Adonis’ ritual belong to the cult in Classical Athens. A few days before the Adonia, garden herbs and cereals were sown in broken pots. These tender young plants were brought to the rooftops during the festival, to be withered in the hot sun as emblems of the youthful Adonis’ death. Another custom involved the laying out of Adonis dolls for burial.[cxv]
Frazer notes the similarity between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the cult of Adonis; the tradition is much the same even today. They bring out an effigy of the dead Jesus and parade it through town, mourning. They bury it, fast all day, and then at midnight on Saturday, cry ‘Christ is risen!’ – “and at once the whole town bursts into an uproar of joy, which finds vent in shrieks and shouts, in the endless discharge of carronades and muskets, and the explosion of fire-works of every sort.”[cxvi] The fast is broken and people enjoy the Easter lamb and wine. Frazer concludes that the Christian celebration of Easter was modeled on the earlier ritual concerning Adonis:
When we reflect how often the Church has skillfully contrived to plant the seeds of the new faithon the old stock of paganism, we may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which, as we have seen reason to believe, was celebrated in Syria in the same season.[cxvii]
Some researchers have denied the claim that Adonis’ resurrection was celebrated; the focus always seems to be on the mourning of his death rather than the celebration of his revival. However, Frazer may have had the cult of Attis in mind, which was very similar to that of Adonis, and did stress, not only the death, but the return of the god. Incidentally, it may be noted that Adonis, like “Christ,” is a title meaning lord, rather than a specific name; even Yahweh in the Old Testament is called Adonis.
Attis
Attis was the consort or lover of the Phrygian mother goddess, Cybele, whose cult, although ancient, was introduced into Rome around 200BC. The addition of Attis into this cult, however, may have occurred later; the first literary reference to Attis is a poem by Catullus (84-54BC). The worship of Attis was primarily an annual celebration of his suffering, death and rebirth (linking him to Osiris and Tammuz), but with notable differences – for example, its emphasis on castration.
Cybele rejected Zeus as a lover, but he spilled his seed on her while she was sleeping and she gave birth to Agdistis – a wild demon that was so fearful the gods cut off his testicles to render him powerless. From the blood grew an almond tree. Nana, daughter of the river god Sangarius, took an almond to her breast (or ate the fruit) from this tree and nine months later gave birth to Attis; hence he was miraculously born, half divine.
According to the Phrygian story Attis was extremely handsome and his grandmother Cybele desired him. Having no idea about his divine nature or his grandmother’s desires, he fell in love with the beautiful daughter of the king of Pessinus and wished to marry her. Cybele was so jealous that she caused him to become crazy. He ran through the mountains and castrated himself (and so died) at the foot of a pine tree. From his blood grew the first violets. The tree took Attis’ spirit, and his flesh would have decayed if Zeus had not helped Cybele bring him back to life. In another version Zeus, angry at the Lydians for worshipping Attis and The Mother, sends a wild boar that killed him and destroyed the Lydian Crops. In still another version, Attis was killed accidentally by a poorly thrown spear during a boar hunt. Frazer notes that bulls sacrificed during rituals were bled to death with a consecrated spear – which may have its roots in this myth, tying the death of Attis to the cleansing blood of the bull.
In works of art, Attis is represented as a shepherd with flute and staff, sometimes near or under a tree. The cult of Attis and Cybele became extremely popular in Greek and Roman society, and a public festival, commemorating the death and rebirth of Attis, was the first of its kind to be celebrated in Rome.
Noteworthy variations distinguish the versions of the legend, but from the time of Claudius (AD 41-54) Romans took part in March in a kind of ‘holy week’ whose rites conveyed the myth of Attis, a god who died and came to life again each year; it was the first of its kind in the liturgy of the Urbs. The methods may have evolved before becoming fixed in the Antonine period, but its highlights were celebrated as early as the first century.[cxviii]
The “Passion” of Attis began on the 15th of March with a procession of reed bearers. On the 22nd, a pine tree was cut, and a ram sacrificed on the stump. The tree was wrapped in wool, like the corpse of Attis had been, and carried to the sanctuary; usually an effigy (like a doll) of the god Attis was fixed to the top. The tree was laid to rest in the Temple of Cybele. The 24th was a day of mourning and fasting, but “after a night of doleful lamentation, on 25 March, the joy of the Hilaria erupted, celebrating the revived Attis. In the imperial period it became the great springtime festival enlivened by a kind of carnival.”[cxix] Attis’ followers embraced the suffering of Attis on the 24th, through acts of self-mutilation or even castration.
The next day was one of vociferous mourning, and on the day following, the ‘day of blood’, the Mother’s worshippers would whip themselves and some of them, carried away by ecstacy, would perform the irreversible act. With the dawn of 25 March came the day of rejoicing for some – convalescence for others – as Attis’ resurrection was celebrated.[cxx]
Such public displays of self-violence, while not common to imperial cults, were preserved in Christianity. The Bible contains many passages recommending physical suffering or suffering with Christ.
As Christ has undergone bodily suffering, you too should arm yourselves with the same conviction, that anyone who has undergone bodily suffering has broken with sin, because for the rest of life on earth that person is ruled not by human passions but only by the will of God. (1 Peter 4:1)
In fact, the closest public rituals in the world today to the ancient cult of Attis are probably the Good Friday celebrations of the Philippines; where, in a bloody display of faith, followers of Jesus flog themselves as punishment for the sins they’ve committed during the year. Some even choose to be crucified, enduring the pain that Christ met on the cross.
Besides the public ceremony, Attis had his own mystery cult involving secret rituals with mystical meaning. One of the central rites was the Taurobolium, or baptism in the blood of a bull. The great Basilica of St. Peter on Vatican Hill is founded on a site of Cybele worship, which had included a Taurobolium – a place to slaughter the bull and use its blood in purifying rituals. Initiates who underwent the somewhat gruesome process of the Taurobolium were said to have been “born again.”
Its hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures, and was received with devout eagerness by the worshipper on every part of his person and garments, till he emerged from the pit, drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to receive the homage, nay the adoration, of his fellows as one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull.[cxxi]
It is worthwhile to keep in mind that blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins or to attract favors from the gods was an integral part of not only pagan, but also Judaic spirituality: “For the soul of the flesh is in the blood and I have assigned it for you upon the altar to provide atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that atones for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Although this passage from Leviticus was used by Christian theologians to justify the need for Christ’s saving blood, and the Jews themselves were strictly prohibited from consuming blood themselves, innumerable animals (bulls and rams) were nevertheless sacrificed at the Temple in Jerusalem up until it was destroyed in 70AD. (Most of the animals were eaten by worshipers or priests; only some were burnt offerings wholly consumed by fire.)
Christian symbolism of Jesus as the Lamb of God, who gave his blood so that we may be washed in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation, 7:12), is far more similar to the Attic ritual of being washed in the blood of the bull than it is to the Judaic tradition. Jews were commanded to spill the blood on the ground, but keep separate from it – they would have found the idea of bathing in it barbarous. Of course, Christianity’s use of the lamb (rather than the bull) is most likely due to the theology of Jesus as the Paschal lamb of Judaic tradition; however this may also have had an economic basis. New converts of the other mysteries, who couldn’t afford to buy a (very expensive) bull, could elect to buy a ram instead, or even a lesser animal. “Poorer people made do with a criobolium, in which a ram was killed, and were ‘washed in the blood of the Lamb.’”[cxxii] However, it seems Christianity, which had no temple and consisted mostly of poorer segments of society, early began interpreting Christ’s death symbolically and not requiring an actual sacrifice. (At the same time, the doctrine of transubstantiation, in which the Eucharist wine is believed to become the actual blood of Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, testifies to the fact that symbolic blood alone is not totally acceptable.)
Initiates from the mysteries of Attis would need to recite certain magical formulas or creeds: “I ate from the tympanon, I drank from the cymbal, I carried the composite vessel (kernos), I slipped under the bedcurtain.”[cxxiii] Followers abstained from pork because a boar killed their god. The most zealous of Attic priests, the Galli, even became eunuchs by castrating themselves – a sacrifice said to have been made also by Origin, one of the first great Christian apologists, and not alien to the Christian tradition: “There are eunuchs born so by their mother’s womb, there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can” (Matthew 19:12).
The castrated priests of Cybele would speak in falsetto and wear bright women’s clothing. According to some legends, Cybele resurrected Attis as a woman. One can’t help but wonder whether there is a connection between Attis worship and the Dionysiac story of the Bacchae, in which Dionysus makes Pentheus dress up as a woman, before approaching the maenads (who then rip him into pieces while he’s sitting on top of a pine tree).
A god that dies, is mourned, and celebrated after three days as having risen from the dead; a god whose initiates can be washed in blood and freed from sin – these similarities to Christianity seem more than coincidental.
Like Christianity, the cult of Cybele promises immortality and resurrection. In both cases this promise came as a result of an act of sacrifice and death… Moreover Attis as a shepherd occupies a favourite Christian image of Christ as the good shepherd. Further parallels also seem to have existed: the pine tree of Attis, for example, was seen as a parallel to the cross of Christ.[cxxiv]
There was also rivalry in ritual. The climax of the celebration of Attis’ resurrection, The Hilaria, fell on the 25th of March, the date the early Church had settled on for Christ’s resurrection. (Today Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon, which falls between the 22nd and the 25th.) According to A.T. Fear,
Once again the closeness of the dates and the fact that the metroac festival of resurrection would fall on the day of Christ’s execution both threw down a psychological challenge in itself and may well have undercut the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ in the public mind.[cxxv]
A few scholars argue that the definitive features of the Attis cult arose late – in the third or fourth century AD – as a response to the threat of Christianity. And while this may be true, the fact remains that features of the worship of Jesus Christ were adopted from customs of this cult that are still in use today. For example, the ritual of cutting down a Christmas tree (evergreen pine), decorating it and placing an angel on the top, seems far more Attic than anything found in the Bible.
Although the debate is unsettled, it is unlikely that Jesus came first: The Holy Week of Attis was already a State Ceremony by 41-54AD; moreover, Cybele had been worshiped by Romans for centuries, (she was adopted into Roman religion in 204BC after being credited with an exceptional harvest). Also, the numerous clay ex-votos depicting Attis (many of which are datable to the second century BC) unearthed during excavations prove that the god had already reached the ordinary populace long before the appearance of Jesus.[cxxvi]
In order to distinguish Attis from Jesus, critics have argued that stories about Attis nowhere explicitly mention any kind of salvation or afterlife prospects, and argue that Attis may have offered some benefit in this life – although what possible benefit could be great enough for followers to castrate themselves, they don’t care to guess. They have also argued that Attis was not actually resurrected, at least not until much after the spread of Christianity. While it is true that hard documents proving the existence of such beliefs have not survived, it would require a leap of faith rather than an educated guess to conclude that followers of Attis mourned, mutilated themselves, and then celebrated a story about Attis’ death and return – especially in a society where other similar figures did clearly offer afterlife rewards – without themselves hoping for some form of salvation. We also know that the cult of Attis was a mystery cult, which did not openly reveal its central doctrines; and so we should assume that a hidden central doctrine of salvation did exist.
For our purposes it is enough to note that the cult of Attis was already a robust spiritual organization in the founding period of Christianity, which proved to be a serious threat to the early church. Early Christian reactions to the cult demonstrate that the similarities were recognized early on. While mystery religions in general were not the focus of Christian polemic, Attis and Cybele appear to have been a favorite target for the invective of Christian writers. Some have seen the attack going back to the earliest days of Christianity, and interpret the Whore of Babylon of Revelation 17.3-6 as a veiled depiction of Cybele.[cxxvii]
While the brutal, bloody and ecstatic worship of Attis may seem at odds with modern Christianity, we must not ignore the fact that Christianity – to an outsider – might have appeared just as strange and violent. As Joscelyn Godwin in Mystery Religions in the Ancient World points out,
And if generations of Christians believed that Jesus died on the cross as the only means to pacify his father’s anger at mankind, it was no more absurd for the devotees of Attis and Cybele to worship a jealous goddess and her mutilated son.[cxxviii]
Like Attis, Jesus was sometimes referred to as hung on a tree (Acts, 5:30), and today’s mournful Easter processions, carrying the bloody, crucified Christ through the streets, to place in the Church until his resurrection, are hardly dissimilar to the same practices performed by the Attic cult. Likewise, the modern celebration of Christmas, with its candles, trees and gifts, may have roots in the Attic story.
Mithras
Mithras was originally an Indo-Iranian sun god – his name is found in both the Vedas and the Avesta (Hindu and Persian sacred texts), in which he is a light or solar deity, and second to the chief god Ahura Mazda. The inscriptions of the Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century BC) assign him “a much higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis (Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithras is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water.”[cxxix] He became associated with Chaldean astrology and worship of Marduk, and finally came into contact with the Western world through Alexander’s conquests. Mithraism spread rapidly through the entire Roman Empire and reached its zenith during the third century.
Predominantly a cult of soldiers, stress was laid on brotherhood, fellowship, bravery, cleanliness, and fidelity. Mithraism was also a mystery religion, and demanded a very rigorous initiation process. According to Pseudo-Nonnus, an early 6th century author of a commentary on Gregory of Nazianzen’s first four orations, fasting was first imposed upon the neophytes for a period of about fifty days. If this was successfully endured, for two days they were exposed to extreme heat, then again plunged into snow for twenty days.[cxxx] The severity of the discipline was gradually increased: there was also immersion in water, passing through fire, solitude and fasting in the wilderness, and numerous other tests. Participation in the rites of Mithras was not allowed to anyone who had not passed through all the grades and proved himself pure and disciplined.[cxxxi]
Pictures of Mithras show him being born out of a rock, often surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac. He was also symbolized as a lion. A major motif, found in the central location of places of worship, was the image of Mithras standing over a bull, slitting its throat with a sword. Although this led some early researchers to conclude that Mithraism revolved around the Taurobolium (the practice of slaughtering a live bull and drinking or bathing in its blood), there was no physical space for such a procedure in the Mithraea. It is unlikely that this act was any more than a symbolic, commemorative allegory, and “seldom if ever would the initiate be sprinkled with the blood of a slain bull.”[cxxxii]
According to Plutarch, Zoroaster taught (500 years before the Trojan war) that Mithras was the mediator between two divine beings, the god Horomazes (Ormuzd) and the daemon Areimanios (Ahriman).[cxxxiii] As a mystery cult, Mithraism had at its core secret spiritual doctrines. Researchers have speculated that Mithraics believed, through certain ritualistic processes, they could achieve immortality.
After baptism into the Mysteries of Mithras, the initiate was marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross. (The cross was already a magical religious symbol as a pictograph of the sun; the cross formed by the elliptic and the celestial equator was one of the signs of Mithras.) There were seven levels of initiation – each level was tied to a metal, color and planet. A criticism of Christianity by the philosopher Celsus, which has been recorded by Origen, is that this “ladder” (which represented the soul’s passage through the heavens) is the same ladder that Jacob saw in the Old Testament, with angels going up and down. “These things are obscurely hinted at in the accounts of the Persians, and especially in the mysteries of Mithras, which are celebrated amongst them.” Celsus demonstrates some of the complexity of this system:
The first gate they assign to Saturn, indicating by the ‘lead’ the slowness of this star; the second to Venus, comparing her to the splendour and softness of tin; the third to Jupiter, being firm and solid; the fourth to Mercury, for both Mercury and iron are fit to endure all things, and are money-making and laborious; the fifth to Mars, because, being composed of a mixture of metals, it is varied and unequal; the sixth, of silver, to the Moon; the seventh, of gold, to the Sun, – thus imitating the different colours of the two latter. (qtd. in Origen, Contra Celsum, 5.22)
According to Origen, Celsus also demonstrates the musical reasons and explanations of these levels; no doubt tied to the Orphic/Pythagorean belief in the harmony of the spheres.
Unfortunately, Mithraic written texts and studies on Mithraicism (such as the many volumes on Mithras written by Eubulus, as recorded by Jerome) have been destroyed. What remains are the symbolic and graphical representations found in the cave-like Mithraic grottos, and the unflattering criticisms of Christian apologists. What is clear, however, is that Mithraism and Christianity had a lot in common. Godwin points out a few of the more remarkable similarities:
He is one of the gods, lower than Ahura Mazda (the Supreme Deity of Light of the Persians) but higher than the visible Sun. He is creator and orderer of the universe, hence a manifestation of the creative Logos or Word. Seeing mankind afflicted by Ahriman, the cosmic power of darkness, he incarnated on earth. His birth on 25 December was witnessed by shepherds. After many deeds he held a last supper with his disciples and returned to heaven. At the end of the world he will come again to judge resurrected mankind and after the last battle, victorious over evil, he will lead the chosen ones through a river of fire to blessed immortality. It is possible to prepare oneself for this event during life by devotion to him, and to attain a degree of communion with him through the sacramental means of initiation.[cxxxiv]
Although it is impossible to prove that the last supper of Mithras is like the communal meal experienced by the Christians, the following passage from Justin Martyr makes it likely:
For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, “This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;” and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, “This is My blood;” and gave it to them alone. 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. (First Apology, 65-67)
M.J. Vermaseren, in his 1963 book Mithras, The Secret God has Mithras say, “He who will 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”;[cxxxv] however, this passage has been questioned and may actually belong to Zarathustra in an older Persian / Zarathustrian text. A fragment found in a Mithraic site reads, “You have saved us too by shedding the external blood,”[cxxxvi] but this is probably about Mithras killing the bull. Like Dionysus and others, Mithras was sometimes himself identified with the bull, so this could theoretically indicate a self-sacrifice. Another early church father, Tertullian, (c.160-c.220AD) draws a more detailed comparison in his Prescription Against Heretics, which includes baptism, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection, and hints at forgotten Christian rituals:
The question will arise, By whom is to be interpreted the sense of the passages which make for heresies? By the devil, of course, to whom pertain those wiles which pervert the truth, and who, by the mystic rites of his idols, vies even with the essential portions of the sacraments of God. He, too, baptizes some that is, his own believers and faithful followers; he promises the putting away of sins by a layer (of his own); and if my memory still serves me, Mithras there, (in the kingdom of Satan) sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers; celebrates also the oblation of bread, and introduces an image of a resurrection, and before a sword wreathes a crown. What also must we say to (Satan’s) limiting his chief priest to a single marriage? He, too, has his virgins; he, too, has his proficients in continence. (Ch. 40)
Modern apologists argue that the features Mithraism shared with Christianity did not develop until late in the Christian era; however, Celsus seems to have been one of the first to analyze the similarities between Christianity and the Persian cult, which proves that Mithraism was already very well formed in the 2nd century, while the somewhat floundering Christianity as yet could not agree on central doctrines. Furthermore, certain Mithraic principles, such as the transmigration of souls, vegetarianism, communal meals (that may have involved eating the body and blood of the god), the passage of the soul through the seven planets, the musical theory behind this harmonic arrangement, can all be traced back to earlier groups such as the Orphics or Pythagoreans. The same can be said of the central motif of Mithraism, the killing of a sacrificial bull, which is a motif that is found in several other mystery cults, even going as far back as Gilgamesh, and almost certainly has an astronomical origin.
Thus, we could conclude (as Charles François Dupuis did in 1798) that since early Christian apologists both confirm and fail to explain the similarities between Jesus and Mithras, the similarities must exist; and since practices found in Mithraism are older, Christianity must have borrowed from Mithras:
Of course, Tertullian calls again the Devil to his assistance, in order to explain away so complete a resemblance. But as there is not the slightest difficulty, without the intervention of the Devil, to perceive, that whenever two religions resemble each other so completely, the oldest must be the mother and the youngest the daughter, we shall conclude, that since the worship of Mithras is infinitely older than that of Christ, and its ceremonies a great deal anterior to those of the Christians, that therefore the Christians are incontestably either sectarians or plagiarists of the religion of the Magi.[cxxxvii]
While it is impossible to deny the claim that Mithrasists may have borrowed from Christianity, this claim seems unlikely and based on poor logic. Bremmer, for example, in The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, argues that the success of Christianity also influenced other religions either to revalue their belief in the resurrection (i.e. Zoroastrians) or to copy the belief (Mithraism, Attis). “Success stimulates imitation – not only in economics, but also in the market of symbolic goods.”[cxxxviii]
While the statement “success stimulates imitation” may be true, Christianity was not particularly successful during the formative period of Mithraism. In fact, Christianity was a persecuted sect, always at odds not only with the ruling classes, but also with philosophers, Gnostics, and mystery cults. Why would Mithraism have needed to borrow from Christianity when the elements shared between them were common to other organizations which did clearly predate them both?
Fearful of the identification of Mithraism with Christianity, elaborate efforts have been made to distinguish between the two. Consider the following passage found in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Christ was an historical personage, recently born in a well-known town of Judea, and crucified under a Roman governor, whose name figured in the ordinary official lists. Mithras was an abstraction, a personification not even of the sun but of the diffused daylight; his incarnation, if such it may be called, was supposed to have happened before the creation of the human race, before all history. The small Mithraic congregations were like Masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the greater half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essentially exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.[cxxxix]
Basically a summary of Mithraic scholarly conclusions, this passage argues first that Christ was historical, while Mithras was not; a distinguishing feature which this book will take great lengths to refute. Second, that Mithraism excluded women, while ignoring the blatant misogynist practices of the church and continuing refusal of women into the priesthood; and third, the “exclusivity” of Christianity, which has always been its most dangerous and destructive feature. Absolutely, Christian exclusivity and condemnation of all other religions made it unique; the same intolerance continues to be an integral feature of many forms of Christianity today. This feature should not, however, be used to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity over more inclusive traditions.
If Mithraism did borrow, then it borrowed and thrived; it also borrowed within decades and became a fully independent, complicated organization replete with rituals and allegorical meaning. If nothing else, we can say that the cult of Mithras was a challenging contemporary movement of Christianity. An illuminating anecdote from the Christian historian Socrates (305-438) illustrates the climate. According to him, when Emperor Constantius turned over a formerly pagan temple to the Christians, in the process of cleaning it they found the bones and skulls of human beings, which they claimed had been sacrificed to Mithras (in some kind of magical divination practice). We have no way to check the truth of this statement; it is equally likely that they had raided a sacred burial ground. In fact the language used, “were said to have…” sounds a lot like rumor. Christians, who had been persecuted, marginalized and, even more hurtfully, ignored, by the pagans for centuries, were excited to be given the upper hand and quickly used the opportunity to furnish proof against the heathens.
In the process of clearing it, an adytum of vast depth was discovered which unveiled the nature of their heathenish rites: for there were found there the skulls of many persons of all ages, who were said to have been immolated for the purpose of divination by the inspection of entrails, when the pagans performed these and such like magic arts whereby they enchanted the souls of men. (Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Chap. 2)
Demonstrating the righteousness, immaturity, lack of propriety and respect for tradition which made them disliked by their contemporaries, the Christians took all the bones and skulls and ran around town showing them off. The pagans were furious, and killed many Christians in retaliation.
On discovering these abominations in the adytum of the Mithreum, (the Christians) went forth eagerly to expose them to the view and execration of all; and therefore carried the skulls throughout the city, in a kind of triumphal procession, for the inspection of the people. When the pagans of Alexandria beheld this, unable to bear the insulting character of the act, they became so exasperated, that they assailed the Christians with whatever weapon chanced to come to hand, in their fury destroying numbers of them in a variety of ways: some they killed with the sword, others with clubs and stones; some they strangled with ropes, others they crucified, purposely inflicting this last kind of death in contempt of the cross of Christ: most of them they wounded; and as it generally happens in such a case, neither friends nor relatives were spared, but friends, brothers, parents, and children imbrued their hands in each other’s blood. (Book III, Chap. 2)
This story is, of course, written to vindicate and justify the Christians while demonizing the barbarism of the pagans; however we can learn much more from it. Although Christianity had been made the legal religion, and was growing in property, riches and political power, it was still unpopular. Moreover, the majority of the citizens of Alexandria weren’t willing to bear insult to the god Mithras (or perhaps having the remains of their loved ones exhumed).
A final point of interest is the relationship between Mithras and the archangel Michael. After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, Michael became the patron saint of soldiers; immediately usurping the role of Mithras. Mithraea were converted into shrines for Michael (for instance, the sacred cavern at Monte Gargano in Apulia, refounded in 493); and many such shrines still have bull imagery. Michael is always depicted standing over Satan or the Dragon, winged and with a sword and shield – much like Mithras, and exactly like Perseus, who was the highest grade of initiation.
Michael is the field commander of the army of god. In Catholic tradition, it is Michael who defeated Satan and Michael who will come back to defeat the antichrist at the end of times. Michael was also a great healer – founding healing springs and sites of medicine; taking over the traditional medicinal authority of Asclepius.
It is unlikely the soldiers of the Roman empire would have been satisfied with Jesus. (Indeed, how are any soldiers to be satisfied with Jesus’ ethical advice to “turn the other cheek” and his Old Testament commandment of “Thou shall not kill”?) The inclusion of St. Michael was crucial for the success of Christianity, because it allowed Mithras worship to continue under another name. This should not be seen as the superiority of Christianity or the insignificance of Mithraism – rather it is a testament to the strength and popularity of the “god of the rock.”
Conclusions and Summary
As I mentioned before, I am not trying to make the argument that these gods are exactly the same thing as Jesus Christ. Of course they are not – they are each unique cultural manifestations and syntheses of older traditions. However, a number of them share very precise similarities. Moreover, the ritual practices of many of these gods, (a communal meal, baptism, fasting or asceticism, and the ideas they held about their gods’ divine natures and saving roles), show common ground.
The growth of the Roman Empire witnessed an unprecedented level of religious tolerance and syncretism: that the majority of these figures did adapt and assimilate each other’s distinguishing features is widely agreed by scholars. Many of them were routinely interpreted as being merely translations, different in title only. Initiates of one cult could (and did) also join several others. Family altars were filled with diverse gods. At the same time, there was an academic pursuit of a better, philosophical god – a ruling power or wisdom; the order behind the universe.
Set in this background, as a human, Jewish prophet in Palestine, we would expect Jesus Christ to have very little similarity to these other mythological figures. But in fact, we have seen that the opposite is true. It is impossible that the human Jesus would have been unaware of or unfamiliar with the stories of these other figures; and if we rule out that either God or Satan planted these similarities for some ulterior motive, or that Jesus Christ was a fraud who deliberately copied other traditions, then we can only be left with the conclusion that Christian writers assimilated elements from paganism into the Christian mythos.
While some features of Christianity definitely come from Jewish tradition, there are other features (such as eating the body and blood of the god), which are completely alien to Judaism. The idea of a historical Jesus has been preserved mainly by differentiating him from these pagan influences, based on the claim that he is historical, and by trying to tie him exclusively into the Jewish tradition. However, the pagan influences on Christianity cannot be ignored. It may be easy to conclude that Jewish theological and prophetic literature, plus the ritual practices of salvation mystery cults, were added unto the tradition left by a historical Jesus and quickly overwhelmed him. However, since the earliest accounts of Christianity do not point to a historical Jesus, and since many early Christians believed that Jesus did not come in the flesh at all, this theory lacks credibility.
This is not to say that Jesus is just the same as or identical to other figures of mythology; indeed, Jesus would be something entirely new simply by virtue of his being an assimilation of the best features of each. Jesus is the culmination and combination of all other religious traditions of his time: while Orphism had both the human prophet (Orpheus) and the divine god (Dionysus), in two separate stories, Jesus became both human and divine – prophet and god – in a mysterious, impossible Truth that was beyond all sense or logic. Without any attempt to make the story coherent, Jesus was given every feature, every power, every moving anecdote, parable and saying found in rival literature.
Yet divergent ideologies in what became Orthodox Christianity really were unique. The novelty factor of Christianity derives from its unusual claim that Jesus had recently been a historical figure and had physically risen from the dead. Indeed, it was the resurrection of the flesh, and Christians’ stubborn insistence on it, that proved most difficult for their contemporaries to accept.
[i]Cecile O’Rahilly, trans. and ed., Táin Bó Cúalnge from the Book of Leinster(Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies, 1970),82-84.
[ii]Sir James George Frazer,The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 419.
[iii]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, Great Britain: Penguin, 1999), xxvii.
[iv]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, xl.
[v]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, xxxi.
[vi]Gordon and Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 45.
[vii]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, li.
[viii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus(New York: Routledge, 2006), 126.
[ix]Mark P.O. Morford, and Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology,8th ed.(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 385.
[x]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 83.
[xi]Morford and Lenardon,Classical Mythology, 313.
[xii]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 83.
[xiii] Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World(London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), 133.
[xiv]Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology,384.
[xv]Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology,294.
[xvi]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 44.
[xvii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 124-25.
[xviii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus,24.
[xix]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 567.
[xx]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 470.
[xxi]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 23.
[xxii]Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology,313.
[xxiii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 29.
[xxiv]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 27.
[xxv]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 55.
[xxvi]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 115.
[xxvii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 3.
[xxviii]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 21.
[xxix]Richard Seaford,Dionysus, 4.
[xxx]Richard Seaford,Dionysus,122.
[xxxi]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God: Pythagoras and Parmenides(Las Vegas: Parmenides, 2004), 17.
[xxxii]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God,43.
[xxxiii] Laertius, Diogenes. “Pythagoras: The lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.” Translated by C.D. Yonge. Classic Persuasion.
http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diogenes/dlpythagoras.htm
[xxxiv]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 25.
[xxxv]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife: The 1995 Read-Tuckwell Lectures at the University of Bristol (London: Routledge, 2002), 12.
[xxxvi]Alexander Roob,Alchemy and Mysticism (Italy: Taschen, 1996),92.
[xxxvii]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 49.
[xxxviii]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 19.
[xxxix]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 13.
[xl] As quoted in Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God,50.
[xli]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 51.
[xlii]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 53.
[xliii]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 53–54.
[xliv]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 55.
[xlv]Arnold Hermann, To Think Like God, 59.
[xlvi]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 24.
[xlvii]Yves Bonnefoy, Mythologies, trans. Wendy Doniger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 161.
[xlviii]Joscelyn Godwin,Mystery Religions, 146.
[xlix]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 28.
[l]Noel Robertson, “Orphic Mysteries and Dionysiac Ritual,” in Greek Mysteries: The Archaeology and Ritual of Ancient Greek Secret Cults, ed. by Michael B. Cosmopoulos (London: Routledge, 2003), 218.
[li]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 29.
[lii]C. Scott Littleton,Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology (Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 2005), 1062, http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=HC93q4gsOAwC&pg=PA1057&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false.
[liii]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 5.
[liv]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife22.
[lv]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion,183.
[lvi]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 40.
[lvii]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 23.
[lviii]C. Scott Littleton,Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, 1058.
[lix]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 264.
[lx]W.K.C. Guthrie, Orpheus and Greek Religion, 50.
[lxi]Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology, 385.
[lxii]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1945), 9.
[lxiii]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 75.
[lxiv]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 1617.
[lxv]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 16.
[lxvi]Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, trans. Antonia Nevill (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 108.
[lxvii]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 74.
[lxviii]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 113.
[lxix]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 224.
[lxx]Quoted inEmma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 176.
[lxxi] Quoted inEmma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 162.
[lxxii] Quoted in Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 338.
[lxxiii] Quoted inEmma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 150.
[lxxiv] Quoted inEmma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 150.
[lxxv]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 136.
[lxxvi]Emma J. and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius, 136.
[lxxvii]Thomas Bulfinch,The Age of Fable(New York: Airmont, 1965), 238.
[lxxviii] R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 27.
[lxxix]Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 145.
[lxxx]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 38.
[lxxxi]Quoted in R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 44.
[lxxxii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 38.
[lxxxiii]Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian,129.
[lxxxiv]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 443.
[lxxxv]Yves Bonnefoy, Mythologies, 246.
[lxxxvi]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 213.
[lxxxvii]Ken Dowden, Religion and the Romans, 72.
[lxxxviii]Gordon and Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 60.
[lxxxix]Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 68; de dea Syria, 1058.
[xc]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 210.
[xci]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 210.
[xcii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 211.
[xciii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 214.
[xciv]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 215.
[xcv]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 16.
[xcvi]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 92.
[xcvii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 22.
[xcviii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 135.
[xcix]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 134.
[c]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 134.
[ci]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 85.
[cii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 67.
[ciii]R.E. Witt, Isis in the Ancient World, 129.
[civ]Jan Assman, Moses the Egyptian,145.
[cv]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, 137.
[cvi]Andrew George, trans., The Epic of Gilgramesh, 68.
[cvii]Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 26.
[cviii]Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, 26.
[cix]Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, 72.
[cx]Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide (New York: Routledge, 2007), 124.
[cxi]Edith Hamilton, Mythology(New York: Warner Books, 1999), 94.
[cxii]Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults, 124.
[cxiii]Walter Burkert,Greek Religion, trans.John Raffan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 177.
[cxiv]Julia Dubnoff, trans. “Poems of Sappho,” http://www.uh.edu/~cldue/texts/sappho.html.
[cxv] Quoted in Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults, 124.
[cxvi]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 401.
[cxvii]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 401.
[cxviii]Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 111–112.
[cxix]Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 113.
[cxx]Joscelyn Godwin,Mystery Religions, 112.
[cxxi]James George Frazer, The Golden Bough,408.
[cxxii]Joscelyn Godwin,Mystery Religions, 111.
[cxxiii]Cited by Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 98.
[cxxiv]A. T. Fear, “Cybele and Christ,” in Cybele, Attis & Related Cults: Studies in Memory of M.J. Vermaseren, ed. Eugene N. Lane (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 39.
[cxxv]A. T. Fear, “Cybele and Christ, 40.
[cxxvi]Robert Turcan, The Gods of Ancient Rome, 111.
[cxxvii]A. T. Fear, “Cybele and Christ, 38.
[cxxviii] Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions, 111.
[cxxix]Kevin Knight, “Mithraism.”New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia,http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm.
[cxxx]‘Nonnus’, Comm. in Greg. Nazian; quoted in Roger Pearse,“Mithras: All the Passages in Ancient Texts That Refer to the Cult,”The Tertullian Project,http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/index.htm.
[cxxxi]Clauss, p. 102: ‘Nonnus,’ Comm. in Greg. Nazian. Oratio 4. 70 (Migne, PG 36: 989),as cited by Roger Pearse, http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/.
[cxxxii]W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 277.
[cxxxiii]T.R. Glover, Conflict of Religions, 106.
[cxxxiv]T.R. Glover, Conflict of Religions, 99.
[cxxxv]M.J. Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God, trans. Therese and Vincent Magaw (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963).
[cxxxvi]Ken Dowden, Religion and the Romans, Classical World Series (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1992), 79.
[cxxxvii]Charles François Dupuis, The Origin of All Religious Worship, 248.
[cxxxviii]Jan N. Bremmer, The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, 55.
[cxxxix]Kevin Knight, “Mithraism.”
Tags: Adonis, Asclepius, Attis, Christ Myth, Christian history, Deathly Hallows, Dionysus, Harry Potter, historical Jesus, Jesus Christ, JK Rowling, Mithras, Orpheus, Osiris, Pagan Christ, Tammuz
