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Head of a statue of Mithras in the British Museum
In the spirit of the season, and with cold ones awaiting me in the fridge, I thought I’d throw this bit of history in for fun.
It’s December 25th, the Birthday of Mithra, the hero god of bravery and honor and male fellowship worshiped mainly by soldiers of the Roman Empire during the centuries when Christianity was spreading throughout the Empire, centuries that saw periodic toleration and persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities before that religion was adopted by the Emperor Constantine and made the Imperial state religion.
It’s important to this day mainly because the Birthday of Mithra definitely was celebrated by Mithraists on December 25th before the Roman Catholic church pegged that same day as the birthday of Jesus Christ, who, if you read the New Testament, was probably born in the spring under the astrological sign of Pisces, hence the symbol of the Fish used as code by early Christians. Interestingly enough, according to Mithraist traditions, Mithra’s birth, maybe even virgin birth, was witnessed by shepherds.
The origins of Mithraism have been largely lost to history, but it definitely has elements of both Persian Zorastrianism and Indian Hinduism. Ironically, the best readable article I could find on the subject is written by the descendants of Mithraism’s ecclesiastical conquerors in the Catholic Dictionary, which link is here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm
Very, very basically, Mithra himself was a gift to earth and mankind from Ahura Mazda, the absolutely Good god of Zoroastrianism. Mithras conquered the Sun in battle and then made the Sun his loyal friend, and then slayed the Bull of Ahura Mazda(regretfully, on Ahura Mazda’s instructions) from whose blood and flesh the world and people were created. It was an exclusively male religion, with secret mysteries and initiations from which women were excluded. By all accounts, few as they are, its members had a duty to be loyal to each other and to help one another, and there was certainly a hierarchy of some sort.
The Catholics’ best guess is that Mithraism was introduced to the Roman Empire by legionaries who were stationed on the banks of the Euphrates in the First Century CE, and I find that to be quite plausible. For a couple of centuries, Mithraism was one of the primary rivals of early Christianity, which makes me think that the Catholic Church’s use of Mithra’s birthday as Jesus’ was probably a shrewd political move to try to eclipse an important Mithraic festival day with one of its own, just as Christians incorporated many pagan holidays into their own saints’ days at different times in different parts of the world.
The historical record is sketchy, but it is known that the Emperor Commodus, the psychopathic son of the great Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was publicly initiated into Mithraism to better glorify his own insane self(the portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator with Russell Crowe seems to be pretty spot on), and the Emperor Julian aka Julian the Apostate tried to elevate Mithraism to its former status when he renounced Christianity in the late 4th Century. Shortly after that, Mithraism, as well as so many other religions, fades from Western history with the triumph of Christianity.
It’s probably not coincidental that the Birthday of Mithra coincided with other, older, celebrations which included much feasting and drinking and partying around the Winter Solstice; the Roman Feast of Saturnalia comes to mind and the old Druids probably had something going on about that time of year as well.
In that sense, the spirit of Mithra, with a lot of assistance from other traditions, has survived the millenia. And Mithra doesn’t seem like such a bad guy. So, next time you hoist a toast with that Christmas cheer and celebrate like merry gentlemen or gentlewomen, knock one back for old Mithra. It can’t hurt, and it helps to hold on to traditions far older and more valuable than the current capitalization of this holiday season.
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And so the story that the three Zoroastrians (also called Magi) came to visit the birth of He Whose followers would one day claim Mithras’ birthday has some mystical meaning.
Furthermore, it is my understanding that the Vatican sits on a site formerly sacred to the cult of Mithras. And so, since the people were already celebrating Saturnalia/Zoratrian Christmas, it wasn’t so hard to get them to switch to Christianity. I’ll continue over at Margaret’s treatment, as I get into Saturn.
http://my.firedoglake.com/margaret/2012/12/25/over-easy-saturnalia/
Probably. But I have no idea what that meaning is.
The Vatican? On an old Mithraic site? I did not know that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. They did turn the Pantheon into a church, you know.
Good thing, too. That way we can still enjoy it. It’s a beautiful building.
Yes, I saw that, recc’d it and commented. The Feast of Saturnalia should be remembered as well.
♪ Chestnuts roasting in an electric stove… ♪
Saturn (Chronus) is an interesting character:
The father of Zeus/Jupiter, Saturn is Father Time, that character with the scythe. He is also the Grim Reaper, Death, which IS Time in a way. Chronus/Saturn is the Old Year in illustrations for this week, and a baby is the New Year.
But Chronus is not the kind of guy you want to trust around a baby:
Time eats its children.
In the Latin Bible and in the Spanish Palabra today, that god whom most Americans call “God” is called “Zeus,” though it is now spelled “Dios.” (Castor & Pollux of Greek & Roman mythology, the Gemini twins, were known as “Dioscouri” – the sons of Zeus).
Yes, and in at least one Indo-European tradition he is the father of both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, or Good and Evil. He may be related to Shiva, though I speculate. Father Time, who gives all life its time and takes it away.
My partner Rachel wished me a Malcolm Xmas, and a very Jerry Rubin new year. (I think she meant it in a good way.)
I have seen Shiva identified with Apollo too, partly because of the long hair.
Of course, the culture and myths of India are so removed from Greece that their relationship to each other is obscured. As fellow Indo-Europeans, they keep telling approximately the same stories, but with different names and details.
I somewhat affected the look of a timely mythological character myself – by accident – at the mall a couple of weeks ago.
A tiny little girl looked at me in vague recognition, and her eyes lit up: Not quite like the description and pictures, but quite a bit like it: There I was, a thin man, but with a long white beard, a big bright red sack (my backpack), and brand new very Santa-looking black boots. She raised a finger to her lips, and an exclamation point appeared above her head.
The church of San Clemente sits on the site of a Mithraic Temple from about the 2nd Century AD. You can see some it, I think including an altar of sorts, from the sub basement.
Thank you for that correction.
And just think. Five hundred years or so ago you’d all be burning at your assorted stakes.
From what I know about Zoroastrianism, it seems like a very fine religion, and with very credible premises. Who can doubt, looking around them, that there is a monumental struggle going on between good and evil?
Well that’s cool.
Love this tweet:
Look at all of the ways that the catholic church has assimilated local religions and their holidays to make it easier for the locals to accept the church. One of the best examples is in the lands that became Latin America. The political and religious were subsumed in the European version.
Thanks for the pic, mods!
Well, you have to give credit to that Martin Luther fellow, and Henry VIII, and(as much as it pains me to say it) John Calvin, and later all of the people involved in the Enlightenment for that.
And, to give credit where credit is due, to the modern Roman Catholic Church itself.
But don’t take my word for it; I’m just a poor excuse of an Episcopalian turned even poorer excuse of a Zen Buddhist.
Sure. Easier than massacres, and a bit more consistent with the whole God of Love thing, to be sure.
You should see the list of powerful names called upon in medieval nominally Catholic prayers in Iceland: The priest calls on Isaac, and Abraham, Jesus, and Thor, and Freyr, and Loki, and Beelzebub, and Cannabus….
Another possibility is that the date was taken from the religion of the Sol Invictus, which was the god of many among the Roman elite in the late Roman Empire, including Aurelian in the 270s and Constantine, who continued putting images of the Sol Invictus on his coins and triumphal arches until his death in 337:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus
It is possible that:
Of course, the actual physical significance of Dec. 25 is that, as a few days have passed since Solstice, we can now be sure that the Sun is coming back.
Happy Happy
How many candles!?
Sol Invictus means the unconquered sun. It’s the same thing as Mithraism.
The title keeps changing to Mithra, instead of Mithras. I don’t know why. But it should be Mithras.
The sun was a symbol for several gods, from Greco-Roman to Syrian. Followers of the Mithraic cult adopted it as a symbol, too. But worship of the Sol Invictus in the later Roman Empire was not the same thing as Mithraism, which conducted its rituals in caves (including artificial caves in urban centers) and practiced animal sacrifice (particularly bull sacrifice). The particular worship of the Sol Invictus that was adapted into the Roman pantheon and that was embraced by Aurelian and by the dynasty of Constantine came from Syria.
The original Christians were big on skandalon. They tried to shoehorn onto the person of Jesus every profoundly discredited theological atrocity of a time and place that was chock full of theological weirdnesses of almost infinite variety. The big enchilada was the claim of divinity, which every tinhorn Hellenistic dictator claimed (The most notorious of them being Antiochus Epiphanes, whose claim of divinity was perhaps the central skandalon that got the Jews to revolt against his rule under the Maccabees. Making a claim of divinty for Jesus was calculated to go down about as well among Jews as Obama claiming that he was the true heir to the British throne, the rightful Pope, AND the real Sharif of Mecca, would play in Peoria.), in a play for political charisma that the Roman emperors had more recently adopted. But they tried to insult everyone, so sure, those three Zoroastrian Mages bearing gifts are in there to haul in yet another pagan religion to both offend its adherents, and to use to offend Jewish believers.
I wouldn’t look for any profound theological meaning to having those Mages in some of the Gospels. They’re just there to scandalize right-thinking people of the time.
Nor is there any connection to be found between the Zoroastrians in some of the Gospel nativity accounts, and the centuries later fixation on Mithra’s B-day as Christmas. I don’t think the Christians of that era, members of a very worldly church, were still able to appreciate, much less engage in, irony and skandalon. By that era, the appropriation of pagan religious practices is simple theft of trappings designed to let the Church supplant a wide variety of pagan religions as the unthinking, official, state, religion. Same old superstition, just under new management.
Chipmunks.
Just Sayin.
*G*
Steal this holiday!
*G*
Gotta say I thot I knew my Greek and Roman mythology, and a BIT of other cultures east and west mythologies.
But, this diary and thread put me to shame.
Well done people, thanks and altho I’m far past my grade school love of the mythlike, this was a GREAT flashback at it all.
I had always thot Mithras was a Greek God of Silver . . . not mercury, or quicksilver, but Silver, as in value.
You guys are good, deep, and well versed. Thanks!
*G*
Happy Christmas, Larue, I hope things are going good for you this season.
Mitra (Sanskrit Mitrá) is an important divinity of Indic culture, and the patron divinity of honesty, friendship, contracts and meetings. He is a figure of the Rigveda, distinguished by a relationship to Varuna, the protector of ṛtá (the truth).
“Reflecting his status as a solar deity, Mitra has long been worshipped in the sunrise prayers of the Hindus. The morning upasthaana prayer, recited to the risen sun after contemplation on the sacred Gayatri mantra, is a collection of Rig Veda verses addressing Mitra.”
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitra_%28Vedic%29
“Skanda is the name of deities popular amongst Hindus and Buddhists.
“ Skanda, a Hindu deity also known as Kartikeya and Murugan and Subhramanya. He is Shiva’s son.
Skanda (Buddhism), a popular Deva and/or Bodhisattva popular in Chinese Buddhism
Skanda Purana, a Hindu Purana (Scripture) dedicated to the Deity” from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skanda
In Indian wedding rituals these mantras are still used. Also the symbols (double M for the waters of life, brests and vulva for the mother)of paleolithic mother goddess Cybelle (who becomes “bhoo-devi” in Sanskrit) on wedding talis (talisman). Like layers in archeology, traditions in India keep all old rituals alive by accretion! A reference is the “The language of the Goddess” by Marija Gimbutas, Harper and Row, New York1989.
To hell with the warrior gawd, Comrade Barbarian!
Let us praise instead Mazdak the Elder, who “directed his followers to enjoy the pleasures of life and satisfy their appetite in the highest degree with regard to eating and drinking in the spirit of equality, to aim at good deeds; to abstain from shedding blood and inflicting harm on others; and to practice hospitality without reservation”.
Maybe Karl was a Mazdakist?
Heh! I’m not familiar with Mazdak, but the “Mazda” in his name is surely related to Ahura-Mazda.
I had no idea there were so many experts on ancient religions here on FDL, comrade. All I really knew was that Mithras’ birthday was celebrated on December 25th, which is now mainly a consumerist ritual of greed promoted as worthy self-sacrifice by those who sacrifice the least and profit the most.
Mithras would be probably make their heads roll. As I said, he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy.
But thanks for the tip, Comrade. I’ll look up this Mazdak character. He sounds interesting.