Mithra: The Pagan Christ

by Acharya S/D.M. Murdock

Mithra or Mitra is even worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun's disciples.... [The Sun's] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox--Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb....

Swami Prajnanananda

The Persian priests had their legend of the chief of their religion, and they tell us that prodigies announced his birth. He was exposed to all sorts of danger from his infancy, was obliged to fly into Persia, as Christ was obliged to fly into Egypt; he was pursued as him by a king who wished to destroy him; an angel transported him into the skies, from when they said he brought back the book of the law; as Christ, he was tempted by the devil, who made him magnificent promises, if he would but follow him; he was pursued and calumniated, as Christ, by the Pharisees; he performed miracles, in order to confirm his divine mission and the dogmas contained in his book. Such was the history of the god Mithra given by the Persians--squaring exactly with the history of Christ given by his worshippers. Now, Mithra was but a personification of the Sun--and we dare to say, what all intelligent readers will certainly think, that Christ was no more--nay, that the Christian religion is a mere copy of the Persian--a branch of the same allegorical tree.

The Existence of Christ Disproved

Because of its evident relationship to Christianity, special attention needs to be paid to the Persian/Roman religion of Mithraism. The worship of the Indo-Persian god Mithras or Mithra dates back centuries or millennia prior to the common era. The god is found as "Mitra" in the Indian Vedic religion, which is over 3,500 years old, by conservative estimates. When the Iranians separated from their Indian brethren, Mitra became known as "Mithra" or "Mihr," as he is called in Persian. Concerning the ancient unity of the Indian and Iranian peoples, Dr. Haug states (as related by Prasad):

"The relationship of the Avesta language to the most ancient Sanskrit, the so-called Vedic dialect, is as close as that of the different dialects of the Greek language (Aeolic, Ionic, Doric, or Attic) to each other. The languages of the sacred hymns of the Brahmans and of those of the Parsis are only the two dialects of the separate tribes of one and the same nation."

By around 1500 BCE, Mithra worship had made it to the Near East, in the Indian kingdom of the Mitanni, who at that time occupied Assyria. Mithra worship, however, was known also by that time as far west as the Hittite kingdom, only a few hundred miles east of the Mediterranean, as is evidenced by the Hittite-Mitanni tablets found at Bogaz-Ky in what is now Turkey. As Halliday relates:

The history of Mithraism reaches back into the earliest records of the Indo-European language. Documents which belong to the fourteenth century before Christ have been found in the Hittite capital of Boghaz Keui, in which the names of Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Heavenly Twins, the Nasatyas, are recorded. Further, the forms, in which the names are given, are not Iranian; and it almost certainly follows that, at the time when they were written, the Iranian and Indian stocks were not yet differentiated.

The Indian Mitra was essentially a sun god, representing the "friendly" aspect of the sun. So too was the Persian derivative Mithra, who was a "benevolent god" and the bestower of health, wealth and food. Mithra also seems to have been looked upon as a sort of Prometheus, for the gift of fire. His worship purified and freed the devotee from sin and disease. Eventually, Mithra became more militant, and he is best known as a warrior. As the Indian scholar Srivastava says:

The militant side of Mithra's personality casually indicated in the Avesta and the Rigveda was fully developed in the later Mithraism.

He is the creator of the world and the sovereign over all. He is the officiating priest.

Like so many gods, Mithra was the light and power behind the sun. In Babylon, Mithra was identified with Shamash, the sun god. Christian authority and biblical commentator Matthew Henry (18^th century) stated that "Mithra, the sun," was the god of King Shalmaneser V of Assyria, who in the 8^th century BCE conquered Samaria and "carried away the Israelites." Mithra was also the god of Cyrus, conqueror of Babylon, who was considered the Messiah or Christos by Jews during the "Captivity." In fact, Mithra is Bel, the Mesopotamian and Canaanite/ Phoenician sun god, who is likewise Marduk, the Babylonian god who represented both the planet Jupiter and the sun. According to Clement of Alexandria's debate with Appion (Homily VI, ch. X), Mithra is also Apollo.

Mithra's popularity and importance is evident from the prevalence of the name "Mithradates" ("justice of Mithra") among Near Easterners by the seventh century BCE. As Halliday relates:

It is not surprisingto find that Artaxerxes adopted Mithraism as a royal cult. After the downfall of Persia, it remained an important religion in Asia Minor, and the continuous use of the name of the god in the formation of names, like Mithradates, bears testimony to his popularity. The Seleucid successors of Alexander paid worship to the god of light, truth and royalty, whose effulgence was equivalent to the Tuch basilewV, which is but inadequately translated "the Fortune of the King."

This aspect of Mithraism as a royal cult is illustrated by the reliefs from the tomb of King Antiochus [IV] Epiphanes of Commagene, which stood upon a spur of the Taurus overlooking the valley of the Euphrates. Here the king is represented with tiara and sceptre in the act of shaking the right hand of Mithras, whose Persian cap is surrounded by a rayed solar nimbus.

In the 5^th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the "Persian Mitra" (Bk. 1, c. 131):

The following are certain Persian customs which I can describe from personal knowledge. The erection of statues, temples, and altars is not an accepted practice amongst them, and anyone who does such a thing is considered a fool, because, presumably, the Persian religion is not anthropomorphic like the Greek. Zeus, in their system, is the whole circle of the heavens, and they sacrifice to him from the tops of mountains. They also worship the sun, moon, and earth, fire, water, and winds, which are their only original deities: it was later that they learned from the Assyrians and Arabians the cult of Uranian Aphrodite. The Assyrian name for Aphrodite is Mylitta, the Arabian Alilat, the Persian Mitra.

Herodotus's editor Marincola notes that Herodotus is wrong about the Aphrodite-Mithra connection, because Mithra is male, and Halliday thinks Herodotus confused Mithra with his consort. However, others have asserted that Mithra is bi-gendered. As Bell says, "Mithras, the Persian deity, was both god and goddess." Simone Weil avers that Mithras (the female Persian deity, per Herodotus) is "probably that Wisdom which seems to have appeared in the sacred books of Israel after the exile." "Mitra" may be a hyphenation of Maat, or Mut ("mother"), the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Justice, and Ra, the sun god. Ancient authorities in addition to Herodotus who discuss Mithra include Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 5, 53 and c. iv. 24); and Plutarch (Artax. 4 and Alexand. 30).

In time, the Persian Mithraism became infused with the more detailed astrotheology of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, and was notable for its astrology and magic; indeed, its priests or magi lent their name to the word "magic." Included in the Mithraic development was the emphasis on his early Indian role as a sun god. As Legge says:

The Vedic Mitra was originally the material sun itself, and the many hundreds of votive inscriptions left by the worshippers of Mithras to "the unconquered Sun Mithras," to the unconquered solar divinity (numen) Mithras, to the unconquered Sun-God (deus) Mithra, and allusions in them to priests (sacerdotes), worshippers (cultores), and temples (templum) of the same deity leave no doubt open that he was in Roman times a sun-god.

By the Roman legionnaires, Mithra was called "the divine Sun, the Unconquered Sun." He was said to be "Mighty in strength, mighty ruler, greatest king of gods! O Sun, lord of heaven and earth, God of Gods!" Mithra was also deemed "the mediator" between heaven and earth, a role often ascribed to the god of the sun.

Regarding Mithra, Bryant states:

Some make a distinction between Mithras, Mithres, and Mithra: but they were all the same Deity, the Sun, esteemed the chief God of the Persians.

In his proof of this assertion, Bryant cites Hesychius (6^th century ce): "MiqraV o hlioV para PersaiV" ("Mithras, the sun of Persia") and "MiqrhV o protoV en PersaiV QeoV" ("Mithres, the first god in Persia."). Hesychius thus confirms not only the solar nature but also the Persian origin of Mithra, still known in his day.

As stated, the priests of Mithra, and of Iranian sun and fire worship in general, were the Magi, or Magas. According to Srivastava's detailed analysis, the Magas entered India on a number of occasions over a period of centuries, prior to and during the common era. At this point, Indian sun worship became increasingly formalized, with elaborate rituals, temples and images sprouting up, and, from the 6^th century ce onward, royal names began to have "Mihira" (Mithra) in them, after a millennium of integration (or reintegration) into Indian culture. Regarding the Magi of Medea, west of Mesopotamia, Srivastava states:

Originally there had been fundamental differences between their way of life and that of Persians, but later on there was a compromise, out of which Mithraism was born not later than the 5^th-4^th cent. b.c. Before the Persian impact, this cult was already influenced by the religions of Babylonia and Chaldea.

Subsequent to the campaign of Alexander the Great, Mithra became the "favorite deity" of Asia Minor. Christian writer George W. Gilmore, an associate editor of the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (VII, 420), says:

It was probably at this period, 250-100 b.c., that the Mithraic system of ritual and doctrine took the form which it afterward retained. Here it came into contact with the mysteries, of which there were many varieties, among which the most notable were those of Cybele.

Mithraism took hold with the upsurge of the notorious mysteries, which flowed from Asia Minor to Greece and Rome, although Mithraism itself did not penetrate Greece, likely due to the Greeks' aversion to all things Persian, following the Persian Wars.

According to Plutarch, Mithraism began to be absorbed by the Romans during Pompey's campaign against Cilician pirates around 70 BCE . The religion eventually migrated from Asia Minor through the soldiers, many of whom had been citizens of Asia Minor, into Rome and the far reaches of the Empire. In fact, Mithraism can be found from India to Scotland, with abundant monuments in numerous countries. As Robertson says:

In the early centuries of the Christian era Mithraism was the most nearly universal religion in the Western world. The monumental remains of the Roman period show its extraordinary extension in almost all parts of the empire.

Syrian merchants brought Mithraism to the major cities, such as Alexandria, Rome and Carthage, while captives carried it to the countryside. In short, Mithraism and its mysteries permeated the Roman Empire. Among its secret society members were emperors, politicians and businessmen, per Schaff-Herzog (VII, 421):

In the first Christian century there were in Rome associations of the followers of Mithra, probably organized as burial associations, in accordance with a common device of that period employed to acquire a legal status. The growth and importance of the cult in the second century are marked by the literary notices; Celsus opposed it to Christianity, Lucian made it the object of his wit. Nero desired to be initiated; Commodus (180-192) was received into the brotherhood; in the third century the emperors had a Mithraic Chaplain; Aurelian (270-275) made the cult official; Diocletian, with Galerius and Licinius, in 307 dedicated a temple to Mithra; and Julian was a devotee.

As has been remarked upon by a number of writers, Mithraism was a brotherhood with an all-male lodge-like structure much like the Masonry of the past several centuries. As Legge states:

there is no doubt women were strictly excluded from all the ceremonies of the cult, thereby justifying in some sort the remark of Renan that Mithraism was a "Pagan Freemasonry."

Robertson also says:

Mithraism was always a sort of freemasonry, never a public organization.

And Halliday comments:

the general character of the initiatory rites was that which the world at large associates with Freemasonry, and which, indeed, is common to all similar kinds of religious ceremony in all stages of culture down to the puberty ceremonies of savages.

In its entry under "Mithraism," the Catholic Encyclopedia states:

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 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 essential exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.

In its attempts at distinguishing Catholicism from Mithraism and other Pagan religions, the Catholic Encyclopedia boasts that, unlike those ideologies, Christianity is intolerant and exclusive. One of the reasons Mithraism did not last, in fact, is because it excluded women. As Legge says:

What they, and even more urgently their womenfolk, needed was a God, not towering above them like the Eternal Sun, the eye of Mithras and his earthly representative, shedding his radiance impartially upon the just and the unjust; but a God who had walked upon the earth in human form, who had known like themselves pain and affliction, and to whom they could look for sympathy and help. Such a god was not to be found in the Mithraic Cave.

Drews also discusses this development:

It has been said that Mithraism failed, in contrast with Christianity, precisely because it did not spring from a strong personality such as Jesus. There is this much truth in the statement, that the Persian Mithra was a very shadowy form beside Jesus, who came nearer to the heart, especially of women, invalids, and the weak, in his human features and on account of the touching description of his death.

In this scenario, of course, appears a major reason for making Jesus Christ into a "real person."

In any case, before its usurpation by Christianity Mithraism enjoyed the patronage of some of the most important individuals in the Roman Empire. In the fifth century, the emperor Julian, having rejected his birth-religion of Christianity, adopted Mithraism and "introduced the practise of the worship at Constantinople."

For Mithraism and Paganism in general, Julian's demise was the straw that broke the camel's back. In fact, following Julian's death "the attack of Christianity was definite and furious." After this point, Mithraism began to decline and disappeared almost entirely until the end of the 15^th century, when it reappeared sparsely in European literature and imagery. Yet Mithraism had existed for several centuries and had made a significant impact on the Roman world. Indeed, factoring in his pre-Roman roots, Mithra could be considered the oldest "Roman" god:

If length of ancestry went for anything in such matters, [Mithras] might indeed claim a greater antiquity than any deity of the later Roman Pantheon, with the single exception of the Alexandrian gods. Mithras was certainly worshipped in Vedic India, where his name of Mitra constantly occurs in sacred texts as the "shining one," meaning apparently the material sun.

And, as Gilmore states, Mithraism's general shape was reached between 250-100 BCE, when its "system of ritual and doctrine took the form which it afterward retained," centuries before the advent of Christianity.

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