Mithra and the Twelve

The theme of the teaching god and "the Twelve" is found within Mithraism, as Mithra is depicted surrounded by the 12 zodiac signs on a number of monuments and in the writings of Porphyry, for one. Regarding the Twelve, Robertson says:

On Mithraic monuments we find representations of twelve episodes, probably corresponding to the twelve labors in the stories of Heracles, Samson and other Sun-heroes, and probably also connected with initiation.

As they have been in the case of numerous sun gods, these signs could be called Mithra's 12 "companions" or "disciples." Indeed, concerning Mithra and the Twelve, Freke and Gandy say:

During the initiation ceremony in the Mysteries of Mithras, 12 disciples surrounded the godman, just as the 12 disciples surrounded Jesus.

Again, they state:

In the Mysteries of Mithras, as already mentioned, the initiated representing Mithras stood in the middle of a circle of 12 dancers representing the signs of the zodiac.

Furthermore, the motif of the 12 disciples or followers in a "last supper" is recurrent in the Pagan world, including within Mithraism:

[Mark] gave Jesus a last supper with twelve followers, identical in every way with the last supper of the Persian god Mithra, down to the cannibalisation of the god's body in the form of bread and wine (14:22-26).

The Spartan King Kleomenes had held a similar last supper with twelve followers four hundred years before Jesus.

This last assertion is made by Plutarch in Parallel Lives, "Agis and Kleomenes" 37:2-3.

Obviously, the Last Supper with the Twelve predates Christianity by centuries. It would therefore be a mistake to contend that Mithraism copied Christianity, rather than inheriting this motif from earlier Pagan religions.

The Baptism

The sprinkling or splashing of the bull's blood is considered a baptism, especially since it is designed to convey immortality. Like this bloody rite, baptism with water, whether by immersion or sprinkling, is found in numerous pre-Christian religions/cults, dating back to ancient times. Baptism or lustration for the removal of evil or sins is also found in the Sumerian culture, 2,000 or more years before the Christian era. In Sumero-Babylonian religion, baptism was used as a rite of exorcism, likewise a concept long pre-dating the Christian era. The Sumero-Babylonian Trinity included Anu, Enlil and Ea, the last of whom was the "personification of divine healing power." This Triad, along with Marduk, was invoked to dispel sickness. Individually, Ea was the god of healing waters, while his temple was "the house of the depth of the ocean" or "the house of wisdom." Ea's city was Eridu, which possessed potent waters:

Originally it was the life-giving waters that neutralized, expelled or absorbed the malevolent influences and so freed those who had come into contact with evil from its contagion because being the substance out of which the universe was created it was endowed with all its creative potentialities. The location of the ancient city made it the natural cult centre of the god of the waters whose function was that of "washing away," purging, or in some way removing evil as a miasma. So in the texts Ea is represented as the god who above all delivered men from sin, disease, pollution, and demoniacal assaults, as well as being the source of supernatural knowledge.

As concerns the Babylonian exorcism, not much different from the Catholic, James further states:

In addition to pronouncing the name of the divinity in which the magic virtue resides, the exorcist had to mention that of the demon to be driven forth. This involved the recitation of long lists of devils and ghostsin order to include the one that might be the cause of the malady. The patient was then sprinkled with water, censed, surrounded with flour or some other magically protective substance such as black and white yam fastened to his couch, while the exorcist held in his hand a branch of the sacred tamarisk, "the powerful weapon of Anu," during the incantation.

Concerning baptism among the pre-Christian "heathen" and Jews, the Catholic Encyclopedia ("Baptism") states:

How natural and expressive the symbolism of exterior washing to indicate interior purification was recognized to be, is plain from the practice also of the heathen systems of religion. The use of lustral water is found among the Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Hindus, and others. A closer resemblance to Christian baptism is found in a form of Jewish baptism, to be bestowed on proselytes, given in the Babylonian Talmud (Dollinger, First Age of the Church).

Regarding baptism, Bonwick states:

Baptism is a very ancient rite pertaining to heathen religions, whether of Asia, Africa, Europe or America. It was one of the Egyptian rites in the mysteries.

Indeed, the baptism by water to remove sins is an ancient Egyptian motif:

Osiris takes upon himself "all that is hateful" in the dead: that is, he adopts the burden of his sins; and the dead is purified by the typical sprinkling of water.

This baptism for the remission of sins was "in vogue" in the 5^th and 6^th Dynasties, 2400 or so years before the Christian era. Such baptism doubtlessly existed in the neighboring Canaanite culture as well; it certainly was practiced in Palestine prior to Christ's purported advent, as Lundy relates:

The sacred annual bathing of Palestine pilgrims in the river Jordan is the same now as it was in John the Baptist's time; and precisely the same as it is and always has been in the sacred rivers of Hindustan. It is a custom far older than Christianity, and universally prevalent. John the Baptist simply adopted and practised the universal custom of sacred bathing for the remission of sins.

Lundy then elaborates upon the ubiquitous baptism:

Now as Baptism of some kind has been the universal custom of all religious nations and peoples for purification and regeneration, it is not to be wondered at that it had found its way from high Asia, the centre of the old world's religion and civilization, into the American continent. So great was the resemblance between the two sacraments of the Christian Church and those of the ancient Mexicans; so many other points of similarity, also, in doctrine existed, as to the unity of God, the Triad, the Creation, the Incarnation and Sacrifice, the Resurrection, etc., that Herman Witsius, no mean scholar and thinker, was induced to believe that Christianity had been preached on this continent by some one of the Apostles, perhaps St. Thomas, from the fact that he is reported to have carried the Gospel to India and Tartary, whence he came to America. Whether this be so or not, and making all due allowance for Spanish enthusiasm at detecting resemblance where none might exist, but such resemblances, too, as the poor Lazarite Huc and his companion noticed between some of the religious ceremonies of the Tartars and those of the Roman Church, for publishing which he was expelled from the order, and died of a broken heart; yet the fact remains, as acknowledged by such men as Humboldt, and our own Prescott, who were certainly no religious enthusiasts, of a very close similarity between some of the doctrines and practices of the ancient Mexican religion and Christianity.

As can be seen, included in these similarities between the Mexican and Christian religions was the practice of baptism, wherein the "American priests were found in Mexico beyond Darien, baptizing boys and girls a year old in the temple at the cross, pouring water upon them from a small pitcher." The Mexicans also celebrated a "holy supper," communion or eucharist as well. According to a Spanish source, a Mexican priest told him these rituals and concepts were brought by a man, "clad after the Spanish fashion, and bearded," who entered their country and attempted to "lead them to the obedience of God"; however, when their chiefs would not accept the faith, another man came with a sword, which led to warfare and strife. This account is muddled and incomplete, and there is no evidence of Christian influence on the culture, no remnants of language or writing, no foreign elements at all. While there may have beenand certainly were, based on archaeological evidencebearded "Semitic" men in Central America (long anterior to the Christian era), it is likely that this account was embellished with the part about this teacher being "clad after the Spanish fashion." Concerning these correspondences and the European theory of their origin, Lundy comments:

Here, then, are nudity, washing, sprinkling, exorcism, renunciation of Satan, and confirmation, in one and the same baptism, just as in the Primitive and Greek Churches. And yet it cannot be Christian Baptism, unless the ancient Mexicans had relapsed into Asiatic paganism between the advent of some Apostle and that of the Spaniards. For their great water goddess is only the counterpart of Aphrodite, all the Asiatic world over.

The formidable bearded man who came across the sea and taught the Mexicans their religion and their civilization, and then retired with the promise of return, was doubtless the incarnate deity Quetzalcoatl, god of the air, who, while on earth, taught them the use of metals, agriculture, an the arts of government, and made the golden age of Anahuc. He it was that some of the Spanish antiquaries and Witsius thought to be St. Thomas; while others more truly discerned in him a type of the Messiah, such as we have found in Agni, Krishna, Mithra, Horus, and Apollo.

In other words, the "bearded man," Quetzalcoatl, is not only an "air god" but also a sun god, and these Mexican rites are not "Christian" but proto-Christian. In fact, as abundantly demonstrated, these various important religious motifs and rites existed long before the Christian era, and were not copied by Paganism from Christianity but the other way around.

The antiquity of baptism within Judaism is indicated not only by the story of Christ's baptism but also by the words of Paul at 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, where, in addressing his "brethren, Paul refers to the passing of "our ancestors" "through the sea, and all were baptized in Moses" He also mentions that the "supernatural Rock" that followed the ancestors (out of Egypt) was Christ.

The Mithraic Eucharist

Another of these pre-Christian doctrines found in Paganism in general and Mithraism in specific is the Eucharist, Last Supper or Holy Communion. From early ages, the Mithraic eucharist, which was said to bestow immortality upon the participants, has been recognized to parallel that of the Christians. In reality, the rite is likewise very old and certainly did not find its way into Paganism from Christianity. The Catholic Encyclopedia concedes that the eucharist is pre-Christian:

Mithraism had a Eucharist, but the idea of a sacred banquet is as old as the human race and existed at all ages and amongst all peoples.

The eucharist includes the "doctrine of transubstantiation," which claims that the wine or water and bread of the sacred meal are mystically and magically transmuted into the blood and body of the god, which, it is believed, creates union with the god. At the Mithraic ceremony, the following was said:

"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." (Mithraic Communion, M.J. Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God)

Obviously, as is the case with the eucharist itself, this ritual line is not original to Christianity. It was, in fact, part of the pre-Christian mysteries, including, among others, those of Samothrace and Attis.

Discussing the typical reason behind initiation into a mystery religion, Guignebert also explains the meaning of the eucharist:

The initiate is assured, at any rate for a considerable period of time, that his fate will be the same as that of Attis at his inevitable death and a happy resurrection and survival among the gods his portion. In many of the cults of these savior and interceding gods, such as those of Cybele, Mithra, the Syrian Baals, and still others, the beneficial union obtained by means of initiation is renewed, or at any rate revived, by sacred repasts which the members, assembled at the table of the god, ate.

Concerning the last supper and transubstantiation, Weigall elucidates:

The ceremony of eating an incarnate god's body and drinking his blood is, of course, of very ancient, and originally cannibalistic, inception, and there are several sources from which the Christian rite may be derived if, as most critics think, it was not instituted as an actual ceremony by Jesus; but its connection with the Mithraic rite is the most apparent.

Regarding the transubstantiation doctrine, Frazer says:

The doctrine of transubstantiation, or the magical conversion of the bread into flesh, was also familiar to the Aryans of ancient India long before the spread and even the rise of Christianity.

Since the Persians who worshipped Mithra were originally of the same ethnicity as the Indians who revered Mitra, it would be logical to assert that this rite within Mithraism is likewise ancient, possibly dating to early or pre-Vedic times, 1500 years or more before the Christian era. Indeed, the eucharist or communion was part of the ancient Persian religion, apart from Mithraism:

The Greeks celebrated the mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus as bestowers and protectors of grain and grapes; the Aztecs partook with solemnity of a sacred perforated cake, and, most similar of all to the "Holy Communion" of the Christians, was the Haoma sacrifice of the Persians, a resemblance so striking as to draw from the early fathers of the church the complaint that the Devil had played a trick upon Christ in teaching the Parsis to caricature the Eucharist in their Soma sacrifice.

Haoma was originally the extracted juice of the Soma plant (Asclepias acida), an intoxicating liquid with the ancient Aryans poured upon the sacrificial fire, and also drank themselves, as a symbol of divine life and immortality.

The sacrifice was originally Brahmanic.

The soma or haoma drink was a psychedelic or entheogenic plant potion that imbued godly feelings and seeming capacities of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence. In the Rig Veda, Soma is lauded as a deity, and Indra's divine strength and immortality are attributed to the plant god. The Vedic and Persian religions, of course, were not the only faiths to have as part of their mysteries such psychedelic plant-drugs; intimations are to be detected in Judaism and Christianity as well.

The "last supper" can be found within the Egyptian religion, again, as part of the mysteries. Furthermore, the Eleusinian Mysteries included the sharing of the Goddess Ceres's "body" (bread) and the God Dionysus's "blood" (wine), centuries before the Christian era. The eucharist is found also in Syria, an area in which Mithraism flourished. Indeed, the pre-Christian Essenes, some of whom became Christians, participated in not only baptism but also a "sacred meal":

The holy daily meal of the Essenes was preceded by the solemnity of a water baptism. The members of the secret society, who had sworn not to communicate a certain knowledge to the uninitiated, appeared in their "white garments as if they were sacred," they went into the refectory "purified as into a holy temple," and prayer was offered up before and after the sacred meal. It can only be compared with the Paschal meal of the other Jews. The bread figured in both, whilst among the Essenes water took the place of the wine at their meal on common days.

As reflected in the "Rule of the Community" (1QS 6:4-5), the Zadokites of the Dead Sea scrolls also celebrated the "sacred meal," apparently at least 100 years before the common era:

And when the table has been prepared for eating, and the new wine for drinking, the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine.

The Zadokites were in part Melchizedekians and had likely practiced this rite for centuries. In fact, the bread-and-wine sacrament is also proved to be pre-Christian by its presence in the Bible, in which Melchizedek, the "priest of the Most High God" and "best type of Monotheist of the non-Jewish race," uses the sacrament to initiate Abraham (Gen. 14:18). Harwood argues that the Melchizedek rite was a true communion, with the doctrine of transubstantiation:

It was in the form of bread and wine that the god Ilion (Allah) was eaten by the priest-king Molokhiy-Tsedek [Melchizedek] in c. 1800 BCE (GEN. 14:18). It was in the form of bread and barley wine that the Egyptian Book of the Dead at about the same time instructed worshippers of the resurrected-savior-god Osiris to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Indeed, the sacrament would have little significance if it did not represent God (El); in actuality, much is made of this particular transaction, as it served to establish Abraham as "a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110:4), in essence transferring the power from the Gentile priesthood to the Jewish.

The ritual of theophagy, or the eating of gods/goddesses, Harwood further asserts, has been practiced by humans for some 30,000 years. Obviously, this practice is novel neither to Mithraism nor Christianity, and there was certainly no need for the former to take it from the latter.

As concerns the origins of various "modes of expression and images" found in the New Testament, Drews traces them to "the common treasuryof the secret sects of the Orient," especially in the Mandean religion and Mithraism. Naming "the rock," "the water," "the bread," "the book," "the vine," "the good shepherd" and other concepts, Drews states that these expressions are "in part known" from the Rig Veda, concerning Agni, whom, we have seen, is one of the oldest known prototypes for the Christ character and various of its earlier permutations, such as Buddha and Krishna.

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