Re-membering IV: Unveiling Christianity's Pagan Roots

The New Mithra

After originally having struggled with Christianity as I began revering my ancestors, I felt like they kept leading me to Catholic imagery which I resisted. I saw the Catholic hierarchy as my aggressors who organized people in activism to destroy the dreams and hopes of gay people. I still prefer to keep the Catholic imagery as a 'secondary' element in my spirituality, in part as a courtesy to my ancestors. But in learning about the origins of Christianity I've come to see Catholicism as a mystery religion.

The image that my ancestors gave me, which has been presented to me as a sort of family totem, was the Magi, three Kings who were said in our folklore to represent the three ancestral roots of my people: the Aboriginal, African, and European. The three roots of my family tree. Because of the colors red, black, and white, and in an effort at trying to own their myth, I originally tried to read Eshu into them, or the three gunas or qualities that Lord Krishna describes in the Gita which are identified with these three colors.

But now, in studying Mithra, I see a mystery that I was unable to perceive before. The legend of the Magi was produced by primitive evangelists to draw a parallel between Mithra and Jesus. The Magi were Persian priests of Mazda who would have worshiped, in the times of Jesus, Mithra. Originally, Mithra was the Savior, the Mediator between humans and God, and a mystery God who had twelve apostles, performed miracles, and in one of the accounts of his legend was born from Anahita, the 'Immaculate Virgin'. He was revered with 'mysteria' or sacraments. Sound familiar?

The audience that evangelists had in mind was mostly Greek and Roman (or heavily Greek and Roman - influenced), and the cults of dying and resurrecting God-Men had gained enormous popularity among gentiles in the Roman Empire. Mithra was one of the most popular, along with Osiris, and Hercules, Dionysus, and others.

Did not Jesus say "I am the Vine"? To ancient Greeks, this was obviously a statement of identity with Dionysus, the Wine God who was also born from a mortal (Semele) who was impregnated by a God. To ancient Egyptians, this may have been a statement of identity with Osiris, the cultural dying and resurrecting hero who taught them how to cultivate the vine. The mythical parallels between Jesus and the other mystery Gods are far too many to count. Jesus apparently wanted to be remembered with sacramental wine rituals, just like the orgia that were celebrated in honor of Dionysus.

"Do this in memory of me"
Rabbi Yeshua, in the Gospels.

The Christian mass is also modeled after the Mithraic 'mized', where sacramental bread was shared in memory of Mithra, and in fact the Epiphany, which celebrated the visit of the Magi to the child Mithra in the cave where he was born, was incorporated into Christianity as late as the ninth century.

The Epiphany is, now more than ever, a revelation. If Jesus was the Man-God that Mazdeans were waiting for, then the account of the Epiphany is a not-so-subtle identification of Jesus with Mithra in the same way that his saying 'I am the Vine' identifies him with Dionysus and the wine mysteries. Whether or not the historical Jesus said he was the Vine or was visited by Magi as a child is of no importance, as this is the myth we inherited. In traditional cultures, when a child is born, he is presented to the elders and he is given his destiny and inheritance from his ancestors: Jesus inherited Mithra's role.

The evangelists who wrote the Gospels knew that the audience that they were writing for were mostly believers in Mithra and Dionysus, and that these were the ones who were most likely to be curious to learn more about their new dying and resurrecting Man-God. By writing the account of the Epiphany, they articulated an entire body of mythology without having to even mention the word 'Mithra'. The use of the term 'Logos' to refer to Jesus was another reference to Mithra, who was also worshipped as 'Logos'.

Mazdeans (and their Magi) did not believe in the Biblical myth or prophecies of the Jews, they had their own, so that if Jesus was fulfilling their Zoroastrian prophecies (as the story of the Epiphany claims) then he was an entirely different Man-God, not (just) the Messiah of the Jews. What this means is that the Christian tradition is the continuation, not (only) of Judaism, but of Zoroastrianism and - judging from the references to the wine mysteries - with ancient mystery religions. The intention of whoever wrote the account of the Epiphany was clearly to syncretize Judaism and the Mithraic and wine mysteries, and to draw the roots and the legitimacy of the new religion not only from Judaism but also from pagan traditions. In fact, in the New Testament there are references to Christian 'mysteries'. This is Greek verbiage. Nowhere in the Old Testament is there mention of Greek 'mysteria'. Christian mysteries, or sacraments modeled after Greek 'mysteria' were a pagan innovation.

The fact that the Magi came to worship Yeshua is another not-too-subtle identification with Mithra. In Judaism, under no circumstance may a human worship another mortal. That is considered a grave sin. The Jews that are still waiting for their Messiah will not worship him, but acknowledge him as their spiritual and political leader, perhaps even military leader. But certainly NOT a God, there is only ONE Adonai, and worshiping their Messiah would break the two first and most important commandments of Judaism. The Magi were clearly behaving in an un-Jewish manner by worshiping the divine child, which is only normal because they were pagans from Persia and they (like the Christians of today) were not tied to the covenant of Abraham.

What the Magi (and my ancestors) are telling me is that Christianity derives its legitimacy, not from the Old Testament or Judaism but from mystery religions and Zoroastrianism, which is related to Vedic and Hindu spirituality - an in fact Mithra is mentioned in the Vedas, and that Christianity really continued the momentum of these religions within the culture. Jesus is the Avatar of the West, the owner of the wine mysteries, the new Mithra.

Whenever and wherever there is a decline in righteousness, O son of Bharata, and a rise of irreligion, at that time I make myself incarnate.
Bhagavad Gita, 4:7

There are several parallels between Christ and Krishna which also deserve mention. Both are considered avatars, or incarnations of (the second person of) Divinity, and both were persecuted from childhood by powerful, demonic rulers, and their people had been praying for generations for a Savior, a Man God, to destroy the evil order and the evil rulers that oppressed them.

When Krishna was born, King Kamsa, who was a demonic King, had slain all seven of his older brothers at birth due to a prophecy according to which a son of his sister would kill him. Krishna was miraculously saved from this fate, and lived to slay the demon King. There was a genocide of newborn male children at the time of his birth, as in the case of Jesus, but the divine child was spared. Kamsa's name is not too different from that other demonic King who had charged a tax at one point of 90 % of crops in Judaea, the Caesar (which is pronouned 'kaiser' in Latin). Kamsa-Kaiser. Krishna-Christ.

Like Bacchus in the Bacchae (a play by Euripides), Krishna was surrounded by loving, ecstatic devotees (the gopis and gopas) and was the God of the underdog who protected the oppressed from the oppressor of his generation. Jesus' ministry was also a source of solace to the poor and oppressed in Judaea, and he was also persecuted and executed by the Romans for sedition. Like Bacchus, after his passion, he resurrected as an immortal and took his place in the heavens.

Who is She that looketh forth as the morning,
fair as the moon, clear as the sun,
and terrible as an army with banners?
Song of Salomon 6:10

I have already mentioned that Mithra was worshipped along with Anahita, either as his mother or counterpart, who was known as the 'Immaculate Virgin'. The insistence on Mary's virginity by the Catholic Church, which is extrabiblical and directly contradicts several scriptural passages, perhaps indicates not only (as the feminists rightly assess) repression of the sexual feminine, but also a deeper mythical layer, as this is a story that repeats itself in many mythologies. The subject of Mary is too complex to deal with in detail here. There are numerous layers of mythology that became sublimated into her fragile, obedient image, which became so dense and larger than life that She is probably either the most or one of the most widely worshipped Goddesses on Earth, the Magna Mater who incorporates all the other Goddesses into her form and myth.

The Catholic dogma of the 'Assumption of Mary' - to which mythographer Joseph Campbell attached great significance and I'd have to agree with him - is also in line with Dionysian mythology in that after his mother's death, Dionysus saved her from death and made her an immortal.

When Eve was still with Adam, death did not exist. When she was separated from him, death came into being. If he enters again and attains his former self, death will be no more. - Gospel of Philip

The importance of this should not be underestimated. In the Bacchae, Euripides refers to Bacchus as an effeminate youth, and we know that other mystery God Antinous was also an effeminate youth. It seems as though Christ was also a model of androgynous spirituality, one who embraced his feminine side and taught others to do the same. Similar Tantric traditions exist in Hinduism, where the purpose is to attain the whole, perfect, androgynous Self. Blessings.

Saadaya

Gospel of Phillip, from the Gnosis.org website
Gospel of Thomas, from the Gnosis.org website
The Bacchae, online version of the tragedy by Euripides.
Mithra, from Wikipedia