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Much of the writing of the church fathers is concerned with the effort to harmonize conflicting beliefs or to avoid the current heresies. To one who reads the fathers it becomes evident to what extent the relation of man to woman figures in these controversies. The Manicheanism which held in essence Persian Mithraism and which had so profound an influence on the writings of St.
So in the Mithraic temples we find seven ladders, the ascent of which by the Initiate typified his passage to the seventh and supreme Heaven. Bousset points out that the original idea was that of three Heavens above which was Paradise; the conception of Seven Heavens, ruled by the seven Planets, which we find in Mithraism, is due to the influence of Babylonian sidereal cults.
The Orphic cults in Greece, the Osiris and Isis cult in Egypt, the worship of Attis and Adonis in Syria, the purification and communion ceremonies of Mithraism, all turned about the idea of a secret means of salvation. A common set of ideas developed in the Mediterranean basin and found expression in liturgies and phrases of a striking similarity.
In a higher sense the term 'redemption' means deliverance from the power of sin and from its punishment, particularly in the world to come. This meaning appears in definite form in Buddhism and Christianity, and somewhat less distinctly in Mithraism and the later Judaism; in the Old Testament religion and Islam it is not clearly stated.
In Mithraism, a religion which almost won against Christianity, the sacrifice of the bull and the consumption of its blood and flesh in a communion feast were prominent features. Again, in the rites of Dionysus Zagreus, a bull was torn to pieces and eaten. From this arose the myth of Dionysus Zagreus as a son of Zeus and Persephone changed into a bull and eaten by the Titans.
Mithraism is a variant religion, which at one time spread over the Roman Empire and came near outclassing Christianity. Yet, Mithra, represented as a young man, and worshiped as a god, is a myth. How, then, did Mithraism arise? Religions, as well as their variations, appear as new branches do upon an old tree. The new branch is quite as much the product of the soil and climate as the parent tree.
All through, the practice of the Eucharist goes on, in varying forms adapting itself to the surrounding conditions; and where in the later societies a religion like Mithraism or Christianity includes people of very various race, the Rite loses quite naturally its tribal significance and becomes a celebration of allegiance to a particular god of unity within a special Church, in fact.
This curious synthetic belief, united as it was with the highly popular cult of Mithra, travelled with the foreign legionaries, adherents of that cult, to the furthest bounds of the Roman Empire, and when the struggle between Mithraism and Christianity ended in the definite triumph of the latter, by virtue of that dual synthetic nature, the higher ritual still survived, and was celebrated in sites removed from the centres of population in caves, and mountain fastnesses; in islands, and on desolate sea-coasts.
The initiates must practice a strict chastity "La resistance a la sensualite etait un des aspects du combat contre le principe du mal le dualisme Mithraique servait de fondement a une morale tres pure et tres efficace." Finally, Mithraism taught the resurrection of the body Mithra will descend upon earth, and will revive all men.
It has been said that he taught Reincarnation, and again denied; this much he taught certainly, that all religions are founded on one body of truth. Manichaeism spread quickly, through the Roman world as well as through Persia; in the former it replaced Mithraism, another Persian growth, that had come to be preeminently the religion of the Roman soldier.
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