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Updated: June 3, 2025
It may be appropriate here, before leaving the subject of the Second Birth, to inquire how it has come about that this doctrine so remote and metaphysical as it might appear has been taken up and embodied in their creeds and rituals by quite PRIMITIVE people all over the world, to such a degree indeed that it has ultimately been adopted and built into the foundations of the latter and more intellectual religions, like Hinduism, Mithraism, and the Egyptian and Christian cults.
At Rome the vogue of Mithraism became so great that in the third century A. D., it was quite doubtful whether it OR Christianity would triumph; the Emperor Aurelian in 273 founded a cult of the Invincible Sun in connection with Mithraism; and as St. Jerome tells us in his letters, the latter cult had at a later time to be suppressed in Rome and Alexandria by PHYSICAL FORCE, so powerful was it.
Christianity bears alarming resemblances to Mithraism. Mithra, too, was born in a cave. The dates of Christ's birth and death may be astronomical: the winter and vernal equinoxes. But the conflict of the authorities regarding these dates is mortifying. The four gospels are in reality four witnesses warring against each other. They were selected haphazard at a human council.
Second Edition, 1878, F. Windischmann, Zoroastr. Studien, 1863. Geldner, "Zoroaster," in Encyclopædia Britannica; "Zoroastrianism," in Encyclopædia Bibl. Mills, A Study of the Five Zarathustrian Gathas, 1892-94. Lehmann, in De la Saussaye. Dadhabai Naoroji, The Parsee Religion. On Mithraism, Dieterich Eine Mithras-liturgie. Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra, 1903.
It is clear anyhow, that all these elements of the pagan religions pouring down into the vast reservoir, or rather whirlpool, of the Roman Empire, and mixing among all these numerous brotherhoods, societies, collegia, mystery-clubs, and groups which were at that time looking out intently for some new revelation or inspiration did more or less automatically act and react upon each other, and by the general conditions prevailing were modified, till they ultimately combined and took united shape in the movement which we call Christianity, but which only as I have said narrowly escaped being called Mithraism so nearly related and closely allied were these cults with each other.
At the same time Cumont remarks that the actual rite seems to have been practised in Asia from a great antiquity, before Mithraism had attributed to it a spiritual significance. It is thus possible that the rite had earlier formed a part of the Attis initiation, and had been temporarily disused. But now what do we know of the actual details of the Attis mysteries?
But these more primitive rites were being displaced by a more developed and ethical form called Mithraism. I well remember my surprise when, visiting one of the older churches at Rome, I was shown the earlier church beneath and told that, beneath that again, a church dedicated to Mithra had been discovered.
Cumont believes that Mithraism did not imitate the organization of the Greek secret societies. The New Testament use of the term 'mystery' in the sense of 'esoteric doctrine' may have come from the Asian cult; the Mithraic worship was practiced in Tarsus, the native city of the Apostle Paul, in the first century of our era.
It took place at the Vernal Equinox and the blood of the Bull acquired in men's minds a magic virtue. Mithraism was a greatly older religion than Christianity; but its genesis was similar. The bull therefore became the symbol of the triumphant God, and the sacrifice of the bull a holy mystery. Mr. Maunder calculates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of the Sign of the Bull 5,000 years ago.
Now Tarsus was one of the chief seats of Mithraism, and it is practically certain that Paul was acquainted with its main rituals and beliefs. Let us try to realize the importance of this fact. Mithraism had an initiatory service in which the proselytes were admitted into the faith.
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