From: (Anonymous)	Date: April 30th, 2004 03:48 am (UTC)		(Link)
Mithraism and Constantine

Where do you get your proof that Constantine was a follower of Mithraism? I have always thought that this was highly possible but couldn't find anything to support this belief.
The Catholic church is full of Mithraic sacraments and many other traditions such as the belief in life after death which is not biblical (pagan belief commonly held by all churches who have stemmed from the Catholic religion), the reverence of Sunday instead of the Jewish sabbath which Christ observed. The Catholic church itself admits to having changed the day in the Catechism. I would be very interested to hear where you found the information to support your statements. My email address is lefanue@optusnet.com.au

From: (Anonymous)	Date: July 17th, 2005 10:58 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Re: Mithraism and Constantine

Well I disagree Paul did not teach the doctrines which the modern day Christian Churches practice for example the title Rev and priest no where do we find Paul or any of the Apostles useing or taking these title to themselves. Paul predicted that after his departure (Death)there would be a falling away or turning away from the truth.
As for free will all that I can say for now who really has free will in all things well we mortals certainly do not, there is a lot of horrible things happening in the world that I would like to stop but I am powerless so my will is very limited, and Paul did not preach pagan Gods but spoke the word that he was given and if he were here today there is quite a few Churches he would shake up and pull into line for their failure to preserve the truth. From Paul

From: (Anonymous)	Date: March 10th, 2005 09:13 am (UTC)		(Link)
Armenians

Armenians were the first race to accept christianity, Gregory the illuminator spread christianity to the west. Persians were nothing more than slaves to the Armenians at the time. Armenia was a big empire dating back thousands of years ago. But before Armenians accepted Christianity as a national religion, they worshipped fire. Grigorian chants? (Gregory the Illuminator) Armenians. Arians? Armenians.

	From: emblata	Date: July 15th, 2006 04:43 am (UTC)		(Link)

you are pathetic. You deserve a Z for your knowledge of History. I have never witnessed such blatant rubbish

From: (Anonymous)	Date: July 24th, 2006 01:21 am (UTC)		(Link)
Mithraism and Christianity

Vexen,

Great article. However, you are wrong about the similiarities between Mithraism and Christianity. The similarities are between Mithraism and Catholicism. A huge difference. Followers of Jesus were first called Christians at Antioch. Now you need to find out what was happening at Antioch. One important fact about Jesus - he NEVER claimed to be "a god" or "the god". He stated emphatically and unequivically that he "is God". That's why the Jews wanted to kill him.

Religion is a man made term used by men who are trying to have a relationship with God on their terms and not those of God.

Take care,

wildman57

	From: vexen	Date: August 3rd, 2006 02:28 pm (UTC)		(Link)
	Re: Mithraism and Christianity

Yes, that's a good distinction to make, thanks.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: August 21st, 2006 03:26 am (UTC)		(Link)

Hello Vexen,

I admire you interest in religious history and your journal. My only suggestion would be to use information from actual current Mithraic scholarship instead of the few sources you used. If you were to enter a debate with someone knowledgable about current Mithraism, you would be soundly defeated. Almost all current Mithraic scholarship rejects the idea that early Christianity was influenced by Mithraism. This is because there is absolutely no link between Iranian and Roman Mithraism. The only similarity is the name of the deity. While there was some ceremonial influence on the 4th century Church, it is far more likely that Roman Mithraism was influenced by Christianiy. This is because the earliest evidence we have of Mithraism in Rome is late first century, with most of the evidence from the second, third and fourth centuries. Paul's epistles had been in existence long before Mithraism was even in Rome. I'm not a right winged Christian or something like that, I'm just a guy who's interested in religious history like you. I have posted some links links that outline the current beliefs in Mithraic scholarship. One of the links is a rebuttal to some of the current misunderstandings of Mithraism and Christianity. Even though it was put together by a Christian, it is based on sound facts. Thanks for the great site!

http://www.well.com/~davidu/mithras.html
http://tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html
Gordon, Richard. Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World. Aldershot: Variorum, 1996

From: (Anonymous)	Date: January 1st, 2007 11:48 pm (UTC)		(Link)

I find it hard to believe that Mithraism pre-dated Christianity by coincidence, and had nothing to do with its creation, just b/c it was Persian. I can’t imagine a real historian ignoring all the parallels between them (and the cult of Osiris) without first being infected by Christian partiality. Mithraism became the dominating religion of Tarsus, where Paul was from, in 66BCE. Tarsus WAS a part of Rome. Are we to forget that Paul was in fact working as a henchman for a High Priest of Mithras, as well? And the influence of the Persian Empire on the Greeks cannot be ignored either. One myth breeds another. It's the way it has always been.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: January 20th, 2007 04:56 am (UTC)		(Link)
Two Relevant, Historical Points

In 2005, Darrell W. Conder put out a new edition of "Might is Right or Survival of the Fittest" with a whole lot of great footnotes generously peppered throughout it regarding historical events, pagan religions, mythology, wars, famous/important men, etc.

Footnote number 50 says that "Hasidic Judaism teaches that 'Satan is but the extension of the left side of GGod Himself,' And that Zoroasterism and Gnosticism "taught that God and Satan were brothers, which is revealing since modern scholarship recognize that ancient Judaism borrowed much of its religious tradition when Jews were captives of the Babylonians and Persians."

It's funny to me that it took humans 1 million years on this earth, going from first believing the Sun was God to making up thousands of gods, until one day Zarathustra (1500-1700BCE) came along and declared there is only ONE God and POOF: monotheism was born and all hell broke loose.

Anyway, here's footnote #148 which has much more to do with this page:

"The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Communion wafer and wine, when consecrated, become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. The church adopted this doctrine from the pre-Christian worship of the Persian god Mithra, whose rituals (including a "holy communion") are virtually identical to those found in primitive Christianity."

From: (Anonymous)	Date: May 20th, 2007 07:36 pm (UTC)		(Link)
THANKS FOR CORRECTING THE PREVIOUS DOOFUS

The sheer desire to MAKE facts work to one's point of view repeats itself again and again...

Mithraist culture was THE DOMINANT one in Tarsus where SAUL came from....his writing far too easily subscribes to Mithraist thinking to be sheer coincidence...also as you mention PERSIAN CULTURE had a major impact on Greek culture....thanks for pointing this out

From: (Anonymous)	Date: June 27th, 2008 01:21 pm (UTC)		(Link)

This is only partially correct. There are two kinds of Mithraism, but the Roman one arose at the same time as Christianity. Which influenced which is a matter for debae, so when the poster writes, "it is far more likely that Roman Mithraism was influenced by Christianity," he's not giving any evidence for the "far more likely." It seems to me "far more likely" that they influenced each other or shared common origins. At any rate, the similarities between the two should unsettle anyone who thinks that Christianity is original and unique. Also, it was Mithras who had his birthday celebrated on December 25th. Christians are known to accomodate existing religions in order to prempt them--consider the Christmas tree and the fertility festival of Easter, both more ancient than Christianity itself, and both pagan.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: March 4th, 2007 05:25 pm (UTC)		(Link)
What about the Virgin?

I noticed you mentioned in your Paul of Tarsus page that, in this Persian myth, Mithras was born of a virgin. Yet this page, which revolves entirely around Mithraism's parallels with Christianity, you left that crucial point out completely. That's surprising to me since the virgin birth is such an important part of Christian theology/mythology.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: March 22nd, 2007 04:10 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Re: What about the Virgin?

http://www.ceisiwrserith.com/mith/whatmithisnt.htm
Dr. Ceisiwr Serith is a Indo-European Reconstructionist...he knows well about this god, because he worship pagan gods...go and see what he says about this Christ-Mithras stuff...
have good time reading...
and then close up this page.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 2nd, 2008 06:00 pm (UTC)		(Link)
Christianity vs Catholicism

From reading the site here it seems that there is major confusion. Catholicism is the bastard child of Mithraism and Christianity. Not Christianity. Many people believing Catholicism is a denomination of, or the first Christin belief system, make this error. Catholicism corrupted The Way, which was the first Christian "church"...and much of modern Christiandom is still effected.
Those there are still those who follow The Way most have absorbed some if not most of the Catholic/Mithradic beliefs, ie: SunDay worship and transubstantiation.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: April 7th, 2009 03:26 am (UTC)		(Link)
Mithraism

There is still no proof that either Jesus or Mithra were real people. Seems more likely that the catholics stole a story form an earlier story about a person who was not real.

I was just on a catholic site that did not believe in Mithra, but thinks Jesus was real. Without these silly stone age stories the human race could move forward.