Some Borrowed Myths of Christianity

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

All too often throughout the history of religion, people start out by believing in a gentle and loving person or in a beautiful concept. But in time, they stop believing in these things. Instead they begin to believe in structure only. They forget the gentleness and kindness, erecting instead an edifice of rules and those who enforce the rules. Then in the name of this structure of rules, march out in legions to convert others, killing, maiming, and torturing in the name of their righteous structure. The original beauty is forgotten, replaced by darkness in a mask of light.

I am in agreement with Diarmaid MacCulloch at Oxford that Christianity is above all a cult of personality. Yet Dr. MacCulloch takes it for granted that a person named Jesus existed, despite the complete lack of non-apocryphal evidence. I am less convinced. In Roman records from that time, there is no mention of the governor Pontius Pilate ordering crucifixion for Jehu, Jesus, or any one of similar such name. The historian Philo Judaeus (20 BCE - 50 CE) who lived near Jerusalem assiduously reported on many events in the area during his life, but nothing whatsoever about a Jesus, gatherings drawing crowds to see a new messiah, etc. In fact not a single contemporary mention of Jesus exists in the historical record.

Consider Alexander the Great. No contemporary works about him have been passed down through the centuries. What little is known comes from one or two archaeological sites and from Greek and Macedonian commentators writing several hundred years after his birth. What is known is that contrary to popular opinion, far from being ’great’ or a star pupil of Aristotle, Alexander was a loutish tyrant whose brutalities astounded even people of that brutish time. Further, Alexander did not create a great empire. Instead he pursued Darius and in what amounted to a palace coup d’etat, managed to take over running the Persian empire. In this he was aided by some palace insiders who want to get rid of Darius. Not a conquest at all, but an inside job. Nor did he extend the empire (other than a tiny gain in the Baltic). Basil and his son Philip Alexander (Philip’s son) were good at empire building. Alexander was not.

But centuries later when the Romans started to be aggravating, Greek authors looked around for a hero. Using an early Persian work of fiction concerning the attributes of an ideal prince (a work interestingly similar to Machiavelli’s), they reinvented Alexander. In an astonishing revisionism they propagandized this lout as an intelligent, semi-divine hero. They hope that through this act of revisionism the Grecian and Macedonian people would have something to look up to. By idolizing this new myth of Alexander the propagandists hoped to stir the people into supporting their wish to oust the Romans. And so Alexander the loutish, uneducated, boorish thug was turned by an act of historical revisionism centuries after his death, into a great hero.

My point here is a simple one - history is little more than a story. It is a story revised many times to suit various political and cultural purposes. It may contain factual information, but often does not. The study of history is a process of teasing out what little fact remains in a what is often a centuries long fictional story. Sometimes this is easy. But usually it is very difficult. And so Alexander’s brutal reign of terror can be built up into a ludicrous myth over the centuries. Then used to serve the political and cultural purposes of later writers. Writers who appear to have destroyed the original sources in order that their revisionist works could stand, and be used for their rather unsavory purposes.

Historical revisionism of everyone from Julius Caesar, who vilified by history in contradiction to his great works of kindness to help the downtrodden, through to the raising of that sour deceiver Ronald Reagan from alleged mean-spirited bumbling idiopath and tool of corporate power, to a national hero is sadly, very common.

That similar revisionism should apply in the case of religious myths should therefore come as no surprise. There are always those who wish to create mythologies to further their own political purposes - or rather the political purposes of the group which they wish to raise to power. Creating a religion is sadly, merely another tool of the trade.

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool” — Mark Twain

Part I: Mithra

The first ruler to control both northern and southern Mesopotamia was Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE). Whilst we have some few contemporary sources concerning his rule, much of what archeology has unearthed concerning him was as with most person-based religious myths, written several hundred years after his death. One such myth is of particular interest, (possibly originally drawn from an 8th C BCE Neo-Assyrian legend): It states that Sargon was the son of a priestess and an unknown father. Fearing for her son, the priestess placed him in a basket of reeds and set the young Sargon afloat on a river. The child was discovered later drifting upon the current by Aqqi, the "drawer of water" or cup bearer for the king of Kish, Ur-Zababa, and subsequently raised as his son. The child grew to a man, later himself ascending to the throne of Kish. It was a popular story, and one which was widely known. It is found for example, in various of the 40,000 texts from the later Ur III period. As were too, other myths which were later incorporated by other peoples and other religions as a means of giving legitimacy to their particular prophets. Note that the dates here are well before the Moses stories of the so-called ’Old-Testament’ of the Christian Bible.

Let’s look at another legend however, this time one which was incorporated into the so-called ’New-Testament’ of that particular religion:

About three thousand years ago several Indo-Iranian tribes of Hittites migrated throughout Asia Minor. Some of these signed a peace treaty with local tribes in 1350 BCE. In that treaty they referenced several Indian gods such as Indra, Varuna, and in particular the Rig Veda deity - Mitra. Mitra was, like Shamash of Babylon, an all seeing companion who protected social and societal rules of behavior. His symbolic animal was the bull. Mitra was quite popular, and his feast day celebrated in late fall was a time of familial celebration and gift giving.

Many centuries past, and Mitra had become known as ’Mithra’.

According to the Avesta Mihr Yasht, Mithra was originally the creation of (i.e. a child of ), the supreme god Ahura Mazda. In the Mihr Ysht he is the "lord of wide pastures, lord with a thousand ears, lord with ten thousand eyes" who saw everything and was everywhere. Indeed, as a deity of Light, or more specifically, the son of God, Mithra shone into each heart. Hence he knew all that was in that heart. It was impossible to lie to him. And since he saw the inner soul of everyone, he uplifted those who were true, and severely punished those who broke his commandments and who where untrue.

Time continued to pass. The Avesta collection became the bible of not only Zorastrians but of many other religious groups and offshoots. During the writing and rewriting of the Avestas from about 1700 BCE onwards to around 500 BCE, Mithra’s genesis changed. He had become simultaneously the child of Ahura Mazda and of a much lower being, a semi-divine mother whom Ahura Mazda had parthanogenically made with child - that is, he was the child of a virgin. ( As an aside here, "almah" or "עלמה" in Isahiah 7:14 does not mean "virgin". Rather it means "young woman"... but borrowing the idea of holy parthenogenises from the Mithraic legends suited the the early Church much better.)

Time passed... now the Avestas had split into two forms as follows:

1. The outer narrative or mystery form replete with myths, legends and teaching stories. - the main body of the Avestas. This taught that that there was a Heaven where those who did good and were true to Mithraic principles went after death. And that there was a Hell, which was divided into different layers according to the nature of ’sins’ committed by the individual in life. The punishments, as with the rewards, were eternal.

2. The second form was the inner form, known as the Gathas. These composed the central teachings of Mithra and were relatively unknown by the majority, while the Avestas in general received much wider distribution. They included teachings of turning the other cheek, love of one’s fellow man, the nature of (kingdom of) heaven was within, and similar.

The Greeks encorporated a version of Mithraism in their stories of Aesciepius, son of Apollo and Coronis. In fact as Celsus (writing around 70 CE) points out in his True Doctrine , Aesclepius’ resurection after his death was longer-lasting and witnessed by many more people than the two or three purporting to have whitnessed the resurection of Jesus.

But to continue: The distribution of the first form of Mithraic religion was greatly helped when the Roman legions invaded Persia - now Iran and Iraq. The Mithraic mysteries readily appealed to the common, and largely uneducated soldier. For these mysteries taught rejuvenation through sacrifice. Such sacrifice as was exemplified by a young god Mithra who died for the good of all that they and they (and he) might live again. More specifically, the teachings which were most popular taught that on an individual level self-sacrifice for the greater good meant rebirth and eternal reward in Heaven. This was something Roman soldiers could embrace wholeheartedly. And they did, spreading the story of how an all powerful child of the sun, Mithra who was the son of God, could lead to everlasting glory through self sacrifice. Commonly held beliefs, were:

Individual self sacrifice for the greater good would be richly rewarded in another realm
Mithra was the child of the spirit of Azura Mazda and a lesser, almost human, mother - a virgin.
Mithra filled the world with light and as such was a child of the Sun, that is to say, the child or son of God.
He had twelve companions who helped him in his wandering.
Mirthra could raise the souls of the dead and lead them to a better world.
Mithra could heal the sick and perform other miracles.
The mysteries taught that there was a heaven occupied by perfected ones, and a hell with multiple levels for those not worthy.
The young god Mithra rose from the dead after three days of entombment to live again.
The mysteries practiced Baptism with water
The mysteries spoke of the blood of the lamb (another name for Mithra) purifying all sins
Mithra was both a deity and a human who could be killed - and resurrected.
And so on.

These beliefs in Mithra were spread wherever Roman soldiers went - even as far as China, India, England, and of course, Palestine and Jerusalem. The Mithraic religion grew as a result of Roman wars of conquest - it was in effect the unofficial religion of the troops and their families. By 100 BCE it had became popular throughout the Empire. An annual celebration in Mithra’s honour was held during the traditional time of the feast of the all powerful sun ("sol invictus"), in early winter near the solstice. That is to say, around December 25 traditionally celebrated as the birth of the Unconquered Child of the Sun. All of this of course, was the outer show - the religious popularism of the Avestas.

But the inner Gathas - the mystic gnostic inner core - continued to flourish albeit unknown to the majority. Until two men erased them from human history until our own time.

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness,
the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive,
legends which are nevertheless pretty childish." — Albert Einstein

Read on...