Paganism in Europe had no chance when Christianity spread the continent.
You think so? That depends on how you look at it. In many ways Christianity is closer to Mithraism than to what most people believe to be its roots, Judaism. Here is some bits and pieces from previous discussions I've had on the topic. Aside from their possible historical interest, the point is that Christianity was successful in part because it incorporated so much of Mithraism in it. You can almost consider Christianity an off-shoot of it.
here we go...
ST
Early Christianity was considerably more concerned with Mithraism than anything else. Mithraism was wining the hearts and minds of the aristocrats. Being rooted in Persian empire, Mithraism was a great threat to Constantine's domain. The decision to make Christianity the "official" religion was an astute political maneuver. On one hand it put a stop to Persia's influence among the upper class. On the other it made the emperor dear among the lower class. However, as a compromise, so much of Mithraism was incorporated into Christianity that in effect Christianity became an off-shoot of Mithraism. I know that today we think of Christianity as perhaps an off-shoot of Judaism. But at the time the Jews were not important enough to be included in creation of the official state religion. I would wager that Constantine's Sword suffers from survival bias; it looks at the past through what has survived to be important to us today but ignores what was important at the time but is no longer a concern.
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Christianity did not uproot paganism for a very big portion of the remaining time (I think almost till 1300s). ...
Emperor Diocletian also a worshipper of Mithra, the Sun God, burned much of the Christian scriptures in 307 A.D. This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that of Christianity that was developing much.
In other words, a very big part (most?) of Christianity is not from Judaism to begin with. Therefore there was never a need to be divisive between Christianity and Judaism because they were never much alike to begin with. And many actions that could be considered as being done to make Christianity distinct from Judaism (eg. change of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday) are better explained by the influences of Mithraism rather than an effort to be un-Jewish. Quite to the contrary, being pro-Jewish was the better choice as it increased the chances of squashing the many pagan religions.
Now at some point in time the Church did advocate anti-Jewish doctrines. And this would be about the time that they were secure that paganism was no longer an issue. And therefore they would prefer to stop the remaining threats to spread of Christianity, namely Judaism and Islam. But that was at a much later date and cannot be considered "fundamental" to Christianity, even though that by the virtue of its recency effect this view would be more dominant in our psyche.
ST
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There is absolutely no denying that "paganism" was a considerably bigger threat to Christianity than Judaism. So why in the world would Christianity choose to put the bigger differentiation on Judaism than Pagan religions. Consider how much Christianity has in common with Mithraism:
- Belief in being born again. "Spirit of Spirit, if it be your will, give me over to immortal birth so that I may be born again - and the sacred spirit may breathe in me." -- Prayer to Mithraism
- Heaven and Hell (note, Romans did not believe in Heaven; everyone went to Hell) All the wicked, the rejected and unbaptised would be destroyed by Mithra by fire, and those accepted into Paradise would live with Mithra forever with eternal life.
- and later Purgatory
- Belief in the Judgment Day: The faithful to the Mithra believed they would live in bliss after death until the Judgment of mankind. Mithra would then unlock Paradise for the faithful and come to Earth and kill all the unbaptised. All the dead would return from their graves to be judged.
- The persona of Mary is almost identical to that of Anahita
- Baptism
- Virgin Birth
- taking the wine and the bread at mass
- The calendar (before the changes by decree. October means the 8th month and not the 10th)
- Using songs and hymns as a method of prayer
- Sunday as the Sabbath (the day of honoring the Sun god)
- December 25th was declared the birthday of Mithra
I Could go on and on. Please read this passage carefully:
"During the 1st century BC, a cult of Mithra, made much progress in Rome, after enduring persecution, when some Emperors adopted the religion... Mithra became very popular among the Roman legionaries and later even among the Emperors. The worship of Mithra was first recognized by Emperor Aurelian and he instituted the cult of "Sol Invictus" or the Invincible Sun. Emperor Diocletian also a worshipper of Mithra, the Sun God, burned much of the Christian scriptures in 307 A.D.
This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that of Christianity that was developing much. He declared himself a Christian but at the same time maintained his ties to the Mithra cult. He retained the title "Pontifus Maximus" the high priest. On his coins were inscribed: "Sol Invicto comiti" which means, committed to the invincible sun. This new blend of the two faiths, he officially proclaimed as Christianity. Christianity spread all over the Roman empire and Eastern Europe by massive persecution and brought and end to a variety of religions that flourished there.
...In 313 A.D., Emperor Constantine declared December 25th to be the birthday of Jesus (December 25th was prescribed earlier as the birthday of Mithra, by emperor Aurelian). Sabbath day, which is literally Saturday (as the Jews still maintain), became Sunday as it was the day of the Sun, another element from the Mithra worship. Until the fourth century, Mithra and Christianity were distinct but after Constantine, the two cults were blended to form the new faith that was to conquer most of the world."
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"Paul mistook the Jewish "Messiah" to mean the Hellenistic "Christ". This happened before anything was written down; it happened during Paul's conversations with people as he was working through what had happened. A messiah is a person who is a great leader who leads your people to freedom. The title was taken by Jews from Persian culture. A christ is a god-king who dies as an offering to some divine being as a sacrifice in return for prosperity, especially agricultural prosperity. Both are anointed with oil as a mystical, sexual rite."
and also note that:
The archaeological evidence for Mithraism, consisting mostly of monuments, inscribed dedications, and the remains of mithraea, indicates that the cult was most popular among the legions stationed in frontier areas. The Danube and Rhine river frontier has the highest concentration of evidence, but a significant quantity of evidence amply demonstrates that Mithraism was also popular among the troops stationed in the province of Numidia in North Africa and along Hadrian's wall in England. The inscriptions on dedications found in all these areas support Cumont's assertion that Mithraism was most popular among legionaries (of all ranks), and the members of the more marginal social groups who were not Roman citizens: freedmen, slaves, and merchants from various provinces (see above).
The area where the concentration of evidence for Mithraism is the most dense is the capital, Rome, and her port city, Ostia. There are eight extant mithraea in Rome of as many as seven hundred (Coarelli 1979) and eighteen in Ostia. In addition to the actual mithraea, there are approximately three hundred other mithraic monuments from Rome and about one hundred from Ostia. This body of evidence reveals that Mithraism in Rome and Ostia originally appealed to the same social strata as it did in the frontier regions. The evidence also indicates that at least some inhabitants knew about Mithraism as early as the late first century CE, but that the cult did not enjoy a wide membership in either location until the middle of the second century CE.
The bottom line is that Christianity was much more concerned with Mithraism than Judaism. For obvious reasons the Church would prefer to make everyone believe that Christianity is born out of Judaism rather than to admit its extremely close ties to a pagan religion. This means that the official Church politics had 3 distinct phases: (1) incorporation of Mithraism into Christianity thereby increasing the chances of its success. (2) Distancing the Church from paganism and bringing Christianity closer to Judaism which after all would be the lesser threat (and more "respectable") and finally (3) Distancing the Church from Judaism to regain the distinctiveness that they lost in phase 2...now after centuries, you will have researchers that dedicate themselves to either over emphasizing Judaism (and the reaction of Christianity to it) or alternatively trying to diminish the influence of a pagan religion on what they believe to be God's gospel.
Sun Tzu |
