From the same article, note more similarities to the last supper:
The Cult and the Doctrine
From the extant remains, literary and archaeological, of the religion of Mithra, we gather that the salvation of man, after the slaying of the Bull, is symbolized in the obtaining of blessed eternal life by partaking the holy meal in the community of the brethren.
The Iranian origin of this divine supper is proved by the terminology. In the Armenian rites the meat is nishkhark, Persian Nushkhare, the edible thing of immortality, the corresponding liquid element nushabe, the water of immortality. The whole meal is the eucharistia, the Greek form of Iranian hu-khoresht, the good meal, the divine meal.
The two ancient Iranian words for the holy repast in the Gathas are myazda and myastra; one gives the Persian miz and Latin mass, and the other gives Greek musterion, mystery. That is why Mithraism as well as Christianity are mystery religions. Secrecy is not essential to the myastra.
As regards the word Messiah itself, it might be interesting to point out that the western Iranian form is Missa, and the eastern misi, possible originals of the Arabic and Hebrew forms of the word which were popular etymology related to the root for rubbing and anointing, and incidentally for the first time used in the Bible for an Iranian, Cyrus. The word would then mean mediator, supported by Plutarch's mesites and confirmed in the Sorkh Kotal inscription.
In the divine meal, the Lord's Supper, apparently the Cup used for the nushabe became the holiest object in the service. That cup figures very prominently in Persian literature and especially in the mystical poems. The cup has seven lines or measures corresponding to the seven degrees in Mithraism. The full cup is for the Pir or the Father, who is know as the Pir of the seven lines. In the West it gave rise to the "Graded cup", Latin gradalis> grail. The story of the Holy Grail as well as the Arthurian legends will occupy our attention at another meeting.
Remnants of Mithraism
As to remnants of Mithraism in Iran, at its best it survives in Iranian mysticism represented by the Divan-e Shams, the Golshan-e Raz, and above all, in the poems of Hafez, and of course in the string influence it exerted on Islamic Sufism, which is quite distinct from Iranian mysticism.
In sects, there is a survival of Mithraism in the Ahl-e Haq and the Yazidis, and other small sects scattered in closed communities.
In Europe the remnants such as the medieval Albigensis and Bogomils are considered to be Manicheans. No doubt that they were influenced by Manichean doctrines just as the Christian Church was, but they are more likely to be remnants of the followers of Mithra, and the case of the Bogomils is more clear in as much as the name composed of Bog, bagh, special title of Mithra, and mil, the same word as Mihr, which in the Slavic languages even carries the meaning of live as in Persian mehr. Bogomil is then the etymological and semantic equivalent of the Soghdian Bagh Misi.
It is written in the Bayan al- Adyan, that "the Manicheans say that Jesus called men to Zoroaster." |
