> The Dionysian, Orphic, and Attis cults...
Did they eat bread as the flesh of god and drink wine as his blood, believing that these would bring them passage in after life? I once did a paper on Dionysis and do not remember such a thing.
> Maybe I've missed it but where is the documentation that this was a Mithraic practice?
Go back to my posts. I've pointed it out at least twice possibly 3 times. Also, keep in mind that the Messiah concept came from Persians to the Jews they freed in Babylon. So you should not be surprised of the Mithraic connections, even if you take it from Judaism.
The short answer is that they'd sacrifice a bull and drink its blood and eat its flesh...but not always. In the regular mass they used bread and wine as the proxy to these.
> Next: Christ is of Greek origin ...
You are right. The word is Hellenic and not Persian. But I was right about the concept and the roots. Let see... geocities.com
The word "Christ" was originally simply any Priapic god in the Greco-Roman pantheon.
"Mass"
In the first centuries of the current era, one of the most popular cults in Rome (particularly among the soldiers in the Roman army) was Mithraism, followers of the Persian import, Mithras.
In Mithraism, only men could be priests, worship was on Sunday (for Mithras was the sun god), and Mithras was known by the titles "Lord" and "Savior."
Mithras was portrayed as a God who came to earth to redeem humans, who wandered the world with his 12 disciples (the 12 signs of the Zodiac) and who died for the sins of humanity.
Any of this sound familiar?
The primary religious service of the Mithraists was a ceremonial dinner at which a bull was killed. At the dinner, called a mizd (after the Persion word mazda meaning "god), participants drank the blood of the bull and ate the meat -- claiming these had become the actual body and blood of the god.
Later (or whenever slaughtering a bull wasn't possible), the ritual was changed to substitute wine for the blood and bread for the meat.
Also note here positiveatheism.org
The employment of such a picture presupposes that the occurrence depicted was not unknown to the poet and his public, whether it came before their eyes from acquaintance with the religious ideas of their neighbours or because they were accustomed to see it in their own native usages. As a matter of fact in ancient Israel human sacrifices were by no means unusual. This appears from numberless passages of the Old Testament, and has been already exhaustively set forth by Ghillany in his book "Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer" (1842), and by Daumer in his "Der Feuer-und Molochdienst der alten Hebräer." Thus we read in 2 Sam. xxi. 6-9 of the seven sons of the House of Saul, who were delivered over by David to the Gibeonites, who hung them on the mountain before the Lord. Thus was God appeased towards the land. [9] In Numb. xxv. 4 Jahwe bade Moses hang the chiefs of the people "to the Lord before the sun, in order that the bitter wrath of the Lord might be turned from Israel." And according to the Book of Joshua this latter dedicated the inhabitants of the city of Ain to the Lord, and after the capture of the city hung their king upon a tree, [10] while in the tenth chapter (15-26) he even hangs five kings at one time. Indeed, it appears that human sacrifice formed a regular part of the Jewish religion in the period before the Exile; which indeed was but to be expected, considering the relationship between Jahwe and the Phœnician Baal. Jahwe himself was, moreover, originally only another form of the old Semitic Fire-and Sun-God; the God-king (Moloch or Melech), who was honoured under the image of a Bull, was represented at this time as a "smoking furnace" [11] and was gratified and propitiated by human sacrifices. [12] Even during the Babylonian captivity, despite the voices raised against it by some prophets in the last years of the Jewish state, sacrifices of this kind were offered by the Jews; until they were suppressed under the rule of the Persians, and in the new Jewish state were expressly forbidden. But even then they continued in secret and could easily be revived at any time, so soon as the excitement of the popular mind in some time of great need seemed to demand an extraordinary victim. [13]
Now the putting to death of a man in the rôle of a divine ruler was in ancient times very often connected with the celebration of the new year. This is brought to our mind even at the present day by the German and Slav custom of the "bearing out" of death at the beginning of spring, when a man or an image of straw symbolising the old year or winter, is taken round amidst lively jesting and is finally thrown into the water or ceremonially burnt, while the "Lord of May," crowned with flowers, makes his entrance. Again, the Roman Saturnalia, celebrated in December, during which a mock king wielded his sceptre over a world of joy and licence and unbounded folly, and all relationships were topsy-turvy, the masters playing the part of slaves and vice-versâ, in the most ancient times used to be held in March as a festival of spring. And in this case, too, the king of the festival had to pay for his short reign with his life. In fact, the Acts of St. Dasius, published by Cumont, show that the bloody custom was still observed by the Roman soldiers on the frontiers of the Empire in the year 303 A.D. [14]
...
Also note: vexen.co.uk
"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."
> I just see that Mithraism of the Roman era with its emphasis on Mithra, astrological symbolism, and secret cave-centered worship with grades of initiation seems very different from Zoroastrianism with its supreme god, Ahura Mazda and scripture...
Had David Koresh been able to expand his cult and populate some island, in a century or so you would have had a very different religion than RCC. But that would not have meant it was not based on Christianity. |
