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Pastimes : History's effect on Religion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (17)	4/30/2003 11:15:33 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 520

> Is the source for all the similarites listed below the TV documentary or is there another source? They come from various research on the subject on various web sites. It should be easy enough to do a search to find them, but if you want I can try to see if I kept the bookmarks. It will take me some looking to find them again. > And is the comparison to Mithraism or to the Parsees? Or are you saying Parsees come from Mithraism and they are essentially the same thing? The comparison is to Mithraism as modified by Zoroasterians (i.e. Parsees). To clarify, Mithraism started more than a thousand years before Christ or even before Zarathustra. But it makes no sense to try to dicern similarities to its ancient form. Over the centuries, Mithraism was modified and eventually incorporated into Zorasterianism (alternatively, you could say that Zorasterianism is an extension or a modified superset of Mithraism). Either way, that is the greater influence imo because that is how it was in the first 3 centuries AD. Also, keep in mind that the research on this topic is not just the "backlash against Christianity". There were other researchers involved who had nothing to do with Clemens [sp?]. Here is a passage from one of the web sources here, albeit, it is not as clear as concise as I tried to make mine. And finally, from Armenia, the last stronghold of the religion of Mithra, we had the testimony of Elise Vardapet to the effect that the Lord Mihr was born of a human mother and he is King and the Son of God. I believe all students of Iranian religions are familiar with the story of virgins bathing in Lack Hamun where the seed of Zoroaster is preserved for making the chosen virgin pregnant, who is to give birth to the expected Saviour, on the model of which the story of the virgin birth of Jesus from the seed of David was constructed. Although no seed of David is in substance is present at the appearance of the angle in the Annunciation scene on the 25th of March, Koranic commentators repeat the story that the angel blew in the sleeves of Mary's dress when she came out of the water. The story of the virgin birth originates from the materialization of Farr or Xvarenah, which after all, in spite of the scholarly literature that has grown about it, is the light within man, what in modern terminology we name aptitude. Now the capacity of the individual for kingship or prophet hood is of course of a higher order and was therefore specified as the Kingly Farr and the Farr of Zarathushtra. Since in popular belief this Farr had taken a material form it could only be transmitted through materials means. Hence the transmission of the Kingly Farr in the case of Freydun through plant, animal and milk, or the Farr of Zardosht conveyed to the future Saviour by means of his reserved seed. And in the case of Zoroaster himself, the heavenly Farr descended in the form of fire and mingled with the holy fire in the atrium and penetrated into the body of His mother and joined the baby Zarathushtra. In this connection is should be pointed out that due to the supposed preservation of the seed as bearer of the Farr in water, three Mithraic symbols came into use. (1) The pearl and its shell, a "seed" that grows into an organism in water. The pearl is seen in Mithraic monuments, for example in the hands of angels in Taq-e-Bostan, in the beak of birds in eastern Iran and elsewhere, and in literature, such as the Pearl of great price in he gospels and the well-known Syriac Hymn of the Pearl. The shell is represented in some of the scenes of the birth of Mithra that have been erroneously interpreted as an egg, and also appears as the vaulting of niches in Mithraic monuments and in the churches, especially where Mother and Child are depicted. Incidentally the word for niche in Italian means shell (Nicchia, nicchio). (2) The second symbol is the dolphin, obviously as a mammal raising its young in water. This symbol is found on some Mithraic monuments in Europe and appears abundantly in the Khirbahs or Mithraeums in Syria and Arabia. (3) The third symbol is the lotus, a water-flower. Mithra stands n a lotus in Taq-e-Bostan and it seems to me that the stylized object from which Mithra emerges, and which has been interpreted as rock, is nearer to the shape of the lotus, besides the possible confusion in the Greek title of Mithra as Petregenes, from petra, rock, and petri-on, the name of a plant; of petal-on, petal. And now we pass on from the virgin birth to the ascension. Hamza, p. 42, says: "Gudarz son of Ashk, after John was killed by the Children of Israel, fought against them and destroyed Jerusalem for the second time." Tha'alibi, P.216: "Gudarz son of Shabur started his reign with a war of revenge against the Children of Israel for their having killing John of Zacharias, and destroyed Jerusalem." cais-soas.com

To: Brumar89 who wrote (17)	5/1/2003 12:33:16 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 520

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."