To: Sun Tzu who wrote (124 ) 5/13/2003 8:04:13 AM From: Brumar89 Read Replies (1) | Respond to I would argue Paul lived too early to be influenced by Mithraism. His Christian ministry went from about 40-60 something AD. The earliest mention of Mithraism in the Roman Empire is by Plutarch writing about the end of the first century. Furthermore, (see below) there are no archeological evidences of Mithraism in the Roman Empire before the end of the of the first century....it must be borne in mind that the historian wrote his life of Pompey at the end of first century A.D. and it is not until then that we actually find in Rome the characteristic representation of Mithras as bull-slayer. The poet Statius (A.D. 80) describes Mithras as one who 'twists the unruly horns beneath the rocks of a Persian cave'. One other point worthy of note is that no Mithraic monument can be dated earlier than the end of the first century A.D., and even the extensive investigations at Pompey, buried beneath the ashes of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, have not so far produced a single image of the god. There is therefore a complete gap in our knowledge between 67 B.C. and A.D. 79. The earliest datable monument is a statue from Rome, now in the British Museum; the inscription mentions a certain Alcimus, who calls himself the servant of T. Claudius Livianus, and, if the identification of this Livianus with the commander of the Praetorian Guard under the emperor Trajan is correct, then the figure must date from the beginning of the second century A.D. From this period onwards, the trail blazed by Mithras is broad and clear; the god's cult becomes firmly established and traces are found even on the Capitol and the Palatine, the heart of Imperial Rome. farvardyn.com So it seems clear that even the Roman variety of Mithraism had parted ways with Greek doctorines and believed in heaven, hell, resurection, breath of god, wine and bread as the blood and flesh of the god, and so on. These are very drastic departures from the traditional Roman beliefs in which everyone went to hell and there was no resurection. The Qumran Scrolls reveal a variety of scenarios for the end of days, the best known one perhaps, is the Scroll called, the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. And at some point there will be a major battle, a cataclysmic struggle, not just between people, but also between cosmic forces, the cosmic forces of evil and the cosmic forces of good. pbs.org The translation of Mithraism into Christianity is demonstrated in Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, Chapter 9, verses 13 and 14: 13 "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
