S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925)~ p. vii: "These Mysteries covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabiri to the fervours of the Hermetic The first Christian communities resembled the mystery communities in big cities and seaports by providing social security and the feeling of brotherhood. The other gods pleaded with her to relent but she refused to do so until Persephone was restored to her. Mystery Religions and Christianity . Question 10 1 out of 1 points It is likely that Christianity borrowed from the mystery religions, but when Christianity did this was hundreds of years after it began, and thus has nothing to do with the core of Christian proclamation. These are stated with sufficient elaboration in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, According to the story, Persephone, was stolen by Pluto and carried off to the underworld to be his bride. The mother, frenzied with grief, rushed about the earth for nine days., 26. Thus the designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High, the Light, the Sun of Righteousness, and similar expressions, are borrowed from or related to Mithraic phraseology., 35. Still others felt that, after the death of Jesus, the disciples saw in their common meal an opportunity to hold a kind of memorial service for him. Although the mystery religions did move towards advancing a solar god above all the others, this change began after 100 A.D., too late to impact the theology of the New Testament. 222223 in this volume. Now when Christianity triumphed we find that these same paintings and figures became those of the Madonna and child with little or no difference.\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 123\ In fact archaeologists are often left in confusion in attempting to distinguish the one from the other.22, It is also interesting to note that in the second century a story began to spread stating that Mary had been miraculously carried to Heaven by Jesus and His angels.\[Footnote:] The spreading of this story has been attributed to Melito, Bishop of Sardis.\ In the sixth century a festival came to be celebrated around this event known as the festival of Assumption, and it is now one of the greatest feasts of Roman Catholicism. The previous five sentences are similar to a passage in Kings earlier paper, A Study of Mithraism, pp. The parallel development was fostered by the new conditions prevailing in the Roman Empire, in which the old political units were dissolved, and the whole civilized world was ruled by one monarch. Esoteric Christianity (linked with the Hermetic Corpus since the Renaissance) is an ensemble of Christian theology which proposes that some spiritual doctrines of Christianity can only be understood by those who have undergone certain rites (such as baptism) within the religion.In mainstream Christianity, there is a similar idea that faith is the only means by which a . In both cases, national religions of a ritualistic type were transformed, and the transformation followed similar lines: from national to ecumenical religion, from ritualistic ceremonies and taboos to spiritual doctrines set down in books, from the idea of inherited tradition to the idea of revelation. After his death, the pagan opposition to Christianity continued for one more generation. We can understand the Christianity of the fifth century with its greatness and weaknesses, its spiritual exaltation and its puerile superstitions, if we know the moral antecedents of the world in which it developed.. familiar with a type of religion known as Mystery-Religions which changed the religious outlook of the Western world, and which are operative in European civilization and in the Christian Church to this day. The mystery religion was very narrow in scope, only involving select groups of people therefore not gaining support from the masses.Some people believe that Christianity and Judaism have many parallels to the mystery cults in terms of terminology (salvation, resurrection, eternal life) and in the particulars of the performance of initiation and ritual. The Christian theologian Origen wrote in the 3rd century that it was part of the divine plan that Christ was born under the emperor Augustus: the whole Mediterranean world was united by the Romans, and the conditions for missionary work were more favourable than ever before. That is, with this study you have made, we see the philosophy both of Religion and History. 5. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. These fundamental human experiences and the life of nature are the main substances of the Eleusinian Mysteries.28 To the searchers of salvation, the Eleusinian cult offered not only the promise of a happy future, but also a definite assurance of it.\[Footnote:] Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, p. 54.\, Now when we observe the modern Greek Easter festival it seems certain that it preserves the spirit if not the form of the old Eleusinian worship. "Concerning the relationship between the mystery cults and Christianity, scholarly opinion has varied. xixii: Christianity triumphed after long conflict It took from its opponents their own weapons, and used them; the better elements of paganism were transferred to the new religion. Hardcover, 335 pages. ISBN-13 : 978-0486231242. The mystery religions were syncretistic, which means followers could incorporate beliefs from other religions into their own set of views. It is not so much that Christianity was influenced by the Mystery Cults, or borrowed from them, but that in the long process of history this religion developed. The theology of the mysteries was developed to a far lesser degree than the Christian theology. (Pagan Regeneration, p. 115). They originated in tribal ceremonies that were performed by primitive peoples in many parts of the world. In the first century of the Christian era the Eleusinian mystery cult was more favorable known than any of the cults of Greece.24 Its fame and popularity was largely due to the connexion of Eleusis with Athens. Mystery religions, mystery cults, sacred mysteries or simply mysteries, were religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates (mystai). cit., p. 110\15. Beliefs of the religion which are public knowledge but cannot be easily explained by normal rational or scientific means. Osiris and Isis, so the legend runs, were at one and the same time, brother and sister, husband and wife; but Osiris was murdered, his coffined body being thrown into the Nile, and shortly afterwards the widowed and exiled Isis gave birth to a son, Horus. This still stands as a festival in the ecclesiastical calendar; and thus Christians unconsciously perpetuate the worship of Osiris and the commemoration of all his subjects in the Kingdom of the Dead., 22. 2. During the rise of Christianity in the first century A.D. also were the widespread cults throughout each Mediterranean region known as the mystery religions. Interpretation in Platonic concepts was also the means by which the Judeo-Christian set of creeds was thoroughly assimilated to Greek ideas by the early Christian thinkers Clement of Alexandria and Origen. CHRISTIANITY AND THE MYSTERY RELIGIONS SHIRLEY JACKSON CASE, PH.D. . Various writers gave different Versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Crozer Theological Seminary). Every year nature passes through a cycle of apparent death and resurrection. Selected Answer : True (4) All promised a happy future life for the faithful.\[Footnote:] Enslin, Christian Beginnings, pp. In the Avesta,\[Footnote:] This is the sacred book of the religion of Iran.\ Mithra is represented as the genius of celestial light. The mystery religion of Ancient Babylon is the beginning of the occult, after the great flood that destroyed man . Here was human experience made heroic and divine; for man has ever loved and lost, but rarely has he ceased to hope for reunion with the loved one. Christianity acknowledges only one way to God (John 14:6) and places utmost importance on right doctrine (1 . For an instance, the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist have been mentioned as rites, which were preactice {practiced} by both Christians and pagans. During the centuries leading up to the birth of Christianity, the Pagan Mystery religion, often known simply as the 'Mysteries', had spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean.Many of the greatest figures of the Pagan world were initiated into these Mysteries, and regarded them as the very source of civilisation. or 404 526-8968. Although the mystery religions did move towards advancing a solar god above all the others, this change began after 100 A.D., too late to impact the theology of the New Testament. Now it seems that the general belief of the early church that Jesus was born in a cave grows directly out of Mithraic ideas. As the religious history of the empire is studied more closely, writes Cumont, the triumph of the church will, in our opinion, appear more and more as the culmination of a long evolution of beliefs. Never stop with the external, which may seem like borrowing, but recognize there is the perennial struggle for truth, fuller life itself. 136137: Tarsus, the home of St. Paul, was one of the great centres of his worship, being the chief city of the Cilicians; and, as will presently appear, there is a decided tinge of Mithraism in the Epistles and Gospels. These two great Egyptian deities, whose worship passed into Europe, were revered not only in Rome but in many other centers where Christian communities were growing up. This was accomplished, not by any slavish process of imitation, but by {a} serious attempt to meet better the specific religious needs that the mysteries had awakened and nourished, and by phrasing religious assurances more convincingly in similar terminology.\[Footnote:] Case, The Mystery Religions, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Edited by Vergilius Ferm, pp. Extremely popular among Roman soldiers, it became one of the ancient Roman mystery cults, religious sects which were restricted to initiates and were generally quite secretive.Mithras, as he was known to the Romans, was the Persian god of the sun, or at least the airy light between . Both the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian {Creed} say that between the Friday night and Sunday morning Jesus was in Hades. The mother, frenzied with grief, rushed about the earth for nine days in search for her lost daughter,25 As a result of her wandering, she came to Eleusis where she was seen, although not recognized, by the four daughters of Kekeas sitting near a public well called the Fountain of Maidenhood. The mysteries of human life and death are vividly enacted by Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. He emerges from the rocky summits of eastern mountains at dawn, and goes through heaven with a team of four white horses; when the night falls he still illumines the surface of the earth, ever walking, ever watchful. He is not sun or moon or any star, but a spirit of light, ever wakeful, watching with a hundred eyes. The baptismal ceremony in both cases (Christian and Pagan) was supposed to have the effect of identifying the initiate with his savior. In 391, however, the Serapeum at Alexandria was demolished, and in 394 the opposition of the Roman aristocracy was crushed in battle at the Frigidus River (now called the Vipacco River in Italy and the Vipava in Slovenia). Men began to die for the lack of food while the sacrifices to the gods decreased in number because the animals were dying out. 10. 6 Mithraism. Esoteric Christianity. I learned that as an artistic writer who did a doctorate in philosophy. Attis was the Good Shepard, the son of Cybele, the Great Mother, who gave birth to him without union with mortal man, as in the story of the virgin Mary.11 According to the myth, Attis died, either slain by another or by his own hand. Hades, the god of death, stole the beloved daughter, Persephone, from Demeter, the life giver, who refused to admit defeat until she secured her daughters resurrection. This disregard for correct doctrine is a key difference between mystery religions and Christianity. 131132: At about this time a story, attributed to Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the Second Century, but probably of much later origin, began to spread that Mary had been miraculously carried to Heaven by Jesus and His angels; and in the Sixth Century the festival of the Assumption, which celebrates this event, was acknowledged by the Church, and is now one of the great feasts of Roman Catholicism, It is celebrated on August 13th; but that was the date of the great festival of Diana or Artemis, with whom Isis was identified, and one can see, thus, how Mary had gradually taken the place of the goddess., 24. There is no archaeological evidence that mystery religions were in Palestine in the first century A.D. Jews and early Christians loathed syncretism with other religions. Initiation into a mystery religion. It is because of this crusading spirit and its superb power of adaptability that Christianityahs {has} been able to survive. 118119: But there is one feature of the Gospel story which seems really to have been borrowed from the Adonis religion, and, in fact, from other pagan religions also, namely, the descent into Hell. Esoteric . 3 Far from being dependent on mystery religions, Christianity can be correctly traced back to the life of a real flesh and bone person named Jesus 4 as well as to Old Testament Judaism. Bottom line: They believe that the early Church borrowed heavily from pagan deities already in existence at the time of Jesus. Cybele, or Magna Mater, came to Greece around the 5th century BCE from . Christianity was truly indebted to the mystery religions for this contribution, for they had done this part of the groundwork and thus opened the way for Christian missionary work. Is Christianity the crowning achievement in the development of religious thought or will there be another religion more advanced? In the Christian congregations of the first two centuries, the variety of rites and creeds was almost as great as in the mystery communities; few of the early Christian congregations could have been called orthodox according to later standards. The ideas of Greek philosophy penetrated everywhere in this society. the hellenistic mystery religion decisively in Alexandria and contributed to its development. He too had God for his father. On the contrary, whatever real life it had was perpetuated in Christianity, since the conquering religion had adopted many of its forms and some of the old content in these forms., 31. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. In the former capacity she was identified with the great mother-goddess, Demeter, whose mourning for Persephone was the main feature in the Eleusinian mysteries. 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