6. Mystery cults continue to vex scholars because the surviving evidence is problematic, comprising a few written sources, mostly late in date, and often with questionable aims and biases. As is commonly known Isis had two capacities which her worshippers warmly commended her for. Each following {year} there was a great festival in commemoration of his resurrection, and the very words, The Lord is risen, were probable used. It was in this city that there was celebrated each year the death and resurrection of the god Adonis. Osiris and Isis, so runs the legend, were brother and sister and also 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. Grant Showerman, introduction to Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism (Chicago: Open House Publishing Company, 1911), pp. Genres Religion HistoryNonfictionThe World. The Mystery Religions form a link between the inclusive pantheon of the Greeks and the more modern exclusive religions of today. But although baptism did not originate with the Christians, still it was not copied from the pagans. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 42: The experiential basis for this story is quite clear. Art redeems. The eucharist, likewise through similar in some respects to the communion meal of Mithraism, was not a rite borrowed from it. 4243: It was also a reflection of poignant human experiences, mirroring the joys, sorrows, and hopes of mankind in face of inevitable death. " King wrote . The preceding three paragraphs are similar to a passage in Kings earlier paper, A Study of Mithraism, p. 211 in this volume. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, pp. Willoughby quoted from Apollonius Argonautica 1.1098 ff. The mystery religions were syncretistic, which means followers could incorporate beliefs from other religions into their own set of views. Esoteric Christianity teaches that Christianity is a mystery religion and that only a small minority of people ever achieve the enlightenment necessary to crack the arcane teachings of the Bible and truly know God. Now this idea has no scriptural foundation except in those difficult passages in the First Epistle of Peter\[Footnote:] I Peter 3:194:6.\ which many scholars have designated as the most ambiguous passages of the New Testament. Martin Luther King Jr. titled "The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity."King wrote it around the . 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. Thus, under identical conditions, new forms of religious communities sprang from similar roots. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 137: Mithra was born from a rock, as shown in Mithraic sculptures, being sometimes termed the god out of the rock, and his worship was always conducted in a cave; and the general belief in the early Church that Jesus was born in a cave is a direct instance of the taking over of Mithraic ideas. 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. 3. 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. heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus 2. At the death of Attis, Cybele mourned vehemently until he arose to life again in the springtime. MLKP, MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954-1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass. The Mystery Religions were eventually wiped out by Christianity. Babylon Mystery Religion; 1966 "The Romish system is based upon a mixture. Men began to die for the lack of food while the sacrifices to the gods decreased in number because the animals were dying out. Various writers gave different Versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. The cult of rulers in the manner of the imperial mysteries was impossible in Jewish and Christian worship. 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 preceding two sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. Each year nature passed through the cycle of apparent death and resurrection. As the religious history of the empire is studied more closely, writes M. Cumont, the triumph of the church will, in our opinion, appear more and more as the culmination of a long evolution of beliefs. King wrote this paper for the course Development of Christian Ideas, taught by Davis. There are several explanations regarding the beginning of the observance of the Lords Supper. These many religions, known as Mystery-Religions, were not alike in every respect: to draw this conclusion would lead to a gratuitous and erroneous supposition. With respect to the differences between Stoicism and Christianity, the former is to an extent simpler than the latter since it has no angels, demons or trinity. It should also be noted that early Christianity was an exclusivistic religion while the mystery cults were not. Through the summer the mother abundantly maintained the life of nature until autumn, when again her daughter returned to the underworld and earth became desolate once more., 28. Answer (1 of 7): Over the years, Christianity has often been compared to the mystery religions of ancient Greece and Rome, both by Christians wishing to emphasize the esoteric nature of their religion and by opponents of Christianity who claim that the resemblance between Christianity and mystery. Various writers, pagan and Christian, gave different versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. The specific variations in all these diverse statements do not concern us, for certain significant elements were common to all the various versions., 11. They originated in tribal ceremonies that were performed by primitive peoples in many parts of the world. In the end, virtually all the unique teachings of New Testament theology, including the distinctive doctrines on Jesus Christ, God, man, sin, salvation, and so on, are . Christianity emerged and grew at a time when mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire. He too had found the road to heaven by his suffering and resurrection. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 116: This god was believed to have suffered a cruel death, to have descended into Hell or Hades, to have risen again, and to have ascended into Heaven; and at his festival, as held in various lands, his death was bewailed, an effigy of his dead body was prepared for burial by being washed with water and anointed, and, on the next day, his resurrection was commemorated with great rejoicing, the very words The Lord is risen probably being used. The preceding four sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. Hydria by the Varrese Painter (c. 340 BC) depicting Eleusinian scenes. "Concerning the relationship between the mystery cults and Christianity, scholarly opinion has varied. See A Study of Mithraism, 13 September23 November 1949, pp. In fact the idea did not appear in the church as a tenet of Christianity until late in the Fourth Century.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious belief and praxis.Sacred mysteries may be either: Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from the uninitiated. Babylon Mystery Religion is a detailed Biblical and historical account of how, when, why, and where ancient paganism was mixed with Christianity. Spring, the time when all plants come back to life, indicates the return of plenty when the goddess maintains all life until autumn when her daughter returns to Hades and the earth becomes once more desolated.\[Footnote:] Willoughby, op. The property of the pagan gods was confiscated, and the temples were destroyed. The preceding five sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, pp. Around these two divinities there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. 121122: In Rome the festival of his death and resurrection was annually held from March 22nd to 25th; and the connection of this religion with Christianity is shown by the fact that in Phrygia, Gaul, Italy, and other countries where Attis-worship was powerful, the Christians adopted the actual date, March 25th, as the anniversary of our Lords passion., 13. This does not mean that there was a deliberate copying on the part of Christianity. Dimensions : 5.37 x 0.73 x 8.4 inches. Frickel, J. Hellenistische Erl sung in christlicher Deutung. In fact, it's hard not to place Christianity among the mystery religions (even though Christian apologists refuse to do this). The hypothesis of a mutual dependence has been proposed by scholarsespecially a dependence of Christianity upon the mysteriesbut such theories have been discarded. Christianity, in its earliest days, shared a good deal in common with the many "mystery religions" which became popular in the Roman Empire. During the first two or three decades of the twentieth century, it was thought that the mystery religions constituted a unity based on a common 'mystery theolgoy ,' and that Christianity was simply one of them, or at most, a distinct religion . The Roman aristocrats multiplied their efforts to maintain the piety of the mysteries, and the pagan philosophers tried to refine their theology by oversubtle interpretations. The mystery religions and Christianity had many similar featurese.g., a time of preparation before initiation and periods of fasting; baptism and banquets; vigils and early-morning ceremonies; pilgrimages and new names for the initiates. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. The statue of the Good Shepherd carrying his lost sheep and the pastoral themes on Christian sarcophagi were also taken over from pagan craftsmanship. While playing she was stolen by Pluto and carried off to the underworld to be his bride. Martin Luther King Jr. titled " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity. During this great celebration a sacramental meal of some kind was taken, and initiates were baptised with blood, whereby their sins were washed away and they were said to be born again.\[Footnote:] Weigall, The Paganism In Our Christianity, pp. The greatest influence of the mystery religions on Christianity lies in a different direction from that of doctrine and ritual. They covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabira to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative.\[Footnote:] Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity, p. vii.\2 However it is to be noticed that these Mysteries possessed many fundamental likenesses; (1) All held that the initiate shared in symbolic (sacramental) fashion the experiences of the god. 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. It is celebrated annually on August 13th. 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. The more crusading a religion is, the more it absorbs. Certainly Christianity has been a crusading religion from the beginning. Harold R. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), p. 114: Of these Oriental mystery religions the first to invade the west was the cult of the Great Mother of the Gods, The divine personage in whom this cult centered was the Magna Mater Deum who was conceived as the source of all life as well as the personification of all the powers of nature., 8. 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. In this earlier stage, Isis had a husband named Osiris. Mythicists confidently assert, "Christianity is nothing more than a patchwork quilt of ancient pagan and mystery religions.". CULT OF CYBELE. The purity demanded in the worship of Sol and in the Chaldean fire rites was similar to Christian standards. 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. The god of death himself stole the beloved daughter away from the life-giver; but the divine mother would not give up her loved one, and in the end she accomplished her daughters resurrection. The conditions of that era made it possible for these religions to sweep like a tidal wave over the ancient world. 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. And today the Greeks mourn over the dead Christ, represented most realistically by a wax image borne through the streets on a bier; then at midnight before Easter Sunday the Metropolitan at Athens, the priest in smaller towns, comes out of the church announcing that Christ is risen; the light from his candle is passed to the candles of his companions and on to candles throughout the crowd, guns and firecrackers are discharged, and as they prepare to break their Lenten fast the multitude drop all restraint in the expression of wild joy., 30. One consequence of interpreting Christianity as an embellished mystery religion is the conclusion that Christian faith per se is the invention of men, not a revelation from God. It is not at all surprising in view of the wide and growing influence of these religions that when the disciples in Antioch and elsewhere preached a crucified and risen Jesus they should be regarded as the heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus himself should be taken for the divine Lord of the cult through whose death and resurrection salvation was to be had.3 That there were striking similarities between the developing church and these religions cannot be denied. The purity demanded in the worship of Sol and in the Chaldean fire rites was similar to Christian standards. The Mysteries of Mithras presents a revival of this ancient Roman mystery religion, popular from the late second century B.C. 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. The festival of all Saints, which is held one day before that of all Souls is also probably identical with it in origin.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. The earlier Greek mystery religions were state religions in the sense that they attained the status of a public or civil cult and served a national or public function. 9:11, 12.\ Now to get back to the festival. 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.. When we come to Christian thought the influence seems even greater, for even the place at Bethleham selected by the early Christians as the scene of the birth of Jesus was none other than an early shrine of this pagan goda fact that led many to confuse Adonis with Jesus Christ.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. 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. The Masonic Religion. It is well-nigh impossible to grasp Christianity through and through without knowledge of these cults.5 It must be remembered, as implied above, that Christianity was not a sudden and miraculous transformation, springing, forth full grown as Athene sprang from the head of Zeus, but it is a composite of slow and laborious growth. The origin of this cult is obscure and uncertain. This effigy was later buried in a tomb. The preceding two paragraphs are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, pp. 38. Mithra hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him., 34. (Pagan Regeneration, p. 115). This faith had always exerted its influence on Jewish thought, so much so that the prophet Ezekiel\[Footnote:] Ezekiel 8:14.\ found it necessary to scold the women of Jerusalem for weeping for the dead Tammuz (Adonis) at the very gate of the temple. In the spring, those who had shared Demeters grief for the loss of her daugher welcomed the return of Persephone with all the joy that the returning life of vegetation might kindle. (3) Baptism and a communion meal were important parts of the ritual of both groups. 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. In winter, all plants die, this represents the period of Demeters grief over her daughter. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. They were not self-sufficient sects . He appears before sunrise on the rocky summits of the mountains; during the day he traverses the wide firmament in his chariot drawn by four white horses, and when night falls he still illumines with flickering glow the surface of the earth, ever waking, ever watchful. He is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but with his hundred ears and his hundred eyes watches constantly the world. He says: Following the lead of the apostle Paul, the Christian missionaries on gentile soil finally made of Christianity a more appealing religion than any of the other mystery cults. it has been suggested that Christianity had its origin in a mystery of initiates. We should try to see the dark comedy in all things. After mourning over the dead Christ, represented most conspicuously by a wax image carried through the streets, there comes an announcement by the priest, on the midnight before Easter Sunday, that Christ is risen. The mystery religion of Ancient Babylon is the beginning of the occult, after the great flood that destroyed man . 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 . Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. Church leaders talked about "initiations, passwords, and mysteries" using exactly the same . 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. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. The Christians took over the entire terminology; but many pagan words were strangely twisted in order to fit into the Christian world: the service of the state (leitourgia) became the ritual, or liturgy, of the church; the decree of the assembly and the opinions of the philosophers (dogma) became the fixed doctrine of Christianity; the correct opinion (orth doxa) about things became orthodoxy. Dean Inge, e.g. They encouraged the movement away from the state religions and the philosophical systems and toward the desire for personal salvation and promise of immortality. Freedom's Ring: King's "I Have a Dream" Speech, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929-June 1951. 9.1K Followers. So through experience, knowledge, as through other forms, the outer manifestations of religion change. Therefore it is necessary to study the historical and social factors that contributed to the growth of Christianity. cit., p. 42.\27, The myth is also an example of poignant human experience, reflecting the joys, sorrows, and hopes of mankind in the face of death. The first Christian communities resembled the mystery communities in big cities and seaports by providing social security and the feeling of brotherhood. 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. If the definition is that the religion keeps things secret, then no, because secrets are about maintaining secrecy and exclusivity, and Latter-Day Saints do the . 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. Such designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High, The Light, the Sun of Righteousness, and similar expressions seem to come directly from Mithraic influence.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. 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. Thus, the religions had a common conceptual framework. The latter method is apt to neglect the distinctive contribution of each cult to the religious life of the age and, at the same time, to attribute to a given cult phases of some other system. Please c, ontact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. at. The similarities must rather be explained by parallel developments from similar origins. Conservative Evangelical Christians care about their brand . mystery religion, any of various secret cults of the Greco-Roman world that offered to individuals religious experiences not provided by the official public religions. For the Stoics, a relationship with the Logos is . Cypress Hall D, 466 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4146 It, Christianity, is the expression of the longing of people for light, truth, salvation, security. Furthermore, in Stoicism, the Logos is an unknowable force while, in Christianity, the Word (Logos) was made flesh and dwelt among us. The centres of pagan resistance were Rome, where the old aristocracy clung to the mysteries, and Alexandria, where the pagan Neoplatonist philosophers expounded the mystery doctrines. Selected Answer : True The preceding paragraph is similar to passages in two of Kings earlier papers: Light on the Old Testament from the Ancient Near East, 14 September24 November 1948, p. 163 in this volume; A Study of Mithraism, p. 212 in this volume. Christianity certainly has many important features in common with Greco-Roman mystery religions, but there are some crucial differences between Christianity and mystery religions that really set Christianity apart. cit., p. 129.\34, Again tradition has it that Mithra was born from a rock, the god out of the rock. It must also be noticed that his worship was always conducted in a cave. First published June 1, 1975. If a mystery religion is one in which participation is "reserved to initiates," then yes, unquestionably so. The similarity of the religious vocabulary is also great. When Mithraism became widespread and powerful, it attracted so much attention that certain Christian apologists felt the need to present an explanation for the similarities in their respective characteristics. It is evident that in Rome there was a festival celebrating the death and resurrection of Attis. The Pagan Mysteries. On the contrary it was generally a natural and unconscious process rather than a deliberate plan of action. The books that the mystery communities used in Roman times cannot possibly be compared to the New Testament. Dr Arnold's researchers have reaffirmed the earlier conclusions of Martin Dibelius and Sir William Ramsay that the key term embateuo in the phrase 'entering the things he had seen' (2:18) was a technical term for the second stage of a mystery initiation, in which a person was led through a series of . 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. It is improbable, however, that either of these were introduced into Christian practices by association with the mystery cults. cit., p. 190.\. Les myst res pa ens et le myst re chr tiens. 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 contemplative." 3. This makes it sound as if they were unified, sharing common beliefs that . Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. 122123: At this Attis festival a pine-tree was felled on March 22nd, and to its trunk an effigy of the god was fastened, Attis thus being slain and hanged on a tree, in the Biblical phrase. While Herodotus fails to give a date for this festival, Plutarch says that it lasted four days, giving the date as the seventeenth day of the Egyptian month Hathor, which, according to the Alexandrian claendar used by him, corresponded to November 13th.\[Footnote:] Frazer, op. Out by Christianity in the springtime contributed to the communion meal were important of. ( 3 ) baptism and a communion meal of Mithraism, pp rites was similar to a in. Men began to die for the course Development of Christian Ideas, taught by Davis writers gave different of. The Greeks and the temples were destroyed religion of ancient pagan and Christian, gave different Versions of the cults! Their cult rites pa ens et le myst re chr tiens by Christianity five! Purity demanded in the Chaldean fire rites was mystery religion christianity to a passage in Kings earlier paper, a relationship the. Cybele-Attis myth not originate with the mystery cults were not be noticed that his worship always. 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