MITRA&MITRAISM

From "Mithras: Mysteries and initiation rediscovered" by D. Jason Cooper (1996, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, Maine. $12.95). Pages 1-8:

When the Aryan tribes swept down from the Russian steppes they brought their gods with them. Some time between 2000 and 1500 B.C.E., these tribes entered India and Iran, bringing with them one particular deity. These people, the Mitanni, gave us the first written reference to Mitra in a treaty between themselves and the Hittites. Signed about 1375 B.C.E., the treaty calls on divine witnesses to pledge its terms. The Hittites called on the sun go. The Mitanni called on Mitra.

Mitra had been worshipped by the Iranians for centuries when Zarathustra (we call him Zoroaster, the Greek version of his name) founded the first revealed religion. Zarathustra announced the primacy of Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who was served by the Amentas Spenta, or bounteous immortals. Among these was Mithra, whom Ahura Mazda declared to be "as worthy of worship as myself." Thus Zarathustrian reform did not replace Mithra in the Iranian Pantheon. It merely changed his role.

Mithra may also have been worshipped by the Mani. Some branches of Manicheism identified Mithra as the ruler of the second or third emanation (an occultist would say "ray," "aeon," or "sepheroth"). But whether there were actual rites of worship dedicated to him or whether he simply functioned as an anthropomorphic principle is impossible to say.

In the Roman Empire, this same deity was called Mithras, and was the central figure of a mystery religion that for almost five hundred years vied with Christianity for dominance. Roman Mithrasism differed so markedly, however, from other traditions that some scholars have claimed Mithras to be a unique deity, distinct from Mitra or Mithra. Although this book deals primarily with Mithrasism in its Roman form, it will demonstrate that there is good reason to connect the Roman Mithras with his other forms in other traditions.

In the beginning was a word

The names Mitra, Mithra and Mithras all derive from the Indo-European root "Mihr," which translates both as "friend" and as "contract." While both translations are correct, however, neither gives a full account of the word. "Mihr" itself derives from "mei," an Indo-European root meaning "exchange." But Aryan society did not use the word "exchange" to describe a transaction.

Ancient societies were hierarchical. Neither the concept of an exchange between equals after which a relationship ended (our meaning of contract), nor the concept of an open-ended exchange between equals (our meaning of friendship) were contained in the original meaning of the word "Mihr" or "Mei." (For our concept of friendship, the Rg Veda uses the word "sakhi.") The friendship or contract offered by Mihr, or Mitra as he became known, was an exchange between unequal partners with Mitra as a just lord. Like any feudal relationship, this "friendship" imposed certain obligations on both sides. Mitra oversaw the affairs of his worshippers. He established justice for them. In return, his worshippers had to be upright in their dealings with others. Mitra was thus "lord of the contract" (a title frequently applied to him)...

The Iranian Mithra and Zarathustra

As the Aryan tribes swept south, they split into two major branches, the Indian in the east and the Iranis in the west. Both Worshipped the god of the contract in similar ways. Like the Indians, the Iranis sacrificed cattle to Mithra. They invoked him to preserve the sanctity of the contract. They associated him with fire. And like both Indian and Roman worshippers, the Iranis concluded contracts before fires so that they might be made in the presence of Mithra. Like Mitra, Mithra saw all things. The Avestan Yast (hymn) dedicated to him describes him as having a thousand ears, ten thousand eyes, and as never sleeping. And like Mitra, Mithra has a partner, Apam Nepat, whose name means Grandson of Waters. (Note that the same elemental connection of fire and water is maintained as in the Indian tradition.)

Mithra was a moral god, upholding the sanctity of the contract even when the contract was made with one who was sure to break it. His primary responsibility was to the rightness of the action. In this he stood above the various national gods of the time, who had little function other than to look after the welfare of the state and its wealthiest members. In fact, Mithra was the first such moral deity and stands above the notions of many worshippers of many gods today...

The Iranis had a deep reverence for Mithra, as is proved by their reception of the prophet, Zarathustra. Zarathustra is the most important person in the recorded history of religion, bar none. The first man to promulgate a divinely revealed religion. He influenced the religions of Judaism, Christianity, Mithrasism, Islam, Northern (Mahayana) Buddhism, Manicheism, and the pagan Norse myths. Over half the world has accepted a significant portion of his precepts under the guise of one or another of these faiths.

At the age of about forty, Zarathustra, a priest in the traditional Irani rites, received a revelation. In it, the many gods of the Iranis were supplanted by a new deity who was the supreme deity of the Good. This deity became known as Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord." Opposed to Ahura Mazda was Aingra Mainyu or Ahriman, the "Angry Spirit," the chief deity of evil. Both deities had underlings and partners. The chief allies of Ahura Mazda were the "Amentas Spenta." Created by the "Wise Lord," these "Bounteous" or "Holy Immortals" included Mithra.

There was a hymn to Mithra in the Zarathustrian holy work, the Avesta. It is a beautiful hymn or Yast, and Ilya Gershevitch is right to lament that it is not more widely known. In it, Ahura Mazda addresses the prophet Zarathustra, saying that when he created Mithra, he made him as worthy of worship as himself. This accolade is given to no other Amenta Spenta or Yazata. Historians have argued that this distinction indicates only that the cult of Mithra was so important that Zarathustra had to give its god special concessions to convert its members. Some have even argued the popularity from the concessions. But there is another theological reason for the special attention given to Mithra by Zarathustra...

Mithra is a much more fully developed image than the rather ethereal Mitra. Unlike the Indian god, we actually have a relief of the Iranian deity. Reconstruction shows Mithra shaking hands with King Antiochus. It is Mithra's attire, however, that is important to the current study. Mithra wears the Phrygian cap, Persian trousers, and a cape. His hat is star speckled (from textual evidence his chariot is similarly decorated). Rays of light emerge from Mithra's head much like a halo. His choke collar is a serpent. This image, or one very like it, will appear again in Rome.

Related links

* THE IRANIAN: Mithraism: Jung vs. Freud- By Richard Noll
* The official Mithrasic Faith Homepage
* Mithraism Online - Monthly newsletter
* The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras - By Mithtraic scholar David Ulansey
* Mithras - This page by Payam Nabarz is dedicated to the Sun God Mithras.
* Books on Mithraism


DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:02



Mithras



The name Mithras was the Persian word for 'contract'. Mithras was also known throughout Europe and Asia by the names Mithra, Mitra, Meitros, Mihr, Mehr, and Meher. The veneration of this God began about 4000 years ago in Persia, where it was soon imbedded with Babylonian doctrines. The faith spread east through India to China, and reached west throughout the entire length of the Roman frontier-- from Scotland to the Sahara Desert, from Spain to the Black Sea. Sites of Mithraic worship have been found in Britain, Italy, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Armenia, Syria, Israel, and North Africa.

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Persia

In Persia Mithra was the protector God of the tribal society until the Zoroaster's reformation of Persian polytheism (628-55BC). Mithralike the rest of the gods and goddess of the Iranian Pantheon was stripped of his sovereignty, and all his powers and attributes were bestowed upon Zarathrustra. Mithraism began in Persia where originally a multitude of gods were worshipped. Amongst them were Ahura-Mazda, god of the skies, and Ahriman, god of darkness. In the sixth and seventh century B.C., a vast reformation of the Persian pantheon was undertaken by Zarathustra (known in Greek as Zoroaster), a prophet from the kingdom of Bactria. The stature of Ahura-Mazda was elevated to that of supreme god of goodness, whereas the god Ahriman became the ultimate embodiment of evil. In the same way that Ahkenaton, Abraham, Heliogabalus, and Mohammed later initiated henotheistic cults from the worship of their respective deities, Zarathustra created a henotheistic dualism with the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. As a result of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (597 B.C.) and their later emancipation by King Cyrus the Great of Persia (538 B.C.), Zoroastrian dualism was to influence the Jewish belief in the existence of HaShatan, the malicious Adversary of the god Yahweh, and later permit the evolution of the Christian Satan-Jehovah dichotomy. Persian religious dualism became the foundation of an ethical system that has lasted until this day. The reformation of Zarathustra retained the hundreds of Persian deities, assembling them into a complex hierarchical system of 'Immortals' and 'Adored Ones' under the rule of either Ahura- Mazda or Ahriman. Within this vast pantheon, Mithras gained the title of 'Judger of Souls'. He became the divine representative of Ahura-Mazda on earth, and was directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces of Ahriman. Mithras was called omniscient, un-deceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting. In the Avesta, the holy book of the religion of Zarathustra, Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras in order to guarantee the authority of contracts and the keeping of promises. The name Mithras was, in fact, the Persian word for 'contract'. The divine duty of Mithras was to ensure general prosperity through good contractual relations between men.It was believed that misfortune would befall the entire land if a contract was ever broken. Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras to be as great and worthy as himself. He would fight the spirits of evil to protect the creations of Ahura-Mazda and cause even Ahriman to tremble. Mithras was seen as the protector of just souls from demons seeking to drag them down to Hell, and the guide of these souls to Paradise. As Lord of the Sky, he took the role of psychopomp, conducting the souls of the righteous dead to paradise. According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra. Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved inthe waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C., 64 years after his birth. Parthian coins and documents bear a double date with this 64 year interval. Mithras was 'The Great King' highly revered by the nobility and monarchs, who looked upon him as their special protector. A great number of the nobility took theophorous (god-bearing) names compounded with Mithras. The title of the god Mithras was used in the dynasties of Pontus, Parthia, Cappadocia, Armenia and Commagene by emperors with the name Mithradates. Mithradates VI, king of Pontus (northern Turkey) in 120-63 B.C. became famous for being the first monarch to practice immunization by taking poisons in gradually increased doses. The terms mithridatism and mithridate (a pharmacological elixir) were named after him. The Parthian princes of Armenia were all priests of Mithras, and an entire district of this land was dedicated to the Virgin Mother Anahita. Many Mithraeums, or Mithraic temples, were built in Armenia, which remained one of the last strongholds of Mithraism. The largest near-eastern Mithtraeum was built in western Persia at Kangavar, dedicated to 'Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras'. Other Mithraic temples were built in Khuzestan and in Central Iran near present-day Mahallat, where at the temple of Khorheh a few tall columns still stand. Excavations in Nisa, later renamed Mithradatkirt, have uncovered Mithraic mausoleums and shrines. Mithraic sanctuaries and mausoleums were built in the city of Hatra in upper Mesopotamia. West of Hatra at Dura Europos, Mithraeums were found with figures of Mithras on horseback. Persian Mithraism was more a collection of traditions and rites than a body of doctrines. However, once the Babylonians took the Mithraic rituals and mythology from the Persians, they thoroughly refined its theology. The Babylonian clergy assimilated Ahura-Mazda to the god Baal, Anahita to the goddess Ishtar, and Mithras to Shamash, their god of justice, victory and protection (and the sun god from whom King Hammurabi received his code of laws in the 18th century B.C.) As a result of the solar and astronomical associations of the Babylonians, Mithras later was referred to by Roman worshippers as 'Sol invictus', or the invincible sun. The sun itself was considered to be "the eye of Mithras". The Persian crown, from which all present day crowns are derived, was designed to represent the golden sun-disc sacred to Mithras. As a deity connected with the sun and its life-giving powers, Mithras was known as 'The Lord of the Wide Pastures' who was believed to cause the plants to spring forth from the ground. In the time of Cyrus and Darius the Great, the rulers of Persia received the first fruits of the fall harvest at the festival of Mehragan. At this time they wore their most brilliant clothing and drank wine. In the Persian calendar, the seventh month and the sixteenth day of each month were also dedicated to Mithras. According to Persian mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The God remained celibate throughout his life, and valued self-control, renunciation and resistance to sensuality among his worshippers. Mithras represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was encouraged in order to unify against the forces of evil. The Persians called Mithras 'The Mediator' since he was believed to stand between the light of Ahura-Mazda and the darkness of Ahriman. He was said to have 1000 eyes, expressing the conviction that no man could conceal his wrongdoing from the god. Mithras was known as the God of Truth, and Lord of Heavenly Light, and said to have stated "I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths". Mithras was worshipped as guardian of arms, and patron of soldiers and armies. The handshake was developed by those who worshipped him as a token of friendship and as a gesture to show that you were unarmed. When Mithras later became the Roman god of contracts, the handshake gesture was imported throughout the Mediterranean and Europe by Roman soldiers. In Armenian tradition, Mithras was believed to shut himself up in a cave from which he emerged once a year, born anew. The Persians introduced initiates to the mysteries in natural caves, according to Porphyry, the third century neoplatonic philosopher. These cave temples were created in the image of the World Cave that Mithras had created, according to the Persian creation myth. As 'God of Truth and Integrity', Mithras was invoked in solemn oaths to pledge the fulfillment of contracts and punish liars. He was believed to maintain peace, wisdom, honor, prosperity, and cause harmony to reign among all his worshippers. According to the Avesta, Mithras could decide when different periods of world history were completed.He would judge mortal souls at death and brandish his mace over hell three times each day so that demons would not inflict greater punishment on sinners than they deserved.

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India--Vedic

Mithra is an Indo-Iranian sun god. In Hinduism he is praised as the binomial Mitra-Varuna. A hymn is also dedicated to him alone in Rig Veda. He is the Lord of Heavenly light, protector of truth, and is invoked when a contract or oath is taken.

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Babylonian

The Babylonians also incorporated their belief in destiny into the Mithraic worship of Zurvan, the Persian god of infinite time and father of the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. They superimposed astrology, the use of the zodiac, and the deification of the four seasons onto the Persian rites of Mithraism.

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China

Mithra is also seen in Chinese mythology, where he is known as The Friend. Mithra is represented as a Military General in Chinesestatues, and is considered to be the friend of man in this life and his protector against evil in the next.

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Rome

In the west Mithra is best known as cult of Mithras which had an immense popularity among the Roman Legions--from late 1 BCuntil 4 AD. During which it came under the influence of Greek and Roman mythologies. The Mithraic cult maintained secrecy. Its teaching were only reveled to initiates. Remains of Mithraic temples can be found throughout the Roman Empire, from Palestine across north of Africa, and across central Europe to northern England. For over three hundred years the rulers of the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras. In Rome, more than a hundred inscriptions dedicated to Mithras have been found, in addition to 75 sculpture fragments, and a series of Mithraic temples situated in all parts of the city. One of the largest Mithraic temples built in Italy now lies under the present site of the Church of St. Clemente, near the Colosseum in Rome.

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Degrees of Initiation

There were seven degrees of initiation, these degrees allowed the neophyte to proceed through the seven celestial bodies. Allowing the reversing of the human souls descend into the world at birth. The first degree was of corax (Raven) under Mercury. This stage symbolized death of neophyte. In ancient Persia it was a custom to expose dead bodies to be eaten by ravens on funeral towers. Raven as symbol of death can also be seen in some tarot packs as card 13 instead of Grim Reaper. At this stage the neophyte dies and is re-born into a spiritual path. A mantra was given to him to repeat and his sins were washed away by baptism in water. The next degree is of Nymphus (male-bride) under Venus. The neophyte wears a veil and carries a lamp in his hand. He is unable to see the light of truth until the veil of reality is lifted. He is vowed to the cult, and becomes celibate for at least duration of this stage. He is a bride (lover) of Mithra. He also offers a cup of water to the statute of Mithra, the cup is his heart and the water is his love. On reaching Miles (solider) under Mars, the neophyte had to kneel (submission to religious authority, naked (casting off old life), blindfolded with hands tied. He was then offered a crown on the point of a sword . Once crowned, his binds were cut with a single stroke of the sword and blindfold removed. This represented his liberation from bondages of the material world. He would thenremove the crown from his head and placing it on his shoulder, saying: Mithra is my only crown (Fanz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra). This also symbolizes the removing the head (intellect) itself, allowing Mithra to be the guide. At this stage the neophyte starts the real battle against his lower self, a solider is one actively struggles with the real enemy. The stage of Leo (lion) is first of the senior degrees and is under Jupiter. He is entering the element of fire. Therefore the lions were not allowed to touch water during the ritual, and instead honey was offered to the initiate to wash his hands and anoint his tongue. The lions carry the food for the ritual meal that was prepared by the lower grades to the ritual feast, and take part. Lions duties included attending the sacred altar flame. The ritual feast represented Mithras last supper of bread and wine with his companions, before his ascend to the heavens in Suns chariot. The degree of Perses (Persian) under moon, The initiate to this grade obtained through it an affiliation to that race which alone was worthy of receiving the highest revelations of wisdom of Magi (Fanz Cumont, Rapport sur une mission a Rome, in Academic desinscrition et Belles-Letters, Comptes Rendes, 1945 p.418). The emblem for this stage was a harpe, the harpe that Persus decapitated the Gorgon. Symbolizing the destruction of the lower and animal aspect of the initiate.



The initiate was also purified with honey as he was under the protection of the Moon. Honey is associated with purity and fertility of the moon as this was, inancient Iran believed to be the source of honey, and thus theexpression of honey-moon denotes not the period of a month aftermarriage, but continued love and fertility in married life. (Dr. Masoud Homayouri, Origin of Persian Gnosis). In grade of Heliodromus (sun runner) under sun, the initiate imitates Sun at the ritual banquet. Sitting next to Mithra (Father), dressed in red, color of sun, fire and blood of life. Highest grade was of Pater (father) under Saturn. He was Mithras earthly representative, light of heaven embodied, the teacher of congregation which he lead, wearing a redcap and as well as a red baggy Persian trousers, carrying a staff symbol of his spiritual office. (Charles Daniels, Mithras and his temples on the Wall).

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Astrology

Mithra also presided over changing of seasons and the movement of heavens themselves. The scene of Mithra slaying a bull represents the precession of the equinoxes. Mithra was in effect moving the entire universe. Mithra is represented by constellation Persus changes the position of the celestial sphere by slaying constellation Taurus and moving the earth into constellation Aries at spring equinox. This miracle of Mithra is a product of Roman astrologers and a latter development that is not seen in Iran to same extent. However the celebration for changing of seasons was carried out both by western and eastern followers of Mithra: Nou-roz (spring equinox), Mehregan (autumn equinox), Shab-Yalda (winter solstice) and summer solstice.

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Link to Christianity

As Christianity gathered momentum and eventually became the Roman Empires state religion, Mithraism was not tolerated. The Apologist saw it as a satanic transversity of the holiest rites of their religion. Nevertheless Catholicism has preserved some of the outer form of Mithraism to name some; the timing of Christmas, Bishops adaptation of miters as sign of their office, Christians priests becoming Father despite Jesus specific proscription of the acceptance of such title. The Mithraic Holy father wore a red cap and garment and a ring, and carried a shepherd's staff. The Head Christian adopted the same title and outfitted himself in the same manner. While the outer appearance of Mithraism can be detected in Catholicism, some traces of the inner teachings of Mithraism can be found in Sufisim, therefore study of Sufisim allows a new insight into Mithraism, and possibly vise versa.

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Belief Systems

The faithful referred to Mithras as "the Light of the World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity. The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgment in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness. Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above. However, it would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single forerunner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Many classical heroic figures, such as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the union of a virgin mother and divine father. Virtually every pagan religious practice and festivity that couldn't be suppressed or driven underground was eventually incorporated into the rites of Christianity as it spread across Europe and throughout the world.

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Merry Mitra



By Hashem Farhang
December 11, 1997
The Iranian

A chance meeting, some two years ago, of an Iranian scholar who, as fate has it, now lives in Helsinki, Finland, introduced me to an aspect of Iranian history, which to this date is nothing short of a love affair with my ancestors, long forgotten but who deserve to be remembered for what they truly were. For this enlightenment, I am forever indebted to this friend.

At this particular time of the year, I would like to share something with my fellow Iranians that I think speaks volumes of everything Iranian that has been stolen. I feel sure that there are thousands of Iranians who are aware of this, but somehow have not kept reminding others of the facts.

When my children were growing up and were still at home, Christmas was a difficult time for us parents. At school and other gatherings, my children like all other Iranian children, could not quite understand the lack of enthusiasm that we exhibited at the holiday season. I dare say that this indifference in us parents, may have even strengthened the feeling that their parents are "different." They, as children everywhere, never felt different. But their parents? Well you know.

The result of the chance meeting, was that a small amount of research produced a very sweet little historical fact. And had I known this, I would have happily, gladly, and most proudly celebrated this particular holiday season as one of my very own. And I would not have been uncomfortable at Christmas, whether I had a tree or not.

For this reason, I want to share this fact with all Iranians, in Iran or abroad, and to recommend celebrations on December 25th as the birthday of Mitra, which we celebrated as early as 5000 B.C. Zoroastrians after refining and discarding some of the mythical and "heretical" aspects of Mithraism, retained Jashn-e-Mehregan and Yalda or "The Birth."

Iranians celebrated Yalda and decorated an evergreen tree, the sarve. The sarve (Rocket Juniper - what a name! - also known as the cypress tree), being straight, upright and resistant to the cold weather (symbol of hardship) was thought appropriate, to represent Mitra. The younger girls had their "wishes" symbolically wrapped in colorful silk cloth and hung them on the tree with lots of presents for Mitra, to answer their prayers.

As you may know, Pope Leo in the fourth century, after almost destroying the temple of Mitra (A.D. 376), in his campaign against Mitraism -- and in the good old Christian tradition, "If you can't claim it, imitate it" -- proclaimed the 25th of December as Christ's birthday instead of January 6th, a date, by the way, that is still celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Armenians.

Again in the same tradition, Luther, the famous German reformer, in the 18th century (1756, I believe), having learned of the Yalda sarve tree, introduced the Christmas tree to the Germans. As sarves were not much known in Germany, as indeed in most of Europe, the chosen tree became a genus of pine which was abundant in Europe.

So now with or without the children at home, we decorate a small sarve with a star on top and many presents, not necessarily for Mitra, but to my ancestors ant for my children and hopefully soon to my grandchildren. Happy Yalda and greetings of the season to all you Iranians -- no matter what your religion.

Related links

* Mitra, Mithra, Mithras Mystery - By D. Jason Cooper
* Mithraism: Jung vs. Freud- By Richard Noll
* The official Mithrasic Faith Homepage
* The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras - By Mithtraic scholar David Ulansey
* Mithras - This page by Payam Nabarz is dedicated to the Sun God Mithras.
* Books on Mithraism
* Cover stories
* Who's who

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:04

On Certain Divine Metamorphoses

By
Baron A. Von Stael-Holstein

Another divinity mentioned in the Mitani treaty and praised by the Vedic poets, is Varuna. He appeared to the Vedic Indians as & most powerful god approaching, if not rivalling in might, the national god Indra himself. The opinions of scholars differ widely as to the origin of this divinity. Some of them assert that the word "Varuna" is related to the Greek word "ouranos" which means "heaven " and that we are confronted with an old personification of the firmament. Others, like Professor Oldenberg, believe that he was originally a moon god. The Rigveda celebrate him as the upholder of both the moral and the physical order of the universe. But much greater stress is laid on his activities in the sphere of ethics than on his role as creator and warden of the physical world. From the heights of heaven, where he resides in a palace with a thousand gates, Varuna can observe not only the acts but likewise the thoughts of men. He inflicts terrible punishments and avenging maladies on the hardened criminal ; but he is merciful to the man who repents. It is to him that the cry of anguish from remorse ascends, and it is to him that the sinner comes to confess his guilt.

Varuna has six or seven brothers, like himself sons of Aditi, or immensity. The most important of these brothers is Mitra who is frequently invoked concurrently with Varuna. Both Mitra and Varuna are called A8ura, which originally meant endowed with supernatural power." This attribute was also occasionally applied to Indra and other Vedic deities.

Among the ancient Persians this word Asura, in the form Ahura has become part of the supreme god's personal name. Ahura Mazda or Ormazd is the personification of the good principle as opposed to Ariman, the Evil One. It is interesting to note that the word "Asura" in later times acquired an entire]y opposite meaning and came to signify a demon or enemy of the gods. This change of meaning is evidently due to the speculations of over-wise philologists. The initial "a" of Asura was explained as an alpha privativum and "sura" was supposed to mean "god." All the Chinese translators of Buddhist sutras that I know accept this explanation and translate Asura by Fei T'ien.

In this case we have again a remarkable transformation before us:
a word which was used by the original Aryans to designate the highest and most benevolent divinities, has become the name of a class of dangerous goblins in later Hindooism as well as in Buddhism.

Already in the Rigveda Varuna is considered as ruling over the waters of heaven and earth. He is asked for rain and is mentioned as pervading the oceans.

But Varuna's functions as a water god are very rarely mentioned in the Rigveda. The contrary is the case in the literature of mediaevaI India. There the other traits of Varuna's personality are completely lost and only his connection with the waters remains. 'This character he still retains in India, but I do not know whether any modern Hindoos actually worship him at present. In Chinese and Japanese Buddhist books the word Varuna" occurs as (1) the name 0?a water god (2) the name of a dragon king, and (3) the name of the deity presiding over one of the twenty- eight lunar mansions .

While the element or natural power originally represented by Varuna cannot be determined with certainty, the fact that the Aryan Mitra was a sun god seems to be admitted by all authorities.

In the Rigveda he is generally associated with Varuna, Mitra being regarded as the ruler of the day and Varuna as the ruler of the night. Together, they uphold the moral and the physical order of the Universe. Mitra, like Varuna, is invoked as a protector of the righteous, dreaded by all evil doers. The cult of Mithra (which is the Persian form of the name) or Mitra was much more popular in Persia than it had ever been in India. Certain communities worshipped that god almost to the exclusion of all other divinities and formed a sect which spread from Persia to the adjoining territories subject to the Roman Empire and thence to Rome itself. The Roman legionaries, who had been partly recruited in Asia Minor, carried Mitraism to the farthest borders of the Empire. By the middle of the first century A.D. the cult had reached the Danube frontier; and Mitraic monuments dating from subsequent periods are found on the Rhine, in France, Spain, Africa, Greece and Great B.itain, principally along the northern border of the Roman dominions. The monuments left behind by the Roman soldiers are our main source of information concerning Western Mitraism, and the ancient Latin texts do not help us much.

The central act of worship seems to have been the sacrifice of a bull, the prototype of which was the slaying of the bull by Mitra himself, represented in relief in every Mitraic sancturary. Such Mitraic reliefs are found nearly everywhere in Europe and Africa where legions were stationed during the first centuries of the Christian era. The chief scene depicted by these reliefs varies but little in the different localities. We see Mitra, clothed in conventional Oriental attire, placing his left knee on the back of a bull, seizing its muzzle with the left hand and plunging a knife into its throat. From the tail of the dying bull, or from its blood, spring ears of corn, and the sacrifice is supposed to symbolize the annual renewal of vegetable life. The adherents of the cult believed that the killing of the bull promoted fertility on earth and assured the prosperity of the pious.

The cult of Mitra, who was supposed to be represented on earth by the Roman Emperor and who was worshipped throughout the Empire as "Dens Sol invictus Mithras," achieved its widest dissemination during the third century A.D. and bade fair at that time to become a world religion. Mitraism still had some adherents in Central Europe at the end of the fifth century, but must be considered extinct in the West ever since the sixth century. In Persia it lasted longer; and even present-day Zoroastrians still recognize Mitra as one of their gods without, however, as far as I know, performing any special rities in his honour. He is particularly respected as the god of contracts and oaths.

About the career of Mitra in the Far East, I know very little. His name, according to the "Dictionary of Buddhism" occurs in Chinese Buddhist books as Mi To Lo and as Mi Ch'i Lo. He is regarded as presiding over one of the lunar mansions mentioned above and also as one of the twelve divine generals representing the twelve divisions of time. In the Japanese iconographical work we find a drawing of Mitra as a rather demoniacal looking warrior (fasc. 4, page fig. lb).

The only Chinese representation of Mitra known to me belongs to the Hsi-yu-ssu, where he appears as one of the twelve great generals. From the photographs of them which are in my possession we see that a bowl is placed before each general, which tends to show that Mithra still enjoys divine honours in China.

The ground covered by this divinity is indeed enormous We find him killing the bull on the Scotch border, protecting a treaty in Mesopotamia and surviving as a Chinese general on the Peking-Hankow Railway.

The god Yama also was invoked about four thousand years ago by the Aryans in the mountains of Persia and is still worshipped, or at least feared, by Buddhists in China and Japan. According to the Rigveda, Yama was the first man who died. After departing this life, he ascended to heaven to become in the course of time the ruler of the righteous who followed him. To dwell in the heaven of Yama was regarded as the highest reward of a pious life. In Yama's heaven the virtuous enjoy immunity from all diseases and live forever in perfect bliss. Yama, who rules over them, sits under a shady tree and drinks Soma, while listening to heavenly music. Among the original Aryans, also, Yama was regarded as a most benign divinity. This conclusion is arrived at by comparing the Rigvedic passages, in which Yama appears, with the corresponding parts of the Avesta. There Yama confronts us as the ruler of a marvellous kingdom in which neither old age nor death, neither heat nor cold, existed; and in which passions as well as want were unknown. Neither in the Rigveda nor in the Avesta is there anything terrible in the personality of Yama himself. The only objects of terror connected with him are his two insatiable dogs with four eyes and enormous nostrils who guard the entrance to his abode. The departed are advised to hurry past these dogs with all possible speed. But when this had been achieved, there was nothing but beatitude awaiting them in Yama's world.

How different is the aspect of this god as he confronts us in later Hindoo and in Buddhist writings! In later Hindoo mythology he appears as the terrible judge of the dead and his abode is in the lower regions. A soul when it quits its mortal frame descends to Yama's world there a recorder reads out his account from the great register, and a just sentence follows. According to their merits, the souls are allowed either to ascend to heaven or are sent down to one of the numerous hells. Some Buddhist books draw a still more frightful picture of Yama. He is supposed to have been the king of Vaisali a city in India well known to all Buddhists as a place frequently visited by the Buddha. While King of Vaisali, Yama engaged in bloody wars, and, though reborn as the ruler of all the hells, he has himself to suffer for his misdeeds committed on earth. Three times in every 24 hours boiling copper is poured down Yama's mouth by way of punishment for his sins. Together with Yama his eighteen generals and his army of 80,000 men are reborn in hell and they all now serve him as assistant judges, jailors and executioners. (Compare Eitel's Hand-book of Chinese Buddhism , page 207). The changes the personality of Yama has undergone during the centuries are truly remarkable. The benign king of the blessed, the happiest of immortals, the ruler of heaven, has descended to hell where he lives to be tormented himself and to subject others to the most cruel punishments imaginable. (Outside Ch'ao Yang Men, Peking, there is a temple in which some of these punishments are illustrated.)

We have already observed that the change of meaning of the word "Asura" is probably connected with the speculations of super-learned philologists. It is not impossible that Yama became connected with the punishments inflicted upon sinners because (or partly because) his name, which is of unknown derivation, was explained by later philologists as containing the root "yam," " to restrain."

In Tokyo one of the most popular festivals is celebrated on the day consecrated to Emma-o (the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Yen Mo Wang . The ceremonies in honour of Yama are attended by enormous crowds and are performed by laymen; the Buddhist clergy do not on that day, as far as I know, participate in the worship of Yama. A feature of this Japanese Yama festival are the religious plays enacted in tents erected for the occasion.

In China, Yen-wang or King Yama is certainly well known everywhere. I am told that his images are to be found in all the city temples which have been built throughout the country ever since the the Ming period. In the Tung-yueh-miao outside Ch'ao-yang-men, Peking, a terrible Yama image is also found. I have not, however, been able to find out whether a special festival is held anywhere in China in honour of Yama. His name is frequently mentioned by the Buddhist priests, who read the scriptures at higher-class funerals, and occasionally incense is burnt before the representations of the god in the various temples. I have searched for the special Yama temples which I was told existed in Peking, but in vain.

In Peking there are at least two streets called Yen-wang-miao Chieh, or "Street of King Yama's Temple." One of them is near the Government Printing Office. Many persons living in that street have been questioned as to the location of the Yama temple, which gave the street its name, but none could give a satisfactory answer. Even the memory of the sanctuary, which surely must have existed, had vanished.

The other Yen-wang-miao Chieh is just outside the Hatamen gate and the temple of Yama was easily located; but it was found that the temple contained no images. It had three years before been converted into a fire brigade station. This change will probably be acclaimed by many as another victory of modern science over the powers of hell, but it will be sincerely regretted by all those interested in comparative mythology.

NOTE: This does not pretend to be an exhaustive inquiry into the history of the gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra and Yama. It is nothing but an after dinner lecture prepared in order to amuse "The Peking Friends of Letters" (Wen yu hui). The lack of a library containing the standard works on all the different creeds and all the corresponding periodicals prevents any serious work being done here on the subject of comparative mythology. The writer, for the purpose of preparing his Various papers, has had to borrow books from American tourists, French bankers, British diplomats and other kind friends temporarily residing at Peking.

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:05

Mitra

Aliases: Mithra, Mithras; Lord of Light

Base of Operations: Elysium (his own "Heaven" dimension)

First Appearance:
    (real world): no frickin' idea
    (referenced):
    (manifestation): Weird Tales Volume 21, Number 6, Black Colossus (June, 1933)
        (Marvel Universe): Savage Sword of Conan#2 (October, 1974)

Powers: Mitra presumably has the powers common to a Terran deity, including superhuman strength + durability, immunity to aging and conventional disease, and manipulation of energies. As a god of light, he presumably could generate some degree of light and heat.
Mitra once manifested a large ball of energy, which was powerful enough to slay the powerful demon Xotli.
The Oracle of Mitra demonstrated telepathic abilities and prophecy as well. The Oracle appeared to be a statue which represented the spirit of Mitra himself.

Mitra's rites were, as far as we know, unique in that they alone in the Hyborian era included no blood sacrifices of any kind--either animal or human. The majestic images of the god were also unique in that era, since they were idols; that is, the images themselves were not actually worshipped or considered to be the peculiar dwelling places of the god. Mitra, it was believed, was omnipresent and his true appearance unknowable. The statues erected to him were regarded only as attempts to make visible the idea of Mitra by portraying him "in idealized human form, as near perfection as the human mind can conceive."
--adapted from Robert L. Yaple's essay on the Hyborian God, in Savage Sword of Conan#7.

History: Mitra's origins are uncertain (see comments).

(Savage Sword of Conan#7: Gods of the Hyborian Era) - The name was recognized by Xaltotun, an Acheron who lived around the time of his culture's destruction, @ 13000 BC. Mitraism's real ascendancy probably began about 1400 years after Acheron's fall, when the Hyborian lands were once again menaced by the shadow of Set, and were largely saved through the efforts of the Mitraic prophet-hero Epemetrius the Sage. One of the earlier nations to embrace Mitra was Koth, @ 11000 BC.

(Conan the Barbarian: The Skull of Set (fb,bts)) In the city of Eidoran, then a mighty but decadent place, Set worshippers summoned forth demons such as Khorus from an infernal dimension. The first followers of Mitra hired their own sorcerer-who used a crystal skull to focus his powers and bind the demons in stone. After this, the ruins of Eidoran were guarded by the Mitran clergy.

(Unofficial Handbook of the Conan Universe#1) In the Hyborian era, the deity Mitra emerged as one of the most popular gods, receiving worship from peoples in the kingdoms of Aquilonia, Argos, Corinthia, Nemedia, Ophir, and Zingara; in fact south of Nordheim and Cimmeria, Mitra worship was almost universal. It was rivaled here and there only by little cults of such as that of Asura, Ibis, Ishtar, and even, to some degree, Set. That last deity was also Mitra's sworn enemy, as Mitra intervened in human affairs often to protect his own worshippers and humanity in general from Set's foul designs.

Some Mitraists were unique in having an unflinchingly monotheistic devotion to Mitra. While most people in the Hyborian era followed a type of henotheism, in which they acknowledged the existence of gods that they chose not to worship, some Mitraists held Mitra as the only god in existence.  Not unexpectedly, this exclusivist view of Mitra produced hardcore intolerance of other religions at times.
In Mitraism, while there were saint and a heavenly host, there was no pantheon, no divine colleagues, and not even a consort.

 

Ostensibly Mitra was a gentle god in contrast to Northern warrior gods such as Crom, Borri, Ymir et al. and supposedly taught mercy over vengeance. However, despite this, Mitra did banish people to a hell dimension for punishment, for as mankind's eternal judge, Mitra decided final assignment of souls to either there or a heaven world as a reward. Mitraic  sorteriology preached salvation based on works, i.e. a person's life on Earth was judged based on his deeds in his or her life. Mitra, known to be attended to by a host of saints and angels, presumably dwelled in this heaven dimension.

Blood sacrifice was explicitly excluded from the Mitraic  religion, the rituals of which had much simplicity, dignity, and beauty. As opposed to the case of the idols of non-Mitraic  religions, the statues of Mitra served only as emblems intended to represent the god in idealized form and not to be worshipped themselves.

Koth, which at one time knelt to Mitra, afterwards fell under the influence of Shem and Stygia and abandoned the god for the more sensual rites of Ishtar, as did Khoraja and Khauran.

(Savage Sword of Conan#29/4 (fb) - BTS) - From Elysium then, Mitra peered, with mournful eye, into the primordial mist. He spoke:
'Forge me an instrument of retribution. I wish to prophesy thru the rage of the naked sword.'
A solitary voice answered. It was the throaty retort of Erlik, the Dark God, the Fallen One. He said, "Twill be done!'

Thus did Erlik, via the hand of the living Tarim, manipulate events to forge the woman warrior known as Red Sonja.

(Conan the Barbarian I#147, bts) Set managed to recruit a turncoat Mitraic  priestess named C'Harona with promises of power. Set instructed her to free his "most hideous demons" from "the center of the Earth". To that end, C'Harona mesmerized the popular Mitraic  priestess Pelijah Lon and had her persuade the people of D'eim to build a tower to Mitra. In fact, C'Harona used the tower to hide a drill that was being used to burrow into the Earth to free rat-like demons serving Set. C'Harona intended to use these demons to help destroy the Mitraic  religion in D'eim.

Conan received an image of Pelijah asking for help. Going to D'eim, he investigated and found the truth. Eventually, C'Harona, as promised, was transformed by Set into a powerful "hideous shrieking harpie" (sic), but Conan and Pelijah Lon managed to destroy C'Harona, and the rat-like demons were destroyed when the tower was demolished.

(Black Colossus/Savage Sword of Conan#2/Conan the Barbarian I#249) - Yasmela, princess of Khoraja, sought aid from the Oracle of Mitra, in regards to visions of attacks by Natohk, an alias for Thugra Khotan. The Oracle spoke to Yasmela and, after revealing a thorough understanding of her plight--and a nice plot synopsis for the reader, advised her: Go forth alone upon the streets of your capital...and place your kingdom in the hands of the first man you meet there!

The man she met, of course, was Conan, who led Khoraja to victory over the forces of Thugra Khotan.

(Savage Sword of Conan#40, bts) Princess Chabela of Zingara, deeply worried about the court intrigue at work in her country, sought guidance at a Mitraic  house of worship. Seeking guidance, she took out divining straws, and threw them at random on the floor. The divining straws landed on the floor, spelling out Tovarro. Chabela immediately secretly set sail for that place.

Mitra sent Chabela that message as part of a complicated plan to thwart the designs of Set (see comments). Mitra intended to undo the plans of Duke Villagro, a Zingaran noble who intended to marry Chabela and become king. To that end, Villagro had made a deal with the Setian priest Menkara. Part of the terms of the deal included that Villagro would replace the prevalent Mitraic  religion in Zingara with Set worship. Desiring to prevent this Mitra instructed Chabela to flee, and in fact did bring about a chain of events that thwarted Villagro, Menkara, and also Thoth-Amon.

(Conan of the Isles) - The people of Ptahuacan, the last surviving city of the Atlanteans on Earth, began to magically abduct people from the nearby continent, to serve as sacrifice to their god, Xotli. When people of the kingdom of Aquilonia began to disappear, the spirit of Epimetrius appeared before Aquilonia's king, Conan (now well into his seventh decade). Epimetrius directed Conan to Ptahuacan and gave him an amulet, telling him he'd know how to use it when the time was right.
After much struggle, Conan was confronted by the demonic Xotli in its temple in Ptahuacan. Shattering the amulet, Conan released "the pure force of Mitra, Lord of Light." The energy sphere engaged Xotli, shattering its temple, and eventually banishing the demonic creature as well.

See the comments below for Mitra's history following the Hyborian era.

Comments: Created by Robert E. Howard; adapted by Roy Thomas.

If you're the type who is offended by a religious discussion that criticizes (or even pokes fun at) some of the prominent religions of the modern era, you probably should stop here.
DO NOT write to me (Snood) complaining about this discussion.
If you want to discuss it, talk to John.

 

Mitra's Acting Behind the Scenes

Admittedly, it is easy to go overboard with designating a story as having a behind-the-scenes-influence by Mitra, as he was one of the most important gods of the Hyborian era. While one would generally wish to admit such stories only if they feature overt supernatural intervention, the Cobra Crown/Chabela story discussed under history has been included because of the fact that, in the partial retelling of the Cobra Crown story in Punisher Annual#2/4, Uatu the Watcher narrated the story. Uatu, who observed Earth during the Hyborian Age, referred to Conan as "the man chosen by the Hyborian Age's gods of light as their champion against the forces of Set!". Since Uatu the Watcher is privy to many cosmic secrets and phenomenon withheld from mortal man, I will presume that he was able to detect Mitra's aura or what-have-you at work in the defeat of Thoth-Amon.

(SSoC#112/2) - A Mitraic priest from Aquilonia tried to bring about peace by teaching the way of Mitra to the Picts. He taught a tribe led by Shooz Dinj about how a Mitraic priest was once captured and tortured by Turanian nomads, who flayed his skin an inch strip at a time. As they had torn the flesh from his body, he blessed them for it, showing wisdom, mercy, and......and Conan leapt in in time to stop one of the Picts hearing the story from braining the priest from behind. Conan slew some of the Picts and others fled. The priest continued to believe in his mission of peace, and when Conan led the group of settlers to flee from another group of Picts, the priest met with Shooz Dinj, who told him he had remembered his lesson. They bound the priest to the ground, and flayed his skin, one strip at a time.

(SSoC#15-17, The Hyborian Era) - @ 9500 BC, approximately 500 years after the rule of Conan, Arus, a Nemedian priest of Mitra, sought to bring religion to the heathen Picts. Arus taught Gorm, the leader of one of the Pict clans about the success and splendor of the Hyborian Kingdoms as proof of the power of Mitra. Impressed, Gorm and his allies began to make voyages to all of Aquilonia, under Arus' permission. However, Gorm remained a barbarian to the core, and had no interest in Mitra, but rather in the wealth of Aquilonia. From his visits, he took back the skills to forge chain mail armor and iron weapons, with which he began a series of wars which, with the aid of a few other complicating factors, brought about the fall of Aquilonia over the next 75 years. When the wars started, Arus sought to turn Gorm from the path of violence. For his efforts, he received a stone mace in the back of his head--and likely his head on a pike afterwards.

Mitra's Relatives/Post-Hyborian Fate

As occurred with Crom, I have deduced from Gaea's serving as the maternal ancestor of the Earth's gods that she should be listed as Mitra's "mother". I have listed Varuna as his brother based on information from the authentic Vedic account of Mitra.

As to what became of Mitra after the Hyborian era, one is free to speculate. It could be possible that he was either the same as or reincarnated as the Mitra/Mithra of post-Hyborian myth. In which case, his later fate is detailed below.

As to what happened to Mitra's hell dimension, many hell-realms have been seen in modern times. Whether a demon later usurped Mitra's hell-dimension and became its ruler could be possible. It is interesting to note, by the way, that although Set was Mitra's main enemy, it does not seem that he would receive the souls that Mitra judged as worthy of damnation, since generally in the Marvel Universe, gods only receive the souls of those that worshipped them, not the souls of sinful worshippers of other gods. Set's own pocket dimension (seen as recently as Thor Annual#14) does not seem to have any souls of the dead resident there, and the limbo realm seen in Marvel Team-Up I#111 is only for the souls of deceased Serpent Men.

However, as covered under the profile for Ishiti, the daughter of Set apparently ruled the otherdimensional Isle of the Living Dead. In Conan the Barbarian I#147, it was said that C'Harona had been "promised a place in his nether world" by Set for her aid in opposing the Mitraic  religion. So, it could be possible that Set controls a land of the dead, but that sinful Mitraists went there remains uncertain.

Mitra In Vedic Times

As discussed under the entry for Shiva, Mitra in historical mythology was a god of the Vedas (early Indo-European religious documents), at a time when both the Persian and Indian peoples worshipped the same gods, following similar religions. At this early stage, Mitra was a very prominent god. Varuna and Mitra were the older, biological brothers to Indra and Vishnu. Mitra was also called Surya. Varuna, Mitra, and Indra presided as the ruling trinity of the Vedic gods.

However, in both India and Persia, Mitra fell from prominence. In India, when Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva ascended to heaven, they replaced Varuna, Mitra and Rudra in their respective places in the ruling trinity.

In Persia, Mitra was also subsumed, but here matters took a very different turn. Here, no later than 600 BCE, a new religious teacher rejected the worship of the established trinity of Varuna, Mithra and Indra. He emphasized the eternal struggle between a force of good (Ahura Mazda) and a force of evil (Ahriman). This teacher was named Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

However, at some point after the reform of the Persian religion by Zoroaster, some Persians began to revive the worship of Mitra as a savior god who was the Way, the Truth, and the Light. He died for our sins. In time, the veneration of Mitra spread to many foreign lands, including in Europe.

Mithraism and Christianity

Mithraism competed with early Christianity in the later days of the Roman Empire. It soon became apparent that Mithraism and Christianity were very similar, and in several cases, it was obvious that Christians had plagiarized Mithraist practices:

• The celebration of the birth of Mithra took place on December 25. Note that the four generally accepted Christian gospels give no date for the birth of Jesus son of Mary. Mithraist stories tell of Mithra being visited by shepherds after his birth.
• Mithra healed the sick and raised the dead.
• Mithraists worshipped on Sunday. Note that the Hebrew Ten Commandments direct one to worship on Saturday ("seventh day"), not Sunday.
• The celebration of the visit of wise men to the young Mithra took place on January 6.
• Mithraism had seven sacraments.
• Mithraism had a ritual meal in which people were invited to drink of Mithra's blood and eat of his flesh--with the flesh of Mithra represented by bread.

Early Christian writers attempted to address the issue of the similarity between Mithraism and Christianity by stating that the Mithraists had stolen their rituals from Christianity. However, it became apparent that this was not a feasible explanation, since Mithraism was older than Christianity! The Mithraists had been performing their rituals long before the birth of Jesus son of Mary would have taken place.

So, many early Christian writers came up with a solution that ranks with the most extreme paranoid delusions. They explained the similarities between Mithraism and Christianity by saying that Satan knew Jesus was coming, and so to throw people off, Satan created Mithraism (and other similar religions) in the centuries before Jesus' birth. Satan hoped that the existence of religions that had many similarities to Christianity which preceded the life of Jesus would cause people to not believe in Jesus when he showed up!

This theory has been called "diabolical mimicry". Whew, that Satan; he must be so busy, what with him also creating fossils for people to find all over the world in order to get people to believe in evolution and the Earth being millions of years old instead of people accepting the Hebrew Bible story of Adam and Eve with the world being less than seven thousand years old!

As discussed under the entries for both the Serpent Men of Stakesboro and the Serpent Men who are the original spawn of Set, Mithraism used a t-shaped symbol to represent their god as the rays of the sun, which directly inspired the Trinitarian Christian use of the cross, as the historical Jesus son of Mary would have actually been crucified on a single pole. I have extrapolated that Setian use of the inverted cross on Earth-616 mocks Mitra, not Jesus. (Incidentally, someone watching the Conan the Adventurer animated series of the early 1990's once said it would be fun if Jesus showed up to banish the Serpent Men! Well, the Hyborian Age did not have Jesus, but they did have Mitra to stop the Serpent Men......)

Christianity eventually won out over Mithraism by gaining the favor of the Roman Emperor. Specifically, the Emperor Constantine, who actually for most of his life was a member of Mithraism and other cults, had murdered his son, and sought to cleanse himself of the sense of guilt he felt about doing this. He was informed by the Mithraist priests and scholars that they could not cleanse him of the taint of what he had done. However, Christian priests informed him that Christian baptism erased all sins committed before the baptism. So not only would it forgive Constantine's murder of his son, if Constantine put off his baptism until just before he died, during his life he could commit all the sins that he wanted to, and his baptism would save him from any punishment in the afterlife for his accumulated sins! In fact, the Emperor Constantine chose this route. (So, you can do a last-minute conversion!)

Upon the ascension of the Roman Catholic Church, Mithraism was wiped out upon the passage of the Codex Theodosius, the series of laws which banned all religions in the Roman Empire except for Roman Catholic Christianity and Judaism. These laws came out in 341, 345, 356, 381, 383, 386, and 391 CE. Mithraists had their civil rights taken away. For a witty discussion of the existence of Mithraism in the Roman Empire by the great anti-clerical writer Joseph McCabe, click here.

Within centuries, any Mithraists in Persia soon also lost their civil rights due to pro-Jesus intolerance; circa the year 650 CE, Arabs who were Muslims (and thus believed in the Koranic account of the virgin birth of Jesus) invaded Persia. As a result, Persia became Muslim. The old Vedic-connected religions such as Zoroastorianism and Mithraism were wiped out. Today in Persia, now called Iran, anyone who follows these non-Abrahamic religions faces the death penalty or other harassment.

Mitra and the use of the word Pagan/Other Hyborian Religions

Curiously, in several places in the discussion of the Hyborian era religions, such as in The Official Handbook of the Conan Universe#1, non-Mitraic  religions are referred to as "pagan". This presents an odd employment of the term, since the word pagan in its most scholarly use refers to someone who follows a religion other than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Someone who follows one of those three religions is said to follow an Abrahamic religion, as all three of these religions acknowledge Abraham as a prophet.

In the Hyborian era, no one followed an Abrahamic religion. Even the ancestors of the Jews and Arabs, the people of Shem, held polytheistic beliefs in Ashtoreth, Derketo, Ishtar, Pteor, Adonis, and Bel of Shumir. Since Abraham did not exist during the Hyborian era (since the Hyborian era was over 8,000 years ago, and the Hebrew Bible pegs Abraham as having existed less than 6,000 years ago), again, nobody in the Hyborian era looked up to him as a prophet. So, Mitraic s in this non-Abrahamic sense would also be pagans.
The word pagan actually denotes either: (1) a follower of a polytheistic religion, or (2) one who has little or no religion. It does carry the connotation of referring to non-Abrahamic religions, but that is not its true meaning. Thus since Mitraism in the Hyborian era was a monotheistic religion, Mitraists wouldn't be pagans, but, at least to them, everyone else would--Snood.

A curious observation has to do with What If I#39, in which Thor (of an alternate quantum reality) was cast back in time to the Hyborian epoch. One of the points Thor observed about the gods of the Hyborian era was that they seemed to be inhumane, either aloof in the case of Crom or bloodthirsty in the case of Set. Thor seemed to think that the Hyborian era gods were not at all compassionate.

However, Mitra, as seen in the history detailed above, seemed quite compassionate, as he often interceded in human affairs to protect people from Set. The description of him as preaching mercy above vengeance would also seem to paint him as a compassionate god......if Mitra did not also consign people to a hell dimension for punishment. It always seems strange that gods who banish people to face eternal damnation can be considered "forgiving". However, I suppose it is possible that imprisonment in Mitra's hell was not permanent.
--We can excuse Thor b/c I don't think he encountered Mitra (maybe some invoked him, and he helped Conan rob a Mitran house of worship, but that's it).

Mitran Cross and Vampires

One of the first recorded uses of a cross against a vampire takes place in Savage Sword of Conan#141 when the Mitran priest Vitellus used a Mitran cross against vampires that Ymir had imprisoned ages ago in Vanaheim. In addition, Vitellus noted that the oak and the ash were sacred types of wood and even used holy water from a sacred river under the city of Shadizar.

Mitraic  Monotheism

Some versions of the Mitraic  religion, as discussed in the profile, emerged as one of the few monotheistic religions in the Hyborian Age. However, the Mitraic  belief in Mitra as the only real god has, as noted, been shown to be false.

• Set, of course, has been shown as literally real numerous times, as late as Thor Annual#14, although he is admittedly technically a demon.

• Similarly, Ymir the Frost Giant has made many appearances in the modern era, and his daughter Atali appeared in Savage Tales I#1.

• Borri the Grim Grey God appeared in Conan the Barbarian I#3.

• Erlik in Conan the Barbarian I#120 appeared to Conan, and has even been established as existing in the pre-Cataclysmic era.

• This is also true of Crom (on an alternate Earth in What If I#39, possibly in Savage Sword of Conan#110, definitely in Conan the Barbarian I#260).

• In addition, other pre-Hyborian gods such as Atum (Thor Annual#10, Silver Surfer Annual#2/7), Valka (Doctor Strange III#33/2), and of course Gaea have been shown as actually existing in the Multiverse.

Mitra on Alternate Earths

• Mithraism/Mitraism may still exist as a vital religion on Earth-9, for Saturnyne, a woman native to Earth-9 (as established in  Mighty World of Marvel#13), in Mighty World of Marvel#11 took Mitra/Mitras' name in vain while observing Jaspers' battle with the Fury. She said "Mitras wept....."

• On the other hand, in Mighty World Of Marvel#9, Saturnyne said "For God's sake help that woman!". This latter interjection falls more in line with Abrahamic influenced English. (Of course, the word "god" by etymology comes from Gothic and the Germanic languages, not the Hebrew/Semitic words el or elohim, but the common usage of the unqualified word "god" alone evolved due to the impact of the Abrahamic religions, and usually refers to the Abrahamic god. Deists are careful to refer to "Nature's God" or some other qualified use of the word.)
  

• Possibly on Earth-9, Julian the Apostate, the Roman Emperor who returned to non-Abrahamic religion, was successful in breaking the power of the Roman Catholic Church (which he was not in the real world). So the earlier more tolerant syncretism returned, and Mitraism co-existed with the Abrahamic faiths from that point on. In that case, by the time English people adopted Abrahamic faiths, many also adopted Mitraism. So the interjections "Mitras wept" and "For God's sake" became equally common.   

• Incidentally, in Daredevils#7, "Rough Justice", Saturnyne refers to the month of Freya, indicating another Earth-9 point of divergence.

Snood's additional comments:

• The first 25 issues of the third Deadpool series built up to the Mithras Project, which, if I remember correctly, involved the accepting of the Messiah/S'met'Keth who was to bring an age of peace and harmony to Earth.

• Ibis is mentioned frequently in the Hyborian era. I'd think that this might represent the Heliopolitan God Thoth, who was an Ibis-headed moon god. Or it might be someone else entirely.

• I doubt that Mitra would have intended the violent path through which Red Sonja had to pass before achieving her potential.

By Per Degaton and Snood

CLARIFICATIONS:
Mitra, should be distinguished from:

• Jesus son of Mary, though often artists have drawn Mitraic  statues to resemble the long-haired Italian Renaissance painting image of him , @ Bible Tales for Young Folk#1
• The Mithras Project , @ Deadpool III#15, is presumably named after Mitra/Mithra/Mithras, but is otherwise, presumably, unconnected to him

Set, the Elder God, father of the Serpent Men, should be distinguished from such impostors as:

• Seth, the Heliopolitan Serpent God of Death, who famously usurped Set's worshippers after the end of the Hyborian Age,
  @ Thor I#240
• Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur, who also masqueraded as Set, @ X-Factor#5

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:06

ZARATHUSHTRA;

The First Monotheist Prophet

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By: Noorbakhsh Rahimzadeh


Abstract: According to the present article the first Iranian prophet who laid the foundation for sun worship (Mitraism) was called Mehabad. Abad Bozorg (the big Abad), who was a pious ruler in Iranovich was born 3593 years before the birth of Prophet Zoroaster. He laid the foundation of monotheism or divine worship and a constitution based on justice which was known as Mitradad.

 

According to the Avesta and the historical records in Iran, from the time of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, until the confirmation of Zoroaster in the fortieth year of the reign of Goshtasb of Kianian Dynasty, the Mehr religion was the popular and common religion of the Iranian people. Mehabad's prophethood is called the Abadian Dynasty and in the meantime Mehabad can be considered as the first founder of constitution for mankind.

 

 

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Until contemporary times, researchers in the world have had lengthy debate and have written hundreds or perhaps thousand books as to which of the prophets, known to mankind, was the first who laid the foundation for monotheism or divine worship in the human history. If we study all these books which have been written or translated, we will understand that there is a certain organized movement to introduce two rightful and legible prophets in human history for political and cultural ends and by lengthening or shortening the date of birth of these prophets they have pursued specific objects none of which is based on truth. From all these studies we can see that the edge of the lance is wholly and relentlessly aimed at Zoroaster, the Iranian prophet. For political reasons the lifetime of this prophet has been altered several times.

Now should we classify the theories expressed by researchers, we will have three types of theories. The first theory which up to now has been the most costly one belongs to those who insist that this ancient prophet was born 660 years before the birth of Christ. In the second theory, astrologers such as Birjandi and Bahmanyar, the students of Ibn Sina, and supported by well known contemporary professor Zabih Behrooz, maintained that Zoroaster was born in the year 1768 B.C. i.e. 47 years after the birth of Abraham. It was not right for Behrooz, the celebrated scholar, to side with these students of Ibn Sina. Because when this verdict arrived at the West it gave them a license to establish a giant cultural foundation. By relying on that verdict this foundation declared that Zoroaster was one of the students of Prophet Abraham and that Zoroastrian religion was a branch of Jewish monotheism religion.

The third theory belongs to the majority of Indian Parsi researchers and scholars such as Professor Jamshid Kavos Jeikatrak who argued with many strong justifications that Prophet Zoroaster lived approximately 6600 years before Christ. In this article we will study the first theory which maintains that Zoroaster was born in 660 B.C.

Should we consider the opinion of the followers of this theory and not the Zoroastrians who, due to lack of research about the appearance of Hooshidar, gradually reduced the birthday of the prophet, we will have two groups.

The first group which we may call experts on emergence of prophets, are those who, with the exception of Mani, believe that the prophets started their work after the invasion of Arabs into Iran and by gradually reducing the prophet's birthday, they paved the way for the emergence of their desired deadline. In order to achieve that end these researchers were forced even to alter and distort the research works of our past scholars such as Abu Reyhan Birooni's Albaqieh.

Before the invasion of our country by the Arabs, the Iranians were always astonished about the date of birth of Hooshidar which was supposed to be one thousand years after the death of Zoroaster. But since they were living in an independent and rich country they neglected to study the matter believing that it was one of the secrets which would be revealed to them at a later date.

Meanwhile until the Arab invasion no Iranian doubted the date of birth and death of Zoroaster because all precise and authentic historical information about that prophet and other prophets were registered in four thousand volumes in Tisphoon or other libraries in Iran. But after Arabs invaded Iran and stripped Iran of its independence and burnt all our historical sites and records, since the Iranians were always seeking to revive their historical glory, they started to reduce Zoroaster's birthday to 400 B.C. and opened the way for false researchers and scholars such as Tamami, Mansoor Hallaj, Diyalameh, Bahram Jenabi and Hassan Sabah. All these so called experts on the emergence and revelation of prophets were not sincere in their national aspirations, and that which was wrong with their patriotism was that they distorted the Iranian history.

The second group of researchers are contemporary researchers who are influenced by international Jewish communities who are told by Torah or the Old Testament Abraham was born in the year 1810 B.C. This group claim that Abraham was the first monotheist prophet and Zoroaster was influenced by Abraham to preach his monotheist creed. These scholars quoted by Diogenes Lertius, the Greek historian of the third century A.D., who himself quotes from Akrantous, another Greek historian of the year 210 A.D., say three manuscripts have survived from this historian in one of which the date of Zoroaster's birth is quoted as 600 years before Achamenian Xerex's invasion of Greece. In the other too manuscripts Zoroaster's birthday is quoted as 6000 B.C. which resembles many other ancient Grecian historiographers.

Although this mistaken registration of Zoroaster's birthday was repeated by subsequent Greek chronographers, the main source for subsequent quotations was Lertius' third manuscript, whereas in the other two manuscripts he quotes 6,000 B.C. as the prophet's birthday. Meanwhile elsewhere in his book, relating from Hermodoros, Plato's student, the same author says Zoroaster was born 5000 years before the battle of Troy. Since Xerex invaded Greece in 480 B.C. and the battle of Troy was fought in the year 1184 B.C., the birthday of Zoroaster, as related by Lertius must be 6184 B.C.

Now considering the fact that at least more than 9 famous Grecian historians (Aristotle, Odoxous, Pollianus, Hermitus, Plutarch, Theopompous, Suidas, Eskoloiyon and Laktantius) have all mentioned Zoroaster's birth as 6000 years before the birth of Christ or 5000 years before the war of Troy or 6000 years before invasion of Greece by Xerex, it is definite that in his third volume Lertius has dropped a zero from the birthday and this error has led to all this chaos in the history. Since we know that Grecian historiographers had access to written Babylonian and Persian calendars, we can rely on their integrity that the prophet was born in 6184 B.C. and died in the year 6107 B.C. and can hereby announce to future Iranian generations that under no condition they must change this verdict and must continue to repeat 6184 B.C. as Zoroaster's birthday.

As a comparison for the readers I must add that according to Torah Adam was born in the year 3761 B.C., Noah in 2705 B.C., Abraham in 1815 and Moses in 1392 B.C. Now if any researcher has doubt about the birthday of Zoroaster he may mention his objection and we will reply. We Iranians are an oppressed nation who have no recorded history because our real history which incorporated millions of volumes were burnt to ashes by Arab, Mongol and Tatar invaders. It is true that before Arab invasion we did not own the full Avesta which had been written in golden ink on 12000 cow hides, but it has been proven that our national library at Tisphoon contained 400000 volumes of historical, religious and national books. Among these one version of Avesta contained 21 volumes, 348 chapters and 7259700 words (of which only 83000 words have descended to the present generation).

Meanwhile these books are separate from those volumes which were preserved in hundreds of valid and famous Iranian fire temples and Anahita chain temples or Gondi Shapur University. We all know that his giant spiritual wealth can in no way be assessed. Tisphoon was burnt by Said ibn Abi Vaqqas and from Susa to Ramhormoz and from Ramhormoz to Khawrazm our libraries were burnt by other Arab invaders. It is important to note that five centuries after the destruction of the national identity of the Iranian people and when no Iranian knew his identity, a giant Islamic/Iranian movement started from Iran by historical figures such as Hassan Sabah who still continues to be mentioned as the leader of apostates but nobody has analyzed or commented about his sayings which have been quoted here and there partly by foreign (and not national) researchers.

Hassan Sabbah who had studied the Grecian and Iranian historical records in Egypt (and particularly in the Alexandrian Library), during the transfer of leadership of the Shia sect from Africa and Egypt to the Alamut stronghold, dispatched his eminent preachers to Egypt and Syria to record and translate the Iranian history and religions from the Grecian books. It is said that this was the period when our burnt history was recovered and rebuilt by the Ismaili religious preachers from the books existing in Alexandria. It is also reported that all the Ismaili popular and military forts housed giant libraries and those who wanted to meet Hassan Sabah in fact prevented him from writing. With the exception of those hours that Sabbah participated in military maneuvers or attended the evening prayers in the congregation mosque or answered students and scholars, he was always busy writing.

What were the things that gushed from the fertile pen of this Muslim and patriotic Iranian national on the paper? Can we believe that nothing has survived from Hassan Sabbah except his Chahar Darbs (four gates). I can imagine the titles of his numerous books. His spiritual commentary on the Quran was very meaningful and the spiritual Shias were not unimportant and ignorant people. Alas that these rare historical books were destroyed by the savage Halaku Khan, the barbarian Mongol and grandson of Chengiz. I can assert with assurance that the existing Iranian history which is read by our children is not genuine history. This is a history which has been fabricated by the enemies of Iran for our countrymen and our ignorant friends have relayed these distorted falsifications from generations to generations. The Iranian history must be rebuilt for the fourth time.

Presently we possess only 125 Pahlavi unearthed tablets which our Sassanian ancestors recorded for our present generation. These were preserved for us by the oppressed and persecuted Zoroastrians who created epics in India and the reduced Avesta containing 83000 words is one of these relics.

Mythological history is a history which has been descended from father to son and from mouth to mouth and there is no written record to authenticate its veracity. But these 125 Pahlavi records along with Ferdowsi's Shahnameh which must be considered as the 126th Pahlavi tablet (because Shahnameh was based on Pahlavi Khodanameh and Khodanameh was itself based on calendars used during the Achamanian, Parthian and Sassanian periods). These books have helped us to extract at least a brief history of the Kianian and Pishdadian periods out of mythological history and to integrate it into the Iranian recorded history. Because some of these works have referred to the rulers of these two dynasties. My research about Ajamian and Abadian periods has led me to conclude that these two periods which are not authenticated by records will shortly enter our written historical annals.

A fourth attempt to rebuild the Iranian history under a giant cultural/national framework, must follow two parallel lines:

1. We must make excavations throughout the Iranian plateau only by pure Iranian experts in no way affiliated to foreign researchers and by only those who love the Iranian dignity and we must impose strict conditions so that should an expert or a worker disgrace his national honor, hanging must be his least punishment. Such a process was initiated in a contrary manner during the Shah's reign and greedy international antiquarians even presided over the Iranian archeological operations.

Thanks to such a high authority given to the foreign agents, not only these archaeologists stole our valuable historical relics but even the white mummy (1) of Froditish, the father of Median history (2). Unfortunately such a pillage of underground relics was not limited to the carelessness of the Shah's period but continued more boldly and with advanced electronic equipment (known as treasure hunters) after the victory of the 1979 Revolution. Therefore, should the Iranian Majlis fail to strengthen the regulations set for protection of national heritages a thousand times, we will shortly witness an era when all our giant underground heritage, which has been left by our wise forefathers, will be wholly stolen or destroyed and nothing will be left for us to rebuild our history. Our Majlis must know that anything concealed under the earth is history and the history of a nation is the history of the whole mankind which was preserved in the Dezh Nebesht and Azar Goshasb Temple or the giant Tisphoon library.

2. The other parallel line is persistence and steady search for Indian, Chinese and Tibetan historical records, which were preserved at the cost of Iranian blood. They can be assured that should we succeed to teach their language and letters to our students through professors such as Sajjadieh, our students will research all these resources. But, as I promised earlier, in this article I wish to introduce a new and still uncovered period of the Iranian history to our readers. What I mean to tell to the second group of researchers is that they do not need to take much pains about the birthday of Zoroaster because it has been proved to me that Zoroaster was not the only monotheist prophet in Iran but the second.

Then who is the first monotheist prophet in the history of mankind and where he was nominated as prophet? After 44 years of research I have discovered that the birthday of this reverend prophet was 3593 years before the birth of Zoroaster i.e. 9700 years B.C. or 11697 years ago (retroactive to 1997). This prophet who has remained veiled as yet was living in a country known as Iranovich in the world and he was the founder of the first monotheist religion of ancient times that is Mehr (Mitra) religion or sun worship religion.

Since the researchers in the world have failed to identify this prophet or the emergence of the Mehr religion to prophet Mashir or Mehr, they have sufficed to study this important religion and all these researches have claimed that it is a monotheist religion which worshiped sun as a deity. Fortunately the hour, date and anniversary of birth of Prophet Mashi was discovered by late eminent Iranian scholar Zabih Behrooz to be 25 December, 271 A.D. This second prophet of Mehr or Mitraism whose holy book (Artank) has not been descended to us, was confirmed at the age of 25 and at 40 he invited followers to join the Mehr (sun worship) religion.

But we know that Mehr or Mitra was not only related to Parthian period and that before the confirmation of Zoroaster that religion was practiced in Iran. It has even been proved that Zoroaster was a staunch supporter of Mehr religion and before his confirmation he had progressed to the seventh rank in that region which enabled him to commune with God.

Now the question is that who was the founder of Mehr or Mitra religion? Can a religion exist without a founder?

With regard to existence of Mehr religion during the reign of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, nobody has any doubt, because besides several documents in that connection we can rely on Abolqasem Ferdowsi in his Khodaynamak or book of God. Ferdowsi says:

We are not ashamed of an ancient faith,
No world had a better faith than Hooshang's faith;
All was righteousness and justice, the Mehr code,
And the code examines our annals and the mode.

Thus it is evident that the Mehr religion existed during the reign of Hooshang and since history does not mention any other religion during the Pishdadian and Kianian periods but Zoroastrian, undoubtedly the Mehr religion was the popular religion of all Iranians before Zoroaster's confirmation. This religion was divided into seven laborious stages or ranks and its followers were compelled to thread at least three stages of that faith. However, the other four stages were voluntary. The compulsory stages or ranks were practiced from 5 to 15 years age by the followers. In order to adjust these ancient stages to the present calculations we might divide them into primary, first medium (until first cycle) and final medium stages and then the very difficult graduation examination (or final examination). The last two composed a single stage and these three ranks were called the crow, the betrothal and fighting stages or ranks.

At the crow stage the follower first learned to read and write, and then he learned the basics and subdivisions of the religion. Then his education was divided into physical sports and social sciences which continued alongside each other. In the physical sports much emphasis was laid on body building (knight-errantly) and resistance against hardship.

Besides teaching physical body sports, the teachers taught the students to endure severe hunger and thirst and they used to place the students in very warm regions resembling an inferno or very cold regions resembling poles for weeks. They taught them to swim and to range the plain and made them tolerate long marches on foot. They were taught horse riding and polo and were exhorted about the merit of friendship and human sympathy, and the obedience of men and horses.

In social sciences the student was taught truth, commitment to contracts, justice, righteousness and daily ablutions. For example in the section related to justice, the principles of rewarding and punishing, supporting truth and fighting untruth and the method of accumulating knowledge and divine grace and the glory of attaining the seventh stage of the religion and superior understanding (of Almighty God) was taught to the students.

The fighting stage (third stage) was dedicated to combating classes. In this period which was one third of ten years (3.5 years), the student was taught to do arduous exercises and all the techniques of fighting in the theoretical and practical sense so that after graduation they emerged like a Rostam, Bijan of Bahram the Goor, each of whom were able to command an army. We have read in Nezami Ganjavi's divan about Bahrame Goor who at the head of hundred knights, attacked and scattered the immense Chinese army which had entered the Iranian territory, or we learn that no foreign invader succeeded to defeat Rostam.

In the third stage the student is taught to fight in order to protect the Iranian territorial integrity which he had been told during his first and second stages. And while he was compelled to learn fighting, he was committed not only to learn the theories but to practice the fighting by lengthy and very hard exercises. Records have revealed that Keykavoos, the king, had asked Rostam to teach the three stages of the religious codes to his son Siavosh. This proves that these three compulsory stages were so necessary and so laborious that even the ruler himself could not tolerate to see his son's suffering, and for that very reason Yazdgerd the Second asked Espahbod Manzar (General Manzar) to teach Bahrame Goor, his son.

We have records in our possession which prove that Rostam who was himself the king of Sistan and Balouchestan and a member of the Mahestan Senate or the upper Iranian senate, returned the motherless Siavosh to his father after ten years training when the boy was 15. At that age Siavash had Sohrab's huge body and Rostam's immense knowledge and a very wide leather belt on his waist. After completing the three stages, the student had to undergo a very difficult final examination and the graduate was awarded a wide leather belt. This was later changed by Zoroastrians as a certificate of graduation for wrestlers.

When the student graduated and received the coveted belt in Mehr religion, he was allowed to enter the community. It is true that a Mitra follower was not obliged to thread the other four stages of the region, but they had so many charms that invited many volunteers. For example petty kings (rulers) were chosen from among the graduates of fourth stage, kings (governors) were chosen from the graduates of fifth stage and the general commander of the army and the seven members of the elite Mahestan Senate were only selected from the graduates of the sixth rank. The graduates of the sixth stage were considered learned and they received the Farre Izadi or a certain divine bird which sat on its owner's right shoulder. It represented God and bestowed glory to its owner and watched lest the knight violated justice. In case the learned graduate of the sixth stage committed even one case of oppression or act against the region, God recalled the royal bird so that if the learned man was a governor, he would lose his legitimacy (Jamshid lost his rank in this manner by the Mahestan Senate).

Farre Izadi could not be seen by uneducated people. The bird bestowed many powers to its owner which was beyond the reach of man. Famous knights such as Rostam, Zal, Giv, Goodarz, Toos, Bizhan, Keshvad and Gorgin who formed the Mahestan Senate during Keykavoos' reign were all learned. Very few people succeeded in stepping into the seventh stage of Mehr religion while the religion prevailed.

Since the seventh stage or rank was the highest rank in the religion only those to whom truth was fully revealed and were able to commune with God, succeeded in attaining that elevated rank. It is now proven that Jamshid, the Pishdadi king, and Keykhosrow, the Kianian monarch, who succeeded to ascend to the highest peak in heaven as well as Prophet Zoroaster, had attained the seven rank in Mehr religion. Be not be surprised about Zoroaster. Yes, before his nomination to prophethood he was a staunch follower of Mehr religion and before seeking solitude in the E'etekaf Cave for 10 years he had attained the sixth stage and after taking 10 years of laborious fasting and bodily penury in the cave did he achieve the seventh rank.

By attaining the seventh rank in Mehr religion, Zoroaster succeeded to commune with God and this is why he was confirmed to become a prophet to amend the ancient Mehr religion. In fact Zoroastrian faith is the amended version of Mehr religion. Now Western researchers speak about Mehr religion as a sun worshiping religion which is due to their ignorance. Before the confirmation of Zoroaster God was known as Ahura in the Mehr religion and this was later changed to Ahuramazda by Zoroaster. Mitra used to be guardian of the earth before the amendment of the religion and each year that prophet descended on the Earth and sacrificed a cow (the last dinner of Jesus Christ is an imitation of Mehr religion). Then again he ascended to heaven.

Meanwhile the same deity has survived in Zoroastrian code as one of the gods. However, Zoroaster eliminated the sacrifice rite and in Zoroastrian faith Mitra was assigned another earthly mission (which was protection of oaths, truth and defending those who fought for justice).

The statues surviving from Mitra show his birth in the heart of the rock where Kootes and Kootopates always presided during his birth and later on during sacrifice ceremonies. Fortunately, a considerable number of these statues in Europe and a few in Asia have been discovered. These statutes might make every man of moderate sense ask himself: "If the Iranian Mehr worshipers believed that Mitra was the sole God, then why did they make him be born in a rock or cave which is naturally created by a god? And if he was the sole God in the religion why was it that during his birth creatures such as rocks and human beings were present?" If God is born in rock then what God has created the rock and torchbearers such as Kootes and Kootopates?

The lectures given by all the Pishdadi and Kiani rulers have been preserved throughout Shahnameh. Everywhere we see that these rulers start their inauguration address in the name of God and they always preach justice and avoiding injustice. Since we know that during the fortieth year of his reign Goshtasb, the Kianian king, accepted the Zoroastrian monotheist religion, the question is what other religions were worshiping the other Kianian rulers and all the Pishdadi rulers. Ferdowsi thus describes the inauguration speech of Hooshang, son of Siamak:

When he sat on the exalted throne;
Thus he addressed from the royal throne:
"I'm a king of seven nations, I am
Wherever victory and ruling prevails;
On the order of victorious God
I am to spread justice in the earth."

Considering the fact that until that time the Zoroastrian faith had not been introduced, to what God and through what religion Hooshang was addressing God?

Up to now foreign researchers have considered the Mitra creed as a division of Ashou Zartosht's religion and due to poor historical record they have remained silent about the history of Mehr religion. They have sufficed to say that there was a certain religion in Iran before Zoroaster. Only outstanding Iranian scholars such as Zabih Behrooz, Mohammad Moqadam, and engineer Hami have dared to boldly refer to that religion.

Professor Behrooz relied on the reports of astrologers such as Birjandi and Bahmanyar, (Ibn Sina's students) who had announced that they had identified a prophet of Mehr religion to have been born on the evening of Sunday, December 25, 271 B.C., which coincided with the Parthian reign. This verdict is quite befitting to the rank of this important contemporary scholar and is truly a genuine verdict. Surely Prophet Mashi (Mehr prophet) was born exactly on that day but did the Mehr religion exist before the birth of that prophet? Surely he must have been the prophet of the religion that Hooshang refers in his inauguration address during coronation. We have no other alternative but accept that he was the second Iranian prophet or Messiah of the Mehr religion. Then we must ask ourselves who was the first prophet and founder of that religion?

Western researchers believe that Izad Mehr or Mitra was the only God worshiped in Mehr religion and always considered him to be the sun and the follower of that religion as sun worshipers, whereas in the Iranian culture both during the Mehr religion and Zoroastrian religion, light has been said to have issued before sunrise. Regarding the monotheist nature of that religion we do not possess any better record than the statues that show the birth of Mitra discovered by these western researchers themselves in temples throughout Europe. In these statues Mehr is either represented to have been born from the trunk of a pine or from the heart of a rock and always two living witnesses called Kootes and Kootopates, both of them male shepherds, were present during his birth.

What message the pine or rock convey in the statue? Does not it mean that before the birth of Mitra there was a single God who created the Earth, the rock and the tree? Is not it for a specific end that they claim that Mitra was the only God in Mehr religion?

Zoroaster did not cancel the Mehr religion but amended it within Zoroastrian framework. He abolished the sacrifice rite from the religion and changed Ahura to Ahuramazda and truth into goodness and benevolence. But he preserved the foundation of Izad Mehr as one of the deities and invested important duties to this God such as achieving victories during war for the followers of the faith, observing contracts and oaths, etc. instead of portraying him as the mere patron of sacrifice and last dinner.

Zoroaster abolished the seven stages of Mehr worship and instead introduced seven qualities for God known as seven Amshasepandans representing patterns of good qualities in the religion. Now some maintain that these Amshasepandans were six qualities which later on were changed into seven qualities or deities based on wrong assumptions. In Haft Hat Yasna expressly refers to seven Amshasepandans with Ahuramazda's name on the top. Was not Ahuramazda one of the qualities of God besides being a deity himself? Zoroaster surely reinstated all the Mitra gods in his religion and it is for that reason that we can consider the Zoroastrian creed as the amended version of Mehr religion. Zoroaster even refused to abolish the teaching of the children until age 15 in temples. He only changed the place of teaching Mehrabes to fire temples. Even nowadays Zoroastrian children are examined at 15 to see whether they have learnt the principles of their religion and those who pass the examination are allowed to wear the Sudra and fasten the Kusti belt.

I feel strongly and am almost sure that this wearing of the Kusti belt is a Mehr ritual which has survived in Zoroastrian faith and the five prayers a day performed by Zoroastrians are surely an imitation of Mehr worship among the Zoroastrians. Because we are informed in the history that Keykhosrow, the Kianian king, who was a Mehr follower sojourned 45 days and nights in a prayer niche and prayed and wept for Ahura and begged God to allow him to melt into his threshold when he became the supreme power on earth. We likewise know that God granted his supplication and permitted him to ascend to the peak of Heaven.

Our learned Ferdowsi has portrayed the surprising Iranian culture in a very worthy and glorious manner which is unforgettable and I feel myself committed to reproduce this strange historical event in a separate article from verse into prose.

With regard to the monotheist nature of Mehr religion we have so many documents and evidences that I do not think it is necessary to trouble my head with these documents unless an opposition is raised about a point which impels me to reveal a document. However as an example I am quoting a report from Ferdowsi about Faranak, the mother of Fereidoon, the Pishdadi king.

She prayed to Almighty God, washing his head and body,
Then she first visited the Lord of Universe;
And praised the Creator
That had made the days so joyful and merry.

The phrases `washing the head and body' and the `lord of universe' or the word `creator' is very important in these two lines. Washing the body before prayer i.e. to say ablution was a rite of Mehr religion which is still being practiced by Sabians in Khouzestan and Iraq who are the remnant of the Mehr religion. Also the baptism of the newborn which is prevalent in Christianity is an heritage of the same religion and tens of other rites from Mehr religion have entered the Christian religion.

Like Muslims before prayer the Zoroastrians take ablution. They pray five times a day. This must not make us doubt that the ablution and prayer ceremonies were transferred from Zoroastrian religion into Islam. I believe John the Baptist, son of Zakaria, was the first person who baptized Jesus Christ, and some researchers have impertinently counted him among the prophets of Israel's race. Most probably John was a Mehr worshiper and an Iranian who dwelt at Jerusalem.

The other terms `lord of universe' or `creator' make the reader presume that after ablution Faranak visited the physical lord of universe which is not correct. Because Faranak was the mother of the sovereign of the universe. Then undoubtedly she was praying God or spiritual lord of the universe, and the phrase `she prayed to the creator' has no other meaning but to pray at the threshold of God.

Thus it is certain that the followers of Mitra were monotheists and before prayer they washed their body and then started to praise God. This makes us dismiss any doubt about the fact that Mehr religion was the first divine religion in the world which praised the sole God and paid much respect to God than other religions (Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Muslims). Before praying to God a Mehr follower made sure to take full ablution so that he would not present himself to his maker with the smallest impurity. But in subsequent religions respect to God diminished and the saints thought it sufficient to wash only parts of their body (hands and feet) as a reverence to Almighty God. Thus we are certain that the Mehr religion, whose founder will be introduced below, was the first prevailing monotheist religion of mankind and Iran before the 40th year of the reign of Gosthasb when Zoroaster converted the king to his faith.

This famous prophet who was not only the only founder of divine religion but human civilization was Mehabad or Abad the Great. Mehabad was the pious Iranovich ruler 3593 years before the birth of Zoroaster.

Not only we Iranians but all mankind must raise statues of this pioneer prophet in all parts of the globe and pay homage to him, because not only he established the first monotheist religion in the world, but wrote the first constitution (known as Mitradad) and laid the foundation for human civilization in blessed Iranovich. Yes, the fact is that there was not four books about divine worship but five and all the prophets were Iranian by origin who rose in the Iranian geographic and climatic sphere. The respected Mehr religion and Zoroastrian religion in Iranovich were founded by two worthy Iranian prophets namely Mehabad and Zoroaster.

The Hebrew prophet was Abraham, son of Azar, and an Iranian who was born and confirmed as prophet in Oor or Hoor which means fire. He was a Sumerian by birth and the Iraqi Sumerians were a branch of Median tribe and they were Iranians and their root comes from Brahmans and Bahram. The religion which was founded by Abraham in Oor and then transferred to Hijaz and Cannan was not the present Jewish religion and this subject has been mentioned in the holy Quran in the Ale Omran verse (holy Quran), because the sacrifice rite exists in Jewish religion which Zoroaster had abolished.

The original religion propagated by Abraham must have been surely the Mehr religion which have been introduced in Oor, west of present Khorramshahr. Also Christianity is a division of Mehr religion and Islam also descended in Hijaz which was an Iranian province in Yemen and the prophet of Islam is also an Iranian by birth. Thus prophethood and monotheism was a pure Iranian creed.

Meanwhile valid Indian religions such as the Veda, Brahmans and Hinduism are all derivations of Iranian culture and civilization propagated by those Iranians who immigrated to India. The only difference is that the migrating Iranians traveled to countries which had a different climate than Iran.

The reason for so late discovery of that prophet is that in recent centuries a number of prejudiced people in India attributed the Dessatir faith to that prophet which is falsehood and by such a false religion they prevented researchers from exploring the true personality of prophet Mehabad. Whereas in fact Mehabad was the founder of Mehr religion. Beside that Ferdowsi thus introduces Mehabad to us in the following line:

His forefather, ninth in genealogy and root,
Was prophet Mehabad who spoke the truth.

Thus we are certain that Mehr religion existed and was the first public and popular Iranian religion from the time of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, until confirmation of Zoroaster in the fortieth year of the reign of Goshtasb, the Kianian king. We have documents at hand proving that Hooshang was Ajamian by birth and at the beginning of his rule the term `Pishdadi or Pashdati' was not employed. When Hooshang ascended the throne he differed with the Mahestan Senate composed of Iranian elders and commanders about the acceptance of Mitradat or Mehr constitution. But in the end the dispute was settled and all his subjects accepted the Mehr religion and the former codes. This is the reason why they are called `Pishdadian' (Pishdatian) because the accepted former (pish) codes "dats" which means justice. We are not aware of the holy book of Mehr religion but we can authenticate on Nezami Ganjavi's poem when he refers to the queen of Armenia who exhorts her niece Shirin and calls on her to take the holy oath.

When Shirin heard the sweet advice and inkling
She hung the maxim on her ear like a ring;
In her heart she agreed to the word,
For with that faith she was in accord;
By bright Haft Orang she took the oath
Which was God's commandment and code.

Considering the fact that before their conversion into Zoroastrian and Christian faiths the Armenians were staunch followers of Mehr religion and we see Shirin referring to Haft Orang or seven ranks, we can confirm that this book was a heavenly book containing seven brilliant ranks which were the pillars of that religion. But besides establishing the first divine religion which was based on the worship of a single deity, truth, kindness, observation of contracts, justice and physical advancement parallel with spiritual advancement, prophet Mehabad laid the foundation for the first constitution of mankind on the basis of that religion. This constitution served the basis for the subsequent (Moses') ten commandments and the codes of Hamurabi and Confucius, and the Mitradat constitution served as the foundation of a constitutional government in ancient Iranovich.

This combination of rules called Iranian irrevocable Dats or codes have been repeated several times as a glorious divine code and those who are interested in learning more about that subject might refer to my previous articles in the Vahooman magazine. Mehabad and his monotheist religion played a very important and essential role in the compilation of the Iranovich civilization which later served as the basis for all mankind, because he laid good morals and truth as the foundation of religion and government. He used to teach the new adherents in Iranovich by his Magi priests (who declared that lying is blasphemy, a contract must be observed and acted upon and that breaking a bond is also blasphemy). He exhorted his followers to learn, to be strong in order to resist those who oppressed them instead of oppressing others. For that reason until the establishment of 7 Iranian ancient kings during Jamshid, the Pishdadi king, no war was registered in the history of Iranovich and the claim of foreign researchers that the new settlers who moved to Panj Ab or Ilam were confronted by natives with curled hairs and Druids, and that upon confrontation with these natives, the migrants overcome and assimilated them into their race is false. Surely in the route that the Iranian migrants were moving, native families were dwelling but they were in no way aliens coming from other continents. In fact they were national migrants or government organized migrants who had moved their families by their own will and settled in Iranovich. It is for that reason that these natives treated future migrants, who possessed superior technology, as their saviors and in no region in that territory a battle ensued.

From the time of prophet Mahabad until the completing stage of Jamshid's rule no revolt, revolution or war between Iranian Mitra worshipers and aliens have been registered in the Iranian history. Jamshid was the only person who was proposed by God to become a prophet after prophet Mehabad and before Zoroaster, but he turned down that demand saying he did not feel he was capable to assume that role.

As a result, God appointed him as the sovereign of the world and commanded that the world should be expanded and ornamented. Regarding Jamshid, the Iranian history is vague. As a result I suggest young researchers to make a better study of this great historical Iranian figure. Since Jamshid succeeded to pass the seven stages of the Mehr religion, he was considered a saint and illuminated and succeeded to see divine truth and commune with God. Such an August personality can never ignore God's existence or call himself a god. As to why the Farre Izadi or divine bird broke from Jamshid, it must be due to his mistake which history has failed to explain. By establishing seven kingdoms in the ancient Iranian plateau, Jamshid governed his empire as a federative state and by melting the metal he laid the foundation of spinning and weaving, town building, engineering, medical and pharmaceutical science and tens of other sciences and arts. Jamshid rendered very important services to the Iranian people and he formed the civilization of mankind.

During the Parthian period prophet Mehr revived the declining Mehr religion to the extent that the faith spread to Europe in the year 67 B.C. and until 356 A.D. it remained the official religion of Rome. The four stages or ranks out of seven ranks were called Moshir, Parsa, Mehrpouya and Pedar stages. Many ignorant western researchers have said or recorded that Mitra worship has been annihilated and nobody is following that religion any more. But all mankind must know that Mehr religion was the first monotheist religion founded by the Iranian people and it has not been abolished but spread to Europe and America and has conquered these continents.

Yes,, Christianity is in fact a new version of Mehr religion which the Europeans have given it a Semitic background and some of its glorious rites and codes such as passing the seven stages of the faith have been segregated from the religion and instead they have ordained their followers to surrender to invaders. The sanctity of Sunday and Christmas season and the Christian pine and baptism and obeying the Pope or pater (father) are all Mehr codes observed in Christianity.

How regrettable it is to note that the British founded the terrible and much dreaded Freemasonry Mafia organization on the basis of Mehr edicts. The only difference is that instead of 7 stages or ranks they have set 33 ranks. This dreaded organization which secretly ensured British domination over mankind (under the name of Committee 300), is the same committee which has decided to introduce the new global order as of year 2000. The dreadful Freemasonry branches such as the old Scotland Yard and the new CIA in Washington have caused irreparable damage to the Iranian nation. We the Iranian nation are committed to fight such aggression in an organized manner. Yes, it was the Iranians who bestowed the monotheist Mehr religion to British migrants in Iranovich which propagated civilization, truth, chivalry and divine worship. Now is this justified for these ungrateful children of Mitra worshiping ancestors to replace the Mehr religion with freemasonry cult?

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Egyptian mummies were gray and the white mummies were used previous to Egyptian mummies.
2. Related from the book titled `A Period of Unawareness' written by Rashid Keykhosravi, that is Kord Kordi who was given the Zivieh Eagle epitaph by Dr. Mohammad Ali Sajjadieh. This is a small title for Keykhosravi. Instead he must be called the eagle of the Iranian plateau.

 

 

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:07

MITRA

- Mitra, Christmass and Pir Shaliyar ceremony Dec 2000 By Siamak R. Durroei Mitraism has been an influential force not only in the middle East, but in the West. Christmass in the west and Pir Shaliyar ceremony in Kurdistan both mark the birth of Mitra, the Indo-Iranian god of light. In this artcile we will trace back the Mitraism elements of these ceremoneis and their historical details. This will be a starting point to clarify some myths and puzzles around the origin of the Kurds. Christmass: birth of Christ? The birth of christ is celebrated by Christians in different days. The Catholics celebrate Christmas in 25 of December every year. In contrast the Orthodox Christians celebrate it on 6th of January each year. Which one is right? Historically, the Pegans before becoming Christian celebrated a Roman festival from 25th of Dec to 6 January. In 274 A.D. the Roman emperor Auelia declared 25th of December the birthday of the unconqured sun (Natalis solis invicti). This was the date that the winter solstice begins to show an increase of light period in a day. The actual date should be 21 December in which the winter starts and is celebrated by Iranians as the night of Forthy (shab-e Chelle) [1]. In Forth century, Pope Leo procliamed 25th of December as Christ's birthday after almost destrying the temple of Mithra in 376 A.D. Before that the Christians celebrated the Christ's birthday in 6th of January. 6th of January is the date that still the Eastern Orthodox christ celebrate the birth of Christ. The emergence of Christianity put an end to the expansion of the Mitraism in the west, but the signs of Mithra have not disappeared completely. Pir Shaliyar: Traces of Mitraism in Kurdistan Pir Shaliyar ceremony in Kurdistan is held n the 40th day of winter. The photo book "Kurds of Iran" by N. Kasraian and Z, Arshi and the film "Cherike Huram" (story of Huram) document the details of this ceremony which happens every year in Hawromanat mountainous region. The celebration is held in three stages, each in a day of three consecutive weeks. Pir who is the the highest rank in Mithraism is beleived to have cured a princess and married her. The ceremony marks their marriage. In the film, a cow is sacrificed and the blood spurts on the soil with the first sun-rays. "This is done to commomorate and follow Mythra, the God of light and prosperity, to asist resurrection and rebirth, by a person in whose family this duty is inherited." [2] In the evening of the eremony, a circle of men - with their hands holding and shoulders touching - dance in a mystic ecstacy with the rhythm played on Dafs. Women are not allowed to take part in this dance, but in the film, women have their gathering in a cave. Mithraism in Kurdistan and middle East The Magis "mogh" were those who were known as the religious authoritis in Mithraism in Kurdistan and middle East around 2500 years ago. Mogh was a hereditary status among Medes and before the rign of Dariush the Persian king, the Mithraist moghs were the highest religious authority in the state that Cyrus gaine from overthrowing his father-in-law, the last Median king. Kurush was succeeded by his son Kambiz III (529 BC). And Kambiz who died after the capture of Egypt, was successed by his brother Bardia. Dariush in his struggle to usurp the throne from Bardia and his Mogh/Medes supporters initiated a campaign of Magi-killing. Dariush claimed that Bardia is an imposter and he is a Mogh named Geomata. Dariush was aware that during the Mithra festival, the Moghs and King will get drunk and he used this oppurtunity to attack and kill the Moghs. The Mithra festival became the feast of Mogh-killing after the victory of Dariush. And Dariush who became the king married the daughter of Cyrus Atosa. By Daiush, the Mogh-killing feast replaced the feast of Mithra in Iran . Mithraism was replaced by Zoroastarism and the Mithraist Magis by the Zorastar priests. It is when the names of Persian months are changed officia ly to the Zoarostarian months (see [3]). But the name Mogh survived in Mobad (I.e. priest from mogh-bad). Mogh is also the root of Magi/Magic in European languages. The Mithra Empire The state religionous authorities in the Medes empire were Moghs the worshippers of Mithra. Mithra (from Mith/Mit light + ra subjective form) was god of light and friendship (see [4]. But Mithra was worshipped centuries before the Medes. Last century excavations in Iraq Nuzi cite (nar Kirkuk) has brought into surface the Indo-Hurrian Mitanni empire. The Mitanni kings who were speakers of an Indo-Iranian language ruled over the mainly Hurrian population of the region around 3500 years ago, a millinum before the Medes. Mitannis were worshipper of Mithra, Varuna and Indra according to the documents survived from their pacts. The lost capital of Mitanni was wasukani which is equal to bash-kani in Modern Kurdish (good water source). Mitanni itself is a Hurrian derived name (Mit + anni). Linguists haic research has shown that Hurrian is a dialect closely related to the south-caucasian languages like Georgian. In Hurrian Mesranni is used to refer to the country of Egypt (Mesr + anni). So Mitanni in Hurrian has the meaning of land of Mit. The Indian cousins of Mittanis who immigrated to India and indus valley called their and after their god Ind(-ra) and the Mitanni called their empire, The empire of Mit(-ra), This was a common practice among the population of the middle east to name their land after their god (see [5] and [6]. . The Mitanni Mitra woershippers cab be traced as the ancestors of the Medes empire in the middle East. The sophisticated and complex empire of the Medes did not come out of nothing. The Mitraism religion of both is one evidence. But another link exists between the two empires of Mittani and Medes. Mitanni after it was defeated and encorportaed into neigbouring empires was called hangalbat by Simitic speakers. The Medes called A Hurrian their own capital Hegmetani (or Ebkbatan) surviving as the present Hamedan. Iranologists attempt to find a meaning for the capital of Medes (as- the place of gathering) has ignored the fact that the metani in he(n)gmatani and metanni can refer to the same historic entity, this is mainly because the Mitanni empire, their gods, the Hurrian subjects and the structure, vocabulary and word formation rules of Hurria have not been discovered. The existence of linguistic and religious links between Medes and Mitanni empires provide the missing link in the history of the region, the origin of Kurdish and the evolution of Indo-Iranian languages. The consequence of such a minimalist [7] approach is far-reaching and beyond the scope of this short article. [1] Borrowed Ideas: Persian roots of Christian traditions, By Ramona Shashaani, Dec 23, 1999. http://www.iranian.com/History/1999/December/NewYear/index.html [4]Mithra , Encyclopedia .... religious, .....

[] Michael C. Astour, "Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris", in Studies on the civilization and culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians Volume 2, General studies and excavations at Nuzi 9/1, by D.I. Owen and M.A. Morrison (eds.), Winona Lake Indiana, Eisenbrauns, pp 1-66., 1987.

[] Ephraim Avigdor Speiser, Introduction to Hurrian , The annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, v. 20, 230 p., 1941.

[] Pierre Marot Purves, "Non-Semitic personal names from Nuzi: a dissertation in oriental studies", Philadelphia, 279 p., 1943.

[] Siamak R. Durroei, Etymology of Barzan, KURDICA Dec 1999.

[] Minimalist Program, Noam Chomsky.

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:08

The Odyssey is Non-Profit, but Not Non-Prophet
April 15, 2000


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You've no doubt heard the story before -- God speaks to one man, and gives him a message that will save all of humanity. That man goes out and, against all odds, shares that message with the people and converts many to his new religion. It hasn't happened to any of the trekkers yet, but if it's going to, I think we're in the right place.

Are we closer to God here, or are the people more spiritual than in other parts of the world? Is it in the water? Maybe it's the vast deserts, or the beautiful rugs. Why is it that so many influential prophets have come from the Middle East through the ages? There was Abraham who was born in what is now Turkey, and Jesus, of course, and then came Mohammed in Saudi Arabia.

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Not to be outdone, Persia has produced at least two similar "messengers of God," and two subsequent major religions. The first, named Zarathustra or Zoroaster, lived anywhere from 1500 BCE to 1200 BCE (depending on whose research you believe) and his religion, Zoroastrianism, strongly influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The second Persian prophet, Bahá'u'lláh, started the Bahá'í faith here in the 1800s, and a lot of his teachings stem from Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Since the revolution in 1979, when Iran became an "Islamic Republic" ruled by Muslim clergy, many followers of Zoroastrianism, and almost all of the Bahá'í, have left the country.

The Bahá'í faith, which we learned about back in Haifa, Israel, has five million followers worldwide and is still growing. Zoroastrianism, however, has fewer (some estimates say up to 150,000; other say less) and could be dying out. Still, in the big picture, Zarathustra has had a larger effect on the world.

Expert Fact Did you know that Zoroaster is older than Moses? Dr. Badi Badiozamani is the author of "Iran & America: Rekindling a Love Lost" (soon to be published), is a scholar, journalist and expert on Iran.

Before Zarathustra came along, the people of ancient Persia worshipped many gods. But Zarathustra's God, Ahura Mazda, the "Wise Lord," came down and told him to reject these "demons." For Zoroastrians, life is a battle between good and evil, and everyone -- man and woman alike -- is a warrior. The battle, however, is spiritual, not physical.

About 10,000 devout Zoroastrians live here in Yazd, Iran. Ateshkadé, the Zoroastrian fire temple, holds a fire that has burned for 1,530 years!

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"We believe that fire is a living thing," my new Zoroastrian friend Parvis told me. "So when a fire is made, it is important to remember, kind of like a birth certificate."

We were really fortunate to meet Parvis. He showed us around the fire temple and the old homes of his grandparents. The homes are built in the shape of a cross, to represent the four directions, a building custom which reminds me of ancient Native American religions and European pagan symbolism.

"Every time they (Zoroastrians) want to bless anything, they touch the four corners," Parvis explained. "All the prayers, they spread to the four corners. So a cross of equidistant sides with four dots is a very important symbol. In all of the Persian rugs you'll see the central medallion will be a cross. In the Mitraic religion you have hot cross buns way before in the Christian religion!" (Mitraism is a sect of Zoroastrianism that has spread to the West.)

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There are seven elements in Zoroastrianism that represent the one God. You can learn more about that in Kavitha's article, or go straight to the source: the holy book of Zoroastrians is known as the Avesta, and it was passed down orally for more than 1,000 years, until it was written down during the Sassanian dynasty in Iran, between the 3rd and 7th centuries CE. The oldest parts of the Avesta are the Gathas -- seventeen intricate poems supposedly written by Zarathustra himself.

After 10 years of getting NO converts, Zoroastrianism started growing, and eventually became the official state religion of Persia under the Sassanians, who controlled this area between 224 and 637 CE. Instead of the Islamic Republic of Iran, did they call it the Zoroastrian Kingdom of Persia? Well, it really doesn't matter, because once Mohammed brought Islam to the Arabs, they went out and conquered all of the Middle East, and Zoroastrianism went into decline. But despite Islam's hold on Iran, many of the traditions and customs date back to the Zoroastrian days.

Vocabulary clergy - people involved in religious service (a priest, or an Imam, for example) subsequent - following in time, succeeding pagan - a person who has no religion, or whose beliefs predate Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Now, Parvis told me, there is a large, thriving Zoroastrian community in Bombay, India, where they still leave their dead on the Towers of Silence. Whoah! We visited these desolate hilltop structures here in Yazd, where the local Zoroastrians used to leave their dead to be eaten by the vultures.

"Once a person dies," Parvis explained, "the fire of life is gone from them." Therefore, the body is polluting and shouldn't be buried in the earth or burned on the fire, two of the sacred seven elements. Cool!

THE ZOROASTRIAN CREED Come to my aid, O Mazda (3). I profess myself a Mazda-worshipper, a Zoroastrian, having vowed it and professed it. I pledge myself to the well-thought thought, I pledge myself to the well-spoken word, I pledge myself to the well-done action. I pledge myself to the Mazdayasnian religion, which causes the attack to be put off and weapons put down; which upholds khvaetvadatha (kin-marriage), which possesses Asha; which of all religions that exist or shall be, is the greatest, the best, and the most beautiful: Ahuric, Zoroastrian. I ascribe all good to Ahura Mazda. This is the creed of the Mazdayasnian religion. (Note: Asha, which has been translated variously as truth, righteousness, world-order, eternal law and fitness, is a key concept in Zoroastrianism.)   Related Links Frequently Asked Questions About Zoroastrianism Traditional Zoroastrianism Home Page

"When I die," I told Brian as we climbed the dusty hill, "I want my body to be eaten by vultures!" Brian thinks I'm weird.

Seriously, though, I've really enjoyed learning about the Zoroastrian religion. I like it that they believe in guardian angels, because we trekkers can really use them. I also like some of the quotes I've found from the Avesta, so I'll leave you with a parting inspirational scripture -- words to live by 'til the vultures come!

"A thousand people cannot convince one by words to the extent that one person can convince a thousand by action." (The Avesta, SDk6.e15)

Abeja

p.s. - Please e-mail me at ...abejahummel@bigfoot.com


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:09

Merry Mitra

By Hashem Farhang
December 11, 1997
The Iranian

A chance meeting, some two years ago, of an Iranian scholar who, as fate has it, now lives in Helsinki, Finland, introduced me to an aspect of Iranian history, which to this date is nothing short of a love affair with my ancestors, long forgotten but who deserve to be remembered for what they truly were. For this enlightenment, I am forever indebted to this friend.

At this particular time of the year, I would like to share something with my fellow Iranians that I think speaks volumes of everything Iranian that has been stolen. I feel sure that there are thousands of Iranians who are aware of this, but somehow have not kept reminding others of the facts.

When my children were growing up and were still at home, Christmas was a difficult time for us parents. At school and other gatherings, my children like all other Iranian children, could not quite understand the lack of enthusiasm that we exhibited at the holiday season. I dare say that this indifference in us parents, may have even strengthened the feeling that their parents are "different." They, as children everywhere, never felt different. But their parents? Well you know.

The result of the chance meeting, was that a small amount of research produced a very sweet little historical fact. And had I known this, I would have happily, gladly, and most proudly celebrated this particular holiday season as one of my very own. And I would not have been uncomfortable at Christmas, whether I had a tree or not.

For this reason, I want to share this fact with all Iranians, in Iran or abroad, and to recommend celebrations on December 25th as the birthday of Mitra, which we celebrated as early as 5000 B.C. Zoroastrians after refining and discarding some of the mythical and "heretical" aspects of Mithraism, retained Jashn-e-Mehregan and Yalda or "The Birth."

Iranians celebrated Yalda and decorated an evergreen tree, the sarve. The sarve (Rocket Juniper - what a name! - also known as the cypress tree), being straight, upright and resistant to the cold weather (symbol of hardship) was thought appropriate, to represent Mitra. The younger girls had their "wishes" symbolically wrapped in colorful silk cloth and hung them on the tree with lots of presents for Mitra, to answer their prayers.

As you may know, Pope Leo in the fourth century, after almost destroying the temple of Mitra (A.D. 376), in his campaign against Mitraism -- and in the good old Christian tradition, "If you can't claim it, imitate it" -- proclaimed the 25th of December as Christ's birthday instead of January 6th, a date, by the way, that is still celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Armenians.

Again in the same tradition, Luther, the famous German reformer, in the 18th century (1756, I believe), having learned of the Yalda sarve tree, introduced the Christmas tree to the Germans. As sarves were not much known in Germany, as indeed in most of Europe, the chosen tree became a genus of pine which was abundant in Europe.

So now with or without the children at home, we decorate a small sarve with a star on top and many presents, not necessarily for Mitra, but to my ancestors ant for my children and hopefully soon to my grandchildren. Happy Yalda and greetings of the season to all you Iranians -- no matter what your religion.

 

 

Persian New Year (NowRouz)

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year celebration, or Nowruz, always begins on the first day of spring. The year changes on the vernal equinox, or Tahvil, which occurs at precisely the moment the sun crosses the equator on March 20, 21, or 22.  

A few weeks before the new year, Iranians thoroughly clean and rearrange  their homes. They make new clothes, bake pastries  and germinate seeds as signs of renewal. The ceremonial cloth (sofreh-ye  haft-sinn) is set up in each household. Troubadours, refeerred to as Hadji  Firuz, disguised with makeup and brightly colored outfits of satin; sing,  dance, and parade through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and  trumpets to spread  good cheer and the news of the coming new year. 

A few days prior to the New Year, a special cover is spread onto a Persian  carpet or on a table in every Persian Household.  This ceremonial setting is called sofreh-ye haft-sinn (literally cloth of  seven dishes, each one beginning with the Persian letter sinn). The number  seven has been sacred in Iran since ancient times, and the seven dishes  stand for the seven angelic heralds of life—rebirth, health, happiness,  prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.  The symbolic dishes consist of sabzeh, or sprounts, usually wheat or  lentil, represting rebirth. Samanu, a pudding in which common wheat   sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding.  They represent the ultimate sophistication of Persian  cooking. Sib means apple and represents health and beauty. Senjed, the  sweet, dry fruit of the lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that  when the lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make  people fall in love and become oblivious to all else. Seer which is garlic  in Persian, represents medicine.  Somaq, sumac berries, represent the solor of sunrise; with the appearance  of the sun Good conquers Evil. And finally Serkeh, or  vinegar, which represents age and patience.  The books of tradition and wisdom are also often laid out: a copy of the  Koran; a volume of the poems of Hafez, one the great lyric persian poets  of the fourteenth century. A few coins placed on the  sofreh represent prosperity and wealth; a basket of painted eggs  represent fertility. A Seville orange floating in a bowl of water  represents the earth floating in space, and a goldfish in a bowl of water  represents life and the end of the astral year—Pisces. A flask of rose  water, known for its magical cleansing power, is also included on the  tablecloth. Nearby is a brazier for burning  wild rue, a sacred herb whose smoldering fumes are said to ward off evil  spirits. A pot of flowering hyacinth or narcissus is also set on the  sofreh:  these are the two Persian flowers that bloom in spring, and their sweet  odor acknowledges the fifth sense. On either side of a  mirror are two candelabra holding a flickering candle for each child in  the family. The candles represent enlightenment and happiness. the mirror  represents the images and reflections on Creation as we celebrate a new  the ancient Persian traditions  and beliefs that creation took place on the first day of spring, or   Nowruz.  With the help of fire and light, we hope for enlightenment and happiness  througout the coming year. On the same table many  people also place seven special sweets. 

A few hours prior to the transition to the New Year, Tahvil- e sal, family  and friends sit around the sofreh-ye haft-sinn.  Everyone sings traditional songs, and the poems of Hafez and verses from  the Koran are recited.  Some believe that there is a small movement of the Seville orange floating  in the water at the moment of equinox. Others use  an egg on a mirror to indicate the precise moment of the transition of the  year. These days it is  done precisely with clocks.  As the sun enters the constellatin Aries from Pisces on the stroke of the  equinox, Tahivil, the passage, is announced by firing cannons and on radio  and television. The oldest person present begins  the well-wishing by standing up and giving everyone a sweet pastry,  some gold or silver coins, and lots of hugs. Calm, happiness, sweetness,  and prefumed odors are very important on this day of rebirth, since the  mood on this day is said to continue throughout the year. An old saying  goes, "Good thought, good word, good dead—to the year end, happy indeed."  The New year celebration continues for twelve days after the equinox. 

Tranditionally, during the first few days, it is the younger members of  the family who visit their older relatives and friends in order to show  their respect. Sweet pastries and delicious frosty drinks  are served to visitors, and there is a general air of festivity all   around.  Children receive gifts, usually crisp new notes of money. In the remaining  days, the elders return the visits of the younger members of the family. 

On the thirteenth day of Nowuz, called Sizdeh bedar, literally outdoor  thirteen, entire families leave their homes to carry trays of sprouted  seeds in a procession to go picnic in a cool, grassy  place. Far from home, they throw the sprouts into the water and complete  the process of the end of one  year and rebirth of another. Wishing to get  married by the next year, unmarried girls tie blades of grass together.  There is much singing, dancing, eating, and drinking on this joyful day  marks the end the Nowruz celebration.  Fish and noodles are usually served on New Year’s Day. It is believed they  bring good luck in the year that lies ahead. The  traditional menu usually includes: Noodle soup—Ash-e reshteh, noodles  representing the Gordian knots of life. Eating them symbolically helps  unravel life’s knotty problems.  Rice with fresh Herbs and Fish—Sabzi polpw ba mahi, fresh herb rice  represents rebirth, fish represents life.  Herb Kuku—Kuku-ye sabizi, eggs represent fertility, herbs represent   rebirth.  Bread, Cheese, and Fresh Herbs—Nan-o panir-o sabzi khordan, represent  prosperity.

Iranian version of April fool

Iranian new year happens sometime between march 19 to 21 at the moment of vernal equinox . On the 13th day of  the new year, there is the custom that everyone should leave home and go out for picnic as 13 is an unlucky number. This is called "sizdah-be-dar" or out-door-thirteen. One of the customs on this day is "doroogh-e sizdah" or the lie of thirteen where people try to make big lies and fool each other. It is interesting to notice that 13 days after our new years maps to first of march! Iranians had their Norouz new year customs since 5000  B.C.!!!D

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:10

Alex Fantalov

'Indo-European mythologies structure in social-historical aspect'.

(This text was published as 'Indo-European mythologies structure in social-historical aspect' //Cultural researches 01: - SPb.: publishers of RSPU by name A. Herzen, 2001).

 

After consideration of the structural nucleus offered in the present research formed by mythological types, it is represented expedient to look after to updating of each of components of this circuit in all cultural worlds of Barbarous Europe (Celt, German-Scandinavian, Thracian-Dacian, Scythian-Sarmatian, Balt, Slavic mythological pantheons and related (Greek, Italic, Etruscan, Indian, Iranian, Hittite) traditions.

The god of the Sky, who authentic name descends from pro-Indo-European -deiuo- 'clear sky', is the most ancient male divinity of the Indo-Europeans. He was a chief of pantheon at the beginning, and he possessed the legislative and warrior function. After that the God of Sky gave the primary power up other gods. This process initiates by means of special explanation plots (for instance: Indian myth about fall of Dyaus; Celtic-Germans ones about Nuadha/Tyr lost their hands). However among Mediterranean peoples (Greeks, Etruscan and Roman) the God of Sky's image merged with the God of Thunder's one ( Zeus ).

The God of Sky has got some united features of iconography. His special weapon is sword. His sacral warrior animal is boar - Teutat (at least as for the Celts and Germans).

The God of Thunder like the God of Clear Sky does not into separate characters. This name descends to pro-Indo-European -perk- or -tar- and means 'thunder'. Probably the God of Thunder was a protector of professional warriors who replaced tribal collective during period of great Indo-European campaign (2 thousand b. c.). Then formed iconography of this type: his weapon - an axe or a hammer, his warrior chariot. A sacral animal of the God of Thunder was an eagle (and sometimes beasts like wolf or lion), a sacral tree was an oak.

In keeping with complication of society the God of thunder's power decreased. Celt, Indian, Persian, Balts priests became strong and promoted to first place other gods. But even there, where barbarian kings ruled (Scythian, Thracian, Vendel Scandinavian peoples) the God of Thunder ceded his power the Cultural Hero. However interesting phenomena is an eminence of the God of thunder at the Viking Age. May betrayed estate of Vikings. Perhaps reason of an idea of Kiev prince Vladimir to establish Perun as chief of pagan pantheon is influence of the Vikings and East Balts.

The important plot connected with the God of Thunder is a battle against the Serpent: Thor and Jormungand , Indra and Vritra , Tarhunt and Illuyanka or against giants. There the god of Thunder is defender of world against the powers of chaos. Other significant plot is opposite between the God of Thunder and the God of Earth Powers (latter can is replaced by the Cultural Hero in this opposite). The reasons of this collisy can be various. At first we see opposite between thundercloud and earth. At second it can be ancient subject of torment bull by lion. At third there was a conflict between tribal aristocrats (they venerated the God of Thunder) and the priests (they devoted to the God of Earth Powers). Possibly, there was choice for different way of development. For instance: the Celts and the Romans. When druids became super power, they devoted to Cernunnos/Esus and lived in irrational magic world. As to the Romans, that they promoted to first place Jupiter (who was the god of Sky but merged with the God of Thunder) and created strong warrior-political system. Compromise between mystic and rationalism was not available. It is not surprising that one of point of religious reform by professional priest Zaratustra was overthrow of the God of Thunder.

Two other male gods are more complicated problems. The God of Earth Powers was correlated with ground as area of growth and dying, circulation of life and dead. He was diverged into many lines of development. On the one hand we can see the gods, who names descended to pro-Indo-European -uel-, connected with world of death (Slav Veles, Balt Veles, Indian Vala , Etruscan Veltha ). I think this is a main trunk of development of type. On the second hand there are local god personified an element of forests (Greek Pan, Indian Pushan, Balt Puskait). Many gods who should be belonging to type of the God of earth powers have got special names. I suggest that this variety connected with tendency to use not main (sacral) names but ephitets. Besides, some features of this god have begun to seem not appropriate and turned into independent images (for example: beside Indian god Rudra we see demon Vala ).

Inspite of G. Dumezil I suppose that the priests stand up for the God of Earth Powers. Just this personage was connected with magy (Celt Cernunnos, Scandinavian Freyr, Balt Vels). Dahghda - resent embodiment of Cernunnos was named 'the god of druids'. Indian Varuna, Balt Vels, Slav Veles were the protectors of singers. Lastly if we will agree with Dumezil that Varuna corresponds Ahuramazda , it should be to say that first monotheistic religion was created by Zaratustra in terms of character who descend to the God of Earth Power's type.

As one of functions the God of Earth Powers was protection for animal kingship, he has got zoomorphic symbols. His sacral animal (and perhaps embodiment) was a bull. Therefore Rudra, Dyonisos, Veles have got horns. The horns are features sexual and warrior power. In ancient times these attributes were considered as good symbols, but Christians rejected them (probably as feature the main pagan divinity). However during the Middle Ages the horns were liked with some groups connected with heritage of European barbarians. I mean ritters who decorated with the horns their helmet and insignias. So the feature of the priest's divinity became warrior symbol.

Sometimes the God of Earth Powers identified with a stag or a ram (although these symbols of the Cultural Hero but these types were not always delimited).

The mythology of the God of Earth Powers includes some plots what could be form successive chain: the marriage with the Great goddess that embodied an alliance of two origins of fertility; the conflict with the God of Thunder (the subject of stealing of sacral cows in Balt, Slav , Indian , Greek mythologies); the torment of the God of earth Powers.

The origin of the Cultural Hero's type is a primary ancestor of peoples. Indo-European peoples have got two tendencies of this type development: first one embodied 'cultural' aspect of character, second one showed heroic aspect. First tendency created image of king of legendary Golden Age, demiurg and protector of people (Persian Yima); than - first dead and the king of ancestors (Indian Yama); than psichopomp and mediator (Balt Sovius, Greek Hermes , Roman Mercury, Scandinavian Odin, Celt Lugh).

Other significant images have appeared in 'heroic' tendency. In the area of Mediterranean mythology of Heracles influenced on iconography of Hero (Etruscan Hercle, Roman Hercules, Thracian Hero). But divinity whom name has got root '-Trit-' (Persian Traetaona, Indian Thrita, Russian Ivan Tretyak). We can see there an orient rider feature. The main plot of Hero's mythology is a victory over three-headed monster .

As for socium, that Hero as legislative, physician and protector become an embodiment of sacral king power. Roman emperors were pictured with attributes of Hercules. Many Greek dynasties believed that Heracles was their ancestor. Like picture we see in Scandinavian countries for Odin.

The character of hero-rider had got a great future. Christian Europe identified him with Saint George - the rider on white horse, the winner over dragon. The appearance of Hero is connected with eschatology, messian ideas. The character of Hero have penetrated into Buddhism, mitraism. Important significance it has got for Hinduism. Tenth avatar of Visine is a horseman with a flaming sword. This is Kalki who will appear at the final of world to punish of evil. It is not accidentally, that Hegel has imagined 'the finish of history' at the moment when he has seen Napoleon on the white horse.

The Great Goddess is probably sole women divinity in this supposed scheme. Her image has got origin from the Neolithic Age. In the patriarchal Indo-European society the great goddess lost her sky function. This process initiates by means of special explanation plot that talked about she was unfaithful to the God of Thunder and was turned into chthonic goddess (Balt mythology). At the process of evolution the image of the great Goddess diverged into numerous personages. These are:

1. The goddess of Earth (Greek Gaia , Indian Prthivi, Scandinavian Erd, Balt Zemes mate).
2. The goddess-protector of fertility (Greek Demeter , Roman Ceres, Scandinavian Freyja).
3. The goddesses-mother (Ireland Danu , Hittite Hannahanna).
4. The goddess of loves (Greek Aphrodite, Scandinavian Freyja).
5. The goddess of marriage (Greek Hera, Roman Juno, Scandinavian Frigg, Slav Lada , Indian Laksmi).
6. The goddess of destiny (These divinities usually were gathered for triads: Greek Moirae; Scandinavian Nornir ; Balt Laima, Dekla, Karta).
7. The goddess of war (Ireland Morrighan - see: ' Cuchulainn against Morrighan ' , Scandinavian Freyja).
8. The goddess-herald of death (Greek erinies, Etruscan Vanth , Scandinavian Valkyrie Valkyrie , Balt vele).
9. The goddess of women skill (Greek Athena , Roman Minerva, Celt Brigit).

Naturally the most of worshippers of the Great Goddess were women. The Great Goddess had got various animal symbols: birds (owl, cuckoo, and dove); snakes; fishes, insects (butterfly, bee, and scorpion). As the cult of Goddess was connected with magic rituals, people believed in magic abilities of the women. At the Middle Ages her dark side became origin for image of witch. At the same time some attributes of the Great goddess were spread for many image of Christian religion.

Thus, it is possible to approve that data of this structural nucleus were in closed connections with social-cultural changes in life of ancient peoples of Europe. Thus its elements appeared are extremely steady. Having gone through wreck of pagan religions, they in many respects were alloyed with images of Christian tradition, and then have come as the important components of culture of Europe of New Time when have gone through some kind of "rebirth".

A. Fantalov.

 

Chapter 2. Mythological characters of West European barbarians:

2.1. Iconography origins of the basic mythological types.

 

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DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:11

D. Parsuram Maharaj (Trinidan & Tobago, West Indies)
Christmas’ Hindu Roots

Last year Christmas Trinidad & Tobago's Archbishop Pantin in his weekly column repeated what scholars have been asserting for years on the origins of Christmas. Archbishop Pantin essentially officially confirmed the celebration of Christmas was 'borrowed' from pre-Christian religions. This type of 'borrowing' was not new to Christianity that aggressively practised a process of inculturalisation in order increase its mass appeal and thereby win as many converts as possible. The practice is still employed by missionaries in Asia and even in Trinidad. What Archbishop Pantin did not develop was the celebration of the birth of the divine being was borrowed from a Hindu Deity. It is time that Hindus re-claim this celebration and its Hindu roots rather then to let continue to be hijacked by Christian mythology.

The festival that is now known as Christmas was actually a celebration for the Vedic Deity Mitra. According to "A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion" by John Dowson [1998] the Hindu Mitra was connected to the Persian Mithra which later was adopted by Rome. Mitra was a form of the sun, and in the Vedas he is generally associated with Varuna. Will Durant's "The Story of Civilisation, Volume III. Caesar and Christ" [1944] wrote "as far back as the second century the Eastern Christians celebrated the nativity on January 06th. In 354 some Western churches, including those of Rome, commemorated the birth of Christ on December 25th; it was ALREADY the central festival of Mitraism, the natalis invivti solis, or birthday of the unconquered sun".

The Christmas date of December 25 was originally the celebrated birthdate of the Roman version of Mitras. The 4th-5th century Church decided to 'borrow' that date for the sake of establishing a national holiday. The Iranian version of Mit(h)ra was called the "Light of the World" is another interesting fact to note. Mithraism explained the world in terms of two ultimate and opposing principles, one good (depicted as light) and the other evil (darkness). Human beings must choose which side they will fight for; they are trapped in the conflict between light and darkness. Mithra came to be regarded as the most powerful mediator who could help humans ward off attacks from demonic forces.

In the religions of antiquity the vast majority of the pre-modern world was syncretistic, meaning that one religion would often incorporate the myth and ritual of other cults with which it came in contact. Often the deities would simply change names. This suggests that we may be comparing Jesus (one individual ) to the combined characteristics of multiple agents that are all called by the SAME NAME. Mitra--he is a mixture of Hindu Iranian, Greek, and Roman religious beliefs. Both Hindu and Iranian Mithraism predates Jesus .

Hindu thought was filtered to the West via Greek colonies which are known to have existed in India prior the time of the Buddha in the 6th century B.C.E. The Buddha actually refers to the Greeks in a discourse in the Middle Length Sayings. Alexander the Great's invasion brought Hellenism to India during the rise of the brilliant Mauryan empire (322-185 B.C.E.) in Northern India, and had significant impact on the upper class and urban segments.

After Alexander died, his empire divided into several pieces--one of which was called the Seleucid dynasty. In spite of the fact that the Seleucid and Mauryan dynasties were border-competitors, they still had a great deal of friendly interchange between them, and the first two kings of the Mauryan dynasty are referred to in Greek sources. The peace treaty between them in 303 BCE included a marriage alliance, and Seleucus' ambassador Megasthenes lived for 10 years and travelled extensively in the Mauryan empire during the reign of the founding king Chandragupta (Sandrocottos in the Greek). Megasthenes gathered huge amounts of information about India and wrote a book (which is lost), many parts/information of which are preserved in the writings of Strabo, Arrian, and Diodorus.

One of the most famous of the kings of this dynasty was Ashoka. Although he is not mentioned in any Greek sources, he "records having sent missions from India bearing his message of the victory of the Dharma to the Greek kings Antiochus II of Syria, Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) of Egypt, Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene and Alexander of Epirius."

Until his death in 232 BCE, he maintained frequent communications with the south and the west, even sending missionaries to Ceylon and to the West. Historical data and quotes shows, there was information about the religious content of proto-Hinduism transmitted to the West, and even about Buddhism. The last two centuries B.C.E saw the rise of the Parthian empire, which quickly became a barrier to cultural exchange.

There are material, significant, and pervasive similarities between Jesus Christ and other Savior-figures, and that these similarities are best explained by the hypothesis that the figure of Jesus is materially derived from or heavily influenced by these other Dying God/Savior-figures. The similarities between Jesus and the other relevant Savior-gods are material, significant, and pervasive enough to suspect a liberal borrowing. Scholars have proposed several theories to account for the obvious similarities between Christianity and the mystery religions. The birth and celebration of Christmas as a Christian festival is merely an example of one such borrowing

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:12

 

Persian and Roman Mithraism

Romans usually called Mithras “Sol Dominus Invictus.” Roman writers believed that Mithraism came from Persia and that Mithraic iconography represented Persian mythology. From this beginning modern scholars have traced Mithras in Persian, Mittanian and Indian mythology. The Mitanni gave us the first written reference to Mithras in a treaty with the Hittites. Mithras is celebrated in the Zoroastrian Yashts or hymns of the Sassanian (224-640 AD) Avesta, a book which preserved old oral traditions. Mithras was a Persian saviour, whose cult was the leading rival of Christianity in Rome, and more successful than Christianity in the first four centuries of the Christian era.

Mithras is a Greek form of the name of an Indo-European god, Mithra or Mitra. At the end of the nineteenth century Franz Cumont, a Belgian historian of religion, published a two volume work on the Mithraic mysteries taking the origins of the cult as Persian. Cumont remains the classic work on the subject but latterly has been challenged by Christian sceptics. The challenge is based on the lack of hard evidence, much of which Christians themselves destroyed, so there is good reason to stick with the authoritative foundation of Cumont's earlier work.

Few writers mention the cult. The evidence for it is mostly archaeological—the remains of mithraic temples, monumental inscriptions, the iconography of the god and sculptures, sculpted reliefs, wall paintings and mosaics. From every known such reference and such documents as existed, Cumont claimed that Mithras was Persian Mithra. If Mithras had Iranian roots then the Roman cult of Mithraism must have begun in the east of the Roman empire and spread by soldiers, eastern merchants—called "Syrians"and slaves, in the middle of the first century BC. Slaves, soldiers and merchants were highly mobile and so offered a means of rapid transmission of the cult.

Roman soldiers met worshippers of the god, Mithras, in the provinces to the east of the empire, adjacent to Persia, and Plutarch confirms that Mithraism entered the Empire from Persia when Pompey's Roman soldiers encountered pirates from Cilicia—the home in Asia Minor of Paul the apostle—practising the "secret rites of Mithras" and were impressed by the god's high precepts. That the rites were "secret" means the cult was a "mystery" religion. Christians, desperate to make Mithraism dependent on Christianity, insist that it only started in the second half of the first century AD, despite Plutarch's plain statement. Since he lived at this very time, he can hardly have thought a new Roman fad was over a century old.

Nevertheless it was in the first century of this era that it begin to take off in popularity, and physical remains of the worship of Mithras only appear after 150 AD. About twenty-five inscriptions to him have been found in Spain, and several statues of him were found at Merida, perhaps a cult centre in the west. It was not officially recognised in the Empire until the end of the second century AD and reached the height of its popularity in the third century. There were perhaps thousands of Mithraic temples in the Roman empire, mainly in Rome itself but, as Mithraism appealed to soldiers, also in garrisons on the frontiers of the Empire. It was one of the last of the Eastern Mystery cults to reach the West and one of the most vigorous.

In the original Persian pantheon Mithras was a yazata (angel) lower than Ahuramazda (later Ormuzd), the Supreme Being, with whom he was associated, but higher than the Sun. Zoroaster, whose aim was to promote monotheism, omitted him from the Gathas in favour of Ahuramazda. Later, he became more important than Ahuramazda, because he acted as mediator between men and those on the divine level. Eventually Strabo could write:

[The Persians] honour the Sun, whom they call Mithras, and the Moon and Aphrodite, and Fire and Earth, and Winds and Water.

 

Mithras became omniscient, the god of light, the Heavenly Light, a spiritual Sun, the enemy of darkness and therefore of evil and hence the god of battles and of military victory. Mithras was the god of contracts and oaths, he embodied the seven divine spirits of goodness, he protected the righteous in this world and helped them into the next. He sent rain from Heaven and light from the sun and helped mankind by slaying the primaeval bull fertilising the earth. He was the Logos (the Word).

His enemy was the Demiurge, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, the god with power to spoil the good creation of Ahuramazda in mankind's level of the cosmos, and so able to mislead men. The Magi saw a trinity of Mithras, Ahuramazda and Ahriman. Ahuramazda and Ahriman seemed to be mirror images of some complex power and Mithras was the link. Mithras only took the side of Ahuramazda at the earthly level, otherwise he was neutral between the two principles.

The Mithraism that entered the Roman Empire was a combination of Persian Mithraic belief, Babylonian astrology, Greek mysteries and perhaps Greek philosophy. Christian polemicists deny that the Roman Mithras was the same god as the Persian Mithras. They say the Roman Mithras cannot be assumed to have originated in Iran, and was only a distant relative of the Persian god, perhaps associated by name only. Assertions do not dispose of arguments, though Christians, used to settling all disputes by reference to the holy book, have got into the habit of believing they do.

There is admittedly little evidence for a Persian cult of Mithra. Persians were reluctant to make pictures of their gods, just like the Moslems today, and there is no Persian iconography of the god slaying the bull found in the Roman cult of Mithras. Also, there are few traces of the Roman cult in Asia Minor whence it supposedly emerged. Most evidence of the worship of Mithras comes from the western empire, particularly Rome itself and its port, Ostia, and the military forts on the Danube. Mithraism was also popular among the legionaries in North Africa and those in the forts of Hadrian's wall. Rome had some 700 mithraea and Ostia had some more, but not many have survived. Besides grottos, 400 other traces of Mithras have been found in Rome and Ostia. Mithraism in Rome and Ostia appealed to the same people—soldiers, slaves and merchants—as elsewhere and existed in the area of Rome as early as the late first century AD. Only from the middle of the second century AD did it blossom.

The earliest remains of the cult of Mithras are from the garrison at Carnuntum in Upper Pannonia on the Danube River (modern Hungary). The Roman legion, XV Apollinaris, garrisoned at Carnuntum was ordered East in 63 AD to fight against the Parthians and then the Jews, who revolted from 66-70 AD. In about 71 or 72 AD, on their return to base back in Carnuntum, the legionaries made Mithraic dedications.

It is impossible not to identify the Roman and the Persian gods called Mithras. Christians want us to believe that Pagans worshipped two quite different gods with the same name and an identifiable point of contact. It is too absurd and a sign of desperation that such views are submitted for consideration. The Mithras of the Roman religion had certainly changed in his slow journey from Susa, as noted above, but it is quite ignorant and stupid to pretend that the Roman Mithras did not begin in Persia and retained many of the qualities of the Persian god. And the lack of remains in the east is easily explained, as Christians ought to realise. It is that Christianity first established itself and grew in these very regions, probably detracting from the growth of Mithraism.

An attraction for the Romans of Oriental religions was that they had a long history and their gods a reputation for wisdom. This was true of Mithraism. Mithras was a redeemer but also offered a role model as an epitome of morality. Mithraism began to spread because it appealed to three main groups of people; to the merchant classes who valued its demand for high moral standards and therefore honesty, to the lowly and humble such as slaves poor freedmen, and particularly to the military. Its failing might have been that women were excluded—adherents were all male and were sworn to secrecy. It had strong elements of Freemasonry in its organisation.

Females worshipped Cybele, Isis and later, Jesus. Mithraism had no extensive priestly caste. Each small group of worshippers had a father, simply a mamber of the highest rank of the cult. Why are Christian priests called father? Major centres of worship had a father of fathers, equivalent to a Christian bishop. It always remained a private religion, never receiving huge state patronage, so the shrines and churches of Mithras remained humble and the worshippers pious and egalitarian. In Mithraic churches, noble, freedman and slave met as equals. Mithraism had its male celibates and expected its initiates to repudiate worldly offerings expecting instead heavenly wealth.

Myth and the Tauroctony

The story of Mithras begins with the Demiurge oppressing mankind. Mithras is incarnated from a rock on 25 December, the old date of the midwinter solstice. He enters the world, observed by lowly shepherds, on the darkest day of the year—he is the Light of the World. During his incarnation he helps mankind like Orpheus and carries out miracles like Jesus. In an abstract way, he dies for the good of mankind. He kills the sacred bull, the equinoctial sun which revivifies the earth, but the bull is an aspect of himself, for he is the sun. So he kills himself, just as God, the Father, kills himself by offering himself as a victim in his aspect as God, the Son. As an annual sun god he is resurrected. His mission done he holds a last supper with his disciples and returns to Heaven, the level beyond the cosmos, in the solar chariot. He will be victorious over evil at the last battle and will sit in judgement on mankind, when he will lead the Chosen Ones over a river of fire to immortality.

Christians are quite desperate to prove that Mithras was not a dying and rising god. They say, even granting that the suffering god myth is essential to mystery religions, Mithras can hardly be included because he is the only god who did not suffer. It is true that the god in his human form did not die as the others did, but he died in the form of the bull which represented himself. Christians claim this is all a misapprehension based on Cumont's original interpretation which is—they say—plagued with problems. So today’s Mithraic scholars are very sceptical of attempts to understand the Roman Mithras in the light of the Iranian one. It would be nice to know how many of these Mithraic sceptics are Christians. We can guess most, and we can thank earlier Christians for the lack of evidence, but sun gods often slay bulls which represent themselves as the sun rising in the constellation of Taurus. The idea has a firm and ancient basis.

Mithras worship took place in churches called grottos, imitations of caves or sometimes actual caves or catacombs, a small oblong space with a domed ceiling about 7-10 metres wide, decorated with carved reliefs, statues and paintings. To enhance the resemblence to a natural cave the ceiling of the mithraeum was vaulted and sometimes was rendered with crushed pottery to give an illusion of rock. The ceilings sometimes had vents to admit shafts of light. A narrow aisle about 12-20 metres long usually ran down the centre of the room with a stone bench on either side for about two dozen members to sit or recline on during the service. If an ordinary room was being prepared as a grotto then dining couches were arranged in two rows down the length of the room. At the end of the aisle, opposite the entrance, was a symbolic mural, carved relief or tapestry of Mithras slaying a bull inside a cave like the mithraeum itself, which would be brightly illuminated in the dimness of the grotto. This tauroctony was the main icon of Mithraism. This mural was often one of a diptych, the other showing Mithras sitting at a table with the sun.

From the arrangement of benches or dining couches, and from wall paintings in some mithraea, it seems worshippers were initiated into the celebration of a common meal. Devotees sought communion with Mithras to prepare for the final judgement.

He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved. Mithraic Communion M J Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God)

 

However, there is no way of inferring that a bull was actually sacrificed and eaten. Most mithraea seated only about 40 worshippers and the rooms were too small for bull sacrifices.

Mithraic imagery is largely astronomical. The setting is a cave encircled by the chariot of the sun and the signs of the zodiac. The Neoplatonic philosopher, Porphyry, says the cave of the tauroctony, which the domed Mithraic grottos were meant to imitate, was “the cosmos.” The zodiac, planets, sun, moon, and stars are commonly portrayed in Mithraic art. Mithras himself was usually shown clad in a tunic, Persian trousers, cloak and a pointed floppy cap called a Phrygian cap, as slaying the cosmic bull created by Ahuramazda, the God of Light, to prevent Ahriman from slaying it, and thereby offering the first sacrifice, but occasionally he was depicted as Sol. The grotto mural showed Mithras pulling back the bull's head by its nostrils and stabbing its exposed neck with a dagger in his right hand, the bull's blood re-entering the earth yielding ears of corn. Thus, the mural represents the sacrifice of the primeval bull, the first animal, from the soul of which came all other life as a result of this sacrifice. Thus it stood for life, vitality, vigour, peace and plenty—the whole of Ahuramazda's good creation. But the evil creation of Ahriman was shown biting and stinging the good world.

The Sun and the Moon observe the sacrifice. Two torch bearers are in attendance, one with an up turned torch and one with a down turned torch. A torch bearer in ancient symbolism denoted the sun. In Apuleius's Golden Ass, we read:

I carried a lighted torch thus I was adorned as the sun.

 

In the mysteries of Eleusis, the torch bearer was dressed as the sun. In ancient symbolism a cross represents the equinoxes, when the equinoctial plane intersects the celestial equator, making a notional cross in the heavens. The two torch bearers in the tauroctony are often shown with crossed legs because they stand for the sun at the spring and autumn equinoxes. The spring equinox is denoted by a raised torch representing light, summer, life, spirit and the liberated soul. The autumn equinox is shown by a lowered torch representing darkness, winter, death, matter and the soul trapped in the body. A serpent or a dog drinks the bull's blood. Other symbolic objects present include a raven on the bull's back, a scorpion nipping at its testicles and a tree.

A lion headed figure in the coils of a snake represents Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness and therefore evil. The Christian expression for the devil, Prince of Darkness, used for example by Milton, matches Mithraic as well as Essene use—Mithras was Light and Darkness was Evil. The force of Good necessarily was opposed by a force of Evil in the old religions. Ahuramazda was opposed by Ahriman in the Persian religion; Osiris was opposed by Set in the Egyptian religion. Other names for Satan trace him to earlier pastoral gods Pan and Zeus Myiagros, respectively Mephistopheles and Beelzebub, the Protector of Flocks, the Lord of the Flies as the Jews mockingly called him, Baal of the Philistines.

In well preserved Mithraea, other scenes show Mithras being born from a rock, Mithras dragging the bull to a cave, plants springing from the blood and semen of the sacrificed bull, Mithras and the sun god, Sol, banqueting on the flesh of the bull while sitting on its skin, Sol investing Mithras with the power of the sun, and Mithras and Sol shaking hands over a burning altar. In these other pictures Mithras is the Saoshyant or redeemer of the cosmos, ending up in heaven having destroyed evil and restored the world at the End of Time. Interpretation of these scenes tell us what we know about Mithraism.

Astronomical and Cosmological Interpretation

The imagery of the tauroctony is ancient. Only in the period from around 4000 BC to 2000 BC did the sun rise at the equinox in the constellation Taurus. As the sun rose, the bull disappeared in the dawn glow—the bull had been slain. Most of the other symbols found in the tauroctony were constellations along the celestial equator at this time. The bull is Taurus, the dog is Canis Minor, the snake is Hydra, the raven is Corvus and the scorpion is Scorpio. As the rising sun illuminated the night sky, these constellations along the horizon faded away. First to go was the bull of Taurus because the sun was rising in that constellation. Sometimes a lion and a cup were added to the tauroctony, apparently symbols of the constellations Leo and Aquarius, which were the constellations in conjunction with the sun at the solstices in the age of Taurus.

This epoch was when the astronomer priests of Akkadia were making the first accurate astronomical observations and describing the celestial patterns which later spread everywhere as the zodiac. They divided the year according to the celestial sign of the rising sun but the sun does not forever rise in the same place each month. The plane of the equinoxes slowly rotates backwards at a rate of one constellation every 2160 years and the entire zodiac every 25,900 years.

The fixed association of the months with zodiacal signs is that of the age of Taurus because 21 March is still deemed the beginning of the month of Taurus. In fact, today the spring equinox is in the constellation of Pisces. Formerly it was in Aries and in a hundred years time we shall have entered the age of Aquarius, but Taurus remains the sign associated with the spring equinox not Aquarius. In other words once the association of signs and months was made, it remained fixed, even though the heavens seemed to be rotating as the equinoxes precessed. This is the origin and nature of Mithras the cosmic bull-slayer—an aspect of the sun god—the equinoctial sun rising in Taurus.

Now the sun is normally shown separately from Mithras in the pictures of the Mithraic legend that we have. How can that be if Mithras was the sun god himself—inscriptions confirm he is sol invictus, the unconquered sun? The Mithraists apparently considered Mithras, the unconquered sun, as a sun beyond the sun—a supermundane or spiritual sun beyond the sphere of the fixed stars. From the time when the sun was identified with the equinoctial bull to the time of the rise of Mithras in the Roman Empire, at least 3000 years passed, long enough for an astronomic religion to evolve into a spiritual one, but the seeds of the idea go back to the Aryan origins of Mithraism.

The Aryans who went on into India took twin sun gods with them, Varuna and Mitra. Neither was the sun itself, Surya, which manifested itself in twelve different forms, plainly corresponding to the zodiac. The Persian holy book, the Zend Avesta, had an equivalent pair, Mitra (or Mithras) and Ahura. The word ahura is related to the name of the Assyrian sun god Assur and the Indian word asura which is cognate with Surya, the sun. Mitra is from the Persian word, mihr, meaning sun. Thus the Iranians had a pair of sun gods, Ahura and Mithras, just like their brothers in India.

Different Persian sects chose one or other of the sun gods as the main one. Zoroaster, who sought to promote monotheism, and the Persian Achaemenian kings favoured Ahura, calling him Mazda, the wise sun. He was always a spiritual sun, pictured as a benign old man in sculpture merely as an artistic convention just as the transcendental Hebrew god is. He was served by "bounteous immortals," one of whom was Mithras. As a sun god, Mithras saw all things. The Avestan Yasht dedicated to him describes him as having a thousand ears, ten thousand eyes, and as never sleeping.

Mithras was thus retained in the Persian religion, appaerently contrary to Zoroaster's intentions, as the face of God—the visible manifestation of an invisible and distant god. He it was who stood for the Good Spirit against the bad one, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, the Persian Satan. Later Mithras, who many must have found hard to distinguish from Ahuramazda, took the characteristics of the supreme god. In a hymn to Mithras in the Avesta, Ahura Mazda tells the prophet Zarathustra that when he created Mithras: "I made him as worthy of worship as myself." This accolade is given to no other Amesha Spenta. Something happened akin to the deification of Jesus in Christianity. Jesus was identified with the archangel Michael, who was the face and power of God. Soon Jesus became God! Mithras became God, too.

Furthermore, in Persian cosmology the sun and moon were located beyond the stars. Zoroaster, whose name can be read as sun-star, taught that the sun was situated above the fixed stars. So, the origin of the key ideas of Mitraism, a sun god and a spiritual sun god who dwelt beyond the stars, was Iranian.

Platonists had the same beliefs more clearly expressed and it seems most likely that when Mithras was adopted by the Romans a Platonic philosophy was welded on to the ancient god. In Plato's Republic the sun is the source of all illumination and understanding in the visible world while the Good is the supreme source of being and understanding in the world of the forms, the intelligible world. Zoroaster lived seven years on a mountain in a cave decorated as the cosmos. Plato also symbolizes the world as a cave. The cave dwellers have to ascend to the world beyond the cave to receive the rays of the sun. The ascent from the cave is an allegory of the ascent of the immortal soul.

Hellenistic people believed that after death the human soul ascended through the seven heavenly spheres to an afterlife in the pure and eternal world of the stars. It was a dangerous journey, requiring passwords to be given at each level of the journey, and people were buried with small gold medallions inscribed with the words. Plato, in Phaedrus, describes explicitly the ascent of the soul to the realm outside of the cosmos (upon the back of the world), effectively heaven or paradise. Here dwells True Being which reason alone can perceive, and Good is the power. The supermundane sun, the Good or the True Being which reigned over this transcendental region was seen by the Mithraists as Mithras. Thus his appeal was as the god who helped and protected the soul in reaching the highest heaven, beyond the dome of the stars.

About the time of Jesus, Philo wrote of God as the intelligible sun or hypercosmic star. Later the Neoplatonist, Plotinus, told the same story, that the sun in the divine realm is Intellect which sustains soul—if Intellect dies, soul dies. Later still the Neoplatonist Emperor Julian wrote in Hymn to Helios that the sun moved in the starless heaven beyond the fixed stars. For almost a millennium the idea of a second sun beyond the cosmos was a constant of Classical thought. Platonists like Numenius, Cronius, and Celsus were Mithraists, so it is inconceivable that Platonist ideas did not influence Mithraism where we also find two suns, Helios, the god of the physical sun, and Mithras, unconquerable sun beyond the stars.

If Mithras was seen as a spiritual sun, a god of the whole cosmos, then he must have been understood in a transcendental sense as outside of the cosmos. This explains the Mithraic motif of the birth of Mithras from a rock. Mithras emerges from the top of a round rock, which is usually shown Orphic style with a snake around it. The Orphics also had an idea of a spiritual sun. Indeed Mithras is sometimes shown being born from a cosmic egg, just as Phanes is born of the cosmic egg in Orphic representations. The Mithraic cave and the Orphic cosmic egg both were the cosmos. In the rock-birth scenes Mithras is almost always shown holding a torch, the symbol of a sun. Franz Cumont, the scholar disparaged by Christians for revealing our knowledge of Mithraism, described much of this solar theology in 1909.

So Mithras the Bull Slayer evolved into a spiritual god of the whole cosmos and was depicted, like Atlas, supporting the cosmic sphere, depicted with the constellations reversed, because they were seen from the other side! The statue of Atlas Farnese similarly depicts the cosmic globe, bearing the constellations as they would appear from outside the universe.

Mithraic Practice and Christianity

Initiates of the Mysteries of Mithras had to be ritually pure and were purified by baptism, as we are told by Tertullian, a third century Christian from North Africa. There were seven levels of initiation, one for each of the seven planets and each with its symbol, the highest level being that of the Father, Pater. From the lowest these grades were Corax (symbol—a raven, planet—Mercury), Nymphus (a male bride, Venus), Miles the first grade of full membership (a soldier, Mars), Leo (a lion, Jupiter), Perses (a Persian, Luna, the moon), Heliodromus (a charioteer of the sun, Sol, the sun), and finally Pater (a father, Saturn). Those who reached Pater could lead an assembly. Quite unlike Christianity, members of the cult of Mithras were not stopped from being members of other cults.

At the level of initiation called Miles or soldier, the mystae of Mithras were symbolically branded, the priest making the sign upon their foreheads to redeem their sins and to mark them as soldiers of Mithras ready to fight the Good Fight. Tertullian complains that the Devil was imitating the Christians' divine mysteries because initiates of the Mithraic religion were baptised in this way, and we can be sure the sign made was that of the cross. The mythological justification was Zoroastrian, that good creation was in warfare with evil creation, and these soldiers were soldiers of the good creation.

Christians use the expressions soldiers of Christ and put on the armour of light, somewhat inappropriate metaphors for a religion of love, one might think, but entirely appropriate to their Mithraic origins. Above the rank of Leo votaries were called participants because they participated in a sacred meal. Below the rank of Leo, Mithraists were called servants and served the higher levels—the similarity with Essenism is striking. Participanats committed their everlasting loyalty to the saviour god, Mithras, in his fight against evil. Plutarch tells us that their reward was to be returned to life in the restored world at the eschaton.

Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, says the arrangement of the grottos, with benches on either side of a table, was because the Mithraic central ritual was a sacred meal of bread and water, that he himself compared to the Christian Eucharist. He complained that Satan had copied the Christian Eucharist because the adherents of Mithras also partook of consecrated bread and water symbolic of the incarnate god's body. The bread consisted of small round cakes—each marked with a cross!

Mithraic language and symbolism are widespread in the New Testament. The Dayspring from on High, the Light, and the Sun of Righteousness are all Mithraic (or Essene) expressions used of Jesus. Mithras was born out of a rock—Theos ek Petros—and Christian imagery shows the stable, in which Jesus was born, as a cave. (The infant Mithras was adored by shepherds who brought him gifts.) It was not originally oppression that led the early Christians to use catacombs for worship but simply a desire to copy the practice of the worshippers of Mithras. They decorated their catacombs with paintings, one of the most popular ones being of Moses striking the rock. Mithras, struck a rock to produce water for his followers to drink! The most popular picture of all however was Christ as the Good Shepherd. Mithras too was the Good Shepherd.

The Cilicians introduced Mithraism to Rome. The chief city of the Cilicians and one of the main centres of Mithraism was Tarsus, home of St Paul. When Paul writes (1 Cor 10:4):

They drank of that spiritual rock... and the rock was Christ,

he leans significantly toward the Mithraic idea of the God from the Rock, as does Jesus when he says (Mt 16:18):

Upon this rock I will build my church,

referring to Peter.

Both Mithraism and Christianity introduced symbolic sacrifice: Mithraists by depicting the sacrifice of the bull prominently in their churches and Christians by images of the crucifixion of Jesus and the symbolic drinking of his blood in the communion. The shedding of animal blood was originally a substitute for the shedding of human blood. The bull is interchangeable with a ram—the Ram in the Persian Zodiac is a lamb. So Mithras can also be sacrificed as a lamb just as Jesus is the Paschal Lamb. Remember Mithras is also the seven spirits of goodness just as the Book of Revelation has a slain lamb with seven horns and seven eyes representing the seven spirits of God. Easter when the Paschal Lamb was eaten was a Mithraic festival. In the seventh century the church tried to suppress pictures of Jesus as a lamb precisely because of its Pagan associations.

The Church took most of its features from Pagan mystery religions: vestments, pomp, ritual, mitre, wafer. When Western fundamentalist Christians try to argue that the Church took nothing from the mystery religions, they are not only arguing against sceptics and atheists, they are arguing also against the millions of protestant Christians whose protest was precisely that the Roman Church had adopted Pagan, largely Mithraic, practices.

The Vatican Hill in Rome considered sacred to Peter was previously sacred to Mithras. The cave of the Vatican was a Mithraeum until December 25, 376 AD, the birthday of the sun god, when a city prefect suppressed Mithraism and seized the grotto in the name of Christ. Mithraic artefacts found in the Vatican Grotto were taken over by the Church.

The head of the Mithraic faith was the Pater Patrum, the 'Father of Fathers,' who sat in the Vatican cave. The Mithraic Holy father wore a red cap and garment and a ring, and carried a shepherd's staff. The head of the Christian faith, the bishop of Rome, adopted the same title and dressed himself in the same manner, becoming the 'Papa' or 'Father'—the Pope—who subsequently sat literally in the same seat in Rome as the Pater Patrum! The throne of St Peter at Rome is older than the Church. From the carved motifs decorating it, it was Mithraic.

All Christian priests, like Mithraic priests, became 'Father', despite an editor of Matthew's specific repudiation of this and several other rival religious habits on Jesus's behalf:

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. (Matthew 23:8-10)

 

The Magi, priests of Zoroaster, wore robes displaying the sword of Mithras. Identical robes are worn by Christian priests to this day. Why is the Pope's crown called a tiara, a Persian headdress? Why do Christian bishops wear a divided tiara called a mitre? Did they adopt the habit from Mithras's priests who wore a mitra (Greek) to signify their office and the duality of the world. Mithraists commemorated the ascension of Mithras by eating a mizd, a sun-shaped bun embossed with the sword (cross) of the god. This "hot cross bun" as the mass was adapted to Christianity and eventually degenerated to the communion wafer, though it is still the same design, in Catholic churches at least.

In the fourth century, Constantine effectively merged Mithraism with Christianity and the other solar cults of the Empire under the control of the Christian bishops. Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar to Gratian had been pontifex maximus, high priest of the Roman gods. When Theodosius refused the title as incompatible with his status as a Christian, the Christian bishop of Rome had no such qualms about taking the title. Patriarchal Pagan purists as well as worshippers of Isis defied official syncretism for a few hundred more years but after the beginning of the fifth century, the bishops were confident enough to purge Pagan religions. Paganism survived precariously for a while but illegally.

Holy Days

The Christian Bible has no calendar of holy days and at first Christianity had no festivals, holy days or Sabbaths. When the Saviour might arrive on a cloud at any moment, one has little interest in constructing calendars. To gentile Christians all days were the Lord's day so there was no basis for separating out just some of them. As hopes of an early return faded, the traditional festivals of Passover and Pentecost, the latter from the Essenes' Festival of the Renewal of the Covenant, were remembered as commemorating the crucifixion and the events of Acts. But, once Christianity became a state institution, principles gave way totally to pragmatism and holy days were introduced to front Pagan festivals which people had become accustomed to celebrating and which could not easily be suppressed.

The great festivals at Easter in honour of Attis and other gods were popular and had to be given a Christian raison d'etre. The church was quite open about this as a letter of Pope Gregory in 601 AD shows, but it might come as a shock to many Christians to know that Christmas, Easter, the Assumption, the feast of John the Baptist, the feast of St George and the fast of Lent are all Pagan.

The Christian Sabbath is also Pagan. The Babylonians adopted a seven day week based on the cycles of the moon and directed that certain types of work should not occur on certain days called Sabbaths. The seven days of the week were early identified with the seven known planets beginning with the sun. The first day was therefore dedicated to the sun and the last day to Saturn. But the god Saturn was considered unlucky so no work was risked on his day. The people commissioned by Cyrus to leave Babylonia and set up a temple to Yehouah adopted the Babylonian habit of not working on a Saturday. The story of the Jewish Sabbath, the day when God in the creation myth rested from his labours, was devised to offer an explanation for the custom they had adopted.

Subsequently, the Jews imposed such a strict interpretation on the day of rest that a man could be executed for lighting a fire on the Sabbath and the scriptures record that, in the time of Moses, a man was indeed executed merely for gathering fire wood on the Sabbath (Num 15:32-36). It was, of course, an exemplary tale written after the Babylonian exile and not by Moses himself as legend has it.

Early Christians believed that Jesus had repealed laws on the Sabbath and did not include observance of it in his ordinances. Even Paul attacked the Galatians for observing a special day as holy and he repeated his view in his letter to the Colossians. In the second century Irenaeus confirmed that Jesus had cancelled observance of a Sabbath. Tertullian added in the third century that Sabbaths were unknown to Christians. The church fathers, Victorinus, Justin, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Cyril, Jerome and others were all emphatic that Christians knew no Sabbath!

There was a whole tradition in the Roman world of having Sunday as a sacred holiday and the early gentile Christians found it convenient to match it. Obviously Sunday was a special holy day for sun worshippers which included the worshippers of Mithras. Mithras was called Dominus, the Lord, and his sacred day was Sunday. So Sunday was The Lord's day long before the Christians took it as their sacred day. Because of the remnants of Nazarene tradition associating Jesus with the sun, justified by Malachi, and backed up by the tradition that Jesus had risen from the dead on a Sunday, it became customary even in the first century for Christians to meet on a Sunday. For Christians Sunday also became the Lord's Day. Irenaeus and Tertullian both thought the Lord's Day should be a day of rest but plainly there was no adoption of any strict observance of it, though it was regarded as a special day.

In 321 AD Constantine, still not officially a Christian, ordered that the "venerable day of the Sun" should be a compulsory day of rest. And so it became, gradually taking on a stricter religious purity so that, despite the protestations of Luther that people should dance and feast on that day, the puritans took it over and turned it into a day to rival that of the Mosaic Law of the post-exilic Jewish priesthood!

Mithraism eventually died out after its suppression by the Christians in 376-377 AD. By then its doctrines and ceremonies had been absorbed into Christianity so it had little basis for an independent existence. The two religions had almost everything in common: a divine Lord who offered men salvation; a sacramental meal; baptism; the idea of the believers being crusaders against evil; an ultimate judgement of the soul; ideas of Heaven and Hell; a high moral code.

Ernest Renan, a Catholic scholar who wrote a famous Life of Jesus, believed that if it were not for Christianity we should all today be worshippers of Mithras. The reasons for the success of Christianity were its overwhelmingly syncretic nature, the admission of women, the expropriation of the Jewish Scriptures, and the claim that the Christian incarnate god was a historic figure.

Tertullian, whose father was probably a Mithraist, says the initiation of the soldier, the third rank, but the first of full membership, was by his being offered a crown on the point of a sword. He was not to accept the crown and instead declare that Mithras was his crown! Not only does this ritual evoke the temptation of Jesus, but the crown spoken of was plainly the solar halo, and the sword a cross! Augustine of Hippo, S Augustine, admits the two religions had effectively merged when he claimed that the priests of Mithras worshipped the same God he did. Mithras was Jesus.

Christian Arguments

Most Christians dismiss the worship of Attis and of Mithras as of no general importance in the Empire until later than the New Testament time, not until the second and third centuries in the case of Mithras worship. Edwin Yamauchi, a Christian archaeologist and polemicist, says:

Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen Christ ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west... [Most] dated Mithraic inscriptions and monuments belong to the second century (after 140 AD ), the third, and the fourth century AD.

Never trust a Christian. The earliest remains of a church building, at Dura-Europos, date from 230 AD, and nothing else is found until the end of the third century, yet there are many earlier Mithraea. Plainly, the worship of Mithras was well ahead of the worship of Jesus. In any case there is a dated pre-Christian Mithraic inscription of Antiochus I of Commagene (69-34 BC) in eastern Asia Minor. Mithras shakes hands with the King, he wears the Phrygian cap, the Persian trousers, and a cape. His hat is star speckled and rays of light emerge from his head like a halo. His torq is a serpent. This is the image of the Roman Mithras in a scene taking place 100 years before the crucifixion.

There were worshippers of Mithras in Rome in Pompey's time (67 BC). There is a first century inscription contemporary with the earliest Christians from Cappadocia and one from Phrygia dated to 77-78 AD. Sanctuaries to Mithras existed in Rome and Ostia in the first century. Another inscription in Rome dates to Trajan's reign (98-117 AD), and the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, mentions Mithraism in about 140 AD. Despite this Christians say the real diffusion of Mithraism only begins at the end of the first century.

Christians are more defensive about Mithras than perhaps any other pre-Christian Roman god. The two religions had so much in common, it can hardly be denied although Christians will try to deny it as a first shot. Their second shot is that the followers of Mithras copied the Christians! Christians feel obliged to take silly positions on these issues because they seek to defend Christianity as a revealed religion, not one which evolved in a certain milieu and therefore has common features with contemporary religions. So, no religious practices that seem in any way to be like any Christian ones could have been original—they must have been taken from Christianity!

Their third shot is even more tenuous. Critical scholars were Christians and tended to interpret one cult by another including Christianity. They aimed to construct a general mystery theology or common mystery religion. Starting with the Christian ideas they already had in their heads, they interpreted the mystery religions and found Christian ideas in the mysteries having unconsciously put them there when they were not really! As we saw, St Augustine admitted that the priests of Mithras and he both worshipped the same abstraction. Even Christian saints therefore were subject to this methodological carelessness. They too were projecting Christian ideas! Oh, and their claim that the similarities came from demonic imitation of Christian rites was made only so that the Church Fathers could make apologetic capital out of the analogy. It is all Christian obfuscation necessitated by their absurd beliefs. They have muddied the waters of history for far too long.

The Greeks themselves never favoured Mithras worship because it came from the religion of their traditional enemies, the Persians. But Persian influence went into Greece by other routes. Greeks philosophers, if not Greek peasants, were never so bigoted that they thought there might not be anything to learn from their enemies. Plato was probably influenced by Persian religion and thought just after the time when the Persians had been the greatest threat. Later the Mithraists took back into their religion Platonic ideas through the neo-Platonists. The Christians did the same while decrying Pagan practice.

NettButik 

MITRA&MITRAISM

From "Mithras: Mysteries and initiation rediscovered" by D. Jason Cooper (1996, Samuel Weiser, Inc., York Beach, Maine. $12.95). Pages 1-8:

When the Aryan tribes swept down from the Russian steppes they brought their gods with them. Some time between 2000 and 1500 B.C.E., these tribes entered India and Iran, bringing with them one particular deity. These people, the Mitanni, gave us the first written reference to Mitra in a treaty between themselves and the Hittites. Signed about 1375 B.C.E., the treaty calls on divine witnesses to pledge its terms. The Hittites called on the sun go. The Mitanni called on Mitra.

Mitra had been worshipped by the Iranians for centuries when Zarathustra (we call him Zoroaster, the Greek version of his name) founded the first revealed religion. Zarathustra announced the primacy of Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who was served by the Amentas Spenta, or bounteous immortals. Among these was Mithra, whom Ahura Mazda declared to be "as worthy of worship as myself." Thus Zarathustrian reform did not replace Mithra in the Iranian Pantheon. It merely changed his role.

Mithra may also have been worshipped by the Mani. Some branches of Manicheism identified Mithra as the ruler of the second or third emanation (an occultist would say "ray," "aeon," or "sepheroth"). But whether there were actual rites of worship dedicated to him or whether he simply functioned as an anthropomorphic principle is impossible to say.

In the Roman Empire, this same deity was called Mithras, and was the central figure of a mystery religion that for almost five hundred years vied with Christianity for dominance. Roman Mithrasism differed so markedly, however, from other traditions that some scholars have claimed Mithras to be a unique deity, distinct from Mitra or Mithra. Although this book deals primarily with Mithrasism in its Roman form, it will demonstrate that there is good reason to connect the Roman Mithras with his other forms in other traditions.

In the beginning was a word

The names Mitra, Mithra and Mithras all derive from the Indo-European root "Mihr," which translates both as "friend" and as "contract." While both translations are correct, however, neither gives a full account of the word. "Mihr" itself derives from "mei," an Indo-European root meaning "exchange." But Aryan society did not use the word "exchange" to describe a transaction.

Ancient societies were hierarchical. Neither the concept of an exchange between equals after which a relationship ended (our meaning of contract), nor the concept of an open-ended exchange between equals (our meaning of friendship) were contained in the original meaning of the word "Mihr" or "Mei." (For our concept of friendship, the Rg Veda uses the word "sakhi.") The friendship or contract offered by Mihr, or Mitra as he became known, was an exchange between unequal partners with Mitra as a just lord. Like any feudal relationship, this "friendship" imposed certain obligations on both sides. Mitra oversaw the affairs of his worshippers. He established justice for them. In return, his worshippers had to be upright in their dealings with others. Mitra was thus "lord of the contract" (a title frequently applied to him)...

The Iranian Mithra and Zarathustra

As the Aryan tribes swept south, they split into two major branches, the Indian in the east and the Iranis in the west. Both Worshipped the god of the contract in similar ways. Like the Indians, the Iranis sacrificed cattle to Mithra. They invoked him to preserve the sanctity of the contract. They associated him with fire. And like both Indian and Roman worshippers, the Iranis concluded contracts before fires so that they might be made in the presence of Mithra. Like Mitra, Mithra saw all things. The Avestan Yast (hymn) dedicated to him describes him as having a thousand ears, ten thousand eyes, and as never sleeping. And like Mitra, Mithra has a partner, Apam Nepat, whose name means Grandson of Waters. (Note that the same elemental connection of fire and water is maintained as in the Indian tradition.)

Mithra was a moral god, upholding the sanctity of the contract even when the contract was made with one who was sure to break it. His primary responsibility was to the rightness of the action. In this he stood above the various national gods of the time, who had little function other than to look after the welfare of the state and its wealthiest members. In fact, Mithra was the first such moral deity and stands above the notions of many worshippers of many gods today...

The Iranis had a deep reverence for Mithra, as is proved by their reception of the prophet, Zarathustra. Zarathustra is the most important person in the recorded history of religion, bar none. The first man to promulgate a divinely revealed religion. He influenced the religions of Judaism, Christianity, Mithrasism, Islam, Northern (Mahayana) Buddhism, Manicheism, and the pagan Norse myths. Over half the world has accepted a significant portion of his precepts under the guise of one or another of these faiths.

At the age of about forty, Zarathustra, a priest in the traditional Irani rites, received a revelation. In it, the many gods of the Iranis were supplanted by a new deity who was the supreme deity of the Good. This deity became known as Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord." Opposed to Ahura Mazda was Aingra Mainyu or Ahriman, the "Angry Spirit," the chief deity of evil. Both deities had underlings and partners. The chief allies of Ahura Mazda were the "Amentas Spenta." Created by the "Wise Lord," these "Bounteous" or "Holy Immortals" included Mithra.

There was a hymn to Mithra in the Zarathustrian holy work, the Avesta. It is a beautiful hymn or Yast, and Ilya Gershevitch is right to lament that it is not more widely known. In it, Ahura Mazda addresses the prophet Zarathustra, saying that when he created Mithra, he made him as worthy of worship as himself. This accolade is given to no other Amenta Spenta or Yazata. Historians have argued that this distinction indicates only that the cult of Mithra was so important that Zarathustra had to give its god special concessions to convert its members. Some have even argued the popularity from the concessions. But there is another theological reason for the special attention given to Mithra by Zarathustra...

Mithra is a much more fully developed image than the rather ethereal Mitra. Unlike the Indian god, we actually have a relief of the Iranian deity. Reconstruction shows Mithra shaking hands with King Antiochus. It is Mithra's attire, however, that is important to the current study. Mithra wears the Phrygian cap, Persian trousers, and a cape. His hat is star speckled (from textual evidence his chariot is similarly decorated). Rays of light emerge from Mithra's head much like a halo. His choke collar is a serpent. This image, or one very like it, will appear again in Rome.

Related links

* THE IRANIAN: Mithraism: Jung vs. Freud- By Richard Noll
* The official Mithrasic Faith Homepage
* Mithraism Online - Monthly newsletter
* The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras - By Mithtraic scholar David Ulansey
* Mithras - This page by Payam Nabarz is dedicated to the Sun God Mithras.
* Books on Mithraism


DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:02



Mithras



The name Mithras was the Persian word for 'contract'. Mithras was also known throughout Europe and Asia by the names Mithra, Mitra, Meitros, Mihr, Mehr, and Meher. The veneration of this God began about 4000 years ago in Persia, where it was soon imbedded with Babylonian doctrines. The faith spread east through India to China, and reached west throughout the entire length of the Roman frontier-- from Scotland to the Sahara Desert, from Spain to the Black Sea. Sites of Mithraic worship have been found in Britain, Italy, Romania, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, Persia, Armenia, Syria, Israel, and North Africa.

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Persia

In Persia Mithra was the protector God of the tribal society until the Zoroaster's reformation of Persian polytheism (628-55BC). Mithralike the rest of the gods and goddess of the Iranian Pantheon was stripped of his sovereignty, and all his powers and attributes were bestowed upon Zarathrustra. Mithraism began in Persia where originally a multitude of gods were worshipped. Amongst them were Ahura-Mazda, god of the skies, and Ahriman, god of darkness. In the sixth and seventh century B.C., a vast reformation of the Persian pantheon was undertaken by Zarathustra (known in Greek as Zoroaster), a prophet from the kingdom of Bactria. The stature of Ahura-Mazda was elevated to that of supreme god of goodness, whereas the god Ahriman became the ultimate embodiment of evil. In the same way that Ahkenaton, Abraham, Heliogabalus, and Mohammed later initiated henotheistic cults from the worship of their respective deities, Zarathustra created a henotheistic dualism with the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. As a result of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews (597 B.C.) and their later emancipation by King Cyrus the Great of Persia (538 B.C.), Zoroastrian dualism was to influence the Jewish belief in the existence of HaShatan, the malicious Adversary of the god Yahweh, and later permit the evolution of the Christian Satan-Jehovah dichotomy. Persian religious dualism became the foundation of an ethical system that has lasted until this day. The reformation of Zarathustra retained the hundreds of Persian deities, assembling them into a complex hierarchical system of 'Immortals' and 'Adored Ones' under the rule of either Ahura- Mazda or Ahriman. Within this vast pantheon, Mithras gained the title of 'Judger of Souls'. He became the divine representative of Ahura-Mazda on earth, and was directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces of Ahriman. Mithras was called omniscient, un-deceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting. In the Avesta, the holy book of the religion of Zarathustra, Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras in order to guarantee the authority of contracts and the keeping of promises. The name Mithras was, in fact, the Persian word for 'contract'. The divine duty of Mithras was to ensure general prosperity through good contractual relations between men.It was believed that misfortune would befall the entire land if a contract was ever broken. Ahura-Mazda was said to have created Mithras to be as great and worthy as himself. He would fight the spirits of evil to protect the creations of Ahura-Mazda and cause even Ahriman to tremble. Mithras was seen as the protector of just souls from demons seeking to drag them down to Hell, and the guide of these souls to Paradise. As Lord of the Sky, he took the role of psychopomp, conducting the souls of the righteous dead to paradise. According to Persian traditions, the god Mithras was actually incarnated into the human form of the Saviour expected by Zarathustra. Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved inthe waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C., 64 years after his birth. Parthian coins and documents bear a double date with this 64 year interval. Mithras was 'The Great King' highly revered by the nobility and monarchs, who looked upon him as their special protector. A great number of the nobility took theophorous (god-bearing) names compounded with Mithras. The title of the god Mithras was used in the dynasties of Pontus, Parthia, Cappadocia, Armenia and Commagene by emperors with the name Mithradates. Mithradates VI, king of Pontus (northern Turkey) in 120-63 B.C. became famous for being the first monarch to practice immunization by taking poisons in gradually increased doses. The terms mithridatism and mithridate (a pharmacological elixir) were named after him. The Parthian princes of Armenia were all priests of Mithras, and an entire district of this land was dedicated to the Virgin Mother Anahita. Many Mithraeums, or Mithraic temples, were built in Armenia, which remained one of the last strongholds of Mithraism. The largest near-eastern Mithtraeum was built in western Persia at Kangavar, dedicated to 'Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras'. Other Mithraic temples were built in Khuzestan and in Central Iran near present-day Mahallat, where at the temple of Khorheh a few tall columns still stand. Excavations in Nisa, later renamed Mithradatkirt, have uncovered Mithraic mausoleums and shrines. Mithraic sanctuaries and mausoleums were built in the city of Hatra in upper Mesopotamia. West of Hatra at Dura Europos, Mithraeums were found with figures of Mithras on horseback. Persian Mithraism was more a collection of traditions and rites than a body of doctrines. However, once the Babylonians took the Mithraic rituals and mythology from the Persians, they thoroughly refined its theology. The Babylonian clergy assimilated Ahura-Mazda to the god Baal, Anahita to the goddess Ishtar, and Mithras to Shamash, their god of justice, victory and protection (and the sun god from whom King Hammurabi received his code of laws in the 18th century B.C.) As a result of the solar and astronomical associations of the Babylonians, Mithras later was referred to by Roman worshippers as 'Sol invictus', or the invincible sun. The sun itself was considered to be "the eye of Mithras". The Persian crown, from which all present day crowns are derived, was designed to represent the golden sun-disc sacred to Mithras. As a deity connected with the sun and its life-giving powers, Mithras was known as 'The Lord of the Wide Pastures' who was believed to cause the plants to spring forth from the ground. In the time of Cyrus and Darius the Great, the rulers of Persia received the first fruits of the fall harvest at the festival of Mehragan. At this time they wore their most brilliant clothing and drank wine. In the Persian calendar, the seventh month and the sixteenth day of each month were also dedicated to Mithras. According to Persian mythology, Mithras was born of a virgin given the title 'Mother of God'. The God remained celibate throughout his life, and valued self-control, renunciation and resistance to sensuality among his worshippers. Mithras represented a system of ethics in which brotherhood was encouraged in order to unify against the forces of evil. The Persians called Mithras 'The Mediator' since he was believed to stand between the light of Ahura-Mazda and the darkness of Ahriman. He was said to have 1000 eyes, expressing the conviction that no man could conceal his wrongdoing from the god. Mithras was known as the God of Truth, and Lord of Heavenly Light, and said to have stated "I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths". Mithras was worshipped as guardian of arms, and patron of soldiers and armies. The handshake was developed by those who worshipped him as a token of friendship and as a gesture to show that you were unarmed. When Mithras later became the Roman god of contracts, the handshake gesture was imported throughout the Mediterranean and Europe by Roman soldiers. In Armenian tradition, Mithras was believed to shut himself up in a cave from which he emerged once a year, born anew. The Persians introduced initiates to the mysteries in natural caves, according to Porphyry, the third century neoplatonic philosopher. These cave temples were created in the image of the World Cave that Mithras had created, according to the Persian creation myth. As 'God of Truth and Integrity', Mithras was invoked in solemn oaths to pledge the fulfillment of contracts and punish liars. He was believed to maintain peace, wisdom, honor, prosperity, and cause harmony to reign among all his worshippers. According to the Avesta, Mithras could decide when different periods of world history were completed.He would judge mortal souls at death and brandish his mace over hell three times each day so that demons would not inflict greater punishment on sinners than they deserved.

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India--Vedic

Mithra is an Indo-Iranian sun god. In Hinduism he is praised as the binomial Mitra-Varuna. A hymn is also dedicated to him alone in Rig Veda. He is the Lord of Heavenly light, protector of truth, and is invoked when a contract or oath is taken.

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Babylonian

The Babylonians also incorporated their belief in destiny into the Mithraic worship of Zurvan, the Persian god of infinite time and father of the gods Ahura-Mazda and Ahriman. They superimposed astrology, the use of the zodiac, and the deification of the four seasons onto the Persian rites of Mithraism.

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China

Mithra is also seen in Chinese mythology, where he is known as The Friend. Mithra is represented as a Military General in Chinesestatues, and is considered to be the friend of man in this life and his protector against evil in the next.

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Rome

In the west Mithra is best known as cult of Mithras which had an immense popularity among the Roman Legions--from late 1 BCuntil 4 AD. During which it came under the influence of Greek and Roman mythologies. The Mithraic cult maintained secrecy. Its teaching were only reveled to initiates. Remains of Mithraic temples can be found throughout the Roman Empire, from Palestine across north of Africa, and across central Europe to northern England. For over three hundred years the rulers of the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras. In Rome, more than a hundred inscriptions dedicated to Mithras have been found, in addition to 75 sculpture fragments, and a series of Mithraic temples situated in all parts of the city. One of the largest Mithraic temples built in Italy now lies under the present site of the Church of St. Clemente, near the Colosseum in Rome.

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Degrees of Initiation

There were seven degrees of initiation, these degrees allowed the neophyte to proceed through the seven celestial bodies. Allowing the reversing of the human souls descend into the world at birth. The first degree was of corax (Raven) under Mercury. This stage symbolized death of neophyte. In ancient Persia it was a custom to expose dead bodies to be eaten by ravens on funeral towers. Raven as symbol of death can also be seen in some tarot packs as card 13 instead of Grim Reaper. At this stage the neophyte dies and is re-born into a spiritual path. A mantra was given to him to repeat and his sins were washed away by baptism in water. The next degree is of Nymphus (male-bride) under Venus. The neophyte wears a veil and carries a lamp in his hand. He is unable to see the light of truth until the veil of reality is lifted. He is vowed to the cult, and becomes celibate for at least duration of this stage. He is a bride (lover) of Mithra. He also offers a cup of water to the statute of Mithra, the cup is his heart and the water is his love. On reaching Miles (solider) under Mars, the neophyte had to kneel (submission to religious authority, naked (casting off old life), blindfolded with hands tied. He was then offered a crown on the point of a sword . Once crowned, his binds were cut with a single stroke of the sword and blindfold removed. This represented his liberation from bondages of the material world. He would thenremove the crown from his head and placing it on his shoulder, saying: Mithra is my only crown (Fanz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra). This also symbolizes the removing the head (intellect) itself, allowing Mithra to be the guide. At this stage the neophyte starts the real battle against his lower self, a solider is one actively struggles with the real enemy. The stage of Leo (lion) is first of the senior degrees and is under Jupiter. He is entering the element of fire. Therefore the lions were not allowed to touch water during the ritual, and instead honey was offered to the initiate to wash his hands and anoint his tongue. The lions carry the food for the ritual meal that was prepared by the lower grades to the ritual feast, and take part. Lions duties included attending the sacred altar flame. The ritual feast represented Mithras last supper of bread and wine with his companions, before his ascend to the heavens in Suns chariot. The degree of Perses (Persian) under moon, The initiate to this grade obtained through it an affiliation to that race which alone was worthy of receiving the highest revelations of wisdom of Magi (Fanz Cumont, Rapport sur une mission a Rome, in Academic desinscrition et Belles-Letters, Comptes Rendes, 1945 p.418). The emblem for this stage was a harpe, the harpe that Persus decapitated the Gorgon. Symbolizing the destruction of the lower and animal aspect of the initiate.



The initiate was also purified with honey as he was under the protection of the Moon. Honey is associated with purity and fertility of the moon as this was, inancient Iran believed to be the source of honey, and thus theexpression of honey-moon denotes not the period of a month aftermarriage, but continued love and fertility in married life. (Dr. Masoud Homayouri, Origin of Persian Gnosis). In grade of Heliodromus (sun runner) under sun, the initiate imitates Sun at the ritual banquet. Sitting next to Mithra (Father), dressed in red, color of sun, fire and blood of life. Highest grade was of Pater (father) under Saturn. He was Mithras earthly representative, light of heaven embodied, the teacher of congregation which he lead, wearing a redcap and as well as a red baggy Persian trousers, carrying a staff symbol of his spiritual office. (Charles Daniels, Mithras and his temples on the Wall).

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Astrology

Mithra also presided over changing of seasons and the movement of heavens themselves. The scene of Mithra slaying a bull represents the precession of the equinoxes. Mithra was in effect moving the entire universe. Mithra is represented by constellation Persus changes the position of the celestial sphere by slaying constellation Taurus and moving the earth into constellation Aries at spring equinox. This miracle of Mithra is a product of Roman astrologers and a latter development that is not seen in Iran to same extent. However the celebration for changing of seasons was carried out both by western and eastern followers of Mithra: Nou-roz (spring equinox), Mehregan (autumn equinox), Shab-Yalda (winter solstice) and summer solstice.

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Link to Christianity

As Christianity gathered momentum and eventually became the Roman Empires state religion, Mithraism was not tolerated. The Apologist saw it as a satanic transversity of the holiest rites of their religion. Nevertheless Catholicism has preserved some of the outer form of Mithraism to name some; the timing of Christmas, Bishops adaptation of miters as sign of their office, Christians priests becoming Father despite Jesus specific proscription of the acceptance of such title. The Mithraic Holy father wore a red cap and garment and a ring, and carried a shepherd's staff. The Head Christian adopted the same title and outfitted himself in the same manner. While the outer appearance of Mithraism can be detected in Catholicism, some traces of the inner teachings of Mithraism can be found in Sufisim, therefore study of Sufisim allows a new insight into Mithraism, and possibly vise versa.

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Belief Systems

The faithful referred to Mithras as "the Light of the World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity. The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come. They looked forward to a final day of judgment in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness. Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above. However, it would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single forerunner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Many classical heroic figures, such as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the union of a virgin mother and divine father. Virtually every pagan religious practice and festivity that couldn't be suppressed or driven underground was eventually incorporated into the rites of Christianity as it spread across Europe and throughout the world.

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:03

Merry Mitra



By Hashem Farhang
December 11, 1997
The Iranian

A chance meeting, some two years ago, of an Iranian scholar who, as fate has it, now lives in Helsinki, Finland, introduced me to an aspect of Iranian history, which to this date is nothing short of a love affair with my ancestors, long forgotten but who deserve to be remembered for what they truly were. For this enlightenment, I am forever indebted to this friend.

At this particular time of the year, I would like to share something with my fellow Iranians that I think speaks volumes of everything Iranian that has been stolen. I feel sure that there are thousands of Iranians who are aware of this, but somehow have not kept reminding others of the facts.

When my children were growing up and were still at home, Christmas was a difficult time for us parents. At school and other gatherings, my children like all other Iranian children, could not quite understand the lack of enthusiasm that we exhibited at the holiday season. I dare say that this indifference in us parents, may have even strengthened the feeling that their parents are "different." They, as children everywhere, never felt different. But their parents? Well you know.

The result of the chance meeting, was that a small amount of research produced a very sweet little historical fact. And had I known this, I would have happily, gladly, and most proudly celebrated this particular holiday season as one of my very own. And I would not have been uncomfortable at Christmas, whether I had a tree or not.

For this reason, I want to share this fact with all Iranians, in Iran or abroad, and to recommend celebrations on December 25th as the birthday of Mitra, which we celebrated as early as 5000 B.C. Zoroastrians after refining and discarding some of the mythical and "heretical" aspects of Mithraism, retained Jashn-e-Mehregan and Yalda or "The Birth."

Iranians celebrated Yalda and decorated an evergreen tree, the sarve. The sarve (Rocket Juniper - what a name! - also known as the cypress tree), being straight, upright and resistant to the cold weather (symbol of hardship) was thought appropriate, to represent Mitra. The younger girls had their "wishes" symbolically wrapped in colorful silk cloth and hung them on the tree with lots of presents for Mitra, to answer their prayers.

As you may know, Pope Leo in the fourth century, after almost destroying the temple of Mitra (A.D. 376), in his campaign against Mitraism -- and in the good old Christian tradition, "If you can't claim it, imitate it" -- proclaimed the 25th of December as Christ's birthday instead of January 6th, a date, by the way, that is still celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Armenians.

Again in the same tradition, Luther, the famous German reformer, in the 18th century (1756, I believe), having learned of the Yalda sarve tree, introduced the Christmas tree to the Germans. As sarves were not much known in Germany, as indeed in most of Europe, the chosen tree became a genus of pine which was abundant in Europe.

So now with or without the children at home, we decorate a small sarve with a star on top and many presents, not necessarily for Mitra, but to my ancestors ant for my children and hopefully soon to my grandchildren. Happy Yalda and greetings of the season to all you Iranians -- no matter what your religion.

Related links

* Mitra, Mithra, Mithras Mystery - By D. Jason Cooper
* Mithraism: Jung vs. Freud- By Richard Noll
* The official Mithrasic Faith Homepage
* The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras - By Mithtraic scholar David Ulansey
* Mithras - This page by Payam Nabarz is dedicated to the Sun God Mithras.
* Books on Mithraism
* Cover stories
* Who's who

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:04

On Certain Divine Metamorphoses

By
Baron A. Von Stael-Holstein

Another divinity mentioned in the Mitani treaty and praised by the Vedic poets, is Varuna. He appeared to the Vedic Indians as & most powerful god approaching, if not rivalling in might, the national god Indra himself. The opinions of scholars differ widely as to the origin of this divinity. Some of them assert that the word "Varuna" is related to the Greek word "ouranos" which means "heaven " and that we are confronted with an old personification of the firmament. Others, like Professor Oldenberg, believe that he was originally a moon god. The Rigveda celebrate him as the upholder of both the moral and the physical order of the universe. But much greater stress is laid on his activities in the sphere of ethics than on his role as creator and warden of the physical world. From the heights of heaven, where he resides in a palace with a thousand gates, Varuna can observe not only the acts but likewise the thoughts of men. He inflicts terrible punishments and avenging maladies on the hardened criminal ; but he is merciful to the man who repents. It is to him that the cry of anguish from remorse ascends, and it is to him that the sinner comes to confess his guilt.

Varuna has six or seven brothers, like himself sons of Aditi, or immensity. The most important of these brothers is Mitra who is frequently invoked concurrently with Varuna. Both Mitra and Varuna are called A8ura, which originally meant endowed with supernatural power." This attribute was also occasionally applied to Indra and other Vedic deities.

Among the ancient Persians this word Asura, in the form Ahura has become part of the supreme god's personal name. Ahura Mazda or Ormazd is the personification of the good principle as opposed to Ariman, the Evil One. It is interesting to note that the word "Asura" in later times acquired an entire]y opposite meaning and came to signify a demon or enemy of the gods. This change of meaning is evidently due to the speculations of over-wise philologists. The initial "a" of Asura was explained as an alpha privativum and "sura" was supposed to mean "god." All the Chinese translators of Buddhist sutras that I know accept this explanation and translate Asura by Fei T'ien.

In this case we have again a remarkable transformation before us:
a word which was used by the original Aryans to designate the highest and most benevolent divinities, has become the name of a class of dangerous goblins in later Hindooism as well as in Buddhism.

Already in the Rigveda Varuna is considered as ruling over the waters of heaven and earth. He is asked for rain and is mentioned as pervading the oceans.

But Varuna's functions as a water god are very rarely mentioned in the Rigveda. The contrary is the case in the literature of mediaevaI India. There the other traits of Varuna's personality are completely lost and only his connection with the waters remains. 'This character he still retains in India, but I do not know whether any modern Hindoos actually worship him at present. In Chinese and Japanese Buddhist books the word Varuna" occurs as (1) the name 0?a water god (2) the name of a dragon king, and (3) the name of the deity presiding over one of the twenty- eight lunar mansions .

While the element or natural power originally represented by Varuna cannot be determined with certainty, the fact that the Aryan Mitra was a sun god seems to be admitted by all authorities.

In the Rigveda he is generally associated with Varuna, Mitra being regarded as the ruler of the day and Varuna as the ruler of the night. Together, they uphold the moral and the physical order of the Universe. Mitra, like Varuna, is invoked as a protector of the righteous, dreaded by all evil doers. The cult of Mithra (which is the Persian form of the name) or Mitra was much more popular in Persia than it had ever been in India. Certain communities worshipped that god almost to the exclusion of all other divinities and formed a sect which spread from Persia to the adjoining territories subject to the Roman Empire and thence to Rome itself. The Roman legionaries, who had been partly recruited in Asia Minor, carried Mitraism to the farthest borders of the Empire. By the middle of the first century A.D. the cult had reached the Danube frontier; and Mitraic monuments dating from subsequent periods are found on the Rhine, in France, Spain, Africa, Greece and Great B.itain, principally along the northern border of the Roman dominions. The monuments left behind by the Roman soldiers are our main source of information concerning Western Mitraism, and the ancient Latin texts do not help us much.

The central act of worship seems to have been the sacrifice of a bull, the prototype of which was the slaying of the bull by Mitra himself, represented in relief in every Mitraic sancturary. Such Mitraic reliefs are found nearly everywhere in Europe and Africa where legions were stationed during the first centuries of the Christian era. The chief scene depicted by these reliefs varies but little in the different localities. We see Mitra, clothed in conventional Oriental attire, placing his left knee on the back of a bull, seizing its muzzle with the left hand and plunging a knife into its throat. From the tail of the dying bull, or from its blood, spring ears of corn, and the sacrifice is supposed to symbolize the annual renewal of vegetable life. The adherents of the cult believed that the killing of the bull promoted fertility on earth and assured the prosperity of the pious.

The cult of Mitra, who was supposed to be represented on earth by the Roman Emperor and who was worshipped throughout the Empire as "Dens Sol invictus Mithras," achieved its widest dissemination during the third century A.D. and bade fair at that time to become a world religion. Mitraism still had some adherents in Central Europe at the end of the fifth century, but must be considered extinct in the West ever since the sixth century. In Persia it lasted longer; and even present-day Zoroastrians still recognize Mitra as one of their gods without, however, as far as I know, performing any special rities in his honour. He is particularly respected as the god of contracts and oaths.

About the career of Mitra in the Far East, I know very little. His name, according to the "Dictionary of Buddhism" occurs in Chinese Buddhist books as Mi To Lo and as Mi Ch'i Lo. He is regarded as presiding over one of the lunar mansions mentioned above and also as one of the twelve divine generals representing the twelve divisions of time. In the Japanese iconographical work we find a drawing of Mitra as a rather demoniacal looking warrior (fasc. 4, page fig. lb).

The only Chinese representation of Mitra known to me belongs to the Hsi-yu-ssu, where he appears as one of the twelve great generals. From the photographs of them which are in my possession we see that a bowl is placed before each general, which tends to show that Mithra still enjoys divine honours in China.

The ground covered by this divinity is indeed enormous We find him killing the bull on the Scotch border, protecting a treaty in Mesopotamia and surviving as a Chinese general on the Peking-Hankow Railway.

The god Yama also was invoked about four thousand years ago by the Aryans in the mountains of Persia and is still worshipped, or at least feared, by Buddhists in China and Japan. According to the Rigveda, Yama was the first man who died. After departing this life, he ascended to heaven to become in the course of time the ruler of the righteous who followed him. To dwell in the heaven of Yama was regarded as the highest reward of a pious life. In Yama's heaven the virtuous enjoy immunity from all diseases and live forever in perfect bliss. Yama, who rules over them, sits under a shady tree and drinks Soma, while listening to heavenly music. Among the original Aryans, also, Yama was regarded as a most benign divinity. This conclusion is arrived at by comparing the Rigvedic passages, in which Yama appears, with the corresponding parts of the Avesta. There Yama confronts us as the ruler of a marvellous kingdom in which neither old age nor death, neither heat nor cold, existed; and in which passions as well as want were unknown. Neither in the Rigveda nor in the Avesta is there anything terrible in the personality of Yama himself. The only objects of terror connected with him are his two insatiable dogs with four eyes and enormous nostrils who guard the entrance to his abode. The departed are advised to hurry past these dogs with all possible speed. But when this had been achieved, there was nothing but beatitude awaiting them in Yama's world.

How different is the aspect of this god as he confronts us in later Hindoo and in Buddhist writings! In later Hindoo mythology he appears as the terrible judge of the dead and his abode is in the lower regions. A soul when it quits its mortal frame descends to Yama's world there a recorder reads out his account from the great register, and a just sentence follows. According to their merits, the souls are allowed either to ascend to heaven or are sent down to one of the numerous hells. Some Buddhist books draw a still more frightful picture of Yama. He is supposed to have been the king of Vaisali a city in India well known to all Buddhists as a place frequently visited by the Buddha. While King of Vaisali, Yama engaged in bloody wars, and, though reborn as the ruler of all the hells, he has himself to suffer for his misdeeds committed on earth. Three times in every 24 hours boiling copper is poured down Yama's mouth by way of punishment for his sins. Together with Yama his eighteen generals and his army of 80,000 men are reborn in hell and they all now serve him as assistant judges, jailors and executioners. (Compare Eitel's Hand-book of Chinese Buddhism , page 207). The changes the personality of Yama has undergone during the centuries are truly remarkable. The benign king of the blessed, the happiest of immortals, the ruler of heaven, has descended to hell where he lives to be tormented himself and to subject others to the most cruel punishments imaginable. (Outside Ch'ao Yang Men, Peking, there is a temple in which some of these punishments are illustrated.)

We have already observed that the change of meaning of the word "Asura" is probably connected with the speculations of super-learned philologists. It is not impossible that Yama became connected with the punishments inflicted upon sinners because (or partly because) his name, which is of unknown derivation, was explained by later philologists as containing the root "yam," " to restrain."

In Tokyo one of the most popular festivals is celebrated on the day consecrated to Emma-o (the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters for Yen Mo Wang . The ceremonies in honour of Yama are attended by enormous crowds and are performed by laymen; the Buddhist clergy do not on that day, as far as I know, participate in the worship of Yama. A feature of this Japanese Yama festival are the religious plays enacted in tents erected for the occasion.

In China, Yen-wang or King Yama is certainly well known everywhere. I am told that his images are to be found in all the city temples which have been built throughout the country ever since the the Ming period. In the Tung-yueh-miao outside Ch'ao-yang-men, Peking, a terrible Yama image is also found. I have not, however, been able to find out whether a special festival is held anywhere in China in honour of Yama. His name is frequently mentioned by the Buddhist priests, who read the scriptures at higher-class funerals, and occasionally incense is burnt before the representations of the god in the various temples. I have searched for the special Yama temples which I was told existed in Peking, but in vain.

In Peking there are at least two streets called Yen-wang-miao Chieh, or "Street of King Yama's Temple." One of them is near the Government Printing Office. Many persons living in that street have been questioned as to the location of the Yama temple, which gave the street its name, but none could give a satisfactory answer. Even the memory of the sanctuary, which surely must have existed, had vanished.

The other Yen-wang-miao Chieh is just outside the Hatamen gate and the temple of Yama was easily located; but it was found that the temple contained no images. It had three years before been converted into a fire brigade station. This change will probably be acclaimed by many as another victory of modern science over the powers of hell, but it will be sincerely regretted by all those interested in comparative mythology.

NOTE: This does not pretend to be an exhaustive inquiry into the history of the gods Indra, Varuna, Mitra and Yama. It is nothing but an after dinner lecture prepared in order to amuse "The Peking Friends of Letters" (Wen yu hui). The lack of a library containing the standard works on all the different creeds and all the corresponding periodicals prevents any serious work being done here on the subject of comparative mythology. The writer, for the purpose of preparing his Various papers, has had to borrow books from American tourists, French bankers, British diplomats and other kind friends temporarily residing at Peking.

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:05

Mitra

Aliases: Mithra, Mithras; Lord of Light

Base of Operations: Elysium (his own "Heaven" dimension)

First Appearance:
    (real world): no frickin' idea
    (referenced):
    (manifestation): Weird Tales Volume 21, Number 6, Black Colossus (June, 1933)
        (Marvel Universe): Savage Sword of Conan#2 (October, 1974)

Powers: Mitra presumably has the powers common to a Terran deity, including superhuman strength + durability, immunity to aging and conventional disease, and manipulation of energies. As a god of light, he presumably could generate some degree of light and heat.
Mitra once manifested a large ball of energy, which was powerful enough to slay the powerful demon Xotli.
The Oracle of Mitra demonstrated telepathic abilities and prophecy as well. The Oracle appeared to be a statue which represented the spirit of Mitra himself.

Mitra's rites were, as far as we know, unique in that they alone in the Hyborian era included no blood sacrifices of any kind--either animal or human. The majestic images of the god were also unique in that era, since they were idols; that is, the images themselves were not actually worshipped or considered to be the peculiar dwelling places of the god. Mitra, it was believed, was omnipresent and his true appearance unknowable. The statues erected to him were regarded only as attempts to make visible the idea of Mitra by portraying him "in idealized human form, as near perfection as the human mind can conceive."
--adapted from Robert L. Yaple's essay on the Hyborian God, in Savage Sword of Conan#7.

History: Mitra's origins are uncertain (see comments).

(Savage Sword of Conan#7: Gods of the Hyborian Era) - The name was recognized by Xaltotun, an Acheron who lived around the time of his culture's destruction, @ 13000 BC. Mitraism's real ascendancy probably began about 1400 years after Acheron's fall, when the Hyborian lands were once again menaced by the shadow of Set, and were largely saved through the efforts of the Mitraic prophet-hero Epemetrius the Sage. One of the earlier nations to embrace Mitra was Koth, @ 11000 BC.

(Conan the Barbarian: The Skull of Set (fb,bts)) In the city of Eidoran, then a mighty but decadent place, Set worshippers summoned forth demons such as Khorus from an infernal dimension. The first followers of Mitra hired their own sorcerer-who used a crystal skull to focus his powers and bind the demons in stone. After this, the ruins of Eidoran were guarded by the Mitran clergy.

(Unofficial Handbook of the Conan Universe#1) In the Hyborian era, the deity Mitra emerged as one of the most popular gods, receiving worship from peoples in the kingdoms of Aquilonia, Argos, Corinthia, Nemedia, Ophir, and Zingara; in fact south of Nordheim and Cimmeria, Mitra worship was almost universal. It was rivaled here and there only by little cults of such as that of Asura, Ibis, Ishtar, and even, to some degree, Set. That last deity was also Mitra's sworn enemy, as Mitra intervened in human affairs often to protect his own worshippers and humanity in general from Set's foul designs.

Some Mitraists were unique in having an unflinchingly monotheistic devotion to Mitra. While most people in the Hyborian era followed a type of henotheism, in which they acknowledged the existence of gods that they chose not to worship, some Mitraists held Mitra as the only god in existence.  Not unexpectedly, this exclusivist view of Mitra produced hardcore intolerance of other religions at times.
In Mitraism, while there were saint and a heavenly host, there was no pantheon, no divine colleagues, and not even a consort.

 

Ostensibly Mitra was a gentle god in contrast to Northern warrior gods such as Crom, Borri, Ymir et al. and supposedly taught mercy over vengeance. However, despite this, Mitra did banish people to a hell dimension for punishment, for as mankind's eternal judge, Mitra decided final assignment of souls to either there or a heaven world as a reward. Mitraic  sorteriology preached salvation based on works, i.e. a person's life on Earth was judged based on his deeds in his or her life. Mitra, known to be attended to by a host of saints and angels, presumably dwelled in this heaven dimension.

Blood sacrifice was explicitly excluded from the Mitraic  religion, the rituals of which had much simplicity, dignity, and beauty. As opposed to the case of the idols of non-Mitraic  religions, the statues of Mitra served only as emblems intended to represent the god in idealized form and not to be worshipped themselves.

Koth, which at one time knelt to Mitra, afterwards fell under the influence of Shem and Stygia and abandoned the god for the more sensual rites of Ishtar, as did Khoraja and Khauran.

(Savage Sword of Conan#29/4 (fb) - BTS) - From Elysium then, Mitra peered, with mournful eye, into the primordial mist. He spoke:
'Forge me an instrument of retribution. I wish to prophesy thru the rage of the naked sword.'
A solitary voice answered. It was the throaty retort of Erlik, the Dark God, the Fallen One. He said, "Twill be done!'

Thus did Erlik, via the hand of the living Tarim, manipulate events to forge the woman warrior known as Red Sonja.

(Conan the Barbarian I#147, bts) Set managed to recruit a turncoat Mitraic  priestess named C'Harona with promises of power. Set instructed her to free his "most hideous demons" from "the center of the Earth". To that end, C'Harona mesmerized the popular Mitraic  priestess Pelijah Lon and had her persuade the people of D'eim to build a tower to Mitra. In fact, C'Harona used the tower to hide a drill that was being used to burrow into the Earth to free rat-like demons serving Set. C'Harona intended to use these demons to help destroy the Mitraic  religion in D'eim.

Conan received an image of Pelijah asking for help. Going to D'eim, he investigated and found the truth. Eventually, C'Harona, as promised, was transformed by Set into a powerful "hideous shrieking harpie" (sic), but Conan and Pelijah Lon managed to destroy C'Harona, and the rat-like demons were destroyed when the tower was demolished.

(Black Colossus/Savage Sword of Conan#2/Conan the Barbarian I#249) - Yasmela, princess of Khoraja, sought aid from the Oracle of Mitra, in regards to visions of attacks by Natohk, an alias for Thugra Khotan. The Oracle spoke to Yasmela and, after revealing a thorough understanding of her plight--and a nice plot synopsis for the reader, advised her: Go forth alone upon the streets of your capital...and place your kingdom in the hands of the first man you meet there!

The man she met, of course, was Conan, who led Khoraja to victory over the forces of Thugra Khotan.

(Savage Sword of Conan#40, bts) Princess Chabela of Zingara, deeply worried about the court intrigue at work in her country, sought guidance at a Mitraic  house of worship. Seeking guidance, she took out divining straws, and threw them at random on the floor. The divining straws landed on the floor, spelling out Tovarro. Chabela immediately secretly set sail for that place.

Mitra sent Chabela that message as part of a complicated plan to thwart the designs of Set (see comments). Mitra intended to undo the plans of Duke Villagro, a Zingaran noble who intended to marry Chabela and become king. To that end, Villagro had made a deal with the Setian priest Menkara. Part of the terms of the deal included that Villagro would replace the prevalent Mitraic  religion in Zingara with Set worship. Desiring to prevent this Mitra instructed Chabela to flee, and in fact did bring about a chain of events that thwarted Villagro, Menkara, and also Thoth-Amon.

(Conan of the Isles) - The people of Ptahuacan, the last surviving city of the Atlanteans on Earth, began to magically abduct people from the nearby continent, to serve as sacrifice to their god, Xotli. When people of the kingdom of Aquilonia began to disappear, the spirit of Epimetrius appeared before Aquilonia's king, Conan (now well into his seventh decade). Epimetrius directed Conan to Ptahuacan and gave him an amulet, telling him he'd know how to use it when the time was right.
After much struggle, Conan was confronted by the demonic Xotli in its temple in Ptahuacan. Shattering the amulet, Conan released "the pure force of Mitra, Lord of Light." The energy sphere engaged Xotli, shattering its temple, and eventually banishing the demonic creature as well.

See the comments below for Mitra's history following the Hyborian era.

Comments: Created by Robert E. Howard; adapted by Roy Thomas.

If you're the type who is offended by a religious discussion that criticizes (or even pokes fun at) some of the prominent religions of the modern era, you probably should stop here.
DO NOT write to me (Snood) complaining about this discussion.
If you want to discuss it, talk to John.

 

Mitra's Acting Behind the Scenes

Admittedly, it is easy to go overboard with designating a story as having a behind-the-scenes-influence by Mitra, as he was one of the most important gods of the Hyborian era. While one would generally wish to admit such stories only if they feature overt supernatural intervention, the Cobra Crown/Chabela story discussed under history has been included because of the fact that, in the partial retelling of the Cobra Crown story in Punisher Annual#2/4, Uatu the Watcher narrated the story. Uatu, who observed Earth during the Hyborian Age, referred to Conan as "the man chosen by the Hyborian Age's gods of light as their champion against the forces of Set!". Since Uatu the Watcher is privy to many cosmic secrets and phenomenon withheld from mortal man, I will presume that he was able to detect Mitra's aura or what-have-you at work in the defeat of Thoth-Amon.

(SSoC#112/2) - A Mitraic priest from Aquilonia tried to bring about peace by teaching the way of Mitra to the Picts. He taught a tribe led by Shooz Dinj about how a Mitraic priest was once captured and tortured by Turanian nomads, who flayed his skin an inch strip at a time. As they had torn the flesh from his body, he blessed them for it, showing wisdom, mercy, and......and Conan leapt in in time to stop one of the Picts hearing the story from braining the priest from behind. Conan slew some of the Picts and others fled. The priest continued to believe in his mission of peace, and when Conan led the group of settlers to flee from another group of Picts, the priest met with Shooz Dinj, who told him he had remembered his lesson. They bound the priest to the ground, and flayed his skin, one strip at a time.

(SSoC#15-17, The Hyborian Era) - @ 9500 BC, approximately 500 years after the rule of Conan, Arus, a Nemedian priest of Mitra, sought to bring religion to the heathen Picts. Arus taught Gorm, the leader of one of the Pict clans about the success and splendor of the Hyborian Kingdoms as proof of the power of Mitra. Impressed, Gorm and his allies began to make voyages to all of Aquilonia, under Arus' permission. However, Gorm remained a barbarian to the core, and had no interest in Mitra, but rather in the wealth of Aquilonia. From his visits, he took back the skills to forge chain mail armor and iron weapons, with which he began a series of wars which, with the aid of a few other complicating factors, brought about the fall of Aquilonia over the next 75 years. When the wars started, Arus sought to turn Gorm from the path of violence. For his efforts, he received a stone mace in the back of his head--and likely his head on a pike afterwards.

Mitra's Relatives/Post-Hyborian Fate

As occurred with Crom, I have deduced from Gaea's serving as the maternal ancestor of the Earth's gods that she should be listed as Mitra's "mother". I have listed Varuna as his brother based on information from the authentic Vedic account of Mitra.

As to what became of Mitra after the Hyborian era, one is free to speculate. It could be possible that he was either the same as or reincarnated as the Mitra/Mithra of post-Hyborian myth. In which case, his later fate is detailed below.

As to what happened to Mitra's hell dimension, many hell-realms have been seen in modern times. Whether a demon later usurped Mitra's hell-dimension and became its ruler could be possible. It is interesting to note, by the way, that although Set was Mitra's main enemy, it does not seem that he would receive the souls that Mitra judged as worthy of damnation, since generally in the Marvel Universe, gods only receive the souls of those that worshipped them, not the souls of sinful worshippers of other gods. Set's own pocket dimension (seen as recently as Thor Annual#14) does not seem to have any souls of the dead resident there, and the limbo realm seen in Marvel Team-Up I#111 is only for the souls of deceased Serpent Men.

However, as covered under the profile for Ishiti, the daughter of Set apparently ruled the otherdimensional Isle of the Living Dead. In Conan the Barbarian I#147, it was said that C'Harona had been "promised a place in his nether world" by Set for her aid in opposing the Mitraic  religion. So, it could be possible that Set controls a land of the dead, but that sinful Mitraists went there remains uncertain.

Mitra In Vedic Times

As discussed under the entry for Shiva, Mitra in historical mythology was a god of the Vedas (early Indo-European religious documents), at a time when both the Persian and Indian peoples worshipped the same gods, following similar religions. At this early stage, Mitra was a very prominent god. Varuna and Mitra were the older, biological brothers to Indra and Vishnu. Mitra was also called Surya. Varuna, Mitra, and Indra presided as the ruling trinity of the Vedic gods.

However, in both India and Persia, Mitra fell from prominence. In India, when Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva ascended to heaven, they replaced Varuna, Mitra and Rudra in their respective places in the ruling trinity.

In Persia, Mitra was also subsumed, but here matters took a very different turn. Here, no later than 600 BCE, a new religious teacher rejected the worship of the established trinity of Varuna, Mithra and Indra. He emphasized the eternal struggle between a force of good (Ahura Mazda) and a force of evil (Ahriman). This teacher was named Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

However, at some point after the reform of the Persian religion by Zoroaster, some Persians began to revive the worship of Mitra as a savior god who was the Way, the Truth, and the Light. He died for our sins. In time, the veneration of Mitra spread to many foreign lands, including in Europe.

Mithraism and Christianity

Mithraism competed with early Christianity in the later days of the Roman Empire. It soon became apparent that Mithraism and Christianity were very similar, and in several cases, it was obvious that Christians had plagiarized Mithraist practices:

• The celebration of the birth of Mithra took place on December 25. Note that the four generally accepted Christian gospels give no date for the birth of Jesus son of Mary. Mithraist stories tell of Mithra being visited by shepherds after his birth.
• Mithra healed the sick and raised the dead.
• Mithraists worshipped on Sunday. Note that the Hebrew Ten Commandments direct one to worship on Saturday ("seventh day"), not Sunday.
• The celebration of the visit of wise men to the young Mithra took place on January 6.
• Mithraism had seven sacraments.
• Mithraism had a ritual meal in which people were invited to drink of Mithra's blood and eat of his flesh--with the flesh of Mithra represented by bread.

Early Christian writers attempted to address the issue of the similarity between Mithraism and Christianity by stating that the Mithraists had stolen their rituals from Christianity. However, it became apparent that this was not a feasible explanation, since Mithraism was older than Christianity! The Mithraists had been performing their rituals long before the birth of Jesus son of Mary would have taken place.

So, many early Christian writers came up with a solution that ranks with the most extreme paranoid delusions. They explained the similarities between Mithraism and Christianity by saying that Satan knew Jesus was coming, and so to throw people off, Satan created Mithraism (and other similar religions) in the centuries before Jesus' birth. Satan hoped that the existence of religions that had many similarities to Christianity which preceded the life of Jesus would cause people to not believe in Jesus when he showed up!

This theory has been called "diabolical mimicry". Whew, that Satan; he must be so busy, what with him also creating fossils for people to find all over the world in order to get people to believe in evolution and the Earth being millions of years old instead of people accepting the Hebrew Bible story of Adam and Eve with the world being less than seven thousand years old!

As discussed under the entries for both the Serpent Men of Stakesboro and the Serpent Men who are the original spawn of Set, Mithraism used a t-shaped symbol to represent their god as the rays of the sun, which directly inspired the Trinitarian Christian use of the cross, as the historical Jesus son of Mary would have actually been crucified on a single pole. I have extrapolated that Setian use of the inverted cross on Earth-616 mocks Mitra, not Jesus. (Incidentally, someone watching the Conan the Adventurer animated series of the early 1990's once said it would be fun if Jesus showed up to banish the Serpent Men! Well, the Hyborian Age did not have Jesus, but they did have Mitra to stop the Serpent Men......)

Christianity eventually won out over Mithraism by gaining the favor of the Roman Emperor. Specifically, the Emperor Constantine, who actually for most of his life was a member of Mithraism and other cults, had murdered his son, and sought to cleanse himself of the sense of guilt he felt about doing this. He was informed by the Mithraist priests and scholars that they could not cleanse him of the taint of what he had done. However, Christian priests informed him that Christian baptism erased all sins committed before the baptism. So not only would it forgive Constantine's murder of his son, if Constantine put off his baptism until just before he died, during his life he could commit all the sins that he wanted to, and his baptism would save him from any punishment in the afterlife for his accumulated sins! In fact, the Emperor Constantine chose this route. (So, you can do a last-minute conversion!)

Upon the ascension of the Roman Catholic Church, Mithraism was wiped out upon the passage of the Codex Theodosius, the series of laws which banned all religions in the Roman Empire except for Roman Catholic Christianity and Judaism. These laws came out in 341, 345, 356, 381, 383, 386, and 391 CE. Mithraists had their civil rights taken away. For a witty discussion of the existence of Mithraism in the Roman Empire by the great anti-clerical writer Joseph McCabe, click here.

Within centuries, any Mithraists in Persia soon also lost their civil rights due to pro-Jesus intolerance; circa the year 650 CE, Arabs who were Muslims (and thus believed in the Koranic account of the virgin birth of Jesus) invaded Persia. As a result, Persia became Muslim. The old Vedic-connected religions such as Zoroastorianism and Mithraism were wiped out. Today in Persia, now called Iran, anyone who follows these non-Abrahamic religions faces the death penalty or other harassment.

Mitra and the use of the word Pagan/Other Hyborian Religions

Curiously, in several places in the discussion of the Hyborian era religions, such as in The Official Handbook of the Conan Universe#1, non-Mitraic  religions are referred to as "pagan". This presents an odd employment of the term, since the word pagan in its most scholarly use refers to someone who follows a religion other than Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Someone who follows one of those three religions is said to follow an Abrahamic religion, as all three of these religions acknowledge Abraham as a prophet.

In the Hyborian era, no one followed an Abrahamic religion. Even the ancestors of the Jews and Arabs, the people of Shem, held polytheistic beliefs in Ashtoreth, Derketo, Ishtar, Pteor, Adonis, and Bel of Shumir. Since Abraham did not exist during the Hyborian era (since the Hyborian era was over 8,000 years ago, and the Hebrew Bible pegs Abraham as having existed less than 6,000 years ago), again, nobody in the Hyborian era looked up to him as a prophet. So, Mitraic s in this non-Abrahamic sense would also be pagans.
The word pagan actually denotes either: (1) a follower of a polytheistic religion, or (2) one who has little or no religion. It does carry the connotation of referring to non-Abrahamic religions, but that is not its true meaning. Thus since Mitraism in the Hyborian era was a monotheistic religion, Mitraists wouldn't be pagans, but, at least to them, everyone else would--Snood.

A curious observation has to do with What If I#39, in which Thor (of an alternate quantum reality) was cast back in time to the Hyborian epoch. One of the points Thor observed about the gods of the Hyborian era was that they seemed to be inhumane, either aloof in the case of Crom or bloodthirsty in the case of Set. Thor seemed to think that the Hyborian era gods were not at all compassionate.

However, Mitra, as seen in the history detailed above, seemed quite compassionate, as he often interceded in human affairs to protect people from Set. The description of him as preaching mercy above vengeance would also seem to paint him as a compassionate god......if Mitra did not also consign people to a hell dimension for punishment. It always seems strange that gods who banish people to face eternal damnation can be considered "forgiving". However, I suppose it is possible that imprisonment in Mitra's hell was not permanent.
--We can excuse Thor b/c I don't think he encountered Mitra (maybe some invoked him, and he helped Conan rob a Mitran house of worship, but that's it).

Mitran Cross and Vampires

One of the first recorded uses of a cross against a vampire takes place in Savage Sword of Conan#141 when the Mitran priest Vitellus used a Mitran cross against vampires that Ymir had imprisoned ages ago in Vanaheim. In addition, Vitellus noted that the oak and the ash were sacred types of wood and even used holy water from a sacred river under the city of Shadizar.

Mitraic  Monotheism

Some versions of the Mitraic  religion, as discussed in the profile, emerged as one of the few monotheistic religions in the Hyborian Age. However, the Mitraic  belief in Mitra as the only real god has, as noted, been shown to be false.

• Set, of course, has been shown as literally real numerous times, as late as Thor Annual#14, although he is admittedly technically a demon.

• Similarly, Ymir the Frost Giant has made many appearances in the modern era, and his daughter Atali appeared in Savage Tales I#1.

• Borri the Grim Grey God appeared in Conan the Barbarian I#3.

• Erlik in Conan the Barbarian I#120 appeared to Conan, and has even been established as existing in the pre-Cataclysmic era.

• This is also true of Crom (on an alternate Earth in What If I#39, possibly in Savage Sword of Conan#110, definitely in Conan the Barbarian I#260).

• In addition, other pre-Hyborian gods such as Atum (Thor Annual#10, Silver Surfer Annual#2/7), Valka (Doctor Strange III#33/2), and of course Gaea have been shown as actually existing in the Multiverse.

Mitra on Alternate Earths

• Mithraism/Mitraism may still exist as a vital religion on Earth-9, for Saturnyne, a woman native to Earth-9 (as established in  Mighty World of Marvel#13), in Mighty World of Marvel#11 took Mitra/Mitras' name in vain while observing Jaspers' battle with the Fury. She said "Mitras wept....."

• On the other hand, in Mighty World Of Marvel#9, Saturnyne said "For God's sake help that woman!". This latter interjection falls more in line with Abrahamic influenced English. (Of course, the word "god" by etymology comes from Gothic and the Germanic languages, not the Hebrew/Semitic words el or elohim, but the common usage of the unqualified word "god" alone evolved due to the impact of the Abrahamic religions, and usually refers to the Abrahamic god. Deists are careful to refer to "Nature's God" or some other qualified use of the word.)
  

• Possibly on Earth-9, Julian the Apostate, the Roman Emperor who returned to non-Abrahamic religion, was successful in breaking the power of the Roman Catholic Church (which he was not in the real world). So the earlier more tolerant syncretism returned, and Mitraism co-existed with the Abrahamic faiths from that point on. In that case, by the time English people adopted Abrahamic faiths, many also adopted Mitraism. So the interjections "Mitras wept" and "For God's sake" became equally common.   

• Incidentally, in Daredevils#7, "Rough Justice", Saturnyne refers to the month of Freya, indicating another Earth-9 point of divergence.

Snood's additional comments:

• The first 25 issues of the third Deadpool series built up to the Mithras Project, which, if I remember correctly, involved the accepting of the Messiah/S'met'Keth who was to bring an age of peace and harmony to Earth.

• Ibis is mentioned frequently in the Hyborian era. I'd think that this might represent the Heliopolitan God Thoth, who was an Ibis-headed moon god. Or it might be someone else entirely.

• I doubt that Mitra would have intended the violent path through which Red Sonja had to pass before achieving her potential.

By Per Degaton and Snood

CLARIFICATIONS:
Mitra, should be distinguished from:

• Jesus son of Mary, though often artists have drawn Mitraic  statues to resemble the long-haired Italian Renaissance painting image of him , @ Bible Tales for Young Folk#1
• The Mithras Project , @ Deadpool III#15, is presumably named after Mitra/Mithra/Mithras, but is otherwise, presumably, unconnected to him

Set, the Elder God, father of the Serpent Men, should be distinguished from such impostors as:

• Seth, the Heliopolitan Serpent God of Death, who famously usurped Set's worshippers after the end of the Hyborian Age,
  @ Thor I#240
• Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur, who also masqueraded as Set, @ X-Factor#5

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:06

ZARATHUSHTRA;

The First Monotheist Prophet

---

 

By: Noorbakhsh Rahimzadeh


Abstract: According to the present article the first Iranian prophet who laid the foundation for sun worship (Mitraism) was called Mehabad. Abad Bozorg (the big Abad), who was a pious ruler in Iranovich was born 3593 years before the birth of Prophet Zoroaster. He laid the foundation of monotheism or divine worship and a constitution based on justice which was known as Mitradad.

 

According to the Avesta and the historical records in Iran, from the time of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, until the confirmation of Zoroaster in the fortieth year of the reign of Goshtasb of Kianian Dynasty, the Mehr religion was the popular and common religion of the Iranian people. Mehabad's prophethood is called the Abadian Dynasty and in the meantime Mehabad can be considered as the first founder of constitution for mankind.

 

 

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Until contemporary times, researchers in the world have had lengthy debate and have written hundreds or perhaps thousand books as to which of the prophets, known to mankind, was the first who laid the foundation for monotheism or divine worship in the human history. If we study all these books which have been written or translated, we will understand that there is a certain organized movement to introduce two rightful and legible prophets in human history for political and cultural ends and by lengthening or shortening the date of birth of these prophets they have pursued specific objects none of which is based on truth. From all these studies we can see that the edge of the lance is wholly and relentlessly aimed at Zoroaster, the Iranian prophet. For political reasons the lifetime of this prophet has been altered several times.

Now should we classify the theories expressed by researchers, we will have three types of theories. The first theory which up to now has been the most costly one belongs to those who insist that this ancient prophet was born 660 years before the birth of Christ. In the second theory, astrologers such as Birjandi and Bahmanyar, the students of Ibn Sina, and supported by well known contemporary professor Zabih Behrooz, maintained that Zoroaster was born in the year 1768 B.C. i.e. 47 years after the birth of Abraham. It was not right for Behrooz, the celebrated scholar, to side with these students of Ibn Sina. Because when this verdict arrived at the West it gave them a license to establish a giant cultural foundation. By relying on that verdict this foundation declared that Zoroaster was one of the students of Prophet Abraham and that Zoroastrian religion was a branch of Jewish monotheism religion.

The third theory belongs to the majority of Indian Parsi researchers and scholars such as Professor Jamshid Kavos Jeikatrak who argued with many strong justifications that Prophet Zoroaster lived approximately 6600 years before Christ. In this article we will study the first theory which maintains that Zoroaster was born in 660 B.C.

Should we consider the opinion of the followers of this theory and not the Zoroastrians who, due to lack of research about the appearance of Hooshidar, gradually reduced the birthday of the prophet, we will have two groups.

The first group which we may call experts on emergence of prophets, are those who, with the exception of Mani, believe that the prophets started their work after the invasion of Arabs into Iran and by gradually reducing the prophet's birthday, they paved the way for the emergence of their desired deadline. In order to achieve that end these researchers were forced even to alter and distort the research works of our past scholars such as Abu Reyhan Birooni's Albaqieh.

Before the invasion of our country by the Arabs, the Iranians were always astonished about the date of birth of Hooshidar which was supposed to be one thousand years after the death of Zoroaster. But since they were living in an independent and rich country they neglected to study the matter believing that it was one of the secrets which would be revealed to them at a later date.

Meanwhile until the Arab invasion no Iranian doubted the date of birth and death of Zoroaster because all precise and authentic historical information about that prophet and other prophets were registered in four thousand volumes in Tisphoon or other libraries in Iran. But after Arabs invaded Iran and stripped Iran of its independence and burnt all our historical sites and records, since the Iranians were always seeking to revive their historical glory, they started to reduce Zoroaster's birthday to 400 B.C. and opened the way for false researchers and scholars such as Tamami, Mansoor Hallaj, Diyalameh, Bahram Jenabi and Hassan Sabah. All these so called experts on the emergence and revelation of prophets were not sincere in their national aspirations, and that which was wrong with their patriotism was that they distorted the Iranian history.

The second group of researchers are contemporary researchers who are influenced by international Jewish communities who are told by Torah or the Old Testament Abraham was born in the year 1810 B.C. This group claim that Abraham was the first monotheist prophet and Zoroaster was influenced by Abraham to preach his monotheist creed. These scholars quoted by Diogenes Lertius, the Greek historian of the third century A.D., who himself quotes from Akrantous, another Greek historian of the year 210 A.D., say three manuscripts have survived from this historian in one of which the date of Zoroaster's birth is quoted as 600 years before Achamenian Xerex's invasion of Greece. In the other too manuscripts Zoroaster's birthday is quoted as 6000 B.C. which resembles many other ancient Grecian historiographers.

Although this mistaken registration of Zoroaster's birthday was repeated by subsequent Greek chronographers, the main source for subsequent quotations was Lertius' third manuscript, whereas in the other two manuscripts he quotes 6,000 B.C. as the prophet's birthday. Meanwhile elsewhere in his book, relating from Hermodoros, Plato's student, the same author says Zoroaster was born 5000 years before the battle of Troy. Since Xerex invaded Greece in 480 B.C. and the battle of Troy was fought in the year 1184 B.C., the birthday of Zoroaster, as related by Lertius must be 6184 B.C.

Now considering the fact that at least more than 9 famous Grecian historians (Aristotle, Odoxous, Pollianus, Hermitus, Plutarch, Theopompous, Suidas, Eskoloiyon and Laktantius) have all mentioned Zoroaster's birth as 6000 years before the birth of Christ or 5000 years before the war of Troy or 6000 years before invasion of Greece by Xerex, it is definite that in his third volume Lertius has dropped a zero from the birthday and this error has led to all this chaos in the history. Since we know that Grecian historiographers had access to written Babylonian and Persian calendars, we can rely on their integrity that the prophet was born in 6184 B.C. and died in the year 6107 B.C. and can hereby announce to future Iranian generations that under no condition they must change this verdict and must continue to repeat 6184 B.C. as Zoroaster's birthday.

As a comparison for the readers I must add that according to Torah Adam was born in the year 3761 B.C., Noah in 2705 B.C., Abraham in 1815 and Moses in 1392 B.C. Now if any researcher has doubt about the birthday of Zoroaster he may mention his objection and we will reply. We Iranians are an oppressed nation who have no recorded history because our real history which incorporated millions of volumes were burnt to ashes by Arab, Mongol and Tatar invaders. It is true that before Arab invasion we did not own the full Avesta which had been written in golden ink on 12000 cow hides, but it has been proven that our national library at Tisphoon contained 400000 volumes of historical, religious and national books. Among these one version of Avesta contained 21 volumes, 348 chapters and 7259700 words (of which only 83000 words have descended to the present generation).

Meanwhile these books are separate from those volumes which were preserved in hundreds of valid and famous Iranian fire temples and Anahita chain temples or Gondi Shapur University. We all know that his giant spiritual wealth can in no way be assessed. Tisphoon was burnt by Said ibn Abi Vaqqas and from Susa to Ramhormoz and from Ramhormoz to Khawrazm our libraries were burnt by other Arab invaders. It is important to note that five centuries after the destruction of the national identity of the Iranian people and when no Iranian knew his identity, a giant Islamic/Iranian movement started from Iran by historical figures such as Hassan Sabah who still continues to be mentioned as the leader of apostates but nobody has analyzed or commented about his sayings which have been quoted here and there partly by foreign (and not national) researchers.

Hassan Sabbah who had studied the Grecian and Iranian historical records in Egypt (and particularly in the Alexandrian Library), during the transfer of leadership of the Shia sect from Africa and Egypt to the Alamut stronghold, dispatched his eminent preachers to Egypt and Syria to record and translate the Iranian history and religions from the Grecian books. It is said that this was the period when our burnt history was recovered and rebuilt by the Ismaili religious preachers from the books existing in Alexandria. It is also reported that all the Ismaili popular and military forts housed giant libraries and those who wanted to meet Hassan Sabah in fact prevented him from writing. With the exception of those hours that Sabbah participated in military maneuvers or attended the evening prayers in the congregation mosque or answered students and scholars, he was always busy writing.

What were the things that gushed from the fertile pen of this Muslim and patriotic Iranian national on the paper? Can we believe that nothing has survived from Hassan Sabbah except his Chahar Darbs (four gates). I can imagine the titles of his numerous books. His spiritual commentary on the Quran was very meaningful and the spiritual Shias were not unimportant and ignorant people. Alas that these rare historical books were destroyed by the savage Halaku Khan, the barbarian Mongol and grandson of Chengiz. I can assert with assurance that the existing Iranian history which is read by our children is not genuine history. This is a history which has been fabricated by the enemies of Iran for our countrymen and our ignorant friends have relayed these distorted falsifications from generations to generations. The Iranian history must be rebuilt for the fourth time.

Presently we possess only 125 Pahlavi unearthed tablets which our Sassanian ancestors recorded for our present generation. These were preserved for us by the oppressed and persecuted Zoroastrians who created epics in India and the reduced Avesta containing 83000 words is one of these relics.

Mythological history is a history which has been descended from father to son and from mouth to mouth and there is no written record to authenticate its veracity. But these 125 Pahlavi records along with Ferdowsi's Shahnameh which must be considered as the 126th Pahlavi tablet (because Shahnameh was based on Pahlavi Khodanameh and Khodanameh was itself based on calendars used during the Achamanian, Parthian and Sassanian periods). These books have helped us to extract at least a brief history of the Kianian and Pishdadian periods out of mythological history and to integrate it into the Iranian recorded history. Because some of these works have referred to the rulers of these two dynasties. My research about Ajamian and Abadian periods has led me to conclude that these two periods which are not authenticated by records will shortly enter our written historical annals.

A fourth attempt to rebuild the Iranian history under a giant cultural/national framework, must follow two parallel lines:

1. We must make excavations throughout the Iranian plateau only by pure Iranian experts in no way affiliated to foreign researchers and by only those who love the Iranian dignity and we must impose strict conditions so that should an expert or a worker disgrace his national honor, hanging must be his least punishment. Such a process was initiated in a contrary manner during the Shah's reign and greedy international antiquarians even presided over the Iranian archeological operations.

Thanks to such a high authority given to the foreign agents, not only these archaeologists stole our valuable historical relics but even the white mummy (1) of Froditish, the father of Median history (2). Unfortunately such a pillage of underground relics was not limited to the carelessness of the Shah's period but continued more boldly and with advanced electronic equipment (known as treasure hunters) after the victory of the 1979 Revolution. Therefore, should the Iranian Majlis fail to strengthen the regulations set for protection of national heritages a thousand times, we will shortly witness an era when all our giant underground heritage, which has been left by our wise forefathers, will be wholly stolen or destroyed and nothing will be left for us to rebuild our history. Our Majlis must know that anything concealed under the earth is history and the history of a nation is the history of the whole mankind which was preserved in the Dezh Nebesht and Azar Goshasb Temple or the giant Tisphoon library.

2. The other parallel line is persistence and steady search for Indian, Chinese and Tibetan historical records, which were preserved at the cost of Iranian blood. They can be assured that should we succeed to teach their language and letters to our students through professors such as Sajjadieh, our students will research all these resources. But, as I promised earlier, in this article I wish to introduce a new and still uncovered period of the Iranian history to our readers. What I mean to tell to the second group of researchers is that they do not need to take much pains about the birthday of Zoroaster because it has been proved to me that Zoroaster was not the only monotheist prophet in Iran but the second.

Then who is the first monotheist prophet in the history of mankind and where he was nominated as prophet? After 44 years of research I have discovered that the birthday of this reverend prophet was 3593 years before the birth of Zoroaster i.e. 9700 years B.C. or 11697 years ago (retroactive to 1997). This prophet who has remained veiled as yet was living in a country known as Iranovich in the world and he was the founder of the first monotheist religion of ancient times that is Mehr (Mitra) religion or sun worship religion.

Since the researchers in the world have failed to identify this prophet or the emergence of the Mehr religion to prophet Mashir or Mehr, they have sufficed to study this important religion and all these researches have claimed that it is a monotheist religion which worshiped sun as a deity. Fortunately the hour, date and anniversary of birth of Prophet Mashi was discovered by late eminent Iranian scholar Zabih Behrooz to be 25 December, 271 A.D. This second prophet of Mehr or Mitraism whose holy book (Artank) has not been descended to us, was confirmed at the age of 25 and at 40 he invited followers to join the Mehr (sun worship) religion.

But we know that Mehr or Mitra was not only related to Parthian period and that before the confirmation of Zoroaster that religion was practiced in Iran. It has even been proved that Zoroaster was a staunch supporter of Mehr religion and before his confirmation he had progressed to the seventh rank in that region which enabled him to commune with God.

Now the question is that who was the founder of Mehr or Mitra religion? Can a religion exist without a founder?

With regard to existence of Mehr religion during the reign of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, nobody has any doubt, because besides several documents in that connection we can rely on Abolqasem Ferdowsi in his Khodaynamak or book of God. Ferdowsi says:

We are not ashamed of an ancient faith,
No world had a better faith than Hooshang's faith;
All was righteousness and justice, the Mehr code,
And the code examines our annals and the mode.

Thus it is evident that the Mehr religion existed during the reign of Hooshang and since history does not mention any other religion during the Pishdadian and Kianian periods but Zoroastrian, undoubtedly the Mehr religion was the popular religion of all Iranians before Zoroaster's confirmation. This religion was divided into seven laborious stages or ranks and its followers were compelled to thread at least three stages of that faith. However, the other four stages were voluntary. The compulsory stages or ranks were practiced from 5 to 15 years age by the followers. In order to adjust these ancient stages to the present calculations we might divide them into primary, first medium (until first cycle) and final medium stages and then the very difficult graduation examination (or final examination). The last two composed a single stage and these three ranks were called the crow, the betrothal and fighting stages or ranks.

At the crow stage the follower first learned to read and write, and then he learned the basics and subdivisions of the religion. Then his education was divided into physical sports and social sciences which continued alongside each other. In the physical sports much emphasis was laid on body building (knight-errantly) and resistance against hardship.

Besides teaching physical body sports, the teachers taught the students to endure severe hunger and thirst and they used to place the students in very warm regions resembling an inferno or very cold regions resembling poles for weeks. They taught them to swim and to range the plain and made them tolerate long marches on foot. They were taught horse riding and polo and were exhorted about the merit of friendship and human sympathy, and the obedience of men and horses.

In social sciences the student was taught truth, commitment to contracts, justice, righteousness and daily ablutions. For example in the section related to justice, the principles of rewarding and punishing, supporting truth and fighting untruth and the method of accumulating knowledge and divine grace and the glory of attaining the seventh stage of the religion and superior understanding (of Almighty God) was taught to the students.

The fighting stage (third stage) was dedicated to combating classes. In this period which was one third of ten years (3.5 years), the student was taught to do arduous exercises and all the techniques of fighting in the theoretical and practical sense so that after graduation they emerged like a Rostam, Bijan of Bahram the Goor, each of whom were able to command an army. We have read in Nezami Ganjavi's divan about Bahrame Goor who at the head of hundred knights, attacked and scattered the immense Chinese army which had entered the Iranian territory, or we learn that no foreign invader succeeded to defeat Rostam.

In the third stage the student is taught to fight in order to protect the Iranian territorial integrity which he had been told during his first and second stages. And while he was compelled to learn fighting, he was committed not only to learn the theories but to practice the fighting by lengthy and very hard exercises. Records have revealed that Keykavoos, the king, had asked Rostam to teach the three stages of the religious codes to his son Siavosh. This proves that these three compulsory stages were so necessary and so laborious that even the ruler himself could not tolerate to see his son's suffering, and for that very reason Yazdgerd the Second asked Espahbod Manzar (General Manzar) to teach Bahrame Goor, his son.

We have records in our possession which prove that Rostam who was himself the king of Sistan and Balouchestan and a member of the Mahestan Senate or the upper Iranian senate, returned the motherless Siavosh to his father after ten years training when the boy was 15. At that age Siavash had Sohrab's huge body and Rostam's immense knowledge and a very wide leather belt on his waist. After completing the three stages, the student had to undergo a very difficult final examination and the graduate was awarded a wide leather belt. This was later changed by Zoroastrians as a certificate of graduation for wrestlers.

When the student graduated and received the coveted belt in Mehr religion, he was allowed to enter the community. It is true that a Mitra follower was not obliged to thread the other four stages of the region, but they had so many charms that invited many volunteers. For example petty kings (rulers) were chosen from among the graduates of fourth stage, kings (governors) were chosen from the graduates of fifth stage and the general commander of the army and the seven members of the elite Mahestan Senate were only selected from the graduates of the sixth rank. The graduates of the sixth stage were considered learned and they received the Farre Izadi or a certain divine bird which sat on its owner's right shoulder. It represented God and bestowed glory to its owner and watched lest the knight violated justice. In case the learned graduate of the sixth stage committed even one case of oppression or act against the region, God recalled the royal bird so that if the learned man was a governor, he would lose his legitimacy (Jamshid lost his rank in this manner by the Mahestan Senate).

Farre Izadi could not be seen by uneducated people. The bird bestowed many powers to its owner which was beyond the reach of man. Famous knights such as Rostam, Zal, Giv, Goodarz, Toos, Bizhan, Keshvad and Gorgin who formed the Mahestan Senate during Keykavoos' reign were all learned. Very few people succeeded in stepping into the seventh stage of Mehr religion while the religion prevailed.

Since the seventh stage or rank was the highest rank in the religion only those to whom truth was fully revealed and were able to commune with God, succeeded in attaining that elevated rank. It is now proven that Jamshid, the Pishdadi king, and Keykhosrow, the Kianian monarch, who succeeded to ascend to the highest peak in heaven as well as Prophet Zoroaster, had attained the seven rank in Mehr religion. Be not be surprised about Zoroaster. Yes, before his nomination to prophethood he was a staunch follower of Mehr religion and before seeking solitude in the E'etekaf Cave for 10 years he had attained the sixth stage and after taking 10 years of laborious fasting and bodily penury in the cave did he achieve the seventh rank.

By attaining the seventh rank in Mehr religion, Zoroaster succeeded to commune with God and this is why he was confirmed to become a prophet to amend the ancient Mehr religion. In fact Zoroastrian faith is the amended version of Mehr religion. Now Western researchers speak about Mehr religion as a sun worshiping religion which is due to their ignorance. Before the confirmation of Zoroaster God was known as Ahura in the Mehr religion and this was later changed to Ahuramazda by Zoroaster. Mitra used to be guardian of the earth before the amendment of the religion and each year that prophet descended on the Earth and sacrificed a cow (the last dinner of Jesus Christ is an imitation of Mehr religion). Then again he ascended to heaven.

Meanwhile the same deity has survived in Zoroastrian code as one of the gods. However, Zoroaster eliminated the sacrifice rite and in Zoroastrian faith Mitra was assigned another earthly mission (which was protection of oaths, truth and defending those who fought for justice).

The statues surviving from Mitra show his birth in the heart of the rock where Kootes and Kootopates always presided during his birth and later on during sacrifice ceremonies. Fortunately, a considerable number of these statues in Europe and a few in Asia have been discovered. These statutes might make every man of moderate sense ask himself: "If the Iranian Mehr worshipers believed that Mitra was the sole God, then why did they make him be born in a rock or cave which is naturally created by a god? And if he was the sole God in the religion why was it that during his birth creatures such as rocks and human beings were present?" If God is born in rock then what God has created the rock and torchbearers such as Kootes and Kootopates?

The lectures given by all the Pishdadi and Kiani rulers have been preserved throughout Shahnameh. Everywhere we see that these rulers start their inauguration address in the name of God and they always preach justice and avoiding injustice. Since we know that during the fortieth year of his reign Goshtasb, the Kianian king, accepted the Zoroastrian monotheist religion, the question is what other religions were worshiping the other Kianian rulers and all the Pishdadi rulers. Ferdowsi thus describes the inauguration speech of Hooshang, son of Siamak:

When he sat on the exalted throne;
Thus he addressed from the royal throne:
"I'm a king of seven nations, I am
Wherever victory and ruling prevails;
On the order of victorious God
I am to spread justice in the earth."

Considering the fact that until that time the Zoroastrian faith had not been introduced, to what God and through what religion Hooshang was addressing God?

Up to now foreign researchers have considered the Mitra creed as a division of Ashou Zartosht's religion and due to poor historical record they have remained silent about the history of Mehr religion. They have sufficed to say that there was a certain religion in Iran before Zoroaster. Only outstanding Iranian scholars such as Zabih Behrooz, Mohammad Moqadam, and engineer Hami have dared to boldly refer to that religion.

Professor Behrooz relied on the reports of astrologers such as Birjandi and Bahmanyar, (Ibn Sina's students) who had announced that they had identified a prophet of Mehr religion to have been born on the evening of Sunday, December 25, 271 B.C., which coincided with the Parthian reign. This verdict is quite befitting to the rank of this important contemporary scholar and is truly a genuine verdict. Surely Prophet Mashi (Mehr prophet) was born exactly on that day but did the Mehr religion exist before the birth of that prophet? Surely he must have been the prophet of the religion that Hooshang refers in his inauguration address during coronation. We have no other alternative but accept that he was the second Iranian prophet or Messiah of the Mehr religion. Then we must ask ourselves who was the first prophet and founder of that religion?

Western researchers believe that Izad Mehr or Mitra was the only God worshiped in Mehr religion and always considered him to be the sun and the follower of that religion as sun worshipers, whereas in the Iranian culture both during the Mehr religion and Zoroastrian religion, light has been said to have issued before sunrise. Regarding the monotheist nature of that religion we do not possess any better record than the statues that show the birth of Mitra discovered by these western researchers themselves in temples throughout Europe. In these statues Mehr is either represented to have been born from the trunk of a pine or from the heart of a rock and always two living witnesses called Kootes and Kootopates, both of them male shepherds, were present during his birth.

What message the pine or rock convey in the statue? Does not it mean that before the birth of Mitra there was a single God who created the Earth, the rock and the tree? Is not it for a specific end that they claim that Mitra was the only God in Mehr religion?

Zoroaster did not cancel the Mehr religion but amended it within Zoroastrian framework. He abolished the sacrifice rite from the religion and changed Ahura to Ahuramazda and truth into goodness and benevolence. But he preserved the foundation of Izad Mehr as one of the deities and invested important duties to this God such as achieving victories during war for the followers of the faith, observing contracts and oaths, etc. instead of portraying him as the mere patron of sacrifice and last dinner.

Zoroaster abolished the seven stages of Mehr worship and instead introduced seven qualities for God known as seven Amshasepandans representing patterns of good qualities in the religion. Now some maintain that these Amshasepandans were six qualities which later on were changed into seven qualities or deities based on wrong assumptions. In Haft Hat Yasna expressly refers to seven Amshasepandans with Ahuramazda's name on the top. Was not Ahuramazda one of the qualities of God besides being a deity himself? Zoroaster surely reinstated all the Mitra gods in his religion and it is for that reason that we can consider the Zoroastrian creed as the amended version of Mehr religion. Zoroaster even refused to abolish the teaching of the children until age 15 in temples. He only changed the place of teaching Mehrabes to fire temples. Even nowadays Zoroastrian children are examined at 15 to see whether they have learnt the principles of their religion and those who pass the examination are allowed to wear the Sudra and fasten the Kusti belt.

I feel strongly and am almost sure that this wearing of the Kusti belt is a Mehr ritual which has survived in Zoroastrian faith and the five prayers a day performed by Zoroastrians are surely an imitation of Mehr worship among the Zoroastrians. Because we are informed in the history that Keykhosrow, the Kianian king, who was a Mehr follower sojourned 45 days and nights in a prayer niche and prayed and wept for Ahura and begged God to allow him to melt into his threshold when he became the supreme power on earth. We likewise know that God granted his supplication and permitted him to ascend to the peak of Heaven.

Our learned Ferdowsi has portrayed the surprising Iranian culture in a very worthy and glorious manner which is unforgettable and I feel myself committed to reproduce this strange historical event in a separate article from verse into prose.

With regard to the monotheist nature of Mehr religion we have so many documents and evidences that I do not think it is necessary to trouble my head with these documents unless an opposition is raised about a point which impels me to reveal a document. However as an example I am quoting a report from Ferdowsi about Faranak, the mother of Fereidoon, the Pishdadi king.

She prayed to Almighty God, washing his head and body,
Then she first visited the Lord of Universe;
And praised the Creator
That had made the days so joyful and merry.

The phrases `washing the head and body' and the `lord of universe' or the word `creator' is very important in these two lines. Washing the body before prayer i.e. to say ablution was a rite of Mehr religion which is still being practiced by Sabians in Khouzestan and Iraq who are the remnant of the Mehr religion. Also the baptism of the newborn which is prevalent in Christianity is an heritage of the same religion and tens of other rites from Mehr religion have entered the Christian religion.

Like Muslims before prayer the Zoroastrians take ablution. They pray five times a day. This must not make us doubt that the ablution and prayer ceremonies were transferred from Zoroastrian religion into Islam. I believe John the Baptist, son of Zakaria, was the first person who baptized Jesus Christ, and some researchers have impertinently counted him among the prophets of Israel's race. Most probably John was a Mehr worshiper and an Iranian who dwelt at Jerusalem.

The other terms `lord of universe' or `creator' make the reader presume that after ablution Faranak visited the physical lord of universe which is not correct. Because Faranak was the mother of the sovereign of the universe. Then undoubtedly she was praying God or spiritual lord of the universe, and the phrase `she prayed to the creator' has no other meaning but to pray at the threshold of God.

Thus it is certain that the followers of Mitra were monotheists and before prayer they washed their body and then started to praise God. This makes us dismiss any doubt about the fact that Mehr religion was the first divine religion in the world which praised the sole God and paid much respect to God than other religions (Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Muslims). Before praying to God a Mehr follower made sure to take full ablution so that he would not present himself to his maker with the smallest impurity. But in subsequent religions respect to God diminished and the saints thought it sufficient to wash only parts of their body (hands and feet) as a reverence to Almighty God. Thus we are certain that the Mehr religion, whose founder will be introduced below, was the first prevailing monotheist religion of mankind and Iran before the 40th year of the reign of Gosthasb when Zoroaster converted the king to his faith.

This famous prophet who was not only the only founder of divine religion but human civilization was Mehabad or Abad the Great. Mehabad was the pious Iranovich ruler 3593 years before the birth of Zoroaster.

Not only we Iranians but all mankind must raise statues of this pioneer prophet in all parts of the globe and pay homage to him, because not only he established the first monotheist religion in the world, but wrote the first constitution (known as Mitradad) and laid the foundation for human civilization in blessed Iranovich. Yes, the fact is that there was not four books about divine worship but five and all the prophets were Iranian by origin who rose in the Iranian geographic and climatic sphere. The respected Mehr religion and Zoroastrian religion in Iranovich were founded by two worthy Iranian prophets namely Mehabad and Zoroaster.

The Hebrew prophet was Abraham, son of Azar, and an Iranian who was born and confirmed as prophet in Oor or Hoor which means fire. He was a Sumerian by birth and the Iraqi Sumerians were a branch of Median tribe and they were Iranians and their root comes from Brahmans and Bahram. The religion which was founded by Abraham in Oor and then transferred to Hijaz and Cannan was not the present Jewish religion and this subject has been mentioned in the holy Quran in the Ale Omran verse (holy Quran), because the sacrifice rite exists in Jewish religion which Zoroaster had abolished.

The original religion propagated by Abraham must have been surely the Mehr religion which have been introduced in Oor, west of present Khorramshahr. Also Christianity is a division of Mehr religion and Islam also descended in Hijaz which was an Iranian province in Yemen and the prophet of Islam is also an Iranian by birth. Thus prophethood and monotheism was a pure Iranian creed.

Meanwhile valid Indian religions such as the Veda, Brahmans and Hinduism are all derivations of Iranian culture and civilization propagated by those Iranians who immigrated to India. The only difference is that the migrating Iranians traveled to countries which had a different climate than Iran.

The reason for so late discovery of that prophet is that in recent centuries a number of prejudiced people in India attributed the Dessatir faith to that prophet which is falsehood and by such a false religion they prevented researchers from exploring the true personality of prophet Mehabad. Whereas in fact Mehabad was the founder of Mehr religion. Beside that Ferdowsi thus introduces Mehabad to us in the following line:

His forefather, ninth in genealogy and root,
Was prophet Mehabad who spoke the truth.

Thus we are certain that Mehr religion existed and was the first public and popular Iranian religion from the time of Hooshang, the Pishdadi king, until confirmation of Zoroaster in the fortieth year of the reign of Goshtasb, the Kianian king. We have documents at hand proving that Hooshang was Ajamian by birth and at the beginning of his rule the term `Pishdadi or Pashdati' was not employed. When Hooshang ascended the throne he differed with the Mahestan Senate composed of Iranian elders and commanders about the acceptance of Mitradat or Mehr constitution. But in the end the dispute was settled and all his subjects accepted the Mehr religion and the former codes. This is the reason why they are called `Pishdadian' (Pishdatian) because the accepted former (pish) codes "dats" which means justice. We are not aware of the holy book of Mehr religion but we can authenticate on Nezami Ganjavi's poem when he refers to the queen of Armenia who exhorts her niece Shirin and calls on her to take the holy oath.

When Shirin heard the sweet advice and inkling
She hung the maxim on her ear like a ring;
In her heart she agreed to the word,
For with that faith she was in accord;
By bright Haft Orang she took the oath
Which was God's commandment and code.

Considering the fact that before their conversion into Zoroastrian and Christian faiths the Armenians were staunch followers of Mehr religion and we see Shirin referring to Haft Orang or seven ranks, we can confirm that this book was a heavenly book containing seven brilliant ranks which were the pillars of that religion. But besides establishing the first divine religion which was based on the worship of a single deity, truth, kindness, observation of contracts, justice and physical advancement parallel with spiritual advancement, prophet Mehabad laid the foundation for the first constitution of mankind on the basis of that religion. This constitution served the basis for the subsequent (Moses') ten commandments and the codes of Hamurabi and Confucius, and the Mitradat constitution served as the foundation of a constitutional government in ancient Iranovich.

This combination of rules called Iranian irrevocable Dats or codes have been repeated several times as a glorious divine code and those who are interested in learning more about that subject might refer to my previous articles in the Vahooman magazine. Mehabad and his monotheist religion played a very important and essential role in the compilation of the Iranovich civilization which later served as the basis for all mankind, because he laid good morals and truth as the foundation of religion and government. He used to teach the new adherents in Iranovich by his Magi priests (who declared that lying is blasphemy, a contract must be observed and acted upon and that breaking a bond is also blasphemy). He exhorted his followers to learn, to be strong in order to resist those who oppressed them instead of oppressing others. For that reason until the establishment of 7 Iranian ancient kings during Jamshid, the Pishdadi king, no war was registered in the history of Iranovich and the claim of foreign researchers that the new settlers who moved to Panj Ab or Ilam were confronted by natives with curled hairs and Druids, and that upon confrontation with these natives, the migrants overcome and assimilated them into their race is false. Surely in the route that the Iranian migrants were moving, native families were dwelling but they were in no way aliens coming from other continents. In fact they were national migrants or government organized migrants who had moved their families by their own will and settled in Iranovich. It is for that reason that these natives treated future migrants, who possessed superior technology, as their saviors and in no region in that territory a battle ensued.

From the time of prophet Mahabad until the completing stage of Jamshid's rule no revolt, revolution or war between Iranian Mitra worshipers and aliens have been registered in the Iranian history. Jamshid was the only person who was proposed by God to become a prophet after prophet Mehabad and before Zoroaster, but he turned down that demand saying he did not feel he was capable to assume that role.

As a result, God appointed him as the sovereign of the world and commanded that the world should be expanded and ornamented. Regarding Jamshid, the Iranian history is vague. As a result I suggest young researchers to make a better study of this great historical Iranian figure. Since Jamshid succeeded to pass the seven stages of the Mehr religion, he was considered a saint and illuminated and succeeded to see divine truth and commune with God. Such an August personality can never ignore God's existence or call himself a god. As to why the Farre Izadi or divine bird broke from Jamshid, it must be due to his mistake which history has failed to explain. By establishing seven kingdoms in the ancient Iranian plateau, Jamshid governed his empire as a federative state and by melting the metal he laid the foundation of spinning and weaving, town building, engineering, medical and pharmaceutical science and tens of other sciences and arts. Jamshid rendered very important services to the Iranian people and he formed the civilization of mankind.

During the Parthian period prophet Mehr revived the declining Mehr religion to the extent that the faith spread to Europe in the year 67 B.C. and until 356 A.D. it remained the official religion of Rome. The four stages or ranks out of seven ranks were called Moshir, Parsa, Mehrpouya and Pedar stages. Many ignorant western researchers have said or recorded that Mitra worship has been annihilated and nobody is following that religion any more. But all mankind must know that Mehr religion was the first monotheist religion founded by the Iranian people and it has not been abolished but spread to Europe and America and has conquered these continents.

Yes,, Christianity is in fact a new version of Mehr religion which the Europeans have given it a Semitic background and some of its glorious rites and codes such as passing the seven stages of the faith have been segregated from the religion and instead they have ordained their followers to surrender to invaders. The sanctity of Sunday and Christmas season and the Christian pine and baptism and obeying the Pope or pater (father) are all Mehr codes observed in Christianity.

How regrettable it is to note that the British founded the terrible and much dreaded Freemasonry Mafia organization on the basis of Mehr edicts. The only difference is that instead of 7 stages or ranks they have set 33 ranks. This dreaded organization which secretly ensured British domination over mankind (under the name of Committee 300), is the same committee which has decided to introduce the new global order as of year 2000. The dreadful Freemasonry branches such as the old Scotland Yard and the new CIA in Washington have caused irreparable damage to the Iranian nation. We the Iranian nation are committed to fight such aggression in an organized manner. Yes, it was the Iranians who bestowed the monotheist Mehr religion to British migrants in Iranovich which propagated civilization, truth, chivalry and divine worship. Now is this justified for these ungrateful children of Mitra worshiping ancestors to replace the Mehr religion with freemasonry cult?

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Egyptian mummies were gray and the white mummies were used previous to Egyptian mummies.
2. Related from the book titled `A Period of Unawareness' written by Rashid Keykhosravi, that is Kord Kordi who was given the Zivieh Eagle epitaph by Dr. Mohammad Ali Sajjadieh. This is a small title for Keykhosravi. Instead he must be called the eagle of the Iranian plateau.

 

 

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:07

MITRA

- Mitra, Christmass and Pir Shaliyar ceremony Dec 2000 By Siamak R. Durroei Mitraism has been an influential force not only in the middle East, but in the West. Christmass in the west and Pir Shaliyar ceremony in Kurdistan both mark the birth of Mitra, the Indo-Iranian god of light. In this artcile we will trace back the Mitraism elements of these ceremoneis and their historical details. This will be a starting point to clarify some myths and puzzles around the origin of the Kurds. Christmass: birth of Christ? The birth of christ is celebrated by Christians in different days. The Catholics celebrate Christmas in 25 of December every year. In contrast the Orthodox Christians celebrate it on 6th of January each year. Which one is right? Historically, the Pegans before becoming Christian celebrated a Roman festival from 25th of Dec to 6 January. In 274 A.D. the Roman emperor Auelia declared 25th of December the birthday of the unconqured sun (Natalis solis invicti). This was the date that the winter solstice begins to show an increase of light period in a day. The actual date should be 21 December in which the winter starts and is celebrated by Iranians as the night of Forthy (shab-e Chelle) [1]. In Forth century, Pope Leo procliamed 25th of December as Christ's birthday after almost destrying the temple of Mithra in 376 A.D. Before that the Christians celebrated the Christ's birthday in 6th of January. 6th of January is the date that still the Eastern Orthodox christ celebrate the birth of Christ. The emergence of Christianity put an end to the expansion of the Mitraism in the west, but the signs of Mithra have not disappeared completely. Pir Shaliyar: Traces of Mitraism in Kurdistan Pir Shaliyar ceremony in Kurdistan is held n the 40th day of winter. The photo book "Kurds of Iran" by N. Kasraian and Z, Arshi and the film "Cherike Huram" (story of Huram) document the details of this ceremony which happens every year in Hawromanat mountainous region. The celebration is held in three stages, each in a day of three consecutive weeks. Pir who is the the highest rank in Mithraism is beleived to have cured a princess and married her. The ceremony marks their marriage. In the film, a cow is sacrificed and the blood spurts on the soil with the first sun-rays. "This is done to commomorate and follow Mythra, the God of light and prosperity, to asist resurrection and rebirth, by a person in whose family this duty is inherited." [2] In the evening of the eremony, a circle of men - with their hands holding and shoulders touching - dance in a mystic ecstacy with the rhythm played on Dafs. Women are not allowed to take part in this dance, but in the film, women have their gathering in a cave. Mithraism in Kurdistan and middle East The Magis "mogh" were those who were known as the religious authoritis in Mithraism in Kurdistan and middle East around 2500 years ago. Mogh was a hereditary status among Medes and before the rign of Dariush the Persian king, the Mithraist moghs were the highest religious authority in the state that Cyrus gaine from overthrowing his father-in-law, the last Median king. Kurush was succeeded by his son Kambiz III (529 BC). And Kambiz who died after the capture of Egypt, was successed by his brother Bardia. Dariush in his struggle to usurp the throne from Bardia and his Mogh/Medes supporters initiated a campaign of Magi-killing. Dariush claimed that Bardia is an imposter and he is a Mogh named Geomata. Dariush was aware that during the Mithra festival, the Moghs and King will get drunk and he used this oppurtunity to attack and kill the Moghs. The Mithra festival became the feast of Mogh-killing after the victory of Dariush. And Dariush who became the king married the daughter of Cyrus Atosa. By Daiush, the Mogh-killing feast replaced the feast of Mithra in Iran . Mithraism was replaced by Zoroastarism and the Mithraist Magis by the Zorastar priests. It is when the names of Persian months are changed officia ly to the Zoarostarian months (see [3]). But the name Mogh survived in Mobad (I.e. priest from mogh-bad). Mogh is also the root of Magi/Magic in European languages. The Mithra Empire The state religionous authorities in the Medes empire were Moghs the worshippers of Mithra. Mithra (from Mith/Mit light + ra subjective form) was god of light and friendship (see [4]. But Mithra was worshipped centuries before the Medes. Last century excavations in Iraq Nuzi cite (nar Kirkuk) has brought into surface the Indo-Hurrian Mitanni empire. The Mitanni kings who were speakers of an Indo-Iranian language ruled over the mainly Hurrian population of the region around 3500 years ago, a millinum before the Medes. Mitannis were worshipper of Mithra, Varuna and Indra according to the documents survived from their pacts. The lost capital of Mitanni was wasukani which is equal to bash-kani in Modern Kurdish (good water source). Mitanni itself is a Hurrian derived name (Mit + anni). Linguists haic research has shown that Hurrian is a dialect closely related to the south-caucasian languages like Georgian. In Hurrian Mesranni is used to refer to the country of Egypt (Mesr + anni). So Mitanni in Hurrian has the meaning of land of Mit. The Indian cousins of Mittanis who immigrated to India and indus valley called their and after their god Ind(-ra) and the Mitanni called their empire, The empire of Mit(-ra), This was a common practice among the population of the middle east to name their land after their god (see [5] and [6]. . The Mitanni Mitra woershippers cab be traced as the ancestors of the Medes empire in the middle East. The sophisticated and complex empire of the Medes did not come out of nothing. The Mitraism religion of both is one evidence. But another link exists between the two empires of Mittani and Medes. Mitanni after it was defeated and encorportaed into neigbouring empires was called hangalbat by Simitic speakers. The Medes called A Hurrian their own capital Hegmetani (or Ebkbatan) surviving as the present Hamedan. Iranologists attempt to find a meaning for the capital of Medes (as- the place of gathering) has ignored the fact that the metani in he(n)gmatani and metanni can refer to the same historic entity, this is mainly because the Mitanni empire, their gods, the Hurrian subjects and the structure, vocabulary and word formation rules of Hurria have not been discovered. The existence of linguistic and religious links between Medes and Mitanni empires provide the missing link in the history of the region, the origin of Kurdish and the evolution of Indo-Iranian languages. The consequence of such a minimalist [7] approach is far-reaching and beyond the scope of this short article. [1] Borrowed Ideas: Persian roots of Christian traditions, By Ramona Shashaani, Dec 23, 1999. http://www.iranian.com/History/1999/December/NewYear/index.html [4]Mithra , Encyclopedia .... religious, .....

[] Michael C. Astour, "Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris", in Studies on the civilization and culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians Volume 2, General studies and excavations at Nuzi 9/1, by D.I. Owen and M.A. Morrison (eds.), Winona Lake Indiana, Eisenbrauns, pp 1-66., 1987.

[] Ephraim Avigdor Speiser, Introduction to Hurrian , The annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, v. 20, 230 p., 1941.

[] Pierre Marot Purves, "Non-Semitic personal names from Nuzi: a dissertation in oriental studies", Philadelphia, 279 p., 1943.

[] Siamak R. Durroei, Etymology of Barzan, KURDICA Dec 1999.

[] Minimalist Program, Noam Chomsky.

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:08

The Odyssey is Non-Profit, but Not Non-Prophet
April 15, 2000


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You've no doubt heard the story before -- God speaks to one man, and gives him a message that will save all of humanity. That man goes out and, against all odds, shares that message with the people and converts many to his new religion. It hasn't happened to any of the trekkers yet, but if it's going to, I think we're in the right place.

Are we closer to God here, or are the people more spiritual than in other parts of the world? Is it in the water? Maybe it's the vast deserts, or the beautiful rugs. Why is it that so many influential prophets have come from the Middle East through the ages? There was Abraham who was born in what is now Turkey, and Jesus, of course, and then came Mohammed in Saudi Arabia.

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Not to be outdone, Persia has produced at least two similar "messengers of God," and two subsequent major religions. The first, named Zarathustra or Zoroaster, lived anywhere from 1500 BCE to 1200 BCE (depending on whose research you believe) and his religion, Zoroastrianism, strongly influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The second Persian prophet, Bahá'u'lláh, started the Bahá'í faith here in the 1800s, and a lot of his teachings stem from Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. Since the revolution in 1979, when Iran became an "Islamic Republic" ruled by Muslim clergy, many followers of Zoroastrianism, and almost all of the Bahá'í, have left the country.

The Bahá'í faith, which we learned about back in Haifa, Israel, has five million followers worldwide and is still growing. Zoroastrianism, however, has fewer (some estimates say up to 150,000; other say less) and could be dying out. Still, in the big picture, Zarathustra has had a larger effect on the world.

Expert Fact Did you know that Zoroaster is older than Moses? Dr. Badi Badiozamani is the author of "Iran & America: Rekindling a Love Lost" (soon to be published), is a scholar, journalist and expert on Iran.

Before Zarathustra came along, the people of ancient Persia worshipped many gods. But Zarathustra's God, Ahura Mazda, the "Wise Lord," came down and told him to reject these "demons." For Zoroastrians, life is a battle between good and evil, and everyone -- man and woman alike -- is a warrior. The battle, however, is spiritual, not physical.

About 10,000 devout Zoroastrians live here in Yazd, Iran. Ateshkadé, the Zoroastrian fire temple, holds a fire that has burned for 1,530 years!

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"We believe that fire is a living thing," my new Zoroastrian friend Parvis told me. "So when a fire is made, it is important to remember, kind of like a birth certificate."

We were really fortunate to meet Parvis. He showed us around the fire temple and the old homes of his grandparents. The homes are built in the shape of a cross, to represent the four directions, a building custom which reminds me of ancient Native American religions and European pagan symbolism.

"Every time they (Zoroastrians) want to bless anything, they touch the four corners," Parvis explained. "All the prayers, they spread to the four corners. So a cross of equidistant sides with four dots is a very important symbol. In all of the Persian rugs you'll see the central medallion will be a cross. In the Mitraic religion you have hot cross buns way before in the Christian religion!" (Mitraism is a sect of Zoroastrianism that has spread to the West.)

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There are seven elements in Zoroastrianism that represent the one God. You can learn more about that in Kavitha's article, or go straight to the source: the holy book of Zoroastrians is known as the Avesta, and it was passed down orally for more than 1,000 years, until it was written down during the Sassanian dynasty in Iran, between the 3rd and 7th centuries CE. The oldest parts of the Avesta are the Gathas -- seventeen intricate poems supposedly written by Zarathustra himself.

After 10 years of getting NO converts, Zoroastrianism started growing, and eventually became the official state religion of Persia under the Sassanians, who controlled this area between 224 and 637 CE. Instead of the Islamic Republic of Iran, did they call it the Zoroastrian Kingdom of Persia? Well, it really doesn't matter, because once Mohammed brought Islam to the Arabs, they went out and conquered all of the Middle East, and Zoroastrianism went into decline. But despite Islam's hold on Iran, many of the traditions and customs date back to the Zoroastrian days.

Vocabulary clergy - people involved in religious service (a priest, or an Imam, for example) subsequent - following in time, succeeding pagan - a person who has no religion, or whose beliefs predate Christianity, Judaism and Islam

Now, Parvis told me, there is a large, thriving Zoroastrian community in Bombay, India, where they still leave their dead on the Towers of Silence. Whoah! We visited these desolate hilltop structures here in Yazd, where the local Zoroastrians used to leave their dead to be eaten by the vultures.

"Once a person dies," Parvis explained, "the fire of life is gone from them." Therefore, the body is polluting and shouldn't be buried in the earth or burned on the fire, two of the sacred seven elements. Cool!

THE ZOROASTRIAN CREED Come to my aid, O Mazda (3). I profess myself a Mazda-worshipper, a Zoroastrian, having vowed it and professed it. I pledge myself to the well-thought thought, I pledge myself to the well-spoken word, I pledge myself to the well-done action. I pledge myself to the Mazdayasnian religion, which causes the attack to be put off and weapons put down; which upholds khvaetvadatha (kin-marriage), which possesses Asha; which of all religions that exist or shall be, is the greatest, the best, and the most beautiful: Ahuric, Zoroastrian. I ascribe all good to Ahura Mazda. This is the creed of the Mazdayasnian religion. (Note: Asha, which has been translated variously as truth, righteousness, world-order, eternal law and fitness, is a key concept in Zoroastrianism.)   Related Links Frequently Asked Questions About Zoroastrianism Traditional Zoroastrianism Home Page

"When I die," I told Brian as we climbed the dusty hill, "I want my body to be eaten by vultures!" Brian thinks I'm weird.

Seriously, though, I've really enjoyed learning about the Zoroastrian religion. I like it that they believe in guardian angels, because we trekkers can really use them. I also like some of the quotes I've found from the Avesta, so I'll leave you with a parting inspirational scripture -- words to live by 'til the vultures come!

"A thousand people cannot convince one by words to the extent that one person can convince a thousand by action." (The Avesta, SDk6.e15)

Abeja

p.s. - Please e-mail me at ...abejahummel@bigfoot.com


 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:09

Merry Mitra

By Hashem Farhang
December 11, 1997
The Iranian

A chance meeting, some two years ago, of an Iranian scholar who, as fate has it, now lives in Helsinki, Finland, introduced me to an aspect of Iranian history, which to this date is nothing short of a love affair with my ancestors, long forgotten but who deserve to be remembered for what they truly were. For this enlightenment, I am forever indebted to this friend.

At this particular time of the year, I would like to share something with my fellow Iranians that I think speaks volumes of everything Iranian that has been stolen. I feel sure that there are thousands of Iranians who are aware of this, but somehow have not kept reminding others of the facts.

When my children were growing up and were still at home, Christmas was a difficult time for us parents. At school and other gatherings, my children like all other Iranian children, could not quite understand the lack of enthusiasm that we exhibited at the holiday season. I dare say that this indifference in us parents, may have even strengthened the feeling that their parents are "different." They, as children everywhere, never felt different. But their parents? Well you know.

The result of the chance meeting, was that a small amount of research produced a very sweet little historical fact. And had I known this, I would have happily, gladly, and most proudly celebrated this particular holiday season as one of my very own. And I would not have been uncomfortable at Christmas, whether I had a tree or not.

For this reason, I want to share this fact with all Iranians, in Iran or abroad, and to recommend celebrations on December 25th as the birthday of Mitra, which we celebrated as early as 5000 B.C. Zoroastrians after refining and discarding some of the mythical and "heretical" aspects of Mithraism, retained Jashn-e-Mehregan and Yalda or "The Birth."

Iranians celebrated Yalda and decorated an evergreen tree, the sarve. The sarve (Rocket Juniper - what a name! - also known as the cypress tree), being straight, upright and resistant to the cold weather (symbol of hardship) was thought appropriate, to represent Mitra. The younger girls had their "wishes" symbolically wrapped in colorful silk cloth and hung them on the tree with lots of presents for Mitra, to answer their prayers.

As you may know, Pope Leo in the fourth century, after almost destroying the temple of Mitra (A.D. 376), in his campaign against Mitraism -- and in the good old Christian tradition, "If you can't claim it, imitate it" -- proclaimed the 25th of December as Christ's birthday instead of January 6th, a date, by the way, that is still celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Armenians.

Again in the same tradition, Luther, the famous German reformer, in the 18th century (1756, I believe), having learned of the Yalda sarve tree, introduced the Christmas tree to the Germans. As sarves were not much known in Germany, as indeed in most of Europe, the chosen tree became a genus of pine which was abundant in Europe.

So now with or without the children at home, we decorate a small sarve with a star on top and many presents, not necessarily for Mitra, but to my ancestors ant for my children and hopefully soon to my grandchildren. Happy Yalda and greetings of the season to all you Iranians -- no matter what your religion.

 

 

Persian New Year (NowRouz)

In harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year celebration, or Nowruz, always begins on the first day of spring. The year changes on the vernal equinox, or Tahvil, which occurs at precisely the moment the sun crosses the equator on March 20, 21, or 22.  

A few weeks before the new year, Iranians thoroughly clean and rearrange  their homes. They make new clothes, bake pastries  and germinate seeds as signs of renewal. The ceremonial cloth (sofreh-ye  haft-sinn) is set up in each household. Troubadours, refeerred to as Hadji  Firuz, disguised with makeup and brightly colored outfits of satin; sing,  dance, and parade through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and  trumpets to spread  good cheer and the news of the coming new year. 

A few days prior to the New Year, a special cover is spread onto a Persian  carpet or on a table in every Persian Household.  This ceremonial setting is called sofreh-ye haft-sinn (literally cloth of  seven dishes, each one beginning with the Persian letter sinn). The number  seven has been sacred in Iran since ancient times, and the seven dishes  stand for the seven angelic heralds of life—rebirth, health, happiness,  prosperity, joy, patience, and beauty.  The symbolic dishes consist of sabzeh, or sprounts, usually wheat or  lentil, represting rebirth. Samanu, a pudding in which common wheat   sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding.  They represent the ultimate sophistication of Persian  cooking. Sib means apple and represents health and beauty. Senjed, the  sweet, dry fruit of the lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that  when the lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make  people fall in love and become oblivious to all else. Seer which is garlic  in Persian, represents medicine.  Somaq, sumac berries, represent the solor of sunrise; with the appearance  of the sun Good conquers Evil. And finally Serkeh, or  vinegar, which represents age and patience.  The books of tradition and wisdom are also often laid out: a copy of the  Koran; a volume of the poems of Hafez, one the great lyric persian poets  of the fourteenth century. A few coins placed on the  sofreh represent prosperity and wealth; a basket of painted eggs  represent fertility. A Seville orange floating in a bowl of water  represents the earth floating in space, and a goldfish in a bowl of water  represents life and the end of the astral year—Pisces. A flask of rose  water, known for its magical cleansing power, is also included on the  tablecloth. Nearby is a brazier for burning  wild rue, a sacred herb whose smoldering fumes are said to ward off evil  spirits. A pot of flowering hyacinth or narcissus is also set on the  sofreh:  these are the two Persian flowers that bloom in spring, and their sweet  odor acknowledges the fifth sense. On either side of a  mirror are two candelabra holding a flickering candle for each child in  the family. The candles represent enlightenment and happiness. the mirror  represents the images and reflections on Creation as we celebrate a new  the ancient Persian traditions  and beliefs that creation took place on the first day of spring, or   Nowruz.  With the help of fire and light, we hope for enlightenment and happiness  througout the coming year. On the same table many  people also place seven special sweets. 

A few hours prior to the transition to the New Year, Tahvil- e sal, family  and friends sit around the sofreh-ye haft-sinn.  Everyone sings traditional songs, and the poems of Hafez and verses from  the Koran are recited.  Some believe that there is a small movement of the Seville orange floating  in the water at the moment of equinox. Others use  an egg on a mirror to indicate the precise moment of the transition of the  year. These days it is  done precisely with clocks.  As the sun enters the constellatin Aries from Pisces on the stroke of the  equinox, Tahivil, the passage, is announced by firing cannons and on radio  and television. The oldest person present begins  the well-wishing by standing up and giving everyone a sweet pastry,  some gold or silver coins, and lots of hugs. Calm, happiness, sweetness,  and prefumed odors are very important on this day of rebirth, since the  mood on this day is said to continue throughout the year. An old saying  goes, "Good thought, good word, good dead—to the year end, happy indeed."  The New year celebration continues for twelve days after the equinox. 

Tranditionally, during the first few days, it is the younger members of  the family who visit their older relatives and friends in order to show  their respect. Sweet pastries and delicious frosty drinks  are served to visitors, and there is a general air of festivity all   around.  Children receive gifts, usually crisp new notes of money. In the remaining  days, the elders return the visits of the younger members of the family. 

On the thirteenth day of Nowuz, called Sizdeh bedar, literally outdoor  thirteen, entire families leave their homes to carry trays of sprouted  seeds in a procession to go picnic in a cool, grassy  place. Far from home, they throw the sprouts into the water and complete  the process of the end of one  year and rebirth of another. Wishing to get  married by the next year, unmarried girls tie blades of grass together.  There is much singing, dancing, eating, and drinking on this joyful day  marks the end the Nowruz celebration.  Fish and noodles are usually served on New Year’s Day. It is believed they  bring good luck in the year that lies ahead. The  traditional menu usually includes: Noodle soup—Ash-e reshteh, noodles  representing the Gordian knots of life. Eating them symbolically helps  unravel life’s knotty problems.  Rice with fresh Herbs and Fish—Sabzi polpw ba mahi, fresh herb rice  represents rebirth, fish represents life.  Herb Kuku—Kuku-ye sabizi, eggs represent fertility, herbs represent   rebirth.  Bread, Cheese, and Fresh Herbs—Nan-o panir-o sabzi khordan, represent  prosperity.

Iranian version of April fool

Iranian new year happens sometime between march 19 to 21 at the moment of vernal equinox . On the 13th day of  the new year, there is the custom that everyone should leave home and go out for picnic as 13 is an unlucky number. This is called "sizdah-be-dar" or out-door-thirteen. One of the customs on this day is "doroogh-e sizdah" or the lie of thirteen where people try to make big lies and fool each other. It is interesting to notice that 13 days after our new years maps to first of march! Iranians had their Norouz new year customs since 5000  B.C.!!!D

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:10

Alex Fantalov

'Indo-European mythologies structure in social-historical aspect'.

(This text was published as 'Indo-European mythologies structure in social-historical aspect' //Cultural researches 01: - SPb.: publishers of RSPU by name A. Herzen, 2001).

 

After consideration of the structural nucleus offered in the present research formed by mythological types, it is represented expedient to look after to updating of each of components of this circuit in all cultural worlds of Barbarous Europe (Celt, German-Scandinavian, Thracian-Dacian, Scythian-Sarmatian, Balt, Slavic mythological pantheons and related (Greek, Italic, Etruscan, Indian, Iranian, Hittite) traditions.

The god of the Sky, who authentic name descends from pro-Indo-European -deiuo- 'clear sky', is the most ancient male divinity of the Indo-Europeans. He was a chief of pantheon at the beginning, and he possessed the legislative and warrior function. After that the God of Sky gave the primary power up other gods. This process initiates by means of special explanation plots (for instance: Indian myth about fall of Dyaus; Celtic-Germans ones about Nuadha/Tyr lost their hands). However among Mediterranean peoples (Greeks, Etruscan and Roman) the God of Sky's image merged with the God of Thunder's one ( Zeus ).

The God of Sky has got some united features of iconography. His special weapon is sword. His sacral warrior animal is boar - Teutat (at least as for the Celts and Germans).

The God of Thunder like the God of Clear Sky does not into separate characters. This name descends to pro-Indo-European -perk- or -tar- and means 'thunder'. Probably the God of Thunder was a protector of professional warriors who replaced tribal collective during period of great Indo-European campaign (2 thousand b. c.). Then formed iconography of this type: his weapon - an axe or a hammer, his warrior chariot. A sacral animal of the God of Thunder was an eagle (and sometimes beasts like wolf or lion), a sacral tree was an oak.

In keeping with complication of society the God of thunder's power decreased. Celt, Indian, Persian, Balts priests became strong and promoted to first place other gods. But even there, where barbarian kings ruled (Scythian, Thracian, Vendel Scandinavian peoples) the God of Thunder ceded his power the Cultural Hero. However interesting phenomena is an eminence of the God of thunder at the Viking Age. May betrayed estate of Vikings. Perhaps reason of an idea of Kiev prince Vladimir to establish Perun as chief of pagan pantheon is influence of the Vikings and East Balts.

The important plot connected with the God of Thunder is a battle against the Serpent: Thor and Jormungand , Indra and Vritra , Tarhunt and Illuyanka or against giants. There the god of Thunder is defender of world against the powers of chaos. Other significant plot is opposite between the God of Thunder and the God of Earth Powers (latter can is replaced by the Cultural Hero in this opposite). The reasons of this collisy can be various. At first we see opposite between thundercloud and earth. At second it can be ancient subject of torment bull by lion. At third there was a conflict between tribal aristocrats (they venerated the God of Thunder) and the priests (they devoted to the God of Earth Powers). Possibly, there was choice for different way of development. For instance: the Celts and the Romans. When druids became super power, they devoted to Cernunnos/Esus and lived in irrational magic world. As to the Romans, that they promoted to first place Jupiter (who was the god of Sky but merged with the God of Thunder) and created strong warrior-political system. Compromise between mystic and rationalism was not available. It is not surprising that one of point of religious reform by professional priest Zaratustra was overthrow of the God of Thunder.

Two other male gods are more complicated problems. The God of Earth Powers was correlated with ground as area of growth and dying, circulation of life and dead. He was diverged into many lines of development. On the one hand we can see the gods, who names descended to pro-Indo-European -uel-, connected with world of death (Slav Veles, Balt Veles, Indian Vala , Etruscan Veltha ). I think this is a main trunk of development of type. On the second hand there are local god personified an element of forests (Greek Pan, Indian Pushan, Balt Puskait). Many gods who should be belonging to type of the God of earth powers have got special names. I suggest that this variety connected with tendency to use not main (sacral) names but ephitets. Besides, some features of this god have begun to seem not appropriate and turned into independent images (for example: beside Indian god Rudra we see demon Vala ).

Inspite of G. Dumezil I suppose that the priests stand up for the God of Earth Powers. Just this personage was connected with magy (Celt Cernunnos, Scandinavian Freyr, Balt Vels). Dahghda - resent embodiment of Cernunnos was named 'the god of druids'. Indian Varuna, Balt Vels, Slav Veles were the protectors of singers. Lastly if we will agree with Dumezil that Varuna corresponds Ahuramazda , it should be to say that first monotheistic religion was created by Zaratustra in terms of character who descend to the God of Earth Power's type.

As one of functions the God of Earth Powers was protection for animal kingship, he has got zoomorphic symbols. His sacral animal (and perhaps embodiment) was a bull. Therefore Rudra, Dyonisos, Veles have got horns. The horns are features sexual and warrior power. In ancient times these attributes were considered as good symbols, but Christians rejected them (probably as feature the main pagan divinity). However during the Middle Ages the horns were liked with some groups connected with heritage of European barbarians. I mean ritters who decorated with the horns their helmet and insignias. So the feature of the priest's divinity became warrior symbol.

Sometimes the God of Earth Powers identified with a stag or a ram (although these symbols of the Cultural Hero but these types were not always delimited).

The mythology of the God of Earth Powers includes some plots what could be form successive chain: the marriage with the Great goddess that embodied an alliance of two origins of fertility; the conflict with the God of Thunder (the subject of stealing of sacral cows in Balt, Slav , Indian , Greek mythologies); the torment of the God of earth Powers.

The origin of the Cultural Hero's type is a primary ancestor of peoples. Indo-European peoples have got two tendencies of this type development: first one embodied 'cultural' aspect of character, second one showed heroic aspect. First tendency created image of king of legendary Golden Age, demiurg and protector of people (Persian Yima); than - first dead and the king of ancestors (Indian Yama); than psichopomp and mediator (Balt Sovius, Greek Hermes , Roman Mercury, Scandinavian Odin, Celt Lugh).

Other significant images have appeared in 'heroic' tendency. In the area of Mediterranean mythology of Heracles influenced on iconography of Hero (Etruscan Hercle, Roman Hercules, Thracian Hero). But divinity whom name has got root '-Trit-' (Persian Traetaona, Indian Thrita, Russian Ivan Tretyak). We can see there an orient rider feature. The main plot of Hero's mythology is a victory over three-headed monster .

As for socium, that Hero as legislative, physician and protector become an embodiment of sacral king power. Roman emperors were pictured with attributes of Hercules. Many Greek dynasties believed that Heracles was their ancestor. Like picture we see in Scandinavian countries for Odin.

The character of hero-rider had got a great future. Christian Europe identified him with Saint George - the rider on white horse, the winner over dragon. The appearance of Hero is connected with eschatology, messian ideas. The character of Hero have penetrated into Buddhism, mitraism. Important significance it has got for Hinduism. Tenth avatar of Visine is a horseman with a flaming sword. This is Kalki who will appear at the final of world to punish of evil. It is not accidentally, that Hegel has imagined 'the finish of history' at the moment when he has seen Napoleon on the white horse.

The Great Goddess is probably sole women divinity in this supposed scheme. Her image has got origin from the Neolithic Age. In the patriarchal Indo-European society the great goddess lost her sky function. This process initiates by means of special explanation plot that talked about she was unfaithful to the God of Thunder and was turned into chthonic goddess (Balt mythology). At the process of evolution the image of the great Goddess diverged into numerous personages. These are:

1. The goddess of Earth (Greek Gaia , Indian Prthivi, Scandinavian Erd, Balt Zemes mate).
2. The goddess-protector of fertility (Greek Demeter , Roman Ceres, Scandinavian Freyja).
3. The goddesses-mother (Ireland Danu , Hittite Hannahanna).
4. The goddess of loves (Greek Aphrodite, Scandinavian Freyja).
5. The goddess of marriage (Greek Hera, Roman Juno, Scandinavian Frigg, Slav Lada , Indian Laksmi).
6. The goddess of destiny (These divinities usually were gathered for triads: Greek Moirae; Scandinavian Nornir ; Balt Laima, Dekla, Karta).
7. The goddess of war (Ireland Morrighan - see: ' Cuchulainn against Morrighan ' , Scandinavian Freyja).
8. The goddess-herald of death (Greek erinies, Etruscan Vanth , Scandinavian Valkyrie Valkyrie , Balt vele).
9. The goddess of women skill (Greek Athena , Roman Minerva, Celt Brigit).

Naturally the most of worshippers of the Great Goddess were women. The Great Goddess had got various animal symbols: birds (owl, cuckoo, and dove); snakes; fishes, insects (butterfly, bee, and scorpion). As the cult of Goddess was connected with magic rituals, people believed in magic abilities of the women. At the Middle Ages her dark side became origin for image of witch. At the same time some attributes of the Great goddess were spread for many image of Christian religion.

Thus, it is possible to approve that data of this structural nucleus were in closed connections with social-cultural changes in life of ancient peoples of Europe. Thus its elements appeared are extremely steady. Having gone through wreck of pagan religions, they in many respects were alloyed with images of Christian tradition, and then have come as the important components of culture of Europe of New Time when have gone through some kind of "rebirth".

A. Fantalov.

 

Chapter 2. Mythological characters of West European barbarians:

2.1. Iconography origins of the basic mythological types.

 

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DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:11

D. Parsuram Maharaj (Trinidan & Tobago, West Indies)
Christmas’ Hindu Roots

Last year Christmas Trinidad & Tobago's Archbishop Pantin in his weekly column repeated what scholars have been asserting for years on the origins of Christmas. Archbishop Pantin essentially officially confirmed the celebration of Christmas was 'borrowed' from pre-Christian religions. This type of 'borrowing' was not new to Christianity that aggressively practised a process of inculturalisation in order increase its mass appeal and thereby win as many converts as possible. The practice is still employed by missionaries in Asia and even in Trinidad. What Archbishop Pantin did not develop was the celebration of the birth of the divine being was borrowed from a Hindu Deity. It is time that Hindus re-claim this celebration and its Hindu roots rather then to let continue to be hijacked by Christian mythology.

The festival that is now known as Christmas was actually a celebration for the Vedic Deity Mitra. According to "A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion" by John Dowson [1998] the Hindu Mitra was connected to the Persian Mithra which later was adopted by Rome. Mitra was a form of the sun, and in the Vedas he is generally associated with Varuna. Will Durant's "The Story of Civilisation, Volume III. Caesar and Christ" [1944] wrote "as far back as the second century the Eastern Christians celebrated the nativity on January 06th. In 354 some Western churches, including those of Rome, commemorated the birth of Christ on December 25th; it was ALREADY the central festival of Mitraism, the natalis invivti solis, or birthday of the unconquered sun".

The Christmas date of December 25 was originally the celebrated birthdate of the Roman version of Mitras. The 4th-5th century Church decided to 'borrow' that date for the sake of establishing a national holiday. The Iranian version of Mit(h)ra was called the "Light of the World" is another interesting fact to note. Mithraism explained the world in terms of two ultimate and opposing principles, one good (depicted as light) and the other evil (darkness). Human beings must choose which side they will fight for; they are trapped in the conflict between light and darkness. Mithra came to be regarded as the most powerful mediator who could help humans ward off attacks from demonic forces.

In the religions of antiquity the vast majority of the pre-modern world was syncretistic, meaning that one religion would often incorporate the myth and ritual of other cults with which it came in contact. Often the deities would simply change names. This suggests that we may be comparing Jesus (one individual ) to the combined characteristics of multiple agents that are all called by the SAME NAME. Mitra--he is a mixture of Hindu Iranian, Greek, and Roman religious beliefs. Both Hindu and Iranian Mithraism predates Jesus .

Hindu thought was filtered to the West via Greek colonies which are known to have existed in India prior the time of the Buddha in the 6th century B.C.E. The Buddha actually refers to the Greeks in a discourse in the Middle Length Sayings. Alexander the Great's invasion brought Hellenism to India during the rise of the brilliant Mauryan empire (322-185 B.C.E.) in Northern India, and had significant impact on the upper class and urban segments.

After Alexander died, his empire divided into several pieces--one of which was called the Seleucid dynasty. In spite of the fact that the Seleucid and Mauryan dynasties were border-competitors, they still had a great deal of friendly interchange between them, and the first two kings of the Mauryan dynasty are referred to in Greek sources. The peace treaty between them in 303 BCE included a marriage alliance, and Seleucus' ambassador Megasthenes lived for 10 years and travelled extensively in the Mauryan empire during the reign of the founding king Chandragupta (Sandrocottos in the Greek). Megasthenes gathered huge amounts of information about India and wrote a book (which is lost), many parts/information of which are preserved in the writings of Strabo, Arrian, and Diodorus.

One of the most famous of the kings of this dynasty was Ashoka. Although he is not mentioned in any Greek sources, he "records having sent missions from India bearing his message of the victory of the Dharma to the Greek kings Antiochus II of Syria, Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) of Egypt, Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, Magas of Cyrene and Alexander of Epirius."

Until his death in 232 BCE, he maintained frequent communications with the south and the west, even sending missionaries to Ceylon and to the West. Historical data and quotes shows, there was information about the religious content of proto-Hinduism transmitted to the West, and even about Buddhism. The last two centuries B.C.E saw the rise of the Parthian empire, which quickly became a barrier to cultural exchange.

There are material, significant, and pervasive similarities between Jesus Christ and other Savior-figures, and that these similarities are best explained by the hypothesis that the figure of Jesus is materially derived from or heavily influenced by these other Dying God/Savior-figures. The similarities between Jesus and the other relevant Savior-gods are material, significant, and pervasive enough to suspect a liberal borrowing. Scholars have proposed several theories to account for the obvious similarities between Christianity and the mystery religions. The birth and celebration of Christmas as a Christian festival is merely an example of one such borrowing

DET NED.................................................................................  ARTICLE NO:12

 

Persian and Roman Mithraism

Romans usually called Mithras “Sol Dominus Invictus.” Roman writers believed that Mithraism came from Persia and that Mithraic iconography represented Persian mythology. From this beginning modern scholars have traced Mithras in Persian, Mittanian and Indian mythology. The Mitanni gave us the first written reference to Mithras in a treaty with the Hittites. Mithras is celebrated in the Zoroastrian Yashts or hymns of the Sassanian (224-640 AD) Avesta, a book which preserved old oral traditions. Mithras was a Persian saviour, whose cult was the leading rival of Christianity in Rome, and more successful than Christianity in the first four centuries of the Christian era.

Mithras is a Greek form of the name of an Indo-European god, Mithra or Mitra. At the end of the nineteenth century Franz Cumont, a Belgian historian of religion, published a two volume work on the Mithraic mysteries taking the origins of the cult as Persian. Cumont remains the classic work on the subject but latterly has been challenged by Christian sceptics. The challenge is based on the lack of hard evidence, much of which Christians themselves destroyed, so there is good reason to stick with the authoritative foundation of Cumont's earlier work.

Few writers mention the cult. The evidence for it is mostly archaeological—the remains of mithraic temples, monumental inscriptions, the iconography of the god and sculptures, sculpted reliefs, wall paintings and mosaics. From every known such reference and such documents as existed, Cumont claimed that Mithras was Persian Mithra. If Mithras had Iranian roots then the Roman cult of Mithraism must have begun in the east of the Roman empire and spread by soldiers, eastern merchants—called "Syrians"and slaves, in the middle of the first century BC. Slaves, soldiers and merchants were highly mobile and so offered a means of rapid transmission of the cult.

Roman soldiers met worshippers of the god, Mithras, in the provinces to the east of the empire, adjacent to Persia, and Plutarch confirms that Mithraism entered the Empire from Persia when Pompey's Roman soldiers encountered pirates from Cilicia—the home in Asia Minor of Paul the apostle—practising the "secret rites of Mithras" and were impressed by the god's high precepts. That the rites were "secret" means the cult was a "mystery" religion. Christians, desperate to make Mithraism dependent on Christianity, insist that it only started in the second half of the first century AD, despite Plutarch's plain statement. Since he lived at this very time, he can hardly have thought a new Roman fad was over a century old.

Nevertheless it was in the first century of this era that it begin to take off in popularity, and physical remains of the worship of Mithras only appear after 150 AD. About twenty-five inscriptions to him have been found in Spain, and several statues of him were found at Merida, perhaps a cult centre in the west. It was not officially recognised in the Empire until the end of the second century AD and reached the height of its popularity in the third century. There were perhaps thousands of Mithraic temples in the Roman empire, mainly in Rome itself but, as Mithraism appealed to soldiers, also in garrisons on the frontiers of the Empire. It was one of the last of the Eastern Mystery cults to reach the West and one of the most vigorous.

In the original Persian pantheon Mithras was a yazata (angel) lower than Ahuramazda (later Ormuzd), the Supreme Being, with whom he was associated, but higher than the Sun. Zoroaster, whose aim was to promote monotheism, omitted him from the Gathas in favour of Ahuramazda. Later, he became more important than Ahuramazda, because he acted as mediator between men and those on the divine level. Eventually Strabo could write:

[The Persians] honour the Sun, whom they call Mithras, and the Moon and Aphrodite, and Fire and Earth, and Winds and Water.

 

Mithras became omniscient, the god of light, the Heavenly Light, a spiritual Sun, the enemy of darkness and therefore of evil and hence the god of battles and of military victory. Mithras was the god of contracts and oaths, he embodied the seven divine spirits of goodness, he protected the righteous in this world and helped them into the next. He sent rain from Heaven and light from the sun and helped mankind by slaying the primaeval bull fertilising the earth. He was the Logos (the Word).

His enemy was the Demiurge, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, the god with power to spoil the good creation of Ahuramazda in mankind's level of the cosmos, and so able to mislead men. The Magi saw a trinity of Mithras, Ahuramazda and Ahriman. Ahuramazda and Ahriman seemed to be mirror images of some complex power and Mithras was the link. Mithras only took the side of Ahuramazda at the earthly level, otherwise he was neutral between the two principles.

The Mithraism that entered the Roman Empire was a combination of Persian Mithraic belief, Babylonian astrology, Greek mysteries and perhaps Greek philosophy. Christian polemicists deny that the Roman Mithras was the same god as the Persian Mithras. They say the Roman Mithras cannot be assumed to have originated in Iran, and was only a distant relative of the Persian god, perhaps associated by name only. Assertions do not dispose of arguments, though Christians, used to settling all disputes by reference to the holy book, have got into the habit of believing they do.

There is admittedly little evidence for a Persian cult of Mithra. Persians were reluctant to make pictures of their gods, just like the Moslems today, and there is no Persian iconography of the god slaying the bull found in the Roman cult of Mithras. Also, there are few traces of the Roman cult in Asia Minor whence it supposedly emerged. Most evidence of the worship of Mithras comes from the western empire, particularly Rome itself and its port, Ostia, and the military forts on the Danube. Mithraism was also popular among the legionaries in North Africa and those in the forts of Hadrian's wall. Rome had some 700 mithraea and Ostia had some more, but not many have survived. Besides grottos, 400 other traces of Mithras have been found in Rome and Ostia. Mithraism in Rome and Ostia appealed to the same people—soldiers, slaves and merchants—as elsewhere and existed in the area of Rome as early as the late first century AD. Only from the middle of the second century AD did it blossom.

The earliest remains of the cult of Mithras are from the garrison at Carnuntum in Upper Pannonia on the Danube River (modern Hungary). The Roman legion, XV Apollinaris, garrisoned at Carnuntum was ordered East in 63 AD to fight against the Parthians and then the Jews, who revolted from 66-70 AD. In about 71 or 72 AD, on their return to base back in Carnuntum, the legionaries made Mithraic dedications.

It is impossible not to identify the Roman and the Persian gods called Mithras. Christians want us to believe that Pagans worshipped two quite different gods with the same name and an identifiable point of contact. It is too absurd and a sign of desperation that such views are submitted for consideration. The Mithras of the Roman religion had certainly changed in his slow journey from Susa, as noted above, but it is quite ignorant and stupid to pretend that the Roman Mithras did not begin in Persia and retained many of the qualities of the Persian god. And the lack of remains in the east is easily explained, as Christians ought to realise. It is that Christianity first established itself and grew in these very regions, probably detracting from the growth of Mithraism.

An attraction for the Romans of Oriental religions was that they had a long history and their gods a reputation for wisdom. This was true of Mithraism. Mithras was a redeemer but also offered a role model as an epitome of morality. Mithraism began to spread because it appealed to three main groups of people; to the merchant classes who valued its demand for high moral standards and therefore honesty, to the lowly and humble such as slaves poor freedmen, and particularly to the military. Its failing might have been that women were excluded—adherents were all male and were sworn to secrecy. It had strong elements of Freemasonry in its organisation.

Females worshipped Cybele, Isis and later, Jesus. Mithraism had no extensive priestly caste. Each small group of worshippers had a father, simply a mamber of the highest rank of the cult. Why are Christian priests called father? Major centres of worship had a father of fathers, equivalent to a Christian bishop. It always remained a private religion, never receiving huge state patronage, so the shrines and churches of Mithras remained humble and the worshippers pious and egalitarian. In Mithraic churches, noble, freedman and slave met as equals. Mithraism had its male celibates and expected its initiates to repudiate worldly offerings expecting instead heavenly wealth.

Myth and the Tauroctony

The story of Mithras begins with the Demiurge oppressing mankind. Mithras is incarnated from a rock on 25 December, the old date of the midwinter solstice. He enters the world, observed by lowly shepherds, on the darkest day of the year—he is the Light of the World. During his incarnation he helps mankind like Orpheus and carries out miracles like Jesus. In an abstract way, he dies for the good of mankind. He kills the sacred bull, the equinoctial sun which revivifies the earth, but the bull is an aspect of himself, for he is the sun. So he kills himself, just as God, the Father, kills himself by offering himself as a victim in his aspect as God, the Son. As an annual sun god he is resurrected. His mission done he holds a last supper with his disciples and returns to Heaven, the level beyond the cosmos, in the solar chariot. He will be victorious over evil at the last battle and will sit in judgement on mankind, when he will lead the Chosen Ones over a river of fire to immortality.

Christians are quite desperate to prove that Mithras was not a dying and rising god. They say, even granting that the suffering god myth is essential to mystery religions, Mithras can hardly be included because he is the only god who did not suffer. It is true that the god in his human form did not die as the others did, but he died in the form of the bull which represented himself. Christians claim this is all a misapprehension based on Cumont's original interpretation which is—they say—plagued with problems. So today’s Mithraic scholars are very sceptical of attempts to understand the Roman Mithras in the light of the Iranian one. It would be nice to know how many of these Mithraic sceptics are Christians. We can guess most, and we can thank earlier Christians for the lack of evidence, but sun gods often slay bulls which represent themselves as the sun rising in the constellation of Taurus. The idea has a firm and ancient basis.

Mithras worship took place in churches called grottos, imitations of caves or sometimes actual caves or catacombs, a small oblong space with a domed ceiling about 7-10 metres wide, decorated with carved reliefs, statues and paintings. To enhance the resemblence to a natural cave the ceiling of the mithraeum was vaulted and sometimes was rendered with crushed pottery to give an illusion of rock. The ceilings sometimes had vents to admit shafts of light. A narrow aisle about 12-20 metres long usually ran down the centre of the room with a stone bench on either side for about two dozen members to sit or recline on during the service. If an ordinary room was being prepared as a grotto then dining couches were arranged in two rows down the length of the room. At the end of the aisle, opposite the entrance, was a symbolic mural, carved relief or tapestry of Mithras slaying a bull inside a cave like the mithraeum itself, which would be brightly illuminated in the dimness of the grotto. This tauroctony was the main icon of Mithraism. This mural was often one of a diptych, the other showing Mithras sitting at a table with the sun.

From the arrangement of benches or dining couches, and from wall paintings in some mithraea, it seems worshippers were initiated into the celebration of a common meal. Devotees sought communion with Mithras to prepare for the final judgement.

He who will not eat of my body, nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved. Mithraic Communion M J Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God)

 

However, there is no way of inferring that a bull was actually sacrificed and eaten. Most mithraea seated only about 40 worshippers and the rooms were too small for bull sacrifices.

Mithraic imagery is largely astronomical. The setting is a cave encircled by the chariot of the sun and the signs of the zodiac. The Neoplatonic philosopher, Porphyry, says the cave of the tauroctony, which the domed Mithraic grottos were meant to imitate, was “the cosmos.” The zodiac, planets, sun, moon, and stars are commonly portrayed in Mithraic art. Mithras himself was usually shown clad in a tunic, Persian trousers, cloak and a pointed floppy cap called a Phrygian cap, as slaying the cosmic bull created by Ahuramazda, the God of Light, to prevent Ahriman from slaying it, and thereby offering the first sacrifice, but occasionally he was depicted as Sol. The grotto mural showed Mithras pulling back the bull's head by its nostrils and stabbing its exposed neck with a dagger in his right hand, the bull's blood re-entering the earth yielding ears of corn. Thus, the mural represents the sacrifice of the primeval bull, the first animal, from the soul of which came all other life as a result of this sacrifice. Thus it stood for life, vitality, vigour, peace and plenty—the whole of Ahuramazda's good creation. But the evil creation of Ahriman was shown biting and stinging the good world.

The Sun and the Moon observe the sacrifice. Two torch bearers are in attendance, one with an up turned torch and one with a down turned torch. A torch bearer in ancient symbolism denoted the sun. In Apuleius's Golden Ass, we read:

I carried a lighted torch thus I was adorned as the sun.

 

In the mysteries of Eleusis, the torch bearer was dressed as the sun. In ancient symbolism a cross represents the equinoxes, when the equinoctial plane intersects the celestial equator, making a notional cross in the heavens. The two torch bearers in the tauroctony are often shown with crossed legs because they stand for the sun at the spring and autumn equinoxes. The spring equinox is denoted by a raised torch representing light, summer, life, spirit and the liberated soul. The autumn equinox is shown by a lowered torch representing darkness, winter, death, matter and the soul trapped in the body. A serpent or a dog drinks the bull's blood. Other symbolic objects present include a raven on the bull's back, a scorpion nipping at its testicles and a tree.

A lion headed figure in the coils of a snake represents Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness and therefore evil. The Christian expression for the devil, Prince of Darkness, used for example by Milton, matches Mithraic as well as Essene use—Mithras was Light and Darkness was Evil. The force of Good necessarily was opposed by a force of Evil in the old religions. Ahuramazda was opposed by Ahriman in the Persian religion; Osiris was opposed by Set in the Egyptian religion. Other names for Satan trace him to earlier pastoral gods Pan and Zeus Myiagros, respectively Mephistopheles and Beelzebub, the Protector of Flocks, the Lord of the Flies as the Jews mockingly called him, Baal of the Philistines.

In well preserved Mithraea, other scenes show Mithras being born from a rock, Mithras dragging the bull to a cave, plants springing from the blood and semen of the sacrificed bull, Mithras and the sun god, Sol, banqueting on the flesh of the bull while sitting on its skin, Sol investing Mithras with the power of the sun, and Mithras and Sol shaking hands over a burning altar. In these other pictures Mithras is the Saoshyant or redeemer of the cosmos, ending up in heaven having destroyed evil and restored the world at the End of Time. Interpretation of these scenes tell us what we know about Mithraism.

Astronomical and Cosmological Interpretation

The imagery of the tauroctony is ancient. Only in the period from around 4000 BC to 2000 BC did the sun rise at the equinox in the constellation Taurus. As the sun rose, the bull disappeared in the dawn glow—the bull had been slain. Most of the other symbols found in the tauroctony were constellations along the celestial equator at this time. The bull is Taurus, the dog is Canis Minor, the snake is Hydra, the raven is Corvus and the scorpion is Scorpio. As the rising sun illuminated the night sky, these constellations along the horizon faded away. First to go was the bull of Taurus because the sun was rising in that constellation. Sometimes a lion and a cup were added to the tauroctony, apparently symbols of the constellations Leo and Aquarius, which were the constellations in conjunction with the sun at the solstices in the age of Taurus.

This epoch was when the astronomer priests of Akkadia were making the first accurate astronomical observations and describing the celestial patterns which later spread everywhere as the zodiac. They divided the year according to the celestial sign of the rising sun but the sun does not forever rise in the same place each month. The plane of the equinoxes slowly rotates backwards at a rate of one constellation every 2160 years and the entire zodiac every 25,900 years.

The fixed association of the months with zodiacal signs is that of the age of Taurus because 21 March is still deemed the beginning of the month of Taurus. In fact, today the spring equinox is in the constellation of Pisces. Formerly it was in Aries and in a hundred years time we shall have entered the age of Aquarius, but Taurus remains the sign associated with the spring equinox not Aquarius. In other words once the association of signs and months was made, it remained fixed, even though the heavens seemed to be rotating as the equinoxes precessed. This is the origin and nature of Mithras the cosmic bull-slayer—an aspect of the sun god—the equinoctial sun rising in Taurus.

Now the sun is normally shown separately from Mithras in the pictures of the Mithraic legend that we have. How can that be if Mithras was the sun god himself—inscriptions confirm he is sol invictus, the unconquered sun? The Mithraists apparently considered Mithras, the unconquered sun, as a sun beyond the sun—a supermundane or spiritual sun beyond the sphere of the fixed stars. From the time when the sun was identified with the equinoctial bull to the time of the rise of Mithras in the Roman Empire, at least 3000 years passed, long enough for an astronomic religion to evolve into a spiritual one, but the seeds of the idea go back to the Aryan origins of Mithraism.

The Aryans who went on into India took twin sun gods with them, Varuna and Mitra. Neither was the sun itself, Surya, which manifested itself in twelve different forms, plainly corresponding to the zodiac. The Persian holy book, the Zend Avesta, had an equivalent pair, Mitra (or Mithras) and Ahura. The word ahura is related to the name of the Assyrian sun god Assur and the Indian word asura which is cognate with Surya, the sun. Mitra is from the Persian word, mihr, meaning sun. Thus the Iranians had a pair of sun gods, Ahura and Mithras, just like their brothers in India.

Different Persian sects chose one or other of the sun gods as the main one. Zoroaster, who sought to promote monotheism, and the Persian Achaemenian kings favoured Ahura, calling him Mazda, the wise sun. He was always a spiritual sun, pictured as a benign old man in sculpture merely as an artistic convention just as the transcendental Hebrew god is. He was served by "bounteous immortals," one of whom was Mithras. As a sun god, Mithras saw all things. The Avestan Yasht dedicated to him describes him as having a thousand ears, ten thousand eyes, and as never sleeping.

Mithras was thus retained in the Persian religion, appaerently contrary to Zoroaster's intentions, as the face of God—the visible manifestation of an invisible and distant god. He it was who stood for the Good Spirit against the bad one, Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, the Persian Satan. Later Mithras, who many must have found hard to distinguish from Ahuramazda, took the characteristics of the supreme god. In a hymn to Mithras in the Avesta, Ahura Mazda tells the prophet Zarathustra that when he created Mithras: "I made him as worthy of worship as myself." This accolade is given to no other Amesha Spenta. Something happened akin to the deification of Jesus in Christianity. Jesus was identified with the archangel Michael, who was the face and power of God. Soon Jesus became God! Mithras became God, too.

Furthermore, in Persian cosmology the sun and moon were located beyond the stars. Zoroaster, whose name can be read as sun-star, taught that the sun was situated above the fixed stars. So, the origin of the key ideas of Mitraism, a sun god and a spiritual sun god who dwelt beyond the stars, was Iranian.

Platonists had the same beliefs more clearly expressed and it seems most likely that when Mithras was adopted by the Romans a Platonic philosophy was welded on to the ancient god. In Plato's Republic the sun is the source of all illumination and understanding in the visible world while the Good is the supreme source of being and understanding in the world of the forms, the intelligible world. Zoroaster lived seven years on a mountain in a cave decorated as the cosmos. Plato also symbolizes the world as a cave. The cave dwellers have to ascend to the world beyond the cave to receive the rays of the sun. The ascent from the cave is an allegory of the ascent of the immortal soul.

Hellenistic people believed that after death the human soul ascended through the seven heavenly spheres to an afterlife in the pure and eternal world of the stars. It was a dangerous journey, requiring passwords to be given at each level of the journey, and people were buried with small gold medallions inscribed with the words. Plato, in Phaedrus, describes explicitly the ascent of the soul to the realm outside of the cosmos (upon the back of the world), effectively heaven or paradise. Here dwells True Being which reason alone can perceive, and Good is the power. The supermundane sun, the Good or the True Being which reigned over this transcendental region was seen by the Mithraists as Mithras. Thus his appeal was as the god who helped and protected the soul in reaching the highest heaven, beyond the dome of the stars.

About the time of Jesus, Philo wrote of God as the intelligible sun or hypercosmic star. Later the Neoplatonist, Plotinus, told the same story, that the sun in the divine realm is Intellect which sustains soul—if Intellect dies, soul dies. Later still the Neoplatonist Emperor Julian wrote in Hymn to Helios that the sun moved in the starless heaven beyond the fixed stars. For almost a millennium the idea of a second sun beyond the cosmos was a constant of Classical thought. Platonists like Numenius, Cronius, and Celsus were Mithraists, so it is inconceivable that Platonist ideas did not influence Mithraism where we also find two suns, Helios, the god of the physical sun, and Mithras, unconquerable sun beyond the stars.

If Mithras was seen as a spiritual sun, a god of the whole cosmos, then he must have been understood in a transcendental sense as outside of the cosmos. This explains the Mithraic motif of the birth of Mithras from a rock. Mithras emerges from the top of a round rock, which is usually shown Orphic style with a snake around it. The Orphics also had an idea of a spiritual sun. Indeed Mithras is sometimes shown being born from a cosmic egg, just as Phanes is born of the cosmic egg in Orphic representations. The Mithraic cave and the Orphic cosmic egg both were the cosmos. In the rock-birth scenes Mithras is almost always shown holding a torch, the symbol of a sun. Franz Cumont, the scholar disparaged by Christians for revealing our knowledge of Mithraism, described much of this solar theology in 1909.

So Mithras the Bull Slayer evolved into a spiritual god of the whole cosmos and was depicted, like Atlas, supporting the cosmic sphere, depicted with the constellations reversed, because they were seen from the other side! The statue of Atlas Farnese similarly depicts the cosmic globe, bearing the constellations as they would appear from outside the universe.

Mithraic Practice and Christianity

Initiates of the Mysteries of Mithras had to be ritually pure and were purified by baptism, as we are told by Tertullian, a third century Christian from North Africa. There were seven levels of initiation, one for each of the seven planets and each with its symbol, the highest level being that of the Father, Pater. From the lowest these grades were Corax (symbol—a raven, planet—Mercury), Nymphus (a male bride, Venus), Miles the first grade of full membership (a soldier, Mars), Leo (a lion, Jupiter), Perses (a Persian, Luna, the moon), Heliodromus (a charioteer of the sun, Sol, the sun), and finally Pater (a father, Saturn). Those who reached Pater could lead an assembly. Quite unlike Christianity, members of the cult of Mithras were not stopped from being members of other cults.

At the level of initiation called Miles or soldier, the mystae of Mithras were symbolically branded, the priest making the sign upon their foreheads to redeem their sins and to mark them as soldiers of Mithras ready to fight the Good Fight. Tertullian complains that the Devil was imitating the Christians' divine mysteries because initiates of the Mithraic religion were baptised in this way, and we can be sure the sign made was that of the cross. The mythological justification was Zoroastrian, that good creation was in warfare with evil creation, and these soldiers were soldiers of the good creation.

Christians use the expressions soldiers of Christ and put on the armour of light, somewhat inappropriate metaphors for a religion of love, one might think, but entirely appropriate to their Mithraic origins. Above the rank of Leo votaries were called participants because they participated in a sacred meal. Below the rank of Leo, Mithraists were called servants and served the higher levels—the similarity with Essenism is striking. Participanats committed their everlasting loyalty to the saviour god, Mithras, in his fight against evil. Plutarch tells us that their reward was to be returned to life in the restored world at the eschaton.

Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, says the arrangement of the grottos, with benches on either side of a table, was because the Mithraic central ritual was a sacred meal of bread and water, that he himself compared to the Christian Eucharist. He complained that Satan had copied the Christian Eucharist because the adherents of Mithras also partook of consecrated bread and water symbolic of the incarnate god's body. The bread consisted of small round cakes—each marked with a cross!

Mithraic language and symbolism are widespread in the New Testament. The Dayspring from on High, the Light, and the Sun of Righteousness are all Mithraic (or Essene) expressions used of Jesus. Mithras was born out of a rock—Theos ek Petros—and Christian imagery shows the stable, in which Jesus was born, as a cave. (The infant Mithras was adored by shepherds who brought him gifts.) It was not originally oppression that led the early Christians to use catacombs for worship but simply a desire to copy the practice of the worshippers of Mithras. They decorated their catacombs with paintings, one of the most popular ones being of Moses striking the rock. Mithras, struck a rock to produce water for his followers to drink! The most popular picture of all however was Christ as the Good Shepherd. Mithras too was the Good Shepherd.

The Cilicians introduced Mithraism to Rome. The chief city of the Cilicians and one of the main centres of Mithraism was Tarsus, home of St Paul. When Paul writes (1 Cor 10:4):

They drank of that spiritual rock... and the rock was Christ,

he leans significantly toward the Mithraic idea of the God from the Rock, as does Jesus when he says (Mt 16:18):

Upon this rock I will build my church,

referring to Peter.

Both Mithraism and Christianity introduced symbolic sacrifice: Mithraists by depicting the sacrifice of the bull prominently in their churches and Christians by images of the crucifixion of Jesus and the symbolic drinking of his blood in the communion. The shedding of animal blood was originally a substitute for the shedding of human blood. The bull is interchangeable with a ram—the Ram in the Persian Zodiac is a lamb. So Mithras can also be sacrificed as a lamb just as Jesus is the Paschal Lamb. Remember Mithras is also the seven spirits of goodness just as the Book of Revelation has a slain lamb with seven horns and seven eyes representing the seven spirits of God. Easter when the Paschal Lamb was eaten was a Mithraic festival. In the seventh century the church tried to suppress pictures of Jesus as a lamb precisely because of its Pagan associations.

The Church took most of its features from Pagan mystery religions: vestments, pomp, ritual, mitre, wafer. When Western fundamentalist Christians try to argue that the Church took nothing from the mystery religions, they are not only arguing against sceptics and atheists, they are arguing also against the millions of protestant Christians whose protest was precisely that the Roman Church had adopted Pagan, largely Mithraic, practices.

The Vatican Hill in Rome considered sacred to Peter was previously sacred to Mithras. The cave of the Vatican was a Mithraeum until December 25, 376 AD, the birthday of the sun god, when a city prefect suppressed Mithraism and seized the grotto in the name of Christ. Mithraic artefacts found in the Vatican Grotto were taken over by the Church.

The head of the Mithraic faith was the Pater Patrum, the 'Father of Fathers,' who sat in the Vatican cave. The Mithraic Holy father wore a red cap and garment and a ring, and carried a shepherd's staff. The head of the Christian faith, the bishop of Rome, adopted the same title and dressed himself in the same manner, becoming the 'Papa' or 'Father'—the Pope—who subsequently sat literally in the same seat in Rome as the Pater Patrum! The throne of St Peter at Rome is older than the Church. From the carved motifs decorating it, it was Mithraic.

All Christian priests, like Mithraic priests, became 'Father', despite an editor of Matthew's specific repudiation of this and several other rival religious habits on Jesus's behalf:

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. (Matthew 23:8-10)

 

The Magi, priests of Zoroaster, wore robes displaying the sword of Mithras. Identical robes are worn by Christian priests to this day. Why is the Pope's crown called a tiara, a Persian headdress? Why do Christian bishops wear a divided tiara called a mitre? Did they adopt the habit from Mithras's priests who wore a mitra (Greek) to signify their office and the duality of the world. Mithraists commemorated the ascension of Mithras by eating a mizd, a sun-shaped bun embossed with the sword (cross) of the god. This "hot cross bun" as the mass was adapted to Christianity and eventually degenerated to the communion wafer, though it is still the same design, in Catholic churches at least.

In the fourth century, Constantine effectively merged Mithraism with Christianity and the other solar cults of the Empire under the control of the Christian bishops. Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar to Gratian had been pontifex maximus, high priest of the Roman gods. When Theodosius refused the title as incompatible with his status as a Christian, the Christian bishop of Rome had no such qualms about taking the title. Patriarchal Pagan purists as well as worshippers of Isis defied official syncretism for a few hundred more years but after the beginning of the fifth century, the bishops were confident enough to purge Pagan religions. Paganism survived precariously for a while but illegally.

Holy Days

The Christian Bible has no calendar of holy days and at first Christianity had no festivals, holy days or Sabbaths. When the Saviour might arrive on a cloud at any moment, one has little interest in constructing calendars. To gentile Christians all days were the Lord's day so there was no basis for separating out just some of them. As hopes of an early return faded, the traditional festivals of Passover and Pentecost, the latter from the Essenes' Festival of the Renewal of the Covenant, were remembered as commemorating the crucifixion and the events of Acts. But, once Christianity became a state institution, principles gave way totally to pragmatism and holy days were introduced to front Pagan festivals which people had become accustomed to celebrating and which could not easily be suppressed.

The great festivals at Easter in honour of Attis and other gods were popular and had to be given a Christian raison d'etre. The church was quite open about this as a letter of Pope Gregory in 601 AD shows, but it might come as a shock to many Christians to know that Christmas, Easter, the Assumption, the feast of John the Baptist, the feast of St George and the fast of Lent are all Pagan.

The Christian Sabbath is also Pagan. The Babylonians adopted a seven day week based on the cycles of the moon and directed that certain types of work should not occur on certain days called Sabbaths. The seven days of the week were early identified with the seven known planets beginning with the sun. The first day was therefore dedicated to the sun and the last day to Saturn. But the god Saturn was considered unlucky so no work was risked on his day. The people commissioned by Cyrus to leave Babylonia and set up a temple to Yehouah adopted the Babylonian habit of not working on a Saturday. The story of the Jewish Sabbath, the day when God in the creation myth rested from his labours, was devised to offer an explanation for the custom they had adopted.

Subsequently, the Jews imposed such a strict interpretation on the day of rest that a man could be executed for lighting a fire on the Sabbath and the scriptures record that, in the time of Moses, a man was indeed executed merely for gathering fire wood on the Sabbath (Num 15:32-36). It was, of course, an exemplary tale written after the Babylonian exile and not by Moses himself as legend has it.

Early Christians believed that Jesus had repealed laws on the Sabbath and did not include observance of it in his ordinances. Even Paul attacked the Galatians for observing a special day as holy and he repeated his view in his letter to the Colossians. In the second century Irenaeus confirmed that Jesus had cancelled observance of a Sabbath. Tertullian added in the third century that Sabbaths were unknown to Christians. The church fathers, Victorinus, Justin, Clement, Origen, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Cyril, Jerome and others were all emphatic that Christians knew no Sabbath!

There was a whole tradition in the Roman world of having Sunday as a sacred holiday and the early gentile Christians found it convenient to match it. Obviously Sunday was a special holy day for sun worshippers which included the worshippers of Mithras. Mithras was called Dominus, the Lord, and his sacred day was Sunday. So Sunday was The Lord's day long before the Christians took it as their sacred day. Because of the remnants of Nazarene tradition associating Jesus with the sun, justified by Malachi, and backed up by the tradition that Jesus had risen from the dead on a Sunday, it became customary even in the first century for Christians to meet on a Sunday. For Christians Sunday also became the Lord's Day. Irenaeus and Tertullian both thought the Lord's Day should be a day of rest but plainly there was no adoption of any strict observance of it, though it was regarded as a special day.

In 321 AD Constantine, still not officially a Christian, ordered that the "venerable day of the Sun" should be a compulsory day of rest. And so it became, gradually taking on a stricter religious purity so that, despite the protestations of Luther that people should dance and feast on that day, the puritans took it over and turned it into a day to rival that of the Mosaic Law of the post-exilic Jewish priesthood!

Mithraism eventually died out after its suppression by the Christians in 376-377 AD. By then its doctrines and ceremonies had been absorbed into Christianity so it had little basis for an independent existence. The two religions had almost everything in common: a divine Lord who offered men salvation; a sacramental meal; baptism; the idea of the believers being crusaders against evil; an ultimate judgement of the soul; ideas of Heaven and Hell; a high moral code.

Ernest Renan, a Catholic scholar who wrote a famous Life of Jesus, believed that if it were not for Christianity we should all today be worshippers of Mithras. The reasons for the success of Christianity were its overwhelmingly syncretic nature, the admission of women, the expropriation of the Jewish Scriptures, and the claim that the Christian incarnate god was a historic figure.

Tertullian, whose father was probably a Mithraist, says the initiation of the soldier, the third rank, but the first of full membership, was by his being offered a crown on the point of a sword. He was not to accept the crown and instead declare that Mithras was his crown! Not only does this ritual evoke the temptation of Jesus, but the crown spoken of was plainly the solar halo, and the sword a cross! Augustine of Hippo, S Augustine, admits the two religions had effectively merged when he claimed that the priests of Mithras worshipped the same God he did. Mithras was Jesus.

Christian Arguments

Most Christians dismiss the worship of Attis and of Mithras as of no general importance in the Empire until later than the New Testament time, not until the second and third centuries in the case of Mithras worship. Edwin Yamauchi, a Christian archaeologist and polemicist, says:

Those who seek to adduce Mithra as a prototype of the risen Christ ignore the late date for the expansion of Mithraism to the west... [Most] dated Mithraic inscriptions and monuments belong to the second century (after 140 AD ), the third, and the fourth century AD.

Never trust a Christian. The earliest remains of a church building, at Dura-Europos, date from 230 AD, and nothing else is found until the end of the third century, yet there are many earlier Mithraea. Plainly, the worship of Mithras was well ahead of the worship of Jesus. In any case there is a dated pre-Christian Mithraic inscription of Antiochus I of Commagene (69-34 BC) in eastern Asia Minor. Mithras shakes hands with the King, he wears the Phrygian cap, the Persian trousers, and a cape. His hat is star speckled and rays of light emerge from his head like a halo. His torq is a serpent. This is the image of the Roman Mithras in a scene taking place 100 years before the crucifixion.

There were worshippers of Mithras in Rome in Pompey's time (67 BC). There is a first century inscription contemporary with the earliest Christians from Cappadocia and one from Phrygia dated to 77-78 AD. Sanctuaries to Mithras existed in Rome and Ostia in the first century. Another inscription in Rome dates to Trajan's reign (98-117 AD), and the Christian Father, Justin Martyr, mentions Mithraism in about 140 AD. Despite this Christians say the real diffusion of Mithraism only begins at the end of the first century.

Christians are more defensive about Mithras than perhaps any other pre-Christian Roman god. The two religions had so much in common, it can hardly be denied although Christians will try to deny it as a first shot. Their second shot is that the followers of Mithras copied the Christians! Christians feel obliged to take silly positions on these issues because they seek to defend Christianity as a revealed religion, not one which evolved in a certain milieu and therefore has common features with contemporary religions. So, no religious practices that seem in any way to be like any Christian ones could have been original—they must have been taken from Christianity!

Their third shot is even more tenuous. Critical scholars were Christians and tended to interpret one cult by another including Christianity. They aimed to construct a general mystery theology or common mystery religion. Starting with the Christian ideas they already had in their heads, they interpreted the mystery religions and found Christian ideas in the mysteries having unconsciously put them there when they were not really! As we saw, St Augustine admitted that the priests of Mithras and he both worshipped the same abstraction. Even Christian saints therefore were subject to this methodological carelessness. They too were projecting Christian ideas! Oh, and their claim that the similarities came from demonic imitation of Christian rites was made only so that the Church Fathers could make apologetic capital out of the analogy. It is all Christian obfuscation necessitated by their absurd beliefs. They have muddied the waters of history for far too long.

The Greeks themselves never favoured Mithras worship because it came from the religion of their traditional enemies, the Persians. But Persian influence went into Greece by other routes. Greeks philosophers, if not Greek peasants, were never so bigoted that they thought there might not be anything to learn from their enemies. Plato was probably influenced by Persian religion and thought just after the time when the Persians had been the greatest threat. Later the Mithraists took back into their religion Platonic ideas through the neo-Platonists. The Christians did the same while decrying Pagan practice.

NettButik    Postmaster@scandiran.com