The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1909-04-01

the Demiurge anG Christ redeemed
man, not by the sacrifice of His death
upon the cross, because, matter being
evil, Christ had no body. That was
only an appearance. There was no
incarnation, no resurrection, or any
of the rest of 1t. He saves man, not
by the death of the cross, but by
illumination, by the shining in of
His Spirit upoi the spirit of man.
The third antagonist of the faith
was Competition. There came into
existence two great new religions, on
the one side the religion of Plato "a
revival of philosophy, and on the
other sida the religion of Mithras "a
revival of Pa ~'eml. These came
in the way OF reyo'' '~N'n the pro-
sale religion of the Roman Empire.
1t had lin It no emotion 1t was
bare contract between man and God
wherein man said, No and down, Il
will give you certain amount OF
ritual II you will give me a cores
ponding amount of protection" II
had in 1t no sense of mystery. 1t
was Just as commonplace as the NOR
ality. Now, the world was longing
for some appeal to emotion. for some
satisfaction of its sense of mystery.
and these two religions came at the
place TO do that work. Neoplaton.
ism, revival of philosophy. found
its exponent in Plotinus. From frag-
ments of books he wrote we get some
idea how he tried to bind together
all the truth there was into one sys-
TEN, except the truth of Christianity
And then opposed to Neoplatonism
H. - aN-
son. Mithraism was the most for
midable competitor that Christianity
ever had. 1t seemed at one time as
If it were likely to become the relig-
ion of Europe. It entered very little
into literature, and scarcely anything
was known about It until men began
to study the ruins of Mithraic shrines
and read the inscriptions and gradu-
ally to find how far spread 1t was and
what It meant. 1t came from Persia
aad its supreme god was Mithras,
who was the representative of the In
visable and eternal deity behind ard
the mediator between Him and us.
He was systematically born. and His
first appearance was to shepherds.
He fought with a wild boar that was
ravaging the country which He killed
whose blood became a vine and whose
marrow sown in the earth became the
wheat. After His victorious battle
He dined with the sun. He was to
come again in a second advent and
hold a general Judgment of all man.
kind in which the good went one way
and the bad another-into heaven or
hell Thev had baptism of blood
and water for newness of life followed
bv a sealing an amounting of confirm.
alton. and after that holy commun-
ion of bread and wine. They had
sanctuaries in which liturgies were
chanted by vested priests ministering
at altars adorned with lights.
This dav on which We meet is
called Sunday because of Mithras.
When Constantine gave out his edict
in the days when the empire became
Christian he decreed that the first
day of the week should he kept as a
dav of rest and they called it by its
Mithraistic name, the venerable dar
of the sun. Whv is Christmas knOt
on the twenty-fifth Of December? No
body knows when our Lord was born.
Even the season of the year has to-
tally derarted from the memory of
man The only indications of the
time OF year roint to the summer
when the shepherds were abiding in
the fields. Christmas is kept on the
twentv-fifth of December because 1t
was Mithras' birthday.
That was Mithras' birthday kept as
. 6ev of rejoicing among the votaries
If this religion scattered all over from
the desert of Sahara to the glens of
Scotland. where shrines of Mithrs
have been found. When Christianity
became victorious over this religion
she found II wise to say 10 the con-
verts. Keep on with your domestic
rejoicing on December 25, but do All
these joyful things in remembrance
of Jesus Christ, our Saviour" The
essential defect, however in this re-
ligion - Mithra was that there was
no Mithra: he was only NTH. Nos
ticism was founded on an idea; not
a person. Mithraism was founded on
allegorv. not a person But the hu-
man soul cries out for some NANTES.
tation of God in the form of actual.
historic personality.
There were the four men who de-
Tended the faith pre-eminently in the
second and fourth centuries: Justin,
the apolOglst: Irenaeus, the theolo-
gisn: Clement, the instructor. and
Origen. the commentator. These
were the men who defended the faith
against the three agnostics-preju-
dice, heresy and competition.