The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1909-04-02

sale religion of the Roman Empire.
It had in it no emotion. 1t was a
bare contract between man and God,
wherein man said, up and down, i
will give you a certain amount of
ritual If you will give me a CORES
ponding amount of protection" 1t
had in it 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, a revival of philosophy, found
it's 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-
tenn, except the truth of Christianity.
And then opposed to Neoplatonism
was an ideal, an ideal and not per-
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 rellg-
ion of Europe. 1t 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 it was and
what it meant. 1t came from Persia
and it's supreme god was M1thras,
who was the representative of the in
visable and eternal deity behind and
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 vine and whose
marrow sown in the earth became the
wheat. After His victorious battle
He 6ined 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. They had a baptism of blood
and water for newness Of life followed
by a sealing an amounting Of confirm
alton, and after that holy commun-
ion of bread and wine. They mad
sanctuaries in which liturgies were
chanted by vested priests ministerlng
at affairs adorned with lights.
This day on which we meet Is
called Sunday because of Mithras
When Constantine gave out his ed1ct
In the days when the empire became
Christian he decreed that the first
day of the week should be kept as
day of rest and they called it by 1ts
Mithraistic name, the venerable day
of the sun Why is Christmas Kept
on the twenty-fifth Of December? NO
body knows when our Lord was porn.
Even the season of the year has to.
tally departed from the memory OF
man. The only indications OF the
time of year point to the summer
when the shepherds were abiding IN
the fields Christmas is kept on TIE
twepty-fifth of December because II
was Mithras' birthday.
That was Mithras' birthday kept as
a day of rejoicing among the votarles
If this religion scattered all over from
tne desert of Sahara to the glens OF
Scotland, where shrines of M1thra
have been found. When Christianity
became victorious over this rellglon
she found it wise to say to the con-
yerts, "Keep on with your domestlc
rejoicing on December 20, but 90 all
these joyful things in remembrance
CT Jesus Christ, our Saviour Inc
essential defect, however. In this re-
hgion of Mithra was that there Was
no Mithra; he was only NTH. Nos.
tic;sm was founded on an idea; not
a person. Mithraism was founded on
allegory. 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 apologist; Irenaeus, the theolo-
sisn; Clement, the instructor. and
Origen, the commentator. These
were the men who defended the faith
against the three agnostics-preju
dice. heresy and competition.