The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1909-04-08

and having between Him and us O
long series Of spiritual being, ema-
nations from Him, called aeons, and
at the end of this long line Of aeons
reaching down is the Demiurge. O
pretty poor kind of aeon" The DEM
iurge was the maker Of the world,
and he was responsible for all this
evil matter, and the Demiurge was
the God OF the Old Testament. Every
thing that takes place in the Old
Testament Is under the control Of the
Demiurge. not Of the Supreme God.
and we may deal with 1t with all the
freedom we like The Supreme Aeon.
they said, was the Christ who came
to redeem man from the tyranny OF
the Demiurge; and Shrist 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 It. He saves man, not
by the death Of the cross, but by
illumination, by the shining In Of
His Spirit upon 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 side the religion Of Mithras "a
revival Of Paganism). These came
In the way of revolt from the pro-
sale religion of the Roman Empire.
1t had in 1t no emotion. 1t was a
bare contract between man and God.
wherein man said, up and down, IT
will give you a certain amount OF
ritual II you will give me a corres-
ponding amount Of protection" 1t
IN Of
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 to one sys-
TEN. except the truth Of Christianity.
And then opposed to Neoplatonism
was an ideal, an ideal and not a per-
son. Mithraism was the most for
midable competitor that Christianity
| ever had. 1t coemed at one time as
| II 1t were likely to become the relig-
| ion of Europe. Il 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 1t meant. 1t came from Persia
and its supreme god was Mithras,
who was the representative OF the in
visable and eternal deitv behind ard
| the mediator between Him and us.
He was supernaturally 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 dined with the sun. He was to
| come again in a second advent and
hold general judgment of all man
kind in which the good went one way
and the bad another-ipto heaven or
hell. They had baptism of blood
and water for newness of life followed
| by sealing An amounting of confirm.
alton. and after that a 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 day 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 be kept as a
day of rest and they called it by its
Mithraistic name, the venerable day
Of the sun. Why is Christmas kept
I on the twenty-fifth of December? No
body knows when our Lord was born.
| 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 the
twenty-fifth of December because 1t
was Mithras' birthday.
That was Mithras' birthday kept as
a day of rejoicing among the votaries
OF this religion scattered all over from
the desert of Sahara to the glens of
Scotland. where shrines of Mithra
have been found. When Christianity
became victorious over this religion
she found it wise to say to 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 Of Mithra was that there was
| no Mithra: he was only a NTH. Nos
| ticism was founded on an idea; not
| a person. Mithraism was founded on
| allegory. not person. But the hu-
man soul cries out for some manifes-
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-
gian; Clement. the instructor. and
Origen. the commentator. These
| were the men who defended the faith
| against the three agnostics-preju
dice, heresy and competition.