Talk:Mithraism/Archive 1

message: Hi, I realise Iv been making a lot of posts recently, but an important issue has come up that needs to be discussed. During the course of carrying out research (in part inorder to make additions to this webpage) I came across a page on mithraism, that was part of a larger (fairly weird) website. As i was reading it i realised that i recognised lots of phrases, comments aand passages. When i looked carefully, i realised that large sections of this particular webpage were word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, identical to this wikipage. Now, its perfectly possible that the people who run that particular site have copied and pasted their material from here, in which case there's no problem. However, it also created at least the possibility that some of the wikipage may have been copied exactly from another webpage. Im not entirely certain of the ins and outs of the wikipedia plagiarism rules, but i am certain that you could never submit an academic essay including such direct copy and pasting (without citation and quotation marks) you would be cruxified. Again, like i said, its probably the case that they copied wikipedia and not the other way around. However it probably needs to be checked out. So if anyone knows anything about the writing of the 'mithraic ranks', or 'iconography of mithraism' sections, and can vouch for their authenticity, then could they just stick up a quick message to that effect, so as to lay the matter to rest. Thanks
Mattlav 00:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Plagiarism Violation

message: I have heard that mithraists ate communion wafers and it might possibly have influenced the practice of transubstansiation in catholicism. any information about this wold be much apreciated?
:Mithraism, in common with all Roman mystery cults - and indeed Roman religious clubs (collegia) - held regular communal meals.  In at least one of these meals (probably that associated with the Autumn equinox) the cult members re-enacted the sacred banquet of Sol and Mithras. One relief depicting this autumnal meal shows the main foods eaten as being grapes, and round buns inscribed with a diagonal cross (like hot-cross buns).
: It appears very likely, though we have no literary references to back it up, that the buns and grapes were considered to be the fruits of respectively the semen and blood of the sacred bull, ritually killed by Mithras, in an event in the sacred narrative associated with Spring (a number of reliefs show plants sprouting where the blood and semen has been sprinkled).
: the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is very much later in development - 9th/10th century at the earliest - far too late to have been influenced at all by Mithraism, which was totally extinct by the 5th Century.  TomHennell 09:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Communion wafers

message: The article says...
"One of the central motifs of Mithraism is the tauroctony, the myth of sacrifice by Mithra of a sacred bull created by the supreme deity Ahura Mazda, which Mithra stabs to death in the cave, having been instructed to do so by a crow, sent from Ahura Mazda."
Isn't the crow sent by Sol Invictus?
::Mithras is known as 'Sol Invictus' - specifically Deus sol Invictus Mithras.   Why would he send himself a crow to tell him to do something? Why bother?  Pydos 19:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ahura Mazda vs Sol Invictus

message: An anonymous deleted the following: " However, this later theory has its own problems, as shown by Dr. Shepherd Simpson's "Mithraism and Precession: The Tauroctony and the Celestial Equator"." Anonymities deleting material is a little high-handed. But can anyone who knows this work give a better reference and incorporate the gist of Simpson's thought, rather than just waving towards it? --Wetman 12:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mithras and Precession of the Equinoxes

message: Wow!!  This is a very well written article.  The author/s should consider nominating this article for -featured status- because it certainly meets all the requiremnts.  I'll vote for it!!  Good luck! Braaad 19:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: OUTSTANDING ARTICLE

message: It might be fun to mention that Aslan from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is sometimes viewed as more of a Mithraic character than a Christ character.  JeffBurdges 10:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: C. S. Lewis's views on Mithraism  might be more to the point at C. S. Lewis. --Wetman 11:04, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  LWW 

message: The introduction contains the text:
..The veneration of this God began about 4000 years ago in Persia..
Mithraism apparently originated in the Eastern Mediterranean around the first or second centuries BC.
How could this god have been venerated 2000 years before the origin of the associated religion?
--Philopedia 01:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused Chronology 

message: We need some firm dates here.  One thing is clear - Roman Mithraism was only, and could only, be practiced in a Mithraeum.  This is handy for archaeology, as mithraea (being underground) frequently survive when all other structures have been lost.  But it also means that we must clearly distinguish the early (1st Century AD) veneration of the Persian deity Mithra by Romans keen on esoteric eastern cults, from full scale Roman Mithraism, which emerged fresh-minted when the first mithraeum was constructed.  But when was this? The papers for the 1971 Manchester conference estimated the earliest known date then as little before 150AD.  Have earlier mithraea been discovered since?
TomHennell 13th Jan 2006 TomHennell 11:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Mithraeum 

message: The issue of the compariative dating of Christianity and Mithraism is glossed over here.  It shouldn't be. It is certainly true that a range of dates have been given for the Christian Gospels - although very few serious scholars, whether Christian or not, would now defend a dates much later than 100AD. But many of the parallels being speculatively advanced here are rather between Mithraism and doctrines inferred in the Epistles of Paul; as for instance between the Mithraic cultic meal and the Eucharist as described in the first letter to the Corinthians.  But I Corinthians must have been written before Paul's death in 64/65 AD; and in any case is extensively quoted in the first letter of Clement (90 AD).
So as it stands, developed Christian theology (as found in the letters of Paul) rather ante-dates the earliest known developed Mithraic Theology (as found in surviving mithraea). But since at first the two cults appealed to totally different classes of persons; concentrated in very different areas, I would think it most unlikely there was any connection at all in either direction.
TomHennell 13th Jan 2006 TomHennell 11:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That was intended as sarcasm; sorry if it was too obscure. My point is that any two random religions you could name are going to have some similarities just by virtue of being religions. These sorts of similarities don't mean that one influenced or derived from the other, just that they're both religions. When looking at origins of Christianity, Occam's razor would suggest we look for similarities between Christianity and Judaism before looking for other influences. BTW, it would really help if you would learn to sign your posts with four tilde's. Signing up for a username would help too, since addressing you as 129.173.208.99 just sounds so impersonal. Plus when I have to put sigs in, there's always a chance I'll get the wrong one, although I do try to be careful. Wesley 18:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Connections 

message: I am not sure who wrote this part of the article: 
“After co-existing with Mithraism for centuries, Christians also began to describe themselves as soldiers for Christ.”
But in Luke (11:22) Jesus makes references to “armor”. There are many more references in the bible that indicate that being a “soldier OF Christ”. So this "analogy" was not something that was imported from Mithraism as the above extraction indicates. Also never in the bible there is talk about “fighting FOR Christ”, but there are references against it: John 18:36 “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Licio 15:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? Who says the Bible was originally in Sanskrit? I don't know of anyone who makes this claim. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  “soldier OF Christ”  

message: The supposed parallelism is in fact a modern anti-Christian viewpoint, the idea being that Christianity, you see, is all a derivative hash. If Wikipedia really had no POV, that would be much toned down.... Most of the supposed parallels, as noted by others above, are just not so — or are trivial. (Before anyone gets on my case for going against the Zeitgeist, I'm not Christian either, but that doesn't mean I have to be hostile toward the religion, or, worse, lie.) It is quite impossible to avoid "POV"; it's one of biggest flaws of Wikipedia that a pretence of doing so is paid much lip service to. Bill 08:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oboy, from the frying pan into the fire; we've now officially flagged this article as being dangerous to our NPOVs.... Repeat, NPOV is utterly impossible; and attempts to reach No Point Of View just flatten articles out and make 'em look like they was written by a committee; which they are, of course. Bill 13:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Parallelism with Christianity, continued

message: Yesterday I added the fallowing statement to the end of the article:
It is important to keep in mind when referring to “Christianity” that many of the similarities were not always present. Later Christians imported many of these so-called similarities from Mithraism after their religion became legalized and endorsed by the roman emperors, in an effort to make Christianity more appealing and familiar to people outside of the faith.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.173.208.99 (talk • contribs) . Licio 15:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Similarities 

message: Mithra was not born in a cave.  He was born out of solid rock.  See Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Manchester U. Press, 1975 (173).  This being the case, I am removing that line in the text.  4.18.35.37 18:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Born In a Cave? 

message: The above information is not refuting anything. Mithra had many legends and a rock does not rule out a cave anyway.
http://www.mithraism.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?file=cumont.txt&part=5&total=6
No other references suggest worship in/of "caves" although there seems to be some indication that the thematic source for Mithra born from a rock or cave may reach back to pre-Zoroastrian lore, which, however, does not lend to a more elaborate interpretation of Roman Mithraic cave usage in its panoply of motifs and meanings as all originating from an ancient pre-Zoroastrian tradition.166.70.243.229 06:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It has nothing to do with "Christian missionaries."  It has to do with choosing to do serious scholarly comparative work, as opposed to a free-association exercise where everything that just happens to remind you of something else is suddenly held up as proof of historical influence.  Since the 1980's, scholars of religion have overturned the Frazerian assumption that everything that resembles something else is necessarily copied from it.  You don't have to be Christian (much less a "Christian missionary") to realize that the vague appearance of "caves" or "ritual baths" in two different religious traditions is "proof" that one is derived from the other.  It is important to compare contexts, emic understandings, ritual settings, demographics and so on -- and when you do that with Christianity and Mithraism, it's clear that these two religions have no more (and no less) in common than Christianity does with rabbinic Judaism, Isis-worship, Roman emperor-worship, or just about anything else from the same time and place.  See the work of Jonathan Z. Smith (who is not the least bit Christian!) if you want to learn more about how important it is to outgrow the nineteenth century in our scholarship.  --Hapax 22:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Yes, born in a cave

message: http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Astronomy/7day.html
The 7-day week was introduced in Rome (where ides, nones, and calends were the vogue) in the first century A.D. by Persian astrology fanatics, not by Christians or Jews. The idea was that there would be a day for the five known planets, plus the sun and the moon, making seven; this was an ancient West Asian idea. However, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the time of Constantine (c. 325 A.D.), the familiar Hebrew-Christian week of 7 days, beginning on Sunday, became conflated with the pagan week and took its place in the Julian calendar. Thereafter, it seemed to Christians that the week Rome now observed was seamless with the 7-day week of the Bible -- even though its pagan roots were obvious in the names of the days: Saturn's day, Sun's day, Moon's day. The other days take their equally pagan names in English from a detour into Norse mythology: Tiw's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, and Fria's day. 
166.70.243.229 06:07, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Where days of the week are found on Mithraic reliefs, they are in the standard pagan order - with Saturday as the first day of the week.  Hence Saturday is Mithras day, Sunday is Sol day, Monday is Luna day: etc.  Constantine shifted the pagan week to correspond with the Christian week; whose first day is Sunday, and that became the general day of pagan worship.  Hence, in so far as Mithraists of the 4th century CE worshipped on a Sunday (which is likely but not conclusively proved) the practice demonstrates a Mithraic borrowing from Christianity, albeit at two or three removes. TomHennell 13:07, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 7-day week

message: I'm no scholar, but I am a Christian and do go to church on Saturday (not solely on the following point).  I can remember being about 13 and seeing in the encyclopaedia that one of the popes changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.  This was never a Biblical teaching; this is a Catholic teaching.  How this fits into the arguments, I'll leave for the rest of you to bicker.
:Gee thanks. --DanielCD 04:36, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sunday as a Biblical Teaching 

message: The article says "They venerated Jesus in Mithraic sun-god fashion, calling him Light of the World or Son (Sun) of Righteousness." Now, "son" in Latin is "filius" and "sun" in Latin is "sol." The Romans would not confuse those two words, I don't think. This shouldn't be in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.117.10 (talk • contribs)  - February 26 2006
:We should look at this and reword it/correct it. I don't know enough about it at the moment, so I'm afraid to touch it just now. --DanielCD 22:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sun vs Son

message: Right, Christianism and Mithraism origins have many links. bu I'am sceptical to the whole discourse due to many points. 
E.g. the so-called "mass" sacrement. 
::"The words Peter (rock) and mass (sacrament) have original significance in Mithraism."
The "mass" is absolutely not a sacrement!Just open the Catholic Church Catechism before saying such stupidities. 
::"It was called mized and in Latin missa and in English mass."
And even the name "mass" is not an initial nam of the celebration but came from the latin "ite missa est", words said at the end of the celebration to tell to the participants that "it's done (you can go)". Then later, the name "missa" become the name of the celebration, but it was later, when the latin were used as liturgical language, replacing the greek.
The whole discourse is based on such lies and deformation of truth and is absolutely not objective, but as the clear goal to "proof" that Christiasnim comes from Mithraism...
: you are correct on both points - though perhaps you might find your views as being able to be expressed with rather less invective.  "Mass" , so far as I am aware, is nowhere found in mithraic remains.  "Petros" is found in relation to the birth of Mithras, but this can scarcely be suggested as a parallel to the Christian Saint named (in Aramaic) Cephas. "built on a rock" is a very different concept from "born out of a rock".
:However, it is a reasonable question whether two - almost exactly contemporary - new religions may not have been somehow related.  Many theories have been advanced with supporting evidence, some by respected scholars, and it is surely right that persons who find the evidence  compelling (as personally I do not) should be able to report this in the Wikipedia. TomHennell 12:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sceptical 

message: I replaced this book in the "EL/further reading" section. If there is a problem with it, please discuss it here before you remove it. Thanks. --DanielCD 00:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Jesus Mysteries

message: "it has been suggested in recent times that the Mithraic religion is somehow connected to the end of the astrological "age of Taurus," and the beginning of the "age of Aries," which took place about the year 2000 BC. It has even been speculated that the religion may have originated at that time (although there is no record of it until the 2nd century BC)."
It would be nice to know who speculates that Mithraism originated about 2000 BC. I also noticed the Tauroctony article wrongly says that Ulansey's theory requires this date of origin. Maestlin 01:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Age of Mithraism

message: I have restored the recently removed NPOV warning on the main page. Contrary to what the edit summary stated, there was a clear explanation for the warning in the section titled "Warning" at the top of this discussion page. This article retains problems despite cumulative minor edits. In my opinion, it remains biased towards heavy influence between Christianity and Mithraism. It also does not do an adequate job of addressing the areas mentioned by the anonymous editor just above, in explaining the limitations and so on. Not all areas of ignorance in ancient history are equal; this one calls for more attention than most. I'll also point out that the current article has lots of nonspecific phrasing: "it is speculated" and similar. Even if there is not active debate on this talk page, if the article itself has problems it needs to be tagged. Maestlin 22:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do accept my apology, I didn't see that -- -  K a s h  Talk | email 22:51, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No harm done, it's a big talk page and easy to overlook things. Maestlin 23:23, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Origen hardly represents all of Christianity. The vast majority of Christians since the inception of Christianity, have held that passages like  imply creation of souls at the point of creation of body (see Traducianism regarding creation/propigation of souls following Adam). Also, there are multiple interpretations of everything in human experience, not just texts; that's just part of the human condition. But post-modernism and textual deconstructionism are relatively novel and minority positions. In science, for example, you find various interpretations of phenomena (e.g., point physics vs. string theory), but most people don't conclude that this means the nature of the world is uncertain or unknowable, only that our current knowledge is imperfect; in other words, there is an unique, objective interpretation of the world, but we haven't perfectly attained to it yet. Historically, texts have been viewed in the same way as phenomena; they have a unique, objective meaning, though we may not have acheived perfect understanding of that meaning yet. » MonkeeSage « 23:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Warning II 

message: I've uploaded a picture of Mithras sculpture that I took in the Vatican Museum.  Please feel free to use it. :Image:Mithras vatican.jpg. -- Jeff3000 01:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent! That's the finest and most famous tauroctony. --Wetman 19:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mithras picture 

message: This explains my edit on this.  Much of the material in this section is factually correct, but discusses Sol Invictus, not Mithras.  The same material is already present in that article, and there is no connection between the two cults (except that both were part of ancient paganism).  It seems best to remove it, therefore.  The section now indicates only material that can be justified from the archaeology.  It's pretty short: but so is what we know.  I hope that this is OK with everyone.  We could use a citation on the 'Mitras in the 5th century' bit, which is new to me.  Roger Pearse 14:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Found a ref -- in Cumont -- for the c.5 bit and added it. Roger Pearse 16:05, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demise of Mithraism edit 

message: I've reverted this change (reluctantly) as it does not in fact add content, but merely moves words around.  To move the word 'cult' around to that the text compares 'Mithra' (a deity) to the 'Cult of Christianity' (a system of worship) makes no sense; compare cult of Mithra with cult of Christ, surely?  The original was better.  All the other contribs by this editor seem to involve things like adding the words 'the Nazi' after 'Jesus', etc.  I hope no-one minds.  The section in question isn't very good, but this change makes it worse, not better.  Roger Pearse 07:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of change by 64.162.138.250 

message: OK. Somebody explain me this: "..., but for the fact that the devotees were convinced that..." (in the paragraph "Principles of Mithraism"). Whatta hell is that. Pardon me for cursing. What the fact does the author talk about. I think, he tries confuse not only devotees of the past, but the readers of his article as well. And there many and many other silly grammar mistakes as the article goes on. 
: "the fact that" is a clumsy circumlocution rather than a grammatical error; often used in speech to pad out a statement to make it a bit more impressive.  But the point is well made that the phrasing of the article need tightening
Here's another one: "Mithraism is the best documented in the form it had acquired in the Roman Empire." What form??? Is there a comma missing before it? Who can tell? And then it says that the religion was "passed from initiate (article "an"?) to initiate", however, later it says that it was limited and secret to initiated men. How can it be? It was passed from one to another, but was limited to both. Am I crazy?
: Like other Greaco-Roman mystery cults, Mithraism took from the Eleusian Mysteries the principle that its practices and beliefs were unconcealed, but remained unspoken other than between initiates, and within the walls of the Mithraeum. There appears to have been a powerful religious attraction for a belief system that was known to be widely shared, but universally unspoken.     
 Now this: "...have gathered for a common meal along the reclining couches lining the walls." Lining on the walls? I apologize for my limited English, so, please, explain me what are those "lining the walls". I be not understanding that. Then there are some weird words as "so as to be". I believe it's either is or not. There shouldn't be no "so as". 
: The Mithraeum was rectancular. There was a central aisle down the middle, with raised platforms on either side extending to the side walls.  Mithriasts reclined on these platforms facing inwards (propped on their left elbows, with their bodies and legs extending behind and to their right) , and were served food by associates walking up and down the central aisle
 What is soterism? (The 5th paragraph in "the mithraeum") "...mithraic soterism".
: "soterism" is the form of salvation belief particular to a religion.  In common with most antique belief systems, Mithraism saw salvation as deliverance from peril and assurance of benefit - irrespective of whether in this life or an after-life. Hence (and in distinction from Christianity), Mithriasm held no principle that suffering in this life would be rewarded with salvation in the next.
"It is noticed by some researchers that this movement, especially in the context of mithraic soterism, seems to stem from the neoplatonic concept that the 'running' of the sun from solstice to solstice is a parallel for the movement of the soul through the universe, from pre-existence, into the body, and then beyond the physical body into an afterlife." By what researchers and which context? 
: chiefly Roger Beck
Movement of what? 
: movement from one side of the mithraeum to the other
What is 'Mystagogue'?
: someone who transmits the mysteries to an initiate
What is the Rite? 
: the initiation
I didn't get. Is it "Water Miracle" or it's not?
: it is not - the Water Miracle is an event in the life of Mithras (and the reason why Mithraists drink water in most ceremonies (and have water pots built into their mithraea
 And it said like hundred times through the whole article that this information is doubtful or incomplete. Why? Said it once and then say whatever you know.
: all the above comes from comparitive analysis of archeological sites.  No "Book of Mithras" has ever been found (and it is likely that there never was a single "Mithriac Scripture".  In effect, the mithreaum iself is the Book of Mithras.  But anything that is said from such evidence could be corrected and contradicted by a finding in the next excavated mithraeum (for instance if we were to find an inscription that made it clear that the standard dedicatory formula: D(eus) S(ol) I(nvictus) M(ithras), denoted not Mithras alone, but Sol and Mithras as a duality).
"Another more widely accepted interpretation takes its clue from the writer Porphyry, who recorded that the cave pictured in the tauroctony was intended to be "an image of the cosmos." According to this view, the cave depicted in that image may represent the "great cave" of the sky. This interpretation was supported by research by K. B. Stark in 1869, with astronomical support by Roger Beck (1984 and 1988), David Ulansey (1989) and Noel Swerdlow (1991). This interpretation is reinforced by the constant presence in Mithraic imagery of heavenly objects — such as stars, the moon, and the sun — and symbols for the signs of the Zodiac." OK. I understood, like, nothing out if this. What view? Of the cave? Is there a cave in the sky? What??? Is this some riddle? Caves are in the ground, not the sky. 
: In antiquity the heavens were seen as being like a a "vault" or "basin"  (i.e. like a vast upturned pudding bowl, seen from inside).  But the heavens have no "outside" - no external form.  The Neo-platonists hit on the metaphor of "cave" as  way of representing such concept - since caves also have an "inside" but no "outside".  It is argued that the Mithriasts formed their places of worship as caves for the same reason.
aThe author must be hi. "One of the central motifs of Mithraism is the tauroctony, the myth of the slaying of a sacred bull." Tauroctony is not a myth. A tauroctony is an artistic depiction of the legendary hero and ancient religious icon Mithras ritually slaying a bull. (by wikipedia on tauroctony)
: better to say "a representation of the myth"
:TomHennell 16:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar Errors 

message: The intro seems to be using the footnotes as notes not citing sources. References should give the source of the information or view, not merely commentary on that information or view. Please update the refs in the intro - thanks. KillerChihuahua?!? 00:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Refs