Borrowing was not only natural but inevitable.6. In this earlier stage, Isis had a husband named Osiris. It lies in the fact that the mystery religions paved the way for the presentation of Christianity to the world of that time. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 116: This god was believed to have suffered a cruel death, to have descended into Hell or Hades, to have risen again, and to have ascended into Heaven; and at his festival, as held in various lands, his death was bewailed, an effigy of his dead body was prepared for burial by being washed with water and anointed, and, on the next day, his resurrection was commemorated with great rejoicing, the very words The Lord is risen probably being used. In the Avesta,\[Footnote:] This is the sacred book of the religion of Iran.\ Mithra is represented as the genius of celestial light. (5) The struggle with evil and the eventual triumph of good were essential ideas in both religions.37 (6) In summary we may say that the belief in immortality, a mediator between god and man, the observance of certain sacramental rites, the rebirth of converts, and (in most cases) the support of high ethical ideas were common to Mithraism as well as Christianity. cit., p. 113.\18 Such facts led almost inevitably to the view that this idea had a pagan origin, since it appears not only in the legend of Adonis, but also in those of Herakles, Dionyses, Orpheus, Osiris, Hermes, Balder, and other deities.\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 114.\, The Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris exerted considerable influence upon early Christianity. Christianity emerged and grew at a time when mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire. Eastern Roman Empire is considered among the most influential empires of the . This coincidence had led many critics to suppose that the story of the burial and resurrection of Jesus is simply a myth borrowed from this pagan religion.17 Whether these critics are right in their interpretation or not still remains a moot question. Knowledge condemns. (3) All offered mystical cleansing from sin. 3. 223224 in this volume. However, in the conclusion I will attempt to give those fundamental aspects, characteristic of all the cults, that greatly influenced Christianity. 125126: Herodotus states that the festival of the death and resurrection of Osiris was held in Egypt each year, though he does not give the date; Plutarch also records the annual Osirian festival, and says that it lasted four days, giving the date as the seventeenth day of the Egyptian month Hathor, which, according to the Alexandrian calendar used by him, corresponded to November 13th. It is because of this crusading spirit and its superb power of adaptability that Christianityahs {has} been able to survive. S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (London: John Murray, 1925), p. vii: "These Mysteries covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabiri to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative." 3. They were not self-sufficient sects . Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, p. 135: It was suppressed by the Christians in a.d. 376 and 377; but its collapse seems to have been due rather to the fact that by that time many of its doctrines and ceremonies had been adopted by the Church, so that it was practically absorbed by its rival., 32. He had left behind the secret whereby men could achieve the goal with him.\[Footnote:] Enslin, op. But with the coming of spring the life of nature revived again, for the sorrowing mother had received her daughter back with rejoicing. Show more. Moreover, much from the Mysteries has persisted in various modern phases of thought and practice.\[Footnote:] Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity, p. viii.\, This is not to say that the early Christians sat down and copied these views verbatim. This tree afterwards chanced to be cut down and made into a pillar in the palace at Byblos, and there Isis at length found it. The basic Christian objection to Freemasonry is that the Craft constitutes a religious sect in opposition to the revealed truths of the Gospel. The preceding two sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. These are stated with sufficient elaboration in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, According to the story, Persephone, was stolen by Pluto and carried off to the underworld to be his bride. The mother, frenzied with grief, rushed about the earth for nine days., 26. This is, of course, a loaded question. The later non-Greek mysteries were personal, private, and individualistic. This still stands as a festival in the ecclesiastical calendar; and thus Christians unconsciously perpetuate the worship of Osiris and the commemoration of all his subjects in the Kingdom of the Dead., 22. Interpretation in Platonic concepts was also the means by which the Judeo-Christian set of creeds was thoroughly assimilated to Greek ideas by the early Christian thinkers Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Arthur E. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity (n.p. Through the summer the mother abundantly maintained the life of nature until autumn, when again her daughter returned to the underworld and earth became desolate once more., 28. After his death, the pagan opposition to Christianity continued for one more generation. Although the above paragraph makes it obvious that there are many similarities between these two religions, we must guard against the fallacy of seeing all similarity as direct borrowing. Followers of Mithra became less common after . 7. It seems instead to have been carried over from Jewish background and modified by the new ideas and beliefs of the Christians. The central theme of the myth was the triumph of Attis over death, and the participant in the rites of the cult undoubtedly believed that his attachment to the victorious deity would insure a similar triumph in his life. 37. The mother, frenzied with grief, rushed about the earth for nine days in search for her lost daughter,25 As a result of her wandering, she came to Eleusis where she was seen, although not recognized, by the four daughters of Kekeas sitting near a public well called the Fountain of Maidenhood. However, when faced with the persecution that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have faced in the past the "mysteries could not go underground because they lacked any organization. There are several explanations regarding the beginning of the observance of the Lords Supper. This celebration was held annually from March 22nd to 25th.\[Footnote:] Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, p. 166.\ The influence of this religion on Christianity is shown by the fact that in Phrygia, Gaul, Italy, and other countries where Attis-worship was powerful, the Christians adapted the actual date, March 25th, as the anniversary of our Lords passion.\[Footnote:] Ibid, p. 199\12, Again we may notice that at this same Attis festival on March 22nd, an effigy of the god was fastened to the trunk of a pine tree, Attis thus being slain and hanged on a tree. This effigy was later buried in a tomb. Screenshots are considered by the King Estate a violation of this notice. This makes it sound as if they were unified, sharing common beliefs that . It, Christianity, is the expression of the longing of people for light, truth, salvation, security. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. The similarity of the religious vocabulary is also great. 6. The latter method is apt to neglect the distinctive contribution of each cult to the religious life of the age and, at the same time, to attribute to a given cult phases of some other system. Jesus was the divine Lord. Since Christianity was a mystery religion that demanded initiation to participate in religious practices, Christian architecture put greater emphasis on the interior. 2d ed. It is very common to find claims that Christianity was a mystery religion, similar to the worship of Dionysus, Isis, Orpheus, etc. But, as a solar festival, Sunday was the sacred day of Mithra; and it is interesting to notice that since Mithra was addressed as Dominus, Lord, Sunday must have been the Lords Day long before Christian times. December 25th was the birthday of the sun-god, and particularly of Mithra, and was only taken over in the Fourth Century as the date, actually unknown, of the birth of Jesus.. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. mystery religion, any of various secret cults of the Greco-Roman world that offered to individuals religious experiences not provided by the official public religions. It is well-nigh impossible to . Esoteric Christianity (linked with the Hermetic Corpus since the Renaissance) is an ensemble of Christian theology which proposes that some spiritual doctrines of Christianity can only be understood by those who have undergone certain rites (such as baptism) within the religion.In mainstream Christianity, there is a similar idea that faith is the only means by which a . 10. How do we determine conjectured information? The festival of all Saints, which is held one day before that of all Souls is also probably identical with it in origin.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. It is celebrated annually on August 13th. And today the Greeks mourn over the dead Christ, represented most realistically by a wax image borne through the streets on a bier; then at midnight before Easter Sunday the Metropolitan at Athens, the priest in smaller towns, comes out of the church announcing that Christ is risen; the light from his candle is passed to the candles of his companions and on to candles throughout the crowd, guns and firecrackers are discharged, and as they prepare to break their Lenten fast the multitude drop all restraint in the expression of wild joy., 30. Firstly, she was pictured as the lady of sorrows, weeping for the dead Osiris, and secondly she was commended as the divine mother, nursing her infant son, Horus. The doctrine is almost identical. There is no archaeological evidence that mystery religions were in Palestine in the first century A.D. Jews and early Christians loathed syncretism with other religions. Both the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian {Creed} say that between the Friday night and Sunday morning Jesus was in Hades. All of Lent's penitential practices and acts of spiritual renewal find their meaning in the journey of self-emptying and self-giving love that Jesus undertakes in his death and resurrection. The Mystery Religions were eventually wiped out by Christianity. Esoteric . Every year nature passes through a cycle of apparent death and resurrection. 3 Far from being dependent on mystery religions, Christianity can be correctly traced back to the life of a real flesh and bone person named Jesus 4 as well as to Old Testament Judaism. Christianity, however, [strikeout illegible] survived because it appeared to be the result of a trend in the social order or in the historical cycle of the human race. The celebration of his ascension in the sight of his worshippers was the final act of the festival., 17. The Roman aristocrats multiplied their efforts to maintain the piety of the mysteries, and the pagan philosophers tried to refine their theology by oversubtle interpretations. He says: Following the lead of the apostle Paul, the Christian missionaries on gentile soil finally made of Christianity a more appealing religion than any of the other mystery cults. The coffin, meanwhile, was washed up on the Syrian coast, and became miraculously lodged in the trunk of a tree, This tree afterwards chanced to be cut down and made into a pillar in the palace at Byblos, and there Isis at length found it. Afterwards, however, he returned to the other world to reign for ever as King of the Dead; and meanwhile Horus, having grown to manhood, reigned on Earth, later becoming the third person of this great Egyptian trinity., 20. On the contrary, whatever real life it had was perpetuated in Christianity, since the conquering religion had adopted many of its forms and some of the old content in these forms., 31. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 42: The experiential basis for this story is quite clear. cit., p. 42.\27, The myth is also an example of poignant human experience, reflecting the joys, sorrows, and hopes of mankind in the face of death. These fundamental human experiences and the life of nature are the main substances of the Eleusinian Mysteries.28 To the searchers of salvation, the Eleusinian cult offered not only the promise of a happy future, but also a definite assurance of it.\[Footnote:] Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion, p. 54.\, Now when we observe the modern Greek Easter festival it seems certain that it preserves the spirit if not the form of the old Eleusinian worship. It was a nature myth portraying a vivid and realistic picture of the action of life in the vegetable world in regards to the changing seasons. One must avoid any suggestion that there was one common mystery religion. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Neoplatonism resonated with the mystery religions because of its idea of (p. 236), The Stoic idea of logos expresses that the world is governed by (p. 235), The Gospels, which presented Christianity as a distinct religion, were written (p. 232) and more. cit., p. 190.\. In the end, virtually all the unique teachings of New Testament theology, including the distinctive doctrines on Jesus Christ, God, man, sin, salvation, etc . The mystery religions exerted some influence on the thinkers of the Middle Ages and the philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Fairbanks, Greek Religion, p. 293: This religion was not blotted out by Christianity. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. As the religious history of the empire is studied more closely, writes Cumont, the triumph of the church will, in our opinion, appear more and more as the culmination of a long evolution of beliefs. The three actors of the Eleusinian tragedy, enacted the mystery of human life and death. In speaking of the indispensability of knowledge of these cults as requisite for any serious study of Christianity, Dr. Angus says: As an important background to early Christianity and as the chief medium of sacramentarianism to the West they cannot be neglected; for to fail to recognize the moral and spiritual values of Hellenistic-Oriental paganism is to misunderstand the early Christian centuries and to do injustice to the victory of Christianity. They covered an enormous range, and manifested a great diversity in character and outlook, from Orphism to Gnosticism, from the orgies of the Cabira to the fervours of the Hermetic contemplative.\[Footnote:] Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity, p. vii.\2 However it is to be noticed that these Mysteries possessed many fundamental likenesses; (1) All held that the initiate shared in symbolic (sacramental) fashion the experiences of the god. The books that the mystery communities used in Roman times cannot possibly be compared to the New Testament. One consequence of interpreting Christianity as an embellished mystery religion is the conclusion that Christian faith per se is the invention of men, not a revelation from God. It had to do with the nature of the Christian religion . (2) All had secret rites for the initiated. In fact the idea did not appear in the church as a tenet of Christianity until late in the Fourth Century.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. It can be shown that the very earliest practices of Christianity coincided with popular mystery cults on many levels. The essay examines how Christianity developed as a distinct religion with a set of central tenets and how it was influenced by those pagan religions it assimilated. There is more to the story before the flood, but as things started new after the flood, we will start from this point. The mystery religions and Christianity had many similar featurese.g., a time of preparation before initiation and periods of fasting; baptism and banquets; vigils and early-morning ceremonies; pilgrimages and new names for the initiates. Frickel, J. Hellenistische Erl sung in christlicher Deutung. The staggering question that now arises is, what will be the next stage of mans religious progress? Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. Supporters of the theory incorrectly assume that Christianity borrowed many of its ideas from the mystery religions, but the evidence reveals it was actually the other way around. The preceding two paragraphs are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, pp. Mithraism, a sect of Zoroastrianism characterized by the worship of Mithra as the defender of the truth, was a monotheistic mystery religion prevalent in the Roman empire before the acceptance of Christianity in the fourth century. Men began to die for the lack of food while the sacrifices to the gods decreased in number because the animals were dying out. There can hardly be any doubt that the myths of Isis had a direct bearing on the elevation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to the lofty position that she holds in Roman Catholic theology. 39. It is this fact that immediately brings to mind the words in the Epistle to the Hebrews: But Christ being come an High Priest neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood obtained eternal redemption for us.\[Footnote:] Heb. This was by no means an accident. Mystery Religions and Christianity . During the first semester of his second year at Crozer, King wrote this paper for Enslin's course on Greek religion. The people of that age were eager and zealous in their search for religious experience. Mystery religions were seen as more vibrant than the more stale state religions. After recovering Osiris dismembered body, Isis restored him to life and installed him as King in the nether world; meanwhile Horus, having grown to manhood, reigned on earth, later becoming the third person of this great Egyptian trinity.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. They were called mystery religions because individuals went through a secret ritualistic ceremony that was made known only to the initiates conducting the ceremony and to those being . The divine personage in whom this cult centered was the Magna Mater Deum who was conceived as the source of all life as well as the personification of all the powers of nature.\[Footnote:] Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 114.\7 She was the Great Mother not only of all the gods, but of all men as well.8 The winds, the sea, the earth, and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself gives way before her, and in like manner do also the other immortal blest honor the dread goddess.\[Footnote:] Quoted in Willoughbys, Pagan Regeneration, p. 115.9\. Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation, University of Chicago Author of "The Historicity of Jesus" "That he might gather together in one all things in Christ." 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