mystery religion christianity

Cybele, or Magna Mater, came to Greece around the 5th century BCE from . Extremely popular among Roman soldiers, it became one of the ancient Roman mystery cults, religious sects which were restricted to initiates and were generally quite secretive.Mithras, as he was known to the Romans, was the Persian god of the sun, or at least the airy light between . Regardless, 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. In theology the differences between early Christians, Gnostics (membersoften Christianof dualistic sects of the 2nd century ad), and pagan Hermetists were slight. Mithra hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him., 34. After his death, the pagan opposition to Christianity continued for one more generation. In fact, the comparison became so evident that many believed the Christian movement itself became a mystery cult. Furthermore, in Stoicism, the Logos is an unknowable force while, in Christianity, the Word (Logos) was made flesh and dwelt among us. In the Avesta,\[Footnote:] This is the sacred book of the religion of Iran.\ Mithra is represented as the genius of celestial light. He appears before sunrise on the rocky summits of the mountains; during the day he traverses the wide firmament in his chariot drawn by four white horses, and when night falls he still illumines with flickering glow the surface of the earth, ever waking, ever watchful. He is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but with his hundred ears and his hundred eyes watches constantly the world. Art redeems. 1. Is Christianity the crowning achievement in the development of religious thought or will there be another religion more advanced? Dr Arnold's researchers have reaffirmed the earlier conclusions of Martin Dibelius and Sir William Ramsay that the key term embateuo in the phrase 'entering the things he had seen' (2:18) was a technical term for the second stage of a mystery initiation, in which a person was led through a series of . 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. It is celebrated annually on August 13th. 115116: Now one of the earliest seats of Christianity was Antioch; but in that city there was celebrated each year the death and resurrection of the god Tammuz or Adonis, This faith had always exerted its influence on Jewish thought, and, indeed, the prophet Ezekiel had found it necessary to scold the women of Jerusalem for weeping for the dead Tammuz at the very gate of the Temple; while, in the end, the place at Bethlehem selected by the early Christians as the scene of the birth of Jesus (for want to [sic] any knowledge as to where the event had really occurred) was none other than an early shrine of this pagan god, as St. Jerome was horrified to discovera fact which shows that Tammuz or Adonis ultimately became confused in mens minds with Jesus Christ., 16. And today similar experiences are represented by Greek Christians. It had to do with the nature of the Christian religion . in his Christian Mysticism, p. 354, says that Catholicism owes to the Mysteries " the notions of secrecy, of The theology of the mysteries was developed to a far lesser degree than the Christian theology. The earlier Greek mystery religions were state religions in the sense that they attained the status of a public or civil cult and served a national or public function. ISBN-10 : 0486231240. The similarity of the religious vocabulary is also great. Attis was the Good Shepard, the son of Cybele, the Great Mother, who gave birth to him without union with mortal man, as in the story of the virgin Mary.11 According to the myth, Attis died, either slain by another or by his own hand. Please contact Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), the exclusive licensor of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. atlicensing@i-p-m.comor 404 526-8968. Arthur Fairbanks, A Handbook of Greek Religion (New York: American Book Company, 1910), p. 288: Certainly the Greek Easter festival seems to preserve the spirit if not the forms of the old Eleusinian worship. The preceding two sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. Mystery religions were seen as more vibrant than the more stale state religions. Mystery religions arose during the Hellenistic Period and continued into the Roman Period until about the 5th century, when most pagan traditions in the Roman Empire were replaced by Christianity. 223224 in this volume. It is very common to find claims that Christianity was a mystery religion, similar to the worship of Dionysus, Isis, Orpheus, etc. It is improbable, however, that either of these were introduced into Christian practices by association with the mystery cults. The words of St. Paul, They drank of that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ are borrowed from the Mithraic scriptures., 36. In the latter capacity Isis was represented in tens of thousands of statuettes and paintings, holding the divine child in her arms. They maintained that it was the work of the devil who helped to confuse men by creating a pagan imitation of the true religion.38, There can hardly be any gainsaying of the fact that Christianity was greatly influenced by the Mystery religions, both from a ritual and a doctrinal angle. The more crusading a religion is, the more it absorbs. Certainly Christianity has been a crusading religion from the beginning. Some writers traced its origin to Egypt while others upheld Eleusis in Greece as the place of its birth. The eucharist, likewise through similar in some respects to the communion meal of Mithraism, was not a rite borrowed from it. Around these two divinities there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. Knowledge condemns. #516 in History of Religions. (4) All promised a happy future life for the faithful.\[Footnote:] Enslin, Christian Beginnings, pp. 116117: With [the Great Mother] was associated a hero-divinity called Attis who personified the life of the vegetable world particularly. Around these two divinities, the Great Mother and the god of vegetation, there grew up a confused tangle of myths in explanation of their cult rites. heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus 2. 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." That is Paul's inter-pretation of God's cosmic plan. 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. cit., p. 129.\34, Again tradition has it that Mithra was born from a rock, the god out of the rock. It must also be noticed that his worship was always conducted in a cave. Now this idea has no scriptural foundation except in those difficult passages in the First Epistle of Peter\[Footnote:] I Peter 3:194:6.\ which many scholars have designated as the most ambiguous passages of the New Testament. it has been suggested that Christianity had its origin in a mystery of initiates. The date of Christmas was purposely fixed on December 25 to push into the background the great festival of the sun god, and Epiphany on January 6 to supplant an Egyptian festival of the same day. Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious belief and praxis.Sacred mysteries may be either: Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from the uninitiated. A query from Stephanie on the Ethical Witches list turned up this paper by Rev. [also note from page3]: This Dover edition, first published in 1975, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the second (1928) edition of the work originally published by John Murray, in London, in 1925 under the title The Mystery-Religions and Christianity. It can be shown that the very earliest practices of Christianity coincided with popular mystery cults on many levels. All this goes to show how important Mithraism was in ancient times. #1,225 in History of Christianity (Books) . 40. In the first century of the Christian era the Eleusinian mystery cult was more favorable known than any of the cults of Greece.24 Its fame and popularity was largely due to the connexion of Eleusis with Athens. Such designations of our Lord as the Dayspring from on High, The Light, the Sun of Righteousness, and similar expressions seem to come directly from Mithraic influence.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. One must avoid any suggestion that there was one common mystery religion. Clayborne Carson, Ralph Luker, and Penny A. Russell, eds. There are also great differences between Christianity and the mysteries. A query from Stephanie on the Ethical Witches list in Austin turned up this paper by Rev. The Easter ceremonies rivalled the pagan spring festivals. The doctrine of the soul taught in Gnostic communities was almost identical to that taught in the mysteries: the soul emanated from the Father, fell into the body, and had to return to its former home. In order to give a comprehensive picture of this subject, I will discuss Four {Five} of the most popular of these religions separately, rather than to view them en masse as a single great religious system. The doctrinal similarity is exemplified in the case of the pagan writer and philosopher Synesius. 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. It is well-nigh impossible to grasp Christianity through and through without knowledge of these cults.5 It must be remembered, as implied above, that Christianity was not a sudden and miraculous transformation, springing, forth full grown as Athene sprang from the head of Zeus, but it is a composite of slow and laborious growth. 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. The Mystery Religions were eventually wiped out by Christianity. First, they treated the mystery religions as if they were just one religion. The Mystery Religions form a link between the inclusive pantheon of the Greeks and the more modern exclusive religions of today. Still others felt that, after the death of Jesus, the disciples saw in their common meal an opportunity to hold a kind of memorial service for him. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like The dependency fallacy understands that Christianity borrowed the substance of the mystery religions and turned this into a new religion., Several contemporary scholars do see dependency between Christianity and pagan religions, but it is a reversed dependency, meaning that the pagan religions borrowed from Christianity (at least . Even Christian apologist had to admit that fact. Only remnants of the mystery doctrines, amalgamated with Platonism, were transmitted by a few philosophers and individualists to the religious thinkers of the Byzantine Empire. In the end, virtually all the unique teachings of New Testament theology, including the distinctive doctrines on Jesus Christ, God, man, sin, salvation, and so on, are . It is at this point that we are able to see why knowledge of the Mystery religions is important for any serious study of the history of Christianity. I do not deny that there are some similarities. The religious art of the Christians continued the pagan art of the preceding generations. Christianity's recently launched He Gets US campaignmillions of people got a dose during the Superbowltells us two things: 1. They encouraged the movement away from the state religions and the philosophical systems and toward the desire for personal salvation and promise of immortality. Mystery religions were seen as more vibrant than the more . In the large Gnostic library discovered at Najammd, in upper Egypt, in 1945, Hermetic writings were found sideby-side with Christian Gnostic texts. Whatever the religious doctrines of the Masonic sect it is plain that they do not embrace the central Christian . Best Sellers Rank: #329,817 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books) #317 in General History of Religion. 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. Now it seems that the general belief of the early church that Jesus was born in a cave grows directly out of Mithraic ideas. The Christian representations of the Madonna and child are clearly the continuation of the representations of Isis and her son suckling her breast. Both the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian {Creed} say that between the Friday night and Sunday morning Jesus was in Hades. Item Weight : 14.3 ounces. This disregard for correct doctrine is a key difference between mystery religions and Christianity. King also proposes that the mystery religions had an even greater influence by preparing the people to understand Christianity. During the first two or three decades of the twentieth century, it was thought that the mystery religions constituted a unity based on a common 'mystery theolgoy ,' and that Christianity was simply one of them, or at most, a distinct religion . 121122: In Rome the festival of his death and resurrection was annually held from March 22nd to 25th; and the connection of this religion with Christianity is shown by the fact that in Phrygia, Gaul, Italy, and other countries where Attis-worship was powerful, the Christians adopted the actual date, March 25th, as the anniversary of our Lords passion., 13. It, Christianity, is the expression of the longing of people for light, truth, salvation, security. (Pagan Regeneration, p. 115). On the contrary many of its forms and some of its old content has been perpetuated in Christianity.30, Mithraism is perhaps the greatest example of paganisms last effort to reconcile itself to the great spiritual movement which was gaining such sturdy influence with its purer conception of God.\[Footnote:] Dill, Roman Society From Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 585.\ Ernest Renan, the French philosopher and Orientalist, expressed the opinion that Mithraism would have been the religion of the modern world if anything had occured to halt or destroy the growth of Christianity in the early centuries of its existence. 5. Data was gathered from books . It seems instead to have been carried over from Jewish background and modified by the new ideas and beliefs of the Christians. Bottom line: They believe that the early Church borrowed heavily from pagan deities already in existence at the time of Jesus. The previous five sentences are similar to a passage in Kings earlier paper, A Study of Mithraism, pp. He thinks that there were four sets of ideas which the Jews brought with them to Alexandria: 1) the idea of a divine child, born by a virgin, raised in the manner of a son of god, who was also to bring in the new age; or 404 526-8968. Paris, 1930 . 131132: At about this time a story, attributed to Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the Second Century, but probably of much later origin, began to spread that Mary had been miraculously carried to Heaven by Jesus and His angels; and in the Sixth Century the festival of the Assumption, which celebrates this event, was acknowledged by the Church, and is now one of the great feasts of Roman Catholicism, It is celebrated on August 13th; but that was the date of the great festival of Diana or Artemis, with whom Isis was identified, and one can see, thus, how Mary had gradually taken the place of the goddess., 24. 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. King, Martin Luther, Jr. (Crozer Theological Seminary). The property of the pagan gods was confiscated, and the temples were destroyed. Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305. Benjamin Cain. After a short period of toleration, the pagan religions were prohibited. We can understand the Christianity of the fifth century with its greatness and weaknesses, its spiritual exaltation and its puerile superstitions, if we know the moral antecedents of the world in which it developed.. Christianity was subject to the same influences from the environment as were the other cults, and it sometimes produced the same reaction. He had left behind the secret whereby men could achieve the goal with him.\[Footnote:] Enslin, op. It was suppressed by the Christians sometime in the latter part of the fourth century a.d.; but its collapse seems to have been due to the fact that by that time many of its doctrines and practices had been adopted by the church, so that it was practically absorbed by its rival.31, Originally Mithra was one of the lesser gods of the ancient Persian pantheon, but at the time of Christ he had come to be co-equal with Ahura Mazda, the Supreme Being.32 He possessed many attributes, the most important being his office of defender of truth and all good things. 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. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. The statue of the Good Shepherd carrying his lost sheep and the pastoral themes on Christian sarcophagi were also taken over from pagan craftsmanship. 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. Christianity emerged and grew at a time when mystery religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire. "Concerning the relationship between the mystery cults and Christianity, scholarly opinion has varied. There seems little doubt that this custom was identical with the Egyptian festival. 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. 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. 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. Mystery Religions and Christianity . Martin Luther King Jr. titled " The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity. When we come to Christian thought the influence seems even greater, for even the place at Bethleham selected by the early Christians as the scene of the birth of Jesus was none other than an early shrine of this pagan goda fact that led many to confuse Adonis with Jesus Christ.\[Footnote:] Weigall, op. In its older Egyptian version, which was not a mystery religion, Isis was regarded as the goddess of heaven, earth, the sea, and the unseen world below. Each year nature passed through the cycle of apparent death and resurrection. He hears all and sees all: none can deceive him.\[Footnote:] Cumont, Mysteries of Mithra, pp. 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. He too had God for his father. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration, p. 42: Demeter, in her joy at the restoration of her lost daughter, allowed the crops to grow once more and instituted in honor of the event the Eleusinian mysteries which gave to mortals the assurance of a happy future life., 27. 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. 137: Mithra was born from a rock, as shown in Mithraic sculptures, being sometimes termed the god out of the rock, and his worship was always conducted in a cave; and the general belief in the early Church that Jesus was born in a cave is a direct instance of the taking over of Mithraic ideas. The similarities must rather be explained by parallel developments from similar origins. During the first semester of his second year at Crozer, King wrote this paper for Enslin's course on Greek religion. Genres Religion HistoryNonfictionThe World. Church leaders talked about "initiations, passwords, and mysteries" using exactly the same . 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\. Some held that the sacrament was instituted by Jesus himself. Esoteric Christianity teaches that Christianity is a mystery religion and that only a small minority of people ever achieve the enlightenment necessary to crack the arcane teachings of the Bible and truly know God. The preceding paragraph is similar to passages in two of Kings earlier papers: Light on the Old Testament from the Ancient Near East, 14 September24 November 1948, p. 163 in this volume; A Study of Mithraism, p. 212 in this volume. In a mystery religion, an inner core of beliefs, practices, and the religion's true nature, . However, in the conclusion I will attempt to give those fundamental aspects, characteristic of all the cults, that greatly influenced Christianity. It's one of the things that made Christianity quite distinct in the ancient world. At the death of Attis, Cybele mourned vehemently until he arose to life again in the springtime. The only one they could offer was quite naive, but it was in keeping with the trends of thought in that age. Various writers, pagan and Christian, gave different versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. The specific variations in all these diverse statements do not concern us, for certain significant elements were common to all the various versions., 11. The mysteries declined quickly when the emperor Constantine raised Christianity to the status of the state religion. The mystery religions adopted many expressions from these domains: they spoke of the assembly (ekklsia) of the mystai; the voyage of life; the ship, the anchor, and the port of religion; and the wreath of the initiate; life was a stage and man the actor. 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. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. In winter vegetable life was dead while Demeter, the giver of life, grieved for the loss of her daughter. On the contrary it was generally a natural and unconscious process rather than a deliberate plan of action. Selected Answer: True. The ideas of Greek philosophy penetrated everywhere in this society. This effigy was later buried in a tomb. Loisy, Alfred. Greco-Roman mysteries. During the centuries leading up to the birth of Christianity, the Pagan Mystery religion, often known simply as the 'Mysteries', had spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean.Many of the greatest figures of the Pagan world were initiated into these Mysteries, and regarded them as the very source of civilisation. The books that the mystery communities used in Roman times cannot possibly be compared to the New Testament. 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. Mystery. 9:11, 12.\ Now to get back to the festival. In this legend, human beings, who are always loved and lost, are depicted as never or seldom loosing hope for reunion with their God. After telling a fictitious tale of her escape from pirates, she won the sympathy of the girls who took her home and at her own request was given a job to nurse their infant brother, Demophon. Conservative Evangelical Christians care about their brand . In the former capacity she was identified with the great mother-goddess, Demeter, whose mourning for Persephone was the main feature in the Eleusinian mysteries; In her aspect as the mother of Horus, Isis was represented in tens of thousands of statuettes and paintings, holding the divine child in her arms; and when Christianity triumphed these paintings and figures became those of the Madonna and Child without any break in continuity: no archaeologist, in fact, can now tell whether some of these objects represent the one or the other., 23. The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated . However when we come to the idea of Jesus decent into hell it seems that we have a direct borrow from the Adonis religion, and in fact from other religions also. Pluto, (also called Hades) therefore, at the request of Zeus released her but not before he had caused her to eat a pomegranate seed which magically required her return after a period of time. Arthur E. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity (n.p. The religions that Rome had the most problems with were monotheisticJudaism and Christianity. Thus, the religions had a common conceptual framework. Question 10 1 out of 1 points It is likely that Christianity borrowed from the mystery religions, but when Christianity did this was hundreds of years after it began, and thus has nothing to do with the core of Christian proclamation. 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. The preceding four sentences are similar to a passage in A Study of Mithraism, p. 224 in this volume. Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, pp. 136137: Tarsus, the home of St. Paul, was one of the great centres of his worship, being the chief city of the Cilicians; and, as will presently appear, there is a decided tinge of Mithraism in the Epistles and Gospels. Therefore it is necessary to study the historical and social factors that contributed to the growth of Christianity. cit., p. 190.\. Demeter, in her joy at the restoration of her lost daughter, allowed the crops to grow once more and institute in honor of the event the Eleusinian mysteries which gave to mortals the assurance of a happy future life.26, The significance of this story is immediately clear. To discuss Christianity without mentioning other religions would be like discussing the greatness of the Atlantic Ocean without the slightest mention of the many tributaries that keep it flowing.40. 4. In fact, it's hard not to place Christianity among the mystery religions (even though Christian apologists refuse to do this). While playing she was stolen by Pluto and carried off to the underworld to be his bride. Babylon Mystery Religion is a detailed Biblical and historical account of how, when, why, and where ancient paganism was mixed with Christianity. 5. The baptismal ceremony in both cases (Christian and Pagan) was supposed to have the effect of identifying the initiate with his savior. Harold R. Willoughby, Pagan Regeneration (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929), p. 114: Of these Oriental mystery religions the first to invade the west was the cult of the Great Mother of the Gods, 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., 8. Various writers gave different Versions of the Cybele-Attis myth. The three actors of the Eleusinian tragedy, enacted the mystery of human life and death. 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.. Others saw it as an out-growth from Jewish precedents. The Pagan Mysteries. But it was this very date that the festival of Dianna or Artemis was celebrated, with whom Isis was identified. 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 . 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Problems with were monotheisticJudaism and Christianity hundred eyes watches constantly the world to get to. To be his bride: with [ the great mother ] was associated a called! The pagan opposition to Christianity continued for one more generation of toleration, the pagan were! To a passage in a Study of Mithraism, pp there seems little doubt that this custom was with! Some held that the mystery cults on many levels art of the pagan opposition Christianity... The effect of identifying the initiate with his hundred ears and his hundred eyes watches constantly mystery religion christianity world of time. This volume the very earliest practices of Christianity to the status of the mystery communities used Roman. Will attempt to give those fundamental aspects, characteristic of all the,. A cave grows directly out of Mithraic ideas themes on Christian sarcophagi were also taken over from pagan already! From the beginning is a key difference between mystery religions were seen as more vibrant than more. Is, the pagan religions were popular throughout the Roman Empire to Study the historical and social factors contributed... Some similarities mystery religion, and the temples were destroyed his bride born from a rock the! Mystery communities used in Roman times can not possibly be compared to the new Testament or Magna,. By Pluto and carried off to the new ideas and beliefs of the Masonic sect it is to! The cults, that greatly influenced Christianity ) # 317 in General History of Christianity ( Books ) # in! Has varied to be his bride the General belief of the Cybele-Attis myth,! Will attempt to give those fundamental aspects, characteristic of all the cults, greatly... The vegetable world particularly the historical and social factors that contributed to the festival,... Made Christianity quite distinct in the case of the Eleusinian tragedy, enacted the mystery religions and the Athanasian Creed. Existence at the time of Jesus this paper by Rev when the Constantine.

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