Mitharaism and Christianity

[Akrotatos]

Apologies for missing link but I kind of lost it and couldn't find it again. It's somewhere in Google.
EDIT: Sorry for the spelling mistake too

As Christianity gathered momentum and eventually became the Roman Empire's state religion, Mithraism was not tolerated. The Apologist saw it as a satanic transversty of the holiest rites of their religion. Nevertheless Catholicism has preserved some of the outer form of Mithraism to name some; the timing of Christmas, Bishops adaptation of miters as sign of their office, Christians priests becoming "Father" despite Jesus' specific proscription of the acceptance of such title. The Mithraic Holy father wore a red cap and garment and a ring, and carried a shepherd's staff. The Head Christian adopted the same title and outfitted himself in the same manner. While the outer appearance of Mithraism can be detected in Catholicism, some traces of the inner teachings of Mithraism can be found in Sufisim, therefore study of Sufisim allows a new insight into Mithraism, and possibly vise versa.
The faithful referred to Mithras as "the Light of the World", symbol of truth, justice, and loyalty. He was mediator between heaven and earth and was a member of a Holy Trinity.
The worshippers of Mithras held strong beliefs in a celestial heaven and an infernal hell. They believed that the benevolent powers of the god would sympathize with their suffering and grant them the final justice of immortality and eternal salvation in the world to come.
They looked forward to a final day of judgement in which the dead would resurrect, and to a final conflict that would destroy the existing order of all things to bring about the triumph of light over darkness.
Purification through a ritualistic baptism was required of the faithful, who also took part in a ceremony in which they drank wine and ate bread to symbolize the body and blood of the god. Sundays were held sacred, and the birth of the god was celebrated annually on December the 25th. After the earthly mission of this god had been accomplished, he took part in a Last Supper with his companions before ascending to heaven, to forever protect the faithful from above.
However, it would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that Mithraism was the single forerunner of early Christianity. Aside from Christ and Mithras, there were plenty of other deities (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Balder, Attis, and Dionysus) said to have died and resurrected. Many classical heroic figures, such as Hercules, Perseus, and Theseus, were said to have been born through the union of a virgin mother and divine father. Virtually every pagan religious practice and festivity that couldn't be suppressed or driven underground was eventually incorporated into the rites of Christianity as it spread across Europe and throughout the world.
Mithras was the most widely venerated god in the Roman Empire at the time of Christ. The Christian Church borrowed numerous of his mysteries, such as birth on Dec. 25, ascension into heaven at Spring equinox, Last Supper of bread & wine with 12 disciples, celibate priesthood, etc. Mithras was venerated by the legions, who saw in him a cult of power and hierarchy.
His rites featured this image, possibly a depiction of the precession the equinoxes and equatorial zodiac, which equates Mithras with the constellation and hero Perseus. He is shown superseding (slaying) the constellation Taurus, thus achieving the regenerative powers of Spring.

I knew Christianity borrowed heavily on other religions but Mithraism seems almost the same
Just food for thought

[removeduser_487563287433]

Mithraism was among quite a few religions that influenced the early Christian cultists.

[persianfan247]

This isn't something I really know about, but I am qurious to know how similar Mithra is between the Zoroastian Mithra and the Mithraism Mithra.

[Old_Scratch]

You may want to read this. It also covers a lot of other Mithras misinformation.
http://www.ceisiwrserith.com/mith/whatmithisnt.htm

[Akrotatos]

I would like to hear from the Christian opinion. It's easy to discuss about this if you don't really believe anyway, but when you believe in the Christian truths and mysteries.....

So, how would a Christian explain that Mithra had 12 students, the same birthday with Jesus, similar rites and rose form the dead after three days?

Identical Life Experiences
(1)
Mithra was born on December 25th as an offspring of the Sun. Next to the gods Ormuzd and Ahrimanes, Mithra held the highest rank among the gods of ancient Persia. He was represented as a beautiful youth and a Mediator. Reverend J. W. Lake states: "Mithras is spiritual light contending with spiritual darkness, and through his labors the kingdom of darkness shall be lit with heaven's own light; the Eternal will receive all things back into his favor, the world will be redeemed to God. The impure are to be purified, and the evil made good, through the mediation of Mithras, the reconciler of Ormuzd and Ahriman. Mithras is the Good, his name is Love. In relation to the Eternal he is the source of grace, in relation to man he is the life-giver and mediator" (Plato, Philo, and Paul, p. 15).


(2)
He was considered a great traveling teacher and masters. He had twelve companions as Jesus had twelve disciples. Mithras also performed miracles.


(3)
Mithra was called "the good shepherd,” "the way, the truth and the light,” “redeemer,” “savior,” “Messiah." He was identified with both the lion and the lamb.


(4)
The International Encyclopedia states: "Mithras seems to have owed his prominence to the belief that he was the source of life, and could also redeem the souls of the dead into the better world ... The ceremonies included a sort of baptism to remove sins, anointing, and a sacred meal of bread and water, while a consecrated wine, believed to possess wonderful power, played a prominent part."


(5)
Chambers Encyclopedia says: "The most important of his many festivals was his birthday, celebrated on the 25th of December, the day subsequently fixed -- against all evidence -- as the birthday of Christ. The worship of Mithras early found its way into Rome, and the mysteries of Mithras, which fell in the spring equinox, were famous even among the many Roman festivals. The ceremonies observed in the initiation to these mysteries -- symbolical of the struggle between Ahriman and Ormuzd (the Good and the Evil) -- were of the most extraordinary and to a certain degree even dangerous character. Baptism and the partaking of a mystical liquid, consisting of flour and water, to be drunk with the utterance of sacred formulas, were among the inauguration acts."


(6)
Prof. Franz Cumont, of the University of Ghent, writes as follows concerning the religion of Mithra and the religion of Christ: "The sectaries of the Persian god, like the Christians', purified themselves by baptism, received by a species of confirmation the power necessary to combat the spirit of evil; and expected from a Lord's supper salvation of body and soul. Like the latter, they also held Sunday sacred, and celebrated the birth of the Sun on the 25th of December.... They both preached a categorical system of ethics, regarded asceticism as meritorious and counted among their principal virtues abstinence and continence, renunciation and self-control. Their conceptions of the world and of the destiny of man were similar. They both admitted the existence of a Heaven inhabited by beatified ones, situated in the upper regions, and of a Hell, peopled by demons, situated in the bowels of the Earth. They both placed a flood at the beginning of history; they both assigned as the source of their condition, a primitive revelation; they both, finally, believed in the immortality of the soul, in a last judgment, and in a resurrection of the dead, consequent upon a final conflagration of the universe" (The Mysteries of Mithras, pp. 190, 191).


(7)
Reverend Charles Biggs stated: "The disciples of Mithra formed an organized church, with a developed hierarchy. They possessed the ideas of Mediation, Atonement, and a Savior, who is human and yet divine, and not only the idea, but a doctrine of the future life. They had a Eucharist, and a Baptism, and other curious analogies might be pointed out between their system and the church of Christ (The Christian Platonists, p. 240).


(8)
In the catacombs at Rome was preserved a relic of the old Mithraic worship. It was a picture of the infant Mithra seated in the lap of his virgin mother, while on their knees before him were Persian Magi adoring him and offering gifts.


(9)
He was buried in a tomb and after three days he rose again. His resurrection was celebrated every year.


(10)
McClintock and Strong wrote: "In modern times Christian writers have been induced to look favorably upon the assertion that some of our ecclesiastical usages (e.g., the institution of the Christmas festival) originated in the cultus of Mithraism. Some writers who refuse to accept the Christian religion as of supernatural origin, have even gone so far as to institute a close comparison with the founder of Christianity; and Dupuis and others, going even beyond this, have not hesitated to pronounce the Gospel simply a branch of Mithraism" (Art. "Mithra").


(11)
Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was resurrected. His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day." The Mithra religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper."


(12)
The Christian Father Manes, founder of the heretical sect known as Manicheans, believed that Christ and Mithra were one. His teaching, according to Mosheim, was as follows: "Christ is that glorious intelligence which the Persians called Mithras ... His residence is in the sun" (Ecclesiastical History, 3rd century, Part 2, ch. 5).

"I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths." - Mithraic saying
"I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star." - Jesus, (Rev. 22:16)

[Manco]

IMithra... the same birthday with Jesus

Christians know Jesus's birthday?

Last time I checked they commemorated his birth on Christmas, they didn't actually celebrate his actual birthday.

[Akrotatos]

Nice site Old-Scratch but now I am confused. Both sites claim something but since I don't have access to Mithraic images or primal sources I can't disprove either of them.

[Old_Scratch]

Nice site Old-Scratch but now I am confused. Both sites claim something but since I don't have access to Mithraic images or primal sources I can't disprove either of them.

He does list some sources in that essay. He cites this one a lot, Manfred Clauss' The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries, and while I've never read it looks decent.

He also lists
Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

And these are more of his sources listed on his other essay on Mithras.

Beck, Roger. Mithraism Since Franz Cumont. Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.17.4 (1984), pp. 2002-2115.

Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra. tr. Thomas J. McCormack. New York: Dover Publications, 1956 (1903).

Gordon, R. L. Gordon. Reality, Evocation and Boundary in the Mysteries of Mithras. Journal of Mithraic Studies III (1980), pp. 19 - 99.

--Mystery, Metaphor and Doctrine in the Mysteries of Mithras. Studies in Mithraism. ed. John R. Hinnells. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1994.

Lincoln, Bruce. Myth, Cosmos and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Random House, 1979.

Sandblach, F. H. The Stoics (2nd ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989.

Schwartz, Martin. Cautes and Cautopates, the Mithraic Torchbearers. Mithraic Studies, Vol. II. ed. John R. Hinnells. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1975.

Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

[Akrotatos]

Well I am a university student without the funds to spend money on books for every single thing that interests me unfortunately. That's what the Internet is there for. Alas, it lets you down when you want to go in-depth but what can we do....

[motiv-8]

Somebody forgot to note that the contemporary documentary evidence that Mithraism influenced Christianity is lacking...

Ol' Theoderic the Great might arrive soon and put this back to sleep..

[Akrotatos]

Somebody forgot to note that the contemporary documentary evidence that Mithraism influenced Christianity is lacking...

.

Hey, I was reading a book that mentoned Mithras and did a quick search. I was intrigued by what the first few sites mentioned on Mithras and Christianity and posted it.
I don't have an agenta here, just interested in what the fervent Christians of the forum think.

[motiv-8]

Hey, I was reading a book that mentoned Mithras and did a quick search. I was intrigued by what the first few sites mentioned on Mithras and Christianity and posted it.
I don't have an agenta here, just interested in what the fervent Christians of the forum think.

Easy, now, I didn't say you had an agenda, per se... but the topic in question is wildly misleading. It's not even a question for so-called "fervent Christians," but for historians...

The historical connections to Mithraism are frequently a) overblown or b) based on documents existing centuries after the advent of Christianity. Which Christian writers besides Justin Martyr are known as giving even a slight nod to Mithraism?

[Akrotatos]

Easy, now, I didn't say you had an agenda, per se... but the topic in question is wildly misleading. It's not even a question for so-called "fervent Christians," but for historians...

The historical connections to Mithraism are frequently a) overblown or b) based on documents existing centuries after the advent of Christianity. Which Christian writers besides Justin Martyr are known as giving even a slight nod to Mithraism?

I misunderstood then. And it's not about historians only.
I wanted to ask Christians especially because there are members here that are really serious in their beliefs and I always find their answers interesting even though I disagree.

[Keravnos]

I misunderstood then. And it's not about historians only.
I wanted to ask Christians especially because there are members here that are really serious in their beliefs and I always find their answers interesting even though I disagree.

Thanks for the thread. It really did help me clear out some errors.

I guess the only thing that can be said about the relationship between Mithraism and Christianity is one and simple. Its earlier texts seem to suggest that it was ...

When did it appear? Here is a hard truth: the earliest Mithraic artifact is dated to about 90 CE (Clauss, p. 21). Let me repeat that date: 90 CE.

This date doesn't require much comment. It shows something that may seem radical: any influence between Mithraism and Christianity would have had to have flowed from Christianity to Mithraism, rather than the other way round. Mithraism is not, in fact, a pre-Christian religion.

In summary, the argument that Mithraism was a source for Christian beliefs or practices falls on three ground. First, there would have been no reason for Christianity to have taken anything from Mithraism. Second, the elements of Mithraism generally put forward as similar to Christianity are either untrue or in-significant. Third, and most deadly, Mithraism actually appears after Christianity.

Did Christianity steal from Mithraism? Most definitely not.

[Ummon]

A pair of good links:

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/frazer_2.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/mom/mom07.htm

There are superficial similarities, in the symbology adopted to refer to Jesus:

ІΧΘΥΣ, the acronym for Iesoùs Chistòs Theoù Yiòs Sòter (Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour) is also an astrological reference to the beginning Fish age whereas the Lamb is the Aries ending before that.

Mithras covered symbolically the previous precessional cycle which from Taurus passed into Aries, if you will. The symbology is thus a dimensional transposition of the archetype in a way.

But the similarities are not very deep (although they have been exploited several times in history for iconographic reasons).

For example mithraic baptism is with blood, and the sacrifice is the Tauroctony (the Pater kills the bull and asperses the followers). Whereas Jesus is the sacrifice, the Lamb and the Fish: it is his blood given in remission of sins.

Mithras was a warrior, not a teacher. Whenever there are related deities of indo-iranian provenience which hold social functions of cultural nature, they pertain law and the respect of oaths, not universal redemption.

[Carpathian Wolf]

This is riddled with misinformation. For once I agree with motiv-8 which means it is divine intervention, and thus the very word of god

[hellas1]

Hi all,

When examining how other belief systems influenced Christianity, one should remember to research heavily, not speculate or gravitate to what one likes.

Research it and then understand.


It's like saying the gnostics were THE origin of the Roman state "Christianity" authorized by Constantine.
It's not true.

hellas1

[Ummon]

http://www.carnaval.com/tauroctony/

The Standard Mithraic Tauroctony or Bull Slaying Scene represents the beginning of the Age of Taurus around 4000 BC. The identification of some constellations is clear enough: the bull is Taurus, the serpent Hydra, the dog Canis Major or Minor, the crow or raven Corvus, the goblet Crater and the scorpion is Scorpios.

http://www.well.com/~davidu/sciam.html

http://www.well.com/~davidu/mithras.html

Our earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the first century B.C.: the historian Plutarch says that in 67 B.C. a large band of pirates based in Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first century A.D., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. In addition to soldiers, the cult's membership included significant numbers of bureaucrats and merchants. Women were excluded. Mithraism declined with the rise to power of Christianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when Christianity became strong enough to exterminate by force rival religions such as Mithraism.

The cult obviously preexisted 90 CE, just not in Rome.

In my humble opinion, the myth is very important in understanding Christianty, just not in the way a few misled New Agers think. The identity of the sacrificer and the identity of the sacrificed differ.

Franz Cumont had responded to this problem by focusing on an ancient Iranian text in which a bull is indeed killed, but in which the bull-slayer is not Mithra but rather Ahriman, the force of cosmic evil in Iranian religion. Cumont argued that there must have existed a variant of this myth-- a variant for which there was, however, no actual evidence-- in which the bull-slayer had been transformed from Ahriman to Mithra. It was this purely hypothetical variant on the myth of Ahriman's killing of a bull that according to Cumont lay behind the tauroctony icon of the Roman cult of Mithras.

In the absence of any convincing alternative, Cumont's explanation satisfied scholars for more than seventy years. However, in 1971 the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies was held in Manchester England, and in the course of this Congress Cumont's theories came under concerted attack. Was it not possible, scholars at the Congress asked, that the Roman cult of Mithras was actually a new religion, and had simply borrowed the name of an Iranian god in order to give itself an exotic oriental flavor? If such a scenario seemed plausible, these scholars argued, one could no longer assume without question that the proper way to interpret Mithraism was to find parallels to its elements in ancient Iranian religion. In particular, Franz Cumont's interpretation of the tauroctony as representing an Iranian myth was now no longer unquestionable. Thus from 1971 on, the meaning of the Mithraic tauroctony suddenly became a mystery: if this bull-slaying icon did not represent an ancient Iranian myth, what did it represent?

Within a few years after the 1971 Congress, a radically different approach to explaining the tauroctony began to be pursued by a number of scholars. It is not an exaggeration to say that this approach has in just the past few years succeeded in completely revolutionizing the study of the Mithraic mysteries. According to the proponents of this interpretation, the tauroctony is not, as Cumont and his followers claimed, a pictorial representation of an Iranian myth, but is rather something utterly different: namely, an astronomical star map!

This remarkable explanation of the tauroctony is based on two facts. First, every figure found in the standard tauroctony has a parallel among a group of constellations located along a continuous band in the sky: the bull is paralleled by Taurus, the dog by Canis Minor, the snake by Hydra, the raven by Corvus, and the scorpion by Scorpio. Second, Mithraic iconography in general is pervaded by explicit astronomical imagery: the zodiac, planets, sun, moon, and stars are often portrayed in Mithraic art (note for example the stars around the head of Mithras in the carving of the tauroctony illustrated above); in addition, numerous ancient authors speak about astronomical subjects in connection with Mithraism. In the writings of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, for example, we find recorded a tradition that the cave which is depicted in the tauroctony and which the underground Mithraic temples were designed to imitate was intended to be "an image of the cosmos." Given the general presence of astronomical motifs in Mithraic art and ideology, the parallel noted above between the tauroctony-figures and constellations is unlikely to be coincidence.

http://www.mithraism.org/cgi-bin/dis...part=3&total=8

The Impact of Astrology

Astrology was a "science" largely alien to Iranian worship prior to its contact with the Chaldeans of Mesopotamia and we see a strong influence on Mithraic worship, as Cumont recognizes:

As we have already said, the ancient belief of the Persians had been forcibly subjected in Babylon to the influence of a theology which was based on the science of its day, and the majority of the gods of Iran had been likened to the stars worshipped in the valley of the Euphrates. They acquired thus a new character entirely different from their original one, and the name of the same deity thus assumed and preserved in the Occident a double meaning.26

It played a significant part in Roman Mithraic worship, and can be sourced to coalescing influences in Asia Minor. The most recent and vocal champions of the astrological interpretation of Roman Mithraism have been David Ulansey and Roger Beck. Ulansey has attempted to find sources for many Roman Mithraic elements in the cult of Perseus which existed in Cilicia, particularly in Tarsus, prior to and during the centuries directly preceding the explosion of Mithraism in the Roman Empire.27 This at first seemingly unusual connexion is heavily based on the astrological significance of the Perseus constellation, renditions of which often depict Perseus with a Phrygian cap, and his mythological association with Persia as its eponymous founder.28 This association with Persia aids in explaining why the sentiment among Romans of the day seemed to suggest that their Roman Mithraism primarily had roots in Persia, such as the following allusion by the poet Statius:

Mithras, that beneath the rocky Persian cave strains at the reluctant-following horns.29

Ulansey notes, as had been observed by earlier scholars investigating the significance of astrology in Mithraic iconography, that the constellation of Taurus falls under that of Perseus, and that the couple can be interpreted as a bull-slaying scene. Ulansey writes:

This constellation directly above Taurus, which bears such a striking resemblance to the figure of Mithras, is the constellation which at least since the fifth century B.C.E. has been seen as representing the Greek hero Perseus... In addition, many ancient representations of Perseus show him wearing a Phrygian cap like that which is always worn by Mithras... The fact that directly above Taurus is a constellation which bears a striking resemblance to Mithras provides remarkable support for the claim that the Tauroctony is actually a star map.30

Furthermore, Ulansey claims that each of the animals in the Tauroctony can be found along the Celestial Equator in the Zodiac, and finally, that the torchbearers so often found in renditions of the Tauroctony represent the Equinoxes.31 This last element is perhaps the most striking, for in the Tauroctony of CIMRM32 335, we see a miniature figure of the scorpion next to the downward pointing torch on the left of Mithras, and a miniature head of a bull to the right, next to an upward pointing torch. In addition, a tree accompanies each torch: the one accompanying the downward torch bearing fruits, a sign of Autumn, and the one accompanying the upward torch, bearing leaves, a sign of spring.33 In addition, if one were to glance at a zodiac, one would find that both Scorpio and Taurus are found across from each other. When the sun is in each sign, it would be the fall and spring Equinoxes, respectively, but not as the Zodiac was aligned during Roman times, but two thousand years earlier. In this instance, the torches directions are synonymous with the cooling temperatures of fall and the warming temperatures of spring, but not all tauroctonies have the torches (and torchbearers) positioned on aforementioned sides. Many Italian tauroctonies have the positions reversed; however, whenever the small scorpion and bull accompany the torches/torchbearers, they are always, as Beck points out, lined up with Sol and Luna (in those instances they are rendered) in the upper corners of taurcotonies34. This is significant, for both Porphyry's attestation and the tauroctony configuration of the Barberini fresco, as explicated by Beck, indicate clearly that Sol and Luna were respectively associated with the forces of apogenesis and genesis.35 This further supports an astrological understanding for the tauroctony configuration, and why in CMIRM 335 the trees with torches represented fall and spring Equinoxes as they did: one the period and season of the force of genesis and the other of apogenesis.

These striking analogies lend strong support to the thesis that the Tauroctony represents a cosmological map. Cumont was aware of these striking coincidences, but attempted to minimize them, suggesting they were simply distractions woven into the scene:

These youths bore the enigmatic epithet of Cauti and Cautopati, and were naught else than the double incarnation of his person. These two dadophori, as they were called, and the tauroctonous hero formed together a triad, and in this 'triple Mithra' as variously seen either the star of day, whose coming at morn the cock announced, who passed at midday triumphantly into the zenith and at night languorously fell toward the horizon; or the sun which, as it waxed in strength, entered the constellation of Taurus and marked the beginning of spring, - the sun whose conquering ardors fecundated nature in the heart of summer and the sun that afterwards, enfeebled, traversed the sign of the Scorpion and announced the return of winter. From another point of view, one of these torchbearers was regarded as the emblem of heat and life, and the other as the emblem of cold and of death. Similarly, the tauroctonous group was variously explained with the aid of an astronomical symbolism more ingenious than rational. Yet these sidereal interpretations were nothing more than intellectual diversions designed to amuse the neophytes prior to their receiving the revelations of he esoteric doctrines that constituted the ancient Iranian legend of Mithra.36

Unfortunately for Cumont's interpretation of the presence of these astrological attributes as mere distractions, his strong association with Eastern Mithraism no longer holds as convincing, so the astrological attributes of the Tauroctony end up being the dominant aspect in explaining the significance of many of its features.

As mentioned above, the Tauroctony portrayed an astrological configuration that existed roughly two thousand years prior to the Zodiacal configuration existent during the Greek and Roman classical periods. Ulansey brilliantly explains this with the fact of the discovery of the precession of the Zodiac, that is, the discovery that the Zodiac slowly shifts such that the sun finds itself in a new sign during the Spring Equinox roughly every two millennia. The precession of the Zodiac was discovered by Hipparchus in 128 B.C.E, who spent most of his life on the island of Rhodes.37 Ulansey argues that the stoics, the most notable of which was Posidinius, who also lived on Rhodes, used this as information to justify their own astrological conceptions of the universe, and that Tarsus being a center of many stoics, adopted this discovery into their cosmological conceptions, particularly their worship of Perseus.38 Because this information was only understood by a few and so transmitted along a narrow path, Ulansey suggests this was a formative influence in Roman Mithraism taking the form of a mystery religion.39 If alternately, it was Medean and heretical Zoroastrian cults forced undergound in Asia Minor that created the precedent for Roman Mithraism being a secretive cult, it would not detract from Ulansey's assertion that the rare knowledge required to understand the astrology behind the Tauroctony encourage secrecy around the cult. Both explanations reinforce each other.

Whether the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes resulted directly in such an evolution of the cult of Persues in Tarsos is debatable, but possible. Instead of depending so much on the ingenuity of a single regional cultic movement, one can offer more credence to this reconstruction by suggesting that in addition to a cult of Perseus, an already present thematic convention of a bull-slaying in the cult of Nergal and the potential for an identity between Ahriman, Nergal, and Mithra - gods which are well-attested in regional belief, especially in Tarsus - was absorbed into the new Movement. This confluence of deities opened up not only access to specific non-astrological iconographic elements, such as the Mithraic Hold, but also easy introduction of elements from Iranian cosmogony, as well as the speculations of local death and solar cults.

Portraying a deity as destroyer of a bull, which symbolized the Zodiacal precession leaving the sign of Tarus and entering the sign of Aries, would result in a cosmic god who controlled the turning cosmos, and indeed, there are a number of iconographic references to the Roman Mithras in which his cape forms a semi-dome covered in stars, suggesting he was a god of the entire cosmos, such as in CMIRM 245.40 There are also a number of iconographic reliefs and statues in which Mithra is portrayed as holding the globe of the cosmos.41

Mithras as cosmic god finds further evidence in its explanation of an anomaly that becomes apparent when one observes the direction in which the zodiacal sign of Taurus faces; namely, to the left. However, the Roman Tauroctony always depics the bull as facing to the right. This is efficiently explained if one posits that the Tauroctony, in accordance with the hypercosmic nature of Mithras, is as it would be seen from outside the cosmos - reversed. 42 Earlier instances of the bull-slaying, such as on the coinage of Tarsus, always depict the bull facing left (along with other animals depicted on the coinage at the moment of death by the lion), which indicates that the shift to the right is a later development consistent with it being done so once the astrological significance was added to the bull-slaying. Furthermore, the numerous depictions of Mithras holding a sphere or emerging from a rock-sphere can be understood as hypoercosmic renditions of him holding the universe or emerging from it.43 This understanding is not wholly at odds with the possibily of the rock-birth motif originating from pre-Zoroastrian lore as Kreyenbroek suggests.44 Indeed, as with the bull-slaying theme which preceeded the astrological considerations outlined above, the rock-birth motif may have been absorbed into the new movement and overlayed with the above hypercosmic understanding. However, even if one conceeds that the rock-birth has relevant Iranian antecedents, it seems far more likely that the rock from which Mithras is often depicted as emerging should be identified with the Oprhic cosmic egg.45

http://www.geocities.com/psychohistory2001/El.html

As L.M.Barré has shown in “El, god of Israel--Yahweh, god of Judah and " El Defines Israel" the god El was the god of Israel, and was very differentiated from Jahveh, the god of the Judahites.

As Theodor Reik has shown[i], the original totemic beast, which became the symbol of Jahveh, was the ram, and the Jews still use his horns as a ritual instrument.

Theodor Reik was aware that the Golden Calf story conceals the traces of the struggle between two totemic beasts. Reik advances the hypothesis that the bull was the totemic beast of the Hebrews previous to their migration from Mesopotamia to Palestine. Mesopotamia is fitter to the breeding of cattle than Palestine, which - because of its semi - arid climate and landscape - fits more to the breeding of sheep.
According to Reik, when the bull was substituted by the ram, the first was demonized. Reik brings as evidence - among other considerations - that the Talmud forbids to make a Shofar out of the horns of a bull.[ii].






According to Reik, when Moses and his god – Jahveh the Ram - let the people down delaying his return from the mountain, the Hebrews returned to their previous totemic beast - the Bull – as their Saviour. As is written: "These are your gods, Israel which brought you up out of the land of Egypt."

(Ex. 32:4).



However, it seems to me that the events unfolded slightly differently. The Exodus story of the Golden Calf conceals the mnemonic traces of a struggle not just only between two totemic beasts, but between two clans or groups of clans of which the two totemic beasts were the symbols. The bull was the totemic beast of the northern tribes – Ephraim Israel – and the ram was the totemic beast of the southern clans which later amalgamated into the tribe of Judah, and which were wandering in the Negev and in the Sinai before penetrating into Palestine. Both totemic beasts translated into two differentiated gods: El and Jahveh. The former god of the kingdom of Israel, and the latter god of the kingdom of Judah. Until the Exile, after which the two were incorporated into one by the new monotheistic reforms.
It seems to me that this struggle might not have occurred in the Sinai peninsula - were the northern tribes of Israel had never been wandering – but somewhere between Judea and Samaria, before – or in the process - of the formation of two separate kingdoms (Like Ahmed Osman, I dismiss the biblical version of the existence of a United Monarchy). Possibly during the tumultuous time described in the Book of Judges. The traces of the event resisted the repression and demanded to find and expression. As a compromise, they were displaced from their original context and emerged into the narrative of the wanderings between Egypt and Palestine.



As evidence that El –the bull – never ceased to exist as god of Israel until the destruction of Samaria, we can bring the fact that when Jeroboam founded his own dynasty in Israel he made two calves of gold, and put them at the two extremities of his kingdom. As is written: “ ‘see your gods, Israel which brought you up out of the land of Egypt’ . He set the one in Bethel and the other put he in Dan.” (1Kings 12:28). The text uses the same words attributed to Aaron at the foot of the Sinai mountain, so reiterating that we are dealing with the same god.



The association between the golden calves made by Jeroboam and the totemic beast is made evident when “the man of God” who “came out of Judah by the word of Yahweh to Beth El”, in order to reproach Jeroboam, says: “If you will give me half your house, I will not go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place” (1King 13:8).

Freud has shown that eating together is part of the identification between the brotherhood horde and the assassinated father (the totem) and between themselves: “If a man shared a meal with his god he was expressing a conviction that they were of one substance; and he would never share a meal with one whom he regarded as a stranger” (Totem and Taboo IV:4). If the bull –calf was the god - totemic beast of Israel (Joseph –Ephraim), it becomes clear why the Lord (Jahveh – the Ram) commanded his messenger - who came from Judah - not to touch food or water in Beth El, in the territory of Ephraim, where they were worshipping the bull.



Another confirmation we find when Julius Wellhausen attributes the story of the Golden Calf in the Book of Exodus to the Eloist (E) source, which was edited in the northern Kingdom of Israel[iii].

The all elements reconnect to Ephraim, the central tribe of the northern kingdom.



The association calf - Ephraim – kingdom of Israel is vivid in Hosea’s words at the eve of Israel destruction by the Assyrians:



Let Samaria out his calf-idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be before the are capable of purity? For this is even from Israel! The workman made it, and it is no God; Indeed, the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces . (Hos. 8:5-6)



Israel - very differently from Judah – lived in close relationship with the Canaanites of the fertile northern valleys and with the kings of Tyro. Lebanon and the Phoenician culture were more intimate to the Israelites than to the Judhaites. We can even say that it was the same culture. The same language, the same customs, and the same religion.
In the Psalms we can find a trace that the god of Lebanon – Israel was indeed a calf:



Let The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars,
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
He makes Lebanon to skip like a calf,
and Sirion like a young ox .(Psalms 29:5-6)




The close association between the golden calf and Joseph – father of Ephraim, Patriarch of the northern tribes and the kingdom of Israel – did not escape the medieval Rabbis. Rashi, in his comment to Ex 32:4 – quoting from Sinhedrin 80a – says: “the prophet Michah was there holding a patera on which Moses had engraved the words: ‘lift the Bull’, namely take Joseph’s bones from the Nile, throw them into the fire, and a calf will emerge from them” (The translation from Hebrew is mine).

Symbols are multidimensional. You cannot apprehend them without years of study. As such, the assertion "Mithraism is the origin of Christianity" is more silly than false.

http://lost-history.com/gilgamesh.php

In Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven, Gilgamesh comes into conflict with Inanna when he tries to “dispense justice” at E-Anna. He tells her that he will not take over her portion in the temple, but warns her not to block his way either. Inanna then goes to An, who seems to be her father in this story, and asks for the Bull of Heaven. When he refuses, she threatens to scream so loud that all heaven and earth would hear. Afraid, An gives her the bull, and she sets it on Uruk. The bull devours the land bare, drinking the water, and muddying what was left with giant cowpats. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are called from a bar to fight it; Enkidu grabs it’s tail and Gilgamesh cuts it’s head off with his giant axe, and the blood splatters like rain, harvesting the crop. In a version found in Me-Turan, Gilgamesh cuts up the bull and throws a piece of meat in Inanna’s face, causing her to flee “like a pigeon.” Standing by the bull’s head, Gilgamesh then weeps bitter tears, asking himself, “Just as I destroyed you, shall I do the same to her?” He divides the meat of the bull among the people of the city and apparently forgives Inanna, making the horns into oil flasks for her at the E-Anna ziggurat. The story may reflect a mythologized chronicle of Gilgamesh conquering the E-Anna district and a subsequent natural disaster such as a hurricane or tornado, symbolized by the bull.

Or as my signature states:

Per communem igitur similitudinem ab umbris datur
accessus ad vestigia, a vestigiis ad speculares
imagines, ab istis ad alia.

[Exarch]

the similarities are indeed striking
but face it, if rome had adopted mithraism, it'd still be around today

[MaximiIian]

the similarities are indeed strikingthread

The similarities between Christianity and Mithraism are largely coincidental. Both were monotheistic cults that venerated a human/divine saviour figure; it's hard for there not to be some similarities under such a constrained system.
It doesn't mean they are connected, or influenced each other in a major way.

but face it, if rome had adopted mithraism, it'd still be around today

Not at all. The problems that caused the Roman Empire's collapse were rooted in the Crisis of the Third Century, and to the far east in the Huns' original homeland. Christianity's rise had little to do with it.
Furthermore, Mithraism spread far and wide in the Empire because it was adopted by some members of the military; this only worked because Mithraism was an all-male mystery cult. It could have never been made into a state religion.