Talk:Mithras
From Academic Kids
Would the editor of this page please read the wikipedia article "mithraism". I don't have the skills or knowledge necessary to edit this page myself, but I happen to know that there is some debate on the relationship of mithra, the persian god, and Mithras, the Roman god. Traditionally most scholars believed that the Roman Mithraens based their religion on the zoroastrian god mithra, or the hindu "mitra", however recent discoveries seem to indicate there is a very loose connection, if any to any persian, or hindu religion. In other words, the line:
- "A religion in his name was founded in the 6th century BCE."
is most likely inaccurate, as well as several others that assume that mithra and mithras are the same deity.
Ahem, pro-mithras people -- can we be serious here? While this article has a high fun-factor, it needs to be coupled to some scholarship or pruned way back. Read it with even a slightly sceptical eye and I think you'll agree that the 6th century BC worshippers of Mithras did not 1) celebrate the Eucharist, or 2) believe their god to be the Messiah with a capital 'M'. If you're still confused, send me an email and I'll explain. (Hint: although you might call them Italians, they did not, and in fact could not, observe Columbus Day -- why not?)
Another example: "It was the leading rival of Christianity". My goodness, I must have blinked -- when was that? Presumably you are talking about some point in time between the death of Christ and the elevation of Christianity to status of state religion in the reign of Constantine (of course that's what's meant: when else? after the Theodosian decree, maybe? what's the real problem for our Technopilgrim?)(although maybe not, don't let me hem you in). Help us out by stating the time, and maybe even your source which would mean something like an historian or archeologist, or even a wacky modern author. But before buying into the claim, do be sure to at least glance at some of the other candidates that got so much more PR in those days like Judaism, gnosticism, and even good old fashion Roman paganism like Julian the Apostate used to hanker for. Are you sure that Mithraism is at the head of that pack? (the other leading rival to Christianity, by the way, was Isis, whom Technopilgrim is perhaps unfamiliar with. The others he mentions weren't in the running)(And don't forget the Druids, and now you've set me off again -- why doesn't your article mention that Mithraism was a pre-cursor to paleo-Druidism? -- search for a Scientific American article of a few years back for the supposed link).
The wordsmithing in the article is great and perhaps the underlying themes of the article can be preserved, but this article needs to be rooted in specific and quotable facts.
technopilgrim 09:30, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC) (with justifiable-- don't you agree?-- interpolations from Wetman)
I just did a major rewrite of the pages Mithraism, Mithras, and Mithra. For lack of time, I have to stop now; please have a look and fix as approriate.
AFAIK, there is only a thin connection (little more than a borrowed name) between the Persian "Mithra" and the Roman "Mithras", so it seems best to have two separate pages for them, with due explanations and pointers.
Presently all the information on Roman "Mithras" is in a section of the Mithraism page, so that Mithras is little more than a disambiguation page. Perhaps this is OK, or perhaps that section could be extracted and made into a full Mithras page; I can see advantages and disadvantages in either choice.
There are many rough spots in these pages, especially Mithraism. The explanation of strological "ages" and precession is clearly broken, but I do not know enough of astronomy to fix it. Some of the details of Mithraism sound highly suspicious, and may be just extreme "new age" beliefs or unproven speculation. As for the information on the Mithra page, I have absolutely no knowledge of Zoroastrism so it is just the original contents (minus what seemed to be Roman-related stuff).
I may have lost some links, especially to the foreign Wikipedias. I may try to fix some of the links-to-here later today. Thanks for the patience...
Jorge Stolfi 23:51, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
PS. I reverted the changes by Wetman, since he had been editing the old full-length page. Sorry. I do not have the time now to Wetman's fixes into the appropriate pages. Maybe later today...
Jorge Stolfi 23:51, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Too rude! Well I won't touch any of this for a while. Perhaps Jorge Stolfi will find that I wasn't wholly ignorantly wasting my time, and would be willing to re-enter some of the "wordsmithing." So! Mary of the Perpetual Virginity, Mary assumed into heaven, Mary Queen of Heaven, Mary of the Sacred Heart is not the Mary known by 1st or 2nd century Christians. I'd agree. Wholly unrecognizable. Time to cut up that entry: Mariam Maria Mary...
As for Mithra/Mithras, the following inscription from Susa by Artaxerxes II Mnemon (404-358 BCE) demonstrates that the Achaemenid kings were not purely Zoroastrians:
- "Artaxerxes the Great King, [...] says: [...] By the favor of Ahuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra, this palace I built. May Ahuramazda, Anahita, and Mithra protect me from all evil, and that which I have built may they not shatter nor harm."
So Mithra wasn't lying low was he? I happen to have A.T. Olmstead, History of the persian Empire on my desk. No point in reporting its contents and having them reverted.
The familiar icon of the Bull-Slaying Mithra was established in Pergamen reliefs by the 3rd-2nd century BCe, then spread all over the Roman Empire. So an intelligent question might be: what of Iranian/Persian Mithra survives in a mithraeum along Hadrian's Wall in Northumbria?
The actual debate on what of Mithra survives in Mithraism can be traced through Links (preferably) and References, not by vague references to offstage "debate." What of Zoroaster in Zoroastrianism? What even of Jesus of Nazareth's actual teachings recognizably survives in the Apocalypse of John? --- Wetman 02:37, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wetman, again please accept my apologies for reverting your fixes to Mithras. I have looked at the history and, as far as I can tell, it seems that the edits you did enter (22:13, 13 Apr 2004 .. Wetman / format tweak; 22:13, 13 Apr 2004 .. Wetman / more detail) did end up in the Mithra or Mithraism page, as appropriate. If that is not the case, please point out the proper version in the history, and I will try to restore them as well as I can.
I presume that your comments above are material that you typed but lost due to edit conflict. (Sorry again, but that was wholly unintentional; if it is any consolation, I lost quite a bit of typing too, for that same reason...)
The reference to the Pergamon reliefs, which you had entered into Mithra, is now (somewhat mangled, perhaps) in Mithraism, in the =Mithraism before Rome= section; should I copy or move it to Mithra?
I have checked the what-links-to-there lists and corrected a few Mithras to Mithra. I won't touch these pages again for the next week or so at least.
For the Nth time, sorry for the inconvenience.
Jorge Stolfi 04:42, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
--New edits always make me want to add two more cents' worth. It's a sin. I'll look over the history and see that no pearls went down the sink... My apologies for making messes... Wetman 05:20, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wetman, I would appreciate if you could go over those pages and fix them as you see fit. As I said I don't intend to edit those pages for at least a week or so.
I read your comments above as a rebuke for splitting the Roman and Persian Mithra(s) across two pages. In my defense, the split was already there, between Mithras (which, very roughly, contained 95% of the info on Persian Mithra, plus 50% of the Roman Mithras) and Mithraism (with 5% of the Persian stuff, 50% of the Roman stuff). Besides, there was (and there is still) a page about the Hindu Mitra. Essentially all I did was to move the Roman material from Mithras to Mithraism, and rename the Mithras page (now exclusiely Persian) to Mithra.
(By the way, there is a similar problem with Zoroaster : it contains a large section on Zoroastrianism that should eventually be merged into the Zoroastrianism article.)
I did reorganize the Mithraism page quite a bit, and that involved merging or deleting duplicate text. I probably missed subtle points or mixed up apples with nipples, but there was much material that even this layman could tell was bogus; so the damage to the factual contents could not have been that great. (-8 At least, now all the misinformation is properly sorted and titled 8-).
The material on the god Mithras (Roman) should perhaps be taken out of Mithraism and placed in the Mithras page; that would be a logical organization and consistent with other cases. My only counter-argument is that practically all we know about Roman Mithras is inference from the Mithraeum iconography, and it does not seem fair to present those presumed "facts" separately from the description of the evidence. (Indeed, I would swap the sections =Mithras the god= and =The Mithraeum= in Mithraism, precisely for that reason.)
I take note of your point that the name "Mithras" and the bull-slaying imagery apparently originates in Hellenic Asia Minor, and agree that calling Mithras a "Roman" god is a misnomber. Would "Greco-Roman" be a reasonable label?
You seem to be making a parallel between the Roman/Persian/Hindu Mithrases and the various "versions" of Mary. From my limited perspective, I do not see the parallel as quite valid. Even if those Maria stories are quite divergent in detail, they all claim to be about the same person; so it might be reasonable to describe them in separate sections of the same page (as it is done in angel). Now, from the little I learned about Mithraism (in these Wikipedia articles and elsewhere), the Roman Mithraists apparently did not pretend their Mithras to be the same as Persian Mithra, or at least there is no evidence that they did. Moreover the differences between the two gods seem quite fundamental, and the utter absence of the other Persian gods from the Roman cult only enhances the differences. So even though the name is the same, and the theology of Roman Mithraism was extracted from Zoroastrism, it seems best to treat the two gods as distinct entities.
Perhaps a more valid parallel would be Zeus/Jove/Jupiter/Deus (and Iovis of the Umbrians): Zeus and Jupiter could still be identified (as the Romans themselves did, AFAIK) and discussed together, but Greco-Roman Zeus/Jupiter and Christian Deus Pater, in spite of the syncretic and etymological connections, are probably best discussed in separate articles, with the due pointers and explanations.
All the best,Jorge Stolfi 12:54, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've removed "However, some of the attributes of Roman Mithras may have been taken from other Zoroastrian deities."The fact is, there are many angelic and satanic Immortals, but only Ahura-Madza is the Zoroasterian deity. Feel free to rework this, specify some qualities of Mithras that come from these non-Mithra sources, and get it back in the article. Wetman 18:56, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Wetman: I fixed the terminology problem by substituting "immortals" for "deities". Specification problem I can't help out with. As for your substitution, I didn't see how Mithra being born from Anahita fit in there, and the aside about Anahita's characteristics would better belong in a new article about her specifically. BTW: check out the re-worked Mitra. Bacchiad 19:52, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I broadened and added some specificity to the sentence about syncretism. Please do make necessary revisions. Bacchiad 20:23, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Anahita is in the Avestan hymn to Mithra, right? That might be worth noting in the =Mithra in Zoroastrianism= (perhaps better titled =Mit(h)ra in the Iranian World=) under Mitra, and then linking to her own article. What I meant by "not fitting in" was that I couldn't see the link with the immediate context (confusion of M. with other Iranian gods), not that it didn't belong in the article. A subsection on the (re-)births of Mithras would be welcome under =Mythology=. BTW: Everything I've read on Anahita suggests that she was a post-Zarathustra borrowing from the Semitic Near East (Ishtar, Astarte, etc.) Any thoughts? In any case, definitely enough grist for an independent article, rather than a drive-by mention.
As I work back and forth between Mithras and Mithraism to do these edits, I'm becoming increasinly convinced of the need for a merger: to much duplication; fixes in one don't propagate to the other, etc. Bacchiad 23:27, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Well, why not practice for this by merging Jesus Christ and Christianity, then? Instead, you might track down many references to mithraeums now used (prefectly coincidentally, doubtless) as crypts for churches. Or follow up the red deadend links and create new material. Start with Anahita...... Wetman 00:01, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Meh. F'ed if I know. Bacchiad 06:21, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Cumont
Note to editors: Yes, Cumont's work has come under fire. Please integrate specific criticisms into the body of the article (as I have done my best to do) rather than appending un-encyclopedic prolegomenas. NPOV ueber alles! Bacchiad 04:12, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Last line is bullshit
"Others however, point to the lack of evidence that any of these elements were present in the Mithras cult prior to the emergence of Christianity, as evidence that Mithras borrowed from Christianity."
This is bad Christian apologetics BS. This kind of stuff doesn't belong in here. Mithra dates back hundreds of years before Christ. Hundreds of years filled with lots history and archeology. You can't just dismiss everything that is known about Mithra as being invented after Christianity when there is so much historical evidence.
The best concrete example I can think of is the virgin birth myth. The earliest Church remains date back to 2XX BC. There is a temple devoted to Anahita in Iran. It contains a scripture that reads "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras". The virgin birth motive was extremely common preChristianity.
Some other things off the top of my head...
Mithra's birthday was set on the Winter Solstice (DEC 25) way before Christianity. This is not even debatable. Christian theologians don't even believe Christ was born in the winter.
Spring Equinox (Easter) was a day of rebirth way before Christianity and Mithra were ever thought of.
Mithra being something of a sun god was worshiped on Sunday first. Jewish sabbath is on Saturday. Christianity conformed to Roman sun god worship day.
The last supper with 12 men, and the ritualistic cannibalism also predates Christianity by centuries. It predates Mithra as well.
Mithra as being a god of rebirth predates Christianity.
Mithra being a mediator predates Christianity.
If there is any statement that should be said to avoid confusion and make people feel as best they can about their beliefs, I suggest that it be made clear that although much of the myth of mithra appears in the story of Jesus. Mithra was a much older god who had evolved a great deal through many cultures. Much of the story/stories of Mithra have nothing to do with Jesus. And many of the commonalities predate both gods.
But if you really wanted to be dead cold honest you would have to admit how it very much seemed that the Jesus was a new form of Mithra, mythologically speaking.
