Mithraism, vedic cult adopted by the Romans befor Christianity

[Guest guest]

Birth Date of Christ

Posted on Tue Dec 25 2007 by Gurudev

 

December 25! Merry Christmas!

 

In the east we find thousands of great divine spiritual religious personalities

who spoke

about peace and love and this trend of Gandhi, Buddha etc continues even today

in the

form of Sri Sri Ravishankar etc, where as in the west Jesus Christ is the only

person who

spoke the language of peace and love, and hence holds a special place in the

western

history.

 

Unfortunately the charisma of Christ has been completely misused by the roman

catholic

church to forward its own propaganda of converting the entire world into

Christianity.

Christ never wanted to start any new religion, church did it.

 

One of the biggest misuse of Christ by Church is the birth date of Christ.

Church

intentionally has mislead the entire Christian community by declaring December

25 as the

birth date of Christ, to suite its own political aspirations.

 

December 25 is NOT the birth date of Christ. For all those who love Christ, isnt

it wise to

celebrate the Birthday of Christ on the actual date he was born?

 

Why NOT December 25?

 

Why was December 25 declared as the birthday of Christ by the Church?

 

The celebration of December 25 as Christmas was started by the Church in Rome,

and

officially declared by Constantine I, (first Christian Roman Emperor) in 314 CE,

which was

more than three centuries after the birth of Christ! Constantine himself was

more than 40

years old when he first declared himself as Christian!

 

In the first two centuries of Christian history, no mention has been about the

date of Jesus'

birth. The earliest reference to Christmas being celebrated on December 25 is in

the

Philocalian Calendar, which represents the Roman practice of the year 336 CE.

 

In fact Origen (185CE-254CE), the christian scholar who taught in Alexandria in

those days

opposed declaring December 25 as the birthday of Christ saying,

" In the Scriptures, no one is recorded to have kept a feast or held a great

banquet on his

birthday. It is only sinners who make great rejoicings over the day in which

they were born

into this world " (Ref Catholic Encyclopedia 1908, Vol. 3, p. 724, " Natal Day " )

 

Mithraism

 

Mithraism was the religion that was practised by the ancient Romans (Pagans)

before they

converted to Christianity. Mithra is an ancient vedic deity who was worshipped

along with

Varuna. Varuna was worshipped in the ancient vedic times as the lord of heavens,

and

Mitra was worshipped as the lord of light. The birth day of Mitra was celebrated

in those

days in Rome as the Sun Festival (called dies natalis solis invicti meaning

Birth of Invincible

Sun) on the Winter Solstice which was on December 25 in those days. Note that

winter

solstice is one of the most important sacred days in the vedic hindu calendar

too. The

celebration is to mark the longer days that arrive in the northern hemisphere

after winter

solstice.

 

Mithra was popularly called Sol Invictus in ancient Rome. Mithra's worship

spread from

ancient India to ancient Iran ( Zoroastrianism/Parsis where Varuna and Mithra

were

worshiped), and from there to ancient Rome.

 

 

Ancient Roman carvings of Mithraism - dated between 300-400 CE

Note the similarity of this with ancient vedic/hindu representation of these

deities

 

The Church wanted to make it easy for the roman pagans to convert into

Christianity and

also override their existing popular fests and hence declared December 25 as the

Birthday

of Christ with three major intentions,

 

First, making it easy for the romans to continue celebrating their festival

while being

Christians.

Second, to make Sun Festival of Paganism (of ancient Romans) irrelevant!

Third, to make Christian celebrations on different dates than that of Jewish

festivals.

 

Its propaganda of December 25 being the birthday of Christ has worked, as we

witness all

over the world today!

 

Theodosius I - The Person behind it all

 

Theodosius I (we'll refer to him only as Theodosius from now), another Christian

Roman

Emperor of the fourth century declared in 391 CE, Christianity the state

religion of Rome,

in fact making it the only legitimate religion, and banned all other religions

including

pagan Mithraism which was pretty popular and was practiced all across Rome then.

This

move is no different from the Islamic nations today which dont recognize any

other

religions.

 

In fact through a series of " Theodosian decrees " in 389 CE he declared that all

those

Pagan/Mithraic festivals of Rome that had not yet been declared as Christian

ones by

Church were now to be working days and there would be no official holidays

declared to

celebrate them. December 25 which was celebrated as the birthday of Mithra

escaped this

law because it was declared by Church as Christmas! Finally two years later, in

391 CE,

Theodosius declared all other religions illegal in Rome.

 

Destruction of Mithraism/Paganism/Ancient Roman Rituals/Shrines and Temples

 

Since none of the Mithraic festivals were celebrated and all romans slowly

converted to

Christianity, the Mithraic temples became ruins. Theodosius had declared " no one

is to go

to the sanctuaries, walk through the temples.. " , and those temples were closed

and

abandoned. Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria immediately applied for permission to

demolish such temple sites and cover it with Christian churches. Thus started

the era of

churches in Rome. Ancient Roman Pagan sites like the gigantic Serapeum of

Alexandria

and its library were destroyed by the Church led, state supported actions.

 

The eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum was extinguished by

Theodosius. The ancient cult of Vestas in Rome, had considered this fire to be

sacred and

had kept tending this holy fire for centuries. They believed that extinguishing

it would

result in a great disaster to Rome. One can just imagine the kind of feelings of

those

ancient Romans that would have been hurt by this action of writing off ones

beliefs and

practices. The disaster soon followed after the extinguishing of the holy fire,

where by the

entire Roman empire ended with Theodosus, and was permanently split into two!

 

 

The ruins of the Roman Forum where the Temple of Vesta existed

 

 

 

 

The ruins of the Temple of Vesta where the sacred fire once existed

 

Contrary to the common belief, Olympic games were actually played in ancient

Rome

BEFORE the Christian era. After the last Olympic Games in 393, Theodosius even

canceled

those games!! That was because there were ancient roman rituals that were

practiced as a

part of these games. So, the Christian Clement of Alexandria declared it illegal

saying

" Olympian games are nothing else than the funeral sacrifices of Pelops " ! And

Theodosius

banned these games. (NOTE: Pelops was the king of Olympia to whom offerings were

made during the games).

 

There has been ample archaeological , historical, textual evidence which provide

ample

evidence about the Mithraism practiced by ancient Romans. In fact, Ernest Renan

said in

his book The Origins of Christianity that " if the growth of Christianity had

been arrested by

some mortal malady, the world would have been Mithraic "

 

There are three types of religions in the world today. The ones which never care

for

converting others into their and treat all religions equal (like Hinduism), the

ones which

promote themselves without demoting other religions (like Buddhism) and the ones

which

promote themselves by demoting other religions (like Christianity spread by

evangelists

and missionaries).

 

Similarity between Mithraism and Christianity

 

Franz Cumont was the first scholar who observed the similarity of Christianity

with

Mithraism. He said that Christianity had borrowed iconographic themes from

Mithraism,

like the Mithraic images of the Heavens, Earth, Ocean, Sun, Moon, Planets, signs

of the

Zodiac, Winds, Seasons, and the Elements all are found on Christian sarcophagi,

mosaics,

and miniatures between the third to the fifth centuries, not before that!

 

According to Cumont, the Christian story of Moses striking Mount Horeb (Sinai)

with his

staff to release drinking water was inspired by the earlier Mithraic reference

to Mithras

shooting arrows at rocks causing fountains to spring up. This is again a pretty

common

event in the stories of vedic deities in the ancient Indian texts.

 

Read in detail about the ancient Mith