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Jesus
as the Reincarnation of Mithra
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The Vatican was
built upon the grounds previously devoted
to the worship of
Mithra
(600 B.C.). The Orthodox Christian hierarchy
is nearly identical to the
Mithraic version.
Virtually all of the elements of Orthodox
Christian rituals, from miter, wafer, water
baptism, alter, and doxology, were adopted
from the Mithra and earlier pagan mystery
religions. The religion of Mithra preceded
Christianity by roughly six hundred years.
Mithraic worship at one time covered a large
portion of the ancient world. It flourished
as late as the second century. The Messianic
idea originated in ancient Persia and this
is where the Jewish and Christian concepts
of a Savior came from. Mithra, as the sun
god of ancient Persia, had the following
karmic similarities with Jesus:
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1. 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).
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2. |
He was considered
a great traveling teacher and masters.
He had twelve companions as Jesus had
twelve disciples. Mithras also performed
miracles.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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).
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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).
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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.
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9. |
He was buried in
a tomb and after three days he rose
again. His resurrection was celebrated
every year.
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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").
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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."
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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).
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