Simmilarities between Mithraism and Christianity?

[Timi_Celcer]

I was reading one muslim site and it said that Christianity copyed the trinity from Mithraism. When i made further research i found that there is simmilarity in eucharist, Jesus and the guy in Mithraism(Don’t remember its name). How can we refute this simmilarities? I don’t wan’t to just settle with Mithraism PROBABLY borrowed from Christianity, not vice versa. Please help.

 

[IAmAKaur]

Ancient history major here. The biggest problem you’ve got with this little theory is that many of the sources which detail the beliefs of Mithraism in any detail date from a period when Christianity was fast becoming a popular, well-known religion. One theory suggests Mithraism actually borrowed from Christianity, in order to adapt to the popular religious symbolism and themes of the day.

There’s an article here which might serve its use to you: jonsorensen.net/2013/04/17/exploding-the-mithras-myth-christianity-did-not-borrow-its-beliefs-from-a-roman-mystery-religion/

Plus you’ve got a massive problem in that very little which discusses the actual beliefs or practices of Mithraism in terms of written sources actually survives, other than some scant accounts written by late Roman historians. Any discussion would have to be based upon archaeological evidence only if you wanted solid evidence, but this doesn’t really give any sort of information pertinent to this sort of discussion.

 

[_Abyssinia]

Exploding the Mithras Myth

 

[Mijo12]

I would recommend reading the Everlasting Man by GK Chesterton. This is a great apologetic book, helped convert CS Lewis( a fan of mythology) to Christianity. If a similar comparison ever occurs with another religion or the same subject than this book with help you be armed against the Evil One’s attacks. It’s on the invisibleworld website, just search it. Also if Islam is a challenge for you read Hilaire Belloc’s The Great Heresies, especially the chapter on Muhammed. Its on the EWTN website library. Hope I was helpful, at least for seeing through future attacks.

 

[edwest2]

Here’s some further reading that I hope will help:

catholic.com/tracts/is-catholicism-pagan

Peace,
Ed

 

[Morwenna]

Some food for thought from CS Lewis here

The Divine light, we are told, ‘lighteneth every man’. We should, therefore, expect to find in the imagination of great pagan teachers and myth-makers some glimpse of that theme which we believe to be the very plot of the whole cosmic story–the theme of incarnation, death and re-birth. And the differences between the Pagan Christs (Balder, Osiris, etc.) and Pagan stories are all about someone dying and rising, either every year, or else nobody knows where and nobody knows when. The Christian story is about a historical personage whose execution can be dated pretty accurately, under a named Roman magistrate, and with whom the society that He founded is in a continuous relation down to the present day. It is not the difference between falsehood and truth. It is the difference between a real event on the one hand and dim dreams or premonitions of that same event on the other.

--They Asked for a Paper, ch. 9

God sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all throughout heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again, and by his death has somehow given new life to men.

--*Mere Christianity*, bk 2, ch. 3

As myth transcends thought, Incarnation transcends myth. The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens–at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass form a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other…We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology.

--"Myth Became Fact', World Dominion, September-October 1944

But then another voice spoke to him from behind him, saying:

‘Child, if you will, it is mythology. It is but truth, not fact: an image, not the very real. But then it is My mythology. The words of Wisdom are also myth and metaphor: but since they do not know themselves for what they are, in them the hidden myth is master, where it should be servant: and it is but of man’s inventing. But this is My inventing, this is the veil under which I have chosen to appear even from the first until now. For this end I made your senses and for this end your imagination, that you might see my face and live.’

--The Pilgrim's Regress, bk 9, ch. 5

home.snu.edu/~ghackler/twhf/CSLonmyth.htm

 

[AndyP2010]

Why isn’t this in the Non-Catholic forum? What has this to do with Tradition?