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Mithra: The Pagan Christ
Mithra or Mitra is even worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun's disciples.... [The Sun's] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox--Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb....
The Persian priests had their legend of the chief of their religion, and they tell us that prodigies announced his birth. He was exposed to all sorts of danger from his infancy, was obliged to fly into Persia, as Christ was obliged to fly into Egypt; he was pursued as him by a king who wished to destroy him; an angel transported him into the skies, from when they said he brought back the book of the law; as Christ, he was tempted by the devil, who made him magnificent promises, if he would but follow him; he was pursued and calumniated, as Christ, by the Pharisees; he performed miracles, in order to confirm his divine mission and the dogmas contained in his book. Such was the history of the god Mithra given by the Persians--squaring exactly with the history of Christ given by his worshippers. Now, Mithra was but a personification of the Sun--and we dare to say, what all intelligent readers will certainly think, that Christ was no more--nay, that the Christian religion is a mere copy of the Persian--a branch of the same allegorical tree.
Because of its evident relationship to Christianity, special attention needs to be paid to the Persian/Roman religion of Mithraism. The worship of the Indo-Persian god Mithras or Mithra dates back centuries or millennia prior to the common era. The god is found as "Mitra" in the Indian Vedic religion, which is over 3,500 years old, by conservative estimates. When the Iranians separated from their Indian brethren, Mitra became known as "Mithra" or "Mihr," as he is called in Persian. Concerning the ancient unity of the Indian and Iranian peoples, Dr. Haug states (as related by Prasad):
"The relationship of the Avesta language to the most ancient Sanskrit, the so-called Vedic dialect, is as close as that of the different dialects of the Greek language (Aeolic, Ionic, Doric, or Attic) to each other. The languages of the sacred hymns of the Brahmans and of those of the Parsis are only the two dialects of the separate tribes of one and the same nation."
By around 1500 BCE, Mithra worship had made it to the Near East, in the Indian kingdom of the Mitanni, who at that time occupied Assyria. Mithra worship, however, was known also by that time as far west as the Hittite kingdom, only a few hundred miles east of the Mediterranean, as is evidenced by the Hittite-Mitanni tablets found at Bogaz-Ky in what is now Turkey. As Halliday relates:
The history of Mithraism reaches back into the earliest records of the Indo-European language. Documents which belong to the fourteenth century before Christ have been found in the Hittite capital of Boghaz Keui, in which the names of Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Heavenly Twins, the Nasatyas, are recorded. Further, the forms, in which the names are given, are not Iranian; and it almost certainly follows that, at the time when they were written, the Iranian and Indian stocks were not yet differentiated.
The Indian Mitra was essentially a sun god, representing the "friendly" aspect of the sun. So too was the Persian derivative Mithra, who was a "benevolent god" and the bestower of health, wealth and food. Mithra also seems to have been looked upon as a sort of Prometheus, for the gift of fire. His worship purified and freed the devotee from sin and disease. Eventually, Mithra became more militant, and he is best known as a warrior. As the Indian scholar Srivastava says:
The militant side of Mithra's personality casually indicated in the Avesta and the Rigveda was fully developed in the later Mithraism.
He is the creator of the world and the sovereign over all. He is the officiating priest.
Like so many gods, Mithra was the light and power behind the sun. In Babylon, Mithra was identified with Shamash, the sun god. Christian authority and biblical commentator Matthew Henry (18th century) stated that "Mithra, the sun," was the god of King Shalmaneser V of Assyria, who in the 8th century BCE conquered Samaria and "carried away the Israelites." Mithra was also the god of Cyrus, conqueror of Babylon, who was considered the Messiah or Christos by Jews during the "Captivity." In fact, Mithra is Bel, the Mesopotamian and Canaanite/ Phoenician sun god, who is likewise Marduk, the Babylonian god who represented both the planet Jupiter and the sun. According to Clement of Alexandria's debate with Appion (Homily VI, ch. X), Mithra is also Apollo.
Mithra's popularity and importance is evident from the prevalence of the name "Mithradates" ("justice of Mithra") among Near Easterners by the seventh century BCE. As Halliday relates:
It is not surprising to find that Artaxerxes adopted Mithraism as a royal cult. After the downfall of Persia, it remained an important religion in Asia Minor, and the continuous use of the name of the god in the formation of names, like Mithradates, bears testimony to his popularity. The Seleucid successors of Alexander paid worship to the god of light, truth and royalty, whose effulgence was equivalent to the Tuch basilewV, which is but inadequately translated "the Fortune of the King."
This aspect of Mithraism as a royal cult is illustrated by the reliefs from the tomb of King Antiochus [IV] Epiphanes of Commagene, which stood upon a spur of the Taurus overlooking the valley of the Euphrates. Here the king is represented with tiara and sceptre in the act of shaking the right hand of Mithras, whose Persian cap is surrounded by a rayed solar nimbus.
In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the "Persian Mitra" (Bk. 1, c. 131):
The following are certain Persian customs which I can describe from personal knowledge. The erection of statues, temples, and altars is not an accepted practice amongst them, and anyone who does such a thing is considered a fool, because, presumably, the Persian religion is not anthropomorphic like the Greek. Zeus, in their system, is the whole circle of the heavens, and they sacrifice to him from the tops of mountains. They also worship the sun, moon, and earth, fire, water, and winds, which are their only original deities: it was later that they learned from the Assyrians and Arabians the cult of Uranian Aphrodite. The Assyrian name for Aphrodite is Mylitta, the Arabian Alilat, the Persian Mitra.
Herodotus's editor Marincola notes that Herodotus is wrong about the Aphrodite-Mithra connection, because Mithra is male, and Halliday thinks Herodotus confused Mithra with his consort. However, others have asserted that Mithra is bi-gendered. As Bell says, "Mithras, the Persian deity, was both god and goddess." Simone Weil avers that Mithras (the female Persian deity, per Herodotus) is "probably that Wisdom which seems to have appeared in the sacred books of Israel after the exile." "Mitra" may be a hyphenation of Maat, or Mut ("mother"), the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Justice, and Ra, the sun god. Ancient authorities in addition to Herodotus who discuss Mithra include Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 5, 53 and c. iv. 24); and Plutarch (Artax. 4 and Alexand. 30).
In time, the Persian Mithraism became infused with the more detailed astrotheology of the Babylonians and Chaldeans, and was notable for its astrology and magic; indeed, its priests or magi lent their name to the word "magic." Included in the Mithraic development was the emphasis on his early Indian role as a sun god. As Legge says:
The Vedic Mitra was originally the material sun itself, and the many hundreds of votive inscriptions left by the worshippers of Mithras to "the unconquered Sun Mithras," to the unconquered solar divinity (numen) Mithras, to the unconquered Sun-God (deus) Mithra, and allusions in them to priests (sacerdotes), worshippers (cultores), and temples (templum) of the same deity leave no doubt open that he was in Roman times a sun-god.
By the Roman legionnaires, Mithra was called "the divine Sun, the Unconquered Sun." He was said to be "Mighty in strength, mighty ruler, greatest king of gods! O Sun, lord of heaven and earth, God of Gods!" Mithra was also deemed "the mediator" between heaven and earth, a role often ascribed to the god of the sun.
Regarding Mithra, Bryant states:
Some make a distinction between Mithras, Mithres, and Mithra: but they were all the same Deity, the Sun, esteemed the chief God of the Persians.
In his proof of this assertion, Bryant cites Hesychius (6th century ce): "MiqraV o hlioV para PersaiV" ("Mithras, the sun of Persia") and "MiqrhV o protoV en PersaiV QeoV" ("Mithres, the first god in Persia."). Hesychius thus confirms not only the solar nature but also the Persian origin of Mithra, still known in his day.
As stated, the priests of Mithra, and of Iranian sun and fire worship in general, were the Magi, or Magas. According to Srivastava's detailed analysis, the Magas entered India on a number of occasions over a period of centuries, prior to and during the common era. At this point, Indian sun worship became increasingly formalized, with elaborate rituals, temples and images sprouting up, and, from the 6th century ce onward, royal names began to have "Mihira" (Mithra) in them, after a millennium of integration (or reintegration) into Indian culture. Regarding the Magi of Medea, west of Mesopotamia, Srivastava states:
Originally there had been fundamental differences between their way of life and that of Persians, but later on there was a compromise, out of which Mithraism was born not later than the 5th-4th cent. b.c. Before the Persian impact, this cult was already influenced by the religions of Babylonia and Chaldea.
Subsequent to the campaign of Alexander the Great, Mithra became the "favorite deity" of Asia Minor. Christian writer George W. Gilmore, an associate editor of the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (VII, 420), says:
It was probably at this period, 250-100 b.c., that the Mithraic system of ritual and doctrine took the form which it afterward retained. Here it came into contact with the mysteries, of which there were many varieties, among which the most notable were those of Cybele.
Mithraism took hold with the upsurge of the notorious mysteries, which flowed from Asia Minor to Greece and Rome, although Mithraism itself did not penetrate Greece, likely due to the Greeks' aversion to all things Persian, following the Persian Wars.
According to Plutarch, Mithraism began to be absorbed by the Romans during Pompey's campaign against Cilician pirates around 70 BCE . The religion eventually migrated from Asia Minor through the soldiers, many of whom had been citizens of Asia Minor, into Rome and the far reaches of the Empire. In fact, Mithraism can be found from India to Scotland, with abundant monuments in numerous countries. As Robertson says:
In the early centuries of the Christian era Mithraism was the most nearly universal religion in the Western world. The monumental remains of the Roman period show its extraordinary extension in almost all parts of the empire.
Syrian merchants brought Mithraism to the major cities, such as Alexandria, Rome and Carthage, while captives carried it to the countryside. In short, Mithraism and its mysteries permeated the Roman Empire. Among its secret society members were emperors, politicians and businessmen, per Schaff-Herzog (VII, 421):
In the first Christian century there were in Rome associations of the followers of Mithra, probably organized as burial associations, in accordance with a common device of that period employed to acquire a legal status. The growth and importance of the cult in the second century are marked by the literary notices; Celsus opposed it to Christianity, Lucian made it the object of his wit. Nero desired to be initiated; Commodus (180-192) was received into the brotherhood; in the third century the emperors had a Mithraic Chaplain; Aurelian (270-275) made the cult official; Diocletian, with Galerius and Licinius, in 307 dedicated a temple to Mithra; and Julian was a devotee.
As has been remarked upon by a number of writers, Mithraism was a brotherhood with an all-male lodge-like structure much like the Masonry of the past several centuries. As Legge states:
there is no doubt women were strictly excluded from all the ceremonies of the cult, thereby justifying in some sort the remark of Renan that Mithraism was a "Pagan Freemasonry."
Robertson also says:
Mithraism was always a sort of freemasonry, never a public organization.
And Halliday comments:
the general character of the initiatory rites was that which the world at large associates with Freemasonry, and which, indeed, is common to all similar kinds of religious ceremony in all stages of culture down to the puberty ceremonies of savages.
In its entry under "Mithraism," the Catholic Encyclopedia states:
The small Mithraic congregations were like masonic lodges for a few and for men only and even those mostly of one class, the military; a religion that excludes the half of the human race bears no comparison to the religion of Christ. Mithraism was all comprehensive and tolerant of every other cult, the Pater Patrum himself was an adept in a number of other religions; Christianity was essential exclusive, condemning every other religion in the world, alone and unique in its majesty.
In its attempts at distinguishing Catholicism from Mithraism and other Pagan religions, the Catholic Encyclopedia boasts that, unlike those ideologies, Christianity is intolerant and exclusive. One of the reasons Mithraism did not last, in fact, is because it excluded women. As Legge says:
What they, and even more urgently their womenfolk, needed was a God, not towering above them like the Eternal Sun, the eye of Mithras and his earthly representative, shedding his radiance impartially upon the just and the unjust; but a God who had walked upon the earth in human form, who had known like themselves pain and affliction, and to whom they could look for sympathy and help. Such a god was not to be found in the Mithraic Cave.
Drews also discusses this development:
It has been said that Mithraism failed, in contrast with Christianity, precisely because it did not spring from a strong personality such as Jesus. There is this much truth in the statement, that the Persian Mithra was a very shadowy form beside Jesus, who came nearer to the heart, especially of women, invalids, and the weak, in his human features and on account of the touching description of his death.
In this scenario, of course, appears a major reason for making Jesus Christ into a "real person."
In any case, before its usurpation by Christianity Mithraism enjoyed the patronage of some of the most important individuals in the Roman Empire. In the fifth century, the emperor Julian, having rejected his birth-religion of Christianity, adopted Mithraism and "introduced the practise of the worship at Constantinople."
For Mithraism and Paganism in general, Julian's demise was the straw that broke the camel's back. In fact, following Julian's death "the attack of Christianity was definite and furious." After this point, Mithraism began to decline and disappeared almost entirely until the end of the 15th century, when it reappeared sparsely in European literature and imagery. Yet Mithraism had existed for several centuries and had made a significant impact on the Roman world. Indeed, factoring in his pre-Roman roots, Mithra could be considered the oldest "Roman" god:
If length of ancestry went for anything in such matters, [Mithras] might indeed claim a greater antiquity than any deity of the later Roman Pantheon, with the single exception of the Alexandrian gods. Mithras was certainly worshipped in Vedic India, where his name of Mitra constantly occurs in sacred texts as the "shining one," meaning apparently the material sun.
And, as Gilmore states, Mithraism's general shape was reached between 250-100 BCE, when its "system of ritual and doctrine took the form which it afterward retained," centuries before the advent of Christianity.
Mithra and the Bull
In the past couple of decades Mithraism as a Persian religion of antiquity prior to the common era has come under assault, with its main scholar, Franz Cumont, likewise assailed. The argument is based chiefly on the bull-slaying iconography, in which Mithra is depicted as standing on the bull, in the process of slitting its throat, imagery found within the Roman Mithraism and seemingly absent from the Persian version. As Srivastava relates:
There is one significant difference between Indian Mitra and Mithraic Mithra. Mithra is credited with the slaying of the bull, but we do not find any reference to this legend in the Puranas or other literature. No representation of this episode is found in the Indian art, though it was frequently represented in the arts of Asia Minor and Rome. There are many rites of initiation which are not traceable in the Puranas.
Based on this apparent absence, it has been argued that Roman Mithraism is a "new religion" similar only in name to Persian Mithraism. The argument is in the main unconvincing and seems to be motivated by Christian backlash attempting to debunk the well-founded contention that Christianity copied Mithraism in many germane details. In reality, the bull-slaying motif and ritual existed in numerous cultures prior to the Christian era, regardless of whether or not it is depicted in literature or iconography in Persia. In fact, the bull motif is a reflection of the Age of Taurus, around 4500-2300 BCE, one of the 2,150-year ages created by the precession of the equinoxes.
As we have seen, rather than it being a "discovery" by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in the 2nd [3rd?] century, the knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes extends back thousands of years, possibly to the Age of Gemini or even earlier, as evinced by notable astronomers such as Dr. Krupp. [chk] That the ancients followed precessional ages is revealed abundantly in the archaeological record. For example, the sacred bull motif is found in numerous places around the "known world" precisely during the Age of Taurus. The change between the ages of Taurus and Aries is recorded even in the Bible, at Exodus 12, where Moses institutes the sacrifice of the lamb or ram instead of the bull. Clearly, something is amiss with our historical chronology; keeping in mind the massive destruction of culture and the pervasive tendency towards secrets and mysteries, it is wise not to take sudden "discoveries" of this sort on face value.
The discernment of the Mithraic bull as representing the sign and age of Taurus is likewise not new; indeed, in the 18th century Dupuis insisted upon the identification, as did Volney. By the end of the 19th century, Bunsen also wrote about the Taurean bull, first speaking of Buddha as represented by the Lamb, but not the Bull, unlike Mithra:
Buddha is never represented as a bull, like Mithras and the more ancient solar heroes of the time when Taurus was the spring equinoctial sign.
Bunsen further says:
Like Ormuzd, Mithras is represented riding on the bull, and Jehovah is described as riding on the Cherub, Kirub or bull. This bull is almost certainly the constellation of Taurus; and the same Mithraic representation connects with the bull a scorpion, evidently the opposite constellation. Also the Hebrews knew traditions according to which the Memra or Word of God, the Messiah, was symbolised first by fire, that is, by the fiery or brazen serpent, which probably pointed to lightning, and later the Hebrews symbolised the Word by the sun.
In addition to the bull motif are the degrees of initiation within Mithraism, which Volney names as the "raven, griffin, soldier, lion, Persian, courier of the sun, and father." He further states:
The real initiation was called sacramentum, possibly from the oath not to divulge the doctrine and rites of which the initiate gained knowledge. The various steps were accompanied by ablutions and aspersions, signifying the purging away of sins. It would seem that on attaining the rank of soldier, the candidate was branded with a hot iron.
In his "Letter to Laeta," Jerome relates the levels of Mithraic initiation as "Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Perseus, Sun, Crab, and Father." Like the bull, these initiation degrees have been determined to represent constellations, as part of the Mithraic "star map," as demonstrated most recently by David Ulansey. In an article excerpted from his book, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World, Ulansey says:
For the constellations pictured in the standard tauroctony have one thing in common: namely, they all lay on the celestial equator as it was positioned during the epoch immediately preceeding the Greco-Roman "Age of Aries." During that earlier age, which we may call the "Age of Taurus," lasting from around 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the celestial equator passed through Taurus the Bull (the spring equinox of that epoch), Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion (the autumn equinox): that is, precisely the constellations represented in the Mithraic tauroctony.
In this "Age of Taurus" the celestial equator passed through Taurus, Canis Minor, Hydra, Corvus, and Scorpio: precisely the constellations pictured in the Mithraic bull-slaying icon.
Thus all of the figures found in the tauroctony represent constellations that had a special position in the sky during the Age of Taurus. The Mithraic tauroctony, then, was apparently designed as a symbolic representation of the astronomical situation that obtained during the Age of Taurus.
Regarding the slaying of the Mithraic Bull, Freke and Gandy remark:
Scholars now understand that altar-pieces representing Mithras slaying a bull are actually star maps depicting the ending of the Age of Taurus.
As can be seen, the conclusion is that the various Mithraic initiation levels are derived from the skies during the Taurean Age, some 4,000 to 6,000 years ago. Another explanation would be that those who created these levels "backdated" their symbolism.
Mithra's slaying of the Bull was an act that became as central to Mithraism as was the crucifixion to Christianity. The bull represented rebirth, fertility and fecundity, with his blood corresponding to the wine of the mysteries. The sacrifice of the bull was reenacted in the Mithraic baptism, a mystery rite in which the initiates were splattered with the blood. The initiate was then said to have been "born again." Concerning the Mithraic ritual, Halliday says:
Naturally enough, the baptism of bull's blood came to be interpreted in a more spiritual sense than that of its originally magical purpose. The bath of bull's blood cleansed the initiate from sin; its performance was regarded as the day of his spiritual birth; he was reborn into eternity.
The Mithra-Bull motif, in which the god seeks out, grabs the bull by the horns and then mounts it, resembles the Zen Buddhist story regarding the sage in search of his "bull," which represents himself. Indeed, in slaying the Heavenly Bull, Mithra is essentially sacrificing himself, in order to save the world:
The bull appears to signify the earth or mankind, and the implication is that Mithra, like Christ, overcame the world; but in the early Persian writings Mithra himself is the bull, the god thus sacrificing himself, which is a close approximation to the Christian idea.
That Mithra is himself the bull is further evident from Robert Graves's assertion that the "Persian Mithras was also eaten in bull form."
As noted, because Mithraic art of the Persians and Indians does not depict Mithra with the Bull, it is claimed that Indo-Persian Mithraism is not the same as that of Rome. In reality, the bull was sacred to the sun god and was an early solar symbol because of its connection to agriculture, in drawing the plough, which is why the time of planting is called "Taurus" and is represented by the bull. In actuality, the solar-bull motif is found in very ancient cultures, including the Sumerian, upon whose seals is depicted the flaming "Bull of Heaven," representing the sun's "fierce aspect." Such a depiction obviously represents the sun in the Age of Taurus, demonstrating again that the ancients at least 4,000 years ago knew about the precession of the equinoxes. Indeed, long before the Christian/Roman Mithraic era, numerous gods were worshipped in the form of the bull, including Zeus and his Indian counterpart, Shiva, as well as the Egyptian gods Min, Ra and Amen, the latter of whom was called "the young bull with sharp pointed horns." The very ancient Osiris and the later Egyptian god Apis likewise were depicted as bulls, as was Osiris's Greek counterpart, Dionysus/Bacchus. A number of goddesses also were represented as cows, such as Neith and Hathor.
Regarding the bull motif in India, Srivastava states:
In the Rig Veda, Surya is called a bull. In the Atharveda, Rohitathe Sungodis addressed as the bull arranging the day and night, and in many rites the bull is a symbol of the Sun.
It is suggested that the unicorn or urus bull so profusely represented on the Indus seals may have been a symbol of the Sungod. There is a curious object with rays in association with the Urus-bull, which may be taken as the Sun-disc.
In the Atharvaveda, the Indian sun god Rohita is called "a bull or the bull of prayers." Rohita is identified with the sacrifice, offering himself and a "primaeval sacrifice," from which all are born and the universe is created. In the Rig Veda, the fire and sun god Agni is "often invoked as 'the Bull,'" which is a symbol of the god's strength, as well as of the fire and sun god(s).
Furthermore, as Srivastava relates, the bull motif is "profusely presented" in the imagery of, and as an object of worship in, the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley, which is conservatively dated to 2500-1700 BCE. In fact, the taurine solar symbol x is found repeatedly on ancient pottery in the Indus Valley.
In the Indian text Taiit. Brahmana (ii. 7, 11, 1), the sun and storm god Indra is described as a bull, and bulls were sacrificed to him. Muir translates:
"Indra invited them to the ceremony when pacified, for the kayasubhiya is used for pacification. Hence these bulls are to be offered both to Indra and the Maruts. Three are sacrificed on the first day, as many on the second and third; on the last day five are immolated."
Hence, in the millennium or millennia prior to the common era, and in the culture that spawned the Persian, appears the motif of the sun god as the bull, performing a sacrifice or sacrificing himself for the welfare of the universe. Concerning the Mithra myth and its connection to both India and Persia, Rev. Lundy provides interesting assertions:
inasmuch as the Persian Fire-worship and the main part of the Persian religion were derived from India, the sacrifice, death, and Resurrection of Mithra become but counterparts of Vishnu's incarnation, sacrifice, etc., in Krishna.
Here Lundy is maintaining that the Persian Mithra was sacrificed and resurrected, and that the motif corresponds to the "life" of Krishna, another Indian sun god. As we have seen, Mithra is himself the bull, who is sacrificed for the welfare of the world, a common theme concerning the sun god. Furthermore, Higgins quotes his "learned friend" Colonel Tod as saying (Trans. Asiat. Soc., II, 279):
The Bull was offered to Mithras by the Persians, and opposed as it now appears to the Hindu faith, he formerly bled on the altars of the sun God (Bal-iswara), on which the Buld-dan (offering of the bull) was made.
From this quote as well we can conclude that ancient Indians likewise sacrificed bulls, in this case to Baliswara, the Indian version of Baal (+ Osiris), who is also the Bull. As Bel/Baal, Mithra was associated with the Bull long anterior to the Christian era. Writing decades before the era of Cumont, Col. Tod also asserts that the bull was sacrificed to Mithra by the Persians.
In reality, bulls were sacrificed in many cultures millennia prior to the common era, including on the Greek island of Crete, some 4,000 years ago. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, composed more than 4,000 years ago (one account puts Gilgamesh at c. 3120 BCE), and on Akkadian cylinder seals of the same age, the Sumero-Babylonian demigod/hero Gilgamesh is represented as wrestling and killing the "Bull of Heaven," which is the sign of Taurus and essentially the same motif as Mithra slaying the bull. Regarding this ancient bull-slaying motif in the Near East, Robertson remarks:
The origin of the symbolism [of the Bull] goes back to an ancient Assyrian cult which produced monuments of a divine or kingly personage slaying a lion or a bull by thrusting a sword through him.
The sacrifice to, or reverence of, the bull in can also be found in an image (c. 1400 BCE) from the palace of Alaa Hyk in Turkey, near Bogaz-Ky, where the Hittite-Mitanni tablets were found. In this relief, a man and priestess approach a bull on a pedestal in front of an altar. Each figure has its arm raised, as if to sacrifice the bull. In the Hurrian mythology, the god Teshub has attached to his chariot two bulls representing Night and Day. Teshub, James relates, was "frequently depicted standing on a bull." Thus, in the area where the "Roman" Mithra arose we find images of a deity riding in a chariot and standing on a bull, as well as the bull-slaying ritual, more than one to two millennia before the Christian era.
This bloody sacrifice, also a baptism, occurred in many non-Mithraic cultures, with both human and animal victims. During this ceremony, participants would cry, to the effect, "Let his blood be upon us and our children!"a ritual response designed to provide expiation and fertility. Bulls were particularly favored in this ritual because of the copious amounts of blood. Although it may not be found in Persian iconography or literature, the bull sacrifice was "frequently represented" and abundantly practiced in Asia Minor. As is the case with the bull-standing imagery, this rite with the bull as sacrificial victim doubtlessly came into the Roman world from the Near East, "like the rest of the Attis-Kybele cult" of Phrygia. Guignebert elaborates upon the Asian bull sacrifice and baptism:
In the Phrygian cult of Cybele and Attis, but not in that alone, for we find it in various other Asiatic cults and in that of Mithra, a singular ceremony, called the taurobolium, took place. It formed part of the mysterious initiatory rites exclusively reserved for believers. A deep pit was sunk in the precincts of the temple into which the initiated descended and it was then covered over with a grating upon which a bull was solemnly sacrificed; its blood flowed like red rain into the pit and fell on the naked person of the novitiate, endeavoring to bathe all parts of his body in it. This baptism accomplished, the genital organs of the animal sacrificed were deposited in a sacred vessel to be presented as an offering to the goddess, after which they were buried beneath a memorial altar.
Concerning this Phrygian rite, Robertson states:
The great vogue of the Phrygian institutions of the Taurobolium and Criobolium, or purification by the blood of bulls and rams, must have reacted on Mithraism even if it were not strictly of Mithraic origin. Mithra, like Osiris and Dionysus, was the bull as well as the God to whom the bull was sacrificed
As noted, this gory rite was common, taking place perhaps annually or more in some areas, depending on the need. Moreover, such expiatory sacrifices were practiced every 20 years as part of the Pagan mysteries, as Taylor relates:
Prudentius informs us that in these religious ceremonies the Pagan priests, or whoever was ambitious of obtaining a mystical regeneration, excavated a pit, into which he descended. The pit was then covered over with planks, which were bored full of holes, so that the blood and what not of the goat, bull, or ram that was sacrificed upon them, might trickle through the holes upon the body of the person beneath; who, having been thus sanctified, and born again, was obliged ever to walk in newness of life
This ritual can also be found abundantly in the culture from which Christianity purportedly sprang. The Jewish sacrifice and blood baptism are reflected at Exodus 24:6-8:
And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words."
The purpose of this rite is not only to perform ritual magic that provides future abundance or the cleansing of sins, but also to intimidate the people through gore into obeying the priesthood. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, this sanguine sacrifice is addressed, as the author usurps it with the sacrifice of Christ (9:22). Concerning Hebrews, Weigall says:
in the Epistle to the HebrewsChrist is described as the High Priest who, to put away sin, sacrificed Himself. Similarly, Mithra sacrificed a bull, but this bull, again, was himself
The sprinkling of blood finds its way into the New Testament at Hebrews 12:24, and 1 Peter 1:2, the latter of which refers to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. This bloody practice is clearly pre-Christian and thus not copied by Paganism from Christianity; indeed, the opposite is the case, with a substitution of the "Lamb of God" for the Bull and Jesus Christ for Mithra.
As demonstrated, the sacrifice of the bull is ancient, found in the very areas in which Mithraism thrived, from Indian to Phrygia. Furthermore, in the Assyro-Babylonian area are non-Mithraic images of kings or gods standing on the bull, showing that the motif existed centuries or millennia BCE. Obviously, from the Phrygian cap and cloak he wears, as well as the Mesopotamian bull-standing motif and this blood-splattering ritual, among other doctrines, the Mithra inherited by the Romans was originally Eastern, and not created by the Romans during the Christian era.
Concerning Mithra and the Bull, Drews says:
Mithras too offers himself for mankind. For the bull whose death at the hands of the God takes the central position in all the representations of Mithras was originally none other than the God himself--the sun in the constellation of the Bull, at the spring equinox
Berry relates that the taurbolium or bull-slaying was committed on "Black Friday," i.e., "Good Friday," the same as the death day for Attis and Jesus. Berry also states that Mithras was "mourned for" and "placed in a sacred rock tomb called 'Petra,' from which he was removed after three days in a great festival of rejoicing."
