Mithraism and Christianity

Mithras with stars beneath his cape. Detail of fresco from Mithraic Temple in
Marino, Italy. Second century AD. Photograph by Luther Martin

Mithraism and Christianity

"I am a star which goes with thee and shines out of the depths." - Mithraic saying.

"I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star." - Jesus, Revelation 22:16.

Adapted from an article by Sherry Shriner, entitled "Where the Churches Went Wrong".

The advent of the Internet has been a true blessing for those who love the truth, but is has also been source of
potentially faith-shattering attacks on Christianity. One of the main weapons of the modern-day Pharisees who
are controlling knowledge was actually planned and created by Satan well ahead of time. This is the great lie that
the entire story of Jesus the Messiah was stolen from the cult of Mithraism. The truth is that it was actually the
other way around. Mithraism was copied from Christianity by Satan long before Jesus appeared.

How do we know this? Because Ehyeh revealed to Adam, Eve, and the Serpent His plan to redeem mankind in
the Garden of Eden. Mithraism was invented not only as pagan worship, but also a planned mockery of what
would become the faith of Christians. Satan was able to not only incorporate pagan worship, beliefs and practices
into Christianity, but he also perverted and mocked what he knew was Ehyeh's plan for His people.

Satan's goal was to emphasize personal faith, the conflict of good and evil, the rewards of virtue and punishment
of wickedness in the afterlife, the end of the world and the powers of hell. These are all trademarks of
Mithraism, which spread from Persia throughout the Roman Empire. This occurred from 68 BC until the 3rd
century AD, becoming a serious rival to Christianity. However, very few people in the churches today are even
aware of its existence, or have any clue about Mithra. It is a part of church history that has been kept hidden, in
spite of it being the root cause of bloodshed in the early Christian era.

Although Mithraism is said to have declined by the 4th century AD, the evidence indicates otherwise. As did
Kabbalism and Gnosticism, it infiltrated the early church and was eventually incorporated into Christian
doctrines. December 25th was the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun,” which was incorporated into the church in
the 4th century A.D. as the birthday of Jesus. The bitter truth is that the churches today do not even resemble
what the early Christian Congregation lived and died for. Since then it's been a river of lies from the old serpent
for 1,700 years and counting.

Who Was Mithra?

Mithra was a god with popular appeal, but who was he really? Quite simply, nothing more than another version of
Baal. He had his origins in Persia, where he was a bi-gender god/goddess. Among his identical counterparts are
Horus, Ra, Marduk, Bel, Buddha, Krishna, Quetzalcoatl, Odin, Apollo, Molech, and many others. Thus Mithra
is known to every civilization up to the present time. Most of these gods share the same birthday of December
25th, the day on which the ancients observed longer days, thus believing the sun was reborn.

Sadly, the vast majority of Christian religions celebrate Jesus' birthday on the same date, many of them even
fully aware of its pagan origins, and don't care! They never stop to question whether Jesus and His Father in
Heaven (both the same God to most of them) might not approve of something like that. Think about it: If your
friends and family, after you died, celebrated your birthday on the birthday of your arch-enemy and most hated
rival! That is exactly what they do.

The early Christians were persecuted and killed because they refused to bow to the Sun-god, instead meeting
underground to meet on the Sabbath. They would do it on the day that Ehyeh instituted for worship and
relaxation which was Saturday, not Sun-god-day like "Christians" all over the world do today. Who are they
really worshiping?

Hence Mithraism goes as far back as the early pagan days immediately after Adam and Eve were expelled from
the Garden. Mithra is depicted as standing on a bull in the process of slashing its throat. The bull motif was
taken on to accommodate the Age of Taurus, from approximately 4500-2300 BC, and is found in many places
around the world. The change between the ages of Taurus and Aries is even recorded in the 12th chapter of
Exodus, where Moses institutes the sacrifice of the lamb or ram instead of the bull. Mithra's slaying of the Bull
was an act that became as central to Mithraism as was Jesus' impalement to Christianity.

The bull represented rebirth, fertility and fecundity, with its 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 its blood. The initiate was then said to have been "born again." With the slaying of 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. In the early Persian writings,
however, Mithra himself is the bull, with the god sacrificing himself. Thus Mithraism closely mimicked the
Messianic sacrifice which was to come, by which the Son of God would redeem mankind.

Mithra was never an actual person, like the vast majority of the ancient gods, he was originally represented by
non-human forms. In the earliest times of Mithra, the ancient Persians did not represent the Sun-god in human
form, they used symbols to represent him. In one of the sepulchres of Darius near Naqshi Rustam, Mithra is
represented as a round disc (a UFO), and this later became human busts of the sun god. Today we see the same
symbols of Mithraism used by the Illuminati Masons, such as the all-seeing eye, the rays of the sun, and the
winged sun-disk, to name a few. The Christian Father Manes, founder of the heretical sect known as the
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, Pt. 2, ch. 5).

As most modern Christian Churches, the Vatican was built on grounds that were previously devoted to the
worship of Mithra. 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. In 1954, while rebuilding the bombed ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, a
shrine of Mithra was unearthed. .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, altar, and doxology,
were adopted from Mithraism and earlier pagan mystery religions. The religion of Mithra preceded Christianity
by roughly 600 years. Mithraic worship at one time covered a large portion of the ancient world, flourishing as
late as the second century A.D.

13 Glaring Counterfeits

As the sun god religion of ancient Persia, Mithraism had the following identifying marks of what would become
"Christianity":

1) December 25th: While it can be easily proven that Jesus was born around the beginning of October,
Christians today carelessly celebrate Jesus' birthday on Mithra's date, born on December 25th as an offspring of
the Sun. Next to the gods Ormudz 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.

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."

McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia says: "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".

2) The Magi: Mithra’s birth was witnessed by shepherds and Magi (wise men) who brought gifts to his sacred
birth-cave of the Rock, to mock the three wise men who would bring gifts to the infant Jesus.

3) Mithra was considered a great traveling teacher and master, as Jesus would be.

4) 12 Disciples: Mithra had 12 companions or disciples (in Mithraism this was represented by the 12 astrological
signs). Jesus would establish 12 Apostles as the foundation stones of His congregation.

5) Miracles: Mithra performed miracles as Jesus would. Raising the dead, healing the sick and lame, and
casting out demons. As a "peter" (son of petra) he carried the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.. 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."

Professor Franz Cumont, of the University of Ghent, writes concerning the religions of Mithra and Christianity:
"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.

6) A Tomb: Mithra was buried in a tomb, as Jesus would be.

7) Resurrection: Mithra was resurrected after three days in the tomb. (Of course no one witnessed this.)

8) His resurrection was celebrated every year (although he was never a real person).

9) Titles: Mithra was called "the good shepherd”, "the way", "the truth and the light”, “redeemer”, “savior”,
and “Messiah." He was identified with both the lion and the lamb.

10) Sunday: His sacred day was Sunday, "the Lord's Day," hundreds of years before the appearance of Jesus.

11) Easter: Mithra had his principal festival on what was later to become Easter, at which time he was
resurrected.

12) Evening Meal: His religion had a Eucharist or "Lord's Supper". Before returning to heaven, Mithra
celebrated a Last Supper with his twelve disciples, who represented the twelve signs of the zodiac. In memory of
this, his worshippers partook of a sacramental meal of bread marked with a cross    This was one of the seven
Mithraic sacraments, the models for the Christians’ seven sacraments . It was called mizd, in Latin called missa,
or in English, mass. Mithra’s image was buried in a rock tomb, the same sacred cave that represented his mother’
s womb. He was withdrawn from it and said to live again.

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.

13) His triumph and ascension to heaven were celebrated at the spring equinox (Easter), when the sun rises
toward its apogee.

Mithra the Sun-god

Mithra became the god of light and truth to the Romans, the mediator between god and man. To his worshipers,
he was the creator of life, mediator between man and the higher gods, the god of light, the all-seeing one, the
guardian of oaths (covenants), and the protector of the righteous in this world and also in the next.

Before returning to heaven, Mithra celebrated a Last Supper with his twelve disciples, who represented the
twelve signs of the zodiac. In memory of this, his worshippers partook of a sacramental meal of bread marked
with a cross   This was one of the seven Mithraic sacraments, the models for the Christians’ seven sacraments .
It was called mizd, Latin missa, or in English, mass. Mithra’s image was buried in a rock tomb, the same sacred
cave that represented his mother’s womb. He was withdrawn from it and said to live again.

Like early Christianity, Mithraism was an ascetic, anti-female religion, and its priesthood consisted of celibate
men only. Women were forbidden from entering Mithraic temples. The women of Mithraic families had nothing
to do with the men’s cult, but attended services of the Great Mother in their own temples of Isis, Diana or Juno.
Anahita was the Mother of Waters, traditional spouse of the solar god whom she bore, loved and swallowed up.
She was identified with the Anatolian Great Goddess Ma. Mithra was naturally coupled with her, as her opposite,
a spirit of fire, light and the sun. According to Mithraic myth, her “element,” water, overwhelmed the world in the
primordial flood, when one man built an ark and saved himself, together with his cattle.

The female companion cult to the males-only religion of Mithra was the fertility goddess Ishtar, the Queen of
Heaven, or Magnus Mater. The moon, the second largest orb in the heavens was her planet, and her day was
Moon day, which is now Monday. In ancient Babylon, the forerunner of Mithra was Tammuz, or Demuzi. At
Ezekiel 8:13-16 we read:

"He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there
sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again,
and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S
house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and
twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they
worshipped the sun toward the east."

At the first full moon of spring, at the end of March in the northern hemisphere, Tammuz descended into the
nether world, to be rescued by his mother and lover Ishtar, the fertility goddess. At that time they supposedly
participated in an act of human procreation, and hence rabbits and eggs became symbols of this fertility rite.
Little round cakes, the equivalent of today's hot cross buns, were baked in honour to Ishtar:

"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to
the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
(Jeremiah 7:18) "But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense
unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our
kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals,
and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink
offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her
cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?" -Jeremiah 44:17-19.

According to Mithraic eschatology, what began in water would end in fire. In the last days, the great battle
between the forces of light and darkness, with its upheavals and burnings, would destroy the earth. The
"virtuous", who obeyed the teachings of the Mithraic priesthood, would join the spirits of light (Illuminati) and be
saved. Sinful ones who followed other teachings would be cast into hell with Ahriman and the fallen angels.

Constantine and Mithra

Constantine the Great was an avid worshiper of Mithra, and his devoted mother Helena was a great worshiper of
Ishtar, ‘My Lady’, the Queen of Heaven. (Jeremiah 44:18.) It was Constantine who transferred most of the
doctrines, tenets shrines and temples of Mithraism into the Christian Church, after his 'conversion' to
Christianity in 312A.D. He did not abandon his occult practices after his conversion, instead bringing them into
the church. He then had the church write new scriptures to support these new doctrines.

A decree pf worship was issued by Constantine in the year 321 AD., nine years after his supposed conversion:
"On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates, and the people residing in cities rest, let all workshops be
closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits."
This was the first recorded blue Sunday law. Constantine never gave up worshiping on his ‘venerable day of the
sun’, Sunday, totally dedicated to the sun-god Mithra.

Constantine threw out the truths of the early church and assimilated Mithraism into them, thereby creating two
Messiahs: The God of Mithra, which would become the dominant deity of the church, and the God of the early
believers. This is the way it remains down to this day.

In Constantine's Edict of Milan, issued in 313 AD., a year after his alleged conversion, toleration and equality
were proclaimed to other cults and religions within the state. However, anyone who persisted in observing any
other day than the ‘venerable day of the sun’ for worship, i.e. Ehyeh's Sabbath Day of Saturday, the seventh day
of the week, was actively persecuted and forced to go underground.

The cave-temple of Mithra on Vatican Hill was seized by Christians in 376 A.D. The Christian bishops of Rome
took on the title of Pater Patrum, which was the title of the high priest of Mithraism. This later became "Papa"
or "Pope".

The Roman Emperors who embraced this mystery cult god included Nero, Commodus, Septimus, Aurelain, Julian
the Apostate, and Dioclethian, to name only a few, all faithful followers of Mithra. It was he who promised to be
the ‘Protector of the Faithful’, something very important to soldiers in warfare, and a ‘guide to the souls’ of men.
Thus these Emperors added divine names to their own, such a ‘Dias’ or devout, ‘Felix’ or blessed, ‘Invictus’ or
invincible, to legitimize their claims of ruling by divine right.

Conclusion

Satan's planned deception made it real easy for his shallow and ridiculous myths to permeate the Christian
Congregation, as early as the first century: All they had to do was change the names of their false Baal-gods to
Jesus, and change the Sabbath day of worship from Saturday to Sunday and voila! It's done, except for a few
minor details. Here's the question: If Jesus and the Bible's story of redemption was stolen from myth, why did
the true Messiah's story have to be corrupted to make it fit? The answer: It was a cheap, dime-store counterfeit
set up centuries in advance in preparation for the True Gospel! If you were Satan, would you do it any other
way? Just like he did with the Bible, he makes what is "older" appear to be more reliable, under the premise
that more time = more corruption. Not necessarily!

Take a look at the Blue Beam Project, which will be used to bring the Antichrist to power, and notice the striking
similarities to Mithraism. Could "Mithra" be a moniker for "Maitreya"?

How early in the first century did Mithraic ideology work its way into the True Gospel of Jesus, and who was
responsible? Jesus was a Jew and He observed all the Laws of the Torah, and Jesus commanded His followers
to follow His example. To really understand the lawlessness of Christian churches, it helps immensely to look at
the situation from a Jewish perspective, which is covered in the next article:

Continue on to "Saul of Tarsus"

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