NO fran,
You post clips from YOUR church fathers and insist that this IS truth. Your church is NOT 'my' Church.
Since you insist;
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?i ... 94770271-0
An overview of Mithraism, the ancient Roman mystery religion popular in the Roman Legions. ? Provides a comprehensive history of Mithraism, including its influence on Christianity and Islam. ? Includes rituals, meditations, and teaching tales for readers who wish to follow the Mithraic path. ? Studies the evolution and divergence of the Eastern (Persian) and Western (Roman) forms of Mithraism. The Mysteries of Mithras presents a revival of the magical practices and initiatory system of Mithraism, the ancient Roman mystery religion that was immensely popular in the Roman Legions from the late second century B.C. until A.D. 400 and was taken to every corner of the Roman Empire. As the last pagan state religion in Europe, it was the most important competitor to early Christianity and heavily influenced Christian doctrine and symbolism. The parallels between Christianity and ancient Mithraism are striking--for example, the god Mithra was born of a virgin in a cave on December 25. Payam Nabarz reveals the history, origins, and spiritual and philosophical tenets of Mithraism and its connections to Christianity, Islam, and Freemasonry. He also describes the modern neo-pagan practice of Mithraism in evidence today and for readers who wish to adopt the Mithraic path, he includes seven of its initiatory rituals and meditations, as well as orations and teaching tales, that open the door to the seven Mithraic grades of passage.
An ancient Roman god, a secret cult for men . . . and answers at last?
Date: November 24, 1994 Publication: The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution Page Number: A/21 Word Count: 1123
Jerusalem - For 400 years, Roman soldiers and laborers gathered in underground sanctums to practice secret rituals before a stone carving of a god stabbing a bull to death. The god was Mithras, the center of a religion that rivaled the new faith of Christianity, which was begun about the same time by a Jewish carpenter, Jesus. These mysteries of Mithraism perplexed archaeologists with each new discovery of the more than 400 underground temples stretching from Scotland to Israel. A recent theory
http://www.experiencefestival.com/mithraism
Mithraism spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, especially during the 2nd and 3rd centuries and for a time threatened to supersede Christianity. A number of the liturgical rites and ceremonies of Christianity are probably of Mithraic origin. For example, rites associated with Deo Soli Invicto Mithrae (to the Unconquered God-sun, Mithras), were held at the time of the winter solstice, especially the Night of Light -- now Christmas -- known as the birthday of Mithras, represented as having been born in a cave or grotto, hence often called the rock-born god. Exceedingly popular in the Roman armies as well as with the rulers of the Roman Empire, Mithraism was regularly established by Trajan about 100 AD in the Empire, and the Emperor Commodus was himself initiated into its mysteries. Sacred caves or grottoes were the principal places of worship, where the Mysteries for which Mithraism was famed were enacted.
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/mithras.html
Our earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the first century B.C.: the historian Plutarch says that in 67 B.C. a large band of pirates based in Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first century A.D., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. In addition to soldiers, the cult's membership included significant numbers of bureaucrats and merchants. Women were excluded. Mithraism declined with the rise to power of Christianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when Christianity became strong enough to exterminate by force rival religions such as Mithraism.
Mithras is the Roman name for the Indo-Iranian god Mitra, or Mithra, as he was called by the Persians. Mitra is part of the Hindu pantheon, and Mithra is one of several yazatas (minor deities) under Ahura-Mazda in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Mithra is the god of the airy light between heaven and earth, but he is also associated with the light of the sun, and with contracts and mediation. Neither in Hinduism nor in Zoroastrianism did Mitra/Mithra have his own cult. Mitra is mentioned in the Hindu Vedas, while Mithra is is the subject of Yashts (hymns) in the Zoroastrian Avesta, a text compiled during the Sassanian period (224-640 CE) to preserve a much older oral tradition.
Possible Eastern Origins of the Roman Cult The precise relationship between the Roman cult of Mithras as it developed during the empire and the Mitra and Mithra of the Hindu and Zoroastrian pantheons, respectively, is unclear. The theory that Roman Mithraism had its roots in Zoroastrianism was first put forward by Franz Cumont, a Belgian scholar, in his two-volume publication Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra in 1896 and 1899. Cumont compiled a catalogue of every known mithraic temple, monument, inscription, and literary passage relating to Mithras and claimed on the basis of his study of this body of evidence that Roman Mithras was, ultimately, Zoroastrian Mithra. Cumont argued by extension that if Roman Mithras had Iranian roots, the cult of Mithraism must have originated in the eastern provinces of the Roman empire and spread westward with legionaries in the Roman army, merchants from eastern provinces (often lumped under the broad misnomer " Cumont himself recognized possible flaws in his theory. The most obvious is that there is little evidence for a Zoroastrian cult of Mithra (Cumont 1956), and certainly none that suggests that Zoroastrian worship of Mithra used the liturgy or the well-devoloped iconography found in the Roman cult of Mithras. Moreover, few monuments from the Roman cult have been recovered from the very provinces which are thought to have inspired worship of Mithras (namely the provinces of Asia Minor). Finally, Cumont was aware that the earliest datable evidence for the cult of Mithras came from the military garrison at Carnuntum in the province of Upper Pannonia on the Danube River (modern Hungary). Indeed, the largest quantity of evidence for mithraic worship comes from the western half of the empire, particularly from the provinces of the Danube River frontier and from Rome and her port city, Ostia, in Italy. To explain this phenomenon, Cumont proposed that soldiers stationed in western provinces and transferred to eastern provinces for short periods of time learned of the deity Mithra and began to worship and dedicate monuments to a god they called Mithras when they returned to their customary garrison. It is true that soldiers from the Roman legion XV Apollinaris stationed at Carnuntum in the first century CE were called to the East in 63 CE to help fight in a campaign against the Parthians and further to help quell the Jewish revolt in Jerusalem from 66-70 CE. Members of the legion made mithraic dedications back in Carnuntum after their return from these campaigns, possibly as early as 71 or 72 CE. Once these Roman soldiers and the camp-followers of the legions, who included merchants, slaves, and freedmen, started to worship Mithras, argued Cumont, their further movements around the empire served to spread the cult to other areas.
http://www2.evansville.edu/ecoleweb/art ... raism.html
Here are FOUR sources that refute what your 'one' source states. And there are MANY MORE. Once again, you are WRONG to even 'think' that this is a 'subject' that 'I' JUST 'started' studying. I have done MUCH research into this and DO NOT simply offer an 'unlearned opinion'.
Now, just as I stated before; You will neither recant nor admit to your 'understanding' being 'faulty' for to do so would be to abandon that which you have been taught by those that 'you follow'. Understandable and credit offered where credit is due. You ARE a son of your fathers and defend them well. The only problem being that your fathers were 'wrong' and therefore what you choose to 'follow' is wrong as well.
Now, if you truly DO follow God, then THAT part of your understanding IS correct. But the pagentry and tradition that has been taught you of your 'fathers' is NOT 'truth' except in the minds and hearts of those that 'follow it'. Some believe that the 'moon walk' was fabricated. To these, their truth is simply that; that the government 'faked' the 'walk on the moon'. But to those that KNOW the truth, their truth is ONLY 'their' truth and plays NO part in reality.
And this by NO means offers PROOF of anything other than that your argument of "time" was WRONG, but essence is what the 'true' argument was concerned with and that offered above has NO bearing on this.
MEC
