Religion – The Mystery Cults 

The various mystery religions and cults that were present during the times of Jesus sprouted from the soil of previous belief systems. They flooded a spiritually hungry world with new and strange beliefs. These beliefs were characterized by their secretive nature, elaborate initiation rites, and focus on personal salvation. The belief systems included:

1. Mithraism: Centered on the worship of Mithras, this was one of the most popular mystery cults in the Roman Empire. It emphasized themes of light versus darkness, salvation through Mithras, and secretive rituals.
2. Eleusinian Mysteries: Rooted in Greek mythology, these cults revolved around the worship of Demeter and Persephone, with secret rites promising initiates insights into life, death, and the afterlife.
3. Dionysian Cults: Associated with the god Dionysus, these practices involved ecstatic rituals, symbolic death and rebirth, and a focus on liberation from worldly constraints.
4. Isis and Osiris Cults: Originating in Egypt, these mystery religions centered on the myth of Osiris’s death and resurrection, promising eternal life to adherents through the mediation of the goddess Isis.
5. Attis and Cybele Cults: These cults, particularly prominent in Asia Minor, told the story of Attis's self-sacrifice and resurrection, with rites focused on fertility, renewal, and personal salvation.
6. Zoroastrian Influences: Elements of Persian Zoroastrianism, especially its dualistic themes of cosmic conflict between good and evil, contributed to mystery religions like Mithraism.
7. Orphic Mysteries: Based on the teachings attributed to the mythical poet Orpheus, these cults emphasized purification, the immortality of the soul, and a connection to the divine.
8. Chaldean Astrology and Babylonian Magic: Often incorporated into mystery practices, these systems combined astronomical observations with mystical and ceremonial rites.

The mystery religions gave rise to numerous personal cults characterized by mythical legends of divine death and resurrection, personal and fraternal bonds transcending national and racial boundaries, and elaborate initiation ceremonies with dramatic, often secretive, and sometimes gruesome rites.

However, no matter the nature of their ceremonies or the degree of their excesses, these mysteries invariably promised their devotees salvation, deliverance from evil, survival after death, and enduring life in blissful realms beyond this world of sorrow and slavery.

Primitive man craved to know how to control the spirit world that he assumed was the cause of evil, illness, and misfortune. With no reliable science to discern true causes, he believed the intentions and will of the spirits could be known by omens, oracles, and signs. And these spirit messages were interpreted by divination, soothsaying, magic, ordeals, and astrology. Mystery cults incorporated all this and satisfied man’s craving with schemes and rites that were designed to soothe, satisfy, and buy off the spirits through bribery, sacrifices, and rituals. The common people craved promises of salvation and assurances of hope for immortality after death.

Under the spirit cult, life was, at best, a gamble, the result of spirit control. One’s future was not the result of effort, industry, or talent except as they might be utilized to influence the spirits. The ceremonies of spirit pacification were a heavy burden, rendering life tedious and oppressively burdensome.

When ancient peoples pondered where fire came from, the simple story of striking flint was soon replaced by the more fascinating legend of how Prometheus stole it from heaven and gave it to man. Mythmaking is as old as man himself. The ancients sought a supernatural explanation for all natural phenomena not within the range of their comprehension, and many modern people continue to do this. The depersonalization of natural phenomena has been a long process for ages and is not yet complete. But the frank, honest, and fearless search for true causes gave birth to modern science: it turned alchemy into chemistry and magic into medicine.

These cults were formalized and regulated by priests and shamans, making them religions. No matter how crude they were, they each sought to know the spirit world and to know God. This institutionalization of religion detracts from its spiritual quality, but no religion has survived without the aid of institutional organization.

The acceptance of the teachings of the gospel preachers gave a powerful impetus to the rapid spread of Christianity in Rome and, from there, throughout the empire. In its wake, pagan worship was banned, and the destruction of its temples and altars was ordered. By the fifth century, the mystery religions were extinct.

Magic was the branch of the evolutionary religious tree, which eventually bore the fruit of a scientific age. Belief in astrology led to the development of astronomy; belief in a philosopher’s stone led to the mastery of metals, while belief in magic numbers founded the science of mathematics.

Gradually, science is removing the gambling element from life. But if modern education methods should fail, there would be an almost immediate reversion to the primitive beliefs in magic. These superstitions still linger in the minds of many civilized people. Language contains many fossils that show how humanity has long been steeped in magical superstition, with such words as spellbound, ill-starred, possessions, spirit away, entrancing, and thunderstruck. And much of humanity continues to believe in good luck, the evil eye, and astrology.

Again and again, Rome’s Caesars banished the astrologers, but they invariably returned because of the popular belief in their powers. They could not be driven out, and even in the sixteenth century after Christ, the directors of the Occidental church and state were the patrons of astrology. Millions of people still believe that one may be born under the domination of a lucky or an unlucky star; that the alignment of the heavenly bodies determines the outcome of various events. Fortune tellers are still patronized by some modern people.

Mithraism was the greatest of all the mystery cults. It was preceded by the Phrygian (Turkish) and Egyptian mysteries. The worship of Mithras was a great improvement over the earlier cults. Because Mithraism appealed to a wide range of human longings, it was easily spread by Roman soldiers who carried it wherever they went.

The cult of Mithras arose in Iran and persisted in its homeland despite the opposition of the followers of Zoroaster. But by the time Mithraism reached Rome, it was greatly improved by absorbing many of Zoroaster’s superior teachings. It was chiefly through the Mithraic cult that Zoroaster’s religion influenced the later appearing Christianity.

Mithras was a militant god who took his origin in a great rock. He engaged in valiant exploits and caused water to gush forth from a rock struck with his arrows. Mithraism had a Noah-like story about a flood from which one man escaped in a specially built boat. There was a last supper, which Mithras celebrated with the sun god before he ascended into the heavens. This sun god was a deity concept of Zoroastrianism.

Mithras was the surviving champion of the sun god in his struggle with the god of darkness. In recognition of his slaying of a mythical sacred bull, Mithras was made immortal and became a bridge between man and the gods. It was taught that when a man died, he went before Mithras for judgment and that at the end of the world, Mithras would summon all the dead from their graves to face the last judgment. The wicked would be destroyed by fire, and the righteous would reign with Mithras forever.

The adherents of this cult worshiped in caves and other secret places, chanting hymns, mumbling magic, eating the flesh of the sacrificial animals, and drinking the blood. Three times a day, they worshiped with special weekly ceremonials on the day of the sun god. The most elaborate observance was the annual festival of Mithras, celebrated on December twenty-fifth.

Both religions used baptism and partook of the sacrament of bread and wine. The one significant difference between Mithraism and Christianity, aside from the characters of Mithras and Jesus, was that Mithraism encouraged military conquest while Jesus taught peace and love. The deciding factor in the struggle between the two was the admission of women into the full fellowship of the Christian faith.

During the third century after Christ, Mithraic and Christian churches were very similar in appearance and the character of their ritual. The majority were underground, and both had altars whose backgrounds variously depicted the sufferings of the savior who had brought salvation to a sin-cursed human race.

In the end, the Christian faith dominated the Western hemisphere. Greek philosophy supplied Christianity with its concepts of ethical value; Mithraism contributed to the worship rituals. These factors are combined in Christianity to conserve moral and social values. Christianity made compromises with Mithraism, the most well-known of which was recognizing Jesus’ birth on the same day as Mithras, the winter solstice.

The popularity of the mysteries reveals man’s quest for survival after death, which also reveals a real hunger and thirst for personal religion and individual righteousness. Although the mystery cults failed to satisfy this longing, they did prepare the way for the appearance of Jesus and his gospel that replaced the mystery religions.

Paul, who was largely responsible for establishing Christianity outside of Palestine made certain adaptations to the teachings of Jesus in his effort to utilize the better beliefs of the mystery religions. These compromises rendered them more acceptable to a larger number of prospective converts.

However, even Paul’s compromise of Jesus’ teachings (Christianity) was superior to the best in the mysteries in that:

• Paul taught a moral redemption, an ethical salvation. Christianity pointed to a new life and proclaimed a new ideal. He prevented the inclusion of magic rites and unholy ceremonies that pervaded the mystery cults.
• Paul’s Christianity presented a religion that grappled with final solutions of the human problem, for it not only offered salvation from sorrow and even from death, it also promised deliverance from sin followed by the endowment of a righteous character of eternal survival qualities.
• The mysteries were built upon myths. Christianity, as Paul preached it, was founded upon a historical fact: the bestowal of Jesus, the Son of God, upon mankind.

Paul’s influence caused the gospel of Jesus to be blended with the following teachings:

• The philosophic reasoning of the Greeks, including some of their concepts of eternal life.
• The Mithraic doctrines of redemption, atonement, and salvation by the sacrifice made by some god.
• The morality of the established Jewish religion.

The atonement doctrine has roots in the blood-sacrifice rites that permeated almost all the old religions, including the mysteries. Paul’s theory of original sin, the doctrines of hereditary guilt and innate evil and redemption therefrom, was partially Mithraic in origin, having little in common with Hebrew theology, Philo’s philosophy, or Jesus’ teachings. Some phases of Paul’s teachings regarding original sin and the atonement were original with himself.

Jesus met with leaders of the prevailing religions during a six-month visit to Rome when he was twenty-nine. He contacted thirty-two leaders during this little-known visit to the empire’s capital. Before the end of his first week in Rome, Jesus sought out and made the acquaintance of the worthwhile leaders of the Cynics, the Stoics, and the mystery cults, in particular the Mithraic group.

Whether or not it was apparent to Jesus that the Jews would reject his mission, he most certainly foresaw that his messengers would come to Rome proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, he set about preparing the way for the reception of their message in the most amazing manner.

Jesus selected five of the leading Stoics, eleven of the Cynics, and sixteen of the mystery-cult leaders. He spent much of his spare time for almost six months in intimate association with these religious teachers. And this was his method of instruction:

Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case, he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed to embellish and illuminate it in their minds that this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error in a very short time.

Nabon, a Greek Jew and high priest of the Mithraic mystery cult in Rome sought to convert Jesus to Mithraism, even suggesting that he return to Palestine as a Mithraic teacher. However, their evening discussions, particularly about truth and faith, profoundly impacted Nabon. Jesus explained that truth transcends mere knowledge, encompassing wisdom and spiritual realities. Knowledge stems from science, wisdom from philosophy, and truth from the religious experience of living spiritually. He emphasized that truth cannot be fully defined with words but must be lived to be understood.

Jesus also taught Nabon about faith as the activator of the divine spark within humanity, the immortal essence that ensures eternal survival. While plants and animals persist through physical reproduction, the human soul endures by associating with this indwelling divinity. Nabon, deeply moved by these insights, later became a key supporter of early preachers of Jesus' gospel, assisting in spreading the teachings of the kingdom.

A year after Jesus visited Rome, small groups of those who had talked with him were drawn together by their common interest in his teachings. These small groups of Stoics, Cynics, and mystery cultists continued to hold irregular and informal meetings right up to the appearance in Rome of the first preachers of the Christian religion.

Despite Paul’s compromises with the mystery religions and the focus of Peter on the resurrection of Jesus over the teachings of Jesus, Christianity presented a majestic concept of Deity. It appealed to intelligent seekers as much to the ignorant but spiritually hungry average person.

Christianity came into favor in Rome when there was great contention between the vigorous teachings of the Stoics and the salvation promises of the mystery cults. Christianity came with refreshing comfort and liberating power to a spiritually hungry people whose language had no word for "unselfishness."

The teachings of Jesus, even though greatly modified, survived the mystery cults of their birthtime. They endured the ignorance and superstition of the dark ages. The Master’s teachings are, even now, slowly triumphing over the materialism, mechanism, and secularism of modern times.