The mythology of religion
While much of the Christian Bible is presented as historical fact, many of the stories it describes reflect themes common to older myths. Myths and stories grow out of humanity’s attempt to make sense of critical events. The line between myth, story and history is often blurred, and, when searching for meaning, whether it emerges from myth, story or historical record is often less important than the inspiration or lesson it imparts. Myths provide an initially verbal record of events, which, in the act of retelling, develop to reflect the beliefs and symbols alive in a culture at the time.
Myth
In Parallel Myths, J.F. Bierlein explains, “Myth is the first fumbling attempt to explain how things happen, the ancestor of science. It is also the attempt to explain why things happen, the sphere of religion and philosophy. It is the history of prehistory, telling us what might have happened before written history.”
Joseph Campbell, writing in the prologue of The Hero With A Thousand Faces, says somewhat more eloquently, “It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation.” Bierlein concurs, adding, “A myth is often something that only begins to work where our own five senses end,” continuing with, “Myth acts as a social glue that helps bind groups of people together.” Wikipedia describes mythology simply as a “sacred narrative”, one that helps “explain how the world and humankind came to be in their present form”.
Joseph Campbell continues with, “It has always been the prime function of mythology and rite to supply the symbols that carry the human spirit forward, in counteraction to those constant human fantasises that tend to tie it back.”
Christianity
The narrative of Jesus fits these mythological definitions, beginning as a verbal record of a handful of events experienced by those living in the time of Jesus, descriptions which expanded as the teachings of Christianity were clarified and defined in the centuries after Jesus’s death. This invites consideration as to which other myths might share key features of Jesus’s stories.
In Religions of the Hellenistic-Roman Age, Antonia Tripolitis describes how Philo of Alexandria, a Greek citizen and philosopher, employed a technique known as “allegorical interpretation”, which helped him combine “biblical revelation and Greek philosophy”. The use of this “allegorical method”, initially designed to highlight the parts of the Old Testament scriptures that aligned with the “contemporary philosophical views”, ie pagan views, became a tool used by early Christian theologians in their attempts to combine their views with the traditional or pagan-based cultures of the early first millennium.
Christianity emerged late in what’s known as the Hellenistic-Roman Age, a period beginning circa 331 BCE with Alexander’s victory over the Persians and continuing until 4 CE, at which time Christianity was firmly established. Within this period, the Hellenistic (Greek) era, continued until 31 BCE, when Antony and Cleopatra were defeated by Octavius. The period from 31 BCE to 4 CE is referred to as the Roman era.
Antonia Tripolitis comments that Christianity began “as a subgroup within Palestinian Judaism founded by a handful of Jesus followers who had witnessed his resurrection”. Pagan intellectuals were strong critics of the early Christian faith, challenging their “lack of established tradition” and the lack of logic in their beliefs. She goes as far as to state, “Christian beliefs were based on myth”, commenting, “Their teachings were never critically examined but accepted blindly on faith.”
The initiation rites of Christianity, primarily that of baptism, were modelled on the initiatory rites of the mystery cults, a variety of which were widespread and popular between the 1st century BCE and the 4th century CE. In fact, when Paul the apostle began preaching, he “interpreted Christianity using terminology reminiscent of the contemporary mystery cults”.
Pagan beliefs
The pagans, a far more dominant group at the time, strongly criticised the early Christians, whose resistance to honouring pagan deities (considered emissaries and helpers of God) was considered revolutionary. While its roots were firmly in the Hellenistic-Roman era, it wasn’t until the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, late in the Roman Age, that Christianity gained a firm footing as an established religion, under the rule of Emperor Constantine.
At the time of Christianity’s emergence, Greek mystery cults, which themselves began as festivals and celebrations of the seasons, were increasingly popular. Civilisation had been through great turmoil, and the rituals of the mystery cults offered a solution to the spiritual needs of the people.
The most important of the mystery cults was that of Mithras, the Sun God. Mithraism peaked in popularity through the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, with Mithras being named the “official god of the Roman state” in 4 CE. This occurred through the period in which Christianity gained its own foothold in culture.
The first divine mother
Christian Mary is often depicted as the archetypal mother, one who suffered the loss of her own child for the betterment of man. However, the Egyptian goddesses Isis, who gained popularity in the Hellenistic-Roman era, was revered for many similar qualities long before Christian Mary emerged. Isis was goddess of women and is referred to as “Divine Mother” in the Oxyrhynchus Litany (a collection of ancient works discovered in Egypt in the late 19th and early to middle of the 20th century).
Isis was often portrayed as a young matron in modest dress holding the child Horus in her arms. According to Antonia Tripolitis, non-conclusive artistic evidence suggests the Christian Madonna and Child is based on the Isis/Horus imagery.
Virgin births
In The Power of Myth, with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell outlines the significance of a virgin birth as one that indicates a “spiritual birth”. He describes the virgin birth as one in which man is begotten from spirit, where the womb is fertilised with divinity rather than with physical sperm, suggesting the virgin birth is one that symbolises the birth of one’s spiritual and therefore more compassionate side.
Campbell indicates the story of Jesus’s virgin birth is designed to inspire a similar “virgin” or spiritual birth in his followers. Of virgin birth Campbell writes, “Heroes and demigods are born that way as beings motivated by compassion and not mastery, sexuality or self-preservation.” Interestingly, Campbell links these baser qualities to the three base chakras, suggesting that the heart chakra, the centre for compassion, is the one activated at “the birth of the spiritual man out of the animal man”.
Thus, myths drawing on the virgin birth symbolise the shift from humanity’s base or primal side to the heart or spiritual side. Campbell finishes with, “This is the sense of the second birth, when you begin to live out of the heart centre.” A virgin birth symbolises the spiritual birth, and the connection to the focus on compassion and the heart chakra indicates these are key qualities for spiritual living.
In his work on mythology, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Campbell goes so far as to list the virgin birth as the first of six major criteria typical of the life of the mythical hero. Thus, Jesus’s virgin birth indicates his story fits the criteria for a dominant cultural myth, one that portrays the archetypal story of the hero’s journey.
The Hero With A Thousand Faces also documents the special circumstances around Buddha’s birth. It’s believed that “Buddha descended from heaven to his mother’s womb in the shape of a milk-white elephant”, thus removing the need for an earthly father. In The Power of Myth, Campbell goes further: “And the Buddha, with the same meaning, is said to have been born from his mother’s side, from the level of the heart chakra — the symbolic centre associated with the heart. That’s a symbolic birth.”
Here, the birth of Buddha via the side of the mother’s body, rather than through the birth canal, reinforces the spiritual significance of his birth. In this account, Buddha’s mother, like Jesus’s mother Mary (whose virginity is said to have been restored after birthing Jesus), was physically unaffected in any of the usual ways through the process of giving birth to Buddha.
In an article appearing in History Today in 2006, entitled The First Christmas, Geza Vermes comments, “Classical writers attribute divine paternity to Plato (by Apollo), to Alexander the Great (by Zeus) and even to Jesus’s contemporary, the emperor Augustus (again by Apollo). On the Jewish side, Isaac, Jacob and the patriarch Joseph, from the book of Genesis, and the prophet Samuel, contemporary of King David, were all believed to have been born of barren mothers whose womb was miraculously opened by God.”
They suggest it’s no surprise to see mentions of similar divine paternity in the conception and birth myths of Jesus. As outlined by Joseph Campbell, such special paternity indicates the spiritual significance of the person being born.
Both Jesus and Buddha join key figures from ancient history whose births were said to be the result of a joining between an earthly, mortal mother and a divine, god figure for the father.
Sun gods and the Son of God
Some of the first references to Mithra, known as Mithras to the Greeks, date to the 14th century BCE. Mithra is referenced in the early sacred writings of India as well as in the holy books of the Persians. Mithras has always been associated with the sun god and there are some striking similarities between the myths surrounding Mithras and those surrounding Jesus. Two key features of the Mithras religion similar to those of Jesus relate to the sacred meal and the special qualities of and focus on Mithras’s birth.
Common to even the earliest writings on Mithras is his role as the mediator between mankind and the supreme deity. He was considered a divinity of light but subordinate to the supreme deity, similar to the place of Jesus as the light of salvation but still serving God the Father above him.
In the Mithras religion, the sacred meal consisted of meat and blood, which were sometimes replaced with bread and wine. Like the Last Supper, the sacred meal Mithras is said to have consumed took place at the end of Mithras’s stay on earth; came to an end because he’d completed heroic and arduous deeds for the good of humankind. One of the most sacred rituals within the Mithras religion involved the re-enactment of this sacred meal. This is similar to Catholic mass, where bread, symbolic of the body of Christ, and wine, symbolic of his blood, are shared and consumed in his honour.
In contrast to many of the other pagan deities and cult gods of this era, who were believed to be reborn annually through the cycle of the seasons, Mithras was born once, lived, died and then ascended to heaven, just as it is said of Jesus — he was born, lived, died and rose to heaven.
Like Jesus, Mithras was born in special circumstances. In Mithras’s case, birth occurred from a generative rock, forced out as if by some hidden magic power. The Mithras religion, originating hundreds of years before the time of Christ, celebrated the birth of Mithras on the winter solstice, December 25. And, in some representations, Mithras’s birth is attended by shepherds.
Geza Vermes notes in the 2006 History Today feature that Christian Christmas wasn’t associated with December 25 until 334 CE, “when Christmas supplanted the pagan festival of the unvanquished Sun” — that is, when Christmas replaced the celebrations of Mithras and took over the same calendar date as its own. Prior to that, “most Eastern Christians celebrated Jesus’s birth on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6), while other Oriental communities in Egypt and Syria observed it on April 21 or May 20”.
Mithras was revered as the Sun God and thus celebrations of his birth centred around celebrating the birth of the Sun and the returning of light to the world. The common images of celebrating the Sun/Son and the connection between light and divinity suggest crossover in the symbolic focus of the Mithras December 25 celebrations with the imagery associated with the December 25 Christian Christmas celebration.
Mithraism rituals also included the burning of the perpetual fire on the altars, similar to the sacred flame that burns inside a Catholic Church, as well as the consideration that Sunday, the day of the Sun, was especially sacred. In the Christian faith, Sunday is held to be sacred as it was the day of Christ’s resurrection.
Through exploring the lineage of key mythical themes, you can connect to older traditions. Doing so can remind you of humanity’s enduring need to define and interpret life, first through observation and celebration of seasonal events and then through ritual designed to evoke connection with divinity.
References available on request.
Kelly Surtees is an internationally published writer devoted to expanding her wellbeing through personal growth. Her geographic home is in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.
