Yes, this was a comment. I made it its own post because I think it’s interesting and I wanted to and that way I feel like I’ve made more entries to my blog this week. Lazy sod.
Mithraism and Christianity both started up in popularity at about the same time (1st Century CE). Mithraism was a very upper-class religion, whereas Christianity was “the slave’s religion”. Under Mithraism the Taurobolia was a blood baptism rite. A bull was slaughtered and the initiate was baptisted in the blood. Oftentimes this happened as the bull was slaughtered over a floor with holes in it. The initiate stood in a chamber underneath and was covered in the warm blood as it rained down.
Obviously this was a costly practice–bulls are not cheap! Christianity’s water baptism was a more cost-effective rite (the water symbolising the same thing as the blood.)
Ironically, Christianity probably gained prominance because of feminism. Mithraism was a bit hostile toward women initiates–not allowing very many women to practice the faith. The disgruntled women then turned to Christianity–another mystery religion with many similarities.
Around the 4th Century CE, Mithraism became outlawed and many of its practices were subsumed into what is now Catholicism. As we’ve all seen, the Mithraic attitude toward women came with the package.
As for something Adam said above–this is important.
Protestants and Anabaptists are not the same thing. I know I say this over and over again, but as long as folks fail to understand this, the differences between the Baptism rites of the churches don’t make sense. Protestants generally adhere more closely to Catholic rites–which adhere more closely to Mithraic origins. Hence the “sprinkling” baptism–like the bull blood sprinkling down.
Anabaptists (those who believe in adult baptism) use dunking. They are adamant about being seperate from Catholic rites entirely–in fact for many centuries the Anabaptists had a great anti-Catholic prejudice. The dunking practice is a) a disavowal of the Catholic sprinkling/infant baptism/christening and b)an attempt to return to the “early church” by baptising the way Jesus was baptised in the river.
Baptism throughout history has been a key component of mystery religions. While on the surface it appears similar to the practice of Mikvah (they both involve water) it is actually not at all derived from Mikvot rites. The purposes of Mikvot are different and not Mystical in origin. It is most likely that John the Baptist–as a practitioner of a mystical subset of Judaism–incorporated the rite of immersion baptism after study of other Mystery religions. Or–if you choose to believe–upon divine revelation during his purification rite in the desert. As a Mystical Christian I tend to believe the latter.
Now if you will excuse me I am going to bribe my dog to come in so I can lie back down.
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Sources:
The collected works of Roger Beck I have personally read whatever I can get my hands on of his.
Origins of Mithraic Mysteries by David Ulansey
PAGAN REGENERATION
A STUDY OF MYSTERY INITIATIONS IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN WORLD
BY HAROLD R. WILLOUGHBY
(Full text available online–not under copyright. Original copyright 1929)
A Brief History Of Christian Baptism
(I don’t care for this source, as it is brief and very Christocentric. It doesn’t take much comparative study into account and is clearly a primer for Christians. This is fine if you just want to know the basics, but for deeper information there needs to be much deeper reading, I think.
I’m going through my notes and papers to find other sources that aren’t so easily googled.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
So, inspired by all of this, I did a little googling of Mithraism. And I discover that it is not, as I had always thought, an outgrowth of Zoroastrianism. So no purification by fire, I guess. But, then, did the Christian idea of hell come through Mithraism (as I had thought), or from Zoroastrianism (in its later forms, concurrent with early Christianity) directly?
Oh, and btw, the plural of mikvah is mikva’ot. It’s irregular.
Hey Katherine and friends,
Not to poop on your parade, but I’m not sure where you are getting your information about Mithraism and its relationship to Christianity. It sounds like a revisionist work of some kind. As in a person out to sell a book who took some fantastic leaps of fantasy across several layers of fact. Or perhaps the focus of some professor out to publish a paper.
I say that because any church historian I would put any credence in would take issue with almost everything written above about the relationship between the two forms of baptism. So, would you mind giving us your source? Thanks.
I do know the difference between Anabaptist and Protestant, but it is generally held that Anabaptists are another Protestant sect. I know many Anabaptists don’t like that, and I certainly respect your opinion on that. However, you also have restorationists, who consider themselves separate from Protestants and Anabaptists though they can be classified as a subset of both (I grew up in a Church of Christ, so I know a bit about that particular group of restorationists). For convenience sake, I generally classify Christians as Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern, which I know is a vast oversimplification. Also, as an Episcopalian, I tend to think of myself as catholic and protestant, further adding to the confusion. However, I’ll try to be more specific in my comments here, considering the audience. Sadly, most of the Christians I know don’t even know what Anabaptist means, even the ones who belong to a tradition that arises from the movement.
I defer to your superior knowledge, Kat, when it comes to Taurobolia vs. Mikva’ot as the origin of Christian baptism, other than to say that many Christian scholars would disagree. As I am not much of a scholar of history or theology, I don’t know.
I like the discussion, though.
Thomas, I’ve literally read at least two hundred books, papers and treatises on the subject. Im aware that many church historians–especially from the Mainline Protestant schools of thought disagree with the concept of Mithraic influence on the rites of Baptism and the early church. It isn’t a popular idea in many circles.
Adam, believe me when I tell you that it is a great offence to subsumate Anabaptists to the Protestant header. It’s an historically inaccurate and protestocentric idea that ignores a long tradition of faith culture and glosses over the mass murder of Anabaptists by Lutherans and other Protestants.
As far as source citations, I’ll add them to the end of this post when I get back to my desk. I’ll also fix the plural of Mikvah. I’m on my iPod right now and can’t do those things on here.
Kat, I apologize for (mentally, at least) lumping Anabaptists in with Protestants, which I certainly have done.
I don’t know all that much about the specific mutual influences between early Christianity and late Mithraism, but I know that they were the two most popular religions in the Roman Empire of the 3rd century CE, so it would be shocking if they hadn’t made an impact on each other.
did the Christian idea of hell come through Mithraism (as I had thought), or from Zoroastrianism (in its later forms, concurrent with early Christianity) directly
The Christian idea of Hell has mutated so wildly over the last 2000 years that it’s really hard to say. I frankly think the modern idea of hell owes a lot more to Jonathan Edwards and his “hands of an angry God” than to anything else. I would say, though, that the whole “falling into Hell” that occurs over and over again in Christian and paraChristian imagry is straight out of Mithraism–which would be straight out of the Roman idea of torture as punishment. That seems to have risen in popularity with the rise of the Roman Empire as a way to ensure allegiance to the emperor, with an “eternal damnation” being the ultimate cudgel to enforce loyalty.
I could be wrong, but I don’t see many (any?) references to eternal hell prior to the rise of the Emperors, beginning with Caeser Augustis.
Well, I don’t think Hieronymos Bosch owed much to Edwards (though he owed a lot to Dante), but I’m pretty sure Edwards would have recognized Bosch’s hell. So I think it’s older than that. The Zoroastrians did have the idea of punishment/purging of sin by fire after death, and that goes back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and it did become part of Christian doctrine, didn’t it? But Roman ideas about torture probably were fairly easy to conflate with the fires.
I’m certainly aware of the persecution and murder of Anabaptists by Protestants. I’ll try to be as specific as I can in referring to different sects of Christianity.
Most Christians aren’t aware, really. And while I like to see Church unity across denominations as much as possible, I think it’s a good thing for Anabaptists to be aware of their faith traditions and heritage. Especially this day in age as a lot of folks adopt longstanding Mennonite/Brethren faith practices and label them “Emerging”/”Emergent”. (Yes, that’s a pet peeve of mine.)
I also think it does the Church good to realise that it has had a bloody past in a lot of ways.
It occured to me upon rereading this entry this morning that it seemed to appear as though I was being anti-Catholic/anti-Mainline by linking sprinkling with pagan roots but dunking with Jesus.
Ack. That’s not how I meant it. I think both forms of Baptism have decidedly pagan roots in that Baptism originated as a Mystery Rite. While many people in the modern church see Baptism as an important gesture to acknowledge and proclaim one’s faith openly there are still a few (Church of Christ being one example) who view it as a Mystery Rite of Initiation insofar as Baptism exacts an effect on one’s salvation.
Oddly, while I consider myself a Mystic Christian I don’t actually consider Baptism to be the Mystery Rite of Initiation. (I would, instead, view the prayer of salvation to be the primary MRoI.) This is because I believe that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit occurs at that moment as opposed to the moment of Baptism. I haven’t yet fully decided if it is truly a Mystery Rite of Purification. Since I believe that Jesus as the Blood Sacrifice stood as the only necessary Purification I don’t see Baptism as serving any other rite beyond a public acknowledgement of Jesus’ unique completion of that rite for all.
Anyway, that was a long way of saying what I was trying to say. The shorter way being that I am sorry for accidentally implying that infant/sprinking baptisms are less “holy” and sacred than adult immersion baptisms.
What I wonder is at what point “Hell” became attached to the Christian afterlife for people who suck? According to the OED, that seems to have happened in the 1200s, which would have been after all the people who would have regarded Hellheim as just one more place the dead might go–with neither particularly good or bad connotations–had been converted.
You mean the English word, right? Because the idea was there long before that.
Oh, yeah, right. I just mean, if you’ve been saying “Hey, kids, shape up or you’re going to Cleveland” for 1,000 years (or more), what is the mechanism by which “Nantucket” becomes synonymous with “Cleveland”?
Hey, hey! Cleveland jokes are uncalled for. Nantucket, on the other hand…
Well, my OED mentions usages of “hell” from the early ninth century. Which is pretty much the first time you have most Christian works glossed and translated into Anglo-Saxon. (Bede had gotten started on it earlier, but he never go very far with it.) So we don’t, in fact, know that the word wasn’t in use even earlier in casual speech among Anglo-Saxon speakers to refer to Christian ideas of Hell. We know it wasn’t written down earlier than that, but since we don’t have earlier A-S writings using any A-S words for the Christian Hell, that doesn’t show much.
“I also think it does the Church good to realise that it has had a bloody past in a lot of ways. ”
I agree. The embers are still smoldering, particularly in Ireland and Great Britain, but we do well not to forget our past. The church has persecuted herself almost as well as she has persecuted other faiths. I often wonder whether Jesus appreciates the irony, considering his nearly perfect example of nonviolence.
Edwards, though, was the first time that Hell was opened for everybody. Prior to Edwards the general attitude regarding Hell was that it was for select groups. This is seen in Dante’s circles–reserved as they were for various groups of both the unsaved and the active sinner.
In both Dante and Bosch’s representations of Hell as whole you have the various punishments doled out according to the corresponding sin on earth. The worse your sin was, the worse the punishment was in Hell.
Around Edwards’ time (this is all a vast oversimplification, I’m well aware) is when the “everyone sins=everyone must be saved=everyone who isn’t saved goes to hell” theology came into the fore.
As for the entry of the word “hell” into the lexicon, it is my understanding that it became absorbed into Christianity at about the same time the rest of Anglo-Saxon traditions became absorbed into Christianity after Christianity reasserted itself in England after the baptism of Ethelbert which was somewhere around 598.
Could I be any more vague?
Ah, gotcha. I think you’re right about when Hell-as-default became popular, but I don’t think that’s the default idea of Hell for most Christians. I’m pretty sure that Catholics (the largest group of Christians world-wide) are still cool with Dante’s circles. Except the Limbo one, which I understand isn’t there any more.
Yeah, but considering all the recent undoings of various sorts in the Catholic Church, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Limbo make a return.
It was this pope who got rid of it.