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An inscription
in the Vatican states plainly, "He who will not eat of my body,
nor drink of my blood, so that he may be one with me and
I with him, shall not be saved." This is not terribly surprising,
unless you consider that this is inscribed on the remains of
the temple the Vatican was built on- one dedicated to the God Mithras.
Mithras was a solar deity whose worshippers called him redeemer;
his religion died out not long after the advent of Christianity.
Such
eerie parallels between the pronouncements of Jesus and Mithras are
not the only similarities between the two religions. Mithras was
known to his followers as "The light of the world," or "The
Good Shepherd,"
and exhorted his followers to share ritual communion meals of bread
and wine. His preists were called "Father."
Mithras
was also born in a cave, with shepherds in attendance,
on the twenty-fifth of December. (Alternatively,
he is assisted in his birth from a stone by shepherds.)
Are these
just coincidences? Absolutely not. Fourth
century Bishop John Chrysostom writes : "On this day also the Birthday
of Christ was lately fixed at Rome in order that while the heathen
were busy with their profane ceremonies, the Christians might perform
their sacred rites undisturbed. They call this the
Birthday of the Invincible One; but who is so invincible
as the Lord? They call it the Birthday of the Solar Disk, but Christ
is the Sun of Righteousness."
 Consider
this- several other Gods share the December birthday, and like Mithras,
they are also solar deities, who are born in the winter solstices,
often of virgin mothers, die, and are reborn. One of these, a pre-Christian
deity called Attis, was called "The
lamb of God," and his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection
were celebrated annually, with ritual communions of bread and wine.
His virgin mother, Cybele, was worshipped as "The Queen of
heaven." It
gets more interesting the further back we look- Attis and Cybele's
predecessors are the Babylonian Goddess Ishtar, and her consort
Tammuz. It is from their legend that we get the name for the annual
celebration of the resurrection of Christ- Easter, a name
of the Goddess Ishtar.
 This is
not the only coincidence related to this ancient couple- the earliest
use of the cross as a
religious symbol is related to Tammuz. In fact, crosses are related
to a variety of solar
deities. Of course, the cross was not popular with early
Christians, except in the form of an X, the Greek initial of
"Christos." (Even this was borrowed symbolism- the initials belonging
to the Greek Chronos.)
Hundreds
of years before Jesus, there was a passion story told about
a God man, born of a virgin mother, in a stable. He travels about
with his followers, preaching and performing miracles, including
turning water into wine. Eventually, he incurs the wrath of the
religious authorities, who are appalled that he refers to himself
as the son of god. He
allows himself to be arrested and tried for blasphemy- a willing self-sacrifice.
He is found guilty and executed, only to rise from the grave three
days later, where the women weeping at his tomb do not recognize
him until he assumes his divine form. This god, also one of the first
depicted crucified, is the vine-God Dionysus.
 Common
to all of these 'mystery' religions (so called because one was required
to be initiated or baptized into the faith to learn its doctrines)-
including early Christianity- are themes of rebirth, redemption,
and the transmission of life-changing information- spiritual salvation.
So many religions in those times shared similar themes with that
usually the deities became melded together. Early depictions of Jesus
show him holding the Lyre of Orpheus, or driving Apollo's chariot.
A talisman bearing the crucified likeness of Dionysus is inscribed
Orpheus-Bacchus. The follower of Jesus, named Lazarus ('resurrected,'
a derivitive of the name of Osiris, the resurrected God of Egypt).
 It
is impossible to tell just by looking at old artwork which haloed
infant gods are cuddled in the arms of which mothers. The Emperor
Constantine,
who legitimized Christianity in Rome, was a worshipper of Sol Invictus-
an amalgamation of solar deities Mithras, Helios, and Apollo-and he
recognized Jesus' place in that company almost immediately. Even today,
ancient solar symbols abound in Christian iconography. Not that Constantine
was the only one to muddle these gods together- in fact, Christianity's
oldest known mosaic depicts Jesus as a triumphant Helios, complete
with chariot.
 Of course,
later Christians were terribly perturbed by these similarities to Pagan
religions- these
coincidences so disturbed one early Christian church father,
Justin Martyr,
that he accused the devil of sending an imitator of Christ in advance.
Had he paid a little more attention to the past, he might have noted
that the association of Jesus with Dionysus is not so strange-philosophers
had been making connections between Jehovah and Dionysus for centuries.
 Did
early Christians, like their modern descendents, believe that theirs
was the one and only true manifestation of religion? Consider the
words of Clement, of Alexandria, "There is one river of Truth, which receives tributaries
from every side." If only the later followers of the religion
listened more closely, these mysteries may not have been lost.
Next
page > Picture Gallery - discover the
identity of gods pictured on this page!
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New
Testament authors stuck sly references to Pagan gods throughout the
gospels.
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