On a Poul Anderson Appreciation blog, Andersonian influences and parallels are never far away. Karen Anderson helped with how language might have been if history had been different. Thus, we get Alexandros, Rhoma and Karkhedon instead of Alexander, Rome and Carthage etc. And there are parallels with Poul Anderson's fiction. There is a timeline in which Rome did not destroy Carthage and in which Alexander did return from Babylon. (These are two separate stories among Anderson's works.)
Eternity (London, 1989) refers to "...the little-known Ioudaian Messiah Jeshua, or Jesus." (p. 50) If the Classical tradition had needed a sacrificial victim figure, then it already had two candidates, Socrates executed and Caesar assassinated. (Dante puts Brutus and Cassius with Judas as traitors in the Inferno.) However, the Roman Empire went for the Jewish option I think because the Hebrew prophets had forged an uncompromising monotheism that was more appropriate for a universal state than were the speculative monotheisms that were meanwhile being postulated by pagan priests and prophets. Thus, in our history, an executed Messianic claimant became the perfect victim.
If instead Mithras had become the world historical pivotal figure, then his story would have had to have been historicized - although maybe this could have been done by identifying a historical figure with Mithras?
5 comments:
Hi, Paul!
But it remains my view that an important and real difference between Our Lord on the one hand and philosophers/mythological figures like Socrates and Mithras on the other is that Christ is truly God as well as man while Socrates was simply a man and Mithras never EXISTED. Socrates never claimed to be divine, or was recorded as having performed miraculous cures, or having the power to forgive sins, etc. Moreover, unlike the case with Mithras, Christ was truly a HISTORICAL person with both disciples who testified to knowing Him and non Christian historians such as Flavius Josephus, Tacitus, and Suetonius recording Him as living during the reign of Tiberius. And St. Paul made a big point in 1 Corinthians of listing witnesses who had seen the Risen Lord. All of this, plus many other factors, contributed to the rise and durability of Christianity.
Moreover, Mithras, like many other pagan gods, had only a limited following or "clientele." That is, it could be said that many pagan gods "specialized" in different fields, professions, or being only for either males or females. Mithras tended to appeal mostly to soldiers (Gratillonius in THE KING OF YS comes to mind) and was for males only. The God Chistians worship, by contrast, is universal (and might even come to be adored by non humans, as some have speculated!).
Sean
Sean,
Yes, to become more universal, the Mystery of Mithras would have had to admit women or maybe team up with a cult of Isis? As it happened, soldiers served Mithras but their wives became Christians and had both sons and daughters baptized! Christianity competed better.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I'm dubious Mithraism could ever have become "universal," because it seems so narrow and limited in many ways, once you seriously examine it. My belief, based on Chesterton's argument in THE EVERLASTING MAN, is that Persian Zoroastrianism was the only intellectually serious rival Christianity had. That faith came very close to being monotheistic, and broadly speaking, erred only in making the evil god Ahriman equal or nearly equal in power to the good god Ahura Mazda.
I really can't see Mithraism retaining any intellectual COHERENCE if it started adding other gods or goddesses to its belief system. So I doubt adding the worship of Isis alongside that of Mithras would have helped make it more "competitive" with Christianity. More likely, more gods would have been added to its pantheon, ending up with Mithraism becoming more like the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons.
And, yes, the increasingly Christian wives Mithraists had made it more and more likely their children would become Christians as well.
Sean
Sean,
I agree Mithraism could not really have done the job. Christianity accepted both men and women and soon authorized devotion to a feminine figure. Gentiles attracted by Jewish monotheism and morality but repelled by circumcision and dietary laws were open to the message that one perfect sacrifice had been offered which fulfilled the Mosaic Law but which also made it unnecessary to observe the details of that Law. Jews and pagans were familiar with blood sacrifice. Pagans were familiar with the idea of a dying and rising god. Slaves transported around within the Empire needed to believe that their god was not local but omnipresent. Everyone felt that the old Age was ending. Christianity synthesized all this.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
I would add that veneration of the BVM developed largely as a CONSEQUENCE of the Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. See, for example, what the Council of Ephesus said about the Blessed Virgin in its rebuttal of the Nestorian heresy. IOW, veneration of the Theotokos was only possible if a clear understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Christ had been reached in a way which did not undermine monotheism.
And the IMPORTANT point about the infinitely efficacious sacrifice of Christ and His Resurrection was that this was done only once by an actual, historically known Person. The dying and rising gods seen among some of the pagans were mythological, non historical gods whom no one had ever SEEN.
Sean
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