Can anyone give me a reference to Mithra's virgin birth?

Question

Not a website claiming he was, but the actual "quote" or whatever to show it?


Several atheists have said that Mithra was born of a virgin, but Wikipedia says that isn't true (see below).

Where did this rumor come from, or is there a source Wikipedia doesn't know about?


Wikipedia:
Some authors have drawn parallels between the circumstances of Mithras' and Jesus' birth: Joseph Campbell described it as a virgin birth, and Martin A. Larson noted that Mithras was said to have been born on December 25, or the winter solstice.

This theory is in contradiction to the traditional understanding of Mithras' birth.

In Mithraic Studies it stated that Mithras was born as an adult from solid rock, "wearing his Phrygian cap, issues forth from the rocky mass. As yet only his bare torso is visible. In each hand he raises aloft a lighted torch and, as an unusual detail, red flames shoot out all around him from the petra genetrix." David Ulansey speculates that this was a belief derived from the Perseus' myths which held he was born from an underground cavern.

Additional Details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis

Ethan - please read the article I just posted, it is wikipedia, not propeganda like you posted, and it states:

This is the result of early Christian exposure to Egyptian art. In a survey of "twenty leading Egyptologists" by Dr. W. Ward Gasque, a Christian scholar, found that all who responsed recognised "that the image of the baby Horus and Isis has influenced the Christian iconography of Madonna and Child" but that there were no other similarities, eg no evidence that Horus was born of a virgin, had twelve followers, etc

Mia - Anahita was a FERTILITY goddess!

LOL not saying that refutes the inscription, but for crying out loud!

big bad wolf - thanks for the link :-D

Well, I am going to bed, so i will make my closing argument.

Mia, you win, as you were the ONLY person able to produce a varifiable source not from propeganda. However, it is only from 200BC, which is 600 years short (see Isaiah 7:14, written 800BC, varifiable by Wikipedia).

Thanks to the few who participated :-D

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

There is reference to Mithra as being born of "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras". Anahita was said to have conceived the Mithras from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. In other, contradictory traditions, he is also born without any sex but from the rock wall of a cave. One must know that there were separate Mithra traditions that may have changed and been adapted over time. This information comes from a Temple that bears this inscription dedicated to Anahita and dated to about 200 B.C.E..


http://archi-west.tripod.com/anahita.htm

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

Hate to admit defeat, Mia, but you found the quote! Congrats and such :-P

Answer 2

You can read this link:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/or…

to find parallels between Mithra and Jesus, and can make your own conclusion.

There were striking resemblances between the two religions, Mithraism and Christianity, and, because the inception of Mithraism preceded that of both Judaism and Christianity by many centuries, one must assume that the latter two religions, but especially Christianity, adopted Mithraic myths and ceremonies to be able to recruit Mithraists to their own cause.

RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN MITHRAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

1. Both Mithras and Christ were portrayed as young and beardless; both sometimes appeared in the shepherd's role, and both saved mankind by performing sacrifical deeds.

2. Both Mithras and Christ had virgin births in the sense that they were conceived without any sexual union between man and woman. Christ's father was said to be God, while Mithras was said to have had no father or mother, having emerged as an adult from a large rock.

3. Both Mithraism and Christianity celebrated the birth of their god on the winter solstice, the 25th of December according to the Julian calendar. Both featured the sharing of presents, the use of Christmas trees with candles, and nativity scenes that included shepherds attracted by a sacred light. The special importance of this solstice ceremony to Mithraists would be indicated by the name Mithras, which derived from Meitras, which in Greek numerology refers to the number 365, the last day of the solar year at the winter solstice.

4. Both the Old Testament and Mithraic legend told of the first human couple having been created. Mithra supposedly kept a watchful eye over their descendents until Ahriman caused a draught that caused such thirst that they begged Mithra for water.

5. Both told of a major flood, in the case of Mithra through his having shot an arrow into a stone cliff to quench mankind's thirst. Unfortunately, the entire world's population was drowned in a flood produced by the water spout that gushed from the hole his arrow produced. One man alone (a Noah figure borrowed from the earlier Sumerian myth of Atrahasis) was warned in time and could therefore save himself and his cattle in an ark.

6. Both Mithraism and Christianity emphasized mankind's redemption resulting from a sacrificial death followed by the god's ascent to heaven. In the case of Christ, it was the god himself (or his son) who was sacrificed; in the case of Mithra, it was a sacred steer that Mithra sacrificed.

7. Both featured resurrection through sacrifice. Mithraism more obviously drew upon spring equinox fertility myths by depicting Mithra's sacrificial bull with a tail that consisted of sheaves of wheat that were supposedly scattered throughout the world once it was slaughtered. Also, the bull's blood formed the milky way, allowing human souls both to be born and to return to the heavens after death.

8. Both told of a Last Supper linked with the blood sacrifice whose symbolic recreation by eating bread and wine provided salvation for all worshippers. After Mithra killed the bull depicted in Mithraic art, he feasted upon it with the Sun God and other companions before ascending to the heavens in the sun god's chariot. The sequence was slightly different in the New Testament: Christ's Last Supper necessarily preceded his crucifixion rather than following it, after which he ascended to heaven.

9. Both emphasized purification through baptism, Mithraists by washing themselves in the blood of sacrificial oxen. While dying oxen bled to death on lattice floors built over their heads, initiates both drank and washed themselves with the blood that dripped on them.

10. Both featured secret temples located underground. For Christians it was a temporary expedient to avoid persecution, but for Mithraists it became a permanent institution, each small chapel, called a Mithraeum, having seated no more than fifty worshippers and having been constructed to point from east to west. Rounded ceilings were painted blue and imbedded with gemstones. There were no windows except for a few chapels in which tiny holes in the ceiling that had been bored to let in the light of certain stars at particular times of the year.

11. Both held Sunday to be sacred.

12. Both encouraged asceticism. Mithraists were expected to resist sensuality and to abstain from eating certain foods.

13. Both emphasized charity. Mithra was identified as the god of help who protected his worshippers, whatever their tribulations in life.

14. Last and probably least, both emphasized a rock, Mithra having been born from one and the Vatican having been built on one.

RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ZOROASTRIANISM

Also important were similarities between Christianity and the sixth century eschatology of Zarathustra (or Zoroaster), which reduced Mithra's role to humanity's final judge after death:

15. Both Christianity and Zoroastrian eschatology emphasized the conflict between virtue and vice as a cosmic rivalry between a God and Satan figure. The Zoroastrian god was Ahura Mazda and the Satan figure was Ahriman. The world was filled with good and bad angels, the latter called devas, or devils.

16. Both emphasized the overriding importance of an immortal soul that survives the body.

17. Both anticipated a judgment day, when mankind would once and for all be divided into those accepted in heaven and those consigned to eternal punishment in hell. The Zoroastrian explanation was that all of humanity would be obliged to cross a sifting bridge. Sinners would lose their balance and tumble into hell; the virtuous would be able to cross without falling, after which they could ascend to heaven.

18. As opposed to other early religions, which consigned all the dead to an underworld, both Christianity and Zoroastrian dogma located hell in the underworld and heaven in the sky, where God was located.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MITHRAISM AND CHRISTIANITY

1. No sacred text comparable to the Bible has survived for the Mithraic faith, whose doctrine is best studied in its art. All that survives of Zoroastrian worship are the Avesta and Zend Avesta, both relatively brief texts.

2. Mithraism was restricted to male worshippers, since female worshippers were expected to worship either Cybele or Isis instead.

3. Mithraism was more archaic, having been rooted in animal sacrifice instead of the death and resurrection of a god such as Christ, or, in fact, the many sacrificial spring deities such as Dionysus, Adonis, Osiris, and Serapis.

4. Mithraism emphasized courage and generosity, whereas Christianity emphasized charity.

5. Mithraism was linked with Roman patriotism, whereas Christianity subordinated secular loyalty to a higher destiny.

6. Mithraism primarily recruited the military in outposts outside Italy, whereas Christianity thrived in Mediterranean cities, drawing into its cause large numbers of slaves, women, and impoverished citizens.

Why so many similarities between the two religions? By a process of diffusion that was practiced without constraint by today's standards, competititive near-eastern religions shared many of the stories and rituals that appealed to worshippers. As the youngest of all these religions, Christianity needed to be especially skillful in adopting for its own purposes those features of other religions that would enlarge its appeal. And of course it enjoyed the substantial advantage that its sacrificial god had been a genuine human being executed by Roman authority, that it offered a more accessible eschatology telling of an afterlife that guaranteed the appropriate punishment and rewards, that it promised salvation to all who could believe in Christ, not merely one particular sub-population, and that it was able to produce a sacred text that documented the life and sayings of Christ. Mithraism was less flexible, rendered its services to a smaller population (primarily soldiers), and was less popular with the urban population. It accordingly lost its position of leadership among eastern religions practiced in Rome to Christianity by the early fourth century.

Answer 3

Unfortunately I am not able to find a Reference that makes it clear. Some say it was others she wasn't.. What's a person to believe??

edit- Thanks for the information NOT about Mithra and her story Ethan..

Answer 4

If he was born from a rock, it was definitely a virgin birth.

I mean, who the hell has sex with a rock?

Answer 5

i think you will find this link interesting
http://www.farvardyn.com/mithras.php

5) The Legend of Mithras

1
The miraculous birth of Mithras

December 25th was Mithras's particular festival, when the advent of the new light and the god's birth were celebrated. This birth was in the nature of a miracle, the young Mithras being forced out of a rock as if by some hidden magic power. He is shown naked save for the Phrygian cap, holding dagger and torch in his uplifted hands. He is the new begetter of light (genitor luminis), born from the rock (deus genitor rupe natus), from a rock which gives birth (petra genetrix). Even at this stage he is equipped for his nature feats with bow and arrow, ready to perform the miracle of the striking of the rock or the miracle of the hunt. Just as the crypt of the Mithraeum is the symbol of the celestial vault, so the rock is the firmament from which light descends to earth. Sometimes, as at Dura-Europos, flames are shown shooting out from the rock's surface and even from the cap, which is often studded with stars and, like the vault of the Mithraic grotto, was regarded as a symbol of the celestial vault.

In the tenth yasht of the Avesta, the hymn for Mithras, the Persian god is described appearing in a golden glow on top of Hara Berezaiti, a mythological mountain later localised in the present-day Elburz, whence he looks out over the lands of the aryans. The theory that Mithras was descended from the union of Mother Earth and Ahuramazda does not bear examination; Mithras is saxigenus and sometimes he is shown stepping proudly out of the rock, as on a relief at St Aubin in France. The rock of Mithras's birth contains both light and fire; he who is born from the rock is thus a fiery god of light. This conception is almost certainly based on a very ancient tradition dating from the time when man first discovered that both light and fire could be produced by straking a flint. Mithras's birth is a cosmic event; he holds the globe in one hand from the moment of his birth

Answer 6

It seems that Horus experienced a virgin birth also. I'll go find some translations or quotes...

"Whatever we make of the original myth…Isis seems to have been originally a virgin (or, perhaps, sexless) goddess, and in the later period of Egyptian religion she was again considered a virgin goddess, demanding very strict abstinence from her devotees. It is at this period, apparently, that the birthday of Horus was annually celebrated, about December 25th, in the temples. As both Macrobius and the Christian writer [of the "Paschal Chronicle"] say, a figure of Horus as a baby was laid in a manger, in a scenic reconstruction of a stable, and a statue of Isis was placed beside it. Horus was, in a sense, the Savior of mankind. He was their avenger against the powers of darkness; he was the light of the world. His birth-festival was a real Christmas before Christ.

"The ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, "The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!" The Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess."

Source(s):

# Joseph McCabe, "The Story of Religious Controversy," Stratford Co, (1929).
# Acharya S., "Born of a Virgin on December 25th: Horus, Sun God of Egypt," at: http://www.truthbeknown.com/
# Les Carney, "Krishna born of a virgin?," at: http://www.lescarney.com/