Dionysus: Born of a Virgin on December 25th, Killed and Resurrected after Three Days

Dionysus is another solar hero, born of a virgin on “December 25th” or the winter solstice, performing miracles and receiving divine epithets, being killed, giving his blood as a sacrifice, resurrecting from the dead after three days in Hades/Hell, and ascending into heaven.
The Greek god of wine, Dionysus or Bacchus, also called Iacchus, has been depicted as having been born of a virgin mother on December 25th; performing miracles such as changing water into wine; appearing surrounded by or one of 12 figures; bearing epithets such as “Only Begotten Son” and “Savior”; dying; resurrecting after three days; and ascending into heaven.

Dionysus was the son of the god Zeus and the mortal woman Semele. In the Cretan version of the same story, which the pre-Christian Greek historian Diodorus Siculus follows, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the daughter of Demeter also called Kore, who is styled a “virgin goddess.”
In the common myth about the birth of Dionysus/Bacchus, Semele is mysteriously impregnated by one of Zeus’s bolts of lightning–an obvi­ous miraculous/virgin conception. In another account, Jupiter/Zeus gives Dionysus’s torn-up heart in a drink to Semele, who becomes pregnant with the “twice born” god this way, again a miraculous or “virgin” birth.

“The virgin conceived the ever-dying, ever-living god of bread and wine, Dionysus.”

”While the maiden goddess sat there, peacefully weaving a mantle on which there was to be a representation of the universe, her mother contrived that Zeus should learn of her presence; he approached her in the form of an immense snake. And the virgin conceived the ever-dying, ever-living god of bread and wine, Dionysus, who was born and nurtured in that cave, torn to death as a babe and resurrected…” – Joseph Campbell

”Dionysus, son of Zeus, is born of a mortal virgin, Semele, who later became immortalized through the inter­vention of her divine son; Jesus, son of God, is born of a mortal virgin, Mary… such stories can be dupli­cated over and over again.”. – Sir Dr. Edmund Ronald Leach

Turning water to wine.

This story is really the Christian counterpart to the pagan legends of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, who at his annual festival in his temple of Elis filled three empty kettles with wine-no water needed! And on the fifth of January wine instead of water gushed from his temple at Andros. If we believe Jesus’ miracle, why should we not believe Dionysus’s? – Dr. A.J. Mattill

“Dionysus’s blood is the wine of the sacrifice.”

”Dionysus-Bacchus-Zagreus-or, in the older, Sumero-Babylonian myths, Dumuzi-absu, Tammuz-…whose blood, in this chalice to be drunk, is the pagan prototype of the wine of the sacrifice of the Mass, which is transubstantiated by the words of consecration into the blood of the Son of the Virgin”. – Campbell

Dionysus is ‘first-born,Savior’ and ‘Father.

”The title “King of Kings” and other epithets may reflect Dionysus’s kinship with Osiris: During the late 18th to early 19th dynasties (c. 1300 BCE), Osiris’s epithets included, “the king of eternity, the lord of everlastingness, who traverseth millions of years in the duration of his life, the firstborn son of the womb of Nut, begotten of Seb, the prince of gods and men, the god of gods, the king of kings, the lord of lords, the prince of princes, the governor of the world whose existence is for everlasting.” – Budge

”Dionysus’s death and resurrection were famous in ancient times, so much so that Christian father Origen (c. 184-c. 254) felt the need to address them in his Contra Celsus (IV, XVI-XVII), comparing them unfavorably, of course, to those of Christ. By Origen’s time, these Dionysian mysteries had already been celebrated for centuries. Dionysus/Bacchus’s resurrection or revival after having been torn to pieces or otherwise killed earned him the epithet of “twice born.” – DM Murdoch

Dionysus/Bacchus “slept three nights with Proserpine (Persephone),” referring to the god’s journey into the underworld to visit his mother. Like Jesus, the god is claimed also to have “ascended to heaven,” such as by Church father Justin Martyr (First Apology, 21; I, 170). Note that Dionysus is depicted here as an adult, rising out of the underworld after death, with a horse-driven chariot so typical of a sun god. One major astrotheological meaning of this motif is the sun’s entrance into and exit from the cave (womb) of the world at the winter solstice. – Classical Journal

In an Orphic hymn, Phanes-Dionysus is styled by the Greek title Protogonos or “first-born” of Zeus, also translated at times as “only-begotten son,” although the term Monogenes would be more appropriately rendered as the latter. He is also called “Soter” or “Savior” in various inscriptions, including a bronze coin from the Thracian city of Maroneia dating to circa 400-350 BCE. Like Jesus in his aspect as the Father, Dionysus is called Pater, or “father” in Greek. – Wright/Adrados

Gnostic Chrestians

The Historical Jesus Christ (the presentation of “the Christ” as taught through the medium of a presumed historical person to serve as an example for all mankind to emulate and follow), is not all there is to christianity. It’s the milk for the infant spirit, to awaken it to the mythical and then the amazing mystical. Every major religion has it’s mystical counter part, Islam included (called Sufism).

The Mythical Jesus Christ is the personification of the Sun as it moves on its prescribed path through the Heavens where we find it moving through each house of the Zodiac which goes hand in hand with the changing seasons of the year [Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, Winter Solstice.

The Mystical Jesus Christ is the allegorical expression of a hidden teaching, a secret doctrine, given under strict and exacting conditions to approved candidates by the Ancient Masters of Spiritual Wisdom regarding the descent of the Logos (God) into matter, ie., mankind.

What escapes the vast majority of Christianity in today’s world is that many of the stories of these “solar gods” and “godmen” down through history which parallel the events in the life of the New Testament “Christ” as found in the New Testament and which appear at first thought to be apparently historical were really purely allegorical. This is why the stories of Osiris, Horus, Dionysus, Attis, Adonis, Mithra, and a host of others read like the New Testament “Jesus Story”. Nowhere is it more necessary to understand this than when we are studying the story of Jesus, surnamed “the Christ”, for when we fail to separate the allegory from the literal truth, and see where the symbols have been mistakenly taken and believed as “historical” events, allegories as histories, we lose most of the instructiveness of the narrative and much of its “Eternal Truth” once given to the Ancient Spiritual Masters. Men fear that Christianity will be weakened when one comes to this understanding, and that it is “dangerous” to admit that events thought to be “historical” have a deeper significance in both a “mythical” and “mystic meaning”. Those who advocate not delving into these deeper areas of understanding of “the Christ” keep others from recovering the truths concerning “the Christ” as the Ancients who gave us those concepts understood them and “him” in the first place. Let us not forget that as Egypt taught in the beginning of recorded history mankind was made in the image of God and not God in the image of man!

The “Mystical Jesus Christ” is how the earliest Christians (actually called Chrestians, not Christians; Chrestians literally means The Good Ones) and the First New Testament from Marcion, which Rome would later corrupt and destroy, understood “the Christ” as a Divine Allegory of a Divine Concept inherent within all of mankind and not exclusive to just one person. That is why this First New Testament of these earliest Gnostic “Chrestian” believers did not teach a “fleshly” or a “historical Jesus Christ”. Nor did the authentic letters of Paul in the modern New Testament teach a Jesus of flesh. His letters were edited, and even misrepresented to make it look like Paul, a Gnostic, hated Gnostics. What a cruel thing to do! An Epistle of Paul are truly now just ”a piss hole of Rome.”

The “Gnostic” understanding of “the Christ” would be lost to the world by the fifth century and forced “underground” by Roman Christianity and their military might. These earlier Gnostic Spiritual Masters were almost persecuted out of existence by Rome and the “Divine Allegory of the Christ Within” would be later “literalized” by Rome in their Second New Testament. Lost to the world will be the earliest understanding of “the Jesus Christ” as known since the beginning of recorded time. This is where most of Christianity exists today believing in a “Literalized Jesus Christ” which has been presented as a historical person when the deeper truths of the “Christ Within” are seldom heard and that goes double for the “Mythical Christ”.

Christians and followers of “the Christ” have a spiritual book given us by Rome that is “forged” in key places which hides these deeper truths from us. It is well past time we get new “keys” to understand our Creator and His true message to us.

Gnosticism flourished in Egypt and Western Asia between 250 B.C. and AD. 400. It was a Theosophic movement made up of elements of Egyptian mythology, Indian metaphysics, Judaism, and Greek philosophy. Gnosticism was overwhelmed by Orthodox Christianity in the fourth century, AD., but some of the lost Gnostic literature has been recovered. The ancient Gnostics were those who “knew”, just as the modern Agnostics are those who “do not know”. Gnostics believed in a Supreme God who was both unknown and unknowable. This unknown god was not the creator of the world; this task was delegated to lesser gods (the demiurge), who were emanations of this Supreme God. Egypt called this the “many in the One”. These subordinate gods or emanations (attributes) from the One true God, who created and governed the world, were called “Aeons”. Among the Aeons were:

 

The Logos (The Word, Christ [masculine])

 

Sophia (Wisdom [feminine])

 

Nous (Mind)

 

Phronesis (Judgment)

 

Dynamis (Power)

 

All of the above are but attributes of the One Supreme Mind, they exist separately but yet are interrelated. The Supreme God and the Aeons altogether formed the Pleroma (Fullness of the Godhead).

After the Roman Emperor Constantine made the Christian religion the State religion of the empire the remaining Gnostics were persecuted out of existence and their literature was destroyed. How and why Gnosticism was destroyed by organized Christianity is, as a rule, glossed over in history textbooks. One American scholar has penned an accurate and colorful account of these episodes. Please read the following slowly and gleam the truths from it:

“Preceding Christianity there was a school of science and philosophy which had accumulated practically all the wisdom and knowledge understandable to mankind. The object was to broadly educate the masses of the people by a unit system which would give to humanity a wisdom in common. This was the most potential period in human intellectual advancement the world has known. This school was called Gnosticism. Gnosis means to know – knowledge. Christianity means to believe – ignorance. These are the two schools; the one advocating the universal education of men, the other the universal ignorance of men. The one desired to develop the unit man, the other desired to suppress the unit and level all mankind to a common plastic mass. To accomplish this necessitated the suppressing of all extant knowledge; the closing of all the avenues through which people might acquire independent learning, education and intellectual training, and the debasement of humanity in abject ignorance The school which pitted itself against Gnosticism assumed the name Ecclesia. This name at once identified the purpose for which the organization was created to seize control of government, that it might exploit mankind for profit, and for its own glorification. Temporal power was the church goal. The name Ecclesia was derived from the Greek, and signified the legislative body which governed ancient Athens long before Christianity was invented. The first essential act of the Eccliesiasts was to suppress Gnosticism, and confiscate its vast accumulation of wisdom and knowledge, in order to control the education of future generations in a manner to adjust mankind to its purposes. Therefore the Gnostic wisdom was not wholly lost to the world but its great, universal educational system was supplanted and displaced. It is a well-established historical fact, not denied by the church that it required about 500 years to accomplish this submersion of Gnosticism, and to degrade the new generations in ignorance equal to the state of imbecility. History again points its accusing finger at the living evidence. The horrible results of such a crime against nature and mankind are pictured in the Dark Ages .. . Not even priests or prelates were permitted to learn to read or write. Even bishops could barely spell out their Latin. During this period of mental darkness, the ignorant masses were trained in intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and superstitious fear of an invisible power secretly controlled by the church; all of which begat a state of hysteria and imbecility. Through this terrorism popes seized control of the temporal power, retaining this control for nearly 1500 years. They appointed and deposed kings at will, hence they dictated legislation to their ends and purposes – the very essence of government . . . This process of legislating evil into mankind is to vindicate that damnable doctrine of original sin, which slanders nature and insults all mankind . . . Originally the motive was to confiscate the intellects of man, but the modern policy is much more concerned in confiscating their personal rights and property. Here is the other aspect of the suppression of Gnosticism. Its method of teaching was an understandable symbolism. It specifically recognized nature as the great teacher, and visible things as the traditional records of past events, in progressive evolution from the lowest state to the highest, with thinking, reasoning man as the highest evoluted being. Man did not fall, he was raised up by a natural promotion. Hence every man was a Gnostic to the extent of his accumulated knowledge and understanding. Thus each unit man became a teacher, and all men were given equal rights in the acquirement of knowledge. It was wholly an educational system, and a natural consequence in evolution. The Eccliesiasts, the Roman church, being thoroughly familiar with the Gnostic wisdom concerning astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, as demonstrated by the splendid systems of Babylon, Egypt and Assyria, conceived the idea of developing a religio-political form of universal government, to control and exploit the future generations of people upon the earth through living, personified agents of the imaginary heavenly powers. . . to monopolize such a divine power as that contemplated it was necessary to personify nature, using the Gnostic system of symbolisms, and to give to these wholly imaginary beings names and functions. The Gnostic system had to be confiscated, and Gnosticism suppressed, to prevent exposure. This is why Christianity is so viciously antagonistic towards science and philosophy.” ~ (Thomas Sawyer Spivey; The Last of The Gnostic Masters, pp. 544-551.)

 

source: Craig M. Lyons Ms.D., D.D., M.Div. – Bet Emit (House of Truth)

 

Jesusmania

The history of Jesus and the history of Christianity that we know today is the dogma that the Roman empire forced on all its provinces. When Rome became the center of power for Christianity any challenging center was wiped out. If there ever was an historical teacher or real living person who was the Jesus character, what he may have said and done will probably never be known. One thing he most definitely is not is the character in the bible. I don’t think he ever was a person, and it really doesn’t even matter at this point. I KNOW there was never a King David, or a Solomon, and keeping with the mythical midrash tradition of religious writing of it’s time, I’m sure Jesus never existed. These mythical characters are extensions of our Oneself and are pregnant with deeper levels of amazing meanings. There are remnants of gnosis scattered throughout the bible if you know what to look for. Jesus’s story was based on the sun. He also represents our higher Self. He exists as an idea, an energy. His teachings mirror older teachings in other scriptures. He was constructed from many personas.

There were many gospels were written besides the four official ones. These four official gospels were written in Greece in Greek and cannot be accurately dated in an unadulterated form before the 2nd century, or 250 years after the ”events.” The Beatles hit America 50 years ago, and already a mythical history is growing up around them. What would happen if in 250 years a King or President ordered all writings and recordings of The Beatles to be destroyed so a new history could be written as a religion? A council could be convened declaring The Beatles were Gods. Four songs could be picked from the over 200 written and called the only official songs they wrote. This could go on and on, you know? I won’t, it would quickly dissolve into a comedy, which wouldn’t be bad, but people don’t think their Christian beliefs are funny, so it wouldn’t be appropriate. St John, St Paul, St George and St Ringo (all born in a Cavern) would probably be pissed as well. We can only deduce this from what Brian Eusebius Epstien reportedly said. (And of course the ‘history’ attributed to George Irenaeus Martin). OK, enough!

The Roman dogma is a mixture of historical and pre-existing themes. Mithraism, a religion derived from Zoroastrism, was very popular in Rome at the same time that Christianity was spreading. Mithras was believed to be the son of the sun, sent to the earth to rescue humankind. Two centuries before the appearance of Jesus, the myth of Mithras held that Mithras was born of a virgin on December 25 in a cave, and his birth was attended by shepherds. Mithras sacrificed himself and the last day had a supper with twelve of his followers. At that supper Mithras invited his followers to eat his body and drink his blood. He was buried in a tomb and after three days rose again. Mithras’ festival coincided with the Christian Easter. This legend dates from at least one century before Jesus. It was absorbed in the Roman dogma. Jesus’ attitude often resembles the legendary greek philosopher Socrates (eg, the way he refuses to respond to Pilate; the cup of poison).

The Egyptian god Osiris was also born on the 25th of December, died on a friday and resurrected after spending three days in the underworld.
The Roman god Dionysus was hailed as `The Saviour of Mankind’ and `The Son of God’. Dionysus was born (on December 25) when Zeus visited Persephone. Therefore, his father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin. Announced by a star, he is born in a cowshed and visited by three Magis. He turns water into wine and raises people from the dead. He is followed by twelve apostles. Dionysus’ resurrection was a popular myth throughout the Roman empire, although his name was different in each country. The rituals in honor of Dionysus included a meal of bread and wine, symbolizing his body and blood. An amulet of the 3rd century has been found that depicts a crucified man (unmistakably Jesus) but bears the inscription “Orpheus Bacchus,” which was yet another name for Dionysus.

Pre-existing legends and current events influenced the way the official gospels were selected and doctored. Some scholars have even suggested the entire history of Jesus is a myth, based on pre-existing myths that were assembled by “gnostic” jews.
The official gospels were carefully chosen and edited to reflect a view acceptable to the Roman authorities and audience.  It’s getting so we can’t tell The Rolling Stones from The Beatles!

I actually want to write a satirical gospel of The Beatles. It could be a lot of fun. How would that go?

….

The beginning of the cool news about The Beatles;  there was recorded on Blues records and early Rock n Roll recordings by black artists that were heardeth not by most whites in the Land of Odd, as it was sang:

“Well, since my baby left me,

I found a new place to dwell.

It’s down at the end of lonely street at Heartbreak Hotel.”

And so Elvis the Pelvis appeareth on the TV and shewn only from the waist up and this was his message: “After me comes the Fab 4, even more awesome than I, their guitar straps I am not worthy wear. I move you with music, but they will rock your world.” And upon that rock they would built their mansion. If this wasn’t so I would not have said it was so. Because just because.

At the time The Beatles were coming from Liverpool and wrapped with moptop hair. Virgins were everywhere and the whole town of Liverpool followed them.

The Beatles, filled with the plant of the leaf of life, left Liverpool and was led by the Angel Eppie unto the Ed Sullivan Show, before which they ate nothing but honey pie and became horny.

The one that had sympathy for the devil, Mick Jagger, said to them, “If you are the Beatles, tell my stoned guitarist Keith to work for some bread.” Thereby causing a laughter to go up into the sky like a dove, sounding like this: “Hahaha.” And it did reach the ceiling, and the evening and the morning were now 8 days a week.

And it came to pass that the one they called Jesus, a baseball player from Puerto Rico, claimed he was bigger than the Beatles. Dr Roberts conducteth a measurement proving him wrong, but the stank did rise. It seemed too late.

“Verily verily I sing unto you

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Let it be, let it be

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be”

And the crowd did marvel. And they followed them.

 Hey! I totally want keep this up. Who knows? Could have St Ringo walking on water, wearing skis or something, then  Nixon and Watergate!! We could have a blast at Yoko’s expense.  Woodstock. Vietnam, Sgt Pepper. Wow. lol

Amen Ra everyone ~~~  “Write your own gospel, live your own myth…”

Random Notes On The Jesus Myth – Part One

Connecting the dots concerning the fabricated “history” of Jesus has been eye opening to me. There’s overwhelming evidence the whole story of Jesus was invented by the political powers of Rome. Since so many people assume there was an historical Jesus, fear of the truth overcomes their reason, and they immediately defend their ego based false beliefs. I don’t want to convince anyone of what I’ve learned as the truth. My mother was indoctrinated into believing Jesus was a real person. I don’t want to kick her crutch out from under her. I have no reason to convince anyone who believes in Constantine’s cult that they are wrong. Their defenses range from childish to downright dangerous. Many immediately assume that if Jesus wasn’t real then there’s no God. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason there have been so many god-man heroes based on Astrotheology is because mankind is obviously attracted to it. Even if in it’s ignorance (ignore-ance) mankind blindly follows the saga of the Sun, the planets and other signs in the cosmos as historical events taking place in history, it is the opposite of Spiritual. Myth is a way of teaching ever deeper meanings. An historical superman is a dead end. It’s blind faith (requires no critical thinking), it is ignorance that goes nowhere. The shock of learning that this story is untrue historically is a slap in the face of one’s completely brainwashed stupidity, and it’s not pleasant at first. But it does wake one up! But it’s not my job to awake anyone but myself. If a person finds comfort in a lie, who am I to interfere? I’m interested in truth no matter where it leads. I have found the truth will absolutely set us free, and also enlighten us in a way the church doesn’t want. They have their agenda and it has nothing to do with what’s in our best interest. The Gnostics were destroyed, but amazingly some of their writings have been found, and at a time in history where they wouldn’t be burned again. And I’m living in a time where I won’t be burned at the stake  for speaking the truth. The mystical side of various religions I find quite beautiful. The fundamental and literal part is 100% worthless hogwash. It’s embarrassing to me to be a part of such an ignorant and easily tricked group of zombie-like sheeple. If they use fake history to prove their point, they are fake people, living in a fake reality, and are as if already dead. The truth is hidden but can be discovered by anyone open minded enough to look for it. Yes, much of history has been altered for this myth, you do have to dig a bit. You cannot look up an early Church Father and quote them, because early pro-Christian quotes were interpolated centuries later. Hisorians have proven this. Hey, the built the town of Nazareth just to make the gospels literally true! They’ll stoop very low for this lie, because it is the lie upon which all other lies have been built upon. Rome lives on, trust me. Our laws and banks are made from Roman legalisms and Vatican maxims. They learned long ago to never inform or educate slaves.

“Osiris’s coming was announced by Three Wise Men: the three stars Mintaka, Anilam, and Alnitak in the belt of Orion, which point directly to Osiris’s star in the east, Sirius (Sothis), significator of his birth.”

Barbara Walker, The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (749)

“So this was the harbinger of the annual inundation of the Nile through her appearance with the rising sun at the time when the inundation was due to begin. The bright star would therefore naturally become, together with the conjoined constellation of Orion, the sign and symbol of new vegetation which the Year then beginning would infallibly bring with it.”

Dr. John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult (157)

The three stars in the middle of the constellation form an asterism known as The Three Kings, or Orion’s Belt.

Dionysus: Born of a Virgin on December 25th, Killed and Resurrected after Three Days

The goddesses have stories to tell. One such story—far too long ignored—is that, in their original, unadulterated form, they were parthenogenetic. The word parthenogenesis comes from the Greek parthenos, ‘virgin’ more or less, and gignesthai, ‘to be born.’ It means, essentially, to be born of a virgin—that is, without the participation of a male. For a goddess to be ‘parthenogenetic’ thus means that she stands as a primordial creatrix, who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence shows that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient Mediterranean world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes.”

Dr. Marguerite Rigoglioso, Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity (1)

“Let our Christian readers bear in mind that the worship of the virgin and her child was common in the East, ages before the generally received account of Christ’s appearance in the flesh.”

Existence of Christ Disproved

“Crishna was born of a chaste virgin, called Devaki, who, on account of her purity, was selected to become the ‘mother of God.'”

Doane, Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions

The Virgin Mary is called not only the Mother of God, but the Queen of Heaven. This connects her directly with astronomic lore. The ornamentation of many continental churches often includes a representation of the Sun and Moon “in conjunction,” the Moon being therein emblematical of the Virgin and Child.

As the Moon is the symbol of Mary, Queen of Heaven, so also a bright Star sometimes symbolizes him whose star was seen over Jerusalem by the Wise Men from the East.

Regarding the astrotheological nature of the gospel story, including the virgin birth/immaculate conception, the famous Christian theologian and saint Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, (1193?-1280) admitted:

“We know that the sign of the celestial Virgin did come to the horizon at the moment where we have fixed the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. All the mysteries of the incarnation of our Saviour Christ; and all the circumstances of his marvellous life, from his conception to his ascension, are to be traced out in the constellations, and are figured in the stars.” – Hackwood

Again, the Christian virgin birth is no more historical or believable than that of these numerous other gods. Moreover, as Robertson says, “The idea of a Virgin-Mother-Goddess is practically universal.” The list of Pagan virgin mothers includes the following:

Alcmene, mother of Hercules who gave birth on December 25^th

Alitta, Babylonian Madonna and Child

Anat, Syrian wife of “the earlier Supreme God El,” called “Virgin Goddess”

Cavillaca, Peruvian huaca (divine spirit) impregnated by the “son of the sun god” through eating his semen in the shape of a fruit

Chimalman, mother of Kukulcan

Chinese mother of Foe (Buddha)

Coatlicue, mother of the Mexican god Huitzilopochtli

Cybele, “Queen of Heaven and Mother of God”

Danae, mother of Perseus

Demeter/Ceres, “Holy Virgin” mother of Persephone/Kore and Dionysus

Devaki, mother of Krishna

Frigga, mother of the Scandinavian god Balder

Hera, mother of Zeus’s children

Hertha, Teutonic goddess

Isis, who gave birth to Horus on December 25th

Juno, mother of Mars/Ares, called “Matrona” and “Virginalis,” the Mother and Virgin

Mandana, mother of Cyrus/Koresh

Maya, mother of Buddha

Mother of Lao-kiun, “Chinese philosopher and teacher, born in 604 B.C.”

Mother of the Indian solar god Rudra

Nana, mother of Attis

Neith, mother of Osiris, who was “worshipped as the Holy Virgin, the Great Mother, yet an Immaculate Virgin.”

Nutria, mother of an Etruscan Son of God

Ostara, the German goddess

Rohini, mother of Indian “son of God”

Semele, mother of Dionysus/Bacchus, who was born on December 25th

Shin-Moo, Chinese Holy Mother

Siamese mother of Somonocodom (Buddha)

Sochiquetzal, mother of Quetzalcoatl

Vari, Polynesian “First Mother,” who created her children “by plucking pieces out of her sides.”

Venus, the “Virgo Coelestis” depicted as carrying a child

“Both Mithras and Christ were described variously as ‘the Way,’ ‘the Truth,’ ‘the Light,’ ‘the Life,’ ‘the Word,’ ‘the Son of God,’ ‘the Good Shepherd.’ The Christian litany to Jesus could easily be an allegorical litany to the sun-god. Mithras is often represented as carrying a lamb on his shoulders, just as Jesus is. Midnight services were found in both religions. The virgin mother…was easily merged with the virgin mother Mary. Petra, the sacred rock of Mithraism, became Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church.”

Gerald Berry, Religions of the World

“Mithra or Mitra is…worshipped as Itu (Mitra-Mitu-Itu) in every house of the Hindus in India. Itu (derivative of Mitu or Mitra) is considered as the Vegetation-deity. This Mithra or Mitra (Sun-God) is believed to be a Mediator between God and man, between the Sky and the Earth. It is said that Mithra or [the] Sun took birth in the Cave on December 25th. It is also the belief of the Christian world that Mithra or the Sun-God was born of [a] Virgin. He travelled far and wide. He has twelve satellites, which are taken as the Sun’s disciples…. [The Sun’s] great festivals are observed in the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox—Christmas and Easter. His symbol is the Lamb….”

Swami Prajnanananda, Christ the Saviour and Christ Myth

Mithra has the following in common with the Jesus character:

Mithra was born on December 25th of the virgin Anahita.

The babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes, placed in a manger and attended by shepherds.

He was considered a great traveling teacher and master.

He had 12 companions or “disciples.”

He performed miracles.

As the “great bull of the Sun,” Mithra sacrificed himself for world peace.

He ascended to heaven.

Mithra was viewed as the Good Shepherd, the “Way, the Truth and the Light,” the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah.

Mithra is omniscient, as he “hears all, sees all, knows all: none can deceive him.”

He was identified with both the Lion and the Lamb.

His sacred day was Sunday, “the Lord’s Day,” hundreds of years before the appearance of Christ.

His religion had a eucharist or “Lord’s Supper.”

Mithra “sets his marks on the foreheads of his soldiers.”

Mithraism emphasized baptism.

“In the ancient world there was a very widespread belief in the sufferings and deaths of gods as being beneficial to man. Adonis, Attis, Dionysos, Herakles, Mithra, Osiris, and other deities, were all saviour-gods whose deaths were regarded as sacrifices made on behalf of mankind; and it is to be noticed that in almost every case there is clear evidence that the god sacrificed himself to himself.”

Sir Arthur Weigall, The Paganism in Our Christianity

“Osiris…was successively god of the Nile, a life-giver, a sun-god, god of justice and love, and finally a resurrected god who ruled in the afterlife…. The most popular legend about Osiris is one of a resurrected god. He was killed by Set, the god of darkness… Osiris was then resurrected and went to live on high. Osiris became the first of a long line of resurrected deities—Tammuz, Mithras, Balder, Christ. Every spring the life of Osiris was re-enacted at Abydos in a stirring passion play, dating back to the eighteenth or nineteenth century before Christ. This play is the earliest record in history of drama.”

Gerald L. Berry, Religions of the World

“Osiris or the sun was now worshipped throughout the whole world, though under different names. He was the Mithra of the Persians, the Brahma of India, the Baal or Adonis of the Phoenicians, the Apollo of the Greeks, the Odin Of Scandinavia, the Hu of the Britons, and the Baiwe of the Laplanders.”

W. Winwood Reade, The Veil of Isis; Or, Mysteries of the Druids