CHRISTMAS WAS ON 7TH

JANUARY

CHRISTMAS WAS not a christian festival and it

was stolen from other pagan religion. The actual date
of the festival is ON 7TH JANUARY.

Mithra was an ancient Indo-Iranian Sun-god after the religion

Mithraism went from Indian subcontinent to the Arabian
peninsula at around Persia about 400 BC. . In the early
centuries of the Christian era, Mithraism was the most wide-
spread religion in the Western World, and its remains are to
be found in monuments scattered around the countries of
Europe, which then comprised the known civilised world.
Mithra was regarded as created by, yet co-equal with, the
Supreme Deity. Mithraists were Trinitarian, kept Sunday as
their day of worship, and their chief festivals were what we
know of as Christmas and Easter. Long before the advent of
Jesus, Mithra was said to have been born of a virgin mother,
in a cave, at the time of Christmas, and died on a cross at
Easter. Baptism was practised, and the sign of the cross was
made on the foreheads of all newly-baptised converts. Mithra
was considered to be the saviour of the world, conferring on
his followers an eternal life in Heaven, and, similar to the
story of Jesus, he died to save all others, provided that they
were his followers

Up until the time of the Emperor Constantine, it was the

latter religion which was more popular within the framework
of the Roman Empire, and Christianity was regarded as being
only one sect amongst numerous other sects. It was only
when Constantine decreed that Christianity was to be the
state religion, that Mithraism, together with a host of other
religions and sects, was put into the melting pot, and ideas
of that religion, most suited for the Christian purpose, were
absorbed into the new state-approved religion.

For three centuries both religions ran parallel, Mithraism first

becoming known to the Romans in 70 BC, Christianity
following a century later, and it wasn't until AD 377 that
Christianity became sufficiently strong to suppress its former
rival, although Mithraism was to remain a formidable
opponent for some time after that, only slowly being
forsaken by the people. It was only the absorption of many
Mithraist ideas into Christianity which finally saw its downfall.

The big turning point was brought about by the Congress of

Nicaea in AD 325. Constantine, a great supporter of the
Christian religion, although not converting to it until the time
of his decease, gathered together leading figures in the
world of theology, the idea being to bring about the advent
of Christianity as the official state religion of Rome. It was
out of this assembly that Jesus was formally declared to be
the Son of God, and Saviour of Mankind, another slain
saviour god, bringing up the tally of slain god-men to
seventeen, of which Mithra, together with such men as Bel
and Osiris, was included
Just as Nicaea can be regarded as the birthplace of
Christianity, so too it can be regarded as the graveyard of
what we imagine Jesus taught. From that time onwards,
Christianity was to absorb the superstitions of Mithraism,
and many other older religions, and what was believed to
have happened to earlier saviour gods, was made to centre
around the Nazarene. The coming of Christianity under state
control was to preserve it as a religion, and was the death
knell of all other sects and cults within the Roman Empire.

Had Constantine decided to retain Mithraism as the official

state religion, instead of putting Christianity in its place, it
would have been the latter that would have been
obliterated. To Constantine however, Christianity had one
great advantage, it preached that repentant sinners would
be forgiven their sins, provided that they were converted
Christians at the time of their Passing, and Constantine had
much to be forgiven for, He personally did not convert to the
new religion until he was on his death bed, the reason being
that only sins committed following conversion were
accountable, so all sins committed by a convert, prior to
conversion, didn't matter, and he could hardly have sinned
too much whilst he was lying on his death bed. Mithraism
could not offer the same comfort to a man like Constantine,
who was regarded as being one of the worst mass-murderers
of his time.

The Emperor Julian, who followed Constantine, went back to

Mithraism, but his short reign of only two years could not
change what Constantine had decreed. His defeat, and
death, at the hands of the Persians, was used by the
Christians as an argument in favour of the new, against the
old, being looked upon as an omen that Christianity had
divine approval. If Julian had been spared to reign some
years longer, the entire history of international religion would
almost certainly have been different.

Under Emperor Jovian, who followed Julian, the substitution

of Christianity for Mithraism made further progress, and old
Pagan beliefs, like the Virgin Birth, Baptism and Holy Trinity,
became generally accepted as the basis of the state religion.
The early Christian idea of Unitarianism was quickly
squashed in favour of Trinitarianism, and those who refused
to accept the Holy Trinity were put to the sword, the
beginning of mass slaughter in the name of religion, which
was to go on for centuries.

The origin of the cult of Mithra dates from the time that the
Hindus and Persians still formed one people, for the god
Mithra occurs in the religion and the sacred books of both
races, i.e. in the Vedas and in the Avesta. In Vedic hymns he
is frequently mentioned and is nearly always coupled with
Varuna, but beyond the bare occurrence of his name, little is
known of him (Rigveda, III, 59). It is conjectured (Oldenberg,
"Die "Religion des Veda," Berlin, 1894) that Mithra was the
rising sun, Varuna the setting sun; or, Mithra, the sky at
daytime, Varuna, the sky at night; or, the one the sun, the
other the moon. In any case Mithra is a light or solar deity of
some sort; but in vedic times the vague and general mention
of him seems to indicate that his name was little more than
a memory. In the Avesta he is much more of a living and
ruling deity than in Indian piety; nevertheless, he is not only
secondary to Ahura Mazda, but he does not belong to the
seven Amshaspands or personified virtues which
immediately surround Ahura; he is but a Yazad, a popular
demigod or genius. The Avesta however gives us his position
only after the Zoroastrian reformation; the inscriptions of the
Achaemenidae (seventh to fourth century B.C.) assign him
amuch higher place, naming him immediately after Ahura
Mazda and associating him with the goddess Anaitis
(Anahata), whose name sometimes precedes his own. Mithra
is the god of light, Anaitis the goddess of water.
Independently of the Zoroastrian reform, Mithra retained his
place as foremost deity in the north-west of the Iranian
highlands. After the conquest of Babylon this Persian cult
came into contact with Chaldean astrology and with the
national worship of Marduk. For a time the two priesthoods
of Mithra and Marduk (magi and chaldaei respectively)
coexisted in the capital and Mithraism borrowed much from
this intercourse. This modified Mithraism traveled farther
north-westward and became the State cult of Armenia. Its
rulers, anxious to claim descent from the glorious kings of
the past, adopted Mithradates as their royal name (so five
kings of Georgia, and Eupator of the Bosporus). Mithraism
then entered Asia Minor, especially Pontus and Cappadocia.
Here it came into contact with the Phrygian cult of Attis and
Cybele from which it adopted a number of ideas and
practices, though apparently not the gross obscenities of the
Phrygian worship. This Phrygian-Chaldean-Indo-Iranian
religion, in which the Iranian element remained predominant,
came, after Alexander's conquest, in touch with the Western
World. Hellenism, however, and especially Greece itself,
remained remarkably free from its influence. When finally
the Romans took possession of the Kingdom of Pergamum,
occupied Asia Minor and stationed two legions of soldiers on
the Euphrates, the success of Mithraism in the West was
secured. It spread rapidly from the Bosporus to the Atlantic,
from Illyria to Britain. Its foremost apostles were the
legionaries; hence it spread first to the frontier stations of
the Roman army.

Mithraism was emphatically a soldier religion: Mithra, its

hero, was especially a divinity of fidelity, manliness, and
bravery; the stress it laid on good fellowship and
brotherliness, its exclusion of women, and the secret bond
amongst its members have suggested the idea that
Mithraism was Masonry amongst the Roman soldiery. At the
same time Eastern slaves and foreign tradesmen maintained
its propaganda in the cities. When magi, coming from King
Tiridates of Armenia, had worshipped in Nero an emanation
of Mithra, the emperor wished to be initiated in their
mysteries. As Mithraism passed as a Phrygian cult it began
to share in the official recognition which Phrygian worship
had long enjoyed in Rome. The Emperor Commodus was
publicly initiated. Its greatest devotee however was the
imperial son of a priestess of the sun-god at Sirmium in
Pannonia, Valerian, who according to the testimony of
Flavius Vopiscus, never forgot the cave where his mother
initiated him. In Rome, he established a college of sun
priests and his coins bear the legend "Sol, Dominus Imperii
Romani". Diocletian, Galerius, and Licinius built at
Carnuntum on the Danube a temple to Mithra with the
dedication: "Fautori Imperii Sui". But with the triumph of
Christianity Mithraism came to a sudden end. Under Julian it
had with other pagan cults a short revival. The pagans of
Alexandria lynched George the Arian, bishop of the city, for
attempting to build a church over a Mithras cave near the
town. The laws of Theodosius I signed its death warrant. The
magi walled up their sacred caves; and Mithra has no
martyrs to rival the martyrs who died for Christ.