19. Mithras

The Rock birth of Mithras from the egg.

“Mithras” is the Latin name of a Vedic god that the ancient Persians called “Mithra”, and in the Rig Veda is called “Mitra”. Mitra is one of the hundred plus names of Soma in the Rig Veda and means “the friend of all men”. Mitra is an extremely old God, whose name first appears in writing in a peace treaty between the Hittite empire and the Mitanni in approximately 1450BC. The Hittite and the Mitanni are both Indo-European peoples mentioned in the Old Testament Bible where the Mitanni are called Hurrians, which were claimed to be the best Charioteers in the world.

During the rise of Zoroastrianism in Persia the ancient cult of Mithra was suppressed for a short time, but rises again and is reincorporated into the Mazda religion of Persia.

After Persia; was conquered by Alexander the Great; the cult of Mithra spreads deep into the Greek and later the Roman world and was extremely popular with warriors. For a short time the Romans try to suppress the Mithras cult as a Persian subversion of the Roman people. The cult survives this persecution and begins to spread among the Roman elite and especially among the troops of the Roman legions, who spread it into the farthest reaches of the empire and beyond.

The cult of Mithras held its meetings and ceremonies, in small underground chambers called “Mithraeum”. These chambers could only accommodate perhaps 30 people when the numbers of people became too large for that Mithraeum to hold another Mithraeum was established.

The Mithras cult was strictly male in membership and like modern Free Masonry the cults members were divided into a graduated hierarchy with 7 levels, only the highest grade of initiate could found a new Mithraeum. The ability of the Mithras cult to stay in small personal groups and still expand their total numbers was a key to their survival through any of the ancient persecutions. The cult of Mithras doesn’t appear to be persecuted to any large extent by the official Christian Church, it seems they simply melted into Christianity.

Many modern Christians do not understand the tremendous influence Roman Mithraism had on early Christianity an influence that still exists today. Every

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Christmas Christians celebrate the birth of Mithras on December 25 and every Sunday they worship on Mithras sacred day. A lot of very old Christian Churches in Europe and the Middle East are built on top of even older Mithraeum, including the Vatican’s Saint Peters Basilica, which has an ancient Mithraeum in its basement. Literally and physically the Soma God Mithras and the ancient religion of Mithraism, are two of the main foundation stones of Christianity.