© 1993 Stephen Finlan
[This is a response to “But who say you that I am?” by Dan Massey in the Summer/Autumn 1992 Journal. Relerences to the article will be given by page and column number.]
To those of us who believe that Jesus really was the fulfillment of the highest spiritual hopes of the two Isaiahs, Dan Massey has an acidic reply: the Hebrew Bible is mainly the product of “generations of pseudo-religious social parasites,” “There was virtually nothing in the pseudo-sacred texts of the Hebrews that Michael could expect to use effectively.» (6,2) And «the Mithraic version was closer to the truth than the Hebrew concept of the Messiah.” (10,1)
Massey’s skimpy research on Mithraism and his bitter words about Judaism tend to discredit everything in the article. There is much that can be said about the disciples’ “obsession with the Messianic myth” (11,1), but Massey characterizes Judaism as “ethnocentric silliness” (6,2) and says that Jesus really set out to fulfill “the mythic adventure of Mithras.” (13,1)
Apparently the choice of the Jews as bestowal race was a big smoke-screen; Jesus was really investing his hopes in a mystery cult. “The belief system of the human race was tricked by God.” (15,1)
Let us start with facts and proceed to values.
The UB discusses the crucial facts about Mithraism: its role as the leading mystery cult at a time when personal salvation and ascension had emerged as major intultions of religion (UB 121:5.8); and its influence upon Paul’s teachings (in particular, the sacraments: UB 195:0.11; UB 195:3.6).
To flesh out the story of Mithraism, one needs to read the available literature, but Massey seems to have read only one book: David Ulansey’s eccentric work. Ulansey’s thesis is narrow and “pat,” like the quick ending of pot-boiler. He excludes large areas of evidence. He is alone in denying that the cult is traceable to Persia at all (contradicting UB 98:5.1). He ignores the evidence of Mithraism throughout Asia Minor in the Hellenistic period. No, it all started in 128 BC: thought up by Stoic astrologer/astronomers in Tarsus — a religion manufactured by intellectuals! People so much smarter than “a generation of totem worshipers” (14,2) who can be tricked into accepting a religion made for them.
The Stoics may really have incorporated a recent astronomic discovery into Mithraic symbols, but this is just one of many local developments of a widespread cult. In other locales Mithraism assimilated other myths: in Commagene Mithras was identified with Olympian gods; in Rome, he took on some of the mythology of Attis; astrological accretions began 600 years earlier, when the Persians conquered Babylon. I know of no scholar who supports Ulansey’s theory that the secret of Mithraism was its symbolization of the precession of the equinoxes, and that we need look no further than Tarsus, or earlier than 128 BC.
When this notion is added to Massey’s anti-Biblical feelings, we get the ridiculous idea that 128 years of manufactured cult yielded more truth than 19 centuries of ethical monotheism. This misrepresents Mithraism as well as Judaism. Most of all, it cheapens the significance of religious development, of the hard-won advances in religious thought.
Mithraism, like any other religion, prospered because it did something for men’s religious needs (and it was only for men).
Massey stretches the similarity between the Mithras myth and Jesus’s resurrection, saying that Mithras “dies and, on the third day, arises from the dead and ascends to heaven.” (7,2) The UB does not say this. It lists similarities between Mithraism and Christianity (UB 98:6.2) and this does not appear there. Actually it is the myth of Attis (son/lover of Cybele, the Great Mother) which has a death and resuscitation of the god. In Rome, acting under the protection of the Mother cult, Mithras tended to take on some of the Attis myth, but (to my knowledge) this imagery does not appear in Mithraism in Europe and Asia Minor. “Mithra is the only god who does not suffer the same tragic destiny as the gods of the other Mysteries.” [^1]
The Mithras myth deals with this god’s difficulties in slaying the Primeval Bull at the dawn of time, in fighting off the demons of the Evil One, and in accepting the mantle of power from Helios, the Sun. He is seen as the intercessor and savior for men. And it seems that the cult adapted some version of the Zoroastrian Messiah concept. Zoroastrian scripture speaks of the coming of “the Saoshyant,” who would be born of a virgin and would lead a band of resurrected heroes in the final and victorious battle against “the Demon and the Lie.” After this “commences the renovation of the universe,” including the judgment of the dead. [^2]
Speculating about the pre-bestowal survey of Urantian religions, Massey says the “Aten cult” would have been the best choice, had it prospered. He calls the visit by some Alexandrian priests to the infant Jesus, “the only direct recognition of his divinity from traditional human sources that would mark his entire life on Urantia.” (10,1)
“As Michael surveyed Urantia from Salvington, he must have thought that, given the limitations of the Aten cult, the next-best venue for his ministry would be the Hebrews, who held the essential truths of his teachings buried deep within their complex theology… [But] their concept of divine truth had degenerated into a religion of the book.” (6,1) Massey seems to forget that the principle remnants of Egyptian monotheism today are found in the Bible (UB 95:5.4).
Michael found gobs of material in the “supposedly sacred texts” (6,1) of the Jews which he used for preaching (some favorites were Psalm 51.10 and Hosea 6.6) and for describing his mission on earth (especially Isaiah 61).
When asked a question about anger, he reeled off eleven straight Bible quotes on the subject (UB 149:4.2).
But Massey especially denigrates Judaism in comparison with his favorite mystery cult. Mithraism is “the religion of destiny,” (10,2) while “the Hebrews suffered under primitive tribal standards of socialization.” (6,2)
This belittling the religion of the bestowal race is (to say the least) unscientific. This will not be the method of UB scholars who will make a contribution to this study. Coming to understand the importance of Mithraic elements in Christianity will not mean denying the importance and value of the Jewish element.
Let us now establish some values and some manners for future research: honoring the truth-values by which ethical monotheists have lived; recognizing the complexity of religious history; and having some faith in Michael’s far-sightedness-his ability to anticipate the influx of ideas from other religions, and to know how to bring out their truths.
Massey asserts that, although Michael incarnated as a Hebrew, he secretly planned to fulfill the hopes of the Mithraic cult. His choice of the Hebrews was reluctant, and halfway through his public ministry he forgot about them and decided to “live the life of a mythic hero…to reinforce the myth.” (14,2) Thus he ensures that his gospel will get a Mithraic slant and will “take over the structure of the widespread Mithraic cult.” (13,1)
Massey feels Jesus gave up on the idea of conveying truth: “Nowhere was there either a literal or a psychic basis for opening a dialogue.” (5,2) Thus he was willing to resort to trickery: “The belief system of the human race was tricked by God for two thousand years in a way which displays respect for the human mind only as a vehicle of free will choice.” (15,1)
No! — it is with truth and by truth, and not by trickery, that Jesus makes use of any religious idea.
Massey seems to feel that humanity is so stupid, so “totemistic,” that truth-methods don’t work, but trickery and coercion do.
Many of his conclusions seem to descend from the idea that religion, to prosper, must have a political base, a “literal, material institution,” (15,2) “a homogeneous social institution,” (5,1) or an “organized body of mortal culture.” (6,2) Jesus’ revelation might have died out and been forgotten if it weren’t linked to the favorite mystery cult of the Roman soldiers, and then made into the state church of a decadent Rome. The midwayers tell us there are other avenues the movement could have gone: it could have done better in Asia, for instance.
But Massey seems to feel that it had to be adopted by a political power in order to endure, and he nominates Rome (6,2). Mithraism’s link with Rome is probably his reason for ranking it over Judaism. God uses this same kind of material reasoning: “Michael will structure… his life in such a way as to mesh with the salvation myth of Mithraism, which is, in material if not in spiritual content, much closer to the facts than the myth of the Jewish Messiah.” (12,2)
And how will Mithraism carry the torch? “Because of the extreme organization of the army, as well as the organization of the Mithraic cult, the infusion of spiritual power would create a social force able to begin the reformation of planetary culture.” (13,2)
If this is how culture is transformed, then Christianity didn’t begin its work until after Constantine, after it became the state church. But its real power diminished then. The greatest works were done in the first 300 years.
The author of the spirit of truth does not suppress truth…
Christianity did absorb many lines of Persian religious thought, as well as Achaean, Thracian, and Egyptian. Christ was alive in the midst of it, but that doesn’t mean he was responsible for the precise developments of Christianity, much less for its failures.
“Religious truth will be submerged on Urantia for fifty generations in the cocoon of a gross pagan myth that the incarnate deity decided to literalize in order to capture the attention of a totem-minded culture. The factualization of this myth will make it terribly difficult to uncover the truth, except through the passage of time. Those far-seeing souls who dare to penetrate the myth to secure the truth will be persecuted by Jesus’ appointed managers of human affairs even more outrageously than the Master himself was persecuted by Jewish authorities.” (14,2-15,1)
This is crazy. The Author of the Spirit of Truth does not suppress truth — and certainly not to “capture attention”! He could have captured all outward power by dazzling people with miracles. But the man who refused kingship did not need tricks. And he does work by truth — that is precisely why his gospel has suffered abuse, because he will not suppress lies by force, but only with truth. He will win us over, not trick us.
The craziest notion is that Jesus is to blame for what persecutors have done in his namel Inquisitors and powertrippers are not Jesus’ “appointed ministers.” Nor is Jesus to blame for the continuing incomprehension of intellectuals.
We have left untouched many of the questions that prompted Massey’s article: the tendency of humans to idolize and lionize instead of to listen and learn; the degree to which a Mithraicization of his message may have been foreseen by Jesus; the extent of Persian elements within Christianity (including the element of Mithraic thought involved in Paul’s atonement doctrine). But without solid scholarship, this just leads to pointless speculation anyway. Also, philosophy must maintain a humble recognition of its debts to religion.
Otherwise we have religious speculation, and “speculation invariably falsifies its object.” (UB 102:3.2)
—Stephen Finlan, San Francisco, CA