Mithraism and Christianity

[sullafelix]

Hi this is not really my area (as the name might suggest!). That said I have a close friend doing a PhD on subjects relating to Julian and I would have one word of warning about it, there is so little in the way of source material (and that coming from someone studying the Third and Second Centuries BC is saying something). They are finding it a real struggle to find enough to make anything really new out of it. That said, Ursus is right, if you can do it you will make a name for yourself. The problem I suppseis that apart from Ammianus there is not much of a major account of the life of Julian. That said as you are lookng more into the religious practices of the time than the man himself you may be on more fertile ground. That I wouldn't know.

 

On another note though, and not that I know diddly about Mithras I have to admit, does this have any smilarity to basic tenets of Gnosticism too - what with Mithras being a lesser being dealing with mankind - why was he sent and was he noticbly imperfect so to speak? Sorry if I sound like a blithering idiot - this is just all very intersting. I taught parts of a course recently (grad student me - so slavery is my middle name!) on the Second Sophistic which became nicknamed "Being Foreign Under Rome" and I covered Neoplatonism (in one seminar poor souls!) which is a bit of an interest of mine (despite me knowing v little). I know that it is very hard to remove a Platonic structure from many of the belief systems of the time and that Platonism obviously is responsible for the concept of Gnosticism (surely - I may be wrong but I might as well do it with confidence hey?). Is the basis of Mithraism Platonic? Actually can we say that all Western (thats modern Western rather than Empire Western) montheistic beliefs are Platonic in origin as well as in structure? I don't know, I ask out of interest

 

Enlighten me

 

SF

[Ursus]

XLVI. And this is the opinion of most men, and those the wisest, for they believe, some that there are Two Gods, as it were of opposite trades