Mithraism

When Alexander conquered numerous parts of the known world, this Greco-Judean esoteric culture was again spread to various parts of the world, but most importantly to Alexandria in Egypt, reinforced by the substantial Jewish population found in the city. Jewish esoteric influence was effected by a sect known as the Therapeutae. These were related to the Essenes found in Israel, which scholars have identified as the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls, among which we find the first instances of Kabbalistic ideas in Judaism.
These Kabbalistic influences at Alexandria resulted in the emergence of numerous occult schools, that would become the basis of all occult thought throughout history, such as Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and several mystery cults dedicated to one version of a dying-god or another, the most influential of which were the Mysteries of Mithras, attributed to the Babylonian Magi.

All shared the same mystical teachings, focused on the worship of the dying-god, and belonging originally to the Kabbalah. The earliest version of this Kabbalah was known as Merkabah mysticism, the first examples of which are found among the Essenes. It sought “union” with God, achieved by proceeding through seven spheres, associated with the then seven known planets, and culminating with a vision of God on his chariot, similar to the one described in the Book of Ezekial. The Jews had long pictured their god sitting in his chariot, borrowed from the Babylonian god Marduk, and surviving among the Greeks as Helios, the god of the sun.

Instead of four horses of the sun god, Ezekial described the four creatures who support the chariot, each having the body of a man, four heads, of a bull, a man, an eagle, and a lion, with two sets of wings, the legs of a goat, and standing on a wheel inside a wheel. The four heads represent the four seasons of the zodiac, being Taurus, Aquarius, Scorpio and Leo. The wheel inside a wheel is the cicle of the zodiac intersecting with the celestial equator.

A similar figure, the enigmatic Leontocephalus, is found in the cult of Mithraism, which shares the basic mystical process of ascension towards union with the divine. The cult of Mithraism was created by the House of Commagene, an influential family from Cappadocia, then part of greater Armenia, through their association with the family of Herod the Great, as well as the Julio-Claudian line who ruled Rome, and a family of priest-kings from Emesa (Homs) in Syria. It is from the union of these families that all the great families of Europe are descended. They House of Commagene claimed royal descent from Alexander the Great, and from the kings of the Persian Empire. They also claimed Jewish descent, through Esther, who married Persian Emperor Artaxerxes.

The Julio-Claudian dynasty is so named because its members were drawn from the Julia and the Claudius families. The Julia derive their name from Iulus, or Julus. Numerous genealogies claim that Iulus, the grandfather of Priam of the Trojan War, was descended from Zerah, the son of Judah from Tamar, and the brother of Peres from whom the Tribe of Judah descend, and that he married Electra, the daughter of Atlas the Titan. Iulus was also known as Ascanius, which is thought to have been derived from “Ashkenazi”, or Ashkuza, the name given to the Scytians.³¹

Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire from 27 BC to 14 AD, was the first of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, followed by Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, until the last of the line, Nero. By AD 63, when Tiridates, king of Armenia, travelled to Rome where Nero would give him the throne under Roman authority, at the coronation Tiridates declared that he had come “in order to revere you [Nero] as Mithras”. In the same visit, according to Pliny the Elder, a first century historian, Tiridates “the Magus” brought Magi with him and “initiated him [Nero] into magical feasts [mystery rites]”.³²

These four dynastic families also contributed to the Roman attempt to suppress the Jewish revolt in Palestine, which culminated in the capture of Jerusalem. Under Roman occupation, though rebellion had been sporadic, disturbances among the Jews of Palestine were frequent. The situation growing increasingly out of control, in 67 AD, the future emperor Vespasian and his son Titus, had arrived, and by the end of the year, Galilee was captured. Judea was reduced in three campaigns which ended with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, when 97,000 Jews, according to Josephus, were taken captive.

Jerusalem was destroyed and became the permanent garrison town of a Roman legion. The Temple itself was sacked and the sacred contents of its inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, were carried back to Rome. As depicted on Titus’ triumphal arch, these treasures included the immense gold seven-branched candelabrum, so sacred to Judaism, and possibly even the Ark of the Covenant. The Apollonian legion then accompanied Emperor Titus to Alexandria, where they were joined by new recruits from Cappadocia. It seems to have been a curious mix of these several elements, after the Legion had been transported to Germany, that erected their first temple dedicated to Mithras on the banks of the Danube.

It must have been through the influence of the House of Herod that the main elements of Merkabah mysticism were entered into Mithraism, and from there, to all the other schools of Hellenistic mysticism. All the schools shared the following basic theology. The mystic needed to undergo a ritual of death and resurrection, in imitation of the dying-god they worshipped. He would then have to ascend through the seven planets, in order to rid himself of the stains his soul acquired from them during its descent into its body. The ascent culminates in a “union” with the true god, the dying-god.

These mysteries were attended with a number of magical belief and practices, as outlined in the Greek Magical Papyri of the period, which describe various methods for conjuring “gods”, casting spells and preparing potions. There was always a degree of astrology involved, as well as alchemy. Each school represented a different aspect of what was a single system. Neoplatonism, was the name of the philosophy of the Roman period that continued from the influence of Plato. But it is wrongly characterised as “philosophy”, because, much like Plato’s though, it represented the theology of the mysteries. The alchemical aspects of the mysteries were found in Hermeticism, a school ascribed to a “wise” ancient sage named Hermes Trismegistus. He was equated with Enoch, and to have lived in antiquity, but he was merely a mythical figure, and all the doctrines taught in the school were of Magi influence.

The dying-god was regarded as the Primordial Man, and identified with the pillar or axis of the world, upon which it rotates. So in essence, he was seen as guiding the circulation of the constellations. This was the meaning of the ancient symbol of the Asherah poles of the Canaanites, where the pillar was also revered as representing the phallus of the god. The pole was entwined with a serpent, which in Kabbalistic literature came to symbolize the Primordial Man, the first man created in the image of God. Therefore, he is known Primoridial Adam, known as the Adam Kadmon, and equated with Enoch after he ascended to Heaven. The entwining serpent represented the constellation Draco which circles the North Pole. This was the significance of the lion-headed god in Mithraism, also wrapped in a serpent, which was so similar to the “creatures” of Ezekial’s vision.

It was never overtly expressed, but it was through the identification of this phallic pillar with Satan and Tree of Knowledge, that the idea of the pagan dying-god was entered into Judaism, and how the worship of evil was justified in the Kabbalah. In Gnosticism, however, the manifestation this occult tradition took when it met with Christianity, these ideas were freed from the limitations of the orthodox establishment, and it is in it that we can find the true nature of these teachings. Gnosticism aims to achieve “Gnosis”, meaning knowledge. It is the belief that true knowledge cannot be achieved by ordinary means, but only through “union” with the god. That knowledge is magic, which is taught to them by the dying-god, or Lucifer. So they interpret the Bible in reverse.

Therefore, to the occultists, God is considered evil, and to have created man to suppress him with his laws. It is instead Satan, who is the good god, because it is he who “liberated” man from the supposed oppression of God, by leading him to the forbidden tree, which is the knowledge of magic. Also, it is Satan who taught man that there are therefore now laws, and that man is free to do what he wills.
It is the same teaching that found its way into all the other schools, including Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. Consistenly, the dying-god is equated with the sun as well as god of the underworld and evil. According to Plutarch, one of the leading exponents of Platonic thought, in the first century AD, the Supreme God responsible for creating the world, and commonly worshipped by the ignorant masses, is actually the evil god, while the true god is that one mistakenly accused of evil. This “god”, or demon, should be called Pluto, god of the Underworld, or Hades.

Footnotes:

31 “Ashkenazi Jews”, Wikipedia.
32 Natural History 30.1.6