Christianity and the Mystery Religions

Oriental religions came to Rome and the western provinces during the late Republic and early Empire, that is, from about the middle of the first century BC to the middle of the first century AD. They were called mystery religions because they were secretive, often shrouded in a body of rituals not to be revealed to the uninitiated. For the most part they were brought to the Empire by traders, merchants, and slaves. The cult of the “Syrian goddess” Cybele or Magna Mater (the Big Momma – actually, the Great Mother) was perhaps the most popular of all these religions. However, other cults also appealed to a great number of Romans, such as the cult of the mother-goddess Isis and her son Osiris from Egypt, the cult of Dionysius from Greece, and the cult of Mithra from Persia. In general these cults pleased the tastes of an increasingly cosmopolitan, urban, and sophisticated society, satisfying the esthetic, intellectual, and spiritual needs of their members. Which god to serve was a matter of personal choice. In other words, one did not belong to a mystery religion by birth, but rather by initiation. They were appealing in the turbulent times of the Roman Empire because they also claimed to save their adherents from the worst that fate could throw at them in this world while promising immortality in the next. To achieve immortality and union with god required a period of preparation in which the initiate followed the religion’s precepts in an effort to become holy. Once this period was over, the initiate performed a ritual, usually one of great emotional intensity, in which he or she was baptized into a new life. Ultimately this led to unity with the religion's god who had died and risen from the dead.


This relief of the high priest of Cybele shows some of the robes and implements of the priest’s profession. The rites of this goddess were wild and ecstatic, often including such rapturous and hypnotic rituals as dancing, flagellation, and even self-mutilation. Some men were so moved by her presence that they castrated themselves in order to become her priests	This relief shows the goddess of the earth Cybele. Here she is portrayed riding a chariot drawn by lions, symbolizing her role as mistress of wild beats. The death and resurrection of Attis, the vegetation god who stands next to the tree, were also reflected by the seasons and also celebrated with ecstatic rituals.

Christianity was simply lumped together with other mystery religions of its day. To many in the first and second centuries AD, such Christian beliefs and rituals as monotheism, baptism, and the Eucharist (which sounded like cannibalism) were just as bizarre as those found in other cults. Christianity also gave its members equal status, which cut across all social and ethnic barriers. This appalled men like Apuleius, an educated Roman of the upper-classes. He did not believe that men were equal in the sight of heaven, but rather that the gods preferred the well-born and well-educated to slaves and freedmen (because slaves and freedmen could not possibly possess virtue or intelligence). In his view, most Christians were riff-raff – ignorant, immoral, and ill-bred people like the baker’s wife in his story The Golden Ass (second century AD):

The baker who had bought me was a decent enough fellow, but was unhappily married. His wife was the wickedest woman I met in all my travels and treated him so badly that I used often to groan in secret pity for him. There was no single vice which she did not possess: her heart was a regular cesspool into which every sort of filthy sewer emptied. She was malicious, cruel, spiteful, lecherous, drunken, selfish, obstinate, as mean in her petty thefts as she was wasteful in her grand orgies, and an enemy of all that was honest and clean. She also professed perfect scorn for the Immortals and rejected all true religion in favor of a fantastic and blasphemous cult of an ‘Only God.’ In his honor she practiced various absurd ceremonies which gave her the excuse of getting drunk quite early in the day and playing the whore at all hours; most people, including her husband, were quite deceived by her.
This bitch took an unexplained dislike to me and persecuted me with amazing rancor. She used to call out from her bed before dawn: ‘Hey, men, lead out the new ass and harness him to the mill!’ And as soon as she was up she made them give me an almighty beating under her personal supervision and at breakfast time, when we were unharnessed, kept me from the manger until long after my companions had been fed and rested.
Her cruelty sharpened my natural curiosity about her goings-on. I knew that a young fellow was always visiting her bedroom and I longed to catch a glimpse of his features; unfortunately, the blinkers that I wore for my work at the mill prevented this. But for them, I felt sure that I should have been able to catch the whore at her tricks. A nasty old woman acted as her confidante and go-between and the two were inseparable. As soon as breakfast was over they would drink flagons of untempered wine, as if for a bet, and their one topic of conversation was how to cheat the poor baker.
Translated by Robert Graves, The Golden Ass (New York, 1951). Slightly altered.

Christianity would ultimately became the dominant religion of Medieval Europe. While resembling many of the mystery religions in its day, it had several features which set it apart from them. First it was monotheistic. Despite Apuleius's obvious scorn for this idea, the notion that only one God exists was carried over from the ancient Jewish tradition and actually gained in popularity among the upper classes. From the second century on it seemed more reasonable, especially as the influence of Platonism and Stoicism spread among the educated. Second, Christianity could claim an immediate and more concrete origin than the other mystery religions. Its divine founder, Jesus, was a real man (not some figure from an old myth) who had lived and preached on earth. Third, Christianity’s message appealed to a wide and diverse audience. That message was both simple and profound, and could easily be understood by the illiterate as well as by the educated and sophisticated members of Roman society. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind two very crucial points: Christianity was not the dominant religion of ancient Rome (in fact, it was not even the dominant religion when Constantine converted) and its success was not inevitable. Why then did Christianity become so influential? To what extent was its acceptance by the state significant in this development? Would the success of Christianity have been possible if Constantine hadn’t converted to it? What role did the Germanic tribes play in spreading Christianity over western Europe during the so-called "Dark Ages"? Think about these questions as we begin to see Medieval Europe emerge from the ruins of Rome.

@1999 Jeff Anderson