Asclepius & the appeal of Jesus to Gentiles

in an era (Hellenistic) when the high gods
seem increasingly far-away & impersonal
(relevant only to the rich & powerful
who can afford to sacrifice at their temples)
Asclepius garners a strong appeal to the average Jenny & Joe

not a god of strength or speed or beauty or authority , (but merely)
a hero turned into a god , a deified-human
(one of the lower Greek gods) , Asclepius is a great healer
(often running afoul of some high god , by healing a god-cursed human
even bringing a handful of humans back from the dead)
Asclepius feels close-at-hand , a kindly personable god
a caring friend , with a bowl of soup at u'r bedside

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the Hellenistic & Imperial Roman eras are anxious times
for individuals (family & tribal bonds are breaking down) , so
even when Christianity is making huge inroads in the Roman Empire
(old Temples shutting down for lack of patronage)
the cult of Asclepius remains strong (well into post-Constantine times)
& remains (religiously) the last strong Greek competitor to the Jesus-cult

both of these deified-humans (Jesus & Asclepius) are savior figures
each capable of overcoming Fate , of subduing Dread
& each are close & comforting , a caring hand caressing u'r tired soul

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is the power of the new Christian faith , this personal appeal of Jesus ?
is this what large masses of people , during the Roman Imperial era
yearn for ? , a caring deity who feels like he is attending to u personally ?

giving u hope , close-at-hand ?

 

There is a common error of assumption:
A is a myth;
B reads like A;
Therefore B is a myth.

Put another way ... perhaps the signs are that both Hellenes and Hebrews were reaching towards something which, when the time was right, was made known.

God bless,

Thomas

 

Salishan, beloved of Gyd.

I believe I would add that a slave or common-man yearning for a belonging like that of the Cult of Mithras could be another influence.

I am not stating Asclepius or Mithras were the templates for Christianity, only that they,as mythic representations, and their followers, as a structure for worship, could have influenced the Early non-Judean-Galilean followers of the Disciples.

Kinda like Bon influenced Vajrayana or Shamanistic Magic influence Daoism or possilble pre-Vedic religions influenced the Upanishads.

Shucks we see that today, just go to a Pueblo (please do they need the money) on a feast day and you see the katsina influence in the peaceful people's Catholicism (make no mistake that they are not very Catholic).

 

Hi Radarmark —

But Christianity 'out-does' Mithraism, in that the latter was a men-only cult.

The evidence, with regard to Mithraism, points to the contrary.

God bless,

Thomas

 

Please forward links, I have read just the opposite.

 

In the History of Christianity thread, this was discussed in great detail.

God bless,

Thomas

 

Now I see what I did, I paid too much heed to Justin Martyr and Tertullian and by early followers, I meant those that followed after the Three Roman-Jewish Wars, not those Paul and John converted. My bad, thanks for the help.

If one looks at 100-300 as the critical period ofcdhurch history, it corresponds to the height of the Mithra-Sol Invictus popularity and their popularity dwindles as the church's raises the possibility of a linkage (will read the sources for both the link (thanks) and the wiki article).

 

Funny, I don't see any female clergy?
Seems like a men only cult to me also.

 

Not all christians, EM!

 

Dat true . . .

 

Thomas
exquisite creature

medicine in the Hellenistic era is extremely primitive

but even today , even in 21st century medicine
scientific studies demonstrate that for certain diseases
a placebo is just as effective as the normally-prescribed narcotic

hope (hope for a magic cure) is one of a doctor's
most effective tools in her or his doctor's-bag
the patient's (own) belief that they can be cured

in hunter-gatherer societies , (aside from a few herbal folk-remedies)
every tribal shaman is a charlatan
all they have to offer to their patient is their "putting on a good show"
a flashy spectacle of expelling the "demons which sicken this patient"

if the "show" is convincing enough (instills confidence) , the patient
might believe themselves cured , & this is half the battle

& even by ("rationalistic") Hellenistic times , medicine has
advanced little beyond the shamanistic "magic"-show

hope is still the best medicine any healer has to offer

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Thomas , i like to imagine faces

(i don't entirely trust language
it tends to abstract me from
the immediacy of reality , &
i miss too many pertinent things)

i like to imagine the faces of people
(say , during the Axial Age)
at Ishtar's temple in Babylon
or Zeus's temple in Ephesus
elements of awe , trepidation
but also , of a deal-being-struck
(devotee's loud-praise plus a blood-sacrifice in exchange for
granting of a request , for more-wealth or many-children or long-life)

fear but expectation
i see it in their faces

but by the Hellenistic era
i see (in people's faces) less fear
& also less expectation from the majority of the high-gods

many persons continue to "do the rituals"
but i see more "civic duty" (in their faces) than deep devotion
but as time goes on , fewer & fewer even bother just-going-thru-the-motions

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most of the gods (by the late-Hellenistic era) are too impersonal
& people will (more & more) seek divinity which touches their heart

cult of Isis or forest Mysteries have a trendy appeal
the faces of devotees are needy , people still searching for something

but at the health-sanctuaries (hot-springs/spas) of Asclepius
i see concrete-hope on the faces of devotees
hope because Asclepius appears to personally care about
the person's individual well-being , & that he is granting this person
not (an impersonally) bartered-expectation of being cured
but a confident-hope of health & vigor returning , hope of improvement

early Christians continue to practice Jesus' hands-on
style of healing practices , the frequent-success of which
brings many converts to the nascent-religion of Christianity
& , Thomas

it is this same confident-hope of cure
the hope i see on new Christian faces
which i see (also) on the faces of devotees at Asclepius' sanctuaries

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in the Hellenistic era , the sense of a personal individual self
is becoming more significant than a person's civic or tribal (group) role

& , Thomas
i can't help thinking , that this caring personal appeal
to a person's individual-self & not to their group-role
is a major part of the "popular" appeal of both Asclepius & Jesus
within the popular imagination of people of the late-Hellenistic era

each's appeal not as a "healer" so much , but as a "caring presence"

look at their faces , Thomas
look at their faces

 

Thomas
exquisite creature

John Dominic Crossan has written another thin little book , one which
greatly influences how i read scripture
The Dark Interval : towards a theology of story (1988)

once u get beyond the book's attempt to sound academically systematic
the text has a very simple message
a "story" is not culturally neutral , it warps how a listener sees reality
storytelling has 2 extreme faces
1. myth (a big ideological agenda , hidden within a story)
2. parable (undercutting society's prevailing cultural myth)

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if u "buy-into a story" , what u are often "buying-into"
is the mythic amplification of somebody's sociopolitical agenda

actual myth's are truly dangerous things , ideological weapons
being spun by pundits & politicians (& theologians) in every era
to focus people's attention in one specific direction (& no other)

& the more the myth gets repeated
the more people begin to believe
that the picture which this myth paints is actual reality

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"myth" is (like) a contagious disease

where (instead) , choosing to read a story as a "parable"
becomes a kind of cure
(an antibody to the viral power of the myth/disease)

a parable is remarkably simple (on the surface) , but
highly paradoxical (underneath) , undercutting the
foundations supporting a prominent cultural myth

(to me) the mythic-Moses or the mythic-Jesus
(a mythic reading of scripture) is
not just a counterproductive practice
(regarding how scripture was actually originally produced)
but a dangerous (& amoral) practice (as well)
(a mythic-reading of scripture is inherently anti-religious , pro-sectarian)

(of note , that
the J-author's prose in the Torah
consistently takes the antonymous-structure of a parable
as do Jesus' most reliably-authentic remarks in the Gospels)

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the older (classical) sense of the word "myth"
(meaning "not historically factual , unreal")
is a useless "straw-man" word in our scientific age
(unless u are Joseph Campbell or Carl Jung)
i hardly-ever use the word "myth" in its pre-modern meaning

so the 1st (& 2nd) time i read u'r remarks , Thomas
i haven't a clue what u are talking about

3rd time (days later) , i think i get it
1. Asclepius is a mythic (read "not historically real") person
2. Asclepius is a healer
3. Jesus is a healer
4. Jesus must be a mythic (read "not historically real") person , too

not sure where (in my original essay) u get this idea
because i believe just the opposite

Jesus probably is "historically real"
(in no small part) because he is a renowned healer

my curiosity (in my thread-starter) regards Jesus appeal to common-people
(his appeal , long after he is dead)
what is it that makes a "healer" (rather than , say a "warrior") become
so appealing to common-people during the Hellenistic era ?

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the "story" on Asclepius , is that
he is a hero elevated to divine status

& like the heroes of many Greek folk-legends
Asclepius may derive from an actual historic figure
a luminary from some city or island in Mycenaean Greece
(before the local bards' storytelling gets so out-of-hand that
next-to-nothing factual remains of the original human
who inspired the tales)

so , Thomas
to dismiss Asclepius as "myth" (not real)
is perhaps a tad insulting upon ancient Greece
("Moses is real but Helen of Troy is just a myth")

in the 3rd century-ce , what u can accurately say
about both Asclepius & Jesus
is that each are remembered via folk-legend

there is a lot of fiction & probably a few solid (if buried) facts
permeating the popular "memory" surrounding each figure
(if only u can find a means to dig-out these rare facts)

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this is why i like all the recent scholarship upon
both the Hebrew Bible & the Christian New Testament

when i read scripture , i no longer see (nor have to struggle against)
the shamelessly mythic interpretations of scripture which i grew-up with
(which stupefied me , which chilled me & angered me)

Thomas , the whole meaning & purpose of religion
(its hard deep reality , its parabolic temperament)
now
comes remarkably alive , to me

 

Women can belong to the Church, and despite the male interest, have performed great works – saints, mystics, abbesses - but I take that one on the chin, EM, how can I do otherwise.

Women were not allowed in Mithraism at all.

Mithraism spread from Rome because it appealed to elements in the army. Christianity no doubt did likewise, but it's appeal spread beyond social structures, so that its membership could count senators and slaves (well, maybe senator's wives) who stood as equals in the Mysteries.

(Something that was soon, sadly, eclipsed.)

Christianity also adopted a strong social element from Judaism, which without doubt added to its popularity ... by the close of the first century, the Church in Rome had some 1,500 widows and orphans on its books, and a Roman senator declared in the Senate that (and I can't for the life of me find the reference) 'even the Christians look after their people better than we do!'

My point be, it was faith and grass-roots social justice that powered the spread of the religion, not philosophy.

(Sadly, that social justice element has also been somewhat eclipsed.)

God bless,

Thomas

 

No doubt Mithraism played an important role in the mythology of Christianity. Abrahamic religions for the most part are very unbalanced when it comes to the sexes. There is no doubt in my mind that the Roman Church deliberately set out to extinguish the Pagan Goddess cults and would end up oppressing the Female Aspect in religion for centuries.

 

Hi Salishan —

That's quite an 'exoteric' view of mythology.

I do not refute such a negative view, there's always those who will bend anything to their own advantage. But neither do I assume that to be the case universally. In fact quite the opposite — myths and parables are far more sophisticated than you perhaps allow.

Myths also encompass truths and realities which are too big or too profound for simple comprehension ... or put another way, they make the obscure accessible. The Greek myths, for example, are more than just stories.

The same, by the way, goes for 'faery stories' which only in recent history have been wasted on the young!

It depends whether one's language is mythopoeic, or logoic ... ideally, the two should work together.

Modernity is almost entirely blind to the language of mythpoeia. The radical inability to read symbols for example, leaves the modern mind disabled when trying to comprehend the mind of antiquity, in which such things were luminously transparent, whereas today they are opaque.

A huge assumption there.

Bultmann was a famous proponent of the 'mythic Jesus' long before the Jesus Seminar, and will still be a theologian to contend with long after. I think Albert Schweitzer, a supporter of an earlier 'Quest for the historical Jesus' gace up on the basis that one, the quest served the polemical agenda of the questors, and two, it was a futile pursuit.

The Jesus of Scripture is the Jesus of history.

Bultmann's premise was accepterd for a long time without argument, but when the argument came, it struck the premise a fatal blow.

A is a myth
B reads like A
Therefore B is a myth.

The assumption — line three — does not necessarily follow from line two, and the assertion founders.

His appeal was neither as 'healer', nor 'warrior, so I'm not sure the question is even valid?

God bless,

Thomas

 

Actually, all the evidence shows that Mithraism copied Christian motifs.

Much of the writing presenting the parallels between the two is spurious. In fact I think the only place where Christian symbols are present in a Mithraic context is in and around Rome, where Christianity had taken root.

The link to radarmark above covers that off as well.

There's enough in Scripture to turn that on its head, unfortunately, it did not. It's just another case of culture asserting itself.

God bless,

Thomas

 

Yep. Post #6 on this thread is really good reference (I think that is the one Thomas meant).

 

David Ulansey considers the bull-slaying Mithras to be a new god who began to be worshiped in the 1st century BC, this would make it 200-300 years before Christianity really took off.

There's enough in Scripture to turn that on its head, unfortunately, it did not. It's just another case of culture asserting itself.

I see quite a lot of women bashing in scripture. All three major Abrahamic religions (particularly Judaism and Islam) are male predominant. Just because Christianity throws the girl a bone and makes her a saint now and then to look good, doesn't make up for all the oppression.

I'll change my tune when I see a woman wearing one of those goofy Bishop hats!

 

ROFLMAO!

 

I don't dispute that Mithraism is older. My point is, Mithraism is not saying anything like what Christianity says, although it seems impossible to determine just what Mithraism is saying at all. I think those who see Christianity as adopting Mithraic iconography are seeing what they want to see.

From the evidence and scholarship, according to the sources I elect to back, it seems that Christian iconography appears to influence later Mithraism, rather than Mithraic iconography influencing Christianity.

What religions aren't?

But that same attitude of 'throwing a bone' to the feminine is what allows exegetes to push the feminine into the background. I would argue that certain NT texts are absolutely bringing the feminine to the fore — the annunciation to Mary directly, and Joseph's being informed only indirectly; the risen Christ appears to the Magdalene first, and gives her a message to take to the apostles; His mother's words at Cana ...

I think women will have something to say about those goofy hats before they put one on!

God bless,

Thomas