Was Saint Paul influenced by the pagan mystery religions? For me, this is a billion dollar question and the very foundation of Christianity and of its followers depend on it.
As I long argued that Christianity is a mystery religion of Valentinian Christians similarly both these scholars agree with me that Christianity itself became a mystery religion in the hands of Saint Paul. But where they differ from my view is that they believe Paul either unconsciously or deliberately borrowed Pagan doctrines into his form of theology while I maintain that Paul truly received the Pleromic revelation from the Pneumatic Christ and based his doctrines solely from the revelation that he received from the Pneumatic Christ.
The reason why I hold such a view is that Saint Paul knew about the highest revelation of all the mysteries. Saint Paul seems to know more about the deity of Mithras than Julian the Emperor himself who self-proclaimed himself to be initiated into the mystery of Mithraism. Even Julian was aware of the calibre of Saint Paul but he spoke negatively against him because he was irritated and annoyed by the literal interpretation of the Bible enforced upon him by his orthodox Christian teachers when he was young. Julian himself says that Saint Paul surpassed every magician of every place and of every time but accuses him of being a polypus who changes his colour according to circumstances like the polypus changes its colour to match its rocks.
Julian is entirely ignorant of the Valentinian tradition whose leader was Saint Paul of Tarsus. Julian though knew that there were hidden secret teachings associated to stories in the Bible was completely ignorant about the esoteric teachings of Saint Paul and as such none of his criticisms against Saint Paul hold now because we now know that Saint Paul was a gnostic and held beliefs contradictory to the Roman Catholic Church.
But the problem still remains how can Saint Paul who was a convert of Jesus Christ knew more about the mystery cults and the deity and the doctrines of Mithras compared to emperors like Julian who were fully initiated into the mystery of Mithraism and yet looked puny in front of a giant like Saint Paul when it comes to the pagan mystery religions. May be his birth place Tarsus might have had a huge influence on Saint Paul's thinking but still how did he figured out the highest esoteric truth of Mithraism which only the worshippers of Mithras can know.
This problem cannot be solved without taking some extreme positions like either Saint Paul was a priest of Mithras as some of his detractors claimed or he truly received the highest revelation from Christ himself. The former view seems absurd to me because why would a priest of Mithras hide the divinity of Mithras and proclaim Jesus Christ as the first-begotten in place of him.
Its true that the salvation preached by Saint Paul is identical to the salvation that we see in the mystery cults but the reason for that similarity is not because Saint Paul intentionally borrowed pagan elements into his doctrines which as I have shown above is a charge if we are making on Saint Paul we have to admit that he was a priest of Mithras because the kind of doctrines espoused by Saint Paul is not something like how a nut-job can just plagiarize blindly someone's else idea because the pagan mysteries requires one to participate and take part in the rituals to fully understand the mystery behind them and Saint Paul does in no way look like an outside copy cat of pagan mystery cults in fact he looks like someone who has attained the highest mastery of Mithraism.
If we deny the view that Saint Paul was a priest of Mithras which is very unlikely and absurd to believe then how can we account for the similarities between the Pauline doctrine of salvation and the salvation of the pagan mystery cults and other such similarities. The answer to that question is my belief that the Pneumatic Christ or the post-resurrected Christ was sent by none other than King Helios-Mithras himself, the unknowable Holy Father of the Gnostics.
This is the reason why Pauline Christianity is so similar to the pagan mystery cults. It is not because Paul borrowed from it but instead it is because the post-resurrected Christ was actually the son of King Helios-Mithras. There is no wonder why Saint Paul knew so much about Mithraism compared to the fellow initiates of Mithraism.
According to Valentinianism there are two Christs a psychic one at the Kenoma and a pneumatic one at the Pleroma, the psychic Christ was sent by Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament and the god of the Jews, also known as the Demiurge while the pneumatic Christ was sent by King Helios-Mithras, the god of the New Testament and the god of the Gentiles, also known as the unknowable Father of the Gnostics or the representation of the GOOD form according to Plato.
The reason why I hold such a view is that Saint Paul knew about the highest revelation of all the mysteries. Saint Paul seems to know more about the deity of Mithras than Julian the Emperor himself who self-proclaimed himself to be initiated into the mystery of Mithraism. Even Julian was aware of the calibre of Saint Paul but he spoke negatively against him because he was irritated and annoyed by the literal interpretation of the Bible enforced upon him by his orthodox Christian teachers when he was young. Julian himself says that Saint Paul surpassed every magician of every place and of every time but accuses him of being a polypus who changes his colour according to circumstances like the polypus changes its colour to match its rocks.
But that from the beginning God cared only for the Jews and that He chose them out as his portion, has been clearly asserted not only by Moses and Jesus but by Paul as well; though in Paul's case this is strange. For according to circumstances he keeps changing his views about God, as the polypus changes its colours to match the rocks, and now he insists that the Jews alone are God's portion, and then again, when he is trying to persuade the Hellenes to take sides with him, he says : "Do not think that he is the God of Jews only, but also of Gentiles : yea of Gentiles also." Therefore it is fair to ask of Paul why God, if he was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles, sent the blessed gift of prophecy to the Jews in abundance and gave them Moses and the oil of anointing, and the prophets and the law and the incredible and monstrous elements in their myths? For you hear them crying aloud: "Man did eat angels' food." And finally God sent unto them Jesus also, but unto us no prophet, no oil of anointing, no teacher, no herald to announce his love for man which should one day, though late, reach even unto us also. Nay he even looked on for myriads, or if you prefer, for thousands of years, while men in extreme ignorance served idols, as you call them, from where the sun rises to where he sets, yes and from North to South, save only that |345 little tribe which less than two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. For if he is the God of all of us alike, and the creator of all, why did he neglect us? Wherefore it is natural to think that the God of the Hebrews was not the begetter of the whole universe with lordship over the Avhole, but rather, as I said before, that he is confined within limits, and that since his empire has bounds we must conceive of him as only one of the crowd of other gods. Then are we to pay further heed to you because you or one of your stock imagined the God of the universe, though in any case you attained only to a bare conception of Him? Is not all this partiality? God, you say, is a jealous God. But why is he so jealous, even avenging the sins of the fathers on the children?
- Julian, Against the Galileans
Julian is entirely ignorant of the Valentinian tradition whose leader was Saint Paul of Tarsus. Julian though knew that there were hidden secret teachings associated to stories in the Bible was completely ignorant about the esoteric teachings of Saint Paul and as such none of his criticisms against Saint Paul hold now because we now know that Saint Paul was a gnostic and held beliefs contradictory to the Roman Catholic Church.
But the problem still remains how can Saint Paul who was a convert of Jesus Christ knew more about the mystery cults and the deity and the doctrines of Mithras compared to emperors like Julian who were fully initiated into the mystery of Mithraism and yet looked puny in front of a giant like Saint Paul when it comes to the pagan mystery religions. May be his birth place Tarsus might have had a huge influence on Saint Paul's thinking but still how did he figured out the highest esoteric truth of Mithraism which only the worshippers of Mithras can know.
This problem cannot be solved without taking some extreme positions like either Saint Paul was a priest of Mithras as some of his detractors claimed or he truly received the highest revelation from Christ himself. The former view seems absurd to me because why would a priest of Mithras hide the divinity of Mithras and proclaim Jesus Christ as the first-begotten in place of him.
Its true that the salvation preached by Saint Paul is identical to the salvation that we see in the mystery cults but the reason for that similarity is not because Saint Paul intentionally borrowed pagan elements into his doctrines which as I have shown above is a charge if we are making on Saint Paul we have to admit that he was a priest of Mithras because the kind of doctrines espoused by Saint Paul is not something like how a nut-job can just plagiarize blindly someone's else idea because the pagan mysteries requires one to participate and take part in the rituals to fully understand the mystery behind them and Saint Paul does in no way look like an outside copy cat of pagan mystery cults in fact he looks like someone who has attained the highest mastery of Mithraism.
If we deny the view that Saint Paul was a priest of Mithras which is very unlikely and absurd to believe then how can we account for the similarities between the Pauline doctrine of salvation and the salvation of the pagan mystery cults and other such similarities. The answer to that question is my belief that the Pneumatic Christ or the post-resurrected Christ was sent by none other than King Helios-Mithras himself, the unknowable Holy Father of the Gnostics.
This is the reason why Pauline Christianity is so similar to the pagan mystery cults. It is not because Paul borrowed from it but instead it is because the post-resurrected Christ was actually the son of King Helios-Mithras. There is no wonder why Saint Paul knew so much about Mithraism compared to the fellow initiates of Mithraism.
According to Valentinianism there are two Christs a psychic one at the Kenoma and a pneumatic one at the Pleroma, the psychic Christ was sent by Jehovah, the god of the Old Testament and the god of the Jews, also known as the Demiurge while the pneumatic Christ was sent by King Helios-Mithras, the god of the New Testament and the god of the Gentiles, also known as the unknowable Father of the Gnostics or the representation of the GOOD form according to Plato.
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