To reconstruct 2nd century cultural literature context of Roman satire in Early Christian texts, it is useful to form a hypothesis on what kind of role Mary, Jesus' mother, has from the perspective of mystery religion.
The basic idea is that when Early Christianity starts out, it competes with other mystery religions that determine how the first converters to Early Christianity perceived the new doctrine. To reconstruct this experience, one has to look at Mary, Jesus' mother, through the lens of Early Christians as a literary device commenting on the doctrines of established mystery religions at the time.
Mary is not mentioned by Paul, nor any external historical source. Even though Mary might have been a historical person, the stories that are written about her might be mostly based on myths. It is possible that both Isis (Horus' mother), and Medea (granddaughter of the sun god Helios) had a huge influence on Mary as a character.
- Mystery religion originates with a witch - Medea - a pirate sorcerer of divine ancestry
- Isis cults - roots in Egypt, but spreading across the Roman empire
- The need for Early Christianity to draw on the cultural background of established mystery religions
- Mary, Jesus' mother, represents a symbolic continuous tradition from previous versions of mystery religions
- Hints of Mary's role as the magic teacher of Jesus
Ammon Hillman, a classicist scholar and language expert on Ancient Greek, stirred a controversy when in a debate with Kipp Davis, an Ancient Hebrew scholar, Hillman claimed that the Septuagint might have been the original text in Ancient Greek and it was translated into Hebrew to give the text more authenticity. Kipp Davis left the debate without presenting evidence to the contrary. You can watch the controversial debate here.
Whether Hillman is correct about this issue is up for the debate among scholars. Some scholars believe strongly that Hillman is wrong, but it has happened before that Hillman makes controversial claims that turned out to be correct. One overall problem is that many biblical scholars are not familiar with the Hellenistic literature. The emphasis on Ancient Hebrew when Early Christians based their beliefs on texts written in Ancient Greek, a dialect called "Koine Greek", might lead to misunderstandings when reconstructing the historical cultural literature context.
Therefore, the debate between Hillman and Davis marks a shift in scholarship where Ancient Greek is potentially considered playing first violin as language in Early Christianity and Hebrew second violin (metaphorically speaking), where previously Hebrew was considered the most important contributor and Ancient Greek as a merely convenience.
Pragmatically, whether Ancient Greek or Ancient Hebrew was the original language, is of less importance than the insight of Early Christians as drawing on parallels and stories in the Hellenized world. Here, this is a research question about Early Christianity as a mystery religion that responds to other established mystery religions.
Hillman claims that mystery religions start with Medea, which was belived in myths to be granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea comes from a dynasty that ruled the Black Sea with piracy and performed medical experiments on people washed ashore, as part of their religious human sacrificial ritual. Unlike her aunt Circe, who develops high skills of medicine from this experimentation, Medea seeks to help the people who were washed ashore. Medea disguises herself as an old woman and enters a city with medicine bringing people into euphoric mental states. This forms the mythical beginning of mystery religions.
Medea might have been a character that later became what people associated with a "witch": A female sorcerer and healer. Due to this origin of mystery religion, a "savior figure" is a mortal being descending from divinity with magical powers (medicine). The term "Christ" means "the annointed", or an earlier usage, as applying some substance to the body, or eyes, to heal the blind.
To draw on this parallel, Medea is The Christ in the late Bronze Age, like Jesus is The Christ in Early Christianity.
The Ancient Egypt was located in a geographical relatively safe region, with none or few neighbor enemies. This meant that peace-keeping was majorly focused on internal struggles. Religion was one of the most important tools for the government to keep people under control.
Since religion was considered an investment into peace-keeping, the money flowed from taxes into temples. One of the myths that grew in popularity was the Osiris myth, a story about the death of Osiris and his consort Isis who resurrects him with magic to give birth to Horus. The body parts of Osiris represents the different regions of Egypt that were united as one nation.
While the Osiris myths originates in Egypt and its symbolic representation is Egyptian nationalism, the Isis cults spread to other nations and there were temples around in cities built for Isis, including in Rome.
Horus and Isis became associated with the planet Venus, just like his father Osiris. The identity of Horus with Osiris is a representation of cyclical nature, death and rebirth, night and day. Unlike other planets, Venus has a more visibly strange path in the sky that can be observed with the naked eye. Venus played a huge role for people to tell the time before dawn, since sun dials did not work at night. Cladius Ptolemy formalized epicycles as a method to explain such paths in his 2nd century text "Almagest".
The interest in Venus and the scholarly insights of epicycles influences Early Christianity, to a such extent that Jesus in Revelation 22:16 claims to be Venus, the morning star. Another common name for Venus was "the lightbringer" which was associated with Lucifer, a son of Yahweh. Therefore, it is possible that the Jesus angel in Revelation also is Lucifer, a lightbringer, that comes with a message about a new kingdom, a new day, after the final judgement that will happen soon.
In Isis cults the lightbringer is a representation of restoring the balance of nature, which through Isis was by magical powers and healing. However, in Early Christianity, the lightbringer is also a sign of the end of times, an acopalyptic warning. This means that in Early Christianity, the same force that restores the balance can also mean vast destruction.
This means that one gets a plenum of dualities in mystery religions that play with language about linear/circular, sickness/healing, bad/good, destruction/creation and male/female.
Here are some gods and goddesses associated with Venus, the planet:
- Venus (Roman goddess)
- Horus (Egyptian god)
- Osiris (Egyptian god)
- Isis (Egyptian goddess)
- Jesus (Jewish god)
- Lucifer (Jewish angel/god)
- Sophia (Greek goddess)
- Aphrodite (Greek goddess)
In Early Christianity, there might be also a role of having Mary, Jesus' mother, as a symbolic representation of established mystery religions that give birth to a new mystery religion. Venus was thought of as a star at the time and because it behaved differently, more dynamically than other heavenly bodies, this might have been an influence on the star that elevated above the place where Jesus was born.
3. The need for Early Christianity to draw on the cultural background of established mystery religions
Mystery religions draw great attention during the period of Early Christianity, but it is not a new product that was unfamiliar to most people. The best way to think of these religions is as a business structure related to coming of age rituals, education and propaganda.
The content of mystery religions change over time, but the overall structure and role in society remains fixed. However, new periods with breakthroughs in research and technology stirs up interest in explaining the entire cosmos through the lens of the new tool that gives new opportunities in language to see the world differently.
One of the roles that mystery religions play in society is attempting to explain the world in terms of magic and miracles, which might be thought of an ancient form of science fiction, using medicine and levitation tricks as inspiration. It functions in literature like computers or robots having a huge role in science fiction as an imaginative extrapolation of the future.
So, when Early Christians write their texts, they are building on the shoulders of established mystery religions, at the same time that they give it a new twist to make it interesting and compelling for their audience. Historical accuracy is not an important concern, except as a way to impress others with historical knowledge. We know this because there is no Early Christian text that mentions the name of a single ordinary and poor Christian from the 2nd century, despite having thousands of texts that arguing about magic, miracles, theology and philosophy. There is zero evidence that these texts are about ordinary historical events, just a lot of claims by people who are incentivized to demonstrate their own historical origin, that never present a single absolutely convincing case of some historical event.
4. Mary, Jesus' mother, represents a symbolic continuous tradition from previous versions of mystery religions
From the traditions of established mystery religions around Medea and Isis, it is expected that there is some female character to make a new mystery religion appealing to people at the time.
This might sound strange at first, but think about it from the perspective of a business. A mystery religion is not supposed to teach people scientific knowledge in the modern sense. It is kind of like a baby-sitter where young people go in and out comes grown ups that can function in the ancient social world. As an initiated into a mystery cult, you are not taught to think critically or trained to reason scientifically, because the whole purpose is to have some experiences that you brag about later in life and bond over to build a social network. With other words, it is the ancient form of education with high variance in intellectual quality.
Mystery religions were an offer given to the masses to give them some feeling of knowing something, while any actual serious education required a master-apprentice relationship, which was much more expensive. The education for masses ran a profit scheme and these profit schemes evolved into cults over time that demanded more and more of their members. Where a master-apprentice relationship is passing down knowledge from one generation to another, the form of passing down knowledge in mystery religions is predatory in nature that feeds on the surplus energy in the economy.
A female character is important in mystery religions because it appeals to the demographics with lowest education: Women.
Under the Roman empire, women could own property, so Early Christianity exploited rich patronesses who gave donations to the church. This was easier to do by aiming the message at the demographics with lowest education, because they were more easily fooled. The business model is designed around something that felt a bit mandatory, like a coming of age ritual, but also combined with scamming people out of their money when there was an opportunity. This long tradition of scamming people continued into the modern age.
Therefore, Mary is a very important character that can not be left over to historical coincidences for Early Christianity. The character needs to be tamed and controlled to give desired outcomes when used as propaganda. A simple way to achieve this goal is to base Mary on somewhat similar characters like Medea and Isis. The mystery religions of Medea and Isis knew what worked and what did not. There was no reason to reinvent the wheel for Early Christians.
This is why it makes sense that Mary, Jesus' mother, was based on myths: It was how this mystery religion made more money than they otherwise would have, than if they based Mary on a purely historical character. The profit motive is the strong link that explains how a new religion uses elements that exist in other religions, while at the same time claiming to originate from a historical source. This combination is necessary because the knowledge of how to scam people out of their money, does not translate easily when building a new religion from historical sources from scratch. Lying about the historical origin is part of the scam and denying similarity with other religions is obvious, because any religion that claims to be authentic also tends to easily dismiss other religions as false.
To their own members, Early Christianity claims to be more authentic than other religions, but when pressured by trials and executions, Early Christians draw on similarities with other religions that are not persecuted. In this sense, it is important that Mary is both similar to other characters, but also different at the same time. Otherwise, people can not easily make comparisons and judge who's religion is the most likely to lead to salvation.
In some stories, Jesus travels to Egypt. This is a parallel to stories about Simon Magus, a competing deity for a similar mystery religion. Simon Magus goes to Egypt to be taught magic, because Egypt is considered at the time the place where many religions or forms of magic have their origin. With Jesus there is a more complex situation because his mother functions as a mediator between the magic teachings and Jesus' abilities to perform miracles. This dynamics is based on a similar parallel between Isis and Horus, to make Jesus more appealing than Simon Magus as a savior figure, by establishing Jesus as the authentic heir to the religions of Ancient Egypt.
Isis teaches Horus magic. This is an important part of how the Osiris myth functions as explaining the cycle of birth and death. Women were responsible for raising boys until they could start training skills such as horse riding, fighting with sword and shield and following orders in an army hierarchy. The mother is most influential in early childhood by nurturing, from bringing the child from a pre-language stage to a moral and thinking being.
In mystery religions, there are rituals for small children in which many children did not survive. This was based on a superstitious belief, due to high birth mortality, that sacrificing the first born gave higher chance of producing more healthy offspring. The ritual that tested children was a kind of substitute for human sacrifice, where the will of the deity was tested that could potentially grant the first born divine powers.
It was in this context that when a first born survived, they could be seen as possessing magical abilities. Mary is often depicted with Jesus as her first born. In Eastern Orthodox tradition, Jesus is painted with a higher forehead to symbolize his prodigy as a young child. This is often called "Emmanuel":
In the Gospel of John, when Jesus says "woman, her is your son" to Mary, Jesus' mother, the word used for "son" is "μαθητῇ", which means "student". Futhermore, the word is repeated in a different spelling "μαθητὴς", which means "student" or "pupil":
εἶτα λέγει τῷ μαθητῇ Ἴδε ἡ μήτηρ σου. καὶ ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνης τῆς ὥρας ἔλαβεν ὁ μαθητὴς αὐτὴν εἰς τὰ ἴδια.
[look] [says] [at] [student] [Here] [or] [mítir, mother] [your].
[and] [from] [hers] [of] [hour] [received] [the] [pupil] [her] [in] [the] [same].
This means, the new relationship between Mary, Jesus' mother, and the student that Jesus loved, is a relationship between a teacher and a student and not necessarily a direct family relationship. It is a hint of the abilities of Mary to teach something that Jesus was teaching the student.
The parallels between Mary and Isis hints at some kind of teaching of magic. In addition, Jesus being called "The Christ" also refers to Medea's role as a sorcerer. Teaching children about medicine was part of the mother role, and Jesus performing great miracles as a healer also suggests that some of that knowledge was passed down from Mary.
In the wedding where Jesus turns water into wine, he is first approached by his mother Mary who asks him to perform the miracle. This suggests that Mary knows Jesus' skills as a miracle worker, but it might also be a comment on some established mystery religion where a priestess performs a miracle of turning water into wine. When interpreting Mary as a character that symbolizes the other mystery religions, making her ask Jesus to perform the miracle can be seen as a transition from other mystery religions to Early Christianity.
Mary balances the difficult act of giving Jesus the spotlight, but also not explicitly denying her own ability to perform miracles, since this was expected from other established mystery religions and would have been frowned upon. She has to be subservient at the same time as not being easily disliked by losing her own powers. The idea is that Early Christianity must present itself as giving new worshippers more for the money, instead of giving up power and getting less in return.
That Mary succeeded in playing a background character while maintaining her powers, is evident in the worship of Mary among hundreds of millions of Christians today. She is revered as a powerful divine figure, but usually not as a goddess. Like Medea, Mary is a mortal and easier to relate to than an abstract divine deity, but also not explicit in the use of magical powers to not seem too dangerous (unlike Medea that could invoke fear in people), while at the same time not explicitly denying her powers, in case they were needed.
One can see Mary as being a new version of Medea that has more rounded features, an idealization of the divine feminine as soft power, where people might have avoid their trouble of putting their faith into something that might seem harmful. Instead, the masculine aspect of divinity gets a greater share of the destructive forces, but also in a way such that one can interpret these destructive forces being passed down through the mother. This makes the mother more harmless while also making no place to doubt where this power comes from. It is a complex theological process, but it builds on the same spiritual language that was used about Isis and Horus.
In the Egyptian mythology of the wisdom and knowledge deities, Thoth is given credit for inventing language, while Seshat gives humans the ability to create original texts. The role Seshat plays is complex, because she in some sense invents language, but also gives away the invention itself at the same time. This is a representation of how language functions socially, as opposed to using language as a tool for reasoning or memorization.
We see the same complex dynamics between Mary and Jesus in Early Christianity, where Mary in some sense passes down her magical abilities to Jesus while also giving up the source of these powers. This is because Mary symbolizes the other established mystery religions and Jesus the new mystery religion. Without this submission of powers, the new mystery religion can not grow into a replacement for earlier versions.
It is a sublime message, used to pass through the psychological defenses of rich patronesses, that give up their money (their power), to the new religion that promises salvation through the sacrifice of giving, while at the same time denying that salvation can be bought for money. So, it is like a scam that denies that there is any scam going on. Without the complex sublime message, the scam does not work. Therefore, Mary has to in some sense having the potential to be powerful, but also at the same time give it up for Jesus.
To normal people, it might seem like a bad idea of doing this, because it is like hiding a secret in plain sight, but through experience, the mystery religions learned that this was how to perform scams successfully. Mystery religions are businessess with predatory practices, that requires operating in a certain way, or otherwise it will not work. It is not like this is an actual bad idea, but just think about it: Why do you think it is bad idea? The reason it seems like a bad idea, is also part of why the scam is so successful in practice.
Needless to say, the people that fall for this type of scam are often people with less education, that have received less training in critical thinking. Coupled with the impression of receiving education through various mystery religions, which are actually masked ways to give people something to bond about later on and keep the demand for mystery religions high, this blocks the mental world of followers from doubting themselves as critical thinkers. They get high on themselves and this is evident in basically all Early Christian texts. Almost all texts claim spiritual authority through revelation, above all other sources. Later, spiritual authority was demanded by passing down the line of bishops, which forged historicity of fake historical events at an incredible scale.
Over time, Medea, the stereotypical character of the witch, became a model of the enemy of Late Christianity. This is not because Medea is powerful, but because she refuses to submit her power to the male deity heir. Therefore, Medea, or the witch, is burned at the stake, to demonstrate that the deity does not grant her divine powers as a first born. It is a reflection of the human sacrifice ritual of first born babies, which Jesus symbolizes, but for Medea, a mere punishment for disobeying the church and having intercourse with demons, like Mary who became pregnant when receiving the "good news" from the angel Gabriel.
Mary, Jesus' mother is a witch mother, like Medea, however the difference is that Mary is no longer a witch. She symbolizes the origin of mystery cults, where Medea brings medicine to the city in the eucharist ritual, turning the dynasty of Helios, the sun god, on its head by bringing knowledge to mankind. Thus, Early Christianity symbolizes itself using Mary as a self-reference to the original and authentic mystery religion above all others.
Early Christianity does not try to distance itself from mystery religions in general, but try to out-compete and transcend them and becomes over time, in Late Christianity, the most predatory of all mystery religions, by far. It originates well within the tradition of mystery religions and uses deliberate symbolic language to signify its own right to belong there. Of course, this is insistently denied by those who want to continue scamming people today. The problem is that this type of scam does not work without hiding Mary as a secret Medea in plain sight, otherwise the scam does not work. If it was not a scam, then there is no reason to perform a such delicate and precise psychological hack. The profit motive is the strong link between Early Christianity and older mystery religions.