Jesus Within The Pantheon: How Does Jesus’ Birth Story Compare with Other Popular Deities of the Time

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Audience, Birth, Dionysus, Horus, Matthew, Mithras, New Testament, Pantheon, Rome, Romulus, Synoptic Gospels

I’ve probably studied Joseph Campbell a few too many times; the idea that myths and heroes repeat themselves and become archetypes is a fascinating idea. As I was reading Luke, I found myself wondering if there might have been similarities between Jesus and the many deities common in Ancient Rome; after all, as a polytheistic pantheon, they were quite inclusive regarding other faiths.

First, let’s recap Jesus’ own origin story. One day, an angel comes to Mary and tells her that she would bear a child in spite of not having had relations with her husband, Joseph. In late December, Joseph and Mary were traveling to Bethlehem for the Roman registration and Mary goes into labor, delivering Jesus on December 25. (While the gospels don’t specifically date his birth as December 25, this was later determined in a mid-fourth-century almanac of Roman births and deaths. Since the Roman registration was an early census, it can be assumed that the two are related.) Because there were so many people in town, there is not room at the inn, so Mary is forced to deliver Jesus in the stables, and his first bed is a manger,  a feeding trough for animals. Three wise men come to visit the newborn and give gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold and recognize his importance. The angels also announce his birth to several shepherds, who come to visit the newborn child. After this, he shows his aptitude in teaching at the age of 12, starts his ministry at 30, performs miracles, is crucified and reborn.

A sampling of some of the original Roman deities, before the absorbed most of the rest of the world’s gods. As you can see, it’s a lot.

 

In a polytheistic pantheon, there are often many, many deities. Some years ago, I owned a book that listed all of the commonly worshiped deities and demi-deities in the Roman pantheon, including Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Persian and many others. The book was longer than most Encyclopedias; there were literally thousands of deities. But, today, we’ll focus on a few of the most popular and the ones that bore the closest resemblance to Jesus: Horus, Mithras, Dionysus, and Romulus.

Horus, Isis, and Set

 

Horus was the Egyptian God of the sky, which included both the Sun and the Moon. As such, he ruled over a realm that was separate from the earthly realm. Tradition holds that he was born of a virgin birth (depending on how you define a virgin,) and is the child of one of the creepiest origin stories imaginable.  He is the son of Isis and Osiris, who were siblings. The two were married and it is assumed the marriage was consummated. Sometime later, Osiris’ evil brother, Set, dismembers his brother and the pieces of his remains were scattered all over the world. Isis goes on a journey to put her husband back together and eventually finds all the pieces, except for his penis. Using her magical powers, she manages to resurrect him as a mostly-complete deity, missing only the all-important member. Realizing her mistake, she fashions a new penis for him out of gold. Some traditions say that they slept together and had Horus; others say that Isis fashioned Horus from the stars in the sky and created him from magic.

Horus shares a number of aspects of Jesus. He was born on December 25, like Jesus. As mentioned above, some traditions hold that he was born of a virgin. At birth, three kings certified his divinity. At the age of 12, he started teaching and started his ministry at 30. He also had twelve disciples.

Mithras

 

Mithras was a Persian/Zoroastrian god, and one who was very popular in Rome. There is a lot of dispute about the details of him as a deity, primarily because the Persian/Zoroastrian version of Mithras and the Roman Mithraic cult have quite a few differences and without adequate written records, it has become hard to reconcile the two. What we do know is this: He was one of the judges and was the god of the sky. Moreover, he was the protector of truth and the guardian of the harvest and cattle (this becomes important when you note the number of times that Jesus is tied to either livestock or agriculture.) He also was born on December 25 of a virgin, performed miracles, had twelve disciples, died for three days and was resurrected.

Dionysus is adorable.

 

Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and fertility, and as such, should be the unofficial god of college campuses. As a deity, the similarities are few, but he was a traveling teacher and performed a number of miracles. The birth stories are also similar; Dionysus was also born on December 25 of a virgin, performed miracles and was raised from the Dead. There are some interesting similarities in the comparative language used to describe the two; both were described as the “Alpha and Omega,” and the “King of Kings.”

This disturbing image was an important part of the Roman nationalism for nearly the entirety of the Republic and Empire. While it is lacking in divinity, it is important.

 

Romulus and Remus are the twin brothers to whom Rome’s origin story is attributed. Romulus later kills his brother over a disagreement, so we’ll focus on Romulus. Like Jesus, the twins were born of a virgin—this time, a vestal virgin—and their father was divine, typically thought to be Mars. The two twins were suckled by a wolf and then adopted by a shepherd family and were raised to be shepherds.

So, let’s recap the primary similarities listed here: All of these deities would have been popular in Rome. All of them had a god as a father and were born of virgins and a majority in December. Several of them were gods of the sky. Language of divinity was used to describe them. Romulus, like Jesus, was associated with shepherds; Mithras, like Jesus, was often associated with various aspects of agriculture. In addition, Horus and Dionysus were born in a cave, among animals, and all of their births were prophesized. It is also interesting that another name for Romulus is Quirinus, which is the name of the Governor in Luke 2 when Jesus was born. December 25 has long been an important holiday among many pagan religions, as this is the date when most early pagan religions celebrated the birth of their gods.

Now that we’ve established that there are similarities, we can talk about why. The simplest answer is that it is familiar. Many of the Romans of the time would have been polytheistic; the idea of worshipping a single god would have been a strange concept.  Harold Attridge of the Yale Divinity School says that at the end of the first century, “Luke was writing in a thoroughly Hellenistic environment.”  Introducing them to monotheism without any of the familiar markers of divinity would have been too extreme.

Luke wrote his gospel with Greco-Roman readers in mind and wanted to convince the Greco-Roman world that Christians and Romans could coexist. After all, he addresses his work to “Theophilus,” which means “lover of God.” Professor White of the University of Austin, Texas says that Luke wanted to assert that “[Christians were] good Romans, too.”  This isn’t surprising, considering that many of the time would have likely viewed Christianity as a threat, especially considering the recent violence between Rome and Jerusalem around the time that Luke was writing in 80-100 CE. Luke’s primary audience was Greco-Roman Gentiles and he was very deliberate in creating his appeal to this audience. He wrote the works in high Greek, rather than Aramaic. White says the following:

Luke’s audience seems to be a much more cultured literary kind of audience. Luke’s Greek is the highest quality in style of anything in the new testament. It reads more like a novel in the Greek traditions…So anyony on the street of a Greek city picking up Luke’s gospel would have felt at home with it if they were able to read good Greek.

So, we can see that the purpose of Luke’s gospel was to appeal to Greco-Roman gentiles.  And, as Holland Hendrix of the Union Theological Seminary expands on this saying:

“[Luke] goes about it very, very methodically, as a good Roman author would. He sets the state historically as you would expect in some kind of sort of almost historical novel, and then he tells a perfectly wonderful story.”

Luke then not only wrote for a specific audience, but wrote in a very specific way– he mimicked the style of the histories of the Romans and Greeks in order to validate the events in a familiar way. By setting the works in the form of a historical novel, he was affirming that the events were factual. Equally importantly, it was written to tell a story, which would have diminished threat.

One aspect of this was to frame it within familiar stories so that it would be more readily accepted by Greco-Romans of the time.  As such, Marilyn Mellowes says that  “Luke’s Jesus is not only a king, he also resembles a Greek philosopher… or a semi-divine hero, such as those portrayed in popular stories and celebrated in Greek song.” One important way to establish both Jesus’ divinity and coherence between the emerging Christian world and the Greco-Roman one, was to establish a birth story that was familiar and divine. These similarities would have established Jesus’ divinity for the polytheists of the time by using stories they already knew well.  Mark Powell says in his book, What Are They Saying About Luke, that by placing Jesus in “the context of similar Greco-Roman divine savior figures… [it] would have made clear to Luke’s readers that Jesus was the greatest of all saviors.” In short, it would have asserted that Jesus was not only divine but was the one true God; it would have validated his divinity for those who were hesitant to commit to an entirely different sort of faith.

The choice to base Jesus’ origin story on those of other deities was not intended to undermine his divinity, as is often assumed today. Instead, it was a way to establish his place in the pantheon and, at the same time, to set him apart from the rest. The gospel of Luke, as a whole, was intended to persuade doubtful Romans that Jesus was the true god and his origin story is a part of that plea; it was intended to be familiar and authoritative to those who might have reason to doubt his divinity; it was yet another way to prove that he was the one, true God. Had Luke not chosen to root Jesus in familiar myths, Christianity might not have gained the popularity that it did and the entirety of world history might have been very different.