Christianity Has Pagan DNA: Mystery Religions and Early Christianity in the Roman Empire
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“The earth, which once fed you, will now eat you.”1 This traditional
Greek Orthodox (Christian) funerary chant is used at what was once
Eleusis in Greece. Christianity, a late comer on the socio-cultural scene
of the Mediterranean and born from a Middle Eastern religion (Judaism),
borrowed aspects of other mystery religions in order to provide itself a
much-needed belief base and an antiquity required for tolerance and
acceptance by the Romans. The greater the antiquity of the religion, the
more likely it would survive in the Roman Empire. When Christianity
was in its developmental stage, it was considered by the Romans to be
merely a new sect of Judaism. Judaism had antiquity because of its long
history. As an offshoot of Judaism, Christianity shared in this antiquity,
thus providing the Christians a certain amount of protection. When the
Christians began to separate themselves from the Jews after their revolt
in 66 C.E., they lost this protection. In order to protect themselves with
another sort of borrowed antiquity, Christianity began to adopt, whether
consciously or unconsciously, certain rituals, beliefs, and iconography
from contemporary mystery religions. The separation of the Christians
from the Jews, along with the secrecy of the Christians and the rituals of
the cults, caused the Romans to see the new “sect” as something different
from Judaism. They saw in the first Christians a new mystery cult
http://history.siu.edu/undergrad/documents/Legacy_VOL2_2002.pdf
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