When the Mysteries were first introduced to Greece from Egypt, the notion of an afterlife was a
new and heretical doctrine to the Greeks. Likewise, the concept of heaven and hell is not found
in the Old Testament, yet is a central idea in the gospels. Where did these notions come from?
Just as in ancient Greece, these new ideas were introduced by the Mysteries.
Christianity offers its adherents the consolation of a heavenly afterlife, whilst threatening
the wicked and non-believers with the torments of hell. Sophocles writes:
'How thrice blessed are they of mortals who, having beheld these Mysteries,
depart to the house of Death. For to such alone is life bestowed there: to others
fall all ills.
On the death of his beloved little daughter Timoxena, Plutarch wrote a beautiful letter of
consolation to his wife in which he urged her to remember 'the mystic symbols of the rites of
Dionysus' which will prevent her from thinking that 'the soul experiences nothing after death and
ceases to be. Plutarch is confident that through 'the experience which we share together of the
revelations of Dionysus', he and his wife 'know that the soul is indestructible' and in the afterlife
is like a bird set free from its cage.
An inscription claims that initiates of the Mysteries, like the Christian faithful, are 'reborn
in eternity'. A hierophant's funeral inscription tells us that he now knows 'death is not an evil
but something good'.Glaucus writes: 'Beautiful indeed is the Mystery given us by the blessed
gods: death is for mortals no longer an evil but a blessing. A priest of the Mysteries of
Orpheus named Philip 'preached so enthusiastically about the bliss that awaited the initiated in
heaven, that one wit asked him why he did not hurry up and die to enjoy it himself!66
St Augustine complains that the Mysteries 'promise eternal life to anybody! Yet the
Mysteries only promised eternal salvation to the initiated, just as Christianity only promises
eternal life to Christians. A hymn warns:
'Blessed is he who has seen this among earthly men; but he who is uninitiated in
the sacred rites and who has no portion, never has the same lot once dead down in
the murky dark.
The Mysteries of Orpheus were renowned in the ancient world for their vivid descriptions of the
torments awaiting evil-doers in the afterlife. As one modern authority tells us, 'Orphics created
the Christian idea of purgatory. Indeed, the scholar Franz Cumont has shown that the vivid
descriptions of the happiness of the blessed and sufferings of sinners found in Orphic books were
taken over by the Jewish Books of Esdras, which were written in the first century CE and
included amongst the apocryphal scriptures in some versions of the New Testament; these Pagan
conceptions of the afterlife were then developed by St Ambrose and so became the standard
imagery of Catholicism.
No wonder, then, that when early Christians came across passages in Plato concerning
the punishment of souls in Tartarus, the Greek hell, they found it difficult to explain how Pagans
could have anticipated their own doctrine of hellfire.In Phaedo, for example, Plato describes a
'huge lake blazing with much fire ... and boiling with water and mud'. In the non-canonical
Christian scripture The Apocalypse of Peter we find the same fate awaiting sinners in the
Underworld, who will be trapped in 'a huge lake filled with blazing mud'.
Celsus is clear that Christian conceptions of heaven and hell borrow heavily from the
Mysteries. He writes:
'Now the Christians pray that after their toil and strife here below they shall enter
the kingdom of heaven, and they agree with the ancient systems that there are
seven heavens and that the way of the soul is through the planets. That their
system is based on very old teachings may be seen from similar beliefs in the old
Persian Mysteries associated with the cult of Mithras.
The Mysteries of Mithras did indeed, like Christianity, teach of the terrors that awaited the
damned in the bowels of the Earth and of the pleasures for the blessed in a celestial paradise.
The belief in seven heavens has not come down to us in modern Christianity, but was prevalent
amongst early Christians and is referred to by St Paul, who describes himself being 'caught up as
far as the third heaven.
Christian enthusiasm for the sufferings of the damned in hell reminds Celsus of the more
superstitious initiates of the Mysteries of Bacchus:
'Christians babble about God day and night in their impious and sulhed way; they
arouse the awe of the illiterate with their false descriptions of the punishments
awaiting those who have sinned. Thus they behave like guardians of the Bacchic
Mysteries.
The more enlightened sages of the Mysteries viewed such horrors as merely stories to encourage
better moral behaviour. Plutarch calls the terrors of the Underworld an 'improving myth'.The
Christian philosopher Origen likewise argued that the literal terrors of hell were false, but they
ought to be publicizedin order to scare simpler believers.
Both the Pagan sages and Origen believed in reincarnation. Heaven and hell were seen as
temporary states of reward and punishment followed by another human incarnation. Life and
death were viewed as parts of a recurring 'circular' process, not once-only events leading to
eternal reward or damnation. Hell was a purgatorial experience leading to further human
experience, through which every soul could make its return journey to God.
Origen, however, was posthumously condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as a
heretic for his compassionate belief that all souls would eventually be redeemed. The Roman
Church required all Christians to believe that some souls would suffer in hell forever, while the
faithful would enjoy eternal salvation. This is the one doctrine on the afterlife which Celsus
regards as distinctively Christian. He writes:
'Now it will be wondered how men so desperate in their beliefs can persuade
others to join their ranks. The Christians use sundry methods of persuasion, and
invent a number of terrifying incentives. Above all, they have concocted an
absolutely offensive doctrine of everlasting punishment and rewards, exceeding
anything the philosophers (who have never denied the punishment of the
unrighteous or the reward of the blessed) could have imagined.
The Roman Church also taught that at the Last Judgement there would be an apocalypse of fire
at the end of tirne in which all non-Christians would be consumed and the faithful physically
resurrected. Celsus is appalled, writing,
'It is equally silly of these Christians to suppose that when their god applies the
fire (like a common cook!) all the rest of mankind will be thoroughly roasted, and
that they alone will escape unscorched - not just those alive at the time, mind you,
but they say those long since dead will rise up from the earth possessing the same
bodies as they did before. I ask you: Is this not the hope of worms? For what sort
of human soul is it that has any use for a rotted corpse of a body? The very fact
that some Jews and even some Christians reject this teaching about rising corpses
shows just how repulsive it is; it is nothing less than nauseating and impossible. I
mean, what sort of body is it that could return to its original nature or become the
same as it was before it rotted away? And of course they have no reply for this
one, and as in most cases where there is no reply they take cover by saying
"Nothing is impossible with God."
Yet even this rather bizarre Christian doctrine of apocalypse and physical resurrection is
prefigured by the Mysteries of Mithras. This particular Mystery tradition taught that at the end of
the present age God would send destruction upon the world. Then, like the 'Second Coming' of
Jesus, Mithras would descend to Earth again and raise the dead from their tombs. According to
the Gospel of Matthew, during the last days the Son of Man will separate the good from the bad,
like a shepherd separating sheep from goats, saving the one and condemning the other.
Likewise the followers of Mithras expected that in the last days humanity would form
one grand assembly and the good be separated from the bad. Finally, acquiescing to the prayers
of the 'beautiful ones', they believed God would cause a devouring fire to fall from the heavens
which would annihilate all the wicked. Just as the Christian apocalypse signals the final defeat of
the Devil by Christ, so in Mithraism the Spirit of Darkness and his impure demons will perish in
the great conflagration and the rejuvenated universe enjoy happiness without end for all
eternity.