POCM pagan Christs Attis dying and rising god like jesus christ myth

Facts > Pagan Christs > Attis

Glycon	Simon	Apollonius of Tyana	Pythagoras	Orpheus
Isis / Osiris	Dionysus	Zalmoxis	Kore	Samothrace
Heroes	Attis	Adonis	Mithras	Other godmen

Attis 500 BC - a dying, resurrected savior

Pagan Christs
Was Jesus new? Was Jesus unique? Lets talk about the Pagan godman Attis

Phrygia (aka Anatolia = modern Turkey)

Birth Attis was born of the Virgin Nana on December 25th. He was both the Father and the Divine Son.

A teaching moment.
I first wrote this page back the late 1990s. New to the subject, I was naive about Christian origins scholarship. I figured anybody who took the time to fill a book with hundreds of pages about Jesus would take the time to check the facts. My bad. Turns out Christian origins scholarship, amateur or academic, isn't given much to rigor.

When I tried to do what I though everyone did—check the facts—I discovered the "facts" here are not actually facts. They are earnest amateur legend, some of it repeated generation to generation back into the 1800s.

I'll clean this up at the end of the ongoing POCM rewrite. Rather than just take it down I've decided to leave it up for now, as an example of how well meaning amateurs can get tricked. Watch out. You could get tricked too, unless you rememvber.The essential rule of Christian origins scholarship: only believe facts confirmed in the ancient record.

In the meantime, these howlers in particular are not found in the ancient record.

Dating Attis

The worship of Cybele and Attis dated back centuries in Phrygia before it was imported to Rome in 204 BC.

Roman writers mentioning the religion include:
Lucretius (lived 98 - 54 BC),
Catullus (86 -40 BC),
Varro (116 - 28 BC), and
Dionysus Halicarnasensis (first century BC).

Attis predated Christ. Before and during the years the Christian Gospels were written (from the reign of Claudius, 41 - 54 AD) the Festival of Joy, remembering Attis' death and rebirth was celebrated yearly in Rome.

A Christian writer of the fourth century AD, recounted ongoing disputes between Pagans and Christians over the remarkable similarities of the death and resurrection of their two Gods. The Pagans argued that their God was older and therefore original. The Christians admitted Christ came later, but claimed Attis was a work of the devil whose similarity to Christ, and the fact he predated Christ, were intended to confuse and mislead men. This was apparently the stock answer—the Christian apologist Tertullian makes the same argument.

Attis' worshipers at a sacramental meal of bread and wine. The wine represented the God's blood; the bread became the body of the savoir.

They were baptized in this way: a bull was placed over a grating, the devotee stood under the grating. The bull was stabbed with a consecrated spear. "It's hot reeking blood poured in torrents through the apertures and was received with devout eagerness by the worshiper...who had been born again to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the bull." [for more see Frazer, Attis, chapter 1]

Called "the Good Sheppard," the "Most High God," the "Only Begotten Son" and "Savior."

[In Rome the new birth and the remission of sins by shedding of bull's blood took place on what is now Vatican Hill, in our days the site of the great basilica of St. Peter's]

The Festival of Joy—the celebration of Attis' death and rebirth

On March 22 a pine tree was brought to the sanctuary of Cybele, on it hung the effigy of Attis. The God was dead.Two days of mourning followed.

On the eve of the third day, March 25th, the worshippers turned to joy.

"For suddenly a light shone in the darkness; the tomb was opened; the God had risen from the dead...[and the priest] softly whispered in their ears the glad tidings of salvation. The resurrection of the God was hailed by his disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the corruption of the grave." [for more see Frazer, Attis, chapter 1]

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