Posted by:
Lot's Wife
(
)
Date: February 23, 2018 12:14AM
Christianity was one of the "mystery religions."
I don't agree with you that the Greeks knew their faiths were metaphorical. First of all, the mystery cults spread far beyond Greece; they covered the Middle East, much of Rome, parts of northern Africa, parts of Mediterranean Europe. They were demotic movements, in part rebellions against the cynical intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman elite who were indeed agnostics or atheists. That's one of the reasons the Romans did not like those unruly faiths: they were both popular and a potential source of instability.
The core of the mystery cults was reincarnation or rebirth. They taught believers doctrines, often in subterranean or other naturally unusual places, that promised to bring a return to life. Christianity fit that pattern nicely. Jesus died and was reborn, and Christians could do the same. At first the doctrines were secret as well, for the religion was illegal and underground--and there were in fact dozens of different Christianities, each with its own set of doctrines.
I don't think Joseph Smith relied on the Greco-Roman antecedents, at least not directly. There is an appetite in people for mysticism, secret doctrines, and the promise of rebirth. Those ideas pop up naturally from time to time. Mystical Buddhism and Sufism, for instance, owed little to the Roman empire although some of their ideas and practices were similar.
Also, the appetite ensured that a lot of the mystery ideas remained current in Europe over the millennia. Heterodox Christianity and the Kaballah retained elements of the mystery religions through the enlightenment; you could see them in the Teutonic and other nightly orders, some of the monastic orders, and popular movements such as the Anabaptists and the Munster Rebellion; and yes, they did inspire some elements of Masonry when that emerged. Michael Quinn wrote a book on the family traditions of Joseph Smith and his friends. What he demonstrated was that these people were deeply involved in "fringe" Christianity," with its magical, occult, and mystical beliefs.
So there was no need for Smith to study, or learn about, the Greco-Roman mystery cults. He grew up surrounded by elements shared by those religions, which may be one reason why he had such an affinity for Masonry when he encountered it. The pieces fit together. The Smiths, Cowderys, Whitmers, and Youngs were saturated with the ideas of mystical Christianity, and those were based in traditions that reached back to early Christianity, fringe Judaism, and yes, the mystery cults.