Copyright Status Note: This article references Franz Cumont's The Mysteries of Mithra (1903), which is in the public domain. It references Gordon Richard's work (1996), cited via Steven Bancarz (2017), both under copyright but used for brief scholarly citation. It references World History Encyclopedia (2020), used appropriately. All uses are brief citations for scholarly critique, permitted under fair use. Of every comparison on this list, Mithras is the one that gets thrown around most confidently online — usually with claims about a virgin birth, a resurrection, and a following of twelve disciples. It is also, once you actually check the sources, the comparison with the least solid ground to stand on.
So let us dig into who Mithras actually was, what his worshippers believed, and why the supposed parallels to Jesus are built on a foundation of misinformation.
Who Was Mithras, Really?
Here is where it gets interesting: "Mithras" is not even one clean, single figure. There are actually two distinct but related figures that get conflated in popular comparisons. First, there is Mithra, an ancient Persian deity from early Iranian religion, associated with the rising sun, contracts, and covenants — a guardian of order who helped people choose between good and evil, especially once Zoroastrianism reshaped Persian religion around that cosmic struggle. Mithra was a figure of justice and truth, and his name means "covenant" or "contract." He was seen as the protector of truth and the enemy of falsehood.
In the Zoroastrian tradition, Mithra became a yazata (a divine being worthy of worship) who judged the souls of the dead. Mithra had no temples in this earliest form; his worship happened outdoors, at fire altars, alongside other elemental deities. Then there is Mithras, the god at the center of the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism, which emerged centuries later in the Roman Empire. Scholars are\n\nclear that these are related but genuinely distinct figures — Mithras "loosely" traces his origin to the earlier Mithra, but the Roman cult built its own separate mythology and practice around him.
The Roman cult of Mithras was a mystery religion that appeared in the first century BCE and spread throughout the Roman Empire, particularly among soldiers and merchants. It was one of several mystery cults that competed for followers in the Roman world. Roman Mithraism was a mystery religion in the literal sense: a closed, secretive group that did not record its teachings or share them outside its membership. What we know comes mostly from art — statues, mosaics, and reliefs — rather than written scripture. The most iconic image is Mithras slaying a bull (the tauroctony), a scene interpreted as symbolising his role as a cosmic mediator bringing order out of chaos.
In some depictions, he is shown emerging from a rock holding a torch, or shooting an arrow that releases water, imagery tied to light and fertility. The cult was organised into seven grades of initiation, each associated with a planet and a specific animal. Worship took place in underground temples (mithraea) that replicated the cave in which Mithras was said to have been born. The initiates shared a sacred meal of bread and water — a detail that sometimes gets compared to the Christian Eucharist.
The Claimed Parallels
The internet version of "Mithras was basically Jesus first" usually lists things like: ● A virgin birth ● Twelve disciples ● A death and resurrection ● The title "Light of the World" ● A shared symbolic meal ● Being born on December 25th These claims circulate constantly and confidently across websites, YouTube videos, and social media. So it is worth asking directly: how well-documented are these parallels?
Here's the Problem — The Sources Don't Actually Say That
\n\nThis is the comparison where the evidence gap is most obvious. As the research behind this series notes plainly: scholarly information about Mithraism is genuinely limited, and the specific parallels people claim are not universally accepted by historians. The evidence for what Mithraic worshippers actually believed is fragmentary, pieced together mostly from artwork rather than doctrine. There are no Mithraic scriptures, no theological treatises, no accounts of Mithraic beliefs from the worshippers themselves. All we have are archaeological remains and passing references in other writers.
Let us examine each claimed parallel: Virgin Birth: There is no evidence of a virgin birth for Mithras in any ancient source. In Roman Mithraic art, Mithras is sometimes shown emerging from a rock, fully grown and holding a torch and dagger. This is sometimes called a "rock birth" (petrogenesis), but it is not the same as a virgin birth. A rock birth is a different kind of miraculous origin entirely — it is not a human mother giving birth, let alone a virgin mother. The claim that Mithras was born of a virgin is simply false. Twelve Disciples: There is no evidence that Mithras had twelve disciples or any disciples at all.
The central figures in Mithraic art are Mithras himself and the bull he slays, along with various other figures (the two torchbearers Cautes and Cautopates, various animals). There is no "twelve disciples" imagery or teaching. This appears to be a later invention designed to make the comparison to Jesus sound more compelling. Death and Resurrection: This is the most dramatic claimed parallel — and the one where the historical record says the opposite. Mithraic scholar Gordon Richard has stated it directly: there is no death of Mithras in the actual mythology. No death means no resurrection was ever needed or claimed in the first place.
The Mithras myth involves the slaying of a bull, not the death of Mithras himself. That single fact removes the most dramatic "parallel" people cite entirely — it is not a weak parallel; it is not there at all. Light of the World: Mithras was associated with the sun and light, so this has some basis in reality. Jesus also calls himself the "Light of the World." But this is a broad thematic overlap, not a specific borrowed detail. Almost every solar deity in antiquity was associated with light. Shared Symbolic Meal: Mithraic initiates did share a sacred meal of bread and water or wine, commemorating Mithras's banquet with the sun god. This superficially resembles the Christian Eucharist.
But the context and meaning are different. The Mithraic meal was a sacred meal shared among initiates, but\n\nthere is no evidence it commemorated the death of Mithras (since Mithras did not die). The Christian Eucharist specifically commemorates Jesus's sacrificial death. Again, a general similarity with specific differences. Born on December 25th: This claim circulates widely but has no historical support. The date of December 25th for Jesus's birth was not established until centuries after the New Testament was written, and there is no evidence that Mithras was associated with December 25th in the early Roman period.
The connection between December 25th and solar deities is more complex than the simple "Jesus was copied from Mithras" claim suggests.
What Does Hold Up, Loosely
To be fair to the comparison, there are a couple of genuine thematic overlaps, though they are broad ones: ● Light. Jesus calls himself the "Light of the World." Mithras was linked to the sun god and worshipped as a solar deity representing light. This is a genuine parallel, but it is also a common feature of many ancient religions — light as a symbol of divinity is almost universal. ● Mediation. Christian theology holds that Jesus is the one mediator between God and humanity. Roman Mithraism held that Mithras served as a cosmic intermediary between humans and the supreme god.
This is a genuine structural parallel, but it is also common to many religions — the idea that a divine figure mediates between humans and the highest deity. ● Sacrifice and redemption. Jesus's crucifixion is central to Christian redemption theology. Mithras's bull-slaying was interpreted as a sacrificial act symbolising order and a kind of redemption. But again, these are broad theological categories, not specific matching narratives. These are worth naming honestly rather than dismissing outright. But notice what they have in common: every one of them is a broad theological or symbolic category — light, mediation, sacrifice — not a specific, matching narrative detail.
Almost any religion built around a divine intermediary figure will touch on some combination of these themes, simply because they are common answers to common human questions about how people relate to the divine.
The Bottom Line
\n\nMithras is a genuinely fascinating figure worth studying on his own terms — but he is also the clearest example in this whole series of a comparison that is stronger online than in the actual historical record. The core claims that make the comparison sound dramatic (virgin birth, death, resurrection, twelve disciples) either are not supported by the fragmentary evidence we have, or are directly contradicted by it. What is left once you strip those away is a handful of broad symbolic overlaps that show up across many ancient religions — not evidence that one story was copied from the other.