Changes

Scholars still debate the impact of Mithraism on Christianity. While many agree some parallel exist, such as the Christmas birthday of Christ, use of meals or communal meals as part of the worship, religious hierarchy, others see that other religions and practices also could have adopted these practices and there are also major differences in theology. Nevertheless, the spread of the religion of Mithra showed something had, in fact, happened and that is the world just before the rise of Christianity was beginning to worship a common god. In other words, with the rise of the major empires and states, we see by the 1st century CE very few empires spanning the globe. This helps to explain, in part, why the religion became so popular. In fact, one could go from Britain to India and then China, traversing only about 4 countries in the 1st century CE; so the facilitation of movement across vast distances now meant that religious ideas can also move fast. This made the world a smaller place and religious ideas, such as Mithraism, began to spread rapidly. In other wordssummary, the rapid spread of Mithra from the 1st century CE shows that religious ideas could now move very fast across regions. This likely paved the way for Christianity in that many people began to get use to the idea of shared religions or ideas. In other words, the rise of Mithra foreshadows the eventual rise of Christianity, whether it influences it substantially or not. This might have been one of the more important factors that showed the early Christians that it was possible to spread their faith as the world became smaller.