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0 Quirinius of Rome

• Salivahana of southern India, who was a "divine child, born of a virgin, and was the son of a carpenter," himself also being called "the Carpenter," and whose name or title means "cross-borne" ("Salvation")b

• Tammuz of Syria, the savior god worshipped in Jerusalem

• Thor of the Gauls

• Universal Monarch of the Sibyls

• Wittoba of the Bilingonese/Telingonese

• Zalmoxis of Thrace, the savior who "promised eternal life to guests at his sacramental Last Supper. Then he went into the underworld, and rose again on the third day"7

• Zarathustra/Zoroaster of Persia

• Zoar of the Bonzes

This list does not pretend to be complete, nor is there adequate room here to go into detail of all these mythological characters. It should be noted that, as with Jesus, a number of these characters have been thought of in the past as being historical persons, but today almost none of them are considered as such.

The Major Players

Attis of Phrygia

The story of Attis, the crucified and resurrected Phrygian son of God, predates the Christian savior by centuries, in the same area as the gospel tale. Attis shares the following characteristics with Jesus:

• Attis was born on December 25111 of the Virgin Nana.

• He was considered the savior who was slain for the salvation of mankind.

• His body as bread was eaten by his worshippers.

• His priests were "eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven."

• He was both the Divine Son and the Father.

• On "Black Friday," he was crucified on a tree, from which his holy blood ran down to redeem the earth.

• He descended into the underworld.

• After three days, Attis was resurrected on March 25th (as tradition held of Jesus) as the "Most High God."

Doane provides detail of the Attis drama, which was a recurring blood atonement:

Attys, who was called the "Only-Begotten Son" and "Saviour" was worshiped by the Phrygians (who were regarded as one of the oldest races of Asia Minor). He was represented by them as a rnan tied to a tree, at the foot of which was a lamb, and, without doubt also as a man nailed to the tree, or stake, for we find Lactantius making ... Apollo of Miletus ... say that: "He was a mortal according to the flesh; wise in miraculous works; but, being arrested by an armed force by command of the Chaldean judges, he suffered a death made bitter with nails and stakes."8

And in Christianity Before Christ Jackson relates:

In the Attis festival a pine tree was felled on the 22nd of March and an effigy of the god was affixed to it, thus being slain and hanged on a tree. . . . At night the priests found the tomb illuminated from within but empty, since on the third day Attis had arisen from the grave.9

The drama or passion of Attis took place in what was to become Galatia, and it was the followers of Attis to whom Paul addressed his Epistle to the Galatians at 3:1: "0 foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?" Since the Galatians presumably were not in Jerusalem when Christ was purportedly crucified, we may sensibly ask just who this was "publicly portrayed as crucified" before their eyes? This "portrayal" certainly suggests the recurring passion of the cult of Attis.

Again, in addressing the Galatians, Paul brings up what is obviously a recurring event: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us-for it is written, `Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.' (Gal. 3:13) As followers of Attis, the addressees would understand the part about "every one who hangs on a tree," since they, like other biblical peoples, annually or periodically hung a proxy or effigy of the god on a tree. As is the case in the Old Testament with ritualistic hangings, this "cursing" is in fact a blessing or consecration.

Attis was popular not only in Phrygia/Galatia but also in Rome, where he and Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, had a temple on Vatican Hill for six centuries. 10 So similar was the Attis myth to the Christian story that the Christians were forced to resort to their