posted 11-09-1999 11:29 PM         

CHRISTIANITY'S OWN TESTIMONY CONVICTS THEMSELVES

The Christian Church cannot escape the origins of their services, as The Catholic Encyclopedia bluntly admits: "In this age of Pan-Babylonianism it is not at all surprising that the germinal ideas of the Christian Communion should be located in Babylon, where in the Adapa myth mention has been found of 'wafer of life' and 'food of life."' (Volume X, p. 12.) The editors of this article go on to quote the famous religious historian Franz Cumont's Mysterien desMithra, in which he documents the origin of the Mass to the Roman sun-god Mithra. They also note that even the ancient Catholic historian Tertullian was so angry when he found the tremendous similarities of Catholicism to Mithraism that he ". . . ascribed this mimicking of Christian rites to the 'devil."' (Ibid., p. 13.)

One should only ask himself: "What did Tertullian find that so upset him?" I want you to pay particular attention to his reply. The priests of Mithraism celebrated Mass by using holy water, bells, candles, and offered communion on Sunday, which all took place in one of their elaborate idol-bedecked cathedrals. (The Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed. 1938, Volume 15, p. 621.) Another example is found in ancient Tibet and Nepal, where the worship of their crucified savior-god was found to be very close to the Christian Jesus. "In Tibet was found the pope, or head of the religion, whom they called the 'Dalai Lama,' they use holy water, they celebrate a sacrifice with bread and wine; they give extreme unction, pray for the sick; they have monasteries, and convents for women; they chant in their service, have fasts; they worship one god in a trinity, believe in a hell, heaven, and a half-way place or purgatory; they make prayers and sacrifices for the dead, have confession, adore the cross; have...strings of beads to count their prayers..." Doane, Bible Myths, p. 400.)

Historian Arthur Wigall writes that, "When Christian saints triumphed, these paintings and figures became those of Madonna and child without any break in continuity: No archaeologist, in fact, can now tell whether some of these objects represent the one or the other (Wigall, The Paganism In Our Christianity, p. 129). E.J. Waggoner comments that when Christianity prevailed over paganism, "It worshipped in the same temples; it performed, to a certain extent, the same rites; it actually abrogated the local worship of one of the multitudinous deities of paganism". Noted mythologist S.C. Wake writes: "The 'Black Virgins' of the French cathedrals prove, when examined critically, to be basalt figures of the goddess Isis. The Virgin Mary succeeded to her form, titles, symbols, rites, and ceremonies . . . It is astonishing how much of the Egyptian and the second-hand Indian symbolism passed over into the usages of the following times. The high cap and hooked staff of the god became the bishop's miter and crosier" (Westropp, Hodder M., Wake Staniland C. Ancient Symbol Worship, Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of Antiquity, p. 97).

"It is well known that when paganism was superseded by Christianity, the older religion was by no means obliterated", writes George H McKnight in his book, St. Nicholas. He continues: "In Greece the pagan temples often were converted into Christian churches. At Athens, the Parthenon, a temple of the Virgin Pallas, became a church of the Virgin Mary, the temple of Theseus [Zeus] became a church devoted to . . . St. George . . . In many of the churches of Rome may be seen beautiful classical columns taken from the earlier pagan structures." He notes that at Syracuse in Sicily, one can find that ". . . the older classical temple of Minerva has been transformed into a renaissance cathedral [the church was renamed, appropriately, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, or Holy Mary over the shrine of Minerva]" (Westropp, Hodder M., Wake Staniland C. Ancient Symbol Worship, Influence of the Phallic Idea in the Religions of Antiquity, p. 125).

A pagan temple in Rome, sacred to the "Bona Dea" (the good goddess), was rededicated to the Virgin Mary. Another temple sacred to Apollo was demolished and rebuilt—using the materials from the older temple—in honor of St. Apollinaris. The temple of Mars is now the church of St. Martine, and the temple holy to Caelestis Dea, or the heavenly goddess, was converted into a Catholic church at Carthage. What is interesting in this instance is that the last pagan high priest of this temple, whose name was Aurelius, disappeared from history (in AD 390) at exactly the same time a new Christian Bishop of Carthage appears—whose name, coincidentally, was also Aurelius.

Answer for yourself: Did you catch that?

The church of St. Reparatae in Florence was originally dedicated to the great goddess Nutria. The church of St. Stephen in Bologna was built from the temple of Isis. In Rome, the temple dedicated to the god Romulus was made over to a St. Theodore. Quite revealing is that the old custom of women bringing their sick children to the temple to be healed by the pagan god Romulus continues to this day, the only difference being that the present-day faithful now evoke the name of St. Theodore (Doane, Bible Myths, pp. 396-397).

The Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was built over the sacred cave of the Magna Mater. The Church of St. Clemente in Rome has beneath its altar a vault where there is a beautifully carved shrine and altar to the sun-god Mithras. Atop the altar is the sun-god wearing his radiant crown. The temple of the Roman mother-goddess, complete with the god Mithra's phallus standing on top, once stood on the site of the present Vatican. Actually it is still there buried under the artificial hill that was constructed to form the court of St. Peter's." And the memory of the ancient mother goddess accounts for the name of St. Mary's Rotunda, which is so important to the Vatican complex.

In addition to the rededication of the great pagan temples, throughout Europe and the British isles local parish churches are usually built on the tops of hills where a former pagan holy site was once located. This is why many of the old phallic stones of the pre-Christian religion can still be found standing in the church yards of the present Christian churches.

At any rate, such is the history of Christian tradition. But all these changes were simply a prelude to accomplishing the overall objective of enforcing Christianity on the whole of the Roman Empire. Understand such a plan was carried out by merging Jewish beliefs with prior pagan beliefs. Such a mixture assured acceptance by the non-Jews by bringing to them another g-d fashioned already in the image of those that they already revered. To a polytheist what is another god? Now comes the next step in Rome's overall plan…the destruction of as much as possible existing documents which exposed their religious duplicity.

The next and most important step involved a centuries-long campaign of horrendous destruction of anything which revealed the plagiarism by the Catholic Christian Church which took the majority of its "dogmas and doctrines" from prior pagan mystery religions to which they and their "missionary targets" were already familiar. Only in this way would they be able later to hold sway over the masses and none would have "proof" any longer of the Church's copy-cat "theology". This would ensure that Rome could not only claim a "Divine Revelation" since all proof of their plagiarism of pagan mystery religions would be destroyed, but they could then continue without fear of exposure teaching pagan lies and myths as "Divine Truths" which were intended to secure the allegiance and finances of the masses who would depend on such religious establishments for their very "salvation" for soon the Catholic Church would teach that there "was no salvation outside the Catholic Church and its doctrines". Without previous references to their dishonesty, the path was cleared for deceitful conversion.