CHAPTER
III
EASTER:
THE GODDESS OF SPRING
The
name of this festival, itself, shows its heathen origin.
"Easter" is derived from Eastre, or Eostre,
the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring and dawn. There also
is some historical connection existing between the words
"Easter" and "East," where the sun
rises. The festival of Eostre was celebrated on the day
of the Vernal Equinox (spring). Traditions associated
with the festival of the Teutonic fertility Goddess survive
in the Easter rabbit and colored eggs.
Spring
is the season of new life and revival, when, from ancient
times, the pagan peoples of Europe and Asia held their
spring festivals, re-enacting ancient regeneration myths
and performing magical and religious ceremonies to make
the crops grow and prosper.
From
"The American Book of Days," by George William
Douglas we read: "As the festival of Eostre was a
celebration of the renewal of life in the spring it was
easy to make it a celebration of the resurrection from
the dead of Jesus. There is no doubt that the Church (of
Rome) in its early days adopted the old pagan customs
and gave a "Christian" meaning to them.
From
"Easter: its Story and Meaning," by Alan W.
Watts is found: "The story of Easter is not simply
a Christian story. Not only is the very name "Easter"
the name of an ancient and non-Christian deity; the season
itself has also, from time immemorial, been the occasion
of rites and observances having to do with the mystery
of death and resurrection among peoples differing widely
in race and religion."
From
"Easter and its customs," by Christina Hole
is found: "Vernal Mysteries (spring heathen rites)
like those of Tammuz, and Osiris and Adonis flourished
in the Mediterranean world and farther north and east
there were others. Some of their rites and symbols were
carried forward into Easter customs. Many of them have
survived into our own day, unchanged yet subtly altered
in their new surroundings to bear a "Christian"
significance."
TAMMUZ
AND THE VERNAL MYSTERIES
The
rites connected with the death and resurrection of the
gods Tammuz, Osiris, and Adonis are the Forerunners of
the "Christian" Easter; they are the first East
services.
Let
us look in the Word of God in Ezekiel 8:13-16
(13) He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt
see greater abominations that they do. (14) Then he brought me
to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the
north; and behold, there sat women WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ (15) Then
said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Turn thee
yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these
(16) And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house,
and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the
porch and the alter, were about five and twenty men, with their
backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the
EAST; and they WORSHIPPED THE SUN toward the EAST.
Here
the people of God, Israel, had back-slid into idolatry.
Tammuz was a Babylonian god. Like Christ Mass and New
Year's, Easter, too, began in Babylon.
Let
us look into the Mythologies of the death and resurrection
gods, such as Tammuz from "Easter: its Story and
Meaning."
"Wife and beloved of Tammuz was the goddess Inanna, or Ishtar,
in whose person is represented she whom we now call Mother
Nature of Mother Earth -- she who, when refreshed with the
spring rains, with the water from heaven, brings forth the
fruits of life. We are told that when Tammuz died, Inanna was
so stricken with grief that she followed him to the underworld,
to the realm of Eresh-Kigal, Queen of the Dead, a "land from
which there is no returning, a house of darkness, where dust
lies on door and bolt." In her absence the earth was deprived
of its fertility; crops would not grow; animals would not mate;
life was in danger of coming to an end.
"O
my child!" at his vanishing aways she lifts up a
lament; "My Damu!" at his vanishing away she
lifts up a lament; "My enchanter and priest!"
at his vanishing away she lifts up a lament, At the shining
cedar, rooted in a spacious place, In Eanna, above and
below, she lifts up a lament.
This
ancient text is called "The Lament of the Flutes
for Tammuz." He had gone away to the underworld,
and this was why there was winter. "The Lament of
the Flutes for Tammuz" describes the grief which
moved Ea, god of water and wisdom, to send a heavenly
messenger to the underworld to rescue the goddess whose
absence was removing life from the earth. Assenting reluctantly
to his supreme will, Eresh-Kigal allowed the messenger
to sprinkle Inanna and Tammuz with water of life--a potion
which gave them power to return into the light of the
sun for six months of the year. But for the other six
months, Tammuz must again return to the land of death,
whither Inanna would again pursue him, and once more with
her lamentations move Ea to give the water of life so
that year after year the miracle of resurrection and spring
would recur."
In
the course of centuries, the story and the yearly rites
connected with the death and resurrection of Tammuz moved
westward to Phoenicia and Syria on the extreme east of
the Mediterranean. Here the name of Tammuz was changed
to Adon or Adonai, and the name of Inanna to Astarte.
In Greece the two names are Adonis and Aphrodite.
The
myth underwent some changes in passing from Sumeria to
Syria.
A
Greek myth tells of Demeter, like Inanna, the goddess
of the earth, and her daughter, Kore (Persephone). The
girl was abducted by Pluto, the ruler of the underworld,
and her absence brought about a famine on earth through
the failure of the crops. Pluto was therefore moved to
restored Kore to her mother, but because she had eaten
a pomegranate in the underworld she was bound to return
to Pluto for as many months of each year as there were
seeds of the pomegranate caught in her mouth. In joy at
her annual return, the earth (Demeter) brings forth her
fruits and flowers.
Adonis
(Greek god) was the child of Myrrha, the myrtle tree.
(It seems that almost all the gods of death and resurrection
are associated with a tree.) When the infant Adonis was
born, Aphrodite was so charmed with his beauty that she
adopted him and concealed him in a chest, which she gave
for safekeeping to Persephone--the counterpart of Eresh-Kigal,
the Babylonian Queen of the Dead. In the underworld Persephone
opened the chest, and was herself so enchanged with the
babe that she decided to keep him. This led to a dispute
between Aphrodite and Persephone, between love and death,
in which Zeus (taking the place of the Babylonian Ea)
had to intervene. Zeus decreed that for four months of
the year Adonis should belong to Aphrodite, for four to
Persephone, and for the remaining four he should do as
he wished--Adonis chose to spend them with Aphrodite.
When
he had grown to young manhood, Adonis roused the envy
of Artemis, the forest goddess of the hunt, or according
to another account, or Ares, the god of war. Thus, while
he was out hunting, Artemis slew Adonis with an arrow--the
arrows of Artemis being the cause to which sudden death
was generally ascribed--or in the version, he was gored
by Ares in the form of a wild boar. He died, and where
the earth had received his blood, Aphrodite sprinkled
the ground with nectar, so that the blood turned into
anemones and other flowers of the field. But the grief
of Aphrodite was so piteous that the gods of the underworld
allowed Adonis to return to her every spring for six months
of the year.
In
Asia Minor the Phrygians believed that their omnipotent
deity went to sleep at the time of the winter solstice
and they performed ceremonies with music and dancing at
the spring equinox to awaken him.
Of
the same essential pattern is the great Egyptian myth
of Osiris. The common elements in all these stories are
so apparent that one may think of them as a single drama
performed again and again by different actors.
It
would be tedious to describe in detail all that has been
handed down to us about the various rites of Tammuz, Adonis,
Kire, and many others. Their rites had many basic elements
in common. Their universal theme--the drama of death and
resurrection--makes them the forerunners of the "Christian"
Easter, and thus the first easter services. Many of the
customs and ceremonies of the "Christian" Easter
resemble these former rites, for instance, the present
day "Sun Rise Services." Easter descended from
pagan sun worship. Catholic Doctrine simply paralleled
the pagan death and resurrection myths of the gods with
the story of Christ's crucifixion and Ascension. Christ
now rises from the dead with the ascending sun at the
time of the Vernal Equinox when plant life and all forms
of vegetation appear again on the Earth, and is celebrated
with the same customs as that of the Heathen rites namely,
rabbits, chickens, and colored eggs!
COLORED
EGGS
The
Easter egg takes us back to some of the oldest known civilizations
on earth where the symbol of an egg played an important
part in mythical accounts of the creation of the world.
According to this tale heaven and earth were formed from
the two halves of a mysterious World-Egg. The Easter egg
is associated with this World-Egg, the original germ from
which all life proceeds, and whose shell is the firmament.
So there is a heathen connection between the egg and the
ideas or feelings of birth, new life, and creation.
Easter
eggs do have a very long ancestry. In their modern chocolate
or cardboard form they date only from the later years
of the last century, but giving real eggs, colored or
gilded at Easter and also at the pre-Christian spring
celebrations are infinitely older.
Long
before the Christian era, eggs were regarded as symbols
of continuing life and resurrection. The ancient Persians
and Greeks exchanged them at their spring festivals when
all things in nature revived after the winter. To the
early pagans converted to "Christianity" under
Emperor Constantine's rule, eggs seemed the obvious symbols
of the Lord's resurrection and were therefore considered
"holy" and appropriate gifts at Easter time.
Pope Paul V appointed a prayer in which the eggs were
"blessed." The eggs could then be eaten in thankfulness
to God on account of the resurrection of the Lord. The
custom of coloring eggs at Easter continued from paganism
with only a change of dedication. These eggs are often
red. Scarlet eggs were given in the spring by pagan peoples
centuries before the birth of Christ. It is probably the
favorite color because, like the egg itself, it is an
emblem of life.
THE
EASTER RABBIT
The
hare is the true Easter beast, not the rabbit. He was
sacred to the Spring-Goddess, Eostre. Hares were sacrificed
to her. The hare was an emblem of fertility, renewal,
and return of spring to the heathen. The egg, in modern
American folklore, is the production of the rabbit or
the hare. The story is that this hare was once a bird
whom Eostre changed into a four-footed creature.
HOT-CROSS
BUNS
Eating
hot-cross buns is one of the Good Friday customs that
has taken root in America. They are pagan in origin, for
the Anglo-Saxon savages consumed cakes as part of the
jollity that attended the welcoming of spring. Early missionaries
from Rome despaired of breaking them of the habit, and
got around the difficulty by blessing the cakes, drawing
a cross upon them. but the cross was a pagan symbol long
before the crucifixion. Bread and cakes were sometimes
marked with it in pre-Christian times. Two small loaves
each with a cross on them were discovered under the ruins
of Herculaneum, a city overwhelmed by volcanic ash in
A.D. 79. It is probable that the crosses here had a pagan
meaning like those which appeared on cakes associated
with the worship of Diana.
There
are other pagan customs associated with Easter, but we
have discussed the most common ones.
Information
for writing this chapter was obtained from: "Easter:
its Story and meaning," by Alan W. Watts; "The
American Book of Days," by George William Dougolas;
"Easter and its customs,": by Christina Hole;
"The Book of Religious Holidays and Celebrations,"
by Marguerite Ickis; "Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia."
Chapter
III from HEATHEN HOLIDAYS by Sister Denise Snodgrass.
This
migh also interest you: What
is a real Holiday ? And the reason why we now know the
truth about the occult involments.
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