Take the Long Way Home

Goddess worship is the hip new thing, and Astarte is a popular pick.  Wiccans invoke her, MySpace has several pages of people who claim to be her, the full figure fashion industry uses her name to promote their wares.  But the way I first heard about her was from anti Catholic literature.  It claimed that the Catholic Church had “borrowed” the Easter festival from her.   Who was she?  I decided to do a little research…

According to the internet Astarte had many names, Astoreth, Aphrodite, Venus, Ishtar, etc, etc.  She also had many faces, some called her “mother of the universe” (Phoneicians) and said she was the giver of all life on earth, some the “lady of the sea”, “queen of heaven”, “lady of the mountain” (all from the Ras Shamra texts).  She was the goddess of fertility, motherhood and war.  Sometimes she is pictured with a battle ax and spear, wading through the blood of her human victims (who were the enemies of her son Baal, whose father, El, is her husband and brother).   Sometimes she is pictured as the demon of lust.  Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle (indicating the planet Venus).    She often has cows horns and occasionally a cows tail as well.  Her temples often employed prostitutes.  She is even mentioned in the Bible where her worship is condemned by the prophets. 

But what does this have to do with Easter?  Alexander Hislop wrote a book back in the 1800’s called The Two Babylons, in which he sets out to explain how paganism slipped into the Catholic Church (this has become such a commonplace assumption that most people don’t know that it actually is a very modern accusation, mostly based on this book and Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Boettner - neither of whom find it necessary to use sources for their information which makes figuring out where they got their ideas difficult, to say the least!).  Hislop says that “Easter is just another word for Astarte” - the queen of heaven who caused Jeremiah so much trouble.  Hislop claims that worship of this goddess was introduced to Britain (although he fails to offer any direct evidence of how this might have happened) in the first centuries. 

      What is interesting about this argument is the fact that the word “Easter” does not appear in any official Catholic Church documents (only in a translation), because it is an Anglo Saxon word and that is not the language of the Church.  Most cultures do not have the word Easter in their vocabulary, the “official” and most commonly used term globally would be a form of “Pascha”.  Which comes from the Hebrew and Aramaic for passover.  (Christ is called the “Paschal Lamb”)  Most languages use a similar word for the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection, not one that sounds anything like our English “Easter”.  So the similarity of the two words means absolutely nothing! 

Hislop accedes this when he notes that in the early Church  the festival was called “Pasch”.  (he either doesn’t realize or conveniently ignores the fact that this is *still* the terminology used) He admits that it was celebrated by the earliest Christians, but says that “it was not of apostolic institution” (He quotes Socrates Scholastica for this, who was known for mistakes in his history when they related to chronology or to the Western Church in general - at least according to my hasty internet research.)  Hislop maintains that the festivals originally coincided with the Jewish Passover, but became corrupt with the addition of the Lenten fast.  His “proof” for this is that many pagan cultures have 40 day fasts…  I wonder which one of these pagan gods Jesus was worshiping when he went into the desert and fasted for forty days?   (please hear the sarcasm) 

Then, claims Hislop, it was further corrupted when Dionysus the Little adjusted the calendar and moved the date of Easter!!!  Dionysus was the first to reckon dates from the birth of Christ instead of by the Roman emperors.   Hislop doesn’t explain why this dating system is so nefarious, except for noting that modern scholarship has led us to believe that Dionysus was off a few years.  Let me quote from Hislop here:

     “To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing it’s usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated and by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity - now far sunk in idolatry - in this as in so many other things, to shake hands.” 

So according to him moving the dates of the calendar to focus on the birth of Jesus instead of the reigns of Roman emperors was to amalgamate pagan religions?

He parallels cultural observances of “easter”, such as easter eggs and hot cross buns (he doesn’t explain why if these are all associated with the goddess Astarte why every culture has different secular observances) with pagan rituals of the past.  He goes on and on describing pagan rituals and beliefs that tie back to a universal flood (in which one culture describes Astarte, or some other equivelent figure, as surviving the flood by riding in a hollowed out eggshell) and to the eating of fruit in the quest of knowledge (apparently in some culture eating oranges is associated with easter).

He claims that this is proof of pagan influence on Easter, but I would argue (and many modern critics of Christianity have) that finding parallels between Scriptural events and ancient pagan customs make a compelling case for the pagan influence on Judaism.  Pagan arks, and pagan fruits that when you eat them you gain wisdom make it sound like Moses ripped off his ideas from the surrounding cultures!

And since we have seen that Astarte’s symbols included the lion and the dove, it seems only fair (given this line of reasoning) that we accuse the gospel writers of pagan influence as well.  Was it Astarte that descended upon Jesus at his baptism?  Suddenly Jesus being called “the lion of Judah” takes on a whole new meaning.  And lets not forget his 40 day fast!  It seems pretty clear that if the Church’s celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection is based on the worship of Astarte, then so is the New Testament.

Are you willing to go there?  I’m not.

I find it very frustrating refuting these kind of claims.  Hislop offers no proof texts for his accusations.  No historical, ecclesiastical, or archaeological evidence to back up his assertions.  The closest he can come is making huge leaps from an ancient Near East pagan practice of offering bread to a goddess to the English eating hot cross buns (even though this is a purely cultural phenomenon, there is no Church teaching on “hot cross buns”. 

It’s like the easter bunny.  How often do you find the easter bunny preached about on Easter Sunday?  How many Church doctrines are based on cultural practices?  NONE!  There is no “Christian affiliation” between hot cross buns and the resurrection of Jesus..  Common sense alone would tell you that a people that enjoys eating bread is not going to stop just because they have converted to Christianity.  And again, cultural practices are just that, cultural practices, they have no part in Church teaching.) 

How do you argue something that is only found in someone’s mind?  I find all kinds of evidence of the early church fighting against paganism, of making it’s members swear off all allegiances to their old way of life.  There is plenty of evidence that paganism was NOT allowed to be amalgamated with Christianity, but on the word of some nobody 100+ years ago the opposite seems to be the prominent belief. 

My father used to give me material to read. Much of this was highly anti Catholic literature in the guise of “history”. I think most of us are familiar with this, those that claim that the Catholic Church was corrupted by paganism over the centuries, and that we can find clues of this in the Bible (of course we must make sure that our interpretations of that Bible fit certain models or this will all come crashing down). One of these claims was that Catholicism was influenced by the Philistine religion centered on Dagon the Fish God. The “proof” for this was the Pope’s hat.

I’m embarrassed to say that I bought this hook, line and sinker. I looked at the pictures of Pope John Paul II in his Bishop’s mitre put next to some old carvings of this Dagon with a fish on his head, and thought, “yup, those evil Catholics are at it again, but they can’t fool me, no sirree!”

It never occurred to me to do any research on this Dagon fellow, why would anyone want to lead me astray on this issue? Didn’t the people presenting this “history lesson” do their own research? Apparently they didn’t. For some reason, this week, I decided to do my own research. And here is what I found:

Every site which claims to be “Christian” repeats (almost word for word) the same claims that I was familiar with. They talk about the worship of this “fish god” Dagon by the Philistines, they even claim that there is a reference to him in the Bible (when the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, it was placed before a deity called Dagan, in Hebrew, and the arms and head fell off the statue leaving it’s “trunk”. For some strange reason, that I have not been able to authenticate, certain Biblical translators in the 13^th century said that this word for “trunk” was describing a fish body (the “Christian” sites I visited claimed there was a Hebraic similarity between these words that led them to make this translation even though it doesn’t fit the context of the passage). These sites then claim that it is this image that is resurrected in the bishop’s mitre (they might not be aware that all bishops wear this hat, not just the Pope).

But what do the non religious sites have to say about Dagon?

From Wikipedia:

Dagon was a major Semetic god, of grain and agriculture. He was worshiped by the early Amorites and also the Biblical Philistines. The etymological root of the name is dgn (in Ugartic) and dagan (in Hebrew). According to the Phoenician author Sanchuniathon, “And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios” (arotrios means ploughman).

The god Dagon first appears in records about 2500 BC. He is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts, but only becomes prominent in later inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector. In the preface to his law code, Hammurabi calls himself, “the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his creator.” In an Assyrian poem, Dagon appears as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra. It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon, whose temple was burned by the Roman emperor in 402. The sanctuaries paving stones were used by the Christians to pave the public marketplace.

There is a tradition that the name Dagon is related to the word dag, in Hebrew, which means fish and that Dagon was imagined in the shape of a merman (similar to the Babylonian fish-god Oannes). In 1928 the theory was asserted that Dagon was never originally a fish god, but once he became an important god of maritime cities he evolved (much like he evolves in other cities from god of agriculture to god of the dead) into one.

The Jewish Encyclopedia had this to say:

Not much is known about the worship of Dagon. But Dagon’s temple at Ashdod (mentioned in Scripture) was burned by Jonathan Maccabee (according to Josephus).

And from Encyclopedia Mythica:

Dagon was also the father of Baal. Among the Canaanites, baal eventually assumed the position of god of fertility, which Dagon had previously occupied. Dagon was sometimes associated with the mermaid deity Derceto (which may account for the theory of Dagon being portrayed as a merman). Little else is known about Dagon, but his prominent role in the Philistine religion is quite evident.

It is known, however, that the Philistines imported Dagon from Babylonia. The notion that Dagon was a god whose upper body was that of a man and the lower body of a fish has been prevalent for decades. This idea may stem from a linguistic error in translating a derivative of the Semitic dag. The word dagan means corn or cereal. There is no archaeological record to support the theory that Dagon was represented by a merman (despite those who taut Phoenician coins).

About.com claims that the half man half fish figure is kullulu, an Assyrian god. And from about the 4^th century, the figure was associated (probably erroneously) with the god Dagon.

Here’s the main problem with researching Dagon. There’s just not much out there! Not much is known. I couldn’t find anything, nothing at all, that described the worship of Dagon. The reason for this is that his worship died out so long ago. The very latest dates I could find for anyone worshiping Dagon was in 402 AD (and this is only if you buy the idea that the Greeks were worshiping Dagon as Marnas. And did you notice who sent the worshipers of Marnas packing? It was the Christians who destroyed the last vestiges of Marnas worship. It’s hard for me to believe they destroyed the temple, then incorporated the religion into Christianity, without any historical evidence to back it up!). Most of his followers were gone by the advent of Jesus!

But… I can hear you arguing. 402 AD gives plenty of time for Dagon’s influence to be felt in Christianity. What about the Pope’s hat? Don’t worry, I’m getting to that…

The history of the bishop’s mitre:

From Wikipedia.com:

The mitre is the ceremonial headdress of bishops. It was originally a cap used by officials of the Imperial Byzantine court. It’s use dates back at least to the 8^th century.

In Western Europe, the mitre was first used at Rome about the middle of the 10^th century, and outside Rome about the year 1000 AD. The first written mention of it is found in a Bull of Pope Leo IX in 1049. By 1150 the use had spread to bishops throughout the West.

In the West, the mitre is a tall folding cap, consisting of two similar parts rising to a peak (like the Pope wears). In the East, the mitre is based on the closed Imperial crown of the late Byzantine Empire. It is made in the shape of a bulbous crown, completely enclosed. In the Coptic tradition, bishops wear a ballin, wound around the head like a turban. Syriac bishops wear a richly embroidered hood.

Catholic.com had this to say:

From the 17^th century much has been written concerning the length of time the mitre has been worn. Some say it extends back to the Apostles, some say to the 8^th or 9^th centuries, some say not until the second millenium. But most evidence holds that the mitre was first used in Rome in the middle of the 10^th century, and outside Rome about the year 1000 AD.

As regards shape, there is such a difference between the mitre of the 11^th century and that of the 20^th century that it is hard to recognize the same ornamental head covering in the two. In its earliest form the mitre was a simple cap of soft material, which ended above in a point, while around the lower edge there was generally and ornamental band. Towards 1100 AD the mitre began to have a curved shape and to grow into a round cap. In many cases there appeared a depression in the upper part. In about 1125 AD these round curves had developed more into horn like points on either side of the head. This mitre transitioned into the type of mitre we most see today, which is pointed in the back and front, instead of left and right. Up until the 14^th century this mitre had been more wide than tall, but from then on the mitre slowly but steadily increased in height. Another change in the 15^th century was the sides were no longer made vertical, but diagonal.

In the Greek Rite liturgical head covering weren’t worn by all bishops until the 18^th century, before that only the Patriarch of Alexandria wore one. The Greek mitre is a high hat which swells out toward the top with a cross on the top.

Sooooo. Essentially, what I learned was, nobody (at least nobody in the historical world) knows much about Dagon. Historians can’t even decide what he was the god of, much less how he was depicted. Depending on which city you lived in, you probably worshiped him differently. His religion died out in the BC years for the most part, although it’s possible there were a few hangers on as late as 402 AD. But the mitre doesn’t appear until the mid 10^th century. And then there’s the problem that the mitre itself has gone through many stages, most of which don’t look anything like the representation that the anti Catholics claim to be identical to the fish head of Dagon’s priests. And then there is the fact that an entire sect of Catholicism (the Eastern Rite Catholics) don’t wear the Western style mitre to this day. So to believe what the anti Catholics have to say you have to believe that Western Christians resurrected a long dead religion (one that they themselves helped to stamp out the last vestiges of) sometime in the 15^th century (that’s when the mitre most closely resembles the one today). This would be after the Protestant Reformation, by the way. Who would believe this???

Well, if anyone actually looks at this blog they have probably been wondering what the heck happened to me.  Lots, but that’s irrelevant.  Point is, I’ve been away, and now I’m back.  Aren’t you happy? 

I’ve been spending most of my time at the Catholic Spitfire Grill (that’s a yahoo group that’s open to anyone with any kind of interest in the Catholic Church, whether they are lifelong Catholics, recent converts, those who might possibly be thinking about conversion, those who think anyone who converts is crazy, but is morbidly interested anyway… I don’t know how to link it, sorry, it shouldn’t be hard to search out if you fall into one of the above catagories and want to join.)  There have been some pretty interesting threads going that have made me go hmmmmm.  I’m going to repost my own thoughts here, so if your already part of the Grill you’re probably thinking, haven’t I heard this somewhere before?  If so, sorry, but it’s my blog afterall, so ththbtbt!

I also had an interesting conversation with my brother about all things Catholic.  It was a first for us (I’m a recent convert and my family is not all that interested in hearing why, they either think it doesn’t matter where you go to church as long as your happy, or they want to live in denial about the fact that I’ve joined up with the “whore of Babylon”.)  There was some overlap in these very different conversations that I find worthy of note.  Mainly the misperceptions that people have about Catholicism seem to span the divide between fundamentalists and skeptics.  Both seem to have fallen for the same line of thinking, which is amazing to me considering the fact that this is probably the ONLY thing that those two groups would agree on.  But they both are laboring under the misconception that history is on the side of the anti Catholic argument.  I too fell for this for a long time.  It’s as though it’s such an accepted line that it doesn’t bear studying out.  Which is quite ironic, because as a lover of history I was always interested in the “other side of the story”.  I loved reading different accounts of history and seeing where one bias ended and another began.  Seeing the same event, or person, from two, or three, points of view always made me feel as though I had a better grasp on what “really happened”.  (which of course is impossible because both sides are telling what “really happened”, events are felt and seen differently depending on which “side” you are on.)  But I never did this with Catholic history.  I reveled in any relating of corruption, any story of infidelity, any “proof” of sin and degredation.  Why?  Why would I be skeptical about this kind of one sided portrayal of any king, people group, or country, but I was satisfied with it when it came to Catholic priests or popes?  I don’t have a good answer for this.

I don’t pretend to have studied deeply into ALL of Catholic history, although the little I’ve done (from a Catholic perspective) has been quite enlightening.  But here’s the main kicker:  there have been many “bad” Catholics over the centuries whether they be priests, popes, kings, or laymen; they have done many “bad” things, said many “bad” things, led others to think and do “bad” things, BUT the faith remains unchanged.  Those popes that became so because they coveted power and wealth did so to gain power and wealth, not to change the faith.  They didn’t care about the faith!  They didn’t spend that power and wealth trying to change unchangeable dogma.  They didn’t call councils together to get pet doctrines made into dogma.  They spent their time in political intrigue, in power struggles, in seducing women, and in just plain having a good time.  Take a look yourself and find me a dogma that was changed, or one that was instituted during one of these dark periods in the Church.  Then, and only then, can we talk.

My brother told me a story that he read in one of his many books.  There was once a Catholic priest who had a Jewish friend.  The priest, who was a good priest, was always trying to convince his friend of the truth of the Catholic faith.  Finally the Jewish friend said, “all right, you’ve convinced me that there is indeed something to this faith.  All that lacks is for me to go to Rome myself and see the leaders of this Church.  I want to see them first hand, you can tell alot about a thing by its leaders.”  Well, the priest was downcast, because he knew that the bishops in Rome were a hedonistic lot.  He had heard all the stories of their infidelities.  One day the Jewish man returned and came to see his friend, the priest.  “I’m ready to be baptized”, he said.  The priest was astonished, how had this happened?  What had he seen in Rome?  “Well,” said the man, “I figured if this religion had lasted as long as it had with leaders like that there must be the hand of God at work in it.”   

Catholics are always being accused of being able to buy indulgences.  Those dumb Catholics, they think they can buy forgiveness; buy their way into heaven.  And if they say you can’t buy indulgences then they must confess to inconsistencies in doctrine because this used to happen.  Right?

As a protestant I heard about this buying and selling of forgivness that was going on back in the middle ages.  This was what jumped started the Reformation, right?  Wrong!  All my study (through protestant sources) showed me this was never the case.  The Reformation was about philosophy and politics.  Martin Luther DID protest the “selling of indulgences”, much like today some protest the “selling of votes, political power and influence”.  Were indulgences for sale?  No.  Just like political influence is not for sale today.  Can you find in the Constitution, or any of our laws were this is permissable?  On the contrary, you’ll find where it is illegal!  Then what are we talking about?  We are talking about corrupt politicians who promise to vote a certain way because of large campaign contributions.  The same is true for indulgences.  Indulgences are not for sale, never have been.  So what do we mean when we say that they were?

First things first - what is an indulgence?  An indulgence is a reprieve from part or all of the penance associated with a forgiven sin.  Being granted an indulgence is often confused with being granting forgiveness, but they are not the same thing.  I don’t know how things work in your house, but in my house forgiveness and penance are two separate things.  When my children disobey a rule there are consequences.  Depending on the severity of the offense the penance might be writing lines, doing jumping jacks, running laps or even offering a simple apology to the offended party.  But forgiveness is a different matter altogether.  I forgive my children for their offenses, but they must still do their penance!  Sometimes though, for various reasons I might grant a reprieve of part or all of their penance.  Maybe the child offers, in true repentance, to do his brothers chores for him, or to give him one of his favorite toys.  I might decide that this offering can count as his penance.  Did this child buy his forgiveness?  No, I had forgiven him already, it merely counted as his penance.  Confessed sin is forgiven sin!  But there is still the necessity of penance.  If you steal from me, I might forgive you, but you still need to return my property!  If you murder my friend, I can forgive you, but I can’t take away your penance.  You must go to jail.  Now, you might be granted an indulgence by the state - early release for good behavior.  Did you buy, or even earn, forgiveness?  No, but you earned a break in your penance.  There were/are many ways to be granted an indulgence; one of these ways was/is to give alms to the poor.  So, in essence, you are substituting one form or penance for another.  Like, for instance, in our own justice system:  instead of three days in jail you might be able to spend sixty hours community service, or possibly even pay a fine and go straight home. 

Can the granting of indulgences tied to the giving of alms be abused?  Of course!  Much like politicians who vote to please big money.  Does this mean that the Church, itself, is corrupt?  Does this mean our Government, itself, is corrupt?  Do we throw out the whole system because the men who run it are sometimes fallen?  I think not.