In terms of the core
of its teachings, the orthodox Church evolved principally from the teachings of
Jesus Christ… but the dogma in which it has entrenched itself has strayed far
from what Jesus intended in terms of his mission. And there is no doubt that
much of this dogma was rooted in earlier pagan myths and rituals.
Political
manipulations, sectional disagreements within the Church itself, and the
interpretations and misinterpretations of scribes through the centuries have
further widened the rift between the teachings of Christ and the Church’s
expressed views.
For any institution
to survive through the centuries, it needs to keep up with changes in society
and take account of new information that throws light on the accuracy and
relevance of its beliefs. The Church has been slow to do this. There is concern
among many Catholics that even today the Church refuses to reconsider its
position on crucial issues like contraception, celibacy and women priests.
At the same time,
however, the influence of the pagan past is clearly to be seen in many aspects
of Christianity, not only because the past cannot simply be thrown off entirely
when new ideas begin to prevail, but because the Church deliberately imposed
some of its rituals and days of celebration over major pagan ceremonies in
order to obliterate earlier religious practices and beliefs that were
unacceptable to it.
By the middle of the
second century, the ‘Nazarenes’ – those who followed the teachings of
Jesus and later of his brother James – were being persecuted by Pauline
Christians who were well into the developing orthodoxy that was to be cemented by
the Council at Nicaea in 325 AD. Christianity had become much more the religion
of Paul’s view of Jesus than the religion of Jesus himself.
The Council of
Nicaea is largely seen now as a calling together by Constantine of Christian
representatives – both orthodox and sectarian – in order to create
a unified Christianity to stabilise the weakening Empire. It was, in fact,
attended also by leading figures from all the pagan religions in the Roman
Empire because it was Constantine’s intention to create a universal (“catholic”)
religion for the Empire, and he was not inclined to be too tolerant of any
group who opposed this.
In order for pagan
cults to be willing to be drawn into the ‘universal’ religion planned by
Constantine, they had to feel assured that certain of their rituals would
persist and some of their major feast days continue to be observed, even if
under different names.
Pagan fertility
ceremonies became blessings of the fields under the spiritual guidance of
priests. The Eastern Orthodox Church had a tradition of sharing dyed and
painted eggs as symbols of life renewed when Christ rose from the tomb, but the
Easter tradition of eggs and rabbits had actually been taken over from
fertility rites celebrated by pagan religions. ‘Virgin’ births were celebrated
in pagan religions long before the story of Mary, mother of Jesus, and
resurrections of fertility gods in nature religions were ritually observed long
before the resurrection of Christ. There is nothing sacrilegious in saying that
many Christian beliefs were in the long line of old and honoured religious
tradition.
Imposing new
Christian traditions over older pagan ones was favoured as a way of drawing
formerly pagan believers into the Church. Many of our rituals stem from pagan
rites; for instance, confetti thrown during celebrations and rice thrown at
bride and groom arose from the practice of throwing grains of wheat and barley
during pagan processions.
The months of our
Christian calendar are named after Roman gods and Roman Caesars. With the
exception of the Roman origin of Saturday (Saturn’s Day), the days of the week
are named after Germanic gods.
The Church realised
that the most effective way of eventually eliminating pagan beliefs – or
at least rendering them ineffective as threats – was to superimpose
Christian celebrations over them. The assumption of many of the pagan rituals
gradually became so embedded in the dogma and traditions of Christianity that
their pagan origin was either unknown to later Christians or no longer
mattered.
The Christian Church
in the years following on Nicaea was therefore a mix of several shades of
belief and by no means orthodox. Orthodoxy had been imposed by Constantine, but
belief came about more slowly. The sign of the fish had been ousted in favour
of the Cross, and the new focus was on the suffering of Christ for the sins of
mankind.
The Church of
Antioch had been founded in Asia Minor about 36AD by James, Peter and Thomas.
Church leaders were outraged by the goings-on at Nicaea and withdrew from the
Council.
Even the earlier
religion of the Israelites from which Christianity borrowed much had in turn
borrowed many beliefs from contemporary and earlier pagan religions, including
the story of Noah and the Flood. Orthodox Christianity’s way of presenting
Mother and Child echoes the Egyptian goddess Isis and the child Horus from the
powerful cult of Isis which also celebrated the resurrection of her husband,
the god Osiris. The use of holy water is not confined to Christian blessings.
In ancient Egypt, jars of water from the holy river, the Nile, were kept in
jars in homes and public buildings to protect against evil influences.
Worship of the
Madonna echoes the veneration given the goddess Diana by members of
pre-Christian Roman cults.
There are echoes of
paganism in countless Christian ceremonies and traditions, including in the
exotic garments of the highest priestly class. The ringing of the church bells
is found in earlier Buddhist Tibetan and Chinese monasteries, as were beads and
rosaries, and the halo of Renaissance paintings was Babylonian in origin, used
to depict not only holy figures but also to indicate great virtue in ordinary
human beings. The practice of celibacy was common in pagan religions,
particularly in Rome. Many pagan religions valued celibacy as an extreme of
virtue, but it was not a practice followed by the Christian Church until some
centuries after its founding, and then it seems to have been the result of
practical considerations; that is, that the Church was losing land to the heirs
of married priests and, secondly, that married men with families could not give
undivided attention to the Church.
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