Then look at Easter. When means the term Easter itself? It is
not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very
forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles
of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the
people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in
common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the
Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. * The worship of Bel and Astarte
was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids,
"the priests of the groves." Some have imagined
that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the
Phenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to
the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that
worship are found in regions of the British islands where the
Phenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible
marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early
British mind. From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in
the Almanac; * and we have customs still lingering at this day
among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch
(for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even
in the northern parts of this island. "The late Lady
Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire," says a writer in
"Notes and Queries," thoroughly versed in British
antiquities, * "told me, that every year, at Beltane (or
the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient
Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They
light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in
a shepherd's bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a
piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened,
and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the
centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part
of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whim the lot
fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now, the passing
through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit
redeems the victim." If Baal was thus worshipped in
Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort
Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte,
whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of
April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter--that
month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called
Easter-monath. The festival, of which we read in Church history,
under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was
quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish
Church, and at that time was not known by any such as Easter. *
It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic
institution, * was very early observed by many professing
Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of
Christ. That festival agreed originally with the time of the
Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in
the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was
believed to have been the 23rd of March. * That festival was not
idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. "It ought to
be known," said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles,
writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive
Church with the Church in his day, "that the observance
of the forty days had no existence so long as the perfection of
that primitive Church remained inviolate." * Whence,
then, came this observance? The forty days' abstinence of Lent
was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian
goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, "in the spring of
the year," is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan
Devil-worshippers of Koordistan, * who have inherited it from
their early masters, the Babylonians. Such a Lent of forty days
was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in
Humboldt, * where he gives account of Mexican observances: "Three
days after the vernal equinox.... began a solemn fast of forty
days in honour of the sun." Such a Lent of forty days
was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson's
Egyptians. * This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by
Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in
commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. *
At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been
commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus
informs us that, for "forty nights" the "wailing
for Proserpine" continued; * and from Arnobius we learn
that the fast which the Pagans observed, called "Castus"
or the "sacred" fast, was, by the
Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in
imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she
determinedly refused to eat on account of her "excess of
sorrow" (volentia maeroris), * that is, on account of
the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto,
the god of hell. As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and
Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and
fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his
wife Ariadne, Libera * (which was one of the names of
Proserpine), * it is highly probable that the forty days' fast of
Lent was made in later times to have reference to both. Among the
Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary
to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and
resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping
and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably
later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine
and Assyria in June, therefore called the "month of
Tammuz;" in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in
Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal
Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to
get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a
complicated but skilful 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. The instrument in accomplishing
this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, * to whom
also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that
the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself,
was mover FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done
through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there
seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord
Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. * This
change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with
momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest
corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the
abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that
were commemorated during the "sacred fast" or Pagan
Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, * and
surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the
full knowledge of all these abominations, "went down to
Egypt for help" to stir up the languid devotion of the
degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to "revive"
it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities
and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers
had held up to scorn. That Christians should ever think of
introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it
showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it
inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome,
Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely
unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was
held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect,
it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have
been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before the sitting
of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a
considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence
that it did not exceed three weeks. * The words of Socrates,
writing on this very subject, about A.D. 450, are these: "Those
who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter
three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord's-day." *
But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the
ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six
weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman
empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council
held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisidas, Bishop of Rome, about
the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept
before Easter. * It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out
this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted
by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once.
About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt
was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in
Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; * and here
the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in
point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in
Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced
by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and
it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival
of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that
which had been held in honour of Christ.
Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that
still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the
testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot
cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter
Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The "buns,"
known too by that identical name, were used in the worship
of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days
of Cecrops, the founder of Athens--that is, 1500 years before the
Christian era. "One species of sacred bread,"
says Bryant, * "which used to be offered to the gods,
was of great antiquity, and called Boun." Diogenes
Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles,
describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying,
"He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which
was made of fine flour and honey." * The prophet
Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says, "The
children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women
knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven." *
The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the
festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they
have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear.
The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their
order. * In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as
celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony
consisted in the consecration of an egg. * The Hindoo fables
celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. * The people
of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. * In China,
at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals,
even as in this country. * In ancient times eggs were used in the
religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up
for mystic purposed in their temples. * From Egypt these sacred
eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates. The
classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the
Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian,
the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time
of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of the native
country: "An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen
from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the
bank, were the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out
came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess" *
--that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of
Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen
seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous
size was represented on a grand scale. *
The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of
its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to
the ark * during the time of the flood, in which the whole human
race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it
is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter
the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such
a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as
already indicated (p. 108), is well known as the "mundane
egg," that is, the egg in which the world was shut up.
Now the world has two distinct meanings--it means either the
material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter
meaning of the term is seen in Gen xi. 1, "The whole
earth was of one language and of one speech," where the
meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then
the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters,
it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg
may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal
sea might be Noah's family that contained the whole world in its
bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes
thus:--The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine
(for there are both genders), Baitza. Thus, in Chaldee and
Phenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, * which in these languages is
also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *
The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the
house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of
the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven
evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express
appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in
the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come
out of the mouth of the great god. * The doves resting on the egg
need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic
egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or
beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries,
as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the
greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in
its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser
and benefactor of the world. Though the deified queen, whom
Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries
after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis,
which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her
worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous
incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed
in safety through the waters of the flood. Now the Romish Church
adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a
symbol of Christ's resurrection. A form of prayer was even
appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V. teaching
his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter:--"Bless,
O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may
become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in
remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc." * Besides
the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the
goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or "pomegranate."
With the Rimmon or "pomegranate" in her
hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the
house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of
Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of
Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored.
The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that
account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of
that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were
preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and
with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away.
But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or "pomegranate"
had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or
Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, * and the sacred mount in
Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was
named Mount Ida--that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of
these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. "Idaia
Mater," then, signifies "the Mother of
Knowledge"--in other words, our Mother Eve, who first
coveted the "knowledge of good and evil." and
actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all
her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped
not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the
mother of mankind. * When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and
the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the
pomegranate in her extended hand , inviting those who ascended
the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a
doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must
accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the "Tree
of Knowledge"--the fruit of that very * "Tree,
whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our
woe."
The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were
admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve
derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical
knowledge of all that was morally evil and base. Yet to Astarte,
in this character, men were taught to look at their grand
benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings
connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain
have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom
cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery inspires the same
feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its
devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in
which Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most
solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression
occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised: "O
beata culpa, quae talem meruisti redemptorem." * "Oh
blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!" The
idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount
to this: "Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted
for the glorious Saviour." It is true the idea
contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of
Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the
Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the
consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its
awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and
never got entirely delivered from them. It is wonderful that one
so good and so enlightened as Merle D'Aubigne should see no harm
in such words!
As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has
adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the
opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of
Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the
superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up.
Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed;
and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at
Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through
the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged
Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting
each of them with two eggs and an orange.
Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit
of Eden's "dread probationary tree," be it
observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant
times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the
West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to
have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East.
The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles
of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that
their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary
Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the "golden
fruit" on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was
none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well:
According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in
that garden of delight in the "islands of the
blest," to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their
great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had
reserved as the test of their allegiance. No; on the contrary, it
was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil,
the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious
fruit--that strictly watched it--that would not allow it to be
touched. Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah--not the
primitive, but the Grecian Hercules--pitying man's unhappy state,
slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged
mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at
once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what
otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here,
then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places.
Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge,
is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and
malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah's
yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree--in other
words, Satan under the names of Hercules--is celebrated as the
good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of
iniquity is here! Now all this was wrapped up in the sacred
orange of Easter.
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