Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: 28 October 1998
Thursday, 07 August 2003
Thursday, 08 September 2005

An Ancient Symbol

The chief symbol of Christianity is the cross. For Christians it is a mighty talisman giving cosmic insurance against evil or danger, or, as a gesture, expressing gratitude to higher powers for deliverance. The apostle Paul said he would glory in “naught save in the cross of our Lord” (Gal 6:14). Yet the cross was an object of worship in its own right long before the Christian era. Like all the badges of Christianity, it was adopted from Paganism.

The cross was significant in itself, yet simple Christians, to this day, make the same mistake as was warned about long ago. A hundred years ago the Rev G W Cox warned:

Few cases have been more powerful in producing mistakes in ancient history than the idea, hastily taken by Christians, that every monument of antiquity, marked with a cross, or with any of those symbols which they conceived to be monograms of their god, was of Christian origin.

Yet, they continue to assume common emblems denote Christians and Christianity. In an outlandish and empty program on TV, Mormon scholars(?) were pronouncing exhumed first century graves in Egypt as being those of persecuted Christians, before they had properly inspected them. Their basis was three lines at the edge of a piece of fabric which meant, for these biblicist “archaeologists” that the owner of it was certainly a Christian—it stood for the Trinity! Moreover many had holes in their skulls—persecution! Objectivity? Phooey! These people probably destroyed important evidence of sects that might have thrown light on the dawn of Christianity.

Godfrey Higgins, a studious English judge, added that every monument of antiquity marked with a cross, or with any symbol of Christianity, cannot be assumed to have been of Christian origin. The cross was a common religious symbol, centuries before Christianity, for nearly every nation worldwide. To reproduce the various forms of crosses held by the ancients as sacred would shock people. The same mistake is to assume all names containing “iah” denote an Israelite, wherever they are found!

Taw or Tau Cross

Ancient religions identified god with the sun, as the giver of life, and so the cross is often associated with the solar disk. A notable Pagan cross is the “ankh” or “crux ansata”, the religious symbol of the ancient Egyptians. Its forerunner was found on the borders of the river Nile. The “Nileometer” was a horizontal piece of wood fastened to an upright beam to indicate the height of the water when the Nile flooded. If the river did not reach that height, then the people could look forward to hardship. The land would not be adequately watered and partial or total crop failure would result. The cross that was the Nileometer stood for life and death to the Egyptians long before it had its symbolic meaning for Christians.

When the short top arm of the cross was missing, it was no less a cross. It was then the “tau” or “taw” cross. Sometimes such a cross had a male head, making it look remarkably like a modern crucifix, in which the body of the crucified god is merged with the cross. Even more commonly, the male and female symbols were combined in the act of penetration when the tau cross was topped by a ring or oval shape standing for a woman’s vulva. This was the actual crux ansata, the Egyptian symbol of life—the Egyptian cross was originally a sex-emblem.

A cross was worn as a charm by Egyptian women—Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead and the underworld, is sometimes represented holding out this cross to mortals signifying the life to come. Countless Egyptian human images hold a cross in their hands. The Egyptian saviour, Horus, is shown as an infant sitting on the knee of Isis, his virgin mother, with a cross carved on the back of her chair. Or he is shown with a cross in his hand. An Egyptian mummy wears a cross upon a skull. In the cave of Elephantine a figure destroying a crowd of infants, carries a crux ansata, a mitre and a crozier. The Egyptian priest wore the crux ansata as a Pallium, the head passing through the vestment at the oval or yoni, just as the priests of the Catholic church wear their mass vestment.

By the side of one of the inscriptions in the temple on the Island of Philas are a crux ansata and a maltese cross, and they are seen also in a Christian church in the desert to the east of the Nile. The god, Saturn, was represented by a cross with a ram’s horn, and Krishna was suspended on a cross. On a Phœnician medal in the ruins of Citium are a cross and a rosary, and a lamb—the first symbol of the followers of Jesus. The priests of Jupiter Ammon carried in procession a cross and a box containing a compass or magnet called the Ark of the Covenant of God!

The cross was a religious symbol in the worship of Serapis, a composite of Osiris and Apis, and closely similar to primitive Christianity. The Christian “Latin cross” seems to be the cross of Osiris and Serapis. The Romans never used this Christian type of cross for crucifixions, they used crosses shaped like an X (Chi) or a T (Tau).

On the breast of an Egyptian mummy in London is a cross on a Calvary, a Meru, or Mount of Venus. Venus, the goddess of love, an aspect of the great goddess, Isis, is represented by a circle bearing a cross—still used today as the female symbol, a cross on an egg, heart or orb. The Latin cross, rising from a heart, like the Catholic emblem, the Crux in Corde, was an Egyptian symbol of goodness. The hieroglyph of a cross on a hill, associated with Osiris, stood for the “Good One”, in Greek Chrestos, a name applied to Osiris and other Pagan gods. The identification of this name with “Christos” (Messiah, Christ) strengthened the identity of Jesus and Pagan gods for the gentile Christians. Ancient people marked their sacred water jars, dedicated to Canopus, with “T”. An ancient inscription in Thessaly is accompanied by a Calvary cross. Under the foundations of the temple of Serapis at Alexandria were discovered phallic emblems and a cross which, some allege, led to the murder of Hypatia by Saint Cyril of Alexandria’s monks.

Another is the cross inscribed within a disk common as a halo in Christian art. The vestal virgins, devoted to the goddess Vesta of Roman religion, who took an absolute vow of chastity punishable, if broken, by burial alive, always wore a cross as a pendant round their necks just as nuns do today!

The “crux ansata” was not only sacred to Egyptians, but also to Babylonians, Buddhists, and Hindus, for whom it was the symbol of the Hindu god Agni—the Light of the World—and was held by Siva, Brahma, Vishnu, Krishna, Tvashtri, and Jama. It was a combined sexual symbol, its two portions being the male and female aspects of Nature—the oval or upper portion the vulva, or yoni of the Hindus, and the lower portion or Tau—the Phallus, Priapus, Linga of the Hindus, Ashera of the Jews. The cross was not phallic in the mind of Christians, but it originally had a phallic meaning. It is a phallus. Christians inevitably scoff at this but there is no avoiding its historical truth. The phallus as the common symbol of the life giver was also denoted by a lighted torch, a tree or a sceptre.

Anu, the chief deity among the Babylonians and the sun god Bel or Baal had the cross for their sign. A cross hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser in the colossal tablet from Nimrod in the British Museum. Another king from the ruins of Nineveh wears a maltese cross on his breast. The S Andrew’s cross originated in the four-spoked wheel, on which Ixion, the god Sol, was bound to when crucified in the heavens, two spokes confined the arms or the wings and two the legs. Criminals were stretched on this type of cross. The ensigns and banners of the Persians were cruciform.

The Mark of the Cross

Sometimes people themselves were marked with a cross:

The rabbins say that when Aaron was made high priest he was marked in the forehead by Moses with the figure X. And whenever proselytes were admitted into the religious mysteries of Eleusis they were marked with a cross.

G L Ditson

The mark made on the foreheads of the righteous in Ezekiel 9:4-6 is an Old Hebrew “Taw”—“T” to us—the mark of the cross. It signified that they should be saved at the coming visitation, because it was the Pagan sign of life—it stood for the god Tammuz—and so was associated with salvation centuries before Christianity.

The mark of Tau was made on the foreheads of those initiated into the Mithraic mysteries just as Christian initiates were marked at their baptism. Tertullian says: “The Devil signed his soldiers with the cross in the forehead in imitation of the Christians.” It is said a cross unearthed in Ireland is that of the Persian god of the sun Mithras, and bears a crucified effigy.

The Egyptians marked a cross upon their sacred cakes—whence arose the idea of hot cross buns. Many Egyptian sepulchres are cruciform in shape. More cross marks can be found to adorn the tomb of king Midas in Phrygia. The Greeks and Romans too adopted the cross as a religious symbol many centuries before Christianity did the same. Some commentators in the Roman period were distinctly cool about the use of the cross by Christians, pointing to its popularity as a Pagan, often military symbol, and imputing it of no particular significance to Christians. In the fourth century, Iamblichus was still reminding people that the cross was symbolic of reproductive vigour, and soon after, the emperor Theodosius was prohibiting crosses from being depicted on the pavements of churches.

Early Christian Symbolism

What Christians will not accept contrary to the evidence is that the symbolism of the cross connects ancient solar worship with Christianity showing it to be a modified solar worship—solar worship for urbanites. But even the first gentile Christians were not aware of it. For them, Christianity was an extension of Judaism, and westernized, Hellenized, essentially apostate Jews, were the first converts. So, the cross was not the first symbol of Christianity. Because of its significance in the crucifixion, a cross might be expected on every tomb in the catacombs of Rome, the cemetery of Roman Jews then the early Christians, as it is on tombs in later Christian cemeteries world wide. Nothing of the sort. The only comparable symbol in the catacombs is the sacred swastika of the old Buddhist zodiacs, and the Asoka inscriptions. No ordinary cross is found because it was not the symbol of early Christianity. That was the supposed fish symbol, originally a representation of a woman’s vulva.

Early Christianity had little knowledge of a cross except as a symbol of the old Paganism. The earliest depictions of the Christian saviour were as the good shepherd, carrying a lamb or ram, and Jesus was first worshipped as a lamb—the Lamb of God. The ram or lamb, always denoted the victorious sun as he passed through the sign Aries, giving new life to the world, when he was worshipped as the Lamb of God. Only in 707 AD did the Council of Constantinople decree that the lamb, or ram, was to be replaced by a cross with a man nailed to it. The decree identifies beyond doubt the astronomical Aries with the Christian saviour, linking the ancient sun superstitions with modern Christianity.

To the Lamb, the early Christians added the phallus, adopting the symbol of the fish, another Zodiacal sign, Pisces. Jesus is in the catacombs shown as two fishes crossed, not unlike the sacred monogram, Chi Rho. The dag or fish, was the most ancient symbol of procreative power, the emblem of fecundity. Vishnu became a fish to save the seventh Manu, the progenitor of the human race, from the universal deluge, and so had the title “Matsya” (Sanskrit for fish, the fish being humanity’s preserver or saviour in the Hindu flood myth, cf “Messiah”). In this aspect, Vishnu was identical with Dagon, the fish-god of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and Phœnicians, mentioned in 1 Samuel 5:2. Dagon was sacred to Venus and—is it by coincidence?—Catholics now eat fish on the day which was dedicated to Venus—Dies Veneris or Friday, Freyja’s day, from the Norse Venus, Freyja.

The Labarum or Chi-Rho

The cross adopted by the Christians at the Council of Constantinople was quite a different thing from the cross as it is known now among Christians. It was “the labarum”, the monogram of the Egyptian saviour Osiris and Jupiter Ammon—the letters X and P in Greek, Chi and Rho, which, as found on coins, stood for the numbers 400 and 200 in Samaritan. It was also found on the coins of the Ptolemies and Herod the Great, forty years before our era. The Emperor Constantine adopted it, supposedly after a dream before the battle of the Milvian bridge. He thought it advised him that this sign would give him victory. He put it on his shields according to legend and he won the battle. But there is a medal at Rome of Constantius, Constantine’s predecessor, with the inscription: “In hoc signo victor eris”—“in this sign shall you conquer”—the very slogan of Constantine’s dream, proving that the story was mythical already—the work of the Christian propagandist, Eusebius.

As with the cross and other Christian symbols, so with the labarum—it is Pagan. The insignia on the walls of the temple of Bacchus in Rome was a Roman cross and “IHS”—the three mystical letters to this day retained in Christian churches, and variously supposed to stand for “Jesus hominum salvator”—“Jesus humanity’s saviour”—or “in hoc signo”. Christian women who work this sign on altar cloths for their churches little think that they are working a Pagan sign. It was the monogram of the Pagan god Bacchus, god of the vine, but they are not far astray, for Bacchus in Hebrew was Joshua (Ieshu) which in the Phœnician writing of Canaanite is simply Ies (IHS in Greek capital letters), and in Greek Iesous, from which Jesus is derived. The embroiderers of altar cloths unwittingly admit the Pagan origin of their god. The monogram represented phallic vigour.

The dove was the symbol of the spirit among all the nations of antiquity, as it is now with Christians. The Samaritans had a brazen fiery dove instead of a brazen fiery serpent, both referring to fire—the Christian symbol of the Holy Ghost, adapted from Persian fire worship. Buddha is represented, like Jesus, with a dove hovering over his head. The goddess Juno is often represented with a dove on her head. It is also seen on the heads of the images of Astarte, Cybele, and Isis. The Virgin Mary ascending upon the crescent moon, so frequently seen in pictures, is the modern adaptation of Isis rising heavenward. The dove was sacred to Venus, and was intended as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It signified incubation, by which was figuratively expressed the fructification of inert matter caused by the vital spirit or breath, “ruach” in Hebrew, “pneuma” in Greek, and “spiritus” in Latin.

The triangle, trefoil, and tripod were all Pagan symbols of their different trinities. The triangle is conspicuous as a sacred emblem in Hindu and Buddhist temples, sometimes with the mystical letters AUM on it, one letter at each angle as Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva—the Hindu trinity. It stands for the Carthaginian goddess Tanit, now known to be Astarte. It is also seen in the obelisk and pyramids of Egypt. The trefoil adorned the head of Osiris, and was used among the ancient Druids.

Fasting, scourging, shaved heads—tonsure—rosary beads, white surplices, mitres, croziers—all Christian symbols—were customs and symbols of the Persian Babylonians and the Egyptians.

Tree or Cross?

A Christian’s hymn to the praise to the cross goes:

Hail, O Cross, triumphal tree, true salvation of the world.
Among trees there is none like thee, In leaf, flower and bud.

The cross was a stylized tree and trees and groves had been sacred to some of the earliest gods. An image of the god Attis was hung upon the sacred pine tree at the commemoration of his death. The faithful also worshipped the tree itself. The tree sacred to Osiris was similarly treated, the god’s body being placed in its branches. Cyrus, called in Isaiah the Messiah, was crucified in some versions of his myth. Prometheus who suffered eternal torment for mankind was crucified according to Lucan. Crucifixion was understood as the pious bearing of suffering. The Druids worshipped a cross made from a large tree denuded of leaves and stems save for its two main horizontal branches. Buddhists also symbolise life with a cross sprouting leaves and branches.

Increasingly, scholars are accepting that Christianity owes much to Persian religion, and the ancient Iranians worshipped trees. The worship of the crucifix carried on where Pagan cross worship left off and that in turn was a continuation of tree worship. Primitive people were impressed by analogies. When they appreciated the similarity of one phenomenon with another they were apt to give it religious significance. The priest-astronomers saw the sun making its cross in the sky at the spring equinox and related it with the resurrection of Nature. They had been in the habit of stimulating the resurrection by sacrifice in the sacred grove and the two became related. The sacrifice hanging on the tree in the sacred grove was the earthly equivalent of the sun’s own crossing of the celestial equator at the equinox.

Paul was being typically opportunist when he spoke of the “cross of Christ”, the “preaching of the cross” and the “blood of the cross” because he knew Pagans would understand him fully, particularly those in Anatolia that had been strongly influenced by the Persians, and worshipped Mithras. The worship of the crucifix carried on where Pagan cross worship left off and that in turn was a continuation of tree worship.

The Christian bishops met in the third century at Nicca, and decided that the cross would be the emblem of the Catholic faith. All men were dead in sins, but through Christ they received life. And what gives life? Nothing in the symbol of the cross offended the eye, but yet the bishops, most, if not all of them, knew what the cross symbolised. From it, one hierarch could expatiate on the sufferings of the saviour, another might describe the horrors of eternal death, another could dwell on the glories of the resurrection, and another the satisfaction of eternal life. So, its original meaning was not changed. The cross gives eternal life through it standing for the male sexual organs the Holy Trinity—Asher, Anu and Ea (Iah).

The cross seems to have been a popular solar symbol among the northern barbarians, and it is only when Rome fell that the cross achieved its dominating modern significance—after the fifth century. By then classical Paganism was already defeated and declining in the face of overwhelming persecution. Moreover, the northern solar crosses were symmetrical and encircled crosses such as those seen associated with the sun in certain stratospheric conditions. It was not so easy to see such a regular cross as phallic, and it had nothing to do with the cross of the crucifixion.

Holy Days—Christmas

Christmas day—the birthday of Jesus—was the birthday of the sun and of all the sun gods. The real circumstances of the birth of Jesus, the date and place of his birth are unknown. Among the early Christians a great divergence of opinion existed, some maintaining that it was in May, others that it was in April, and others again that it was in January. The festival of the nativity was celebrated at all these times, at different periods of the world’s history.

At last the Christians of Rome gained the ascendancy and fixed 25 December as the day when nearly all the nations of the earth celebrated the accouchement of the various Queens of heaven, of the Celestial Virgin—the first stars of Virgo appearing at night above the horizon—and the birth of the new sun, the god Sol. The Christians found a birthday for Jesus by making him the Pagan sun god. Why not then adopt the Pagan customs of decorating their houses with evergreens and mistletoe? Some early Christians resisted it. Tertullian, a father of the church, writing about 200 AD, accused his brethren of:

rank idolatry for decking their doors with garlands and flowers on festival days according to the custom of the heathen.

Foliage, such as laurel, myrtle, ivy, oak, and all evergreens were symbols of generative power, signifying perpetuity and vigour—plants of Dionysus (Bacchus).

The festival was also the birthday of the Persian sun god and saviour, Mithras. The ancient Egyptians, centuries before Jesus lived, kept this day as the birthday of their sun gods. Isis, their Queen of heaven and Virgin Mother, was delivered on this day of a son and saviour, Horus. His birth was one of the greatest mysteries of their religion. Pictures of it decorated the walls of their temples—images of the virgin and child, and effigies of the son lying in a manger, were common. At Christmas the image of Horus was brought out of the sanctuary with great ceremony, as the image of the Infant Bambino, or black child, is still brought out and exhibited in Rome.

Among the Greeks, the births of Hercules, Bacchus, and Adonis were celebrated on this day. In Rome the festival was observed as Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the Invincible Sol—the unconquered sun—when they held their Saturnalia, whence comes the Christmas Lord of Misrule. A few days before the winter solstice the Calabrian shepherds came into Rome to play on the pipes.

The ancient Germans celebrated their Yule Feast centuries before Christianity. Yule was the old German name for Christmas, as Noel was the French, and signified the revolution of the year. On this festival the gods were consulted as to the future, sacrifices were offered to them, and jovial festivities took place. The festival is also kept in India and China. Buddha, the son of the Virgin Maya on whom, according to Chinese tradition, the Divine Power, or Holy Ghost, had descended, was said to have been born on this day.

Holy Days—Easter

This festival in ancient times spread to the whole of Pagan Europe from China, where it was called the Festival of Gratitude to Tien. The festival began with a week’s indulgence in all kinds of sports, the Carne Vale—to flesh farewell—meaning farewell to animal food, from which the modern word carnival is derived. A fast of forty days followed in honour of the Saxon goddess Ostris or German Eostre whence Easter.

The ancient Persians, at the festival of the solar new year, 21 March when the sun crosses the equator, presented each other with coloured eggs. The Egyptians presented dyed eggs as sacred Easter offerings. The Jews used eggs at the Passover. The early Christians were not celebrating the resurrection of their Lord but the Jewish Passover. The tradition among the Roman Christians was Jesus had not eaten the Passover before he died, but had substituted himself for the Paschal Lamb. The resurrection then became the great Christian festival, and was celebrated on the first Pagan holiday—the Dies Solis—after the Passover.

The purification of the Virgin originated with the worship of the Egyptian goddess Neith meaning starry sky, the virgin mother of the sun god Ra. The worship of this goddess was accompanied by a profusion of burning candles. Her feast was called the Feast of the Purification.

The Sabbath

The idea of a Sabbath began with the Akkadians, who dedicated special days to the sun, moon, and five planets—Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn—each cycle of which became a week of seven days. The number seven thus became sacred to them as did the number twelve, which represented the twelve signs of the zodiac and from which the idea of the twelve apostles was derived.

They had a special deity who received honour as patron of the number seven. Destructive tempests and winds were believed to be directed by the will of seven wicked spirits. The seven heavenly bodies were represented in the seven platforms, by which the astronomer priests ascended to the summit of their temple, the so-called Tower of Babel. The 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, and 28^th days of each month were called sabbaths or rest days and so rigorously was this day kept that not even the king was permitted to eat cooked food, change his clothes, drive his chariot, sit in the judgement seat, review his troops or even take medicine on any of those days.

The Sabbatical idea, with many other religious customs and observances, spread from Babylon, in the times of the Babylonian empire and its successor the Persian empire, to conquered neighbours—Phœnicia, Phrygia, Canaan, and Syria. Particular guardians of it in Persian times were the Jews sent by the Persian kings to run a temple state in Jerusalem. The Jews do not seem to have understood the true astronomical origin of their sabbath, for they give two contradictory reasons for its institution, one in Exodus 22, 31:17—because the Almighty rested on the seventh day—the other in Deuteronomy 5:15—because the Lord God brought them out from bondage in Egypt. The later priesthood of the Jews imposed the most rigid sabbath observances which were still in force at the time of Jesus.

The New Testament shows Jesus to have abolished the sabbath, his performing most of his miracles on that day and, when rebuked by the Pharisees for breaking the sabbath, he replied that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The first Christians kept no sabbath and abashed the keeping of holy days. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History is firm that the first Christians…

…did not observe the Sabbath, nor do we, neither do we regard other injunctions which Moses delivered to be types and symbols, because such things as these do not belong to Christians.

Not until the triumph of Christianity after the time of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, when Pagan idols were transformed into Christian saints, and Pagan temples into Christian churches, was the idea of a Christian sabbath conceived. The first day of the week—Sunday—“Dies Solis Venerabilis”, was the great weekly festival with the Pagans—worshippers of the unconquered sun—sol the invincible. An edict was issued by Constantine to compel all except labourers to rest from all work on the venerable day of the sun. But this edict, which was much disliked by Christians, was repealed by the Emperor Leo in the ninth century.

The Puritans in the sixteenth century, a bigoted and narrow sect of Christians, attempted, with great fanaticism, to revive the ceremonial obligations of the Jewish sabbath with the day of the week changed from the seventh to the first. Today they are Lord’s Day Observationists. The idea was kept up in the retention in the Prayer Book of the state church, of the Hebrew Decalogue, with a prayer following each command, that the deity will “incline their hearts to keep that law”, notwithstanding the new Hexalogue that Jesus is said to have delivered to his disciples (Matthew 19:18). Lord’s Day Observationists bring forward as reasons for their superstition that:

• on the first day of the week Paul preached—
  but he also preached on the Jewish Sabbath three times. Acts 16:13, 17 and 18:4
• the disciples “assembled for the breaking of bread”—
  but we are told they went about breaking bread every day from house to house. Acts 2:46
• “they were all with one accord in one place”—
  but it was on the feast of Pentecost the last Jewish feast that Paul was anxious to keep (1 Corinthians 16:8) which fell on the first day of the week, and that was the reason, not the day of the week, that they were gathered together.

Lord’s Day Observationists, to be consistent, ought not to permit fires to be lighted in their houses, even in winter, for “ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath day” (Exodus 35:3), nor ought they to permit the painting of pictures or the carving of sculpture.

The Puritans have been made to take their pious grasp off of the throat of the Christian sabbath, a day originally intended as a day of joyous celebration of the perpetual warmth and light of the sun. The austere religion introduced by the Puritans and perpetuated by the hypocritical Victorians made Sunday a day to be dreaded. In the last decade or so, after living almost a hundred years too long, this dreary sabbath has been left behind.

Nevertheless a small puritan contingent of Lord’s Day Observationists bleat in the background because people can enjoy their Sundays at football matches, shopping and riding with their children on roller coasters in theme parks. If they want to go to church on Sunday morning then sit in gloom for the rest of the day, then it is their right, but what right have they to stop someone else from supporting their football team, going to the cinema or having a drink in a bar? If anyone is free to do these things on a Saturday, why not on a Sunday? If, like the Roman critics of the first Christians, anyone should think that Christianity is a foolish and harmful superstition, why should they be compelled to go to church to feel depressed instead of enjoying themselves?

Trying to revive the sabbath of the Puritans is like calling for the American colonists to surrender or for the taxation of soap. Evolution is a law of Nature and nothing ever naturally returns to how it was. Social habits, fashions and customs evolve never to be revived except by dogmatists. Christians like to believe that their religion is permanent and unchanging but the evolution of the sabbath is one tiny proof of their false idea.

Sunday does not and never did carry a Christian copyright. It should be guaranteed to those who benefit from the daily rising of the sun, the cheerful face of Nature—all of us equally.

The Fruits of Christianity

Christianity, to do it no injustice, should be judged on the criteria it gives itself in Matthew 12:17:

Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit… Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

What have been the fruits of Christianity? It had its birth in Alexandria, in Egypt, but how did it thank that great city? With love and charity? Not at all. Theophilus, Christian bishop of the city, destroyed the magnificent library founded by the Ptolemies which once contained over 600,000 volumes. The next bishop, Saint Cyril, cruelly and inhumanly murdered Hypatia, a popular and fashionable lecturer with her own academy in Alexandria. Outside her academy each day, the fashionable carriages lined up while their wealthy patrons crowded into the lecture theatre. Hypatia lectured on philosophical and theological subjects, seeking to explain fundamental questions like “What am I?” and “What can I know?” Cyril’s mob of monks set upon her as she was heading for her academy, stripped her naked, dragged into a church and clubbed to death. Her body was cut to pieces, the flesh scrapped from her bones and the bones burnt. Cyril was never called to account for this frightful crime. Instead the church canonized him.

At a later date—the Dark Ages—the Christian Inquisition flourished but little of the details of it are known, for so much secrecy was observed. An idea of the horrors of it is that, when the French took the city of Aragon, the Inquisition was broken into, and no fewer than 400 prisoners were set at liberty, among whom were 60 young girls, who composed the seraglio of the three principal Inquisitors. The account of how a young girl, to whom one of the Inquisitors had taken a fancy, was taken from her home in the dead of the night and handed over to the Inquisitors’ officers by the terror-stricken father, is also graphically given in the same book. Consider how the Holy Inquisition treated its victims, according to this knowledgeable Spanish authority denigrated by the Church:

• men and women burned alive under the rule of the 45 Inquisitor-Generals, 35,534;
• burned in effigy, 18,637;
• condemned to other punishments, 293,533;
• total sacrificed to maintain the blessings of Christianity, 347,704.

These worthy followers of the Lamb, the zealous imitators of him who came not to send peace, but a sword, to send fire on the earth and not peace, but rather division, burned no less than 35,534 men and women.

Rapidly the Christian priesthood converted the convents into brothels and, not content with debauching the brides of Christ, they converted into harlots the wives of men and, by means of the machinery of the confessional, they destroyed the chastity of the wives of the laity, and rendered all marriage simply polyandrous. The priests had harlots, concubines, and mistresses in every town. If it is not true, why would the Church allow the bishops to get money from priests by a tax on their concubines?

Even the mild Erasmus declared that the licentiousness of the clergy has debauched and turned into poor profligates 100,000 women in England. Yet who is he, though he be never so much aggrieved, who dare lay to their charge, by any action at law, even the leading astray of a wife or a daughter? If he do, he is by-and-bye accused of heresy.

During this period also occurred the crusades against the Albigenses for heresy, in which hundreds of thousands were killed. There were also the crusades against the Waldenses for rejecting the Papal claims and denouncing the ignorance and corruption of the clergy, in which an enormous number were tortured and massacred. Yet again there was the eight wars against the Huguenots, and the well-known massacre of S Bartholomew’s Day, in which 30,000 were slaughtered—a Te Deum being afterwards sung at St Peter’s, Rome, and a year of jubilee proclaimed in honour of it.

This period of history, when the church of Jesus was enjoying its triumphant ascendancy, has been described by a writer as being…

…one of the most terrible periods in human history… and the soil of Europe was sodden with human gore, and that chiefly by the Western or Roman Catholic church.

Under the Catholic Mary Tudor, 277 people were burned as heretics, among whom were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, eighty-four tradesmen, one hundred husbandmen, servants, and labourers, fifty-five women, and four children, besides the many who were punished by imprisonment, fines, and confiscations. Under Protestant Elizabeth—the bright and occidental star of the translators of King James’s Bible—more than 200 people were killed, either by burning or hanging, drawing out their bowels and cutting them into four joints, and a great number suffered from the penal laws against Catholics in this and the following reigns.

The number of victims estimated (by McCabe, no accurate figures will ever be known) to have been sacrificed on the altars of the Christian Moloch are:

• 1,000,000 during the Arian schism;
• 1,000,000 during the Carthaginian struggle;
• 7,000,000 during the Saracen slaughters in Spain;
• 5,000,000 during the eight Crusades;
• 2,000,000 Saxons and Scandinavians lost their lives opposing the introduction of the blessings of Christianity;
• 1,000,000 were destroyed in the Holy (sic) Wars against the Netherlands, Albigenses, Waldenses and Huguenots;
• 30,000,000 Mexicans, Peruvians and American Indians were slaughtered before they could be convinced of the beauties of the Christian creed;
• 9,000,000 were burned for witchcraft.
• Total, 56,000,000.

If any Christian protests that these estimates are gross exaggerations let them divide the figures by ten. Do they now feel better?

All this slaughter was for the greater glory of God! This is the unexpurgated record of the fruits of Christianity. Under the influence of this religion, through nineteen centuries, do we find that man is more honest and straight towards his fellow man, that truth is preferred to falsehood, that men love one another, and act unselfishly in their lives? Or do we find that they are selfish hypocrites, adulterators of food, polluters, scampers of work and deceivers, snobs and Pharisees? Preachers, but not doers?

Further Reading

• More on religious origins, ff (“ff” means and pages following), sun gods, ff, Yehouah as a sun god, ff, and Christ as a sun god
• More on the Persian origins of Judaism, ff
• More on mystery religions, ff, and Mithraism, ff
• More on Christmas, ff, and the virgin birth, ff
• And a lot more on heresy, the inquisition and witch hunting, ff

Comment

From Patti Reynertson

After “The Fruits of Christianity”, I would first remind you that just because a person says he is a Christian does not make it true. Many things are done in the name of one religion or another that does not represent the teachings of that religion.

Since you mention a section heading of a page, I assume you have read it. It is an awful indictment of the religion that says it is one of love. Are you saying to me that this murder and torture has been done only by people who are not Christians? Are you saying that Christians are only the good ones who do not murder and torture? So we can never trust a Christian until we actually find out at, or towards, the end of their lives whether they have been good or not. Plainly, there is no value for other people in someone calling themselves a Christian because we can never be sure to believe them until they are dead. The best thing must be therefore not to believe them, and that is what I am saying.

I would also ask that you document the number of Christians killed by others just for being Christian.

What is wrong with the documentation given already on the page? Most of the people listed were murdered by Christians because they were Christians. I also have a long set of pages about heresy and inquisition that say more. There is no getting away from the enormity of it. Yet, all Christians have to ignore Christian history to be Christians. No one in the least sensitive could possibly be one knowing what Christians have done.

I am trying hard to show Christians what they are being led into, and it continues. The leaders of the west are Christians but they are disgusting monsters, doing utterly wicked things in all of our names because large numbers of Christians vote for them! How can anyone doubt that Christianity is Satanic?

Skeptical Resources—Internet infidels | Jesus Never Existed | Steven Carr’s Website | Christianism | Early Christian Writings | God is Imaginary | “Religion Detoxification” | Our Judaio-Christian Heritage | Archaeoastronomy | No Deity | No Beliefs | Evil Bible | Bible God | ex-Christians | Jesus Police | Islamic Faith Freedom | Atheist Experience | American Atheists | Jovial Atheist | Askwhy! books
Other Resources—Early Christian Docs | Resources for Study | Traditional Bible-History | Traditional Bible World History | Traditional Bible History | about.com biblical history | Apologetics web sites | Advent Ch Fathers | Orion center links | Wikipedia | Traditional Jewish History