Pure Pascha

Separating pagan from pure on Resurrection Sunday

Michael O'Connor

• Publisher: Digital On Demand
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780620983372
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

The historical origins of Pagan Easter, Jewish Passover, and Christian Easter. Included are the cultural and geographical developments of each, and their intertwining over centuries. The character and spiritual essence of each are very different from the other, however symbols are sometimes used interchangeably. Also discussed is the modern view on the topic, as well as traditions among various Christian denominations. The significance to the modern Christian is discussed at the conclusion.

CHAPTER 1

THE ORIGINS OF EASTER

The events marking the beginning of the Pagan festival of Easter happened so long ago that different versions of the story abound.

What is astounding to a modern researcher are the similarities to be found between the legends in diverse and separate ancient civilisations. The story can be patched together from ancient manuscripts, or from references to those which have been destroyed over time. The Bible and Mesopotamian histories intersect to give us the basic narrative.

In telling the story, I would like to bring you a composite of the versions out there, which will only be comprehensive and detailed enough for our purpose here.

In the biblical book of Genesis, chapters 6-11 record the Great Flood that drowned every land animal except for Noah and his family, after which the family descending from Noah repopulated the earth. One of Noah’s three sons was named Ham. Ham had a grandson through his son Cush, named Nimrod. Nimrod is described as being a hunter and a mighty one. This mightiness is further described when it is recorded that Nimrod was a king, and that the beginnings of his kingdom was Babel, later Babylon, which grew to include other regions and towns, notably Assyria and the town of Nineveh.

Modern day geography puts his kingdom roughly in the region between Northern Syria and Iraq, although in later years those regions were to be more closely associated with the descendants of Noah’s middle son, Shem. The descendants of Noah’s oldest son, Ham, are more closely associated with regions of North Africa, such as Egypt and Libya.

This king Nimrod re-introduced idolatry and occultic mysteries into practice on earth. Historically, most occultic and Pagan practices are traceable to Babel, or Babylon, the Chaldean region. Nimrod had a wife named Semiramis. As a royal couple, they were revered as deities, and no honour was afforded to the God of Noah. Ancient legend from the region tells that when Nimrod died, his body was cut to pieces and scattered far and wide. Semiramis then had the pieces collected, finding all except his reproductive organs. She compensated for this by building phallic structures to symbolise the missing pieces of his body.

After the death of Nimrod, Semiramis was found to be pregnant. The explanation put forward was that Nimrod, now being a heavenly sun-god, had impregnated Semiramis by means of a sunbeam. When Semiramis gave birth to a son, born around the 25th December, the boy was called Tamuz, also recorded as Damuzi, and in other cultures known as Osiris or Adonis. He was proclaimed as the earthly representation of his father, the sun god Nimrod. At 40 years of age, Tamuz was gored to death by a wild boar.

This chain of events in the royal family was prevented from being calamitous by some shrewd story spinning by the powers of the day, chiefly the legend of the mystic egg of Babylon. Supported by the occultic priests and druids of the day, they consolidated the worship of the royal family by establishing the legend that Semiramis had descended from above in a giant egg. The egg landed in the Euphrates River and was rolled to the bank by fish, where doves brooded over it until it hatched. Out of this egg appeared Venus, called Ashtarte.

This new arrival from the sky was Semiramis, who also had the ability to transform a rabbit into an egg-laying bunny in order to convince the rapt earth dwellers of her divinity. So the ancient family was complete, Nimrod as the sun god, Semiramis as the fertility goddess, and their tragically lost son Tamuz. Thus began the Northern hemisphere springtime Pagan fertility festivals. In fact, Pagan fertility practices and ancient occultic practices can be traced in general to the kingdom Babel, as well as Chaldean practices and beliefs.

Many of the civilisations from the Levant will have legends and histories that echo or parallel the story above. Names change from region to region, as can be expected considering the various languages and people groups through which the information was to pass. The lawyer turned historian and academic, Wilhelm Von Bode, wrote about Estur monap, or Easter month. Clay tablets originating from Iraq contain the story of a Babylonian Ishtar, the details set out in cuneiform – a system of writing used in the ancient Middle East. Sumerian legend equates the descent of Inanna to Venus as the queen of heaven.

Nimrod was called Bel by the Babylonians, and Semiramis, his wife, was known as Beltis. Other recorded names for Nimrod are Baal, Molech, Moloch, and Baccus. Always referred to as a great hunter, he is revered as the sun god. Semiramis was known as the queen of heaven, Isis in Egypt, Astarte in Caanan, Venus by the Chaldeans, Diana in Ephesus, Ishtar by the Assyrians, Oster in old German, and Istar in Aramaic. The etymology of the English word Easter is easily traceable from earlier names like Ishtar and Istar. Old Pagan references refer to her as the great mother goddess.

The annual Pagan Easter festival started with 40 days of mourning over the death and loss of Tamuz. People were supposed to openly weep and deny themselves of luxuries, often fasting and avoiding alcohol. This 40-day-fast was ended with a sunrise observance after the vernal equinox, overseen by the Pagan priests, and also by a riotous time of drunken orgies in a general free for all, where excess and wantonness was encouraged. The priests impregnated virgins on an altar, and three-month-old babies, conceived during the previous years’ proceedings, were killed as sacrifices.

The people traditionally made special foods that served as reminders of the divine royal family. These included cakes baked in the shape of the sun, in worship of the sun god Nimrod, by any name, and for Semiramis, in her capacity as their fertility goddess and queen of heaven. The baked goods and other foods became important symbols to these Pagan ancients, carried forward from generation to generation, and taken with them as they migrated and settled into new areas of the world.

The breads baked to Semiramis were called bouns, the origin of the modern term buns. These were eventually assimilated into the early Church, with a cross placed over the top, and became the hot cross buns we know today. We will discover more on that later!

Other traditions were to roast a pig, or ham, remembering the wild boar that had killed Tamuz.

The rabbit (egg-laying bunny) was also replicated in foods. The rabbit is a well-known example of fertility. The purpose and activities of the playboy mansion might spring to mind.

Eggs were and still are used extensively as a reminder of the giant egg that bore Venus, or the fertility goddess, to earth. Druids wore coloured eggs as a symbol of their druidic order. Egg colouring, as part of tradition and festival, has occurred historically in several countries including Egypt, Persia, Japan, China, and across the regions populated by people following the Hindu religion. These were usually brightly painted, often in red, sometimes displayed ornamentally, and exchanged as gifts.

Another symbol associated with the fertility goddess is the pomegranate, with its multitude of seeds representing fertility and production for earth. There are images used depicting the fertility goddess holding a full pomegranate in her hand.

The early origins of the modern symbols of Easter are easily recognised when the ancient symbols are assessed. Humans are creatures of habit, and additionally much storytelling and the passing on of traditions was achieved using pictures, common objects, and symbols. The widespread literacy of today was certainly not commonplace amongst the general population of the civilisations of the regions under discussion.

The use of these symbols and traditions gradually spread into an area from Persia, through the Middle East, up to Mesopotamia, through the Caucuses and eastward into the sub-continent, and from Babylon into the Aegean region, further to Europe, and across the channel into the British Isles. It was to people holding fast these traditions whom the early missionaries and evangelists of the Christian Faith took the Gospel of Christ.

CHAPTER 2

THE ORIGINS OF PASSOVER

The observance and celebration of Passover began as a result of momentous events experienced by a distinct people group, which was pivotal in their emancipation from slavery in Egypt.

As mentioned in Chapter 1 in our study into the history of Easter, we once again refer to the first book of the Bible for record. In Genesis 11:27-36, we read about the family and descendants of Noah’s second born son named Shem, beginning with a man named Terah. Terah first lived among the Chaldeans, the site of the early spread of the Easter Paganism (dealt with in the previous chapter). Terah moved his family to live in the land of Canaan, closer to the present state of Israel. Terah had a son named Abram. The chapters of Genesis mentioned above deal with how the God of the Bible established a friendship, communication, and covenant – or oath – with Abram, changing the man’s name to Abraham.

The recorded chain of e...

Table of contents

• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1
• CHAPTER 2
• CHAPTER 3
• CHAPTER 4
• CHAPTER 5
• CHAPTER 6
• CHAPTER 7
• CHAPTER 8