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Pagan Origins of Easter

personperson Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
edited April 2012 in Faith & Religion
...Many, perhaps most, Pagan religions in the Mediterranean area had a major seasonal day of religious celebration at or following the Spring Equinox. Cybele, the Phrygian fertility goddess, had a consort, Attis, who was believed to have been born via a virgin birth. Attis was believed to have died and been resurrected each year during the period MAR-22 to MAR-25.

Gerald L. Berry, author of "Religions of the World," wrote:

"About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill ...Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection..."

http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm

Comments

  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited April 2012
    Virgin births were a common theme throughout the pagan world. Easter was also about fertility, associated with spring, the rebirth of the plant world, birth of new baby animals, and so forth. Rabbits and eggs for fertility, get it?

    Easter is named after Eostre, the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxons in N Europe. The name is derived from the ancient word for Spring: Eastre. Similar Goddesses around the Mediterranean:
    Aphrodite
    Ashtoreth (Israel)
    Astarte (Greece)
    Demeter
    Hathor (Egypt)
    Ishtar (Assyria)
    Ostara, Norse Goddess of Fertility

    (source: as above, religioustolerance.org)
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    edited April 2012
    As a footnote to the virgin-birth mythologies, it's interesting to see that even God had a precursor or mother, according to one of his most famous depictions. Note the belly button:

    image
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    Wasn't the Mother of God Sophia?
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    edited April 2012
    That's God creating Adam....

    who, yes... had a belly-button......and an extremely insignificant penis, it would seem....

    however when he experienced his first erection, he warned Eve:

    "Stand back! I don't know how big this thing gets - !!"
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...

    All he could do was imagine two grapefruit halves being plopped onto a male chest.

  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...
    Many gay men I know are completely confounded by female breasts :)
  • Lady_AlisonLady_Alison Veteran
    That's God creating Adam....

    who, yes... had a belly-button......and an extremely insignificant penis, it would seem....

    however when he experienced his first erection, he warned Eve:

    "Stand back! I don't know how big this thing gets - !!"
    No wonder she took the next way out of there!!! Ahh!
  • Lady_AlisonLady_Alison Veteran
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...
    Many gay men I know are completely confounded by female breasts :)
    They're just snack trays...

    Ie, baby food.

    And dangling ornaments, men have dangles, too.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...

    All he could do was imagine two grapefruit halves being plopped onto a male chest.
    Ah, so this is what they discuss in Art History classes. ;)

  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    edited April 2012
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...
    Many gay men I know are completely confounded by female breasts :)
    Fair enough, but an artist (gay or hetro) with an amazing eye who can render any form in nature with naturalistic fidelity?

    Maybe if the social conventions of the time did not allow nude modelling as we know it today, and men only saw the naked bodies of their sexual partners... Then a gay artist may not have a live model... but I doubt that.
  • RichardHRichardH Veteran
    Just an aside... Michelangelo was completely confounded by women's breasts...

    All he could do was imagine two grapefruit halves being plopped onto a male chest.
    Ah, so this is what they discuss in Art History classes. ;)

    Yes.. gender perception in art ..... body image in art history.. definitely part of it..

  • YishaiYishai Veteran
    As a footnote to the virgin-birth mythologies, it's interesting to see that even God had a precursor or mother, according to one of his most famous depictions. Note the belly button:

    image
    Check out how God is in a "brain". People argue that Michelangelo wouldn't know what a brain looked like or what its purpose was. However, it wasn't uncommon for artists to examine cadavers.

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