WHERE DID EASTER COME FROM?
ADDITIONAL HISTORICAL FACTS ABOUT EASTER
CYBELE IN PHRYGIA: The myths surrounding Cybele were so much like those of Greece, that the Greeks called their goddess, Rhea Cybele, and considered the two divinities one. In Greece, her temple was at Athens. As usual, she resurrected her lover, Attis, each spring at the vernal equinox.
DEMETER IN GREECE: Throughout the Near East, this mother goddess was variously known as Astarte, Ishtar, Ashtoreth, Cybele, Demeter, Ceres, Aphrodite, Venus, and Freya.
She had a special lover (sometimes called her son; and, in one case, her daughter). Thus, for example we have Isis and Horus, the sun god (Osiris was the son), in Egypt (in later Egypt, Osiris was called Serapis); Ishtar and Tammuz, in Babylon and Sumeria; Cybele and Attis, in Phrygia; Aphrodite and Adonis, in Syria; Atys and Bendis, in Asia; and Anaita and Haoma (later called Mithra), in Persia.
She also had a special son (who was sometimes the same as his father). In Greece, she is called Demeter; and she obtained the yearly resurrection, each spring, of her daughter (not a son in this instance), Persephone.
“Essentially it (the myth of Demeter and Persephone) was the same myth as that of Isis and Osiris, in Egypt; Tammuz and Ishtar, in Babylonia; Astarte and Adonis, in Syria; Cibele and Attis in Phrygia. The cult of motherhood survived through classical times to take new life in the worship o Mary, the mother of God” -Will Durant, History of Civilization, vol.2, 178.
ARTEMIS IN IONIA: Ephesus was the major city of Ionia; and its temple of Artemis (called Diana in Acts 19) was famous, for it was the largest Greek temple ever built.
CERES, IN POSEIDONIA: The temple of Ceres stood on the site of an earlier temple of Poseidon. Here Ceres was venerated.
VENUS OF THE ROMANS: Venus (also called Aphrodite) was equivalent to the earth fertility and love goddess of the other Near Eastern nations. According to some stories, her son was Aeneas, the ancestor of the Romans; according to others, Cupid. In Rome, every month was dedicated to a god, and April belonged to Venus. She was worshiped as the Mother goddess of their race, since they were supposed to be descended from her through Aeneas. Later, they dedicated their days to gods and borrowed, from a Persians, the sacred sun god, Mithra, on that day.
ANAITA AND MITHRA OF PERSIA: As we pass down through time, we come to Persia and the goddess Anaita –the love, or earth, goddess. Their chief god was the sun god. Ahura-Mazda, who later became known as Mithra. Under the name Mithra, he became the most important god in Rome before Christianity won out.
The leading gods of ancient Persia were Mithra, the sun god; Anaita, the nature goddess; and her lover Haoma who became transformed into the dying-rising Mithra, the savior god who, in the hands of Satan, became the chief counterfeit of Christianity in the Roman Empire after the time of Christ. Mithra worship was carefully contrived counterfeit of Christianity, which Satan suggested to the minds of men over the centuries.
In the fourth century A.D., when Christianity won over Mithraism, Mithraic and Ishtar elements of worship were incorporated into Christian worship also.
Continue part 8.
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