Christianity’s Adoption of Pagan Symbols

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Christianity’s Adoption of Pagan Symbols

In early Christianity, there was a Christian cult referred to as Adoptionism.  A term that would be apt today to imply what Christianity became.  There is nothing original about anything Christian.  Through the centuries they adopted the Anchor, Fish, Cross, Chi-Rho, et al.  The early Greek Christian saw Jesus in everything, especially in pagan symbols, like the one’s mentioned above.

Chi-Rho is probably the best recognized symbol in Christendom after the cross, but neither are Christian by origin, as well as other symbols that are taken to be Christian.  There is a Chi-Rho used on the coinage of Ptolemy III Euergetes (245-222 BCE).  However, the Chi-Rho (XP) was an easy one for the Christian Greeks speakers to come up with to make it a Christian symbol.  They found that XP were the first two letters of Jesus’ nickname Χριστὸς/Christ.  I can do one better than that, as my name Jero (contains the first and second letters of the (real) name Jesus), and first and last letter in Jones for Jesus.  You may think that was silly of me, but Christians in the day, believed in such nonsense.

I am not certain how long it took the Greek to come up with the Chi-Rho as the sign of Jesus, but we can thank both, Lactantius and Eusebius, who better known as the liar!  Both stories are reminiscent to the story of Paul epileptic seizure on the road to Damascus. Acts 9:1-19; Acts 26:6-21.

Christian author Lactantius, writing several years after the battle, described that “Constantine was directed in a dream to have the heavenly sign delineated on the shields of his soldiers, and so to proceed to battle. He did as he had been commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter Χ, with a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at the top, being the cipher of Christ. Having this sign (ΧР), his troops stood to arms. [2] Eusebius, the Constantine apologist, also described the event in Life of Constantine, which he wrote after Constantines death in 337. According to Eusebius, Constantine saw a vision of a cross rather than the letters of Christ. “He saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS—Εν τούτ Νίκα [3].

https://pemptousia.com/2019/07/constantine-the-great-through-lactantius-eusebius-texts/

Nota bene: The Chi-Rho was on a Roman legion’s Labarum/banner, well before Christianity adopted the Chi-Rho in the 4th-century CE, as well as X over P is an abbreviation name for a Roman Centurion.

Cross, the cross was a Pagan Sex symbol of the Phallus, the Ankh, was the Egyptian cross symbolizing Life. Yet, Christians over the centuries have been brainwashed into believing that Jesus died on the cross. However, there is no mention of a cross in the original Greek manuscripts (MSS).  What the MSS attest to is not a cross, but a Stauros.  Although many senior Christians will tell you that Stauros means cross, well, in Homer’s Day it meant stake or up-right pale, and into today’s world it still means stake!

Over the years, the church of God has often written about “the Cross,” many times to debate whether Jesus died on a traditional cross or on an upright stake or pole in the ground. A few in God’s church would not even utter the word “cross,” replacing it with the word “stake” or “tree” instead. Perhaps we focused on the technical data too much, as we tried to distance our Saviour from any pagan symbol or shape. Maybe we began to lose sight of the larger picture: that our Saviour had to die for us.

Our English Bible translations say He died on a “cross.” The original Greek word used is stauros. In researching the topic, we find some experts report that a stauros was simply a stake, pole, or post upon which the victim was either nailed, strapped, or impaled. Strong’s Concordance (#4716) defines it as “a stake or post. . . A pole or cross.” Vine’s Expository Dictionary takes the much stronger opinion that the “cross” the Romans crucified Jesus on was nothing like today’s crucifix, but just an upright beam.

Fish. Early Greek Christians saw in the name for Fish/Ichthysησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ,” (Iēsous Christos Theou Huios Sōtēr), meaning, Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.  However, ichthys comes from the Greek word ikhthū́s, let’s see the Christians making Jesus out of that.

Anchor.  Christian use of the anchor echoed in Hebrews 6:19: Epitaphs on believers’ tombs dating as far back as the end of the first century frequently displayed anchors alongside messages of hope. Such expressions as pax tecum, pax tibi, in pace, or “peace be with you” speak to the hope Christians felt in their anticipation of heaven. Archaeologists found about 70 examples of these kinds of messages in one cemetery alone.

The anchor was the first Christian symbol for the 1st century, and not the cross, as that came much later.  The first, king of the Seleucid dynasty established after Alexander the Great’s campaigns. Seleucus reputedly chose the anchor symbol because he had a birthmark in the shape of an anchor. Jews living under the empire adopted the symbol on their coinage, though they phased it out under the Hasmonean ruler Alexander Jannaeus around 100 B.C.

Dove, the symbol of the dove, has been around since the Early Bronze Age. The dove was associated with the goddess Inanna-Ishtar. Inanna-Ishtar was the goddess of love, sexuality, and war. The temples of Ishtar contained lead dove figurines. One temple showed a dove rising from a palm tree, which is believed to be one of the physical incarnations of Ishtar.  Later, the Greeks adopted the dove as a symbol. The Greek word for dove means “bird of Ishtar.” In Greece, doves were associated with the goddess Aphrodite, who is the goddess of love and beauty. The Roman goddesses Venus and Fortuna also were associated with doves. These goddesses are associated with love and luck.  What do you say?

Cofion

R&I – FS

 

Jero Jones

Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/