Has the Easter Bunny Laid An Egg On Our Sacred Christian Customs?
"From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us" (ANCIENT PRAYER).
Writes Weiser, in his compelling volume The Easter Book: "A universal celebration was held in the Middle Ages at the hour of sunrise. According to an old legend, the sun dances on Easter morning or makes three cheerful jumps at the moment of rising, in honour of Christ's resurrection... All over Europe people would gather in open plains or on the crests of hills to watch the spectacle of sunrise on Easter Day. The moment of daybreak was marked by the shooting of cannon and the ringing of bells... In most places the crowds would pray as the sun appeared... From this medieval custom dates our modern sunrise service held by many congregations... on Easter Sunday" (158,159).
Where did "Easter" originate? What have it's customs to do with the Messiah or Christianity? Are the trappings of Easter found in the pages of the Bible?
Many Christians feel compelled to teach their children, during the March/April Easter season, strange customs which are anything but pertinent as we see the dawn of Century 21 fast approaching. We go to great lengths in Christian homes to instruct our children that Our Lord died during this same period for the sins of the world yet, on the other hand, instil into their young, impressionable minds the false concept that rabbits lay coloured eggs! And speaking of coloured eggs, where do we get the idea of the mutual exchange of eggs between friends and children?
What about sunrise services? Do these things really honour Yeshua the Nazarene King of the Jews? Is Weiser correct when he claims that our modern sunrise services found their origin in Medieval times -- or do these celebrations even pre-date that ugly time? Did the early Community of Faith observe Easter as a festival? Did the apostles rise early on Easter Sunday, year after year, to watch the sun making "three cheerful jumps" in its rising in recognition of Mashiach's resurrection? Did Miriam and the rest of Yeshua's family exchange eggs and eat hot cross buns in remembrance of what her Son achieved for all humankind? Have we ever stopped to ponder our participation in such things?
WE KNOW, from the light of the contents of the Messianic Scriptures (the so-called "NT") that the celebration of Easter as we know it was never observed by any of the apostles or the members of the primitive Messianic Community or even by the second century "Fathers" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. "Easter"; Matthews & Smith, A Dictionary of Religion & Ethics, 140; Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, V, 22).
WE KNOW that the only reference to the word "Easter" in the Scriptures is a gross mistranslation (in the King James Version) and the verse in which it appears ought to contain the correct rendering of "Passover" (Acts 12.4).
WE KNOW the early Messianic believers of the first century and well into the second continued to observe the annual Passover on the 14th day of the first Jewish month Nisan or Aviv (Arthur P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, 153).
WE KNOW there is not the slightest trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among the first generations of the Body of
Mashiach (Gieseler, Catholic Church, Sect.53, 178). This is due to the fact that the followers of Rav Shaul emphasised the crucifixion of Our Lord while the pagan Mithraists, contemporary with the rise of the early Messianic Community, laid enormous stress on the resurrection of their beloved Mediator. Certainly, the Eastern Church viewed the Passover celebration as the holy anniversary of Yeshua the Messiah's final meal with his students, while in Rome the Simonites regulated the Passover with special emphasis shifted to the (supposed) day of the resurrection. Liturgical form was stressed (Dr. F.C. Bauer, Church History, Vol. II, 283). In other words, the church in the West became subjective in its special reference to the resurrection, while the church in the East remained both dogmatic and objective in its teaching that the crucifixion was the one single important factor in the holy history of Mashiach (Bauer, ibid, Vol. I., 167).
SIMONITES INTRODUCE EASTER FESTIVAL
The sectarian apostles, Apollinaris and Hippolytus, supported the ancient pagan tradition of a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection of their Lord (Bauer's Church History, Vol. I., 171). They gained an enormous following in the public exercise of charismatic power. But Polycarp, the trusted student and disciple of the apostle John, held tenaciously to the observance of the Passover on the 14th day of the first Jewish month. This bishop of Smyrna would not "bow the knee to Ba'al" even if the representative of Ba'al did rule in the city of Saturn (Rome) in the person of the despot, Anicetus (Bauer, ibid., Vol. I, 163-165). The yearly observance of the Christian Passover, writes historian Latourette, was NOT "celebrated primarily to commemorate the resurrection" of Messiah (Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity: The First Five Centuries., Vol. I, 305).
But in Rome this practice became at once popular. Most of the "converts" to the Roman brand of Christianity came from the pagan Oriental religions and Rome did her best to accommodate to the "festive needs" of these neo-Babylonian and Samaritan people. Mithra devotees had little difficulty in accepting Roman Christianity. After all, they merely had to change the names of their deities to appellations more "acceptable" (Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 1911 ed). Rome had long been the cultic nerve-centre of "Peter [PTR] worship" and the mindless adoration of false gods. It was to Rome that the pagan Samaritan Simon Magus journeyed to establish his counterfeit universal religion, and his own special brand of Peter worship. A monumental authority states: "Some of the most powerful divine invaders who came from the East to conquer the West were SOLAR DIVINITIES... These immigrants from the East... brought the religion of the SUN with them" (Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion & Ethics, Vol.VIII., 59. Emphasis in quotations mine throughout lecture).
Simon the Magus (the father of heresy mentioned by Luke in Acts 8) was an outright sun-worshiper! He claimed, how-ever, to be one of Yeshua the Messiah's CHIEF apostles (Clementine Homilies, II., xviii). It did not take this Babylonian Pontifex Maximus long to establish his own mystery priesthood with its accompanied relics, images and sensuous liturgy (Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol.IV, 683). Worse still, Simon and his prostitute-wife Helen (particularly in the years immediately prior to his death) were both worshiped and adored as GODS with special cult titles conferred on them by their "Christian" converts. Informs Hippolytus (contemporary with the brilliant Origen):
"They [Gnostic Christians] have a statue of Simon in the form of Zeus [with long hair like the modern images of Yeshua], and one of Helen in the form of Athena [the goddess-Virgin], which they worship, calling the former Lord and the latter Lady. And if any among them on seeing the images, calls them by the name Simon or Helen, he is cast out as one ignorant of the mysteries" (Philosophumena, VI., 20).
Sound familiar? The present Christian religion presents not only "Jesus" as Lord, but his Mother "Mary" as a perpetual Virgin referred to as "Our Lady" (Religion & Ethics, Vol. II.,518). Simon's false priests, claiming to be "shepherds" and "coverings," soon began to persecute true believers in Rome who had determined to remain loyal to their understanding of the time to observe the Lord's Supper, annually on the Passover. The Roman bishops were no strangers when it came to the exercise of spiritual power over the masses. In fact, early church "Father" Irenaeus dared to even name these conspirators against the truth of the Gospel: "We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus. They neither observed it [the original Passover or Lord's Supper] nor did they permit those after them to do so" (Iren-aeus, Letter to Victor, ANF).
Yeshua had said, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (Jn 15.20). Paul added: "All that live godly in Messiah Yeshua shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim 3.12). And suffer they did. Those true believers who relied so heavily on the authority of Scripture for their stand, were actually driven from Rome to the protective environs of the episcopate of the Eastern church.
SOME CHRISTIANS REMAIN FAITHFUL
Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John and bishop of Smyrna, confronted Satan in person over the issue. Writes Irenaeus, "But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna... And when... Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus [around 154 C.E.] he caused many to turn away from the... heretics [at Rome] to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles which he also handed down to the church."
Polycarp and Anicetus had sharp but formal dissension over the whole matter of the timing of the Passover and Lord's Supper celebration. Polycarp demanded the traditional 14th day of the first Jewish month as the day to keep the Lord's Supper but Anicetus remained adamant that his tradition (handed down to him by his immediate predecessors at Rome) was indeed the genuine position to be taken. In other words, Irenaeus records that the Roman bishop considered the customs of mere men of more value than the inspired Scriptural accounts! The Roman church has followed this philo-sophy ever since! But Irenaeus continues:
"For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of Our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, as he said that he ought to FOLLOW THE CUSTOMS of the presbyters [elders or bishops] that had preceded him" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III., 4; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 14, 3: Eusebius, Letter to Victor, V, 24, 16; (Ed.) J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius, 1957, 119 art. IV).
Only 35 years then passed before the controversy again broke forth, this time between an Eastern elder, Polycrates, and another bishop of Rome, Victor. It was this Simonite (Victor) who attempted "to cut off whole churches of God, who observed the tradition of an ancient custom" -- the observance of the Lord's Supper on the 14th day of the first Jewish month Nisan (Irenaeus, Letter to Victor, V, 24, 9-11). Against Victor Polycrates railed, "As for us, we scrupulously observe the EXACT DAY, neither adding nor taking away. For in Asia great luminaries have gone to their rest, who shall rise again in the day of the coming of the Lord... Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles... and John moreover, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined on the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore a sacerdotal plate ... Then there is Polycarp... These all kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, in accordance with the Gospel without ever deviating from it, but keeping to the rule of faith" (Eusebius, Ep. of Irenaeus to Victor, V, 24, 4-6).
Polycrates resided near Ephesus (H.R. Boer, A Short History of the Early Church, 1976, 83). This was the exact area where the apostle Paul engaged in so much of his ministry, and where the apostle John retired. It is in this very area that church authorities record the true Messianic Community of God remaining obedient to the knowledge they had at that time! The moves by Roman Simonites to change the date of the annual Lord's Supper to a fixed Sunday celebration in honour of Mashiach's resurrection was the FIRST in a series of sweeping reforms which would alter the face of Christianity.
ROMAN EMPEROR INITIATES PERSECUTION
Latourette tells us that "Easter seems... NOT to have been celebrated primarily to commemorate the resurrection. Only gradually was it Christianised" (K.S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, Vol. I.,305). That some of the Roman bishops knew the secret of Easter, and its pagan origin, can no longer be doubted. We know that at the time of Victor the celebration had been attended by an inner core of priests (with their congregations) for at least a generation (Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, 192). Roman Catholic writers in this century seeking to moderate the plain language of ecclesiastical history, tell us that their church "found it necessary, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dissemble and WINK AT many things and YIELD to the times" (Taylor, Diegesis, 237).
Socrates Scholasticus informs us: "Inasmuch as men love festivals, because they afford them cessation from labour: each individual in every place, according to his own pleasure, has by a prevalent custom celebrated [Easter]... The Saviour and his apostles have enjoined us by no law to keep this feast... just as many other customs have been established in individual localities according to usage, so also the feast of Easter came to be observed in each place according to the individual peculiarities of the peoples, inasmuch as none of the apostles legislated on the matter. And that observance originated not by legislation, but as a custom the facts themselves indicate" (Eccles. History, 22).
Neither Yeshua nor the apostles introduced the pagan Easter into the Church. The Simonite priesthood now well-established in Rome conspired against the Gospel and made the observance of the Easter festival mandatory. So read the pages of history! "There is no indication of the observance of Easter... in the [pages of the NT]... The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed" (Encyc. Britannica, "Easter," 11th ed.). Yet we find the Roman practice of observing a fixed Sunday celebration of Easter gaining ground everywhere, finally being proclaimed as law by the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.
It was a law the entire church had to obey (Schaff, History of the Church, Vol. II, 218). It was at this Council that the Roman bishops gave sanction to an old Babylonian tradition of a Sunday resurrection (Yeshua actually rose from the dead on a weekly Sabbath) when they "decided that Easter Day should always be on a Sunday, but NEVER at the same time as the feast of the Jews [Passover]. If the Jewish Passover fell on a Sunday, Easter Day was transferred to the following Sunday" (Burns, The Council of Nicaea, 46). After all, explained the Roman Emperor Constantine -- a worshiper of Helios the sun-god until the day he died -- how could "we who are Christians possibly keep the same day as those wicked Jews?" (Gwatkin, Arian Controversy, 38). Second and third century anti-Semitism within the Western church helped generate the polarisation of the majority of Christian assemblies to the Roman Easter. Most certainly this was the case with the introduction of Sunday observance into the church (Samuele Bacchiocchi, Anti-Judaism & the Origin of Sunday, 1975, 89ff).
The Council of Nicaea was convened to discuss the problems associated with the observance of Easter, the issue having come to a head with the refusal of the church in the East to reject the Gospel completely. Eusebius, the Catholic historian, tells us, "But before this time another most virulent disorder had existed, and long afflicted the Church; I mean the differ-ence respecting ... Easter. For while one party asserted that the Jewish custom should be adhered to, the others [insisted on Rome's stand]. Accordingly, the people being thus in every place divided in respect of this... and... no one appeared who was capable of devising a remedy for the evil, because the controversy continued equally divided between both parties... and Constantine appeared to be the only one on earth capable of [solving the dispute]... He [thus] convoked a general Council" (Eusebius, The Life of Constantine, III, V-VI).
At the conclusion of this great worldly Council, convened, authorised, controlled and presided over by an arrogant heathen Roman Emperor, the annual celebration of the Lord's Supper on the Passover was forbidden and the pagan celebration of "the Mysteries" instituted and sanctioned, to be celebrated on the day of the Sun (Sunday).
"At this meeting the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved... that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day... First of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews... Let us... have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd... Let us with one consent adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from all participation in their baseness... For how should they be capable of forming a sound judgment, who, since their parricidal guilt in slaying their Lord, have been subject to the direction, not of reason, but of ungoverned passion, and are swayed by every impulse of the mad spirit that is in them?... it is most fitting that... [we ought to be diligent] in avoiding all participation in the... conduct of the Jews... it has been determined... that... Easter should be kept on one and the same day" (Eusebius, ibid., III, 18 & 19).
And what of the Christians in Rome, influenced by the heroic stand of the bishops of the Eastern Church, who could not accept the decree of the Roman Emperor? The following letter was authorised from Rome:
"VICTOR CONSTANTINUS, MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS, TO THE HERETICS:
... To speak of your criminality as it deserves demands more time and leisure than I can give... Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief [he means by this the Gospel with its myriad implications, and the Jewish thought-forms which gave us the Scripture] by a PUBLIC MANIFESTATION of displeasure [by inciting a persecution or pogrom]. Foras-much, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, THAT YOU BE DEPRIVED OF ALL THE HOUSES IN WHICH YOU ARE ACCUSTOMED TO HOLD YOUR ASSEMBLIES: and we forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatso-ever ... TAKE THE FAR BETTER COURSE OF ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH... We have commanded... that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean ALL the houses of prayer... and that these be made over immediately to the Catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering, in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemb-lies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public" (ibid., III, lxiv, lxv).
With this edict began the infamous 1000-year long Simonite persecution against the authentic Messianic Community of God. The spiritual Body of Mashiach had to literally flee the bounds of the Western Roman Empire. For over 1000 years Rome sought to destroy every vestige of truth in the Gospel. When finally the faint flicker of the light of the Gospel was about to dim to eternal extinction, God raised up a Roman monk called Martin Luther (even with all his faults and mis-guided views) and the faint light of truth once again burst into a raging, cyclonic inferno. Tragically, the Reformation was never completed.
Leaving their Mother (Rome) the Reformers took with them their cherished momentoes from the religious corridors of Roman power. These "quaint" pagan customs are rife within the worldly Protestant daughters of Rome.
PRESENTING IN MODERN DRESS -- THE ANCIENT BABYLONIAN MYSTERIES
Many scholars pursuing the study of religious antiquity are amazed to find parallels and similarity between today's Easter customs and those cultic and ceremonial rituals that featured in the tribal festive solemnities of primitive times. Even the very name "Easter" has a very definite Babylonian "ring" to it. In fact even the Saxon reference for the March/April (Spring) equinox is derived from the Teuton feast of Ostara (or, Eostre) the fair and beautiful Mother-goddess of the rising light of day and spring (Catholic Encyclopaedia, art. "Easter"). This ancient German feast was held at the same time as our Easter (Kurtz, Church History, Vol. 1., 356). But, not to be outdone by her German cousins, the English anglicised the personal name of this heathen goddess to better correspond to her Babylonian original, Ishtar (Astarte). Her name, in this almost forgotten tongue, was pronounced EESHTA (See Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, 103). This woman, Ishtar or Semiramis, just happened to be the white-skinned nymphomaniac who is known by scholars to have had a pathological penis fixation and who married her own well-endowed son, the notorious Nimrod. Now some religious folk will shudder out of horror that we documented this mental disorder in our lecture but its historically established and we include it here for the sake of truth -- and isn't TRUTH what we all should be primarily preoccupied to pursue?
Of course it is! Especially is this the case when we realise why the ancient Babylonian Mystery Religion was rooted in the depths of Canaanite sex worship. Understanding this shameful past helps us to grasp why it is that the Mysteries found such a haven at Rome in the last days of the apostles Peter and Paul. God has a great deal to say about the end-time woman who rides a wild animal and to comprehend just who she is one must turn to the sexual history of the ancient world. Education is education. False modesty has no place in the economy of God.
Now, Nimrod was the great pagan Saviour of the ancient world. His empire was worldwide. His mother, Ishtar, was known as "the Queen of heaven." Confirms Hislop, "[Easter] bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the 'queen of heaven' whose name, as pronounced by the people of Ninevah, was
... identical with that now in common use in this country... The festival, of which we read in church history under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries... at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It [was] called Pass-over... That festival was not idolatrous and was preceded by no Lent" (The Two Babylons, 103,104).
The influence of Semiramis (otherwise known as Astarte, Beltis, Athena, Easter) in her "royal office" as "queen of heaven" cannot be underestimated. Her cultic mania, her philosophy, her idolatrous subjectivism found root in the nourishing soil of the religious life of even God's own chosen people, Israel. Whenever there was apostasy from the way of God we find that her own special brand of seduction was at the foundation of the corruption. When it took root it gripped the nation of Israel by the throat. Even the prophet Jeremiah was rejected in favour of the sensual liturgy and rites of this whore.
"Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people... answered Jeremiah saying, 'As for the word which you have spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto you. But WE WILL CERTAINLY DO WHATSOEVER THING GOES FORTH OUT OF OUR OWN MOUTH, TO BURN INCENSE UNTO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto her as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well off, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have lacked all, and have been consumed by the sword and by famine. And when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, DID WE MAKE HER CAKES to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men's knowledge?'" (Jer 44.15-19).
The ancient pagans, like the Israelites in their apostasy, appeased the Queen of Heaven with offerings of "holy bread" or hot cakes (Marolles quoting Tibullus in Memoirs, 215). This old document of the prophet Jeremiah is interesting from a number of points of view, not the least of which should be of concern to those modern believers who "blab it and grab it" and "name it and claim it" within the hallowed halls of denominations which preach a "prosperity gospel."
While Israel worshiped the goddess Ishtar famine and the fear of hostilities, invasion, calamities and all evil seemed far off. Today we say much the same thing! And every Easter period without fail we bake "hot cross buns" -- hot cakes to the Queen of Heaven imprinted with the insignia of Tammuz (Nimrod) in the form of the cross. That these cakes did bear the sign of the cross, the symbol in antiquity of Tammuz or Nimrod, the crucified Saviour of the Gentile world, is a matter not of conjecture but of history (William S. Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs, 483).
NIMROD'S EMPIRE WORLDWIDE
Even as late as 1500 BCE these hot cross buns were traditionally eaten during the Spring season in honour of the Queen of Heaven (Hislop, op.cit., 108). Jeremiah claimed that these cakes were really buns, for the Hebrew word translated as "cakes" in Jer 7.18 is kavvan which can only mean "bun." Comments Bryant, "One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun" (Mythology., Vol.1, 373). In like manner Diogenes Laertius, referring to this offering of buns to the gods by one Empedocles, says the ingredients were "made of fine flour and honey" (Laertius.,1664, 227B; Consider comments by Finis J. Dake, Annotated Reference Bible., 752 n.p.).
Prior to the Easter festival the castrated devotees of the inner circle of the worship of the Queen of Heaven underwent a vigorous and excruciating period of abstinence. This torture was considered a vital prerequisite for the initiate of the Mysteries. It lasted a total of 40 days. In ancient Mexico, where the cult once flourished, "three days after the vernal equinox... began a solemn fast of 40 days in honour of the sun" (Humboldt, Mexican Researches., Vol.1, 404). This same period was observed in Egypt (Wilkinson's Egyptian Antiquities, Vol.1.,278) and was expressly held in commem-oration of the crucified Osiris, or Adonis (Shiva), the great Mediatorial god (Landseer, Sabean Researches) who also went, in the Graeco-Roman world, by the name of Mithras (Plutarch, De Iside., Vol.11., 369). The Persian sun-god was, then, none other than Ba'al-berith -- the Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8.33) -- Nimrod. The worshipers of Ba'al-berith met secretly in caves to celebrate the Mysteries, as did the followers of the Persian sun-god Mithras and the devotees of Adonis. Initiates were introduced to the Mysteries in deep caverns in Petra (J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, 1930, 346) and as far away as Japan (Augustus Le Plongeon, Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayas and the Quiches, 1886, 27). To this day certain carefully selected Australian aboriginals are initiated into their Mysteries in caves and caverns at puberty. Until recently "in the spring of the year" the devil-worshiping Yezidis of Kurdistan wept and wailed for a full forty days in remembrance of their crucified lord (R.H.W. Empson, The Cult of the Peacock Angel, 1928). It is a practice inherited from their Babylonian conquerors of long ago (Ralph Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion, 158).
Lent and Easter, like their counterpart Xmas, stand condemned as nothing more than rank paganism. Yet many modern ministers exclaim that it really doesn't matter these days that such celebrations are rooted in paganism and witchcraft. After all, they say, God looks on the heart and not upon our feast days. Listen! God has ALWAYS looked on the heart. And he has ALWAYS expected his people to be a different people from those in the world around them (Deut 26.18-19; 1 Pet 2.9).
This instruction need not be the impetus for some "holiness trip" or "righteousness by works" accomplishment but a joyful, appreciative recognition of what God has done in what is usually termed by Christians "the cross event" and of what He expects from each of us -- an attitude engendered by a desire to please Him in all (not most) things. The apostle Paul REQUIRED that Christians should cast off pagan ways and heathenish philosophies. He most certainly based his REQUIREMENT on his acute knowledge of the WILL of God as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures and as subjected to the Gospel.
But people like to argue with God. They like to contend with the Creator. This is more the case because Our Lord often keeps silent in the heavens. But God is around and He is listening. HaShem won't be cast aside forever. It would appear to those of us associated with the BRI and the IMCF that the same Lord who made such a fuss over the exact same celebrations in millennia past (which we believers have carried on over into the churches of this present evil world system) is yet again to make a great deal of fuss OVER THE SAME ISSUES at his soon coming Advent. At that time we find the Messiah requiring certain Mosaic feasts to be observed by Gentiles, not the pagan Easter, Xmas and Lent (Zech 14).
The Lord made it quite clear to Israel! "When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations from before you, whither you go to possess them... and you dwell in their land: Take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; AND THAT YOU ENQUIRE NOT AFTER THEIR GODS, saying, HOW DID THESE NATIONS SERVE THEIR GODS, EVEN SO WILL I DO LIKEWISE. You shall NOT do so unto the Lord your God" (Deut 12.29-31).
The Lord God of Israel IS the LORD Yeshua haMashiach of your Bible. No, God has not changed all that much. As far as His likes and dislikes are concerned He is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Mal 3.6; Heb 13.8). Not only so, we do not think that God has been desperately attempting to "catch up" with the progressive thinking of some of our "spiritual coverings" and "shepherds" who have tried to usurp the exercise of God's power and prerogatives in matters which they feel (and publicly state) are of no real consequence. It was self-opinionated human nature that put the Lord on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth. It was religious man, more than any other, that committed Deicide. It was indeed the religious leaders (the same Coverings and Shepherds) who sincerely believed they were of God -- and they WERE representatives of God's kingdom, of His government (Mt 23.2-3) -- who put the Lord to death. And they would do it again if He came amongst us as He did over 1900 years ago.
But while the early Community of Faith remained close to Mashiach -- in the first flush of the love of Yeshua -- Easter and Lent and other pagan festivities held no significance in the lives of faithful, loyal believers. But today? "It ought to be known that the consequence of the forty days [fast period] had no existence, SO LONG AS THE PERFECTION OF THAT PRIMITIVE CHURCH REMAINED INVIOLATE" (Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History quoting Cassianus the monk of Marseilles in the 5th century, Vol.11.,42).
BUT WHY EGGS AND RABBITS?
The Catholic Encyclopaedia tells us that Easter eggs found their origin in heathen worship and that the concept of the religious wait for the yearly return of Spring not only sprang out of idolatrous sex worship, but gravitated to our own Easter celebrations. The ancient idolaters were preoccupied with a universal theme, a drama of death and resurrection of a heathen deity who perished near the dawn of time. He was variously addressed as Nimrod, Tammuz, Adonis, Shiva, Kore, Dionysus. His rites were the forerunners of the "Christian" Easter, and "thus the first Easter services" (A.W. Watts, Easter, Its Story & Meaning, 58). The author of The Golden Bough tells us "when we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to plant the seeds of the new faith ON THE OLD STOCK OF PAGANISM, we may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was GRAFTED UPON a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which... was celebrated in Syria at the same season" (Frazer, The Golden Bough, 345).
The perfection of the spiritual Messianic Community was, and is, Our Lord Yeshua. The Gospel is centred IN him. When believers began to realise that their Lord was delaying his return full conversions became scarce. It was not too long before human nature and rank carnality was the norm where once the Spirit of a holy God had free course. "Now the Easter rites," continues Frazer, "bear... a striking resemblance to the rites of Adonis, and I have suggested that the Church MAY HAVE CONSCIOUSLY adapted the new festival to its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ" (ibid., Vol.V, 306).
The Gospel was not considered effective enough in bringing the world to a salvation in Yeshua! By rejecting the Jewish thoughtforms about the salvation of man and in particular the Judeo-Christian theology of "Firstfruits" the Constantinian Church began teaching that today is the only day of salvation! They had effectively lost the Gospel! The world had to be saved NOW at all costs! They had lost the realisation that the Church was an educational instrument forming the unique
nucleus of the coming GOVERNMENT of God! The Church was a radical training centre -- based partially on, but a departure from, the synagogue model -- for the necessary education and character development and "on the job" equip-ping of Christians TO RULE THE WORLD under Mashiach! All Christians encounter trials, troubles and persecution. This is a major reason WHY troubles afflict the true people of God. If any of our readers consider that they are "born again" and are not yet struggling against difficulties, afflictions and travail -- THEN LOOK OUT. You may never have been converted in the first place. False conversion can be a mortal danger.
Roman Catholic scholars all agree that the rites of Adonis were "adopted" by the church early in its formation, and that it swept the entire Christian world especially after the Roman bishop had given the "nod" of approval to utilise such "adap-tation" in order to "win the masses." One writer comments, "All the churches of the West, the South and the North, had ADOPTED this practice (particularly Rome), the whole of Italy, Africa, Spain, Egypt, Gaul, Britain, Lybia, Achaia; it has even been ADOPTED in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus and Cilicia" (Hefele, History of the Councils, Vol.1., 306,307).
Some of the early church "fathers" were Gnostics, secret followers of the arch-Gnostic Simon of Samaria. Satan's counterfeit church was always, even from ancient days, centred in Gnosticism. The Orphic Mystery Religion of the East had as its symbol the serpent-entwined egg, which signified the cosmos as "encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit... the serpent represented the Mysteries. At the time of initiation the shell is broken and Man emerges from the embryonic state of physical existence where-in he had remained through the foetal period of philosophic regeneration" (Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, 1975, xx).
From Eden, Satan has always been pictured as a serpent (Rev 12.9). Satan used the lures of pure Gnostic thought to persuade Eve to disobey God (Gen 3.5-6). After the expulsion from Eden man has ever attempted to "get back" to the original condition of the Garden, forever grasping at new philosophical, socio-economic and political theories which he vainly hopes will unlock the door to the pure Mysteries of God. The tree of life remains hardly touched, while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been continually subjected to experimentation and violation. But in the ancient Mysteries the egg has always represented new life. So the pagans all over the world, from Babylon to Japan, have used the egg to symbolise man's attempt to resurrect the ancient Order through regeneration. Ignoring the Spirit of God (a regenerating Spirit) man has tried to gain his salvation, his immortality, through the application of philosophical principles (especially as applied in political theory). In a word man has tried to get salvation by his own works.
States Britannica, "The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival" (Encyc. Brit., art. "Easter").
Pope Paul V consecrated the Easter egg. But this should not surprise any of us when we realise that Rome has always followed the same policy of "mixing it" with the pagan philosophies and traditions of the nations she sought to conquer. "Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Hislop, The Two Babylons, 110). That Rome had early become a centre of the Gnostic fertility cult is apparent when we consider the Syro-Phoenician Romans brought to the city and erected a mammoth Egyptian obelisk (penis monument) right outside the Vatican! It is there in all its shameful glory for the entire world to see.
Now we know that Quexalcote of Mexico, Chris of Chaldea, Quirinus of Rome, Prometheus of Caucasus, Osiris of Egypt, Attis of Phrygia, and Mithra the Mediator of Persia all, according to their respective histories, rose from the dead after three days burial and the date of their resurrection was FIXED BY PRIESTS for the 25th day of March. To this impressive list should also be added the Hindu crucified god, Lord KRSNA (Krishna). "There is an account, more than three thousand years old of...Chrishna, three days after his internment, forsaking 'the silent bourn, whence (as we are told) no traveller ever returns', and... again walking forth to mortal life, to be again seen, recognised, admired, and adored by his pious, devout and awe-stricken followers, and thus to present to the gaze of a hoping yet doubting world 'the firstfruits of the resurrection'" (K. Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours, 145).
The devotees of Mithra the Mediator were in the habit of chanting in their solemn way, "Cheer up, holy mourners; your God has come again to life; his sorrows and his sufferings will save you" (See Pitrat, 105). March 25th was the start of the Persian new year and is, by marvellous coincidence (!), marked in our own calendar as the consecrated date of the conception and annunciation of Mary -- and it was also the date of the conception of the ancient Roman Virgin Asteria "and of the ever-chaste and holy Virgin Isis, as well as the time of the conjugal embrace of the solar and lunar potentates of the visible universe" (Graves, Christianity Before Christ, 146).
And what of the harmless little Easter bunny? Where does he fit into the Easter scheme or scam? And what of the traditional eating of ham during this festive period? Again let history echo! "The joy of Easter... like the... egg, the Easter hare... came to Christianity from antiquity. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of ancient Egypt and other peoples. It belongs to the night ... It is born with its eyes open, and like the moon, is 'the open-eyed watcher of the skies'" (Encyc. Brit., 1962 ed., Vol VII, 859). The hare belongs to the night! So, it appears, does Easter. The rabbit was consider-ed a royal animal, as established by the story of British queen Boadicea taking a hare into battle. And, as Herodotus notes, it is able to conceive when already pregnant. The rabbit is the symbol of the power of sex and procreation -- it "mates openly without embarrassment like the turtle-dove, the dog, the cat or the tattooed Pict. The position of the Hare constellation at the feet of Orion suggests that it was sacred in Pelasgian Greece too" (Robert Graves, The White Goddess, 1961, 293).
In primitive days, near the dawn of time, the ancient world considered the pig or boar obnoxious. The taboo against eating the flesh of swine was known long before it found its inclusion in the Mosaic law of the clean and the unclean. When Shem (Set) the son of the patriarch Noah crucified Nimrod the pagan devotees of the black demi-god associated Set with the dirtiest animal they could imagine. Hence he is always symbolised as either a boar, or as wearing the skins and head of such a creature. The consuming of swine's flesh during the Easter period is thus self-explanatory! This age-old custom, admits modern Catholic authors, has been "handed down from pre-Christian times" (Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts & Customs, 237).
Thus, the inhabitants of the British Isles as well as the Scandinavians ate the flesh of boars at Easter, and the Germanic tribes roasted pork on Xmas Day. Admits Weiser, "At Easter smoked or cooked ham... has been roasted by most Euro-pean nations from ancient times" (ibid). Even the Roman Catholic Church, with full knowledge of what the practice typified, gave its "liturgical blessing of Easter ham" from the tenth century of our era.
In the Middle Ages, the eating of ham at Easter took on an even worse application as anti-Semitism swept Europe. Britannica tells us "those families who, by custom, eat ham on Easter Sunday ARE UNWITTINGLY FOLLOWING AN OLD PRACTICE of the Roman Catholics of England, who ate a gammon of bacon on Easter TO [OPENLY] SHOW THEIR CONTEMPT FOR THE JEWS, to whom pork is forbidden" (Encyc. Brit., 1962 ed. Vol. VII, 859).
The pagans themselves objected that the Church had copied their most sacred customs and rites of worship especially those which supposedly commemorated the sacrifice of the cross during the vernal equinox (Cumont, 71).
"Indignant at these blasphemous pretensions," writes Cumont, "St Augustine tells of having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: Et ipse Pileatus christianus est - 'and even the god with the Phrygian cap [ie, Attis] is a Christian.' But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last
taurobolia [a shower-bath of luke-warm blood] took place at the end of the fourth century, in the Phrygianum, stands today the basilica of the Vatican" (Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 71).
AND WHERE DOES ALL THIS LEAVE YOU?
We have seen from the admissions of foremost world authorities (including prominent Roman Catholics) that the customs and rites of Easter stand condemned as nothing more than the deliberate continuation of ancient fertility cults in honour of the Dark Lord and heathen Saviour Nimrod, and his incestuous mother Semiramis, the Virgin Queen of Heaven. The origin of our "quaint and harmless" methods of celebration stem from witchcraft and Satan worship that have survived through a long chain of religious circles from savage antiquity.
Nowhere does the "NT" enjoin the observance of Easter on Christians. This is the clear unmitigated verdict of both Scripture and history. Easter was "fixed" by a non-Christian sun worshipping pagan Roman emperor at the Council of Nicea manipulated by spiritual Simonites. Further, the Roman Catholic bishops persecuted and excommunicated believers who would not adopt the newly introduced (but extremely old) philosophies of Gnostic thought. The dusty records of ecclesiastical history reveal that the Christian churches in the East refused to allow the Roman Church one inch when it came to the assumption of authority in areas they believed were Scripturally self-evident. They certainly refused to follow the Roman path of apostasy with regard to the Easter question, and the Celtic church in the British Isles maintained its obstinance to the Roman Easter to at least 650, northern Ireland finally capitulating in 704 (Leslie Hardinge, The Celtic Church in Britain, 26).
It is generally conceded that the LORD GOD of the Old Testament is none other than Yeshua Messiah (Jn 1.1-3; Col 1. 13-19. The Messiah was IN the Mind of God before the Big Bang, according to ancient mystical Jewish literature). The LORD Yeshua the Messiah considers the rites of Easter as anything but "a light thing." We may, as mortal humans, think differently about these seemingly harmless customs and "Christian" celebrations but in the final analysis it is the Mashiach's opinion that will carry the weight.
"Turn you yet again," says HaShem of Israel to the prophet Ezekiel, "and you shall see greater abominations than these [the prophet had just witnessed in vision idol worship among those who professed to be the true people of God]. And he brought me in to the inner court of the Eternal's house, and behold... between the porch and the altar were about twenty five men, with... THEIR FACES TOWARD THE EAST: AND THEY WORSHIPED THE SUN TOWARD THE EAST [this was a sun-rise service!]. Then he said unto me, Have you seen this O son of man? IS IT A LIGHT THING... that they commit the abominations which they commit here?... Therefore will I deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity! And though they cry into my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them!" (Ezek 8.15-18).
Messiah Yeshua condemns the Ishtar celebrations by his people -- a justified people, a sanctified people, a purchased people. We ought to be standing in the Gospel, and not up to our necks in idolatrous rites and witchcraft. Even sunrise services are condemned by the Gospel as an utter abomination. God has decreed that his people "LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN" surrounding them (Deut 18.9 cf Jer 10.2-3).
This coming spring (if you live in the northern hemisphere) or autumn (if you live in the southern hemisphere), if you count yourself a Christian, a disciple or student of Yeshua the Messiah, and you really want to honour him by remembering the anniversary of his death and to give glory to God for his resurrection, then forget Easter. Let your heart dwell on the awe-some sacrifice of our Lord on the tree of Golgoleth by all means. Certainly reflect on what he has done for you personally, and for the whole world. But as Christians, true believers united to the Lord as one Spirit, we ought to praise him with a profound sense of appreciation and dignity.
A Special Additional Note from the Messianic Rebbe: There can be no doubt that many of the practices of the modern Christian Church leave a lot to be desired. Friends, many ministers are too embarrassed (or blatantly dishonest) to admit openly that they preside over a largely heathen, apostate church replete with the trappings of an ancient and virulent paganism. Yet there are some converted men in the ministry of Yeshua Messiah today who openly recognise that the worship of Ba'al has been illegally mixed with the pure worship of the LORD Yeshua. We encourage readers of BRI material and members of the BRI/IMCF International Internet Yeshiva Student Membership Board and the Inter-national Messianic Community of Faith congregations to effectively pray for these men of conscience. And pray that this Voice of the Messianic Movement will be heard and received with joy and gladness, rather than with opposition, by all who seek to serve the Lord with a pure heart in spirit and in truth.
From the laziness that is content with half truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us" (ANCIENT PRAYER).
Writes Weiser, in his compelling volume The Easter Book: "A universal celebration was held in the Middle Ages at the hour of sunrise. According to an old legend, the sun dances on Easter morning or makes three cheerful jumps at the moment of rising, in honour of Christ's resurrection... All over Europe people would gather in open plains or on the crests of hills to watch the spectacle of sunrise on Easter Day. The moment of daybreak was marked by the shooting of cannon and the ringing of bells... In most places the crowds would pray as the sun appeared... From this medieval custom dates our modern sunrise service held by many congregations... on Easter Sunday" (158,159).
Where did "Easter" originate? What have it's customs to do with the Messiah or Christianity? Are the trappings of Easter found in the pages of the Bible?
Many Christians feel compelled to teach their children, during the March/April Easter season, strange customs which are anything but pertinent as we see the dawn of Century 21 fast approaching. We go to great lengths in Christian homes to instruct our children that Our Lord died during this same period for the sins of the world yet, on the other hand, instil into their young, impressionable minds the false concept that rabbits lay coloured eggs! And speaking of coloured eggs, where do we get the idea of the mutual exchange of eggs between friends and children?
What about sunrise services? Do these things really honour Yeshua the Nazarene King of the Jews? Is Weiser correct when he claims that our modern sunrise services found their origin in Medieval times -- or do these celebrations even pre-date that ugly time? Did the early Community of Faith observe Easter as a festival? Did the apostles rise early on Easter Sunday, year after year, to watch the sun making "three cheerful jumps" in its rising in recognition of Mashiach's resurrection? Did Miriam and the rest of Yeshua's family exchange eggs and eat hot cross buns in remembrance of what her Son achieved for all humankind? Have we ever stopped to ponder our participation in such things?
WE KNOW, from the light of the contents of the Messianic Scriptures (the so-called "NT") that the celebration of Easter as we know it was never observed by any of the apostles or the members of the primitive Messianic Community or even by the second century "Fathers" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. "Easter"; Matthews & Smith, A Dictionary of Religion & Ethics, 140; Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, V, 22).
WE KNOW that the only reference to the word "Easter" in the Scriptures is a gross mistranslation (in the King James Version) and the verse in which it appears ought to contain the correct rendering of "Passover" (Acts 12.4).
WE KNOW the early Messianic believers of the first century and well into the second continued to observe the annual Passover on the 14th day of the first Jewish month Nisan or Aviv (Arthur P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, 153).
WE KNOW there is not the slightest trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among the first generations of the Body of
Mashiach (Gieseler, Catholic Church, Sect.53, 178). This is due to the fact that the followers of Rav Shaul emphasised the crucifixion of Our Lord while the pagan Mithraists, contemporary with the rise of the early Messianic Community, laid enormous stress on the resurrection of their beloved Mediator. Certainly, the Eastern Church viewed the Passover celebration as the holy anniversary of Yeshua the Messiah's final meal with his students, while in Rome the Simonites regulated the Passover with special emphasis shifted to the (supposed) day of the resurrection. Liturgical form was stressed (Dr. F.C. Bauer, Church History, Vol. II, 283). In other words, the church in the West became subjective in its special reference to the resurrection, while the church in the East remained both dogmatic and objective in its teaching that the crucifixion was the one single important factor in the holy history of Mashiach (Bauer, ibid, Vol. I., 167).
SIMONITES INTRODUCE EASTER FESTIVAL
The sectarian apostles, Apollinaris and Hippolytus, supported the ancient pagan tradition of a Friday crucifixion and a Sunday resurrection of their Lord (Bauer's Church History, Vol. I., 171). They gained an enormous following in the public exercise of charismatic power. But Polycarp, the trusted student and disciple of the apostle John, held tenaciously to the observance of the Passover on the 14th day of the first Jewish month. This bishop of Smyrna would not "bow the knee to Ba'al" even if the representative of Ba'al did rule in the city of Saturn (Rome) in the person of the despot, Anicetus (Bauer, ibid., Vol. I, 163-165). The yearly observance of the Christian Passover, writes historian Latourette, was NOT "celebrated primarily to commemorate the resurrection" of Messiah (Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity: The First Five Centuries., Vol. I, 305).
But in Rome this practice became at once popular. Most of the "converts" to the Roman brand of Christianity came from the pagan Oriental religions and Rome did her best to accommodate to the "festive needs" of these neo-Babylonian and Samaritan people. Mithra devotees had little difficulty in accepting Roman Christianity. After all, they merely had to change the names of their deities to appellations more "acceptable" (Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 1911 ed). Rome had long been the cultic nerve-centre of "Peter [PTR] worship" and the mindless adoration of false gods. It was to Rome that the pagan Samaritan Simon Magus journeyed to establish his counterfeit universal religion, and his own special brand of Peter worship. A monumental authority states: "Some of the most powerful divine invaders who came from the East to conquer the West were SOLAR DIVINITIES... These immigrants from the East... brought the religion of the SUN with them" (Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion & Ethics, Vol.VIII., 59. Emphasis in quotations mine throughout lecture).
Simon the Magus (the father of heresy mentioned by Luke in Acts 8) was an outright sun-worshiper! He claimed, how-ever, to be one of Yeshua the Messiah's CHIEF apostles (Clementine Homilies, II., xviii). It did not take this Babylonian Pontifex Maximus long to establish his own mystery priesthood with its accompanied relics, images and sensuous liturgy (Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol.IV, 683). Worse still, Simon and his prostitute-wife Helen (particularly in the years immediately prior to his death) were both worshiped and adored as GODS with special cult titles conferred on them by their "Christian" converts. Informs Hippolytus (contemporary with the brilliant Origen):
"They [Gnostic Christians] have a statue of Simon in the form of Zeus [with long hair like the modern images of Yeshua], and one of Helen in the form of Athena [the goddess-Virgin], which they worship, calling the former Lord and the latter Lady. And if any among them on seeing the images, calls them by the name Simon or Helen, he is cast out as one ignorant of the mysteries" (Philosophumena, VI., 20).
Sound familiar? The present Christian religion presents not only "Jesus" as Lord, but his Mother "Mary" as a perpetual Virgin referred to as "Our Lady" (Religion & Ethics, Vol. II.,518). Simon's false priests, claiming to be "shepherds" and "coverings," soon began to persecute true believers in Rome who had determined to remain loyal to their understanding of the time to observe the Lord's Supper, annually on the Passover. The Roman bishops were no strangers when it came to the exercise of spiritual power over the masses. In fact, early church "Father" Irenaeus dared to even name these conspirators against the truth of the Gospel: "We mean Anicetus, and Pius, and Hyginus, and Telesphorus, and Xystus. They neither observed it [the original Passover or Lord's Supper] nor did they permit those after them to do so" (Iren-aeus, Letter to Victor, ANF).
Yeshua had said, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you" (Jn 15.20). Paul added: "All that live godly in Messiah Yeshua shall suffer persecution" (2 Tim 3.12). And suffer they did. Those true believers who relied so heavily on the authority of Scripture for their stand, were actually driven from Rome to the protective environs of the episcopate of the Eastern church.
SOME CHRISTIANS REMAIN FAITHFUL
Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John and bishop of Smyrna, confronted Satan in person over the issue. Writes Irenaeus, "But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and acquainted with many that had seen Christ, but was also appointed by apostles in Asia bishop of the church of Smyrna... And when... Polycarp was at Rome in the time of Anicetus [around 154 C.E.] he caused many to turn away from the... heretics [at Rome] to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles which he also handed down to the church."
Polycarp and Anicetus had sharp but formal dissension over the whole matter of the timing of the Passover and Lord's Supper celebration. Polycarp demanded the traditional 14th day of the first Jewish month as the day to keep the Lord's Supper but Anicetus remained adamant that his tradition (handed down to him by his immediate predecessors at Rome) was indeed the genuine position to be taken. In other words, Irenaeus records that the Roman bishop considered the customs of mere men of more value than the inspired Scriptural accounts! The Roman church has followed this philo-sophy ever since! But Irenaeus continues:
"For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of Our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it, as he said that he ought to FOLLOW THE CUSTOMS of the presbyters [elders or bishops] that had preceded him" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III., 4; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 14, 3: Eusebius, Letter to Victor, V, 24, 16; (Ed.) J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius, 1957, 119 art. IV).
Only 35 years then passed before the controversy again broke forth, this time between an Eastern elder, Polycrates, and another bishop of Rome, Victor. It was this Simonite (Victor) who attempted "to cut off whole churches of God, who observed the tradition of an ancient custom" -- the observance of the Lord's Supper on the 14th day of the first Jewish month Nisan (Irenaeus, Letter to Victor, V, 24, 9-11). Against Victor Polycrates railed, "As for us, we scrupulously observe the EXACT DAY, neither adding nor taking away. For in Asia great luminaries have gone to their rest, who shall rise again in the day of the coming of the Lord... Among these are Philip, one of the twelve apostles... and John moreover, who was both a witness and a teacher, who reclined on the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest wore a sacerdotal plate ... Then there is Polycarp... These all kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month, in accordance with the Gospel without ever deviating from it, but keeping to the rule of faith" (Eusebius, Ep. of Irenaeus to Victor, V, 24, 4-6).
Polycrates resided near Ephesus (H.R. Boer, A Short History of the Early Church, 1976, 83). This was the exact area where the apostle Paul engaged in so much of his ministry, and where the apostle John retired. It is in this very area that church authorities record the true Messianic Community of God remaining obedient to the knowledge they had at that time! The moves by Roman Simonites to change the date of the annual Lord's Supper to a fixed Sunday celebration in honour of Mashiach's resurrection was the FIRST in a series of sweeping reforms which would alter the face of Christianity.
ROMAN EMPEROR INITIATES PERSECUTION
Latourette tells us that "Easter seems... NOT to have been celebrated primarily to commemorate the resurrection. Only gradually was it Christianised" (K.S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, Vol. I.,305). That some of the Roman bishops knew the secret of Easter, and its pagan origin, can no longer be doubted. We know that at the time of Victor the celebration had been attended by an inner core of priests (with their congregations) for at least a generation (Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, 192). Roman Catholic writers in this century seeking to moderate the plain language of ecclesiastical history, tell us that their church "found it necessary, in the conversion of the Gentiles, to dissemble and WINK AT many things and YIELD to the times" (Taylor, Diegesis, 237).
Socrates Scholasticus informs us: "Inasmuch as men love festivals, because they afford them cessation from labour: each individual in every place, according to his own pleasure, has by a prevalent custom celebrated [Easter]... The Saviour and his apostles have enjoined us by no law to keep this feast... just as many other customs have been established in individual localities according to usage, so also the feast of Easter came to be observed in each place according to the individual peculiarities of the peoples, inasmuch as none of the apostles legislated on the matter. And that observance originated not by legislation, but as a custom the facts themselves indicate" (Eccles. History, 22).
Neither Yeshua nor the apostles introduced the pagan Easter into the Church. The Simonite priesthood now well-established in Rome conspired against the Gospel and made the observance of the Easter festival mandatory. So read the pages of history! "There is no indication of the observance of Easter... in the [pages of the NT]... The first Christians continued to observe the Jewish festivals, though in a new spirit, as commemorations of events which those festivals had foreshadowed" (Encyc. Britannica, "Easter," 11th ed.). Yet we find the Roman practice of observing a fixed Sunday celebration of Easter gaining ground everywhere, finally being proclaimed as law by the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.
It was a law the entire church had to obey (Schaff, History of the Church, Vol. II, 218). It was at this Council that the Roman bishops gave sanction to an old Babylonian tradition of a Sunday resurrection (Yeshua actually rose from the dead on a weekly Sabbath) when they "decided that Easter Day should always be on a Sunday, but NEVER at the same time as the feast of the Jews [Passover]. If the Jewish Passover fell on a Sunday, Easter Day was transferred to the following Sunday" (Burns, The Council of Nicaea, 46). After all, explained the Roman Emperor Constantine -- a worshiper of Helios the sun-god until the day he died -- how could "we who are Christians possibly keep the same day as those wicked Jews?" (Gwatkin, Arian Controversy, 38). Second and third century anti-Semitism within the Western church helped generate the polarisation of the majority of Christian assemblies to the Roman Easter. Most certainly this was the case with the introduction of Sunday observance into the church (Samuele Bacchiocchi, Anti-Judaism & the Origin of Sunday, 1975, 89ff).
The Council of Nicaea was convened to discuss the problems associated with the observance of Easter, the issue having come to a head with the refusal of the church in the East to reject the Gospel completely. Eusebius, the Catholic historian, tells us, "But before this time another most virulent disorder had existed, and long afflicted the Church; I mean the differ-ence respecting ... Easter. For while one party asserted that the Jewish custom should be adhered to, the others [insisted on Rome's stand]. Accordingly, the people being thus in every place divided in respect of this... and... no one appeared who was capable of devising a remedy for the evil, because the controversy continued equally divided between both parties... and Constantine appeared to be the only one on earth capable of [solving the dispute]... He [thus] convoked a general Council" (Eusebius, The Life of Constantine, III, V-VI).
At the conclusion of this great worldly Council, convened, authorised, controlled and presided over by an arrogant heathen Roman Emperor, the annual celebration of the Lord's Supper on the Passover was forbidden and the pagan celebration of "the Mysteries" instituted and sanctioned, to be celebrated on the day of the Sun (Sunday).
"At this meeting the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved... that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day... First of all, it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews... Let us... have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd... Let us with one consent adopt this course, and withdraw ourselves from all participation in their baseness... For how should they be capable of forming a sound judgment, who, since their parricidal guilt in slaying their Lord, have been subject to the direction, not of reason, but of ungoverned passion, and are swayed by every impulse of the mad spirit that is in them?... it is most fitting that... [we ought to be diligent] in avoiding all participation in the... conduct of the Jews... it has been determined... that... Easter should be kept on one and the same day" (Eusebius, ibid., III, 18 & 19).
And what of the Christians in Rome, influenced by the heroic stand of the bishops of the Eastern Church, who could not accept the decree of the Roman Emperor? The following letter was authorised from Rome:
"VICTOR CONSTANTINUS, MAXIMUS AUGUSTUS, TO THE HERETICS:
... To speak of your criminality as it deserves demands more time and leisure than I can give... Why not at once strike, as it were, at the root of so great a mischief [he means by this the Gospel with its myriad implications, and the Jewish thought-forms which gave us the Scripture] by a PUBLIC MANIFESTATION of displeasure [by inciting a persecution or pogrom]. Foras-much, then, as it is no longer possible to bear with your pernicious errors, we give warning by this present statute that none of you henceforth presume to assemble yourselves together. We have directed, accordingly, THAT YOU BE DEPRIVED OF ALL THE HOUSES IN WHICH YOU ARE ACCUSTOMED TO HOLD YOUR ASSEMBLIES: and we forbid the holding of your superstitious and senseless meetings, not in public merely, but in any private house or place whatso-ever ... TAKE THE FAR BETTER COURSE OF ENTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH... We have commanded... that you be positively deprived of every gathering point for your superstitious meetings, I mean ALL the houses of prayer... and that these be made over immediately to the Catholic Church; that any other places be confiscated to the public service, and no facility whatever be left for any future gathering, in order that from this day forward none of your unlawful assemb-lies may presume to appear in any public or private place. Let this edict be made public" (ibid., III, lxiv, lxv).
With this edict began the infamous 1000-year long Simonite persecution against the authentic Messianic Community of God. The spiritual Body of Mashiach had to literally flee the bounds of the Western Roman Empire. For over 1000 years Rome sought to destroy every vestige of truth in the Gospel. When finally the faint flicker of the light of the Gospel was about to dim to eternal extinction, God raised up a Roman monk called Martin Luther (even with all his faults and mis-guided views) and the faint light of truth once again burst into a raging, cyclonic inferno. Tragically, the Reformation was never completed.
Leaving their Mother (Rome) the Reformers took with them their cherished momentoes from the religious corridors of Roman power. These "quaint" pagan customs are rife within the worldly Protestant daughters of Rome.
PRESENTING IN MODERN DRESS -- THE ANCIENT BABYLONIAN MYSTERIES
Many scholars pursuing the study of religious antiquity are amazed to find parallels and similarity between today's Easter customs and those cultic and ceremonial rituals that featured in the tribal festive solemnities of primitive times. Even the very name "Easter" has a very definite Babylonian "ring" to it. In fact even the Saxon reference for the March/April (Spring) equinox is derived from the Teuton feast of Ostara (or, Eostre) the fair and beautiful Mother-goddess of the rising light of day and spring (Catholic Encyclopaedia, art. "Easter"). This ancient German feast was held at the same time as our Easter (Kurtz, Church History, Vol. 1., 356). But, not to be outdone by her German cousins, the English anglicised the personal name of this heathen goddess to better correspond to her Babylonian original, Ishtar (Astarte). Her name, in this almost forgotten tongue, was pronounced EESHTA (See Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons, 103). This woman, Ishtar or Semiramis, just happened to be the white-skinned nymphomaniac who is known by scholars to have had a pathological penis fixation and who married her own well-endowed son, the notorious Nimrod. Now some religious folk will shudder out of horror that we documented this mental disorder in our lecture but its historically established and we include it here for the sake of truth -- and isn't TRUTH what we all should be primarily preoccupied to pursue?
Of course it is! Especially is this the case when we realise why the ancient Babylonian Mystery Religion was rooted in the depths of Canaanite sex worship. Understanding this shameful past helps us to grasp why it is that the Mysteries found such a haven at Rome in the last days of the apostles Peter and Paul. God has a great deal to say about the end-time woman who rides a wild animal and to comprehend just who she is one must turn to the sexual history of the ancient world. Education is education. False modesty has no place in the economy of God.
Now, Nimrod was the great pagan Saviour of the ancient world. His empire was worldwide. His mother, Ishtar, was known as "the Queen of heaven." Confirms Hislop, "[Easter] bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the 'queen of heaven' whose name, as pronounced by the people of Ninevah, was
... identical with that now in common use in this country... The festival, of which we read in church history under the name of Easter, in the third and fourth centuries... at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It [was] called Pass-over... That festival was not idolatrous and was preceded by no Lent" (The Two Babylons, 103,104).
The influence of Semiramis (otherwise known as Astarte, Beltis, Athena, Easter) in her "royal office" as "queen of heaven" cannot be underestimated. Her cultic mania, her philosophy, her idolatrous subjectivism found root in the nourishing soil of the religious life of even God's own chosen people, Israel. Whenever there was apostasy from the way of God we find that her own special brand of seduction was at the foundation of the corruption. When it took root it gripped the nation of Israel by the throat. Even the prophet Jeremiah was rejected in favour of the sensual liturgy and rites of this whore.
"Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people... answered Jeremiah saying, 'As for the word which you have spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto you. But WE WILL CERTAINLY DO WHATSOEVER THING GOES FORTH OUT OF OUR OWN MOUTH, TO BURN INCENSE UNTO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN, and to pour out drink offerings unto her as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then we had plenty of victuals, and were well off, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have lacked all, and have been consumed by the sword and by famine. And when we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, DID WE MAKE HER CAKES to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men's knowledge?'" (Jer 44.15-19).
The ancient pagans, like the Israelites in their apostasy, appeased the Queen of Heaven with offerings of "holy bread" or hot cakes (Marolles quoting Tibullus in Memoirs, 215). This old document of the prophet Jeremiah is interesting from a number of points of view, not the least of which should be of concern to those modern believers who "blab it and grab it" and "name it and claim it" within the hallowed halls of denominations which preach a "prosperity gospel."
- That Satan can and does bless his people, as often does the Lord, seems to escape their attention. Blessings, as such, PROVE NOTHING.
While Israel worshiped the goddess Ishtar famine and the fear of hostilities, invasion, calamities and all evil seemed far off. Today we say much the same thing! And every Easter period without fail we bake "hot cross buns" -- hot cakes to the Queen of Heaven imprinted with the insignia of Tammuz (Nimrod) in the form of the cross. That these cakes did bear the sign of the cross, the symbol in antiquity of Tammuz or Nimrod, the crucified Saviour of the Gentile world, is a matter not of conjecture but of history (William S. Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs, 483).
NIMROD'S EMPIRE WORLDWIDE
Even as late as 1500 BCE these hot cross buns were traditionally eaten during the Spring season in honour of the Queen of Heaven (Hislop, op.cit., 108). Jeremiah claimed that these cakes were really buns, for the Hebrew word translated as "cakes" in Jer 7.18 is kavvan which can only mean "bun." Comments Bryant, "One species of sacred bread which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun" (Mythology., Vol.1, 373). In like manner Diogenes Laertius, referring to this offering of buns to the gods by one Empedocles, says the ingredients were "made of fine flour and honey" (Laertius.,1664, 227B; Consider comments by Finis J. Dake, Annotated Reference Bible., 752 n.p.).
Prior to the Easter festival the castrated devotees of the inner circle of the worship of the Queen of Heaven underwent a vigorous and excruciating period of abstinence. This torture was considered a vital prerequisite for the initiate of the Mysteries. It lasted a total of 40 days. In ancient Mexico, where the cult once flourished, "three days after the vernal equinox... began a solemn fast of 40 days in honour of the sun" (Humboldt, Mexican Researches., Vol.1, 404). This same period was observed in Egypt (Wilkinson's Egyptian Antiquities, Vol.1.,278) and was expressly held in commem-oration of the crucified Osiris, or Adonis (Shiva), the great Mediatorial god (Landseer, Sabean Researches) who also went, in the Graeco-Roman world, by the name of Mithras (Plutarch, De Iside., Vol.11., 369). The Persian sun-god was, then, none other than Ba'al-berith -- the Lord of the Covenant (Judges 8.33) -- Nimrod. The worshipers of Ba'al-berith met secretly in caves to celebrate the Mysteries, as did the followers of the Persian sun-god Mithras and the devotees of Adonis. Initiates were introduced to the Mysteries in deep caverns in Petra (J. Gresham Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, 1930, 346) and as far away as Japan (Augustus Le Plongeon, Sacred Mysteries Among the Mayas and the Quiches, 1886, 27). To this day certain carefully selected Australian aboriginals are initiated into their Mysteries in caves and caverns at puberty. Until recently "in the spring of the year" the devil-worshiping Yezidis of Kurdistan wept and wailed for a full forty days in remembrance of their crucified lord (R.H.W. Empson, The Cult of the Peacock Angel, 1928). It is a practice inherited from their Babylonian conquerors of long ago (Ralph Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion, 158).
Lent and Easter, like their counterpart Xmas, stand condemned as nothing more than rank paganism. Yet many modern ministers exclaim that it really doesn't matter these days that such celebrations are rooted in paganism and witchcraft. After all, they say, God looks on the heart and not upon our feast days. Listen! God has ALWAYS looked on the heart. And he has ALWAYS expected his people to be a different people from those in the world around them (Deut 26.18-19; 1 Pet 2.9).
This instruction need not be the impetus for some "holiness trip" or "righteousness by works" accomplishment but a joyful, appreciative recognition of what God has done in what is usually termed by Christians "the cross event" and of what He expects from each of us -- an attitude engendered by a desire to please Him in all (not most) things. The apostle Paul REQUIRED that Christians should cast off pagan ways and heathenish philosophies. He most certainly based his REQUIREMENT on his acute knowledge of the WILL of God as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures and as subjected to the Gospel.
But people like to argue with God. They like to contend with the Creator. This is more the case because Our Lord often keeps silent in the heavens. But God is around and He is listening. HaShem won't be cast aside forever. It would appear to those of us associated with the BRI and the IMCF that the same Lord who made such a fuss over the exact same celebrations in millennia past (which we believers have carried on over into the churches of this present evil world system) is yet again to make a great deal of fuss OVER THE SAME ISSUES at his soon coming Advent. At that time we find the Messiah requiring certain Mosaic feasts to be observed by Gentiles, not the pagan Easter, Xmas and Lent (Zech 14).
The Lord made it quite clear to Israel! "When the Lord your God shall cut off the nations from before you, whither you go to possess them... and you dwell in their land: Take heed to yourself that you be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before you; AND THAT YOU ENQUIRE NOT AFTER THEIR GODS, saying, HOW DID THESE NATIONS SERVE THEIR GODS, EVEN SO WILL I DO LIKEWISE. You shall NOT do so unto the Lord your God" (Deut 12.29-31).
The Lord God of Israel IS the LORD Yeshua haMashiach of your Bible. No, God has not changed all that much. As far as His likes and dislikes are concerned He is the same, yesterday, today and forever (Mal 3.6; Heb 13.8). Not only so, we do not think that God has been desperately attempting to "catch up" with the progressive thinking of some of our "spiritual coverings" and "shepherds" who have tried to usurp the exercise of God's power and prerogatives in matters which they feel (and publicly state) are of no real consequence. It was self-opinionated human nature that put the Lord on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth. It was religious man, more than any other, that committed Deicide. It was indeed the religious leaders (the same Coverings and Shepherds) who sincerely believed they were of God -- and they WERE representatives of God's kingdom, of His government (Mt 23.2-3) -- who put the Lord to death. And they would do it again if He came amongst us as He did over 1900 years ago.
But while the early Community of Faith remained close to Mashiach -- in the first flush of the love of Yeshua -- Easter and Lent and other pagan festivities held no significance in the lives of faithful, loyal believers. But today? "It ought to be known that the consequence of the forty days [fast period] had no existence, SO LONG AS THE PERFECTION OF THAT PRIMITIVE CHURCH REMAINED INVIOLATE" (Gieseler, Ecclesiastical History quoting Cassianus the monk of Marseilles in the 5th century, Vol.11.,42).
BUT WHY EGGS AND RABBITS?
The Catholic Encyclopaedia tells us that Easter eggs found their origin in heathen worship and that the concept of the religious wait for the yearly return of Spring not only sprang out of idolatrous sex worship, but gravitated to our own Easter celebrations. The ancient idolaters were preoccupied with a universal theme, a drama of death and resurrection of a heathen deity who perished near the dawn of time. He was variously addressed as Nimrod, Tammuz, Adonis, Shiva, Kore, Dionysus. His rites were the forerunners of the "Christian" Easter, and "thus the first Easter services" (A.W. Watts, Easter, Its Story & Meaning, 58). The author of The Golden Bough tells us "when we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to plant the seeds of the new faith ON THE OLD STOCK OF PAGANISM, we may surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was GRAFTED UPON a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which... was celebrated in Syria at the same season" (Frazer, The Golden Bough, 345).
The perfection of the spiritual Messianic Community was, and is, Our Lord Yeshua. The Gospel is centred IN him. When believers began to realise that their Lord was delaying his return full conversions became scarce. It was not too long before human nature and rank carnality was the norm where once the Spirit of a holy God had free course. "Now the Easter rites," continues Frazer, "bear... a striking resemblance to the rites of Adonis, and I have suggested that the Church MAY HAVE CONSCIOUSLY adapted the new festival to its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ" (ibid., Vol.V, 306).
The Gospel was not considered effective enough in bringing the world to a salvation in Yeshua! By rejecting the Jewish thoughtforms about the salvation of man and in particular the Judeo-Christian theology of "Firstfruits" the Constantinian Church began teaching that today is the only day of salvation! They had effectively lost the Gospel! The world had to be saved NOW at all costs! They had lost the realisation that the Church was an educational instrument forming the unique
nucleus of the coming GOVERNMENT of God! The Church was a radical training centre -- based partially on, but a departure from, the synagogue model -- for the necessary education and character development and "on the job" equip-ping of Christians TO RULE THE WORLD under Mashiach! All Christians encounter trials, troubles and persecution. This is a major reason WHY troubles afflict the true people of God. If any of our readers consider that they are "born again" and are not yet struggling against difficulties, afflictions and travail -- THEN LOOK OUT. You may never have been converted in the first place. False conversion can be a mortal danger.
Roman Catholic scholars all agree that the rites of Adonis were "adopted" by the church early in its formation, and that it swept the entire Christian world especially after the Roman bishop had given the "nod" of approval to utilise such "adap-tation" in order to "win the masses." One writer comments, "All the churches of the West, the South and the North, had ADOPTED this practice (particularly Rome), the whole of Italy, Africa, Spain, Egypt, Gaul, Britain, Lybia, Achaia; it has even been ADOPTED in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus and Cilicia" (Hefele, History of the Councils, Vol.1., 306,307).
Some of the early church "fathers" were Gnostics, secret followers of the arch-Gnostic Simon of Samaria. Satan's counterfeit church was always, even from ancient days, centred in Gnosticism. The Orphic Mystery Religion of the East had as its symbol the serpent-entwined egg, which signified the cosmos as "encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit... the serpent represented the Mysteries. At the time of initiation the shell is broken and Man emerges from the embryonic state of physical existence where-in he had remained through the foetal period of philosophic regeneration" (Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, 1975, xx).
From Eden, Satan has always been pictured as a serpent (Rev 12.9). Satan used the lures of pure Gnostic thought to persuade Eve to disobey God (Gen 3.5-6). After the expulsion from Eden man has ever attempted to "get back" to the original condition of the Garden, forever grasping at new philosophical, socio-economic and political theories which he vainly hopes will unlock the door to the pure Mysteries of God. The tree of life remains hardly touched, while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been continually subjected to experimentation and violation. But in the ancient Mysteries the egg has always represented new life. So the pagans all over the world, from Babylon to Japan, have used the egg to symbolise man's attempt to resurrect the ancient Order through regeneration. Ignoring the Spirit of God (a regenerating Spirit) man has tried to gain his salvation, his immortality, through the application of philosophical principles (especially as applied in political theory). In a word man has tried to get salvation by his own works.
States Britannica, "The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival" (Encyc. Brit., art. "Easter").
Pope Paul V consecrated the Easter egg. But this should not surprise any of us when we realise that Rome has always followed the same policy of "mixing it" with the pagan philosophies and traditions of the nations she sought to conquer. "Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Hislop, The Two Babylons, 110). That Rome had early become a centre of the Gnostic fertility cult is apparent when we consider the Syro-Phoenician Romans brought to the city and erected a mammoth Egyptian obelisk (penis monument) right outside the Vatican! It is there in all its shameful glory for the entire world to see.
Now we know that Quexalcote of Mexico, Chris of Chaldea, Quirinus of Rome, Prometheus of Caucasus, Osiris of Egypt, Attis of Phrygia, and Mithra the Mediator of Persia all, according to their respective histories, rose from the dead after three days burial and the date of their resurrection was FIXED BY PRIESTS for the 25th day of March. To this impressive list should also be added the Hindu crucified god, Lord KRSNA (Krishna). "There is an account, more than three thousand years old of...Chrishna, three days after his internment, forsaking 'the silent bourn, whence (as we are told) no traveller ever returns', and... again walking forth to mortal life, to be again seen, recognised, admired, and adored by his pious, devout and awe-stricken followers, and thus to present to the gaze of a hoping yet doubting world 'the firstfruits of the resurrection'" (K. Graves, The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours, 145).
The devotees of Mithra the Mediator were in the habit of chanting in their solemn way, "Cheer up, holy mourners; your God has come again to life; his sorrows and his sufferings will save you" (See Pitrat, 105). March 25th was the start of the Persian new year and is, by marvellous coincidence (!), marked in our own calendar as the consecrated date of the conception and annunciation of Mary -- and it was also the date of the conception of the ancient Roman Virgin Asteria "and of the ever-chaste and holy Virgin Isis, as well as the time of the conjugal embrace of the solar and lunar potentates of the visible universe" (Graves, Christianity Before Christ, 146).
And what of the harmless little Easter bunny? Where does he fit into the Easter scheme or scam? And what of the traditional eating of ham during this festive period? Again let history echo! "The joy of Easter... like the... egg, the Easter hare... came to Christianity from antiquity. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of ancient Egypt and other peoples. It belongs to the night ... It is born with its eyes open, and like the moon, is 'the open-eyed watcher of the skies'" (Encyc. Brit., 1962 ed., Vol VII, 859). The hare belongs to the night! So, it appears, does Easter. The rabbit was consider-ed a royal animal, as established by the story of British queen Boadicea taking a hare into battle. And, as Herodotus notes, it is able to conceive when already pregnant. The rabbit is the symbol of the power of sex and procreation -- it "mates openly without embarrassment like the turtle-dove, the dog, the cat or the tattooed Pict. The position of the Hare constellation at the feet of Orion suggests that it was sacred in Pelasgian Greece too" (Robert Graves, The White Goddess, 1961, 293).
In primitive days, near the dawn of time, the ancient world considered the pig or boar obnoxious. The taboo against eating the flesh of swine was known long before it found its inclusion in the Mosaic law of the clean and the unclean. When Shem (Set) the son of the patriarch Noah crucified Nimrod the pagan devotees of the black demi-god associated Set with the dirtiest animal they could imagine. Hence he is always symbolised as either a boar, or as wearing the skins and head of such a creature. The consuming of swine's flesh during the Easter period is thus self-explanatory! This age-old custom, admits modern Catholic authors, has been "handed down from pre-Christian times" (Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts & Customs, 237).
Thus, the inhabitants of the British Isles as well as the Scandinavians ate the flesh of boars at Easter, and the Germanic tribes roasted pork on Xmas Day. Admits Weiser, "At Easter smoked or cooked ham... has been roasted by most Euro-pean nations from ancient times" (ibid). Even the Roman Catholic Church, with full knowledge of what the practice typified, gave its "liturgical blessing of Easter ham" from the tenth century of our era.
In the Middle Ages, the eating of ham at Easter took on an even worse application as anti-Semitism swept Europe. Britannica tells us "those families who, by custom, eat ham on Easter Sunday ARE UNWITTINGLY FOLLOWING AN OLD PRACTICE of the Roman Catholics of England, who ate a gammon of bacon on Easter TO [OPENLY] SHOW THEIR CONTEMPT FOR THE JEWS, to whom pork is forbidden" (Encyc. Brit., 1962 ed. Vol. VII, 859).
The pagans themselves objected that the Church had copied their most sacred customs and rites of worship especially those which supposedly commemorated the sacrifice of the cross during the vernal equinox (Cumont, 71).
"Indignant at these blasphemous pretensions," writes Cumont, "St Augustine tells of having known a priest of Cybele who kept saying: Et ipse Pileatus christianus est - 'and even the god with the Phrygian cap [ie, Attis] is a Christian.' But all efforts to maintain a barbarian religion stricken with moral decadence were in vain. On the very spot on which the last
taurobolia [a shower-bath of luke-warm blood] took place at the end of the fourth century, in the Phrygianum, stands today the basilica of the Vatican" (Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, 71).
AND WHERE DOES ALL THIS LEAVE YOU?
We have seen from the admissions of foremost world authorities (including prominent Roman Catholics) that the customs and rites of Easter stand condemned as nothing more than the deliberate continuation of ancient fertility cults in honour of the Dark Lord and heathen Saviour Nimrod, and his incestuous mother Semiramis, the Virgin Queen of Heaven. The origin of our "quaint and harmless" methods of celebration stem from witchcraft and Satan worship that have survived through a long chain of religious circles from savage antiquity.
Nowhere does the "NT" enjoin the observance of Easter on Christians. This is the clear unmitigated verdict of both Scripture and history. Easter was "fixed" by a non-Christian sun worshipping pagan Roman emperor at the Council of Nicea manipulated by spiritual Simonites. Further, the Roman Catholic bishops persecuted and excommunicated believers who would not adopt the newly introduced (but extremely old) philosophies of Gnostic thought. The dusty records of ecclesiastical history reveal that the Christian churches in the East refused to allow the Roman Church one inch when it came to the assumption of authority in areas they believed were Scripturally self-evident. They certainly refused to follow the Roman path of apostasy with regard to the Easter question, and the Celtic church in the British Isles maintained its obstinance to the Roman Easter to at least 650, northern Ireland finally capitulating in 704 (Leslie Hardinge, The Celtic Church in Britain, 26).
It is generally conceded that the LORD GOD of the Old Testament is none other than Yeshua Messiah (Jn 1.1-3; Col 1. 13-19. The Messiah was IN the Mind of God before the Big Bang, according to ancient mystical Jewish literature). The LORD Yeshua the Messiah considers the rites of Easter as anything but "a light thing." We may, as mortal humans, think differently about these seemingly harmless customs and "Christian" celebrations but in the final analysis it is the Mashiach's opinion that will carry the weight.
"Turn you yet again," says HaShem of Israel to the prophet Ezekiel, "and you shall see greater abominations than these [the prophet had just witnessed in vision idol worship among those who professed to be the true people of God]. And he brought me in to the inner court of the Eternal's house, and behold... between the porch and the altar were about twenty five men, with... THEIR FACES TOWARD THE EAST: AND THEY WORSHIPED THE SUN TOWARD THE EAST [this was a sun-rise service!]. Then he said unto me, Have you seen this O son of man? IS IT A LIGHT THING... that they commit the abominations which they commit here?... Therefore will I deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity! And though they cry into my ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them!" (Ezek 8.15-18).
Messiah Yeshua condemns the Ishtar celebrations by his people -- a justified people, a sanctified people, a purchased people. We ought to be standing in the Gospel, and not up to our necks in idolatrous rites and witchcraft. Even sunrise services are condemned by the Gospel as an utter abomination. God has decreed that his people "LEARN NOT THE WAY OF THE HEATHEN" surrounding them (Deut 18.9 cf Jer 10.2-3).
This coming spring (if you live in the northern hemisphere) or autumn (if you live in the southern hemisphere), if you count yourself a Christian, a disciple or student of Yeshua the Messiah, and you really want to honour him by remembering the anniversary of his death and to give glory to God for his resurrection, then forget Easter. Let your heart dwell on the awe-some sacrifice of our Lord on the tree of Golgoleth by all means. Certainly reflect on what he has done for you personally, and for the whole world. But as Christians, true believers united to the Lord as one Spirit, we ought to praise him with a profound sense of appreciation and dignity.
- With true understanding and grateful hearts, let us leave behind our inherited pagan rites and abominable customs.
A Special Additional Note from the Messianic Rebbe: There can be no doubt that many of the practices of the modern Christian Church leave a lot to be desired. Friends, many ministers are too embarrassed (or blatantly dishonest) to admit openly that they preside over a largely heathen, apostate church replete with the trappings of an ancient and virulent paganism. Yet there are some converted men in the ministry of Yeshua Messiah today who openly recognise that the worship of Ba'al has been illegally mixed with the pure worship of the LORD Yeshua. We encourage readers of BRI material and members of the BRI/IMCF International Internet Yeshiva Student Membership Board and the Inter-national Messianic Community of Faith congregations to effectively pray for these men of conscience. And pray that this Voice of the Messianic Movement will be heard and received with joy and gladness, rather than with opposition, by all who seek to serve the Lord with a pure heart in spirit and in truth.
