Sacred Texts Index Previous Next
Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com
The Sacrificial God man
Ammond Shadowcraft
How did the Christian mythos arise? Where did it come from?
The Christian myth is almost totally Pagan in origin. I used to
thinkthat anythingoutside theJudeo/Christian/Moslem BeliefSystem or
worldview was Pagan. Such is not the case.
Thetwomain featuresofthe CBSarethe EucharistandSacrifice of
a God man. These two features were well known and well loved by Pagan
mystery cults centuries before the Christian Cults integrated them
into the Gospels.
The Eucharist goes way back into history and is based upon the
ritual consumption of the God man. Osiris, Dionysus, Attis and many
others were ritually consumed. The practice dates back to prehistory
when a human sacrifice was identified with the God (perhaps a
Vegetative God) and was sacrificed and eaten. Over the ages human
sacrifice was found detestable. Animals were then substituted and
sacrificed as the ritual identifier of the God which was then followed
by grain offerings, breads shaped into the form of the God, sometimes
in the shapes of natural items (sun, moon, etc.).
The mythos of the Jewish Christ integrated this practice into it's
mysteries. There is strong reason for this. For some 200 plus years
before the time recorded for Jesus the Greeks and their mystery cults
invaded and changed Israel for all time. A war was instituted to
diminish or wipeout theHellenizing influence. Partof theHellenizing
influence was an effort to update or change the Jewish religion to
something more applicable to the times. After the Maccabbees War the
Hellenizing cultist were driven underground; right to the heart of the
Jewish mystical culture. Hence the Greek influence upon the myth of
Jesus.
The sacrifice of the God man (Jesus, Attis, Adonis, Osiris) was a
well known and well loved feature also. In fact it was necessary to
have a willing sacrifice before a Eucharist could be performed. When
the sacrifice was not willing the legs and sometimes arms of the
sacrifice were broken to make it look like the sacrifice was willing
(not struggling against the sacrificers). Jesus was a willing
sacrifice.
Images of Attis (Tammuz/Dummuzi) were nailed or impaled upon a pine
tree. The Jews knew this and wrote "Cursed is he who hangs upon a
tree." A goat was substituted for a boy in sacrifice to Dionysus at
Potniae and a hart for a virgin at Laodicea. King Athamas had been
called upon to sacrifice his first born son by the Delphic Oracle,
Melenloas sacrificed two children in Egypt when stayed by contrary
winds; three Persian boys were offered up at the battle of Salamis. It
was only inthe time of Hadrianthat the annualhuman sacrifice toZeus
was abolished at Salamis in Cyprus. The God man Jesus was hung upon a
tree;he was also thelamb of God.As such the sacrificeand Eucharist
of the God man Jesus is purely Pagan in origin.
686
Part of the older Pagan sacrifices was in the King sacrificing his
only begotten son. Jesus was the only begotten son of the King of
Israel, sacrificed to take away the sins of the world. This practice
was overturned in the myth of Abraham and Issac when it was found
detestable andinjurious to thetribe or kingdom.Yet the Godman Jesus
wassacrificed in the flesh.This was done to appealto the underground
Greek mystery cults who had much in common with the Jewish Christian
Cultist.
"During centuries of this evolution, the Jewish people tasted many
times thebitterness ofdespair and theprofound doubt denouncedby the
last of the prophets. In periods when many went openly over to
Hellenism, it could not be but the ancient rites of the Semitic
race were revived, as some are declared to have been in earlier times
oftrouble. Among therites of expiationand propitiation, nonestood
traditionally higher than the sacrifice of the king, or the king's son.
The Jews saw such an act performed for them, as it were, when the
Romans under Anthony, at Herod's wish, scourged, crucified [lit. bound
to stake], and beheaded Antigonous, the last of the Asmonean priest
kings in 37 B.C." _Pagan_Christs_ page 44,45 by J. M. Robertson
ThemodeofsacrificewaspredeterminedbypreviousPagan doctrine.
The type of sacrifice was also predetermined by Pagan doctrine. Both
the sacrifice of the king, and the king's son were incorporated into
the Gospel myth.The God man Jesusis both the Kingof the Jews andthe
son of God, the king of Israel.
As stated before the sacrifice of the king or king's son was found
injurious to the state. Before animal and grain sacrifices, criminals
and prisoners of war were substituted. Yet the criminal had to be
identified with the king. This was done by putting royal robes on the
sacrifice and parading the sacrifice around, calling it the king.
"The number three was of mystic significance in many parts of the
East. The Dravidians of India sacrificed three victims to the Sun-god.
Inwestern as ineastern Asia, thenumber three wouldhave its votaries
in respect of trinitartian concepts as well as the primary notions of
'the heavens,the earth,and theunderworld.' Traditionally,the Syrian
rite called for a royal victim. The substitution of a criminal for the
king or kings son was repugnant, however, to the higher doctrine that
thevictim be unblemished.To solve thisproblem oneof the malefactors
was distinguished fromthe other criminalsby a ritual ofmock-crowning
and robing in the spirit of 'sympathetic magic'. By parading him as
king, and calling the others what indeed they were, it was possible to
attain the semblance of a truly august sacrifice." _Pagan_Christs_, by
J.M. Robertson page 45
There is nothing in this mythos that did not originate in other
cultures.
"We can only conclude that the death ritual of the Christian creed
was framed in a pagan environment and embodies some of the most
widespread ideas of Pagan religion. the two aspects in which the
historic Christ is typically presented to his worshipers, those of his
infancy and death, are typically Pagan." _Pagan_Christs_ by J.M
Roberts, page 52.
What about the man Jesus then? Was he divine? Did he exist? Is/was
687
he the Savior?
Most, if not all, of the Christian Belief System is Pagan in
origin. It is indeed hard to force oneself to believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God when such titles were readily
copied from Pagan doctrine. Perhaps the only item not borrowed from
Pagan sources was the Messiah concept. That, of course, was taken from
the Jewish hysteria of the time. In the siege of Jerusalem in 72 C.E.
there were some18 Messiahs insideJerusalem alone. Neitherthe Godman
Jesus nor the self proclaimed militant messiahs saved Jerusalem. Such
was the measure of hysterical superstition upon the nation of Israel.
"There is not a conception associated with Christ that is not
common to some or all of the Savior cults of antiquity. The title
Savior was given in Judaism to Yahweh; among the Greeks to Zeus,
Heilos, Artemis, Dionysus, Hercales, the Dioscurui, Ceybele and
Aesculapius. It is the essential conception of Osiris. So, too, Osiris
taketh away sin, is the judge of the dead and of the last judgment.
Dionysus, the Lord of the UnderWorld and primarily a god of feasting
('the Son of Man commeth eating and drinking'), comes to be conceived
as the Soul of the World and the inspirer of chastity and self
purification.[J. M. Robertson maybe referring toAttis here.] From
the Mysteries of Dionysus and Isis comes the proclamation of the easy
'yoke'. Christ not only works the Dionysiac miracle, but calls himself
the 'true vine.'"
"Like Christ, and like Adonis and Attis, Osiris and Dionysus also
suffer and die and rise again. To become one with them is the mystical
passion of their worshippers. They are all alike in that their
mysteries give immortality. From Mithraism Christ takes the symbolic
keys of heaven and hell and assumes the function of the virgin-born
Saoshyant, the destroyer of the Evil One. Like Mithra, Merodach, and
the Egyptian Khousu, he is the Mediator; like Khousu, Horus and
Merodach, he is one of a trinity, like Horus he is grouped with a
Divine Mother;like Khousu heis joined tothe Logos; andlike Merodach
he is associated with the Holy Spirit, one of whose symbols is fire."
"In fundamentals, therefore, Christism is but paganism reshaped. It
is only the economic and doctrinal evolution of the system--the first
determined byJewish practice andRoman environment, the secondby
Greek thought--that constitutesnew phenomena in religious history."
_Pagan__Christs_ by J.M. Robertson pages 52,53
No religion develops in a vacuum. All religions are influenced not
only by it's predecessors but by the contemporaries of the time also.
Such is the nature of Christism yesterday and today.
Now about Jesus the man, did he exist? I think not. All the
teaching of Jesus can be attributed to other sources and grafted over
the Gospel myth. Nothing he said was substantially different in any way
from previous sayings. Jesus was not a man but a contrived myth.
688
"The Christian myth grew by absorbing details from pagan cults. The
birth story is similar to many nativity myths in the pagan world. The
Christ had to have a Virgin for a mother. Like the image of the
child-godin the cultof Dionysus, hewas pictured inswaddling clothes
in a basket manger. He was born in a stable like Horus--the stable
temple of the Virgin Goddess, Isis, Queen of Heaven. Again , like
Dionysus, he turned water into wine, like Aesculapius, he raised men
from the dead and gave sight to the blind; and like Attis and Adonis,
he is mourned and rejoiced over by women. His resurrection took place,
like that of Mithra, from a rock tomb."
The man Jesus did not exist. There are however sources that speak
of others seeing him. These were secondhand sources. No direct
observations were made. Atone time oranother we haveall had avision
of Deity in our minds. Such is the sight of Jesus, a mental image.
What of the Gospels then? They are passion plays designed to be
read or acted out in front of an audience. Passion plays were a common
feature of pagan religion. Looking at the Gospels themselves one finds
a choppilywritten, scene byscene, display of thelife of theGod man.
Only the important aspects of his life are described. The minor events
and influences of the life of Jesus are not recorded, which leaves one
to think that the Gospels are indeed a play.
"When we turn from the reputed teaching of Jesus to the story of
his career, the presumption is that it has a factual basis is so
slenderas to benegligible. The Churchfound it sodifficult to settle
the date ofits alleged founder's birththat the Christian erawas made
to begin someyears before the year which chronologistslatter inferred
on the strength of other documents. The nativity was placed at the
winter solstice, thus coinciding with the birthday of the Sun-god. And
the date for the crucifixion was made to vary from year to year to
conform to the astronomical principle which fixed the Jewish Passover.
[The Passover is moon based, an already familiar pagan method of
cyclic, monthly dating.]In between thebirth anddeath of Jesus,there
is analmost total absence ofinformation except about thebrief period
of his ministry. Of his life between the ages of twelve and thirty we
know nothing. There are not even any myths. It is impossible to
establish with any accuracy the duration of the ministry from the
Gospels. According to the tradition it lasted one year, which suggests
that it was either based on the formula 'the acceptable year of the
Lord', or on the myth of the Sun-god." _Pagan_Christs_ by J.M.
Robertson, page 68
689