Resemblance of Mary to pagan goddesses (re: Helen Willis)
Claire E. O'Connor claireoc@softdisk.com
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 02:21:48 -0600 (00879517308, 346C0A1C.2CE9@softdisk.com)
Note: This is in response to a letter about Christianity and Isis
forwarded to me (and the errancy list) on November 9. I apologize for
taking so long to respond.
Dear Helen:
I "snipped" the letter you forwarded only because it was long (but it
was very interesting!) I have copied and pasted it into a WordPerfect
document so I won't lose it.
I should tell you that "fundies" do not worship Mary at all. In fact,
some of them have said to me that once Jesus was born, her mission was
complete, and they treat her as a nonentity. Catholics are constantly
being criticized by some fundamentalists for "worshiping Mary". If we
say that we don't WORSHIP her, but merely honor her, they think we're
lying.
The article you forwarded says "that the image of mother and child is
borrowed from pagan sources. The common Christian icon comes most
directly from Isis worship..." But the mother and child image is so
universal, why should Christians not use it? I think that early
Christians would have used it even if they never heard of Isis, or any
other pagan goddesses.
I am not too familiar with those pagan myths. But some Christian
(Catholic) ideas about Mary that seem to resemble pagan myths have a
Biblical explanation (I think).
Revelation 12:1-6 "A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed
with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored
to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red
dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven
diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled
them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to
give birth, ready to devour her child when it was born. She gave birth
to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron
rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself
fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there
she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days."
[then there is the account of the war in heaven, with the Devil cast
out. The Devil pursues the woman who had given birth, but she is carried
on the wings of a great eagle into the desert. The Devil tries to drown
her, but the earth swallows his flood. Frustrated, the Devil goes off
and wages war on the woman's other children - i.e., those who keep God's
commandments.]
The Collegeville Bible Commentary: Book of Revelation (by Pheme Perkins)
says that "the story of the woman and the dragon draws on a wealth of
symbolism from the myths of the ancient Near East, from Jewish and Greek
sources....An important function of the woman in Revelation is to
provide an antitype to the image of Babylon as whore.
"The 'woman clothed with the sun' would immediately remind the audience
of the Roman use of the story of the sun god, Apollo. Roma, the queen of
heaven, was worshiped as mother. The emperor Augustus claimed that he
had brought about the golden age of kingship associated with Apollo, the
sun god. The emperor Nero [who is the Beast from the Sea] went even
further. He claimed that as an infant he had been rescued from a
serpent's attack just as the infant Apollo had been. The Apollo myth
said that Python was seeking to kill Leto, who was pregnant with Apollo,
Zeus' son. Zeus has the north wind rescue Leto by carrying her off to an
island. Poseidon, the sea god, then contributes to rescuing the woman by
covering the island with waves.
"The similarities with the story in Revelation are obvious. The woman
clothed with the sun is being pursued by a dragon. She is carried off to
safety by an eagle. Then the earth contributes to the rescue by
swallowing the dragon's water. Other mythological traditions also tell
stories of the goddess-mother who must ward off attack from a serpent
being. None of the stories is exactly identical to any of the others,
any more than the story in Revelation is the story of Apollo. They all
reflect an archetypal symbol of the heavenly mother and her divine
child, who are attacked by the evil monster from the waters of chaos.
The mother and child must be rescued from the forces of evil.
"For the audience of Revelation, which has just seen the enthronement of
the Lamb, this scene is a flashback to the primordial story of the
birth/rescue of the divine child. It will provide a mythic explanation
for the hostility between the followers of the beast and those of the
Lamb. It is easy to see why later Christians identified the woman with
Mary. However, Revelation stays with the archetypal meaning of the
symbol. It does not descend to the level of identification with a single
person. All of the images of "the woman" in these chapters are to be
read on that transpersonal level. The children of the persecuted woman
will also be described as those who must struggle with the dragon on
earth. Thus, the sign of the woman in heaven becomes the mythic
prototype of the earthly realities that are faced by the audience.
"...John never takes his images from a single source. The woman also
evokes traditions from the Old Testament. Being clothed with the sun
recalls the glory with which God, the creator, is clothed in Ps 104:1-2.
The twelve stars in her crown have astral symbolism, standing for the
twelve signs of the zodiac, but they can also stand for the twelve
tribes of Israel (compare the moon and the eleven stars of Joseph's
dream in Gen 37:9). Isa 7:14 pointed to the child about to be born as a
messianic sign. The woman's labor pains reflect those of the daughter of
Zion (Mic 4:10; Isa 26:17). Her cry is reminiscent of the voice calling
out from the temple just before Zion gives birth to the Messiah in Isa
66:6-8. The imagery makes it clear that the child born to the woman is
the Messiah. He shepherds the nation with a rod of iron (Isa 66:8;
7:14).
My point is, that although John of Patmos may not have intended the
woman giving birth to be identified as Mary, Christians did come to
associate Mary with the woman in Revelation, and this could be the
reason that she seems to bear some resemblance to pagan goddesses.
I have to disagree with this part of the letter you forwarded:
>Helen:
> Seems like resurrected Gods were a dime a dozen at the time of the birth of
> Christianity. Often born of virgins, and generally associated with the gift
> of bread. And as I will show when I post on Dionysus, wine, divine suffering,
> rejection by humanity, cannibalism at least symbolically, and resurrection,
> yet again. Of course, the Jews had not had these kind of beliefs for hundreds
> of years. The Talmud suggest that for some reason the Jewish sages found
> Christianity a pagan faith. I can't imagine why!
The letter says that "the Jews had not had these kinds of beliefs for
hundreds of years", but my understanding about the belief in
resurrection is just the opposite. The Pharisees at the time of Jesus
believed in the resurrection of the dead. In ch. 26 of Acts, when Paul
is on trial before Herod Agrippa, he presents himself as a zealous
Pharisee, and Christianity as the logical development of Pharaisaic
Judaism (from footnote in my Catholic Study Bible). Paul points out that
Pharisees believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees
accepted the Book of Daniel (~167-164 B.C.E.) which supported their
belief in resurrection. The Sadducees, who did not believe in the
resurrection of the dead, accepted only the Pentateuch. (Someone correct
me if I'm wrong about this.)
What beliefs about divine suffering, symbolic cannibalism, and rejection
by humanity had the Jews previously held but then discarded hundreds of
years before Christ?
Claire O'Connor