Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Mithraism and the Catholic Church!

by HOIM Staff

Understanding Emperor Constantine, Mithraism and the fertile Pagan background environment of the Roman Catholic Church will help explain many beliefs and practices seen today. Mithraism is about the worship of the sun -- which was titled Mithras Solis Invictus (Mithras, the unconquered sun). The "mysteries" of this religion were revealed ONLY to the initiates, who were predominantly soldiers of the Roman army. They spread this religion all over the civilized world by way of the good Roman roads. Mithraism was THE PRIMARY RELIGION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM 222 B.C. THROUGH THE 4th-CENTURY A.D. It was the chief rival of Christianity, which history shows COMPROMISED radically in order to convert pagans into believers.

The doctrines, feast dates, rituals, accouterments, and organizational structure of Mithraism have SCARCELY changed at all since that time. The religion of Mithraism itself was the result of a MERGER of the astrology of the Chaldean priests of Marduk (Baal) with the Indo-Iranian priests of Mithras. The sun-idol Mithras, is mentioned in the sacred writings of both cults -- the Avesta and the Vedas. The sun-idol is called "THE LORD" in both. The Hindu Krishna is called "THE LORD," as you will recall the syncretistic lyrics in the song, My Sweet Lord by George Harrison of the Beatles, where vocalists chant hare Krishna interchangeably with hallelu Yah. All the while the song BLENDS the concepts under the impersonal, indefinite and vague title, Lord.

By the 4th-century A.D., the sect of Judaism called the N'TZARIM no longer existed openly, and Gnostic clones of it had sprung up and began to compete with Mithraism for dominance. One historian said, "The entire European continent and New World would be Mithraic today if Christianity hadn't come along." Other historians have put it another way: "Christianity didn't conquer Mithraic Paganism. Mithraism blended in, and CHANGED NAMES."

Mithraic Doctrine

1) The center of the Mithraic sun-cult was at ROME.

2) The leader of the ritual service was titled PATER, Latin for father -- inherited by the priesthood of Catholicism (against Matthew 23:9), and they wore CRUXES as amulets, with costumes of black, having NEHRU collars, originating from the Indo-Iranian roots.

3) There was a PATER-PATRATUS over the paters -- a papa or POPE.

4) The hierarchy initiates below pater were called BROTHERS.

5) The cult was for MEN ONLY.

6) The cult had the Trinity: MITHRAS, RASHNU and VOHU MANAH -- 3 "persons," but yet "one."

7) SUN-DAY was kept hallowed in honor of Mithras -- the sun -- called Mithras Solis Invictus. This has produced our popular name for the first day of the week, Sunday. The pattern of resting on Sun-day comes to us directly through what is called the BLUE LAWS, enforced first throughout the Roman Empire then through the western traditions into our New World. The edict was initiated by Constantine I, forbidding officials, artisans or merchants from engaging in any work on the SUN-DAY, to give honor to the sun, MITHRAS.

8) There were 5 levels within the hierarchy.

9) DECEMBER 25 was observed as MITHRAS' BIRTHDAY, called "Natalis Invictus" -- the rebirth of the winter sun, unconquered.

10) Initiates had to undergo a ritual sprinkling (affusion, which involved being under a bull, or Taurus which, being cut to death, allowed the initiate to become saturated with blood. The custom of bloody BULLFIGHTS seen in Spain harken back to this cult. (The custom of performing Christian "baptisms" in the spring at Easter-time will take on greater meaning as we learn the following information).

11) Special value was attributed to the moral virtues of religion, truthfulness, purity and generosity.

12) Mithraists would enter "paradise" (a Persian word itself, also called Eleusian Fields, Nirvana and Nether World) by the THREE STEPS:

(a) The Good Thought.
(b) The Good Word.
(c) The Good Deed.

13) The cult supported the DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS (including Emperor worship).

14) The PATER (father) stood at one end of an oblong room, performing mysterious blood rituals. There was an indoor altar at his end on which a victim (Latin, "host") was SACRIFICED. They had a sun-shaped wafer disc like the Egyptians, and the assembly knelt, sat and stood in unison.

Jerome and the Great Word Shift

It was during this time of the clash -- when Christianity and Mithraism MERGED -- that Jerome translated the Greek writings of the New Testament into Latin (391-403). His real name was Eusebius Heirymonius Sophronius. He took the Greek word STAUROS (beam, stake, pole) and carried it over to the Latin word CRUX. This was an important SHIFT in the meaning of the original word. The Hebrew term was "NAS" -- used for the word "POLE" that the serpent was lifted up on. To a Mithraist the CRUX had a significant religious meaning. It could be represented as an "X" or a vertical line crossed horizontally. In the spring, when the Mithraists sacrificed a Taurus (bull), the sun was CROSSING the celestial equator and was in the zodiac sign of the Taurus. ("Zodiac" actually means animal figures, related to the word "zoo"). These rabid Pagans allegorized or interpreted this as the sun (Mithras) OVERCOMING THE BULL and crossing the celestial equator -- so the cross was their most cherished religious symbol.

In one of its Babylonian forms, it was a tilted crux with an arrow point at the high end, representing Nimrod standing on the tower shooting his hunter arrow at the skies. It was a bow and arrow. He may have even done this, shooting at the constellation Taurus. This is the link with the "Golden Calf." We still call the center of an archery target "the bull's eye." The sign of the cross was a Pagan sign of overcoming. The Babylonian constellation Orion the Hunter (Archer) represents Nimrod of Babylon.

The cross symbols of many different Pagan cults from around the world is what scholars call "the symbol of the sun, par excellence." The words we have inherited from Jerome's Latin translation include cross, crucifixion and crosier. So "cross" is a Latinism.

The Cross, the Occult and the Olympic Games!

The Pagans practiced Astromancy, Pyromancy, Necromancy and other OCCULT forms of divination, and the CROSS was intimately linked to their rituals -- and still is. A "Black Mass" uses the cross and was practiced long before Christianity existed.

Since the Earth Mother was thought to be "fertilized" in the spring (Ishtar, or Easter), the Babylonian symbol for woman was also a cross with the sun circle above it (the sun did the "fertilizing"). If you research Emperor Constantine, you will learn that he had a vision of the sun with a cross beneath it -- the same symbol used for "female" today in biology, a type of ankh.

The circle is also interpreted as the sun, and "circuses" like the ones held by Emperor Caligula were occultic religious displays involving animals of the Zodiac, and THREE "RINGS." The Olympic Games today use 5 rings as a logo, representing the 5 original PLANETARY DEITIES worshipped in Babylon. In fact, it is still the custom to carry a TORCH lit by the "SACRED FIRE" altar on Mount Olympus to the site of the games. Where the games are held, AN ALTAR DEDICATED TO ZEUS is lighted with this torch -- so all the nations and athletes who participate are unknowingly WORSHIPPING ZEUS. Human traditions may appear innocent, but if you can easily trace their origins to ancient Paganism, THEY ARE ABOMINATIONS TO YEHOVAH GOD!

Constantine's Pagan Connection

Emperor Constantine is the connection which bonded Paganism to the belief in Yeshua the Messiah. Excused as "inculturation," paganism POISONED the message of repentance beyond all recognition.

Constantine made Christianity the Roman State Religion -- but it's form was FAR from anything known to the first Nazarenes. Constantine had to MERGE the multitudes of Pagans -- who were mostly his own soldiers -- with the Nazarene faith in order to control his vast empire. This reconciliation, or MERGER of the Nazarene faith with MITHRAISM produced what we see today as "Christianity" -- in particular the Roman Catholic Church. He made the cross the PRIMARY SYMBOL of this new merger, thus rallying the Pagans around its emotional meaning. Constantine CONFUSED Mithras and the Messiah together, borrowing from the Pagan background of SUN-WORSHIP for every interpretation. Alexander Hislop, in his work The Two Babylons, wrote about this same topic over 100 years ago, and explained how this FUSION occurred with Christianity:

"To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get CHRISTIAN and PAGAN festivals amalgamated, and by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the CALENDAR, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity -- now far sunk in idolatry -- in this as in so many other things, to shake hands."

Constantine adopted the insignia called the "LABARUM" -- a cross with a wreath above it with the Greek letters CHI and RHO inside it. He had it displayed on the shields of his soldiers as the "Christian" emblem to go forth to conquer in. In the Middle Ages the nations of Europe joined forces with the Papacy to launch "crusades," not only against the Moslems in the Middle East, but against the Albigenses and Waldensians in France, independent Christian groups which foreshadowed the Protestant Reformation by several hundred years, and "crusades" against the Jews in Eastern Europe. The Crusades were launched with the marauding murderers wearing large red cruxes emblazoned on their chests. The word "Crusade" refers to this crux. They were sent off by various popes to primarily recapture the holy land from "the infidels." Killing, raping, looting and burning libraries in their path, these thirteen "divine campaigns" defy description. They flung the civilized world into the dark ages -- and made no small contribution to the spread of the Black Death. The "cross" of the Church was bathed in blood from one end of Europe to the other, and in Asia.

The main issue at his Nicene Council in 325 A.D. centered on the date of EASTER, again the most important point in the Pagan mind when the sun crossed the Zodiac at Taurus. Constantine reinvented the meaning behind Easter in order to desolate Passover. He also established the practice of Sun-day worship, superseding the scriptural day of rest -- the Sabbath -- which is the sign that we worship the true Creator -- YEHOVAH God. He claimed the resurrection as the reason for both Easter and Sun-day -- and HE GOT AWAY WITH IT!

A World in Darkness

Many of the pastors in Christendom KNOW these things, but NEVER bring them up. Most don't care -- it's just a job! A few are afraid that bringing it up will unravel their world. You will notice that if you privately discuss these things with a pastor, he will pluck two or three verses from Paul's letters then turn to stone -- not wanting to pursue the REAL TRUTH! He really doesn't want to get to the bottom of it because it will expose everything he teaches and lives by as being a LIE.

The secular population live in their own dream world as well. Some are idealists, blissfully going through life getting the weather reports and sports scores. There are many distractions in life to occupy your time, but very few people can get REAL information or put it into a meaningful form.

The errors overwhelm the world because it is in great darkness. Yeshua the Messiah came to teach the world and point out its errors, but it has not received his teachings. Therefore, when the time comes, the world will be punished, convicted of its crimes against YEHOVAH God, and the OBEDIENT children of YEHOVAH will inherit it.

The saying goes that a wise man pointed at the moon. The idiot only looked at the finger. When you consider the processes and outcomes of "Christianity" over the last 1,600 years, it would appear that early on the whole point was LOST! Constantine's government tried to FIX a perceived problem -- and wound up making it worse! It's a sad commentary, but governments haven't changed much in that respect.

Catholicism and Persecution

If you study any aspect of the growth of Christianity, you will only encounter one bloodbath after another. If you go in search of the worst persecution of Christians by Pagans, you will find that it was a picnic in the park compared to what "Christians" did over many centuries to non-Christians -- and even to one another in various struggles for dominance.

During the Christianization of the Norse areas -- and all during the Crusades -- people were given the choice: CONVERT OR DIE! Then came the 600 year REIGN OF TERROR by the Catholic Inquisition! Says Adam Clarke in his Commentary, regarding the Church of Rome:

"'Who can make any computation,' says Bishop Newton [Sir Isaac Newton, scientist and renown physicist who became a bishop of the Church of England], 'or even frame any conception, of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the BIGOTRY AND CRUELTY OF ROME? Mede upon the place hath observed, from the authorities, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses there perished of these poor creatures IN FRANCE ALONE A MILLION. From the first institution of the Jesuites in 1580, that is, in little more than 30 years, NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS WERE SLAIN, and these all by the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, a HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND CHRISTIANS. Sanders himself confesses that an INNUMERABLE MULTITUDE OF LOLLARDS [SABBATARIANS] and Sacramentarians were BURNT THROUGHOUT ALL EUROPE, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates.' The dragon in a new shape, or Roman empire of Germany, acted a very conspicuous part in this nefarious WARFARE against the remnant of the woman's seed, who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ. See the imperial edict of Frederic II, against heretics, in Limborch's History of the Inquisition" (Vol.3, p.1019, Rev.13:7 comment).

Roman Catholic Errors

The Dogma of Trans-Substantiation

The dogma of TRANS-SUBSTANTIATION that popped up in 1215 caused many people to lose their lives. The idiot was looking really closely at the finger, because when the Messiah said "This is my body," and "This is my blood" he was picturing what was soon to be. The matzah is pierced and bruised, and the blood of the grape is red. These emblems are to remind us at Passover OF HIS DEATH. The metaphor for "eating" and "drinking" his body and blood was mistaken to be LITERAL by several Pagan rulers, so they killed as many of these believers as they could find because they thought there was some sort of cannibalism involved.

The believers being killed didn't even understand WHY they were being killed! But the believers were also LED ASTRAY by their enchanters, thinking the priests had some supernatural ability to call out certain Latin words, wave items in the air and, by some superior power in them, LITERALLY change bread and wine into the actual living body of the Messiah. Yeshua meant that YEHOVAH's spirit would be IN US like the food we eat -- not BE the food we eat!

The New Covenant is about receiving YEHOVAH's spirit -- where He writes His Covenant Torah on our hearts and we obediently walk in the commandments. Our mind of the flesh no longer controls us -- His does. We don't receive YEHOVAH's spirit by eating bread. The bread we eat at Passover is to REMEMBER THE MESSIAH'S DEATH.

Satan's Deceptions

People need to stop looking at the finger. Millions are entranced by Satan's deceptions and can't wake up from this bad dream! No one has explained it to them because no one "gets it" in the circles they find themselves in. The pope himself doesn't understand. It is a dim hope that he will learn and then teach everyone who is Catholic the TRUTH. It's still a huge MYSTERY to most Protestants too -- many have an indoor altar left over from the Catholic bloodless sacrifice of the Mass. But, remember -- without the shedding of BLOOD there is NO REMISSION of sins. YEHOVAH God tells the pastors to throw out the altar, tear down the steeple and start OBEYING His laws and commandments! Tell the congregation THEY ARE THE TEMPLE -- if through Yeshua the Messiah YEHOVAH's spirit dwells in them. If is does not, they are NOT His!

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Taking the Lead in the Search for Truth!

Hope of Israel Ministries P.O. Box 853 Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A. www.hope-of-israel.org

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