Thursday, December 28, 2006 at 1:01am
Was Jesus born on December 25?
Now that the Christmas feeding frenzy has abated, let us consider this time of the year for what it means to Christians, the Catholic Church, the ancient Egyptians, pagans and every other agrarian people since the dawn of time. In his five-part series, artist and historian Hugh Fitzroy Colmer pops the hood on the stories and myths of, and around, the winter solstice. (Part 4 of 5)
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The symbolism of midnight, winter and the solstice universally pictured the moment of the birth of Christ consciousness taught by Horus many centuries before the birth of Jesus. Gerald Massey (1828-1907) found nearly 200 similarities between the life of Horus and Jesus. Language historians trace the Egyptian and Greek languages to the oldest Indo-European language, Sanskrit. The origin of the word "Christ" can be traced to the Greek "Christos," which is almost identical in sound and spelling to the Sanskrit word "Krista," meaning all-attractive.
Egyptian pharaohs were anointed with the oil of the sacred crocodile and thus gained the Messeh's strength. From "Messeh" comes from the word "Messiah," which means to anoint. The intelligence throughout the cosmos is called Christ Intelligence. This is the reflection of God's intelligence present in all creation. Jesus and Krishna were in tune with that Consciousness.
It's always a shock when Christians learn that for the first 350 years of Christianity, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on the spring equinox, March 25. A decree issued by Pope Julian II in the year 345 A.D. stated that henceforth the followers of Jesus Christ must unite with the followers of Mithras, Dionysus and Bacchus in celebrating the rebirth of Mithras under solar symbolism at the winter solstice on Dec. 25.
Alvin Boyd Kuhn's 1934 lecture "The Great Myths of the Sun Gods" urges us to know that we ourselves are the Sun-gods, and that ancient allegory is not "myth" but is the very essence of our own Selfhood. The emperor Constantine made Jesus' official birthday coincide with the Unconquered Sun, Mithras' birthday in 312 A.D.
Dec. 25 was a significant date for various early cultures. Ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus, the son of Isis, and Babylonians believed that Tammuz, the son of the queen of heaven, Semiramis, was immaculately conceived by the rays of Ba'al, the Sun God, on the same date. The Statue of Liberty and the British Britannia mirror Queen Semiramis holding her torch.
Referring to Jesus as the "light of the world" also followed existing pagan beliefs about the birth of the sun. The ancient "return of the sun" philosophy had been replaced by the "coming of the sun" message of Christianity. It wasn't until A.D. 440 that the church officially proclaimed Dec. 25 as the birth of Christ. Early Christians probably adopted pagan beliefs to enable them to make their religion more palatable to the pagans around them.
It's quite understandable why Father Christmas and Father Time would seem to have little or no connection with the ancient gods Kronos and Saturn, as Greek myth created brutal tales to describe scientific and astronomical cosmologies. Unfortunately, we have been programmed to take these myths literally without understanding their allegorical meaning. One could say, without fear of too much contradiction, that the religious mess we're in stems from this problem.
Kronos and Saturn are, respectively, the Greek and Roman version of Siva, and the Vedic description of Lord Siva as the Good Lord and the Greatest God (Mahadeva) and God of Gods (Devadideva) seems to have no similarity. He is mysterious and complex. He is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God, but also the Supreme Lord of the Universe (Vishweshwara), Supreme Lord of Time (Mahakala) and Lord of Everything (Sarveshwara).
There is nothing, but he is above everything. He is beyond description, beyond all manifestation, beyond limitation of form, time and space. He is eternal, infinite, all-pervading, all-knowing and all-powerful. He is both static and dynamic; both creator and destroyer. He is the oldest and the youngest; he is the eternal youth as well as the infant. He is the source of fertility in all living beings.
He has gentle as well as fierce forms. Siva is the greatest of renouncers as well as the ideal lover. He destroys evil and protects good. He bestows prosperity on worshipers, although he is austere. He is omnipresent and resides in everyone as pure consciousness. Now compare the Greek version of Kronos.
There is a song of Orpheus which tells how, in the beginning, Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Okeanos, governed the world from snow-clad Mount Olympos and how Ophion was supplanted by Kronos, and Eurynome by Rhea. In Greek myth, Kronos devoured his own children (Poseidon representing the sea, Demeter the earth, Hera the air, and Hestia heavenly fire).
Kronos, as the king of the Golden Age, controls the revolution of the seasons and cycles of time by devouring them. In Greek legend Kronos castrates and deposes his own father, Ouranos (the Sky), from the throne. Kronos swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born, as it was prophesied that he, in turn, would be overthrown by his own son, Zeus. Rhea managed to save Zeus by feeding Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a feast named for Saturn, inherited from an earlier Babylonian priesthood, on Dec. 21, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. They believed the shortest day of the year was the birthday of the sun.
The Christmas season is the time when the sun enters Capricorn, one of the houses of Saturn, who is interchangeable with his feminine counterpart, Ceres, who holds a stalk of grain or corn. Placing grain in the open hearth are ancient Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon yuletide rituals.
Chronos (Time), our Father Time, was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics turning a zodiac wheel and later pictured as an old man with a hood over the back of his head, holding a scythe in his hand. Words such as "chronology," "chronic," and "chronicle" derive from Chronos.
Happy New Year.
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Hugh Fitzroy Colmer lives in Windham, N.Y., with his wife, who runs a raja yoga retreat center. He writes and paints in groups named for their source of inspiration (e.g. the "Major Arcana") from his impressions of ancient religious symbolism and mythology, which can be seen on his website. His email address is {email hcolmer@yahoo.com}hcolmer@yahoo.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Hugh Fitzroy Colmer
— — —
The symbolism of midnight, winter and the solstice universally pictured the moment of the birth of Christ consciousness taught by Horus many centuries before the birth of Jesus. Gerald Massey (1828-1907) found nearly 200 similarities between the life of Horus and Jesus. Language historians trace the Egyptian and Greek languages to the oldest Indo-European language, Sanskrit. The origin of the word "Christ" can be traced to the Greek "Christos," which is almost identical in sound and spelling to the Sanskrit word "Krista," meaning all-attractive.
Egyptian pharaohs were anointed with the oil of the sacred crocodile and thus gained the Messeh's strength. From "Messeh" comes from the word "Messiah," which means to anoint. The intelligence throughout the cosmos is called Christ Intelligence. This is the reflection of God's intelligence present in all creation. Jesus and Krishna were in tune with that Consciousness.
It's always a shock when Christians learn that for the first 350 years of Christianity, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on the spring equinox, March 25. A decree issued by Pope Julian II in the year 345 A.D. stated that henceforth the followers of Jesus Christ must unite with the followers of Mithras, Dionysus and Bacchus in celebrating the rebirth of Mithras under solar symbolism at the winter solstice on Dec. 25.
Alvin Boyd Kuhn's 1934 lecture "The Great Myths of the Sun Gods" urges us to know that we ourselves are the Sun-gods, and that ancient allegory is not "myth" but is the very essence of our own Selfhood. The emperor Constantine made Jesus' official birthday coincide with the Unconquered Sun, Mithras' birthday in 312 A.D.
Dec. 25 was a significant date for various early cultures. Ancient Egyptians celebrated the birth of Horus, the son of Isis, and Babylonians believed that Tammuz, the son of the queen of heaven, Semiramis, was immaculately conceived by the rays of Ba'al, the Sun God, on the same date. The Statue of Liberty and the British Britannia mirror Queen Semiramis holding her torch.
Referring to Jesus as the "light of the world" also followed existing pagan beliefs about the birth of the sun. The ancient "return of the sun" philosophy had been replaced by the "coming of the sun" message of Christianity. It wasn't until A.D. 440 that the church officially proclaimed Dec. 25 as the birth of Christ. Early Christians probably adopted pagan beliefs to enable them to make their religion more palatable to the pagans around them.
It's quite understandable why Father Christmas and Father Time would seem to have little or no connection with the ancient gods Kronos and Saturn, as Greek myth created brutal tales to describe scientific and astronomical cosmologies. Unfortunately, we have been programmed to take these myths literally without understanding their allegorical meaning. One could say, without fear of too much contradiction, that the religious mess we're in stems from this problem.
Kronos and Saturn are, respectively, the Greek and Roman version of Siva, and the Vedic description of Lord Siva as the Good Lord and the Greatest God (Mahadeva) and God of Gods (Devadideva) seems to have no similarity. He is mysterious and complex. He is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God, but also the Supreme Lord of the Universe (Vishweshwara), Supreme Lord of Time (Mahakala) and Lord of Everything (Sarveshwara).
There is nothing, but he is above everything. He is beyond description, beyond all manifestation, beyond limitation of form, time and space. He is eternal, infinite, all-pervading, all-knowing and all-powerful. He is both static and dynamic; both creator and destroyer. He is the oldest and the youngest; he is the eternal youth as well as the infant. He is the source of fertility in all living beings.
He has gentle as well as fierce forms. Siva is the greatest of renouncers as well as the ideal lover. He destroys evil and protects good. He bestows prosperity on worshipers, although he is austere. He is omnipresent and resides in everyone as pure consciousness. Now compare the Greek version of Kronos.
There is a song of Orpheus which tells how, in the beginning, Ophion and Eurynome, daughter of Okeanos, governed the world from snow-clad Mount Olympos and how Ophion was supplanted by Kronos, and Eurynome by Rhea. In Greek myth, Kronos devoured his own children (Poseidon representing the sea, Demeter the earth, Hera the air, and Hestia heavenly fire).
Kronos, as the king of the Golden Age, controls the revolution of the seasons and cycles of time by devouring them. In Greek legend Kronos castrates and deposes his own father, Ouranos (the Sky), from the throne. Kronos swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born, as it was prophesied that he, in turn, would be overthrown by his own son, Zeus. Rhea managed to save Zeus by feeding Kronos a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Romans celebrated Saturnalia, a feast named for Saturn, inherited from an earlier Babylonian priesthood, on Dec. 21, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. They believed the shortest day of the year was the birthday of the sun.
The Christmas season is the time when the sun enters Capricorn, one of the houses of Saturn, who is interchangeable with his feminine counterpart, Ceres, who holds a stalk of grain or corn. Placing grain in the open hearth are ancient Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon yuletide rituals.
Chronos (Time), our Father Time, was depicted in Greco-Roman mosaics turning a zodiac wheel and later pictured as an old man with a hood over the back of his head, holding a scythe in his hand. Words such as "chronology," "chronic," and "chronicle" derive from Chronos.
Happy New Year.
— — —
Hugh Fitzroy Colmer lives in Windham, N.Y., with his wife, who runs a raja yoga retreat center. He writes and paints in groups named for their source of inspiration (e.g. the "Major Arcana") from his impressions of ancient religious symbolism and mythology, which can be seen on his website. His email address is {email hcolmer@yahoo.com}hcolmer@yahoo.com{/email}. © copyright 2006 by Hugh Fitzroy Colmer