The Catholic Church and pagan symbols

[Fidei Defensor]

Here is some random site given to me by an anti-catholic about pagan symbols v.s. Catholic usage of them.

[url="http://www.atozphotoshop.com/biblesite/Hinduism%20catholicism.htm"]http://www.atozphotoshop.com/biblesite/Hin...catholicism.htm[/url]

One accusation they brought against me was the usage of the "cross of baal" because I had a latin style cross as my avatar, and apparently, baal worshippers used some style of cross similar to it.

So really, what I am asking is, how is the best way to answer them when they charge us with using pagan symbols?

[shortnun]

I find the pictures on that site interesting. But that's all. Certainly any individual studying the history of the Catholic Church would note influences of many cultures on our faith. The different crosses used in certain parts of the world reflect cultural influences. Jesus' birth is celebrated at a time near pagan holidays. Our liturgical practices stem from our northern hemisphere experience. (Imagine how we see Easter as the new life of the Church.... in Australia it's almost winter!)

In direct response to your question about how to reply to this charge..... the Church human. The expressions and faith practices we have stem directly from our experience (past and present). Personally, I would place greater importance on the role and significance a symbol plays and is interpreted by the worshipping community, rather than it's possibe historical connection to a non-Christian culture.

[Cam42]

Historically, the Church has taken some things which are not Christian (ie. pagan) and sanctified them. The best example that I can give are the obelisks of Rome. They have been transferred to Christian markers throughout the city of Rome.

The distortion of the pictures are interesting, but as shortnun said, nothing more.

If I thought there was any credence in that site, I would respond further.....but I will make one comment. There is the idea that the hand signs of Satan and Christ are the same. At first glance it would seem so, however, closer examination shows that the hand of Satan is pointed down and the hand of Christ is pointed up.....hmmmmm.....makes ya wanna think? Think that there might be something in direct opposition? Also, which painting/image is older in origin?

This guy who put this website out is a nutjob.....let it go.

[qfnol31]

To add to that, the Pantheon (nice temple) is a really fun church in Rome. I've never seen so many temples converted to churches as there! Oh, and the Pantheon was converted about 1400 years ago.

[Benedict]

My favorite part is the "pagan" snake crawling around a pole.

Has he never read Numbers?

Edit: I visited their message board.

This guy, Uriyahu, is a notorious, anti-Trinitarian spammer who posts this bilge at Christian websites. He has been banned globally several times at EzBoard.

He lacks completely any rational faculty. As you can see on his message boards, a poster said Uriyahu does not believe in God. In response, he demanded that the poster "prove from the Bible that I do not believe in God."

Edited October 29, 2005 by Benedict

[phatcatholic]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Oct 28 2005, 10:07 PM']Also, which painting/image is older in origin?[right][snapback]773179[/snapback][/right][/quote]
Cam found the inherent fallacy w/ this question. it is often assumed that if one belief or practice comes after another one, and if the two are similar, then the one that came first is the cause of the second belief/practice. this is called a [b][url="http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/posthoc.htm"]post hoc causal fallacy[/url][/b] and almost all accusations that the Church is pagan, or borrows from paganism, have this fallacy at their root. catholic apologists have even termed it the "pagan influence fallacy." Karl Keating's words are excellent here:[list]The pagan influence fallacy is committed when one charges that a particular religion, belief, or practice is of pagan origin or has been influenced by paganism and is therefore false, wrong, tainted, or to be repudiated. In this minimal form, the pagan influence fallacy is a subcase of the genetic fallacy, which improperly judges a thing based on its history or origins rather than on its own merits (e.g., "No one should use this medicine because it was invented by a drunkard and adulterer").

Very frequently, the pagan influence fallacy is committed in connection with other fallacies, most notably the post hoc ergo proper hoc ("After this, therefore because of this") fallacy—e.g., "Some ancient pagans did or believed something millennia ago, therefore any parallel Christian practices and beliefs must be derived from that source." Frequently, a variant on this fallacy is committed in which, as soon as a parallel with something pagan is noted, it is assumed that the pagan counterpart is the more ancient. This variant might be called the similis hoc ergo propter hoc ("Similar to this, therefore because of this") fallacy.

When the pagan influence fallacy is encountered, it should be pointed out that it is, in fact, a fallacy. To help make this clear to a religious person committing it, it may be helpful to illustrate with cases where the pagan influence fallacy could be committed against his own position (e.g., the practice of circumcision was practiced in the ancient world by a number of peoples—including the Egyptians—but few Jews or Christians would say that its divinely authorized use in Israel was an example of "pagan corruption").

To help a secular person see the fallacy involved, one might point to a parallel case of the genetic fallacy involving those of his perspective (e.g., "Nobody should accept this particular scientific theory because it was developed by an atheist").

Whenever one encounters a proposed example of pagan influence, one should demand that its existence be properly documented, not just asserted. The danger of accepting an inaccurate claim is too great. The amount of misinformation in this area is great enough that it is advisable never to accept a reported parallel as true unless it can be demonstrated from primary source documents or through reliable, scholarly secondary sources. After receiving documentation supporting the claim of a pagan parallel, one should ask a number of questions:

1. Is there a parallel? Frequently, there is not. The claim of a parallel may be erroneous, especially when the documentation provided is based on an old or undisclosed source.

For example: "The Egyptians had a trinity. They worshiped Osiris, Isis, and Horus, thousands of years before the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were known" (Robert Ingersoll, Why I Am an Agnostic). This is not true. The Egyptians had an Ennead—a pantheon of nine major gods and goddesses. Osiris, Isis, and Horus were simply three divinities in the pantheon who were closely related by marriage and blood (not surprising, since the Ennead itself was an extended family) and who figured in the same myth cycle. They did not represent the three persons of a single divine being (the Christian understanding of the Trinity). The claim of an Egyptian trinity is simply wrong. There is no parallel.

2. Is the parallel dependent or independent? Even if there is a pagan parallel, that does not mean that there is a causal relationship involved. Two groups may develop similar beliefs, practices, and artifacts totally independently of each other. The idea that similar forms are always the result of diffusion from a common source has long been rejected by archaeology and anthropology, and for very good reason: Humans are similar to each other and live in similar (i.e., terrestrial) environments, leading them to have similar cultural artifacts and views.

For example, Fundamentalists have made much of the fact that Catholic art includes Madonna and Child images and that non-Christian art, all over the world, also frequently includes mother and child images. There is nothing sinister in this. The fact is that, in every culture, there are mothers who hold their children! Sometimes this gets represented in art, including religious art, and it especially is used when a work of art is being done to show the motherhood of an individual. Mother-with child-images do not need to be explained by a theory of diffusion from a common, pagan religious source (such as Hislop’s suggestion that such images stem from representations of Semiramis holding Tammuz). One need look no further than the fact that mothers holding children is a universal feature of human experience and a convenient way for artists to represent motherhood.

3. Is the parallel antecedent or consequent? Even if there is a pagan parallel that is causally related to a non-pagan counterpart, this does not establish which gave rise to the other. It may be that the pagan parallel is a late borrowing from a non-pagan source. Frequently, the pagan sources we have are so late that they have been shaped in reaction to Jewish and Christian ideas. Sometimes it is possible to tell that pagans have been borrowing from non-pagans. Other times, it cannot be discerned who is borrowing from whom (or, indeed, if anyone is borrowing from anyone).

For example: The ideas expressed in the Norse Elder Edda about the end and regeneration of the world were probably influenced by the teachings of Christians with whom the Norse had been in contact for centuries (H. A. Guerber, The Norsemen, 339f).

4. Is the parallel treated positively, neutrally, or negatively? Even if there is a pagan parallel to a non-pagan counterpart, that does not mean that the item or concept was enthusiastically or uncritically accepted by non-pagans. One must ask how they regarded it. Did they regard it as something positive, neutral, or negative?

For example: Circumcision and the symbol of the cross might be termed "neutral" Jewish and Christian counterparts to pagan parallels. It is quite likely that the early Hebrews first encountered the idea of circumcision among neighboring non-Jewish peoples, but that does not mean they regarded it as a
religiously good thing for non-Jews to do. Circumcision was regarded as a religiously good thing only for Jews because for them it symbolized a special covenant with the one true God (Gen. 17). The Hebrew scriptures are silent in a religious appraisal of non-Jewish circumcision; they seemed indifferent to the fact that some pagans circumcised.

Similarly, the early Christians who adopted the cross as a symbol did not do so because it was a pagan religious symbol (the pagan cultures which use it as a symbol, notably in East Asia and the Americas, had no influence on the early Christians). The cross was used as a Christian symbol because Christ died on a cross—his execution being regarded as a bad thing in itself, in fact, an infinite injustice—but one from which he brought life for the world. Christians did not adopt it because it was a pagan symbol they liked and wanted to copy.

Examples of negative parallels are often found in Genesis. For instance, the Flood narrative (Gen. 6-9) has parallels to pagan flood stories, but is written so that it refutes ideas in them. Thus Genesis attributes the flood to human sin (6:5-7), not overpopulation, as Atrahasis’ Epic and the Greek poem Cypria did (I. Kikawada & A. Quinn). The presence of flood stories in cultures around the world does not undermine the validity of the biblical narrative, but lends it more credence.

Criticism, refutation, and replacement are also the principles behind modern holidays being
celebrated to a limited extent around the same time as former pagan holidays. In actuality, reports of Christian holidays coinciding with pagan ones are often inaccurate (Christmas does not occur on Saturnalia, for example). However, to the extent the phenomenon occurs at all, Christian holidays were introduced to provide a wholesome, non-pagan alternative celebration, which thus critiques and rejects the pagan holiday.

This is the same process that leads Fundamentalists who are offended at the (inaccurately alleged) pagan derivation of Halloween to introduce alternative "Reformation Day" celebrations for their children. (This modern Protestant holiday is based on the fact that the Reformation began when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517.) Another Fundamentalist substitution for Halloween has been "harvest festivals" that celebrate the season of autumn and the gathering of crops. These fundamentalist substitutions are no more "pagan" than the celebrations of days or seasons that may have been introduced by earlier Christians.
[/list]for more on this, go [b][url="http://www.catholic.com/library/Is_Catholicism_Pagan.asp"]here[/url][/b] and then [b][url="http://www.phatmass.com/directory/index.php/cat_id/265"]here[/url][/b].

pax christi,
phatcatholic

[StColette]

Came across this site a couple months ago. About some of the Christian symbolism [url="http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/symbols.html"]http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/symbols.html[/url]

[peach_cube]

Fidei,

The cross you are using is the Jerusalem or Crusader's Cross, the five total crosses symbolize the five wounds of our lord. Also, the large center cross is seen as being a combination of 4 tau crosses which represent Christianity spreading in four directions (appopriate for when a missionary idea is expressed).

[StColette]

Different Crosses

"Crux commissa" or "thau" or "tau": the T-shaped cross is mentioned in the Old Testament and is seen as a foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ. Ezechiel 9:4:

And the Lord said to him: Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof.

The Thau of Ezechiel was itself presaged by the image of Moses's brazen serpent that he held up on a pole in Numbers 21:

And the Lord said to him: Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck [by the "fiery serpents"] shall look on it, shall live. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed.

Because of these verses, at least one of the ancients believed the Thau to be the form of the Cross of Jesus. Tertullian wrote, "The Greek letter and our Latin letter T are the true form of the cross, which, according to the Prophet, will be imprinted on our foreheads in the true Jerusalem." (Contra Marc., III, xxii)

If "Thau" was the true form of the Cross, the existence of the titulus crucis (the plaque that bore the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews") would have made the Cross at least appear to be a "crux immissa" (see below), and there would have had to have been enough of the upright post over the arms on which to affix it. Nonetheless, whether the "immissa" or commissa" was the true form of the Cross, at the very least the Thau depicts the Cross of Christ symbolically, and St. Francis of Assisi took the Thau as the symbol of his Franciscan Order.

"Crux immissa" or "Latin Cross": the most common form of the Cross and believed to be of the style on which Jesus died.

Byzantine Cross: used mostly by the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The second cross-bar at top is for the INRI inscription; the bottom cross-bar is His footrest.

Slavonic Cross: used most often by Eastern Catholics and Russian Orthodox, this Cross is the Byzantine Cross with the footrest at a diagonal. This slant is said to represent one of a few things:

* the footrest wrenched loose from the Christ's writhing in intense physical suffering; lower side representing "down," the fate of sinners, while the elevated side represents Heaven;
* the lower side represents the bad thief (known to us as Gestas through the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" ("Gospel of Nicodemus") while the elevated side to Christ's right represents the thief who would be with Him in Paradise (St. Dismas);
* the "X" shape of the slanted "footrest" against the post symbolizes the cross on which St. Andrew was crucified.

Greek Cross: a very common artistic representation of the Cross. Crosses such as this one and the Tau were also popular because they were easily disguised, an important feature for persecuted Christians.

Jerusalem Cross: also called the "Crusaders' Cross," it is made up of 5 Greek Crosses which are said to symbolize a) the 5 Wounds of Christ; and/or b) the 4 Gospels and the 4 corners of the earth (the 4 smaller crosses) and Christ Himself (the large Cross). This Cross was a common symbol used during the wars against Islamic aggression. (see less stylized version at right)

Maltese Cross: associated with the Knights of St. John (also known as the "Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem" or simply "Knights of Malta"), this Cross's 8 points are said to symbolize the 8 Beatitudes and the Beatitudes' associated obligations. The Order of St. John ran hostels and hospitals for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, but eventually had to fight during the wars of Islamic aggression. It is said that the Maltese Cross is a symbol within a symbol in that it is made of the initiai letters of the Greek words for, "Jesus Christ, God, Son, Savior" ("Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter"). When these letters (Iota, Chi, Theta, Upsilon, Sigma) are stacked on top of each other and their "ends" closed, they form a Maltese Cross.

Baptismal Cross: consisting of the Greek Cross with the Greek letter "X", the first initial of the title "Christ," this Cross is a symbol of regeneration, hence, its association with Baptism


Graded Cross: this Cross, also known as the "Calvary Cross," has 3 steps which represent the three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity.


Evangelist's Cross: the 4 steps at the bottom of the Cross stand for Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

"Crux decussata" ("decussated cross") or "St. Andrew's Cross": called "decussated" because it looks like the Roman Numeral "10" (decussis), it is also called St. Andrew's Cross because St. Andrew was supposed to have been crucified on a cross of this shape.


Celtic Cross ("the Cross of Iona"): stone crosses in this form dot the landscapes of Ireland and Scotland and are associated with the evangelization of these lands.
St. Brigid's Cross: St. Brigid fashioned a Cross out of rushes as she sat near a dying chieftan's bed. He asked her about what she was doing and in explaining, she recounted the story of Christ, whereupon the chieftan converted. Catholics -- especially Irish Catholics -- fashion Crosses like these on the Feast of St. Brigid (1 February).

Peter's Cross: because when Peter was to be martyred he chose to be crucified upside-down out of respect for Christ, the upside-down Latin Cross has become his symbol and, thereby, a symbol of the papacy. Sadly, this cross has been co-opted by Satanists whose purpose of "inverting" Christianity (e.g. as in their Black 'Masses') is expressed by taking the Latin Cross of Christ and inverting it. At various anti-Catholic Protestant websites, I've seen pictures of the Holy Father standing in front of Peter's Cross with captions such as "The Pope worships Satan!!!!!!!" It'd be funny if it weren't so sad and ignorant.

Papal Cross: the three cross-bars represent the Latin Pope's triple role as Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of West, and successor of Peter, Chief of the Apostles

Lorraine Cross: used by archbishops and patriarchs. Also known as a "Caravaca Cross" because of a miracle, involving a Patriarch's Cross, that took place in Caravaca, Spain. See the page on Crucifixes for more information.

Edited October 30, 2005 by StColette

[Cam42]

[quote name='phatcatholic']Cam found the inherent fallacy w/ this question. it is often assumed that if one belief or practice comes after another one, and if the two are similar, then the one that came first is the cause of the second belief/practice. this is called a post hoc causal fallacy and almost all accusations that the Church is pagan, or borrows from paganism, have this fallacy at their root.[/quote]

Ah yes....that is precisely what I was getting at.....gotta love philosophy.

Post hoc propter ergo hoc (After this, therefore because of this). This is a non causa pro causa informal fallacy.

Event C happened immediately prior to event E.
Therefore, C caused E.

Post Hoc also manifests itself as a bias towards jumping to conclusions based upon coincidences. Superstition and magical thinking include Post Hoc thinking; for instance, when a sick person is treated by a witch doctor, or a faith healer, and becomes better afterward, superstitious people conclude that the spell or prayer was effective. Since most illnesses will go away on their own eventually, any treatment will seem effective by Post Hoc thinking. This is why it is so important to test proposed remedies carefully, rather than jumping to conclusions based upon anecdotal evidence.

It is one of the easiest fallacies to see, IMHO.

[Dreamweaver]

I thought the page on the caduceus was just absurd. How can one claim that the Church is satanic because the same symbol is on the baphomet? If that guy is playing by his own rules, I surely hope he doesn't shop at unholy satanic pharmacies!

[phatcatholic]

haha, yea, for real, prescription medicine is EVIL!! EVIL I SAY!!!!