This is from pages 4 and 13 of the March 1956 issue of The Pentecostal Herald
Paganism in Christianity
by Roy H. Maki
(minister, Duluth, Minnesota)
A noted scholar once remarked that much of present-day Christianity is nothing more than "baptized paganism." Anyone who has delved at length into pagan mythological beliefs of ancient times can vouch for the fact that much of what is palmed off as genuine Christianity is simply paganism in a new garb.
Church Festivals
One need only to trace the history of the observance of practically all the so-called Christian festivals celebrated by nominal Christianity, to come to the surprising conclusion that the Apostate Church has taken these festivals "lock, stock, and barrel," from paganism, and forced them to fit into the Church calendar by associating Christ and the apostles with pagan deities and personalities, and substituting Biblical observances for pagan ones if they were at all similar. Almost to a letter the Church festivals generally coincide with the dates of the earlier pagan festivals!
The Apostate Church, willing to meet paganism halfway, compromised the precious truth spoken by Jesus Christ, and the doctrines left us by His disciples and apostles. So-called Christianity did not convert paganism, but rather assimilated it with its customs. In short, paganism had overcome the Church without the Church's being aware of it. The pagan antagonists of Augustine taunted, "There is no difference between you and the pagans, except that you hold separate meetings." Thus did the Church go from the mountain top of inspiration into the valley of tradition, completely obliterating her apostolic heritage.
Christmas And Easter
The methods of celebrating the Nativity, and Easter, the two prime festivals of the Christian calendar, are excellent examples of how paganism has almost totally obscured the original significance of these two occasions.
No one denies that the chief festival of the pagan cult of Mithraism was the annual celebration of the birthday of "The Unconquered Sun" on the, 25th of December. Emperor Constantine, the first "Christian" ruler of the Roman Empire, was devoted to Apollo, the sun god of the Greeks and the Romans, and designated him as his patron. Apollo had a day of worship set aside called "the sun's day." Many of the early representations of Christ on the banners of the Roman legions of Constantine pictured Him in the garb of Apollo, with the rays of the sun streaming about His head.
Easter is another Church festival which is pagan in concept. It is encumbered with pagan ideas of Easter eggs, bunnies, and senseless ritual, which includes abstaining from certain meats, and observing special days considered holy in themselves. Authorities agree that the word "Easter" is a corruption of the name Astarte or Asharoth, a licentious pagan deity. The translators of the King James version "leaned over backward" to include the word "Easter" in their translation of the Bible. The word "Easter" used in
Acts 12:4 should have been translated "Passover," and is thus designated in the margin.
The Trinity
The doctrine of the Trinity is another example of how paganism has obscured vital Christian doctrines. It is difficult to comprehend how paganism could have crept into our so-called Christian doctrines but the transition has been so subtle as to escape the scrutiny of most theologians. Nevertheless the fact remains that behind the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity lies the essential pagan concept of a plurality of gods!
Most sensible theologians and Christians will be the first to deny that they believe in a plurality of Gods. But a study of the controversies which raged over the Godhead among the ante-Nicene theologians shows that such a concept was held by many of them. The early Church was divided into three contending parties--one believing in three separate and distinct Gods (the Tritheists), another which believed that God the Father and Christ the Son were one and the same Person (the Sabellians or the Patripassians), and a third which believed that there was one God in three Persons (Athanasian Trinitarianism). There were also the Arians, who denied the divinity of our Lord.
Some of the representations of the Trinity in Christian literature and art have been rather bizarre. One is a picture which depicts God the Father and Christ the Son as a man with two heads on one body! One of the heads in this particular picture looks like the average one of Christ, while the other is that of an old man, to represent the Father. The Holy Ghost in the form of a dove rests in the foreground of the picture of this Trinity. Certainly pictures of this sort must be repugnant to the average sensible Christian.
This fantastic concept of three separate and distinct Gods has its roots in paganism, which was allowed to creep into the apostate Church. Consider for example the following pagan trinities, which will be explained briefly.
Pagan Trinities
In India the ancient Hindu divinity was called Eko Deva Trimurtti, which means "one God, three forms." It is represented as a being with three heads on one body. The Buddhists of Japan worshipped a similar three-headed god whom they called San Pao Fuh.
The ancient Persians symbolized their trinity of gods in the form of a shamrock, the very same kind of shamrock which St. Patrick used to illustrate to the pagan Irish the meaning of the Christian Trinity! The ancient Babylonians worshipped a Trinity in unity, called Asshur, symbolized in the form of an old man to represent the father encircled by a cipher to represent the son, and having the wings and tail of a dove to represent the spirit.
According to Layard, the Babylonians also used the equilateral triangle to symbolize their triform divinity. The Egyptians too used the triangle to represent their trinity of gods. Not too long ago I read an article by a Trinitarian who used this very same pagan symbol of the triangle to prove a point.
It is interesting to note that the supreme divinity in almost all heathen nations was a triune divinity.
Monotheism
On page 745 of Halley's Pocket Bible Handbook we read, "The Genesis idea that man started with a belief in One God, and that polytheistic idolatry was a LATER DEVELOPMENT, has been verified in inscriptions found by Langdon, in pre flood layers, at Jemdet Nasr, near Babylon. In Egypt, Petrie found indications that Egypt's first religion was Monotheistic."
How then, might we ask, did polytheistic ideas creep into the thinking of the ancients? The answer, we believe, is to be found in the 10th chapter of Genesis, wherein is given a short history of Nimrod "the mighty hunter before the Lord.'' This same Nimrod was the founder of the first city, Nineveh, in the land of Shinar. It is proven that Nimrod is the same as Ninus, the first king of Babylon. Contrary to popular belief, Nimrod hunted more than wild beasts. He captured the souls of men as the cofounder, with his wife Semiramis, of a gigantic religious system, set up to oppose and frustrate the plan of God as revealed to the Israelites and their descendants. Eventually these pagan notions of Nimrod and Semiramis found their way from Babylon to practically every country of the ancient world. The religious concepts and deities of practically all pagan religions have their counterpart in the Babylonian religious system.
The pure monotheism inspired by the Israelites and the early inhabitants of the earth was corrupted by Nimrod. Much of the paganism including the basic idea of a Trinity of Gods, found in Christianity has come down to us straight from Babylon.
The Council Of Nicea
So divided was the thinking of the theologians of the Nicene era, and so intense were their quarrels over the nature of the Godhead, that Emperor Constantine, a quasi pagan at best, was forced to call a council to settle the most important Christian doctrines. It was this same Constantine who revered the sun god Apollo, and who held the office of Pontifex Maximus,
the nominal head of the pagan state religion of Rome, who presided over the Council of Nicea, in 325 A. D. He later assumed the right to pass on the reasonableness of Christian dogma, issuing decrees upholding his verdicts.
A Helpful Suggestion
Our prayer is that Christendom as a whole will cast out of her midst all that is pagan and unscriptural, and strive to the end that "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God." May God enlighten our minds and cause us to prayerfully consider the infinite mysteries of the Godhead. May we always have a sane, logical, and scriptural foundation for our convictions. Let us hold fast to the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and resist all efforts to relegate Him to a secondary position in our worship and thinking.
Hybrid Mode
