(short) Book Review: A book that may be of some interest....
(Review by Renew America)
"Quoted by the Britannica from Grant Showerman's 'The Great Mother of Gods' [Bulletin of the University of WISCONSIN, No. 43, Madison, 1901].)
Here are some more pithy excerpts from the Britannica:
"During the brief revival of paganism under [Caesar] Eugenius in
A.D. 394, occurred the last appearance of the cult in history [the last open one at least]....
"She was known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly EARTH itself.
"Especial emphasis was placed upon her maternity over WILD nature.... Her universal POWER over the natural world finds beautiful expression in Apollonius Rhodius....
"Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.
"Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes [etc.]...and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood."
(Doesn't this sound vaguely like some of our modern music and "multicultural" lifestyles, including sado-masochism and nature-worship? Are we experiencing a stealth "brief revival of paganism" as in 394 A.D., or what?)
"At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved upon the high priest, Archigallus, called Attis, a high priestess, Sacerdos Maxima [etc.].... Besides other priests, priestesses and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c, there were certain colleges connected with the administration of the cult...."
Environmentalism in the extreme, or "Deep Ecology," by any other name is a CULT WITH DEEP ANCIENT ROOTS. The "green movement" is not a "secular" one, as advertised, but is deeply religious in the pagan sense.
The Britannica concludes the Great Mother of the Gods article thusly:
"Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great aid to [professing] Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strong rival of Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against paganism."
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Galatians 1:6 NIV
(Review by Renew America)
The Great Mother of the Gods
by Grant Showerman
126 pages Publisher: Wentworth Press 2019
"Quoted by the Britannica from Grant Showerman's 'The Great Mother of Gods' [Bulletin of the University of WISCONSIN, No. 43, Madison, 1901].)
Here are some more pithy excerpts from the Britannica:
"During the brief revival of paganism under [Caesar] Eugenius in
"She was known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly EARTH itself.
"Especial emphasis was placed upon her maternity over WILD nature.... Her universal POWER over the natural world finds beautiful expression in Apollonius Rhodius....
"Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.
"Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes [etc.]...and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood."
(Doesn't this sound vaguely like some of our modern music and "multicultural" lifestyles, including sado-masochism and nature-worship? Are we experiencing a stealth "brief revival of paganism" as in 394 A.D., or what?)
"At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved upon the high priest, Archigallus, called Attis, a high priestess, Sacerdos Maxima [etc.].... Besides other priests, priestesses and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c, there were certain colleges connected with the administration of the cult...."
Environmentalism in the extreme, or "Deep Ecology," by any other name is a CULT WITH DEEP ANCIENT ROOTS. The "green movement" is not a "secular" one, as advertised, but is deeply religious in the pagan sense.
The Britannica concludes the Great Mother of the Gods article thusly:
"Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great aid to [professing] Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strong rival of Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against paganism."
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Galatians 1:6 NIV
