FISH, FRIDAY, AND THE SPRING FESTIVAL

WE HAVE SEEN from the Scriptures certain reasons for questioning Friday as the day on which Christ was crucified. Yet each Friday, many Catholics abstain from meat—sub¬stituting fish in Its place—supposedly in remembrance of the Friday crucifixion. Roman Catholics In the United States are no longer required by their church to abstain from meat on Fridays (as formerly)—except during Lent—nevertheless many still follow the custom of fish on Friday.

Certainly the Scriptures never associate fish with Fri¬day. On the other hand, the word “Friday” comes from the name of “Freya,” who was regarded as the goddess of peace, joy, and fertility, the symbol of her fertility being the fish. From very early times the fish was a symbol of fertility among the Chinese, Assyrians, Phoenicians, the Babylonians, and others.’ The word “fish” comes from dag which implies Increase or fertility,2 and with good reason: a single cod annually spawns upwards of 9,000,000 eggs, the flounder 1,000,000, the sturgeon 700,000, the perch 400,000, the mackerel 500,000, the herring, 10,000, etc.

The goddess of sexual fertility among the Romans was called Venus. It Is from her name that our word venereal” (as in venereal disease) has come. Friday was regarded as her sacred day because it was believed that the planet Venus ruled the first hour of Friday and thus was called dies Veneris.3 And, to make the signifi¬cance complete, the fish was also regarded as being sacred to her.4 The accompany¬ing illustration shows the goddess Venus with her symbol, the fish.5 The fish was also regarded as sacred to Ashtoreth. the name under which the Israelites worshipped the pagan goddess.6

In ancient Egypt, Isis was some¬times represented with a fish on her head, as seen in the accompanying Illustration. Considering that Friday was named after the goddess of sexual fertility, Friday being her sacred day. and the fish her symbol, it seems like more than a mere coincidence that Catholics have been taught that Fri¬day is a day of abstinence from meat, a day to eat fish!

We have already noticed why some Christians have rejected Friday as the day of the crucifixion and Easter Sunday morning as the time of the resurrection. From where, then, did Easter observance come? Did the early Christians dye Easter eggs? Did Peter or Paul ever conduct an Easter sun¬rise service? The answers are, of course, obvious.

The word Easter” appears once in the King James Version: “...intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people” (Acts 12:4). The word translated “Easter” here is pascha which is—as all scholars know—the Greek word for passover. It is well known that the word Easter is not a Christian expression—not in Its original meaning. The word comes from the name of a pagan goddess—the goddess of the rising light of day and spring. “Easter” Is but a more modern form of Eostre, Ostera, Astarte, or Ishtar, the latter, according to Hislop, being pronounced as we pronounce “Easter” today.7

Numerous Easter customs had their beginnings among non-Christian religions. Easter eggs, for example, are coloured, hid, hunted, and eaten—a custom done innocently today and often linked with a time of fun and frolic for children. But, anciently, it was a different story.

The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians who believed an old fable about an egg of wondrous size which fell from heaven into the Euphrates River. From this marvellous egg—according to the ancient myth—the goddess Astarte (Easter) was hatched—and the egg became her symbol.8

The ancient Druids bore an egg as the sacred emblem of their idolatrous order.9 The procession of Ceres In Rome was preceded by an egg.10 In the mysteries of Bacchus an egg was consecrated. China used dyed or coloured eggs in sacred festivals. In Japan. an ancient custom was to make the sacred egg a brazen colour. In northern Europe, in pagan times, eggs were coloured and used as symbols of the goddess of spring. The Illustration given below shows two ways the pagans represented their sacred eggs. On the left Is the Egg of Heliopolis; on the right, the Typhon’s Egg. Among the Egyptians, the egg was associated with the sun—the “golden egg.”” Their dyed eggs were used as sacred offerings at the Easter season.’2

Says The Encyclopaedia Britannica, “The egg as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of colouring and eating eggs during their spring festival.”’3 How, then, did this custom come to be associated with Christianity? Apparently some sought to Christianise the egg by suggest¬ing that as the chick comes out of the egg. so Christ came out of the tomb. Pope Paul V (1605-162 1) appointed a prayer: “Bless, 0 Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become wholesome sustenance unto thy ser¬vants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ.”14

The following quotations from The Catholic Encyclopedia15 are significant: “Because the use of eggs was forbidden during Lent, they were brought to the table on Easter Day, coloured red to symbolise the Easter joy... .The custom may have Its origin in paganism, for a great many pagan customs celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter”! Such was the case with a custom that was popular in Europe. “The Easter Fire Is lit on the top of mountains from new fire, drawn from wood by friction; this is a custom of pagan origin in vogue all over Europe, signifying the victory of spring over winter. The bishops Issued severe edicts against the sacrile¬gious Easter fires, but did not succeed in abolishing them everywhere.” So what happened? Notice this carefully. “The church adopted the observance into the Easter ceremonies, referring it to the fiery column in the desert and to the res¬urrection of Christ”! Were pagan customs adopted into the Romish church and given the appearance of Christianity? This is plainly admitted.

Another quote from The Catholic Encyclopaedia concerns the Easter rabbit: “The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility.”16 The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: “Like the Easter egg, the Easter hare came to Christianity from antiquity. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of ancient Egypt and other peoples... .Through the fact that the Egyptian word for hare, um means also ‘open’ and ‘period,’ the hare came to be associated with the idea of periodicity, both lunar and human, and with the beginning of new life in both the young man and young woman, and so a symbol of fertility and of the renewal of life. As such, the hare became linked with Easter.. .eggs.”’7 Thus both the Easter rabbit and Easter eggs were symbols of sexual significance, symbols of fertility.

At the Easter season it is not uncommon for Christians to attend sunrise services. It is assumed that such honour Christ because he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday morning just as the sun was coming up. But the resurrec¬tion did not occur at sunrise. When Mary Magdalene caine to the tomb it was yet dark—and the tomb was already empty! On the other hand, there was a type of sunrise service that was a part of ancient sun worship. We are not Implying, of course, that Christian people today worship the sun In their Easter sunrise services. Nor do we say that those who bow before the monstrance sun-image with Its round, sun-shaped host are worshipping the sun. But such practices. being without Scriptural example, do indicate that mixtures have been made.

In the time of Ezekiel, even people who had known the true God, fell Into sun worship and made it a part of their religion. “And he brought me Into the Inner court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east and they worshipped the sun toward the east” (Ezekiel 8:16). The sun is in the east, of course, at sunrise.

It was also to the east that the prophets of Baal looked In the days of Elijah. Baal was the sun-god, and so also, the god of fire. When Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal with the words, “The God that answers by fire, let him be God,” he was meeting Baal worship on its own grounds. What time of day was it when these prophets of Baal started calling on him? It was as Baal—the sun—made his first appearance over the eastern horizon. It was at “morning” (1 Kings 18:26), that Is, at dawn.18

Rites connected with the dawning sun—In one form or another—have been known among many ancient nations. The Sphinx In Egypt was located so as to face the east. From Mount Fujl-yama, Japan, prayers are made to the rising sun. “The pilgrims pray to their rising sun while climbing the mountain sides.. .sometimes one may see several hundreds of Shinto pilgrims in their white robes turning out from their shelters, and joining their chants to the rising sun.”’9 The pagan Mithrists of Rome met together at dawn In honour of the sun-god.

The goddess of spring, from whose name our word Easter comes, was associated with the sun rising In the east—even as the very word “East-er” would seem to imply. Thus the dawn of the sun In the east, the name Easter, and the spring season are all connected.

According to the old legends, after Tammuz was slain, he descended Into the underworld. But through the weeping of his “mother,” Ishtar (Easter), he was mystically revived In spring. “The resurrection of Tammuz through Ishtar’s grief was dramatically represented annually in order to insure the success of the crops and the fertility of the people. Each year men and women had to grieve with Ishtar over the death of Tamnmuz and celebrate the god’s return in order to win anew her favour and benefits!”20

When the new vegetation began to come forth, those ancient people believed their “saviour” had come from the underworld, had ended winter, and caused spring to be¬gin.21 Even the Israelites adopted the doctrines and rites of the annual pagan spring festival, for Ezekiel speaks of ‘women weeping for Tarnmuz” (Ezekiel 8:14).

As Christians we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in reality—not merely in nature or the new vegetation of spring. Because his resurrection was in the spring of the year, however, It was not too difficult for the church of the fourth century (now having departed from the original faith in a number of ways) to merge the pagan spring festival into Christianity. In speaking of this merger, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “Christianity.. .incorporated in its celebra¬tion of the great Christian feast day many of the heathen rites and customs of the spring festival”!22

Legend has It that Tarnmuz was killed by a wild boar when he was forty years old. Hislop points out that forty days—a day for each year Tanimuz had lived on earth—were set aside to “weep for Tarnmuz.” In olden times these forty days were observed with weeping, fasting, and self-chastisement—to gain anew his favour—so he would come forth from the underworld and cause spring to begin. This observance was known not only at Babylon, but also among the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Mexicans, and, for a time, even among the Israelites. “Among the pagans,” says Hislop, “this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz.”23

Having adopted other beliefs about the spring festival into the church, it was only another step in the development to also adopt the old “fast” that preceded the festival. The Catholic Encyclopaedia very honestly points out that “writers in the fourth century were prone to describe many practices (e.g. the Lenten fast of forty days) as of Apostolic institution which certainly had no claim to be so regarded.’~4 It was not until the sixth century that the pope officially ordered the observance of Lent, calling it a “sacred fast” during which people were to abstain from meat and a few other foods.

Catholic scholars know and recognise that there are customs within their church which were borrowed from paganism.25 But they reason that many things, though originally pagan, can be Christianised. If some pagan tribe observed forty days in honour of a pagan god, why should we not do the same, only in honour of Christ? Though pagans worshipped the sun toward the east, could we not have sunrise services to honour the resurrection of Christ, even though this was not the time of day he arose? Even though the egg was used by pagans, can’t we continue its use and pretend it symbolises the large rock that was in front of the tomb? In other words, why not adopt all kinds of popular customs, only instead of using them to honour pagan gods, as the heathen did, use them to honour Christ?

It all sounds very logical, yet a much safer guideline is found in the Bible itself: ‘Take heed.. .that thou inquire not after their gods [pagan gods], saying: How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God... .What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto” (Deut. 12:30-32).