Although Cecil was right that Christmas is observed on December 25th because it was originally a pagan solstice holiday designated to celebrate the birth of Sol Invictus - he kind of flubbed up on the Pisces part of the answer.
Jesus is associated with Pisces the Fish because of the Procession of Equinoxes. As the earth spins, its pole wobbles along a 25,920 year track around the Zodiac. Every 2,160 years the pole points to a new constellation in the Zodiac, thus marking a new “age”.
Roughly 2000 years ago the earth’s pole was beginning to point at the constellation of Pisces the fish. Being avid astrologers, the early Christian mystics were fully aware of this notion and observed it by using the symbol of the fish prodigiously when constructing their Jesus mythology and iconography.
In addition, we often times hear that we are entering the Age of Aquarius but few people know why. It’s because the earth’s pole is leaving the constellation of Pisces and starting to point tohe constellation of Aquarius, thus marking the dawn of yet another new “age”.
Don’t mind me, just helping out here by posting links to the columns being discussed – Why do we celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25? and When did the Age of Aquarius officially start? The first column appears in the original Straight Dope compilation, and the latter in the latest, Triumph of the Straight Dope, both available at bookstores near you, in case anyone out there needs a suggestion on how to use a bookstore gift card.
Wow! Thanks Whitetho! I wasn’t aware Cecil had already adressed the Piscean question in a prior article.
It is indeed hard to tell when an “age” begins and when it ends. It’s kind of like the second hand on a clock. It points to the numeric hour mark well before that hour strikes and still points to it even after the hour has passed.
The same is true with “ages”. We can only safely say that we are somewhere between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius.
Astrological themes and symbols permeate the early Christian writings; both canonical and apocryphal. There is no doubt that the originators of the Christian mythology were well versed in astrology as well as esoteric philopsophy and mythology. A very good book to introduce yourself to the potentiality of these ideas is THE JESUS MYSTERIES and JESUS AND THE LOST GODDESS by Peter Gandy and Timothy Freke. Take it or leave it - at least consider it first.
The “fish symbol” was a bit of code which Christians used to identify themselves to each other in a hostile Roman environment. In Greek, the word “fish” is composed of the letters iota, chi, theta, upsilon, sigma. These letters, in Greek, make an acronym for the words, “Jesus Christ, God’s son, savior.”
Most any mainline pastor who has been to seminary and trained in Greek can confirm that for you. (It’s really not a secret any longer.)
That story is very widespread, but the acronym first turns up in the 4th century, whereas the symbol can be traced back to the 2nd. It is not clear whether the Xtian use of the “Ichthus” symbol comes from the acronym or the acronym comes from the symbol.
I am aware of that particular explanation of the fish symbol as an icon, but what I was referring to more explictly was the usage of the fish as a symbol all throughout the gospel narratives. The inventors of the mythology seem to have employed the device of the fish as a symbolic convention referencing the new Piscean “age” that Christ was bringing to mankind.
Although astrology is defined today for most people as the horoscope you find in the Entertainment section of your local newspaper, 2000 years ago any one worth his salt in the area of spirituality, philosophy, and mythology knew quite a deal about astrological symbols, their meanings, and metaporical usage.
Jesus calls his disciples “fisher of men” and gathers them from actual fishermen. He divides just a few fish into enough food to feed 5000 people… the theme of the fish is quite consistent throughout the narratives - but why?
Actually the symbol of the fish is much older than Christianity and it’s usage has a very specific meaning to those with esoteric knowledge. Often times, we just accept our modern symbols (like the fish, or the cross for that matter) without ever going any deeper than what we are first told - but often times the journey to uncover the meaning of just one symbol can open the doors to an entire spiritual adventure and awakening and forever change the way you see yourself and the world around you.
If you’re curious to know more about the fish symbol, simply follow the white rabbit… And look! There he goes now! He’s just checked his watch and hopped down the hole and disappeared underground!
Naaaah. The dots connect directly from the Sea of Galilee to fish and fishermen. We don’t need to go clear over to esoteric astrology to explain those phenomena.
And the web site doesn’t have much credibility with me. Besides his misspellings and grammatical errors, the author doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a “translation” and a “transliteration.”
A “translation” carries the meaning of words across from one language to another. But a “transliteration” carries the actual letters or sounds across from one alphabet to another.
In order to print words from a non-Latin (e.g., non-English) alphabet–such as Greek or Cyrillic/Russian, or Hebrew–in English, we must “transliterate” the letters. That allows us to say the original word as it sounds in its native language. But that isn’t a translation into, say, English. To translate the word, you must use an English word.
Contrary to what the author of the web page says, “Iesous Christos Theos Yios Soter” DOES translate as “Jesus Christ, Son of God, savior.”
And it doesn’t surprise me not to have the code spelled out prior to the fourth century, since that’s when Christianity was legalized.
Just for clarification - recent archeology (specifically the lost writings found at Qumran) has proven that the earliest Christians held beliefs far different than those held by the early Church Founders.
Before the Christian faith was usurped by Rome and sanctioned as a state enforced religion by Constantine in AD 312, men and women both were allowed to be priests; death and ressurection were viewed as symbolical stages of an initiates spiritual development and not a literal reference to any historical event; heaven was thought to be a place on earth here and now; and the eternal torments of hell were considered a childish and offensive fairy tale meant to scare the dim-witted or ignorant into blind obedience to the will of the state authorities.
These original Christians, called Gnostics, were eventually hunted down and killed - and their copius writings and teachings were almost all destroyed and supressed by the newly emerging imperial Christian hierarchy.
And any time this authentic voice of Christianity tried to speak up and demonstrate that it was indeed the the true and original message of the first Christians, it was called a heresy and violently put down, as in the mass murder of the gnostic Cathars in France in the 13th century.
Luckily, some hidden copies of these original Christian writings were found in a place called Qumran and are referred to popularly as the Nag Hammadi Library They paint a picture of a much different Christian religion than the one invented by the Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries - the one we know and have inherited today.
I can’t speak to most of this, but I know the part quoted above is not entirely correct. Gnostics are not “the original” Christians, that would be a small group of Jews; Gnosticism came about significantly later. Gnostics were never the dominant sect/denomination, so you can’t claim that others of “the original Christians” accepted their teachings. You can only claim that Gnostics did this or that.
The “imperial Christian hierachy” was not the dominant, unified imperial force that you make it out to be. The number of schisms with serious political consequences point that out. It is a fact that the more autocratic the Roman rulers became, the less actual power they held in places not near their armies. By the time of Constantine, the Roman Emperor was essentially a military dictator. Also, the Eastern and Western and sections of the Empire diverged pretty early in the game. Ask any Orthodox Christian. I have trouble believing that the Gnostics were singled out any more than any of the other heretics (a term that means something stronger now than then).
Actually, the gnostic tradition is far OLDER than Christianity. It originated in Egypt with Osiris and moved to Greece with Dionysis and passed on to Mithras in Rome and then to Jesus in Judea along with many other lesser known “vegetable” gods (so-called because they died but came back to life again in the spring.) They universal theme that ties all of these gnostic “gods” together is that they died to their physical nature and were ressurected anew as spiritual beings - but all of this was meant to be taken philosophically and metaphorically, as a process taking place within the initiate’s heart and mind. It was the Roman Church’s particular diabolical genius to re-write and recast this tried and true myth as an actual historical event that they expected their followers to literally believe or else.
Anyone interested in these subjects should really expose themselves to the ideas contained in THE JESUS MYSTERIES and JESUS AND THE LOST GODDESS. The scholarship is impeccable and the theories these two works present are quite convincing and compelling. You won’t know if you buy it until you try it…
All I did was suggest that we consider an alternative interpetation of early Christian history and some people just get all hot and completely shut down.
That was a very interesting response JWK. Very telling.
I think you already have your mind made up about what you think is the absolute “truth” - in other words, you have a firmly established belief system, and if something or someone comes along and challenges your firmly established belief system, you deal with it by becoming angry and walking away.
I’m was only suggesting you educate yourself on the latest alternative theories concerning the early history of Christianty. It’s a very dynamic subject, you know, and new information is always coming to light. Most people haven’t even caught up to the Qumran findings yet - and others refuse to even consider it because they think that blind faith is more important than bland fact.
The gnostic gospels represent the oldest known manuscripts detailing the early beliefs of Christianity that we have. If you ask the Vatican to produce their oldest original Christian manuscripts, they can only give you some scraps dating from the 4th and 5th century.
Some of the Nag Hammadi scrolls have laid untouched in the desert since the 2nd century - vastly predating any manuscripts the Orthodox Church can lay claim to, and they reveal to us a very different idea of Christianity than the one we know today.