- Feb 24, 2008
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I just thought that I should share some thoughts on our American Holy-day of Chris-tmas. After doing some research on a roman goddess called Cybele, I found out that her son and consort called Attis is/was represented by the Evergreen pine tree and that Cybele, the mother goddess is often pictured standing at the feet of a cross. Hmmm! According to the article, Jeremiah is referring to this exact practice in;
Jer 10:1 Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Jer 10:2 Thus says the LORD: "Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them. Jer 10:3 For the customs of the peoples [are] futile; For [one] cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. Jer 10:4 They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple. Jer 10:5 They [are] upright, like a palm tree, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot go [by themselves]. Do not be afraid of them, For they cannot do evil, Nor can they do any good."
Wikipedia Article on Attis:
Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a daemon, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.The story of his origins from Agdistis, as told to the traveller Pausanias, have some distinctly non-Greek elements: Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes. But the Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana who was a daughter of the river Sangarios picked an almond and laid it in her bosom. The almond disappeared, and she became pregnant. Nana abandoned the baby (Attis). The infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parents of Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter. According to some versions the King of Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. Attis' father-in-law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the self-castrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.[2]Attis was reborn as the evergreen pine. At the temple of Cybele/Rhea in Pessinos, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer Strabo recounted.[3] Sculpture of Attis. Museum of Ephesus, Efes, Turkey.As neighboring Lydia came to control Phrygia, the cult of Attis was given a Lydian context too. Attis is said to have introduced to Lydia the cult of the Mother Goddess Cybele, incurring the jealousy of Zeus, who sent a boar to destroy the Lydian crops. Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar. Pausanias adds, to corroborate this story, that the Gauls who inhabited Pessinos abstained from pork. This myth element may have been invented solely to explain the unusual dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele were known as Galli ("Gauls").As the orgiastic cult of Cybele spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in the time of Claudius, the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her. The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus.[4] but it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-established cult of Cybele until the early Empire.[5]A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from Magna Graecia, is in the archaeological museum, Venice. A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the Mosel was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier (see link for illustration). It shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the legs with toggles and the Phrygian cap.In 2007, in the ruins of Herculaneum a wooden throne was discovered adorned with a relief of Attis beneath a sacred pine tree, gathering cones. Historical records indicate that the cult of Attis was popular in Herculaneum at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Please note that the Hanukka tree is also a Evergreen pine tree:
A Hanukkah bush is bush or tree —real or simulated— that some American and Canadian Jewish families display in their homes for the duration of Hanukkah. It may, for all intents and purposes, be a Christmas tree (without any Christian ornaments).The Hanukkah bush is a bone of contention between those Jews who see it, especially in it is "menorah look-alike" manifestations, as a distinctly Jewish plant badge; and those Jews who regard it as an assimilationist variation of a Christmas tree — especially when it is indistinguishable from the latter. The latter group are concerned about Jews who appear to inch their way away from Jewish and into Christian theological traditions.The Hanukkah bush is all but unknown outside Canada and the United States, where it is apparently most typically displayed by Ashkenazi Jews from the Reform and Reconstructionist traditions.
Wikipedia's article on Cybele:
Originally a Hittite and Phrygian goddess, Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη), was a deification of the Earth Mother and was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. As with Gaia (the "Earth"), or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially lions and bees). She has been identified with the Hurrian goddess Hebat.The goddess was known among the Greeks as Meter or Meter oreie ("Mountain-Mother"), or, with a particular Anatolian sacred mountain in mind, Idaea, inasmuch as she was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida in Anatolia, or equally Dindymene or Sipylene, with her sacred mountains Mount Dindymon (in Mysia and variously located) or Mount Sipylus in mind. In Roman mythology, her equivalent was Magna Mater or "Great Mother".Her Ancient Greek title, Potnia Theron, also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to her Neolithic roots as the "Mistress of the Animals". She becomes a life-death-rebirth deity in connection with her resurrection of her son and consort, Attis. She is associated with her lion throne and her chariot drawn by lions.Walter Burkert, who treats Cybele among "foreign gods" in Greek Religion notes that "The cult of the Great Mother, Meter, presents a complex picture insofar as indigenous, Minoan-Mycenean tradition is here intertwined with a cult taken over directly from the Phrygian kingdom of Asia Minor"[1][2] The inscription matar occurs frequently in her Phrygian sites (Burkert). Kubileya is usually read as a Phrygian adjective "of the mountain", so that the inscription may be read Mother of the Mountain, and this is supported by Classical sources (Roller 1999, pp. 67–68). Another theory is that her name can be traced to the Luwian Kubaba, the deified queen of the Third Dynasty of Kish worshiped at Carchemish and Hellenized to Kybebe (Munn 2004, Motz 1997, pp. 105-106). With or without the etymological connection, Kubaba and Matar certainly merged in at least some aspects, as the genital mutilation later connected with Cybele's cult is associated with Kybebe in earlier texts, but in general she seems to have been more a collection of similar tutelary goddesses associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities, and called simply "mother" (Motz). Later, Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given women's clothing and assumed "female" identities, who were referred to by one third-century commentator, Callimachus, in the feminine as Gallai, but to whom other contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred to as Gallos or Galli.There is no mention of these followers in Classical references although they related that her priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing, and drinking. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was castrated, died of his wounds, and resurrected by his mother. The dactyls were part of her retinue.Roman CybeleAccording to Livy in 10 CE, an archaic version of Cybele, from Pessinos in Phrygia, as mentioned above, that embodied the Great Mother was ceremoniously and reverently moved to Rome, marking the official beginning of her cult there. Rome was embroiled in the Second Punic War at the time (218 to 201 BCE). An inspection had been made of the Sibylline Books and some oracular verses had been discovered that announced that if a foreign foe should carry war into Italy, that foe could be driven out and conquered if the Mater Magna were brought from Pessinos to Rome. The Romans also consulted the Greek oracle at Delphi, which also recommended bringing the Magna Mater "from her sanctuary in Asia Minor to Rome."[4] Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was ordered to go to the port of Ostia, accompanied by all the matrons, to meet the goddess. He was to receive her image as she left the vessel, and when brought to land he was to place her in the hands of the matrons who were to bear her to her destination, the Temple of Victory on the Palatine Hill. The day on which this event took place, 12 April, was observed afterwards as a festival, the Megalesian.[5]Plutarch relates that in 103 BCE, Battakes, a high priest of Cybele, journeyed to Rome to announce a prediction of Gaius Marius's victory over the Cimbri and Teutoni. A. Pompeius, plebeian tribune, together with a band of ruffians, chased Battakes off of the Rostra. Pompeius supposedly died of a fever a few days later.[6]Under the emperor Augustus, Cybele enjoyed great prominence thanks to her inclusion in Augustan ideology. Augustus restored Cybele's temple, which was located next to his own palace on the Palatine Hill. On the cuirass of the Prima Porta of Augustus, the tympanon of Cybele lies at the feet of the goddess Tellus. Livia, the wife of Augustus, ordered cameo-cutters to portray Cybele with her likeness.[7] The Malibu statue of Cybele bears the visage of Livia.[8]. The cult seems to have been fully accepted under Claudius as the festival of Magna Mater and Attis are included within the stes religious calendar. At the same time the chief priest of the cult (the archigallus) was permitted to be a Roman citizen, so long as he was not a eunuch. 1st century BC marble statue of Cybele from Formia, CampaniaUnder the Roman Empire the most important festival of Cybele was the Hilaria, taking place between March 15 and March 28. It symbolicaly commemorated the death of Attis and his resurrection by Cybele, involving days of mourning followed by rejoicing. Celebrations also took place on 4 April with the Megalensia festival, the anniversary of the arrival of the goddess (i.e the Black Stone) in Rome. On the 10th April, the anniversary of the consecration of her temple on the Palatine, a procession of her image was carried to the Circus Maximus where races were held. These two dates seem to be incorporated within the same festival, though the evidence for what took place in between is lacking.The most famous rite of Magna Mater introduced by the Romans was the taurobolium, the initiation ceremony in which a candidate took their place in a pit beneath a wooden floor. A bull was sacrificed on the wooden floor so that the blood would run through gaps in the slats and drench the initiate in a symbolic shower of blood. This act was thought to cleanse an initiate of sin as well as signify a 'rebirth' and re-energisation. A cheaper version, known as a criobolium, involved the sacrifice of a ram. The first recorded taurobolium took place at Puteoli in AD 134 in honour of Venus Caelestia.[9]In Roman mythology, Cybele was given the name Magna Mater deorum Idaea ("great Idaean mother of the gods"), in recognition of her Phrygian origins (although this title was given to Rhea also).Roman devotion to Cybele ran deeply. Not coincidentally, when a Christian basilica was built over the site of a temple to Cybele[citation needed] to occupy the site, the sanctuary was rededicated to the Mother of God, as the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. However, later, Roman citizens were forbidden to become priests of Cybele, who were eunuchs like those of their Asiatic Goddess.The worship of Cybele was exported to the empire, even as far away as Mauretania, where, just outside Setif, the ceremonial "tree-bearers" and the faithful (religiosi) restored the temple of Cybele and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 CE. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and the chariot that carried her in procession received a new canopy with tassels in the form of fir cones. (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p 581.) The popularity of the Cybele cult in the city of Rome and throughout the empire is thought to have inspired the author of Book of Revelation to allude to her in his portrayal of the mother of harlots who rides the Beast. Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; famously, St. Theodore of Amasea is said to have spent the time granted to him to recant his beliefs, burning a temple of Cybele instead.[10]Today, a modern monumental statue of Cybele can be found in one of the principal traffic circles of Madrid, the Plaza de Cibeles
Food for Thought!
Jer 10:1 Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Jer 10:2 Thus says the LORD: "Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them. Jer 10:3 For the customs of the peoples [are] futile; For [one] cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. Jer 10:4 They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple. Jer 10:5 They [are] upright, like a palm tree, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot go [by themselves]. Do not be afraid of them, For they cannot do evil, Nor can they do any good."
Wikipedia Article on Attis:
Attis was originally a local semi-deity of Phrygia, associated with the great Phrygian trading city of Pessinos, which lay under the lee of Mount Agdistis. The mountain was personified as a daemon, whom foreigners associated with the Great Mother Cybele.The story of his origins from Agdistis, as told to the traveller Pausanias, have some distinctly non-Greek elements: Pausanias was told that the daemon Agdistis initially bore both male and female attributes. But the Olympian gods, fearing Agdistis, cut off the male organ and cast it away. There grew up from it an almond-tree, and when its fruit was ripe, Nana who was a daughter of the river Sangarios picked an almond and laid it in her bosom. The almond disappeared, and she became pregnant. Nana abandoned the baby (Attis). The infant was tended by a he-goat. As Attis grew, his long-haired beauty was godlike, and Agdistis as Cybele, then fell in love with him. But the foster parents of Attis sent him to Pessinos, where he was to wed the king's daughter. According to some versions the King of Pessinos was Midas. Just as the marriage-song was being sung, Agdistis/Cybele appeared in her transcendent power, and Attis went mad and cut off his genitals. Attis' father-in-law-to-be, the king who was giving his daughter in marriage, followed suit, prefiguring the self-castrating corybantes who devoted themselves to Cybele. But Agdistis repented and saw to it that the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay.[2]Attis was reborn as the evergreen pine. At the temple of Cybele/Rhea in Pessinos, the mother of the gods was still called Agdistis, the geographer Strabo recounted.[3] Sculpture of Attis. Museum of Ephesus, Efes, Turkey.As neighboring Lydia came to control Phrygia, the cult of Attis was given a Lydian context too. Attis is said to have introduced to Lydia the cult of the Mother Goddess Cybele, incurring the jealousy of Zeus, who sent a boar to destroy the Lydian crops. Then certain Lydians, with Attis himself, were killed by the boar. Pausanias adds, to corroborate this story, that the Gauls who inhabited Pessinos abstained from pork. This myth element may have been invented solely to explain the unusual dietary laws of the Lydian Gauls. In Rome, the eunuch followers of Cybele were known as Galli ("Gauls").As the orgiastic cult of Cybele spread from Anatolia to Greece and eventually to Rome in the time of Claudius, the cult of Attis, her reborn eunuch consort, accompanied her. The first literary reference to Attis is the subject of one of the most famous poems by Catullus.[4] but it appears that the cult of Attis at Rome was not attached to the earlier-established cult of Cybele until the early Empire.[5]A marble bas-relief of Cybele in her chariot and Attis, from Magna Graecia, is in the archaeological museum, Venice. A finely executed silvery brass Attis that had been ritually consigned to the Mosel was recovered during construction in 1963 and is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum of Trier (see link for illustration). It shows the typically Anatolian costume of the god: trousers fastened together down the front of the legs with toggles and the Phrygian cap.In 2007, in the ruins of Herculaneum a wooden throne was discovered adorned with a relief of Attis beneath a sacred pine tree, gathering cones. Historical records indicate that the cult of Attis was popular in Herculaneum at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Please note that the Hanukka tree is also a Evergreen pine tree:
A Hanukkah bush is bush or tree —real or simulated— that some American and Canadian Jewish families display in their homes for the duration of Hanukkah. It may, for all intents and purposes, be a Christmas tree (without any Christian ornaments).The Hanukkah bush is a bone of contention between those Jews who see it, especially in it is "menorah look-alike" manifestations, as a distinctly Jewish plant badge; and those Jews who regard it as an assimilationist variation of a Christmas tree — especially when it is indistinguishable from the latter. The latter group are concerned about Jews who appear to inch their way away from Jewish and into Christian theological traditions.The Hanukkah bush is all but unknown outside Canada and the United States, where it is apparently most typically displayed by Ashkenazi Jews from the Reform and Reconstructionist traditions.
Wikipedia's article on Cybele:
Originally a Hittite and Phrygian goddess, Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη), was a deification of the Earth Mother and was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. As with Gaia (the "Earth"), or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals (especially lions and bees). She has been identified with the Hurrian goddess Hebat.The goddess was known among the Greeks as Meter or Meter oreie ("Mountain-Mother"), or, with a particular Anatolian sacred mountain in mind, Idaea, inasmuch as she was supposed to have been born on Mount Ida in Anatolia, or equally Dindymene or Sipylene, with her sacred mountains Mount Dindymon (in Mysia and variously located) or Mount Sipylus in mind. In Roman mythology, her equivalent was Magna Mater or "Great Mother".Her Ancient Greek title, Potnia Theron, also associated with the Minoan Great Mother, alludes to her Neolithic roots as the "Mistress of the Animals". She becomes a life-death-rebirth deity in connection with her resurrection of her son and consort, Attis. She is associated with her lion throne and her chariot drawn by lions.Walter Burkert, who treats Cybele among "foreign gods" in Greek Religion notes that "The cult of the Great Mother, Meter, presents a complex picture insofar as indigenous, Minoan-Mycenean tradition is here intertwined with a cult taken over directly from the Phrygian kingdom of Asia Minor"[1][2] The inscription matar occurs frequently in her Phrygian sites (Burkert). Kubileya is usually read as a Phrygian adjective "of the mountain", so that the inscription may be read Mother of the Mountain, and this is supported by Classical sources (Roller 1999, pp. 67–68). Another theory is that her name can be traced to the Luwian Kubaba, the deified queen of the Third Dynasty of Kish worshiped at Carchemish and Hellenized to Kybebe (Munn 2004, Motz 1997, pp. 105-106). With or without the etymological connection, Kubaba and Matar certainly merged in at least some aspects, as the genital mutilation later connected with Cybele's cult is associated with Kybebe in earlier texts, but in general she seems to have been more a collection of similar tutelary goddesses associated with specific Anatolian mountains or other localities, and called simply "mother" (Motz). Later, Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given women's clothing and assumed "female" identities, who were referred to by one third-century commentator, Callimachus, in the feminine as Gallai, but to whom other contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred to as Gallos or Galli.There is no mention of these followers in Classical references although they related that her priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing, and drinking. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was castrated, died of his wounds, and resurrected by his mother. The dactyls were part of her retinue.Roman CybeleAccording to Livy in 10 CE, an archaic version of Cybele, from Pessinos in Phrygia, as mentioned above, that embodied the Great Mother was ceremoniously and reverently moved to Rome, marking the official beginning of her cult there. Rome was embroiled in the Second Punic War at the time (218 to 201 BCE). An inspection had been made of the Sibylline Books and some oracular verses had been discovered that announced that if a foreign foe should carry war into Italy, that foe could be driven out and conquered if the Mater Magna were brought from Pessinos to Rome. The Romans also consulted the Greek oracle at Delphi, which also recommended bringing the Magna Mater "from her sanctuary in Asia Minor to Rome."[4] Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica was ordered to go to the port of Ostia, accompanied by all the matrons, to meet the goddess. He was to receive her image as she left the vessel, and when brought to land he was to place her in the hands of the matrons who were to bear her to her destination, the Temple of Victory on the Palatine Hill. The day on which this event took place, 12 April, was observed afterwards as a festival, the Megalesian.[5]Plutarch relates that in 103 BCE, Battakes, a high priest of Cybele, journeyed to Rome to announce a prediction of Gaius Marius's victory over the Cimbri and Teutoni. A. Pompeius, plebeian tribune, together with a band of ruffians, chased Battakes off of the Rostra. Pompeius supposedly died of a fever a few days later.[6]Under the emperor Augustus, Cybele enjoyed great prominence thanks to her inclusion in Augustan ideology. Augustus restored Cybele's temple, which was located next to his own palace on the Palatine Hill. On the cuirass of the Prima Porta of Augustus, the tympanon of Cybele lies at the feet of the goddess Tellus. Livia, the wife of Augustus, ordered cameo-cutters to portray Cybele with her likeness.[7] The Malibu statue of Cybele bears the visage of Livia.[8]. The cult seems to have been fully accepted under Claudius as the festival of Magna Mater and Attis are included within the stes religious calendar. At the same time the chief priest of the cult (the archigallus) was permitted to be a Roman citizen, so long as he was not a eunuch. 1st century BC marble statue of Cybele from Formia, CampaniaUnder the Roman Empire the most important festival of Cybele was the Hilaria, taking place between March 15 and March 28. It symbolicaly commemorated the death of Attis and his resurrection by Cybele, involving days of mourning followed by rejoicing. Celebrations also took place on 4 April with the Megalensia festival, the anniversary of the arrival of the goddess (i.e the Black Stone) in Rome. On the 10th April, the anniversary of the consecration of her temple on the Palatine, a procession of her image was carried to the Circus Maximus where races were held. These two dates seem to be incorporated within the same festival, though the evidence for what took place in between is lacking.The most famous rite of Magna Mater introduced by the Romans was the taurobolium, the initiation ceremony in which a candidate took their place in a pit beneath a wooden floor. A bull was sacrificed on the wooden floor so that the blood would run through gaps in the slats and drench the initiate in a symbolic shower of blood. This act was thought to cleanse an initiate of sin as well as signify a 'rebirth' and re-energisation. A cheaper version, known as a criobolium, involved the sacrifice of a ram. The first recorded taurobolium took place at Puteoli in AD 134 in honour of Venus Caelestia.[9]In Roman mythology, Cybele was given the name Magna Mater deorum Idaea ("great Idaean mother of the gods"), in recognition of her Phrygian origins (although this title was given to Rhea also).Roman devotion to Cybele ran deeply. Not coincidentally, when a Christian basilica was built over the site of a temple to Cybele[citation needed] to occupy the site, the sanctuary was rededicated to the Mother of God, as the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. However, later, Roman citizens were forbidden to become priests of Cybele, who were eunuchs like those of their Asiatic Goddess.The worship of Cybele was exported to the empire, even as far away as Mauretania, where, just outside Setif, the ceremonial "tree-bearers" and the faithful (religiosi) restored the temple of Cybele and Attis after a disastrous fire in 288 CE. Lavish new fittings paid for by the private group included the silver statue of Cybele and the chariot that carried her in procession received a new canopy with tassels in the form of fir cones. (Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, p 581.) The popularity of the Cybele cult in the city of Rome and throughout the empire is thought to have inspired the author of Book of Revelation to allude to her in his portrayal of the mother of harlots who rides the Beast. Cybele drew ire from Christians throughout the Empire; famously, St. Theodore of Amasea is said to have spent the time granted to him to recant his beliefs, burning a temple of Cybele instead.[10]Today, a modern monumental statue of Cybele can be found in one of the principal traffic circles of Madrid, the Plaza de Cibeles
Food for Thought!
