Bloody Religions

Christians do celebrate Christmas on December 25. But why this particular date? It was borrowed from the cult of Mithra. The date of the Christian feast of Easter also coincides with that of another pagan feast, the cult of Atys and Cybele, which took place at the time of the spring equinox. This great Phrygian celebration began on March 24. It was called « Blood Day ».

For their part, Jews celebrated the feast of Pessah (or Passover) in early Spring by sacrificing a lamb in memory of the Exodus. More than a thousand and a half millennia later, Muslims took up the symbolism of the sacrifice of the sheep at Eid el Kebir, in memory of the sacrifice of the son of Abraham, asked by God.

It seems that there is a non-unimportant disagreement on the identity of this son. Muslims believe that it was Ishmael (the son of Abraham’s concubine Agar) whom God had asked Abraham to sacrifice. The Jewish Bible indicates that it was Isaac, the first-born son of Abraham and Sarah. Muslims, arrived quite late in the history of religions, accuse Jews of falsifying the Scriptures on this subject.

In any case, the blood of an animal (bull, lamb, sheep) must flow among the followers of Atys and Cybele as well as among Jews and Muslims.

It can be seen that various religions, pagan and monotheistic, found Spring to be very conducive to their devotions, apparently, and that they also shared a certain attraction for the symbolism of the blood shed.

Blood is flowing, but the meaning is different.

The « day of blood » of Atys and Cybele was the day when incoming and neophyte priests had to emasculate themselves voluntarily. « They threw these cut off parts of themselves on the statue of the goddess Cybele. These fertility organs were buried in the earth, in underground chambers dedicated to Cybele. « explains James George Frazer.

Initiation ceremonies were held after the event. « The faithful man crowned with gold and surrounded by bands went down into a pit covered with a grid. A bull’s throat was slit. The hot and smoking blood was spilling in streams over the worshipper. »

The initiate spent the night, alone, in the bloody pit. The next day, on March 25 then, was celebrated the divine resurrection.

The castrated priests of Atys were called « galls », in reference to the Gallus River in Galatia. Nothing exceptional about the castration of priests. Artemis in Ephesus or Astarte in Hierropolis in Syria were also served by eunuch priests. Atys, a Phrygian goddess, is both Cybele’s son and lover. This situation can be compared to that of Adonis, associated with Aphrodite-Astarte or Tammuz, Ishtar’s paredre.

Mythology tells us about the origin of this bloody cult. Zeus gave birth to the hermaphrodite Agdistis, by letting his sperm flow to the ground, thus sowing Gaia, the Earth. But the other gods frightened by this strange hermaphrodite, both man and woman, emasculate her. Deprived of his male sex, Agditsis then became Cybele.

According to Pausanias, the almond tree was born from the blood that flowed from the wound of the emasculation. Then, with a kernel from this tree, Nana, daughter of the river god Sangarios, conceived Atys. Atys became a handsome young man. Cybele, who was in a way his progenitor, by interposed almond, fell in love with him. But Atys was to marry the daughter of the King of Pessinus. Jealous, Cybele struck him with madness. So Atys emasculated himself too.

Regretting his act, Agdistis-Cybele obtained from Zeus that Atys’ body never decomposes.

It is quite tempting to make a connection (purely analogical) between the myth of Atys and Cybele, the sacrifice of the lamb during the Jewish Passover, and the sacrifice of Christ followed by his resurrection among Christians.

The sacrifice of the bull in the cult of Atys and Cybele (itself inherited from traditions certainly much older, as the Veda testifies) causes blood to flow over the neophyte who must spend the night in a tomb-like vault, to symbolically resurrect the next day as an initiate to the mysteries.

Christ, « the Lamb of God », was put to death on the first day of the Jewish Passover, his blood was shed, then he was put in the tomb to rise again on the 3rd day. The analogy seems obvious. Differences abound too.

The cult of Atys and Cybele did not require the sacrifice of man, but only that of his parts, with the sacrifice of the bull as a complement.

There is an undoubted commonality between the mysteries of Atys and Cybele, the ancient Passover feast of Judaism, the Easter of Christianity and the Eid el kebir of Islam: the blood always flows, really or symbolically, from the bull, the lamb or the sheep, the blood of the severed sex of priests, or the blood of Christ.

Why does God seem to need some much blood?

Why would such a supreme God accept appearing as a thirsty Vampire?

Or is it just men who seem to enjoy believing that?