Pagan Origin of Partialist Doctrines

by John Claudius Pitrat

The Church of Rome practices alike ceremonies in celebrating the anniversary day of the death of Jesus Christ. All the ornaments of each church, the statues and images of saints, etc., are clothed in black. In one of the chapels of the church a tomb is prepared, in which, on the Holy Thursday morning, Jesus Christ—namely, a wafer which has been consecrated—is laid, shut up, not in the ostensorium, but in a ciborium, as a sign of mourning. The priests perform this ceremony. During the whole day the church is thronged with people, who come to express to Jesus Christ their sympathy in his sufferings. At about eight o'clock in the evening, a gloomy procession, composed of the priests and the people, march along the streets in the dark (this procession takes place only in Catholic countries,) now and then reciting in a low and dismal tone a verse of the psalm, Miserere mei Deus, [translation,] Lord have mercy on me. When this procession has taken place, hymns of suffering and of death are sung in the church, around the tomb in which Jesus Christ lays. At eleven o'clock a priest goes to the pulpit, and in an affecting manner relates to the sobbing and weeping multitude the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. This address is called Passion's sermon.

The people spend the whole night in the church to keep company to Jesus Christ in his sufferings, they say, and to relieve him by their sympathy. In the morning of the Holy Friday the church is yet filled with mourners. The priests, processionally, but in silence, go to the tomb where Jesus Christ lays, take him out, and carry him into the tabernacle, where they shut him up, but without leaving any taper burning in the whole church. In the evening, after the recitation of the Officium Tenebrarum, [translation,] Office of Darkness, boys, men, women and all, fill the church with their yells, with the sharp sound of rattles, with the blows they strike on boards with small and large sticks, and with sounding, sonorous instruments, such as horns, etc. A few days after they eat the wafer, which they pretend to be the raw flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.

The Pagans, in celebrating the resurrection of Bacchus, Osiris, etc., who represented the sun, lighted the lamps of their temples with a fire, which the priests obtained by striking a piece of steel with silex, and was called new fire. That day the priests were clothed in white ornaments; the lustral waters were renewed, and also the decorations of the temples: so in every church the Romish priests strike a piece of steel with silex, and obtain a fire called new fire; with it they light the lamps, and the taper called Paschal taper. They renew the holy water, which the people piously carry to their homes, and keep for protection during the storms, etc. The priests change their priestly garments, and clothe in white.

The Pagans worshiped the sun under the name of Aries, because the Aries was one of the celestial signs: so the Church of Rome worships Jesus Christ under the form of a lamb. Formerly, the Roman Catholic parents suspended on the necks of their children the symbolic image of a lamb; and the women, instead of wearing a cross, as they do now, wore a lamb. This practice had been introduced by the Romish priests, who sold, as they sell now, Agnus Dei, which have been consecrated with prayers and sprinkled with holy water, as being the emblems of Jesus Christ.

A lamb was represented bleeding, and under it was a vessel in which the blood dropped. This practice was in use till the year 680, under the pontificate of the pope Agathon, and under the reign of the emperor Constantine III., surnamed Pogonat. Then it was ordered by the sixth council of Constantinople, canon 82, that a man nailed to a cross should be substituted to the ancient symbol of a lamb. However, this symbol was partly preserved in the church, as seen above. The symbol of a lamb is yet seen on the tabernacle, or small box of marble, or of wood, richly wrought upon, placed on the altar; also on the ostensorium, and on the forepart of the altars.

The Pagans placed a sunlike halo around the heads of the statues of Osiris, Bacchus, and other gods, who, in their opinion, represented the sun: likewise in the Church of Rome the priests place the wafer, which, they think, is Jesus Christ himself, in an ostensorium, which is shaped like the disc of the sun; and which represents his beams; the wafer itself is circular. This ostensorium is of silver, or of gold, and adorned with diamonds, or gems. Above the altar a large sun is generally either painted, or carved, or formed with draperies. The Pagans kept in their temples a lamp burning, in the honor of the sun: so, in the Roman Catholic churches a lamp is kept burning, day and night, near the altar, in the honor of Jesus Christ.

The Pagans built their temples so that the sanctuary was turned towards the rising sun: likewise, the Roman Catholic churches are built so that the sanctuary be turned towards the rising sun.

The Pagans carried in triumph, processionally, and with the most brilliant pomp, the statues of Bacchus, Osiris, and other gods, representing the sun: likewise, on the feast day of the body of Jesus Christ, the consecrated wafer is carried in triumph, processionally, and with the most brilliant pomp. The priestly and other ornaments are of a tissue of silver, or of gold. A multitude of people follow: the various confraternities of Penitents, the ones grey, the others blue, the others white, etc., and the many confraternities of virgins, of married women, all in variegated costumes, march before the consecrated wafer. The civil, judiciary, and military authorities, regiments of soldiers with brass bands, with drums beating, with banners and flags unfurled, escort the consecrated wafer, which is carried by the first priest of the parish, under a canopy of the most costly and magnificent tissue.

The Pagans burnt flambeaux before the statues of Osiris, Bacchus, etc., to represent the planets; and sometimes to represent the signs of the Zodiac: so, in the Roman Catholic churches, upon the altar, there are six chandeliers, with candles burning around the consecrated wafer, namely, Jesus Christ, who is in the middle.

From all the above facts we may legitimately draw the conclusion, that the Church of Rome uses, in her adoration to Jesus Christ, rites and ceremonies of a striking similarity with those used by the Pagans in their adoration to the sun, under the names of Bacchus, Hercules, Osiris, Mithra, Atys, etc.