The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

by John E. Remsburg

1. Nature or Sex Worship.

The deification and worship of the procreative organs and the generative principles of life is one of the oldest and one of the most universal of religions. It has been called the foundation of all religions. In some nations the worship of the male energy, Phallic worship, predominated; in others the worship of the female energy, Yoni worship, prevailed. But in all both elements were recognized. Mrs. Besant says: “Womanhood has been worshiped in all ages of the world, and maternity has been deified by all creeds: from the savage who bowed before the female symbol of motherhood, to the philosophic Comtist who adores woman ‘in the past, the present, and the future,’ as mother, wife, and daughter, the worship of the female element in nature has run side by side with that of the male; the worship is one and the same in all religions, and runs in an unbroken thread from the barbarous ages to the present time.”

Among the life generating gods may be named Vishnu, Osiris, Zeus, Priapus, Adonis, Bacchus, Saturn, Apollo, Baal, Moloch, and Jehovah. Among the receptive life producing goddesses were Isis, Rhea, Ceres, Venus, Istar, Astarte, Aschera, Devaki, Eve, and Mary. Where the worship of the female element largely prevailed the Virgin and Child was a favorite deity. Isis and Horus, Rhea and Quirinus, Leto and Apollo, Devaki and Krishna, Mary and Christ, all had their inception in the sex worship of primitive man.

The symbol of Phallic worship, the cross, has become the emblem of Christianity. I quote again from our English authoress: “We find the cross in India, Egypt, Thibet, Japan, always as the sign of life-giving power; it was worn as an amulet by girls and women, and seems to have been specially worn by the women attached to the temples [sacred prostitutes], as a symbol of what was, to them, a religious calling. The cross is, in fact, nothing but the refined phallus, and in the Christian religion is a significant emblem of its Pagan origin; it was adored, carved in temples, and worn as a sacred emblem by sun and nature worshipers, long before there were any Christians to adore, carve, and wear it. The crowd kneeling before the cross in Roman Catholic and in High Anglican churches is a simple reproduction of the crowd who knelt before it in the temples of ancient days, and the girls who wear it amongst ourselves are—in the most innocent unconsciousness of its real significance—exactly copying the Indian and Egyptian women of an elder time.”

The “American Cyclopedia” says: “The crux ansata, so common on Egyptian monuments, symbolizes the union of the active and passive principles of nature. In the Etruscan tombs have been found crosses of four phalli.”

Regarding this subject, McClintock and Strong’s “Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature,” a standard orthodox Christian authority, says: “The sign of the cross is found as a holy symbol among several ancient nations.... Sometimes it is the phallus” (Art. Cross). The same authority says that the Tau or sign of life (one form of the Phallic cross) “was adopted by some of the early Christians in lieu of the cross.... Christian inscriptions at the great oasis are headed by this symbol; it has been found on Christian monuments at Rome” (Art. Egypt).

Dr. Thomas Inman, of England, one of the foremost authorities on ancient symbolism, says: “It has been reserved for Christian art to crowd our churches with the emblems of Bel and Astarte, Baalim and Ashtoreth, linga and yoni, and to elevate the phallus to the position of the supreme deity” (Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, p. 16).

Describing the chasuble, worn by Christian priests, Dr. Inman says: “Its form is that of the vesica piscis, one of the most common emblems of the yoni. It is adorned by the Triad. When worn by the priest, he forms the male element, and with the chasuble completes the sacred four. When worshiping the ancient goddesses, whom Mary has displaced, the officiating ministers clothed themselves in feminine attire. Hence the use of the chemise, etc. Even the tonsured head, adopted from the priests of the Egyptian Isis, represents ‘l’anneau’; so that on head, shoulders, breast and body, we may see on Christian priests the relics of the worship of Venus, and the adoration of woman! How horrible all this would sound if, instead of using veiled language, we had employed vulgar words. The idea of a man adorning himself, when ministering before God and the people, with the effigies of those parts which nature as well as civilization teaches us to conceal, would be simply disgusting, but when all is said to be mysterious and connected with hidden signification, almost everybody tolerates and many eulogize or admire it!” (Ibid, p. 104).

Westropp and Wake, in their “Ancient Symbol Worship,” state that Judaism and Christianity have been largely derived from Phallic worship. Westropp says: “Circumcision was in its inception a purely Phallic ordinance.” Our Christian marriage ceremonies, he says, are relics of this worship. Wake says: “In the recognition of God as the universal father, the great Parent of mankind, there is a development of the fundamental idea of Phallism. In the position assigned to Mary as the mother of God the paramount principle of the primitive belief is again predominant. The nimbus, the aureole, the cross, the fish, and even the spires of churches, are symbols retained from the old Phallic worship.”

Dr. Alexander Wilder says: “There is not a fast or festival, procession or sacrament, social custom or religious symbol, existing at the present day which has not been taken bodily from Phallism, or from some successive system of Paganism.”