Note: This was a very in-depth--perhaps excessively so--examination (or review, or critique, or refutation, or whatever you want to call it). Due to the sheer length of this, I have written a shortened version of it for those who do not want to wade through all of the research I did and just want the quicker points. You may find it
here.
INTRODUCTION:
"The Two Babylons" is a book written by Alexander Hislop published in the mid-19th century. Its main thesis, as far as I understand it, is that pagan religions come from the ancient Babylonian religion, and that Catholicism emerged as a synthesis of Christianity and this Babylonian religion; so similar are Catholicism and this Babylonian religion that they are "the two Babylons." Thus, according to Hislop, a substantial number of things in Catholicism (and various Protestant sects) all come from this Babylonian religion including, pertinently for our purposes, the celebration of Easter. Despite its age, it is quite popular among some groups for
attacking Catholicism (or also Protestant groups seen as being too Catholic).
However, there's a lot of problems with the book. One of the obvious ones, of course, is that it's simply out of date. We have access to more information than Hislop did; we certainly know more about the Babylonian religion than he did. Even in Hislop's time the book contained demonstrable errors, but even if it was (by the standards of the knowledge of the time) completely accurate, it is now obsolete. Another problem, at least from a general Christian perspective, is that while Hislop's goal was to try to prove the falseness of Catholicism, non-Christians have happily seized upon arguments from it and turned them against Christianity as a whole.
Despite the problems, there have been some who take it seriously. I think there are several factors behind this. One is that Hislop, even when he's making the most bizarre speculations, always has a strong air of confidence. There is very little hesitation in his writing style, and few if any instances where he admits his idea might be guesses. Things are constantly presented as definite fact, and his constant citations give an extra air of professionalism. So even when he's totally wrong, Hislop is very good at making it look like what is talking about is the clear truth.
To my knowledge, there have not been many direct refutations written of the full book (there are quite a few that are directed at portions, like this one, but do not go through every portion of it). Indeed, I actually saw a supporter of Hislop brag about the fact there is no scholarly critique of it... though I suppose it may depend on how you define "scholarly" (the main critique by Ralph Woodrow, discussed shortly, is written at a more popular level). The problem is, the reason for the lack of scholarly critiques seems to less be that it's impossible to critique, but rather that actual scholars have better things to do with their time than mount a critique on a book written about a century and a half ago that, while popular among some groups, is likely unknown to most Christians, let alone most people.
It should be noted, however, that the work did not escape criticism even in its own day. Soon after the second edition was published, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art published a critical review of it (Volume 8, Issue 203, September 17 1859, page 338) which one can read
here on Google Books and
here on The Internet Archive. However, it is relatively short, only being a few pages and devoting much of it to a description of the book's contents, and its criticisms being more summary. Still, I perhaps should quote its concluding section:
"For the sake of this class of readers, it may perhaps not be amiss to
state gravely why we dissent from his line of argument. In the first
place, his whole superstructure is raised upon nothing. Our earliest
authority for the history of Semiramis wrote about the commencement of
the Christian era, and the historian from whom he drew his information
lived from fifteen hundred to two thousand years after the date which
Mr. Hislop assigns to the great Assyrian Queen. The most lying legend
which the Vatican has ever endorsed stands on better authority than the
history which is now the ground of a charge against it. Secondly, the
whole argument proceeds upon the assumption that all heathenism has a
common origin. Accidental resemblances in mythological details are taken
as evidence of this, and nothing is allowed for the natural working of
the human mind. Thirdly, Mr. Hislop’s method of reasoning would make
anything of anything. By the aid of obscure passages in third-rate
historians, groundless assumptions of identity, and etymological
torturing of roots, all that we know, and all that we believe, may be
converted, as if by the touch of Harlequin's wand, into something
totally different. Fourthly, Mr. Hislop’s argument proves too much. He
finds not only the corruptions of Popery, but the fundamental articles
of the Christian Faith, in his hypothetical Babylonian system. The
Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Sacraments, all have their
place in it. If we reject the rest of Romanism because it is Babylonish,
why do we retain these? "Ay," replies Mr. Hislop, "but these rest upon
the authority of Scripture." What, then, shall we say to Scripture
itself? The Babylonians had their sacred books–at least, we know they
must have had their Vedas, and all heathenism is one and the same.
Besides, is there not the book "Petr-Roma," the "Book of the Grand
Interpreter," in pure Chaldee? Therefore the very notion of a sacred
book is heathenish and Babylonian. If Mr. Hislop is consistent, his
creed will be a very short one. But it is idle to speak seriously of a
book which only claims attention by its matchless absurdity, and by the
fact it apparently finds readers. We take leave of Mr. Hislop and his
work with the remark that we never before quite knew the folly of which
ignorant or half-learned bigotry is capable."
Thus The Two Babylons occupies an odd space where it's popular enough that it should be debunked, but it isn't popular enough that the experts would feel the need to devote all the time to examining it. The most thorough full critique that I know of is Ralph Woodrow's "The Babylon Connection?" book. Woodrow actually previously wrote a book entitled "Babylon Mystery Religion" that mostly recycled Hislop's claims--however, upon doing further research he discovered how flawed Hislop's claims were, stopped publishing his older book, and then wrote and published the aforementioned "The Babylon Connection?" which serves as a refutation of his previous book, as well as The Two Babylons. However, Woodrow's critique of Hislop is not as in-depth as one would like, and he is not himself an expert on the subject (of course, neither was Hislop). For those in too big of a hurry to look at his book (but apparently not in too big of a hurry to read through this post), this post here summarizes his arguments against Hislop (and indeed offers a quote from the aforementioned Saturday Review critique).
If you are going into this expecting a lengthy, in-depth, scholarly critique of the whole book... well, this isn't going to be the cure for that, as I will be examining only one section, the portion on Easter. Why? Well, this is a subject I have previously done a reasonable amount of research in and thus feel reasonably qualified to check over. Hopefully, the takeaway from this examination will be twofold: First, to show the problems with Hislop's analysis of Easter in order to rebutt him on this point, and second, that by demonstrating the major flaws of this section of Hislop's book, show why one should be very cautious about his claims elsewhere.
I've defended Easter against the claims of it being pagan before, but it should be noted how often the claims against it trace back to Hislop. Sometimes this is done by them actually admitting as such, though some will just throw out whatever Hislop's sources were (sources I expect that person never checked themselves) without mentioning they got them from Hislop. And others, while not giving any explicit source, are clearly just regurgitating Hislop's claims.
Not all of the accusations against Easter go back to Hislop. Something people frequently attack is the Easter Bunny, claiming the Catholic Church took it from ancient pagan rituals... which would surely be of surprise to the 17th century German Protestants who first invented the Easter Bunny (and if anyone disagrees with this assertion, demonstrate any existence of the Easter Bunny prior to that time period). However, this claim of the Easter Bunny being of pagan origin is not from Hislop, who makes no mention of the Easter Bunny at all, though this didn't stop one source I saw from incorrectly citing him as doing so. Most likely, he was either aware that it was from Protestants and thus chose not to make use of it in a screed against the Catholic Church, or he was simply unaware of the Easter Bunny at all. After all, it was German in origin and was brought to other countries largely through immigration, and it may simply have not caught on in his area yet.
I also should note that while Hislop's contention was that he could trace practices back to an ancient Babylonian religion, including the celebration of Easter, not all who rely on its arguments assert that. Hislop's chapter on Easter is actually extremely short on providing any direct evidence of Babylonian influence, and instead spends its time trying to find parallels with other pagan religions, claiming that those also date back to the Babylonian religion. Therefore, some take Hislop's claims but disregard his ideas of them specifically going back to Babylon, and instead claim it comes from the pagan religions that Hislop refers to. This is slightly more credible, but still has major problems, as will be detailed.
Now, while Hislop does deserve criticism, and I'm certainly going to deliver some, there are a few points of credit I should give. Some of the errors are not really his fault, but those of his sources; in some cases I could say he should have chosen better sources, but in other cases I expect he was doing the best with what he had available to him.
For an example, in his treatment on Easter when he is trying to prove pagan usage of eggs, he points to a large vase found in Cyprus that was supposedly egg shaped. The idea it was egg-shaped appears to come from a painting that an artist made of it. Since Hislop was presumably unable to travel to Cyprus, and there would have presumably been no photographs available, him relying on that information is understandable. Though I would say his arguments based on that do become speculative. However, in today's world of the Internet, one can easily access photos of this vase (this will be discussed in greater depth later in this article), and it looking egg shaped appears to have been an exaggeration on the part of the painter.
But this is exactly why The Two Babylons makes such a poor source for arguments: It's quite out of date. Even if Hislop was accurately representing his sources, we know more than we did then. We have access to more information. So even if Hislop can be personally excused some of his errors, this does not mean the work itself does not contain those errors. There is certainly far less of an excuse for those who simply repeat the claims of an out-of-date 19th century work whose errors can be better verified in the present.
Indeed, for as problematic as his work is, I do have to give Hislop some points of credit. Clearly research did go into his work. He cites from many different sources, and although some of his citations are confusing, for the most part he cites fairly clearly where he's coming from, even giving a bibliography specifying which editions he is referring to. Thus it is generally possible to look up his citations. This immediately puts him ahead of so many of the "anti-Easter" crowd who will make sweeping claims without evidence like those who claim that dyeing Easter Eggs comes from an ancient tradition of child sacrifice where their blood was used to cover the eggs--with no citation ever given, naturally. And even those that do give citations generally just regurgitate whatever Hislop has to say, with perhaps adding a few extra inaccuracies about the Easter Bunny. Hislop does deserve some credit for doing actual research and showing where he did it, even if his conclusions were so highly flawed.
Unfortunately, that is as far as my praise can go on that. Those who praise The Two Babylon often talk up about all of the footnotes Hislop offers, and again it's certainly better to have them than to not have them. The problem, as we've seen with Lloyd deMause and especially Tony Bushby is that
just because someone has a lot of footnotes and has read a bunch of
things doesn't mean they are accurately representing the information or
that the information they are relying on is correct to begin with; as we shall see, Hislop's representations of what his footnotes say is less than stellar. And while Hislop usually does a reasonable enough job giving his
citations (even saying which editions he is citing from), in some cases
he is frustratingly vague, giving titles that are shortened or in some
cases seem paraphrased. For an example from this section, he
refers to a book he calls "Egyptian Antiquities" but what he is actually
referring to is "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians." The word Antiquities is not even in the title!
I appreciate the fact that some may want a quicker version than this in-depth explanation. If so, either read the shortened version linked to at the start, or scroll down to the Conclusion where I go over the major points.
For reference, I will be using a 1903 printing of the book. We begin on page 103 with the Easter section.
With this lengthy introduction out of the way, it is time for the even more lengthy examination. I have tried to divide up the sections a bit with my own sub-sections based on topics.
EXAMINATION:
The Name "Easter" and the Holiday's Origin
What means the term Easter itself ? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar.*
* LAYARD'S Nineveh and Babylon, p. 629.
The full title of the book is "
Discoveries in Nineveh and Babylon". Anyway, the apparent page in question can be found
here.
However, this does nothing more than confirm that there was a deity
named Ishtar; it provides no connection with Easter. Indeed, Hislop doesn't offer any actual backing for his claim that the name Easter comes from Ishtar or Astarte outside of the fact they sound sort of similar. For that matter, he stretches even the similarity in pronunciation to claim that it's identical, with no proof offered; he claims it was "evidently identical" but what
evidence supports the word "
evidently"? He certainly offers none. As for the apparent similarity,
this has already been dealt with here but if you want the quick version: There is no actual proof that the word Easter comes from Ishtar, the phonological similarity is absent in virtually all languages (English being an exception, along with a few languages that adopted the term from English), and if one looks at early usage of the word, one sees that it was could be rendered as
Estre (or some variation thereof, such as eastron, eastranon, or Æstre). These clearly hardly resemble Ishtar. So to claim Easter "bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead" is simply inaccurate and is relying entirely on a phonological similarity in one language.
So we're already off to a bad start when we see Hislop just repeating the same baseless claim against Easter that we've already seen so often... though perhaps he's not "repeating" it as he seems to have been the one who popularized the idea. Either way, what he claims is "evidently" true is asserted without actual evidence.
This next section is largely irrelevant in all honesty, because even if true it does not ultimately affect our conclusion. Still, I'll look at it.
The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British Islands where the Phenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind. From Bel, the first of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac;* and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. “The late Lady Baird of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in ‘Notes and Queries,’ thoroughly versed in British Antiquities** “told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the first of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones, on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice. Now the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal
was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe
that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that
from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious
solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of
Easter that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called
Easter-monath.
* See OLIVER & BOYD S Edinburgh Almanac, 1860.
** The Right Hon. Lord John Scott.
As noted, this will ultimately make little difference to our conclusion even if true. Still, it is worth responding to, though I will defer to Roger Pearse discussing this section of The Two Babylons
here. I will quote the most relevant portion of his post:
"The argument above is simple, once we remove the verbiage, and so let’s examine it:
1. There is a folk custom of celebrating “Beltane”, according to a 19th century almanac.
2. The name must refer to the Babylonian god Bel or Ba`al. (Why?)
3. This is confirmed by a piece of folk-lore where people in Scotland burn something. (If this story is true, why does it relate in any way?)
4. If Bel was here, then Astarte must be too. (Why?)
5. If the pagans of whatever period is mentioned worshipped Bel and Astarte, then Eosturmonath – the name of the spring season, given by Bede and nowhere else – must refer to Astarte. (Why?)
6. So the inhabitants of Babylon must pronounce Astarte in the same way as Britons of 19th century England pronounce Easter. (Why?)
Each claim is open to a simple objection – that the claim made is not evidenced, and that there is no special reason to believe it. Each and every step in this argument is open to the very same objection. Yet unless all of them are true, the argument collapses.
And the claims are simply ridiculous.
Why should a modern Scottish folk custom relate to Bel of Babylon? Why should a modern Scottish custom relate to the nomenclature of the Anglo-Saxons a millennium earlier?
Which people precisely are supposed to have adopted Bel – the beaker folk? The celts? The Romano-British? The picts? For there has been much movement of peoples in Britain.
The claim to know how the ancient Babylonians pronounced Astarte … where does Hislop get his information? Time travel?
But it is pointless to go on with beating this drivel to death. Hislop has no evidence, his argument is just a sequence of claims, none of them at all probable. It’s drivel and nothing else."
As Roger Pearse has done the work for me, I have nothing to add to the above and thus will move on.
The festival, of which we read in Church history,
under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite
a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church,
and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter.*
* The name Easter is peculiar to the British Islands.
Hislop actually gets it right that Easter as a term is mostly limited to English (it is also found in a few other languages that took it from English, however). However, Hislop oddly ignores how much this weakens his argument. How can he claim that the name of Easter in English "bears its Chaldean origin on its forehead" when he admits here that in other languages it sounds nothing like Ishtar? He's blown a big hole in his own argument, apparently without realizing it.
It
was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic
institution,* was very early observed by many professing Christians,
in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.
* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of
the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century–sums up in these words:–"Thus much already laid
down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of
Christ or any Apostle." (Hist. Ecclesiast., lib. v. cap. 22.) Every one knows
that the name "Easter," used in our translation of Acts xii. 4, refers not to any
Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in
our version where the translators show an undue bias.
Before we move forward, I wish to make a note for the benefit of the reader. You may be confused as to why Hislop, while saying this wasn't called Easter, then quotes from something that refers to it as Easter. You see, the word for Passover (or Pasch, as he renders it) and Easter in Greek are the same, Πασχα (Pascha). This word is used both to refer to the Christian celebration of the Resurrection (Easter) and the Jewish observance of Passover. Thus, Socrates used pascha, but as he was discussing Christian celebration of it, it was rendered as Easter in the translation Hislop is using. Pascha is used to this day as the Greek word for Easter; as I understand it, if one refers to Passover nowadays, you would add the qualifier "Jewish" to it unless the context makes it clear it is in reference to the Jewish Passover.
We now move onto Hislop's actual claim here, that Pasch was not of apostolic institution. Perhaps this is not actually an important point, as he admits no issue with the early observation thereof, but I will still do a deep dive simply because of a notable issue Hislop makes here. Hislop rests his claim that Pasch/Passover was not of Apostolic institution based on an appeal to Socrates, but the problem is that his quotation of Socrates is in considerable error. He quotes:
"Thus much already laid
down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the
feast of Easter
began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment
either of
Christ or any Apostle".
But the underlined portion is incorrect. A more accurate translation, found in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series" (available
here) is:
"But the instances we have adduced are sufficient to show that the Easter Festival
was from some remote precedent differently celebrated in every particular province."
The first part of the quote in both versions is clearly the same thing (even if the specific words are different), but the underlined sections are quite different in meaning.
Before anyone claims that perhaps Hislop was the one who had it right rather than the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, here is the Greek text in question (one can see it in context
here in column 641 of volume 67 Migne's Patrologia Graeca): "ικανα μεντοι και τα παρατεθεντα προς αποδειξιν, του την εορτην του Πασχα εκ συνηθειασ τινος κατα χωρας διαφορον εοχηκεναι τιμην". Or, should one wish a transliteration, it reads "ikana mentoi kai ta paratethenta pros apodeixin, tou tin eortin tou Pascha ek synitheias tinos kata choras diaforon eochikenai timin". Even if one knows essentially no Greek, you can notice that the Greek words for "apostle" (ἀπόστολος or apostolos) and "Jesus" (Ἰησοῦς or Iesous) are not there, nor anything like them. So it can be easily seen to be an error in translation.
Now, Socrates does in the applicable chapter say that "The Saviour and his apostles have enjoined us by no law to keep this feast: nor do the Gospels and apostles threaten us with any penalty, punishment, or curse for the neglect of it" and that "the feast of Easter came to be observed in each place according to the individual peculiarities of the peoples inasmuch as none of the apostles legislated on the matter." However, this is not a statement that Socrates believed that Easter/Pasch was not of apostolic institution, but rather that he believes the apostles did not put into place requirements of its celebration nor set rules on how it was to be celebrated, hence the difference in customs regarding it that were to be found based on location. Regardless of whether these ideas of Socrates are correct, he does not say that the apostles did not institute Easter/Pasch. And none of this is from the specific sentence that Hislop quoted from anyway.
So what in the world caused this major divergence in meaning in the translation Hislop offered compared to what Socrates actually said? Well, it took some effort to figure it out, but it seems Hislop was using an inaccurate translation. Back in the 16th century, Meredith Hanmer published a translation of Socrates' work, and it included:
"This much already layd downe may seeme a sufficient treatise for to prove that the celebration of the feaste of Easter beganne every where more of custome than by commandment either of Christ or any apostle."
A later printing of it updated the spelling to be more modern:
"Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient Treatise for to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began every where more of custom than by commandment, either of Christ or any Apostle."
Except for "everywhere" being two words instead of one, this is a match for Hislop's quote. So this is clearly the source. However, it is not clear if Hislop took it directly from the translation. Hislop actually does cite Meredith Hanmer's work later in his Easter section, though not his translation of Socrates that was included in it, but rather a separate section (Hanmer's translation was of several different works by different authors, Socrates being just one). So Hislop did consult Hanmer's work, but it is not clear if he looked at the translation of Socrates. He could have, but the issue is that in Hanmer's translation, Chapters 20 and 21 are combined into just Chapter 20, meaning that what is counted as Chapter 22 in things like the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series is instead listed as Chapter 21. But Hislop very explicitly cites Chapter 22.
Therefore, it is likely that Hislop took it from someone else who was quoting the work but corrected the chapter number. We know there were people doing this prior to Hislop, because centuries before Hislop, the Anglican bishop Peter Gunning, in a work called "The Paschal or Lent fast, apostolical and perpetual" (page 267 of the 1845 reprint; the work was originally published in the 17th century), refers to how he saw the quote in anti-Lent pamphlets. Notably, it is referred to as Chapter 22. While it is possible the change to Chapter 22 was by Gunning, if the chapter count was off in the pamphlet, one would think he would have mentioned it.
With this one might initially think that, even if he made an error, Hislop doesn't necessarily deserve direct blame for this. Certainly many people rely on translations. The problem is that Hislop should have known better. A few pages later he cites Socrates' work again for a different quote from that chapter ("Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day") but this time, he handles it differently. Unlike before, where the translation was just something he apparently took from someone else, this one appears to have been his own, or at least I was personally unable to find a usage of this prior to Hislop (it is entirely possible I missed it, obviously many works were never put online and older printing can result in text being digitized wrongly so searches don't turn them up). Hislop's translation of this portion is not how Hanmer rendered it, certainly. Additionally, Hislop offers a specific page number for it, with "SOCRATES, Hist. Eccles., lib. v cap. 22, p. 234". Thanks to his bibliography, we know Hislop is citing a 1686 printing of it from Paris, which can be found here. And this page (which has it in both the original Greek and a Latin translation) is where that phrase is found.
But here is where we run into the oddity. Given the specificity of the citation, it seems that Hislop did look directly at this; that is, he had the 1686 printing and looked at page 234. But he does not seem to have done that for the previous quote from Socrates, as evidenced by the fact he cites no page number for it despite the fact it's found only two pages afterwards.
This is why I cannot excuse Hislop's error in this mistranslation, because he apparently had the original text right in front of him and did not bother to check it. I suppose it's possible that he got the page 234 citation from someone else and just copied it without checking, but of course that's a problem also that he did not verify the claim.
So Hislop's argument here relies on an inaccurate translation that he should have been able to check. Thus I cannot really excuse him much for this error. And even if he could be personally excused, the quote is still wrong and should not be repeated.
Lastly, I believe Hislop is correct that the usage of "Easter" in the King James Version translation of Acts 7:4 would be better translated as Passover (unlike all the other cases of "pascha" in the NT, it was translated as Easter rather than Passover). However, I disagree with his reasoning. Hislop's argument appears to be that, based on it not being of apostolic institution, Easter did not exist at that point and it was incorrect. I would say that it is entirely possible that some form of Easter (distinct from the Jewish Passover) was in celebration then. However, the context of Acts 12:4 is that Herod, after imprisoning Peter, intended to bring him out before the people after Pascha. It would make little sense at all for Herod to be making such a decision based on a Christian holiday, but it would make absolute sense for him to set it around the Jewish Passover that most of the people were observing. Thus, it should read Passover.
That
festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when
Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian,
at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the
23rd of March.*
*GIESELER, vol. i. p. 55, Note. In GIESELER the time is printed " 25th of
March," but the Latin quotation accompanying it shows that this is a typo
graphical mistake for " 23rd."
It seems that what is being referred to is
found here. But what shows it's a typo? Hislop says "Latin quotation" but I do not see a Latin quotation in the work. Now, Hislop's citation was for an 1846 Edinburgh printing of the work and my link goes to an 1854 printing, but I have compared it with the 1846 version
here (the latter is at Google Books--I linked the first principally because I prefer archive.org), and they appear identical. There is no Latin here.
Perhaps Hislop refers not to anything in Gieseler's work, but the original Latin work by Tertullian that Gieseler is referring to; that is, he refers not to a quotation explicitly in the work, but the quotation referred to. In
the original Latin Tertullian wrote "die octavo Kalendarum Aprilium", literally meaning "eighth day of Kalends of April." A
translation of the work rendered it as "the eighth day before the calends of April" with a footnote specifying this is March 25. Now, you might be wondering what in the world the eighth day of Kalends of April means. The Roman calendar back then was more convoluted than ours; rather than simply saying the number day of the month, instead you counted back from the kalends, ides, or nones of a month. I won't go into all of its complexities (for more information see
here), but the "Kalends" of a month is the first day of the month. The second Kalends is the day before that, the third Kalends the day before that one, and so on. Thus second Kalends of April is March 31, third is March 30, and you count back until you reach the eighth Kalends, which is March 25. Gieseler was correct.
So how does Hislop claim this was a typographical mistake for 23rd based on the Latin quotation, particularly given the Latin quotation does mean March 25? He does not explain. The best guess I can manage is that he did not understand the Roman calendar conventions and thought that the "Kalends of April" was March 31, and that "eighth day" meant to count back 8 days, giving you March 23. If so, Hislop decided to go out of his way to try to point out an error when there was no error, and as a result made an error himself. Rather embarrassing of him.
Whatever the reason for his error is, Hislop is still wrong here in his claim it was March 23; it was March 25, as was stated by Gieseler. It doesn't make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but it's notable he makes such a point of trying to correct something only to be wrong himself.
That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent.
It is true that there was not a uniform Lent of 40 days. However, there was an established fast prior to Easter, as detailed by Irenaeus. He wrote a letter that is no longer available, but a potion was quoted in
Eusebius's Church History 5.24.12:
"For the controversy is not only concerning the day, but also concerning the very manner of the fast. For some think that they should fast one day, others two, yet others more; some, moreover, count their day as consisting of forty hours day and night."
The above translation is from Philip Schaff's Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series. Now, it is possible to translate it to refer to 40 days, and this is indeed how it was translated in Roberts-Donaldson's Ante-Nicnee Fathers series, where there was a section of the lost fragments of Irenaeus (
Number 3 of said fragments) which rendered it as "For the controversy is not merely as regards the day, but also as regards the form itself of the fast. For some consider themselves bound to fast one day, others two days, others still more, while others [do so during] forty: the diurnal and the nocturnal hours they measure out together as their [fasting] day." My Greek skill is insufficient to weigh in on the subject, but the more common translation or interpretation seems to be that it is in reference to forty hours rather than forty days. So we will not count this as a mention of a 40-day fast. But the point is, whether 40 days or a shorter period, there was a fast of some period prior. So, can Hislop demonstrate a link between the fast being expanded to 40 days compared to some pagan practice?
"It ought to be known," said Cassianus, the
monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting
the primitive Church with the Church in his day, "that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of
that primitive Church remained inviolate."*
* Ibid. vol. ii. p. 42, Note. This is found
here. However, the quote offered is in Latin. I will transcribe it; apologies for any typos:
"Cassianus collat.xxi. c. 30: Sciendum sane hanc observantiam quadragesimae, quamdiu ecclesiae illius primitivae perfectio inviolata permansit, penitus non fuisse. Non enim praecepti hujus necessitate nec quasi legali sanctione constricti, arctissimis jejuniorum terminis claudebantur, qui totum anni spatium aequali jejunio concludebant."
The "collat." appears to be "Collationes patrum in scetica eremo" (Conferences of the Desert Fathers). Here is what he says, in context, in the translation of Philip Schaff's Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Series (
found here):
"Howbeit you should know that as long as the primitive church retained its perfection unbroken, this observance of Lent did not exist. For they were not bound by the requirements of this order, or by any legal enactments, nor confined in the very narrow limits of the fast, as the fast embraced equally the whole year round. But when the multitude of believers began day by day to decline from that apostolic fervour, and to look after their own wealth, and not to portion it out for the good of all the faithful in accordance with the arrangement of the apostles, but having an eye to their own private expenses, tried not only to keep it but actually to increase it, not content with following the example of Ananias and Sapphira, then it seemed good to all the priests that men who were hampered by worldly cares, and almost ignorant, if I may say so, of abstinence and contrition, should be recalled to the pious duty by a fast canonically enjoined, and be constrained by the necessity of paying the legal tithes, as this certainly would be good for the weak brethren and could not do any harm to the perfect who were living under the grace of the gospel and by their voluntary devotion going beyond the law, so as to succeed in attaining to the blessedness which the Apostle speaks of: "For sin shall not have dominion over you; for you are not under the law but under grace." For of a truth sin cannot exercise dominion over one who lives faithfully under the liberty of grace."
Hislop's statement implies that Cassian was saying that the Lent got turned to 40 days due to the corruption of the church accepting a pagan fast. Now to be fair, Hislop doesn't say that explicitly and it's possible that this implication was accidental on his part. But if it was purposeful, we should note that Cassian is not saying that the 40-days lent was made because the church itself had become corrupt, but that the church followers had lost their zeal and were focused too much on wealth. The solution was to expand the length of fasting in order to stop people from focusing as much on their private expenses.
Lent
Now we move onto Hislop's real attempt to try to prove the 40-day Lent came from paganism. This is one of the most-cited portions of his section on Easter, so it bears an especially in-depth look.
Before we go further, though, I
should discuss Lent (the 40-day fast preceding Easter) a bit. What
Hislop is going to try to do is point to other cases of "Lent" that are
40 days long. While as we'll see his examples of 40-day fasting periods
mostly don't hold up, setting that aside a big problem is that there
were a lot of pagan holidays or fasts and you're going to run across some that
end up having a length of something like 40 if you dig hard enough.
Heck, look in the Bible itself and you'll find a bunch of cases of 40
being used; the Flood lasted for 40 days, Jesus fasted for 40 days, and
Moses spent 40 days with God. Quite ironically, I happened to read a work published after Hislop's which, relying on Hislop's alleged examples of pagan 40-day fasts, argued that the existence of those fasts prove that Jesus's 40-day fasting period was taken from pagan myths! The argument Hislop makes here rebounds directly on Hislop and attacks his own beliefs!
However, Hislop's claims are of no benefit to attacking Christianity either for as we will see, Hislop will be hard-pressed indeed to find examples of 40-day fasting periods that can be demonstrated to predate Christianity's adoption of it.
Whence, then, came
this observance? The forty days abstinence of Lent was directly
borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a
Lent of forty days, "in the spring of the year," is still observed by
the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshippers of Koordistan,* who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.
* LAYARD'S Nineveh and Babylon, p. 93.
Before anything else, notice something. Hislop claims it comes from the Babylonians; after all, that's his thesis, that the pagan religions came from the Babylonian religion and the Roman Catholic Church fused the practices of this Babylonian religion into its practices. The problem is that Hislop offers no actual evidence that the Babylonians had any 40-day fast; all he does is point to a bunch of other non-Christian religions that he claims had some kind of 40-day fasting period and just assumes it dates back to the Babylonians. We'll see he misrepresents the practices he alludes to, but even if we accept them all as true it wouldn't prove much about the Babylonians doing it.
Now let's look at the citation. First, the actual title of this work is "Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon" and it can be found
here. And there is indeed mentioned a 40-day fasting period in the spring; it writes "There are forty days fast in the spring of the year, but they are observed by few; one person in a family may fast for the rest." But note what Hislop claims, that it was given to them by the Babylonians and was "still" observed by the Yezidis. But where is his proof that it goes back that far? The citation says nothing of the sort; it merely asserts that this is something the Yezidis did in the the 19th century when it was written, or at least the Yezidis the author met did.
What evidence does Hislop has that this practice can be dated back to the early Babylonians? Or dated back anytime prior to the Christian lent? All he does is show that the Yezidis were observing a 40-day fast well over a thousand years after a
40-day Christian Lent was being observed.
Then, for no reason other than the fact it would benefit his argument,
he assumes it was done prior to the Christian Lent (no proof is offered)
and that it came from the Babylonians (no proof offered other than the fact they lived in the same general area as the Babylonians). Far more likely, this was adopted by the Yezidis as an imitation of the Christian Lent. The simple bottom line is that Hislop offers no proof of an actual pre-Christian origin here, let alone that it dates back to the Babylonian religion; he simply asserts that is the case without real evidence.
Such a Lent
of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we
read in Humboldt,* where he gives account of Mexican observances :
" Three days after the vernal equinox .... began a solemn fast of
forty days in honour of the sun."
* HUMBOLDT's Mexican Researches, vol. i p. 404.
This can be found
here. Now, it should be noted that even if the Mexicans were, at the
time of Christian contact, having such a fast, it would not mean that it
dates so far back that it predates the 40-day Lent (indeed, it would need to go back even farther than that for Hislop's thesis that it came from Babylon and then was retained by the Mexicans after they went to America). But beyond that, we have some additional issues.
The first problem to note is simple math. The vernal equinox is of course March 21, so three days after that is March 24. This fast, according to Humboldt, lasted until April 30. If we include March 24, that means there are 8 days of this in March, then 30 in April... which adds up to 38, short of 40.
Additionally, recall what Hislop's contention in his book is, which is that basically all of the pagan religions were descendents of the Babylonian religion and then this Babylonian religion was imported into Catholicism. But even if there was a 40-day fast, there is little reason to believe that it goes that far back. This information we have of the Mexicans' religious practices is from around the time of Christian contact, and there is little reason to believe that any specific religious ceremonies they have were being practiced even at the early observance of the 40-Christian lent (over a thousand years before), let alone so long before it that it came from Babylon (thousands of years before). There was much time for this supposed fast to emerge independently.
However, here we come to an important question. Is this claim of a 40-day fast accurate? Unfortunately, Humboldt is vague on where it comes from, stating on page 403 that his information comes from "the explanation of the Mexican festivals, according to the calendar of Mr. Gama, and the order of the festivals indicated in the works of the historians of the sixteenth century." But which historians are these? Which one makes the remark of the 40-day fasting period? And where did they say it?
I decided to try to investigate. One troublesome thing is that many of the earlier writings were in Spanish. I actually know Spanish decently, but I'm certainly not fluent, and going back several centuries makes it even harder due to differing meanings (did you know, for example, that the Spanish word for Easter, "pascua", could in the past also be used as a general term to refer to any religious festival?). Still, I was able to make some things out. Now, it does mention Gama which presumably is Antonio de León y Gama, an 18th-century writer about the Aztecs. I examined his work and did find a mention of the 40 days, which is
here. On page 105 (section 70) he writes, italics original:
"El quarto dia de la Trecena que comenzaba con el referido dia Ce Quiahuitl, era del caracter Nahui Ehecatl, que corresponde al 2 del siguiente mes nombrado Tozoztontli: y en ese mes, y en el que se la seguia, que era Hueytozoztli, se hacian los ayunos al Sol, que duraban los quarenta dias que dice Torquemada; los que se concluían en el dia ce Tecpatl."
My rough translation of it into English, keeping the italics, is:
"The fourth day of the Trecena that started with the aforementioned day Ce Quiahuitl, was of the character Nahui Ehecatl, which corresponds to the second of the following month named Tozoztontli: and in this month, and in the one that follows, which was Hueytozoztli, the fasts to the Sun were done, which lasted forty days according to Torquemada; they concluded in the day ce Tecpatl.
This sounds like what was being described, and this tells us a clue that it's Torquemada to look for. Fray Juan de Torquemada (no relation to the famous inquisitor who had the same surname) was the author of the early 17th century work Monarquía Indiana, a work about the native Mexicans. The problem is, Monarquía Indiana is a massive 8-volume work that totals more than 3,000 pages! (you can read it
here; the spelling has been adjusted to modern-day Spanish, for the record) And yet Gama doesn't tell us where in this massive work it is! Which is odd, given he cites Torquemada for something else on the next
page and does give a specific citation. It is extremely puzzling why he
doesn't do that here. Perhaps he believed that Torquemada made that comment somewhere but could not remember exactly where, so he just attributed it to Torquemada without specifying where it was.
The good news is that there is an
Index to the work, and I looked up "ayuno" (fasting) in it, which gives a good number of pages for it. But I have looked at all of these and have found no mention of an annual 40-day fasting period. There was a mention of a 40-day ceremony that included a fast (
Book 1 Chapter 47 or Volume 1 Page 103), but this was following the death of a specific emperor and thus was a one-time occurrence, as it is not stated to have occurred for any other emperors.
Indeed, there were certainly no shortage of mentions of fasts, annual
or otherwise, of other lengths. So even if one does find 40-day fasts, its length would be little more than coincidence
because there were so many fasts of various lengths that you would by
the law of averages end up with 40-day fasts somewhere. Looking through them, we can find fasts of four days, five days, sixty days, eighty days, 9-12 months, or four years. Here is a list of ones I have found:
Five days (Book 8 Chapter 16; Volume 3 Page 232)
Four years (Book 9 Chapter 9; Volume 3 Page 268)
Nine or ten months and sometimes a year ("nueve o diez meses y a la veces un año") (Book 9 Chapter 25; Volume 3 Page 310)
Four days (Book 10 Chapter 26; Volume 3 Page 403)
Five days (Book 10 Chapter 31; Volume 3 Page 413)
Eighty days (Book 10 Chapter 31; Volume 3 Page 414)
Sixty days (Book 10 Chapter 32; Volume 3 Page 418)
Four days (Book 11 Chapter 28; Volume 4 Page 79)
Four days (Book 13 Chapter 6; Volume 4 Page 158 and Page 160)
Five days (Book 13 Chapter 46; Volume 4 Page 306)
Note there are other fasts mentioned, but I specified only the ones where the time frame thereof was clearly stated.
Indeed, Torquemada's work has a section devoted specifically to the Aztec religious festivals around the year; this is found in
Volume 3, Book 10. He goes into the festivals in each month of the Aztec calendar in chapters X through XXX. Now, remember that the citation says that according to Torquemada, these "fasts to the sun" were done in Tozoztontli and Hueytozoztli. But looking at the chapters devoted to those months (
here and
here respectively), I do not see any mention of a 40-day fast.
While it is theoretically possible I missed an annual 40-day fast somewhere, it makes me wonder if Gama may have been in error in his Torquemada citation. After all, he doesn't give a specific reference (despite the fact he gives a specific reference the next time cite something from Torquemada), so it is possible he was working from memory and just assumed it was somewhere, but couldn't remember exactly where, so he didn't cite it.
So what conclusion can be drawn? Well, it's hard to prove a negative, especially when the sources given are so vague. The Aztecs may have had a 40-day fasting period around the
spring equinox, but I haven't found a primary source indicating as such
in my search. Until such time as it can be demonstrated with a primary source, there's no real reason to give this credence.
But, let us suppose there is a primary source somewhere that I've just not found that asserts there was a 40-day fasting period around this time. This would not really prove anything. Given the lack of contact between the Aztecs and Europe or Asia, any similarity would be most plausibly ascribed to coincidence. Now, the lack of communication would presumably be answered by Hislop by claiming this supposed 40-day fasting period was a a retained practice from their Babylonian ancestors, which is a big speculation given the lack of proof the Babylonians engaged in such a thing as well as the lack of evidence that this supposed fasting period of the Aztec (if it is real) goes back that far. And again, there were so many fasts of varying lengths one can find detailed about their religious practices that you will by the law of averages find one that lasted 40 days.
So this doesn't mean all that much. Still, if he could actually show a widespread pagan usage of 40-day fasts, this might buttress his point. But his examples actually get worse after this.
Such a Lent of forty days was
observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson's
Egyptians.*
* WILKINSON's Egyptian Antiquities, vol. 1 p. 278.
This was a rather sloppy citation, which made it far harder to track this down than it should have. The work being referred to is actually named "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians"; if you have any idea how he goes from that title to "Egyptian Antiquities," I've love to know. If he had to shorten it, "Ancient Egyptians" would have made much more sense and actually been in the title.
The page in question can be read
here. The problem is that while Hislop assures us that we can see this upon consulting the work, what is actually stated is: "A grand ceremony of purification took place previous and preparatory to their fasts, many of which lasted from seven to forty-two days, and sometimes even a longer period: during which time they abstained entirely from animal food, from herbs and vegetables, and above all from the indulgence of the passions."
How in the world do you take "many of which lasted from 7-42 days or longer" and say it's 40 days? Sure, 40 days does fall into that range, but there would have presumably been fasts of things like 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, and 41 as well! Or 43, considering it says "or longer"! There is no sign that 40 was in any way a standard time period. Not only that, but this is apparently just referring to random fasts the Egyptian priests did, not any sort of set scheduled annual one. Hislop has thoroughly misrepresented his source in order to try to make it fit his narrative. Prior to this Hislop engaged in unwarranted speculation in his section on Easter, but he didn't come across as outright dishonest as he does here.
This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed
by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in
commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god.*
*LANDSEER's Sabean Researches, p. 112.
As already noted, the fasting referred to in Wilkinson's book was
not an "Egyptian Lent of forty days" as Hislop claims, but let us look into this anyway. This one was a headache to find, because the actual title is Sabaean Researches... or even more specifically, Sabæan Researches. You might think that wouldn't be hard to find it when it's just a single letter off, but when I only have the title and the last name of the author to go on, it can be tricky indeed. Anyway,
the quote is here.
The first obvious problem is that there's nothing stated here about fasting. Furthermore, when we read in context, we see that Landseer actually takes issue
with the claim of the forty days. He prefaces the portion that Hislop
cites by writing that:
"This "certain time" of the absence of Osiris, has
been variously specified; as if it were uncertain time in the knowledge
or opinions of its reporters. The truth is, that, it has really
undergone some variation from age to age, owing, as I shall explain
hereafter, to the procession of the equinoxes; and has varied still
more, on account of the difference of the latitudes of the various
countries where the mysteries were celebrated. Having been thus
variously specified without advertence to the causes, the majority of
those gentlemen who have treated the subject, have chosen to allude to
the time occupied in general terms. I observe, Sir, that on the
authority of Theophilus, your "Inquiry" states that the Osiris of Egypt
was supposed to be dead, or absent, forty days in each year, during
which the people lamented his loss, as the Syrians did that of Adonis."
Note
that it says that people have given various different time periods for this supposed absence of Osiris, but that the
person he is addressing (Richard Payne Knight, more on him shortly) claimed it was forty based on the authority of
Theophilus. This is returned to on page 183, specifying that it was
Theophilus of Edessa. Here Landseer argues that this was a misunderstanding,
and Theophilus was referring to the average length being 40, and
that this is a statement of astronomy. So even Hislop's own
source really doesn't back him up.
Things get weirder, though. The work that made the forty day remark, which Landseer is responding to, is "An inquiry into the symbolical language of ancient art and mythology" by Richard Payne Knight. This statement can be found
here, where it writes "the Osiris of the Egyptians was
supposed to be dead or absent forty days in each year, during which the people lamented his loss, as
the Syrians did that of Adonis." The citation offered for this is "Theophil. ad Autolyc. lib. i. p. 75." This work is obviously "Theophilus ad Autolycus" (Theophilus to Autolycus). Oddly, Landseer says that Knight rested his claim on Theophilus of Edessa, but the Theophilus who wrote Theophilus ad Autolycus was Theophilus of Antioch, who lived several centuries earlier than Theophilus of Edessa. Landseer appears to be attacking Knight on incorrect notions; he probably simply saw "Theophil." and mistakenly thought it was Theophilus of Edessa.
Does this mean that Landseer was wrong, meaning Hislop was actually right? No. As noted, no mention of a
fast occurs here, only 40 days. But even Knight's claim of 40 day seems inaccurate. Let us look up Theophilus ad Autolycum, the citation for the 40 days of lamenting for Osiris. Unfortunately, it saying page 75 is of little use without specification as to what printing it was, but we do know it's in book 1. Book 1 can be found
here. The only mention of Osiris occurs in Chapter 9, which I have bolded:
"And, indeed, the names of those whom you say you worship, are the names of dead men. And these, too, who and what kind of men were they? Is not Saturn found to be a cannibal, destroying and devouring his own children? And if you name his son Jupiter, hear also his deeds and conduct — first, how he was suckled by a goat on Mount Ida, and having slain it, according to the myths, and flayed it, he made himself a coat of the hide. And his other deeds — his incest, and adultery, and lust — will be better recounted by Homer and the rest of the poets. Why should I further speak of his sons? How Hercules burnt himself; and about the drunk and raging Bacchus; and of Apollo fearing and fleeing from Achilles, and falling in love with Daphne, and being unaware of the fate of Hyacinthus; and of Venus wounded, and of Mars, the pest of mortals; and of the ichor flowing from the so-called gods. And these, indeed, are the milder kinds of legends; since the god who is called Osiris is found to have been torn limb from limb, whose mysteries are celebrated annually, as if he had perished, and were being found, and sought for limb by limb. For neither is it known whether he perished, nor is it shown whether he is found. And why should I speak of Atys mutilated, or of Adonis wandering in the wood, and wounded by a boar while hunting; or of Æsculapius struck by a thunderbolt; or of the fugitive Serapis chased from Sinope to Alexandria; or of the Scythian Diana, herself, too, a fugitive, and a homicide, and a huntress, and a passionate lover of Endymion? Now, it is not we who publish these things, but your own writers and poets."
Bolded is the section on Osiris. But nowhere here does it mention forty days! (nor does "forty," "fourty," or "40" show up anywhere in the text of the first book) I even looked at books two and three to see if they were mentioned, but neither Osiris nor 40 days of lamenting are mentioned in those books (there are mentions of "40" or "forty" but in totally different contexts). Nor is Adonis mentioned anywhere else, in case it happened to refer to him.
So when we trace the claim back to its supposed source, we find a source that does not mention 40 days at all. And even if it did, there is no proof of any accompanying fast or other aspects of Lent mentioned.
At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for "forty nights" the "wailing for Proserpine" continued;* and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called "Castus" or the "sacred" fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her "excess of sorrow" (violentia mœroris),** that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell.
* De Errore, p. 70
** ARNOBIUS, Adversus Gentes, lib. v. p. 403. See also what precedes in the same book in regard to Proserpine.
The bibliography says that what is ascribed to Julius Firmicus is published in Oxford in 1678... not exactly that useful for finding it in the present. It would have been better had he, in addition to listing the page, also listed the chapter of the work itself so that if there was a different version of the work available, someone could just look at that. Still, I found an English translation and the passage being mentioned appears to be
here. But again, there is no mention of
fasting here for the 40 days (technically, 40 nights). Further, this is accompanied by a footnote (492)
which reads: "This rite for Kore-Proserpina is not elsewhere attested, and religionists have been unable to localize it. Is it a cult usage known to Firmicus from his own island of Sicily? Nisson 2.656; "Der Brauch macht einen altertümlichen Eindruck; vielleicht handelt es sich um ein Jahresfeir." The lack of other attestations indicates this was either a very localized act or perhaps Firmicus was simply in error. A possibly localized ritual that happened to last 40 days (well, technically nights) and makes no mention of things that are actually done in Lent is not exactly persuasive in terms of demonstrating a pagan origin of Lent.
As for Arnobius, again I do not think I have access to the exact edition Hislop cites, but what appears to be referred to is
here, in Book 5. While it does mention an abstaining from bread (not a common practice at Lent to my knowledge), it gives no length to this. Perhaps we're supposed to combine the two sources and assume that the 40-day crying period was the same as this castus fast given both had some connection to Proserpine. But this is simply a speculation of Hislop's; no fasting is mentioned in the first source and nothing about a 40-day fasting period, or anything else that was described in the first source, is found in the second. Even the shared "connection" to Proserpine is different given that the first is directly for her, but the other was in imitation of Ceres.
I did attempt to try to find more information on the Castus, as Arnobius doesn't provide much detail. The more full name seems to be "castus Cereris". In the 1958 book "Le Culte de Ceres a Rome" by Le Bonniec, it is apparently asserted on pages 404-12 that it was nine days long... I say apparently because I don't have a copy of the work so I cannot check it to verify, but I have seen people say that is what he said. If Le Bonniec is right, then this finishes off Hislop's argument. And if he's not right on the nine days... Hislop's argument is still lacking because he hasn't demonstrated that the "castus Cereris" was forty days, he just took two separate references and arbitrarily combined them into one. It also appears there was a fast to Ceres called the Ieiunium
Cereris (mentioned here and here), but this lasted for only one day. If this is what is being referred to, then the 40 days is disproved.
It should also be noted again that despite Hislop's confident assertions that this 40-day fasting period was most definitely a part of the Babylonian religion, he has not shown proof of this. He's just pointed to what he claims were other 40-day fasting periods (which have been shown to have been dubious) and then declared that proves his point.
But even if we lay aside the claim of it being a part of the Babylonian religion and just try to claim it was a general pagan practice that influenced Lent, we still see how his arguments fall apart. There is no evidence the Yezidis' 40-day fast went back far enough to influence Lent (it almost certainly was the other way around), the pagan Mexicans (if they even did have a 40-day fast around that time period and it actually went back that far) had no contact with Christians until far later, Hislop's claims about the Egyptians are misrepresentations if you look at the original sources being cited, and the Proserpine example is simply taking two separate statements by different authors and assuming they refer to the same thing.
As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and
Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit
in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife
Ariadne, Libera* (which was one of the names of Proserpine),** it
is highly probable that the forty days fast of Lent was made in later
times to have reference to both.
* OVID, Fasti, lib. iii, 1. 512, vol. iii, p. 184.
** SMITH'S Classical Dictionary, "Liber and Libera," p. 381.
In truth, this portion does not matter, because it assumes on the preceding points having been proven, which as has been demonstrated, they have not. So even if this portion was right, it wouldn't be of any relevance. Nevertheless, for the sake of completeness I'll look at them. The Ovid citation is formatted oddly, but what appears to be done is that it is saying it is found in Ovid's Fasti, book 3, "1. 512." The "vol. iii, p. 184" is saying that in the collection of Ovid's works he is citing, it is found on page 184 of volume 3. This is actually a good way to cite this, as it gives someone who has the specific collection a way to look it up, but also shows what you are referring to if looking at a different edition or translation. I do wish it was written more clearly that this is what is being expressed, though. Now, it appears to be saying it's on line 512 of the poem... but the only real mention of Libera that I see is on
line 557. But okay, it does mention that Bacchus called his wife Libera. The other citation can be found
here. But, again, even if Hislop
was correct on this point, it isn't relevant.
Among the Pagans this Lent seems
to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival
in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which
was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in
many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival,
being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the
"month of Tammuz;" in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in
Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal
Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get
the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult
matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity now far sunk
in idolatry in this as in so many other things, to shake hands.
Curiously, after all of the citations for rather small things, here he throws out all of this without any citations. But restricting ourselves to the question of Lent, note how Hislop simply assumes that it was a preliminary to this celebration of Tammuz he claims occurred in those months. He simply asserts "this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary" and that's it. Even if his preceding claims were correct, and as I have demonstrated they are not, he wouldn't have proven this.
The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot
Dionysius the Little,* to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of
the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true
time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question ; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that
the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the
truth.**
*About AD 525.
** GIESELER, vol. i. p. 54. Gieseler adduces as authorities for the statement in the text, G. A. HAMBERGER, De Epochæ Christianæ ortu et auctore (in MARTINI Thesaur. Dissertat., T. iii., P. i. p. 241); JO. G. JANI, Historia Æræ Dionysianæ, Viteb., 1715, 4, and IDELER'S Chronologie, ii. 366 ff. This is the statement also commonly made in all the standard English chronologies.
Given that people to this day debate the exact year of Jesus's birth, Hislop's claim that there is no doubt it was 4 years off seems presumptuous. But that is of secondary importance.
This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was at
tended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church
the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection
with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities
that were commemorated during the " sacred fast " or Pagan Lent,
as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus,* and surely he
must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full know
ledge of all these abominations, " went down to Egypt for help " to
stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who
could find no more excellent way to " revive " it, than by borrowing
from so polluted a source ; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn.
*CLEMENS ALEXANDRIUS, Protrepticos, p. 13.
For easier reference for the reader, I should note that this work's name is often rendered as Protrepticus in English, which is what I will be using.
Protrepticus, also known as Exhortation to the Greeks or Exhortation to the Heathen in English, is a work by Clement of Alexandria (Hislop renders his name differently, as you can see). Rather regrettably, I do not know which version of Protrepticus is being referred to; Hislop only tells us that it's the 1629 edition from Lutetiæ, which I'm not sure is online. So it's hard to know exactly which portion is being referred to here. The early portions of Protrepticus do contain criticism of Greek pagan practices, but say nothing of anything like Lent that I can see. Hislop's claim is that there were atrocities committed during this supposed "sacred fast" but there is no mention of any such fast that I see. My guess is that he, believing he has proven such a thing existed, feels all he has to do is complain about pagan depravities and assume that this supposed fast must have included those.
This is what we must remember. Hislop has failed to prove his idea of Lent coming from some pagan fast. Thus claims like the above mean nothing. Interestingly, it should be noted, is that even if his claim about 40-day Lent being pagan was true, it would prove nothing in regards to Easter itself, just the preceding Lent.
That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk,
and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries
of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow
steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of
Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman
Church before the sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly
appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have
distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks.*
* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to
Paschal observances, says : " In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the
death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like
the Jews, eight days throughout. . . . . There is no trace of a yearly festival of a
resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday" (Catholic Church,
sect. 53, p. 178, Note 35). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat
later period the age of Constantine fifteen days seem to have been observed in
religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from
the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although
the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin. Eccles., vol. ix. p. 94) says :
" The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sun
day one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of
the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days solemnity. Fifteen days
was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church
Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a
vacation of all legal processes" (BINGHAM, ix. p. 95).
Hislop throws a lot of stuff at us in one footnote, so we'll have to dissect it in parts.
"GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to
Paschal observances, says : " In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the
death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like
the Jews, eight days throughout. . . . . There is no trace of a yearly festival of a
resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday" (Catholic Church,
sect. 53, p. 178, Note 35)."
Hislop for some reason doesn't specify this is Volume 1 of Gieseler's work, but it is. It is available
here. Gieseler does make that remark there... but it doesn't seem to make sense. Gieseler says there is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection, but does so in discussing their annual celebration of Pascha (Easter/Passover) on Nisan 14. These are in apparent contradiction. This could be reconciled if Gieseler is just saying that in the East their Easter was not seen as a specific celebration of the Resurrection, but rather just a Christian continuation of Passover. If so, this does nothing to support Hislop's point.
"In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat
later period the age of Constantine fifteen days seem to have been observed in
religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from
the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although
the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin. Eccles., vol. ix. p. 94) says :
" The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sun
day one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of
the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days solemnity. Fifteen days
was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church.
Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a
vacation of all legal processes" (BINGHAM, ix. p. 95)."
Here Hislop is quoting from volume 9 of Origines Ecclesiasticae, Bingham's most famous work. Frustratingly, he gives no indication what edition is being quoted from (Hislop does include a list of editions of works cited at the start of The Two Babylons, but does not seem to include Bingham in it). What is being referred to seems to be
here. Unfortunately, it is in Latin, which I don't feel qualified to do much of a translation of, though the quote mentioned by Hislop does not seem to be there to me. However, I can consult the English translation. Unfortunately, the English translation divides things up differently and has only 8 volumes. Fortunately we can tell by the Latin version that it's in Book 20, Chapter 5, Section 3, and it turns out that is found in Volume 7 of the English version; more specifically, the section starts
on page 72. However, we see nothing like what is claimed in the quote attributed to him, nor do we find this even in the Latin. As it turns out, it seems either Hislop goofed up or was using a different edition, as the quote is found several pages prior, in pages 87-89 in the Latin! For English, it starts on page 69. Hislop does say that these extracts were given to him by a friend, so perhaps he never looked at the work itself and relied on the friend, but that means the friend erred in the citations or we are using a different edition due to Hislop not telling us which it was.
But as admitted by Hislop, the period of fasting is not stated... or is it? On page 71 of the English it says "But because the former of these Paschal weeks belongs to the Lent fast, we will consider it under that head, and here only speak of the Paschal solemnity as it was properly festival." And as it turns out, it discusses Lent in detail later on, starting on page 138. While obviously out of date, it still is a more interesting and certainly more balanced investigation than Hislop's is.
The words of
Socrates, writing on this very subject, about A.D. 450, are these :
"Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before
Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord's-day."*
* SOCRATES, Hist. Eccles., lib. v cap. 22, p. 234
Unlike his earlier quote from Socrates that was inaccurate, this one seems legitimate. In the translation available
here (from the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers" translation), we see the phrase "Those at Rome fast three successive weeks before Easter, excepting Saturdays and Sundays." That matches up enough it is undoubtedly what is being referred to.
Hislop's assertion, apparently, is to offer this quote to say that at this point Lent was not yet 40 days. However, look at what Socrates goes on to say immediately afterwards:
"Those at Rome fast three successive weeks before Easter, excepting Saturdays and Sundays. Those in Illyrica and all over Greece and Alexandria observe a fast of six weeks, which they term 'The forty days' fast.' Others commencing their fast from the seventh week before Easter, and fasting three five days only, and that at intervals, yet call that time 'The forty days' fast.' It is indeed surprising to me that thus differing in the number of days, they should both give it one common appellation; but some assign one reason for it, and others another, according to their several fancies."
So as we can see, a 40-day fast existed back then, although possibly not in Rome. Perhaps Hislop would claim it was because paganism was already influencing the church, but certainly it demonstrates that he took this quote out of context.
But
at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant,
steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the
West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia
in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519,
which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter.*
* Dr. MEREDITH HANMER'S Chronographia, subjoined to his translation of
EUSEBIUS, p. 592. London, 1636.
This can be found here; for some reason Hislop writes Chronographia rather than Chronographie. We do indeed see a statement on the left page that "A councel held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisda decreede that Lent shold be solemnelye kept before Easter, the rogatio weeke with the ember dayes about the ascension.tom.2.coc." (note: You may notice at the link that the S's look like a lowercase f. This is how they were often written back then) Unfortunately we have the problem of the shorthand citation of "tom.2.coc" and I have no idea what it is referring to; no doubt it refers to a collection of decrees from various church councils, but which collection? However, even if the collection itself isn't known, we can look up the council. We can find the details of the council here which says, under XXV, "Id a sacerdotibus omnibus decretum est, ut ante paschae solennitatem, non quinquagesima, sed quadragesima teneatur." My Latin's not all that great but it does seem to be a statement that Lent is to be 40 days.
As a note, I've seen people go farther than Hislop (even when simply citing him), by saying Hormisdas ordered it, or that this was the first time it was called Lent, claims Hislop does not make above. But, in any event, we come to the same problem as before: Hislop is simply assuming his prior points have been proven, and they have not.
It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few years after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once. About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way;*
* GIESELER, vol. i. p. 54
Gieseler's work can again be seen here, though I have to admit I don't see exactly what Hislop is trying to refer to. Perhaps the mention of Anglo-Saxons? Regardless, this assumes the prior points as having been proven.
and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month ;* and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.
* CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge, p. 34. Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something " untoward " in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment's reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith. Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints. If a heathen could say, " Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more," surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity. Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon's golden cup ? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed, would England's Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, " clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.
That's one heck of a footnote that Hislop throws in! Initially, I thought that this footnote was, after "p.34" actually providing the quotation from Cummianus/Ussher (also known as Usher), but then realized it was Hislop's own editorializing. Largely this is just Hislop assuming his claims to be true, despite him not adequately proving them. I know I keep hammering this point home, but it's true! Perhaps in retrospect I should have cut out some of this because it is unnecessary to respond to, but I felt I should attempt to actually go over it.
But as for the actual Cummianus bit? Well, Hislop says in his bibliography that he refers to the 1632 Dublin printing of "Usher's Sylloge". What would seem to be referred to here is here; but on the applicable page I see nothing like what is claimed by Hislop. My Latin, unfortunately, is insufficient to provide a full translation--not helping is the difficulty in actually making out what some words say--but I feel my Latin is good enough to be able to let me know if it says anything in regards to what Hislop is saying. I see nothing of this sort, and no mention of Cummianus. So unless I am missing something here, I do not see Usher making any mention of this at all. However, Hislop's claim, even if true, does nothing to prove which timing was right and which was wrong, nor does it prove his claims of pagan origins of Lent or time of Easter, which have been rebutted already.
In regards to Hislop's lengthy footnote in which he says non-Catholics might find something "untoward" about the revelations he's claimed about Easter, there is little reason for them to find it untoward, because Hislop is just doing a ton of speculation and misusing his citations. If indeed any "Infidel and Socinian" writers are using these sorts of claims to attack Christianity, the proper answer is to point out the major errors in them (as I have here) rather than embrace those attacks against Christianity by embarking on a speculative idea about Babylon as Hislop does.
Hot Cross Buns
Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The "buns," known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. "One species of sacred bread," says Bryant,* "which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun."
* Mythology, vol. i. p. 373.
Starting here, Hislop will attempt to point to old pagan customs and link them to modern Easter traditions. However, he makes a rather major error in doing so: He will neglect to prove that these Easter traditions go back far enough to be plausibly connected to paganism! If something developed in the 17th century or later, then one can hardly say it was some kind of pagan accommodation, as the pagans had all gone away. Even if someone argues that aspects of paganism were absorbed into the church, such aspects would have had to enter into it around the time of the earlier centuries AD, after which there would be no further absorption, as the bona fide paganism was gone. In regards to hot cross buns, more will be stated on this later, though I will state now that they appear to emerge too late to be the result of any pagan influence. But before we get to that, we'll go through Hislop's citations one by one.
You'll notice, of course, that Hislop continues his declaration that the "queen of heaven" referred to in the Bible (believed to be Ishtar) was the goddess Easter even though there is no proof whatsoever of this outside of a somewhat similar sounding name.
Setting that aside, what of his reference? Well, we can find it here. However, one may find an oddity. The source simply asserts that "The Greeks, who changed the Nu final into a sigma, expressed it in the nominative, bous; but in the accusive, more truly boun, boun." But where does he get the idea that it was originally "boun"? We see this is rendered as boun in the accusative case, but what is his reasoning for claiming this was the "original"? He never supplies any evidence for this that I can see. The more plausible conclusion would simply be that "boun" was just the accusative version of "bous" and thus his references to "boun" being the normal instance are inaccurate. This short-circuits the apparent link Hislop is trying to find between "boun" and "bun."
But even setting that aside, there is no indication that the English word "bun" is in any way derived from this "boun." I'll get a little more into that later.
Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, " He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey."*
* LAERTIUS, p. 227, B.
Curiously, Hislop does not say which edition the work of Laertius he is referring to. The quote he is referring to is, however, mentioned in his preceding reference, though it translates it slightly differently than Hislop does (Bryant writes "He offered up one of the sacred liba, called a boun, which was made of fine flour and honey"); I wonder if Hislop performed his own translation or just edited what Bryant wrote.
However, is this what Laertius actually wrote? Here is an English translation that appears to contain the passage (it is from the "Life of Empedocles" section), but what is written is "But I have found in the Commentaries of Phavorinus, that Empedocles sacrificed and gave us a feast to the spectators of the games, an ox made of honey and flour, and that he had a brother named Callicratidas." A later translation is available here and it reads "I found in the Memorabilia of Favorinus a statement that Empedocles feasted the sacred envoys on a sacrificial ox made of honey and barley-meal, and that he had a brother named Callicratides."
You might notice that it says "ox" rather than "cake." Indeed, even if we swap out the word "ox" for "cake" we see a rather different statement than what was claimed; we see no mention of "liba" nor "called a boun"; it simply says "ox" ("bous").
You may be a little confused about the ox and bous thing. You see, bous is Greek for ox. Greek nouns change their spellings based on their usage in a sentence, however, and the accusative (when it is the object rather than subject) for this is "boun." So Laertius is using the word for ox, but it is in the accusative. Bryant does entreat upon this briefly in a footnote, mentioning that some have thought it meant ox, but arguing that it had to be a cake in this case. It is possible that while the normal usage of "bous" was ox, here we see it being used for a cake because the cake was ox-like; the descriptions cited by Bryant, after all, write "a kind of cake, with a representation of two horns."
But this throws further doubt on his idea that the original phrasing for bun was "boun" because if the cakes' name comes from ox, as it would appear to given the mention of two horns, it would merely mean that they named the cakes after the ox, which was named bous, not boun.
The bottom line of all of this is that there is no actual evidence provided that these cakes, assuming Bryant's information is correct, were ever called "boun" outside of when rendered in the accusative. Rather, the evidence is that because they had some kind of a resemblance to an ox, they were simply given the name for ox. It should further be rather obvious that hot cross buns do not have horns on them!
Thus, Hislop rather fails in proving any actual ancient origin of hot cross buns. If he had actual evidence for it, he wouldn't be wasting his time trying to argue that a phonetic similarity in a particular inflection of a word that normally has no relation to cakes whatsoever is somehow related to the English word bun.
The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he
says, " The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the
women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven." *
* Jeremiah vii. 18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the
word "bun" seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexeon
Sylloge, Part i. p. 130); and, at other times, Khabōn (NEANDER, in KITTO'S
Biblical Cyclopædia, vol. i. p. 237). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as
one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, "bread," and the second how, in
like manner, Khvōn would become Bōn or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that
our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation.
In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.
Hislop throughout The Two Babylon offers various etymologies that are nothing more than his own wild speculations. This is an example, where he tries to claim that khvon became bun despite a lack of actual evidence for it. This isn't entirely Hislop's fault, as he did write his book prior to some major strides in etymology being figured out--still, even for his time, his proposed etymologies tend to be high on speculation, low on evidence. With him being both out of date and speculative, one should be extremely wary on trusting any claim he makes regarding etymology; in fact, I would say that just about anything Hislop says about word etymology should be completely ignored.
But a reader would perhaps like a more in-depth explanation for this specific case, at least. Well, Hislop's etymology here is as far as I can tell not supported by anything other than his imagination. It certainly doesn't seem supported by the sources he pulls out.
Now, the Hebrew word was indeed Khavan (though its specific inflection in the passage is, as the Biblical Cyclopaedia mentions, kavannim). So let's begin with the first source. The Lexeon Sylloge that Hislop refers to is from 1822. This appears to be it.
There is no Kapan-os listed here that I see. The closest is Kapanoi
(Καπανοι), which is stated to be "αλφιτων ειδος". Looking into some
Greek dictionaries, it appears αλφιτων means "barley groats" and ειδος means "shape." It seems that the Lexeon Sylloge may be the only source in which this word is attested to. The Liddle-Scott Jones only lists Photius (author of the Lexeon Sylloge) as an example of the usage of this word and repeats the definition given.
My Greek knowledge is extremely basic, if even that, but looking into it it seems that Kapanoi would be the plural form of Kapanos, which is where Hislop is getting his terminology from. But then Hislop engages in thoroughly unsupported speculation to claim that Panis comes from Kapanos which comes from Khavan. He offers no proof for it; to him, the mere fact they look kind of similar is enough.
But the Panis part is less important than the claim of Khvon becoming Bon/Bun. Again Hislop's claimed etymology is extremely high on speculation and rather low on evidence. Now, as we see here, the Biblical Cyclopaedia says that the buns in Greek were called χαβωνες, or khabōnes (modern transliteration would normally render the "kh" as "ch" but for consistency I will use "kh" in this section). This appears to be the plural, so Hislop goes with what I presume is the singular, khabōn. From this, Hislop just assumes we get the word "bun" without providing any explanation as to what happened to the preceding kha. Incidentally, Hislop breezes by the fact that the Cyclopaedia writes that the cakes in question "were by them [the Greeks] made in the shape of a sickle in reference to the new moon" which is not exactly what hot cross buns look like.
Hislop's argument for etymology thus amounts to "well, they look kind of similar". This cannot be considered a persuasive etymology, particularly when one considers the fact that Hebrew is a Semitic language, a different language family altogether than Indo-European (which Greek, Latin, and English belong to).
So what is the actual etymology of bun? Or more specifically, the etymology of the sweet kind, as there are other meanings of "bun" that have different etymologies? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it's not known for sure. Someone might try to use that to argue that Hislop's proposal could be correct, but the problems with his etymology have already been discussed--namely, the fact he just makes assertions without any backing. Further, the fact the etymology is stated as unknown means that actual etymologists do not consider Hislop's assertions credible, or else they would have listed that as the origin. But more importantly, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, bun only seems to have entered the English language with this definition in the 14th century--this is simply far too late for Hislop's thesis to work. And certainly, it is extremely unlikely that a Greek word would have somehow made it all the way to England without leaving any traces in the various countries in between.
But things get even worse for Hislop. If we look at the examples the OED offers us, we
don't see it spelled as bun initially. We see bunne (1371 and 1440),
bonne (1475), and bunny (1506). The first example that gives the
spelling of 'bun' is in 1572, after which 'bun' became the standard spelling. Now obviously the OED doesn't list every instance, but the clear fact is that we see a notably different spelling at first. So to work,
the word 'boun' or khabōn had to somehow make it to England
from Greece without leaving traces in any of the languages in between, then get changed to bonne along the
way, and then get changed back to bun much later. This demonstrates the nonsense of Hislop's etymology, and that's not even counting the fact that even if began as "bun" this happens too late for his arguments to work.
So not only does Hislop's etymology not hold up under scrutiny, it also appears to fail the historical test because its entry into English is simply too late. But there's another thing that is too late that further demolishes his claims, as I'll discuss next.
The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of
Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been
derived.
It actually leaves considerable room for doubt. I've been pointing out flaws in Hislop's narratives, but we need to discuss what utterly demolishes his entire claim: Hot cross buns are of relatively recent invention.
It's telling that, while Hislop was content to go through the history of Lent (a flawed history on his part, but he still did cite actual sources), he never does any of this for hot cross buns. He simply tosses out some pagan usage of cakes and claims it's just like hot cross buns. But when did hot cross buns come about? You won't find any indications of Christians using them at Easter back in the time of paganism... or, if there is such an indication, neither Hislop nor anyone else seems capable of providing it. One legend is apparently that they go back to the 14th century at St. Albans Abbey, but not only is that too late, the first source claiming this appears to come from the 19th century (see this article under "Claim #5" which discusses the St. Albans Abbey claim and also discusses the claims about hot cross buns more generally). As far as I can tell, and this seems backed up by this article, hot cross buns were first referred to in the 18th century! That's well after any kind of pagan supplication would have occurred. To be fair, that seems to be referring to the first usage of the phrase "hot cross bun" though see the first article linked in this paragraph for more information about how even the idea of hot cross buns comes too late for Hislop's idea to be plausible. Those who claim hot cross buns came from paganism should be the ones to demonstrate that Christian usage can be dated back far enough for any of this to be plausible. But they, just like Hislop, have never to my knowledge done so.
This is a major failing of Hislop, and we'll also see it in his discussion on Easter eggs. He'll happily claim pagan usage of these things, but will fail completely to demonstrate that Christians adopted Easter eggs anytime close to when pagans were actually using them. Speaking of which...
Easter Eggs
Hislop goes on for a while (several pages, in fact) trying to point to various pagan usages of eggs. One wonders if he would object to Christian prayer on the grounds that these pagans presumably prayed as well.
Before getting into the specifics, I shall deal with the general question of Easter eggs. There are two primary times I have seen offered for when Easter eggs first emerged. One is to claim that it goes back to the early Christians; however, no one ever cites any kind of primary source for this, I've noticed. The other, and apparently better supported, explanation is that they started around the 10/11th century as something to do with the eggs during Lent. Eggs were forbidden during Lent at that time, but hens still lay them, so people seem to have taken up painting them so they'd have something to do with them.
This article (which I will admit I discovered via
this link) states:
"Indeed, Adolph Franz, the learned historian in ecclesiastical blessings of the Middle Ages, says that he has never discovered, in the sacramentaries or rituals anterior to the 10th Century, any special form for blessing the eggs."
Surely if Easter Eggs went back long before, we would find references to them. Yet according to this, none were found. I admit this article is a bit old, but to anyone who claims an earlier origin, I challenge you with this: Point to a primary source that refers to them being extent back in a time when pagan syncretization could have occurred. The 10th/11th century is far too late for there to be any pagan influence because paganism was gone in Europe at that point. Actually, even if the early Christian time period was true, that would still work against Hislop's thesis as his claim is that Christianity got corrupted after that early period by the Roman Catholic Church, and thus such early usage would still go against him.
So Hislop's digression is irrelevant even if everything he says is correct. But is what he has to say about pagan usage of eggs correct? I hesitate to get too far into the specifics of Hislop's arguments, as I fear that spending a lot of time on the specifics may obscure the larger problem of his argument I have already discussed. Still, it may be of use to people to demonstrate Hislop's problems, so I will go through some portions of it.
To give a bit of a summary response, Hislop attempts to point to various pagan usages of eggs to try to prove pagan origin of Easter eggs. Beyond the above considerations, however, he has some notable problems. The big one is that by and large, it is him just pointing out references to eggs among pagans (some of them not even used in a religious sense at all), but the way they actually used eggs varies wildly. For Druids, it was merely a status symbol to have a serpent egg, but there does not appear to have been a religious significance to it. He points to how some religions believed the Earth hatched from an egg, but this is drastically different from Easter eggs or the aformentioned Druids. He attempts to argue that eggs were hung up in temples, but one of his sources admits to it being a speculation and the other one only refers to one specific temple where it was done (that is, not a thing people were doing in general). And this is again drastically different from the previous examples. He also attempts to try to say a particular vase was egg-shaped, but as we will see, the vase was not egg-shaped and this was simply Hislop following someone else's error in believing it was. But again notice not only that these have nothing to do with each other other than involving eggs in some fashion, none of them have any real similarity to the practice of Easter eggs. The only thing he can do that comes close is him taking the testimony of a missionary that they paint eggs in China, but Hislop neither demonstrates an actual connection between that and Easter eggs nor that this Chinese practice was religious in nature. With these generalities done, we'll examine the particulars.
The origin of Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient
Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order.*
* DAVIES's Druids, p. 208.
The work here is "The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids" by Edward Davies. The quote in question is "From the contemplation of thie symbol of foreign superstition, we naturally turn to the celebrated Ovum Anguinum, or serpent's egg, of the Celtic priesthood, as described by Pliny. This was, by way of eminence, regarded as Insigne Druidis, the Insigne, or distinguishing mark of a Druid." So first we should notice this is a serpent's egg, not just any old egg as is the case with Easter eggs (though they seem to almost always be chicken eggs). Rather frustratingly, it does not tell us where Pliny make this remark. Thankfully, with our modern searching technology, I was able to find that it appears to be a reference to Chapter 12 of Book 29 of Volume 5. However, I do not see where this says that this was a "sacred emblem" of Druids or a distinguishing mark. It indicates it is considered important, but not as a religious matter; rather, it was a status symbol to have the egg.
Thus this ultimately provides no real support for Hislop's thesis. The druids were pagan and did use eggs, but not (at least according to Pliny) in any religious way. And the type of eggs were different. If pagan usage of something disqualifies it, irrespective of religious use or even if their use of it is different, then the fact pagans used writing means one must reject the written-down Bible.
In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg.*
*Ibid, p. 207
Davies writes "Hence in the Dionusiaca, and in other mysteries, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. By this, we are informed by Porphyry, was signified the world." While he cites Porphyry for an egg signifying the world, he does not cite a source for the consecration of an egg in the Dionusiaca/Dionysiaca, unless that is also covered by the Porphyry citation. The problem is, again he does not tell us where Porphyry said this. The best I have found in my searches is a mention at https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_on_images_02_text.htm, where he is quoted as saying:
"The Demiurge, whom the Egyptians call Cneph, is of human form, but with a skin of dark blue, holding a girdle and a sceptre, and crowned with a royal wing on his head, because reason is hard to discover, and wrapt up in secret, and not conspicuous, and because it is life-giving, and because it is a king, and because it has an intelligent motion: wherefore the characteristic wing is put upon his head. This god, they say, puts forth from his mouth an egg, from which is born a god who is called by themselves Phtha, but by the Greeks Hephaestus; and the egg they interpret as the world. To this god the sheep is consecrated, because the ancients used to drink milk."
But this says nothing about the Dionysiaca. Until such time as an actual citation is offered, I cannot give this much credence. Certainly, we are not left with much confidence given Davies' previous citation of Pliny.
The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour.*
*Col. KENNEDY, p. 223
For a little context, the "mundane egg" is a term for the world egg, which refers to how in some non-Christian religions there was an idea that the world hatched from an egg. Hislop, of course, tries to use this to prove a connection to Easter eggs. But we run into the problems noted above. First is the problem of chronology, of Easter eggs developing too late to be plausibly taken from paganism. In the case of Hinduism someone may point out that Hinduism was still around at that time; but it was very far from the Catholic areas so any influence makes little sense. The second problem, again observed above, is that just because there was an egg in a religious story does not mean that eggs themselves were important as a symbol of any kind.
Now, Hislop doesn't give the title here, but if you look at the source list at the start, he gives the full citation as "Kennedy's Ancient and Hindoo Mythology" published in London in 1831. Rather oddly, Hislop renders the title wrong; it is Ancient and Hindu Mythology. Actually, more fully, it is "Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology." While there were different spellings for Hindu at the time, hence Hislop's usage of "Hindoo" in his work, you would think he would actually use the spelling in the title of the work that was published that he was citing.
In any event, it does mention about how the egg the world hatched from was golden, true. But, again, this means nothing in regards to Easter Eggs; all Hislop has is a mention of an egg, but not that they were in any way similar to Easter Eggs.
The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen.*
*COLEMAN, p. 340.
The more full citation is "Coleman's Hindoo Mythology" published in London in 1832. However, like the above example, the actual title says Hindu... and for that matter, Hislop again gets the title wrong. It is actually "The Mythology of the Hindus." Beyond that, see above. A simple mention of an egg in some pagan story does not mean eggs, let alone painting them, were in any way an important symbol to them.
In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country.*
*My authority for the above statement is the Rev. James Johnston, of Glasgow, formerly missionary at Amoy, in China.
This one, at least, refers to colored eggs for festivals, so the description is similar to Easter Eggs. However, the present day doesn't matter; the question is, does this go back to the time before Christians used them? Hislop does not cite evidence for this. Even if it does, is there any evidence of it being the reason for Christian adoption of it? Remember, this was over in China; the idea that they were taking it because pagans did it in order to accommodate them makes little sense when one considers that that wasn't where the Christians who were using the Easter Eggs were. Of course, Hislop's contention is not that they took it from China, but that this all goes back to some old Babylonian religion and we see traces of it in these other pagan religions... but notice how Hislop does not offer any actual evidence that eggs were in any particular way important to the Babylonians either. So far he's only been able to point to one case that's at all analogous to Easter eggs, which still does not solve the obvious problem that Easter eggs come too late for the idea of it coming to Catholicism from the ancient Babylonian religion (or any pagan religion, really) to work.
Beyond that, still see above.
In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples.*
* WILKINSON, vol. iii. p. 20, and PAUSANIAS, lib. iii., Laconica, cap. 16.
Let's see what Wilkinson says, found here.
"Others, as the fox,
jackal, wolf, hysena, and leopard, were chased as
an amusement, for the sake of their skins, or as
enemies of the farm-yard; and the ostrich held
out a great temptation to the hunter from the
value of its plumes. These were in great request
among the Egyptians for ornamental purposes;
a religious veneration for them, as the symbol of
truth, enhanced their value; and the members of the
court on grand occasions failed not to deck themselves with the feathers of the ostrich. The labour
endured during the chase of this swift-footed bird
was amply repaid ; even its eggs were required for
some ornamental or religious use, and these, with
the plumes, formed part of the tribute imposed
by the Egyptians on the conquered countries
where it abounded. The purposes to which the
eggs were applied are unknown ; but we may
infer, from a religious prejudice in their favour
among the Christians of Egypt, that some superstition was connected with them, and that they
were suspended in the temples of the ancient
Egyptians, as they still are in the churches of the
Copts."
Note what he says. He says "the purposes to which the eggs were applied are unknown" and offers the speculation that they were suspended in the temples, with the reason for that speculation being Coptic Christians do so today. This is, as Wilkinson notes, an inferrence on his part. That is, a speculation. Hislop took a speculation of Wilkinson and then asserted it as fact. Furthermore, this was about ostrich eggs. There is no real parallel between this and Easter egg practices.
As for the Pausanias citation, unfortunately the edition Hislop cites seems to be from 1696, which is not available online. Still, I found what seems to be what is referred to. It is stated (concerning a particular temple) that "An egg is here hung by ribbons from the roof: they say it is the famous egg which Leda is reported to have given birth to." And that's it. Searching turns up no other mentions of eggs in the work, and although it's possible the text was digitized incorrectly at some points so it didn't pick it up, it still indicates that this was a practice of only one that one particular temple. There is thus no indication this was done anywhere other than this one specific temple in Sparta, let alone that it was widespread.
Hislop's evidence is thus a speculation and something limited to a specific temple, neither of which even parallel the usage of Easter eggs.
From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks
of the Euphrates. The classic poets are full of the fable of the
mystic egg of the Babylonians ; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus,
the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in
the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native
country : "An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from
heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank,
where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came
Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess"*—that is,
Astarte.
*Hyginus, Fabulæ, pp. 148, 149.
Before going on, I want to note what it says Hyginus said. Hyginus is relatively simple in his description. But others have gone on to make additional claims (without any citation, of course), such as saying that this happened on the Sunday after the spring equinox, or that there was an egg-laying rabbit involved somehow. Such claims are not found in Hyginus and appear completely made up, given no one ever cites any proof of it. If someone tries to go farther than the Hyginus quote and offers no citation, it is a sign they are making things up (or more likely, simply copying what someone else said without checking into it). Hislop, to his slight credit, did not do such a thing, but I want to note how some go even farther than The Two Babylons and how absurd their claims are.
That said, even if not as absurd, Hislop's argument here has problems. Now, from what I can tell, the reference checks out, though it should be noted that even by Hislop's admission here, the "Syrian Goddess" is Astarte, not Ishtar; while there was some overlap between the two deities, it does not mean this egg story was one of them.
However, we run into some problems here beyond the chronology problem noted earlier. First, I am not even sure how widespread this version necessarily was; other tellings of the story of Venus's origin ascribe different things to her, such as emerging from sea foam. Indeed, from what I can tell (and I could be wrong on this point), Hyginus is the only source for this claim, indicating that this may not have been well-known.
Further, this is simply a mention of an egg in a myth. It does not demonstrate that eggs were of particular importance to followers of Astarte any more than Christians consider gardens to be particularly important because of the Garden of Eden. Remember, the claim often advanced based on this is that Christians used Easter Eggs because it was to appease pagans, but the egg does not seem to be of particular importance. And if the attempt is to claim that pagan usage of eggs shows a commonality, one must easily note that the way the eggs are used in either the fables or in real life vary wildly and indicate there is no common origin to them; more likely, people just had eggs (which are found basically everywhere) and incorporated them into their stories or lives. The simple mention of an egg in this story is a far cry from anything related to Easter Eggs.
Hislop goes on in regards to this point:
Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale. (See Fig. 32)*
*From LANDSEER's Sabean Researches, p. 80. London 1823.
Notice what Hislop says here. The egg became a symbol of "Astarte or Easter." It is not clear whether he is using Easter to refer to the celebration or if he's trying to claim Astarte is also a goddess named Easter; the former does not make sense for the reasons given, while the latter is in error.
But was an egg, as Hislop claims, actually a symbol of Astarte? All he has done so far is mention that there was a story of Astarte coming out of an egg, but that proves absolutely nothing about it becoming a symbol of Astarte any more than rivers being a symbol of Christianity just because Jesus was baptized in one. So that is a dud.
But what of his new attempt at proof, where he says "in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale." First, this was a place of worship of Aphrodite, not Venus. It is true that Aphrodite was simply the Greek version of Venus but it's still something to note. Further, while Aphrodite was associated with Astarte, they weren't one and the same and thus it is wrong for Hislop to simply assert that a place that had a temple of Aphrodite (actually Venus) was also devoted to Astarte. Now, I am aware that Hislop attempts to argue elsewhere in the work about how many of the pagan gods were actually the same, generally based on spurious connections, which may be the source of his claim that Venus was Astarte. However, if we set all this aside and suppose that this "egg of wondrous size" was somehow linked to Astarte, we run into a bigger problem.
And what is that problem? Well, for this claim, Hislop includes a picture he claims is the "Mystic Egg of Astarte". Here is the picture of the egg from his book (page 109, Figure 32):
He does not say where the picture came from; Landseer's work, which he cites, does not seem to include the picture, at least not on the page cited. Here is page 80. Landseer writes "... there still remains in the island of Cyprus, an antique vase of an egg-like form, and of the extraordinary dimensions of thirty feet in circumfrence! on which the bull of the zodiac is sculpured in good style." Between this and the illustration provided in The Two Babylons, which looks egg-shaped, Hislop tries to claim that this showed the egg was a symbol of Astarte.
The first problem is that Hislop's own source, Landseer, notes on page 82 "...as the Greeks obtained their knowledge of the
goddess Venus herself, from this her highly favoured island of Kupris,
it appears to be far within the pale of possibility, that the sculptured
egg, or vase, of which a representation is before us, may have remained
from those ancient times; and may have been used in the celebration of
those Cyprian mysteries with which fable has delighted to busy herself."
(emphases added) Hislop's own source only says it "may have" been used for deity worship. And Landseer also says he hasn't actually seen it personally.
What Landseer presumably did see, and which Hislop's illustration seems to have been based on, is this painting by Luigi Mayer (taken from here):
While this picture does look egg-shaped, I would say it does so less than the version Hislop reproduces.
But with all of this considered, I am now going to show you photos--not merely a picture, but photos--of the vase in question. We know it's the same because not only is it from the same place, it has the identifying feature of the bull that Landseer describes ("The reader will observe, that the Bull of our Cyprian vase is
sculptured in high relief and is tastefully placed in a semicircular
niche, which is hollowed out and over-arched for its reception, in that
part of the vase, where in smaller vessels of the same kind, would be
placed the ear or handle") and is also seen in the picture that Hislop
presents.
Actually, there were two such vases. One remains on Cyprus at the Amathus site and the other has been transferred to France where it is on display in the Louvre (this transfer occurred after the publication of The Two Babylons). Pictures of them can be found at this link (scroll down to "At the top of the hill, there were two giant vases decorating the entrance of the temple of Aphrodite at the Acropolis" and you will see the pictures of the vases, one at the original site and one at the Louvre) but I will reproduce two of them here (the page has other pictures of it from other angles later on):
The first is the one still left in Cyprus, whereas the second is the one that was taken to the Louvre. Indeed, one can see it on the Louvre website here (the URL no longer works due to a reorganization of the website, and I do not know where one can view it now; however, you can nevertheless see it on the linked archived page). Now, do those look egg-shaped to you? They certainly do not look that way to me. They look like large but otherwise ordinary vases. Keeping in mind what the vases actually look like, take a look at the picture Hislop provides in his book. As we can see, the picture Hislop reproduces makes it look far more egg shaped than it actually is. I do not think someone who were to look at the vases without knowing anything previously about them would have considered them egg shaped.
As noted, I am not sure where the specific image Hislop presents in his book came from. Obviously it's a reproduction of the in-color painting above (which apparently was what Landseer was looking at), presumably because back in the 19th century it was beyond the ability of printers to print a painting like that. But was this black-and-white reproduction something made specifically for The Two Babylons or was it something that someone else did and Hislop simply copied it?
Wherever Hislop got this from, the bottom line is that the idea of this being shaped like an egg comes from a painting that makes it look much more like an egg than the actual vase was. In his list of illustrations, Hislop labels the illustration of this vase to be "Mystic Egg of Astarte." However, the actual vase does not look like an egg. And it was not even an Astarte temple, but one of Aphrodite. Thus I believe we can safely consider this claim of Hislop debunked.
One can't put all the blame on Hislop for this, as he presumably had no means to head all the way to Cyprus to double check. Still, even considering that limitation, he did engage in some unwarranted speculations, like assuming it had religious significance. But even if we clear Hislop of all personal blame here, this cannot be given for those in the present who continue to parrot Hislop's claim about the egg on Cyprus. The proof of the "Mystic Egg of Astarte" rested on erroneous information; with us able to look at it in a photo, it can be disregarded.
Thus, Hislop's claim of an egg being represented by this vase is simply incorrect. Nor has he even proven that it had any religious significance rather than just being there for something like holding water.
After that, Hislop embarks on a claim about how pagan usage of eggs came from the story of Noah's ark via an argument so eccentric I am not even sure how to properly approach it.
The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark* during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated (p. 108), is well known as the “mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Gen. xi. 1, “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noahs family that contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus : The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phenician, becomes Baith or Baitha,** which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced.*** The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God ; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god.**** The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world. Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood.
* BRYANT, vol. iii. p. 161.
** In the later Chaldee, the name of an egg is commonly Baiaa, or Baietha in the emphatic form; but Baith is also formed exactly according to rule from Baitz, just as Kaitz, “summer,” in Chaldee, becomes Kaith, and many other words.
*** The common word “Beth,” “house,” in the Bible without the points, is “Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis xxxv. 1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is “Baith-el”
**** BUNSEN, vol. i. p. 377
What can one say to something so bizarre? This is just a ton of speculation on his part.
Let us still attempt to review his argument, at least as well as I can make it out. His claim is that the whole idea of the world hatching from an egg in some pagan myths is connected to Noah's ark. Noah's ark had the "world" shut up in it because everyone who survived the flood was in it (in the sense of the "world" meaning Earth's inhabitants). Further, the word for "house" sounds similar to "egg" in the languages he mentions ("Chaldee" is how he refers to Aramaic/Syriac). So, apparently, the idea is that pagans took the story of Noah's ark on the water, thought of the ark as a house, then switched it to an egg because they sounded similar, and also swapped out "world" in the sense of people into the "world" in the sense of the Earth and everything on it. Therefore, Noah and his family on the ark got turned into the world coming out of an egg.
This bizarre idea is simply speculation set upon speculation set upon speculation. Actual evidence is notably lacking. Rather ironically, this form of finding a few vague parallels and assuming a connection is exactly what some critics of Christianity attempt to do when claiming Christianity itself comes from paganism.
Even if this astoundingly speculative claim was somehow true, that the idea of the world hatching from an egg was some kind of distortion of Noah's ark, how does it actually benefit Hislop's argument about pagan origins of Easter Eggs? Again, at most it simply shows that there was a mention of eggs in some pagan myths, but not that they were used in any way similar to Easter Eggs, that it made eggs have any particular importance, or that it has any connection to Easter Eggs at all.
After he goes through that, he claims:
Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ's resurrection. A form of
prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope
Paul V. teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter :
" Bless, Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it
may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in
remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.*
*Scottish Guardian, April, 1844.
Unfortunately, I am not able to check up on this citation. There is an archive of this newspaper available here
but it does not include the 1844 year. Of course, Hislop omits the rather important question of what day of the month it was published (there were multiple publications each month as seen in that link), making it even harder to discover where this is. It appears that the National Library of Scotland
may have all of the
issues, but it is not currently feasible for me to go all the way to Scotland just to look at that. Even trying to put in
some kind of outerlibrary loan for a photocopy is not particularly
useful, as I do not
know the actual date, only the month.
I did try searching online to see if I could find verification of this. Several sites repeated this claim, with a few claiming a specific year of 1610, but sources were simply not provided (some did unhelpfully cite the Scottish Guardian of April 1844, no doubt simply copying from Hislop without doing independent verification). Only one new source was offered that I could find ("Donahoe's Magazine" volume 5 page 558), which can be seen here. It gives a slightly different quote of "Bless, O Lord! we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to thee on account of the resurrection of the Lord." This does increase the probability it's legit, as the different wording suggests it was an alternate translation of the same material (or a mild editing) and this was from a Catholic newspaper. But this is still not a direct citation.
Finally, however, I did find a page that said it was in the "Roman Ritual" so I searched for that. As found here, it has:
"Lord, let the grace of your blessing + come upon these eggs, that they be healthful food for your faithful who eat them in thanksgiving for the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you forever and ever."
This looks like it's it. But through this I was able to find the original here. The Latin reads:
"Subueniat, quaesumus Dominae, tuae benedictionis + gratia huic ovorum creature, ut cibus salubris fiat fidelibus tuis, in tuam gratiarum actione sumentibus, ob resurrectionem Domini nostri Iesu Christi, qui tecum viuit & regnat in saecula saeculorum."
(I cannot make out the word between "qui" and "viuit" for certain. From context and the translation I expect it is "tecum" which is what I have used)
So, okay, it does seem there is a prayer for blessing eggs. But does this actually matter? Not really. As the Easter Egg has not been proven to be of pagan origin, a prayer concerning it means nothing. I guess someone could complain and say that the Bible refers to breaking bread in memory of Jesus rather than eating eggs (as I actually did see someone else complain), but it hardly forbids the ability to also do other things in remembrance as well. Beyond that, again evidence has not been given to show that Easter eggs go back far enough to have been of any pagan origin.
So to try to summarize the section on Easter Eggs, Hislop fails in his attempts because not only do his references to pagan usages of eggs have essentially nothing in common with Easter Eggs (the only one similar is his invocation of China, which is unlikely to have had any influence and also offers little support for his claim of this being done in Babylon), even various examples he chooses are taken out of context or are inaccurate. And perhaps most importantly of all, Easter Eggs only became a practice too late for his thesis to work at all. Perhaps I could have just skipped over all of this with that last note, but I wanted to be thorough.
Oranges
Prior to this I went through just about every remark of Hislop, even when it was redundant, but here I will skip through most of it. This is because even if Hislop's claims about pomegranates being an important symbol of Astarte is true, it doesn't mean much of anything in regards to Easter (further, he gets off on some unnecessary tangents that really have nothing to do with the topic of Easter). After trying to argue that pomegranates were an important pagan symbol, he puts forward the following:
As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.
I expect many a reader would be confused by this, as they've most likely never heard of oranges being particularly associated with Easter. Indeed, one will notice that when people repeat Hislop's claims, they rarely bring up what he says about oranges. As Easter has little to do with origins, there is no need to go line by line through the multiple pages Hislop devotes to trying to discover a pagan connection to orange.
All Hislop offers as evidence that oranges were important in Easter is his statement "the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so
also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious
ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago
at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and and
orange." Certainly a specific case of giving people oranges does not prove it is of importance in general.
As far as I can determine, oranges do not seem to be a notable thing in Easter in Scotland now, but perhaps it was of greater importance in Hislop's time, assuming he wasn't just exaggerating about the orange importance. It does appear that in Norway in the present, oranges have some
association with Easter, as mentioned here (note, however, this says that this tradition is only about a century old; if so, Hislop could not have it in mind). But this does not seem to be the case in most of the rest
of the world; indeed, that very article says that "Norway, report state food officials, tops international statistics for consumption of oranges at Eastertime." This means its orange consumption tops countries with a much higher population, meaning those countries would not have much of any orange consumption during Easter. Moreover, the state church of Norway became Protestant in the mid-16th
century, and Catholicism is a minority in the country, so this does not
link back to Catholicism anyway.
So this orange claim, at least in the present, is a bust. It applies largely only to Norway, and in Norway it apparently is a relatively recent innovation and therefore hard to trace back to some ancient pagan practice.
But we run into further problems. Let us suppose that oranges were a major symbol of Easter in Hislop's day. As noted, Hislop is apparently unable to offer evidence of a direct pagan connection for oranges (the most he does is wildly speculate that the golden apples in the Eleventh Labor of Hercules were really oranges), and thus instead resorts to trying to argue for pagan usage of pomegranates and declares that to try to keep this going, oranges were used instead. But here we run into yet another problem. Much like how he failed completely at making even an attempt at proving that Easter Eggs or hot cross buns actually go back far enough that they could have been influenced by paganism, he similarly offers no evidence that usage of oranges in Europe went back far enough that it oculd have been some kind of pagan holdover. Indeed, from what I can tell, the sweet orange was only introduced to Europe in the 15th or 16th century (see https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/orange.html). If true, Hislop's claim here is completely shut down.
Thus Hislop simply fails in his argument on oranges; they aren't a real symbol of Easter to begin with and they don't appear to have even been known to Europe until too late for his thesis to work. His prior arguments may have been highly speculative, but at least he normally attempted
some grounding; this bit on the oranges does not even have that, and
all involves something that is not a symbol for Easter in most of the
world.
This concludes his discussion on Easter. I know I speed speed through the final pages, but there wasn't much need to do more.
As noted at the start, Hislop appears to omit any mention of the Easter Bunny or Easter Rabbit despite that being such a common charge of being something pagan that the Catholic Church introduced... which is especially silly when one considers the fact it was actually Protestants who started the concept of the Easter Bunny (Encyclopedia Britannica's current online article on Easter: "The custom of associating a rabbit or bunny with Easter arose in
Protestant areas in Europe in the 17th century but did not become common
until the 19th century." Emphasis added). While it is possible that Hislop left it out due to being aware that Protestants were the ones who came up with it, I expect the reason for it not being mentioned is that it was probably largely unknown at that time where he lived. Which of course puts even more of a kabosh on the Easter Bunny being of some kind of pagan origin, as its adoption in the English world was so late that Hislop didn't even mention it.
CONCLUSION
So for a quick summary, here's an answer to the arguments made of Hislop.
1) Hislop claims that Easter "bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead" due to it sounding like Astarte or Ishtar. But this applies only to English, and is not the case in most other languages. Oddly, Hislop mentions that it is "unique to the British Isles", but then ignores how it destroys his argument.
2) To try to show a pagan origin for Lent, Hislop tries to point to cases of 40-day fasting periods among pagans. However, his arguments fail:
a) Hislop points to the Yezidis. However, all sources for their 40-day fasting period come long, long after the institution of a 40-day Lent, indicating that most likely they took the idea from the Christian Lent.
b) Hislop claims that pagan Mexicans had a 40-day fasting period around the time of the Spring equinox. His source does back him up on this, but it is vague about where the information comes from. I have attempted to look at the original sources regarding the religious ceremonies of the Mexicans and have been unable to find it.
c) In a stunning case of misrepresentation, Hislop points Wilkinson's "Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians" as showing proof of a 40-day Egyptian Lent, but the source actually says they had fasts of "7-42 days or longer" and gives no indication that this was a repeated annual event.
d) Continuing on that vein, Hislop cites a source for a claim that there was a 40-day period devoted to Osiris. If one tracks his source's source and its source's source, one discovers that the original document appears to make no mention of this fact.
d) To try to prove the Greeks had a 40-day fasting period, Hislop takes two completely different sources describing different things (one a 40-day mourning period, the other fasting of unclear length) and just assumes they relate to the same thing. It should be noted that later scholarship indicates the fasting period in question was actually of 9 days.
3) Hislop's attempt to prove a pagan origin for hot cross buns fails because hot cross buns developed far too late for any pagan influence to be plausible, and even setting that aside, it further relies on him engaging in astoundingly speculative etymologies that all end up ignoring the fact that the word "bun" does not even enter the English language until Middle English, far too late for his claims to work.
4) Hislop's arguments of pagan usage of eggs falls flat in proving pagan influence on Easter Eggs because, as with hot cross buns, Easter Eggs come too late to be plausibly ascribed to pagan influence. However, there are additional issues with some of the examples he provides:
a) Hislop attempts to claim that eggs were particularly important to the Druid religion, but if you trace his sources back to the original, it merely says that having a snake egg was prized among the Gallic people, but gives no indication there was religious significance to it.
b) Hislop shows an "egg of Astarte" that supposedly demonstrates that Astarte had an egg as her symbol. The problem is that if you take the time to look up a photo of the actual "egg" (it's actually a vase), you will see that it really doesn't look particularly like an egg, and that the illustration Hislop shows is made to look more like an egg than it actually is. Whether this was the fault of Hislop or another I do not know, but the actual thing looks substantially less like an egg than Hislop claims.
5) Hislop tries to find some pagan origin for oranges in Easter, which is odd given that oranges are not really a symbol of Easter (and appear to have come to Europe around the 16th century!). This portion of the Two Babylons's section on Easter tends to be the least referenced, perhaps because people would generally scratch their heads in confusion as to what oranges have to do with Easter.
Hislop's claims against Easter have been repeated ad nauseam online and offline. But for the above reasons, they fail considerably in proving his point. They rely on massive speculation on his part, misrepresenting his sources, his sources being incorrect, and/or assuming that various modern Easter celebrations can be traced back far enough for his thesis despite the evidence that they came much later.
I know, unfortunately, I only went through the Easter portion of his book, which is a relatively small portion. But it's the section that people re-use the most. And Hislop has a very dense writing style; look how long it took to go through those pages. So it would take far too long for me to go through everything else in his work, though again see information at the start for some critiques that go through the book more generally. But given this portion of the book is so poor, it is hard to take the rest seriously.
Maybe this blog post was just talking to a wall; I'm aware that many of those who parrot Hislop's claims will be undeterred even with all of this evidence of his errors. But, hopefully there are some who will read this and take it seriously.
