Click here for The Reluctant Messenger (Host Site)

SECTION II.

THE MOTHER AND CHILD, AND THE ORIGINAL OF THE CHILD.

* *

While this was the theory, the first person in the Godhead was practically overlooked. As the Great Invisible, taking no immediate concern in human affairs, he was "to be worshipped through silence alone," * that is, in point of fact, he was not worshipped by the multitude at all. The same thing is strikingly illustrated in India at this day. Though Brahma, according to the sacred books, is the first person of the Hindoo Triad, and the religion of Hindostan is called by his name, yet he is never worshipped, and there is scarcely a single Temple in all India now in existence of those that were formerly erected to his honour. * So also is it in those countries of Europe where the Papal system is most completely developed. In Papal Italy, as travellers universally admit (except where the Gospel has recently entered), all appearance of worshipping the King Eternal and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and the Child are the grand objects of worship. Exactly so, in this latter respect, also was it in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and in images as an infant or child in his mother's arms . From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names of Isis and Osiris. * In India, even to this day, as Isi and Iswara; * in Asia, as Cybele and Deoius; * in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter-puer, or Jupiter, the boy; * in Greece, as Ceres, the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast, * or as Irene, the goddess of Peace, with the boy Plutus in her arms; * and even in Thibet, in China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna * and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself; Shing Moo, the Holy Mother in China, being represented with a child in her arms, and a glory around her, exactly as if a Roman Catholic artist had been employed to set her up. *

Previous | Next

Two Babylons Home Introduction Preface Second Ed. Preface Third Ed. Note by the Editor The Two Systems Trinity in Unity Mother and Child The Child in Assyria The Child in Egypt The Child in Greece Death of the Child Deification of the Child Mother of the Child Christmas Easter Nativity of John Feast of thr Assumption Baptismal Regeneration

Justification by Works Sacrifice of the Mass Extreme Unction Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead. Idol Processions Relic Worship. Clothing and Crowning of Images. The Rosary Lamps & Wax-candles Sign of the Cross Sovereign Pontiff Priests, Monks, and Nuns. Great Red Dragon Beast From the Sea Beast from the Earth Image of the Beast Number of the Beast Invisible Head of the Papacy Woman with Golden Cup

Hebrew Chronology Shing Moo and Ma Tsoopo of China. Ala-Mahozim Meaning of the name Centaurus Olenos, the Sin-Bearer Identification of Rhea or Cybele and Venus Virgin Mother of Paganism Goddess Mother as a Habitation. Meaning of the name Astarte. Oannes and Souro The Identity of the Scandinavian Odin and Adon of Babylon Stripping of the Clothes of the Initiated in the Mysteries Zoroaster, the Head of the Fire-Worshippers Story of Phaethon Roman Imperial Standard of the Dragon of Symbol of Fire-worship The Slaying of the Witness Attes, the Sinner