In my previous post, I began a short series on the origins of the Easter Holiday. That post explained the historical significance of the names “Semiramis” (the queen of heaven) and “Tammuz” as well as the idolatrous religion that was built around them. That religion began in ancient in Babylon and, over the centuries, snaked its way across the known world. Now, with this post, let’s press on further into world history and see what ultimately became of that religion.

The nation of Rome eventually rose to become the most powerful empire on earth, and the Babylonian mother-child religion (in our day referred to by many as “the Babylonian cult”) became deeply entrenched in that massive empire. This is where a Roman emperor by the name of Constantine comes into the story.

As legend has it, Constantine had a vision that led him to convert to Christianity. Whether or not he actually got saved is highly debatable, but he at least outwardly professed to be a Christian. As emperor, he then began a process of making Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire. This was in 324 A.D., and here is where we start pulling some things together.

When Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire, millions of lost Romans flooded into the Christian churches. Basically, those Romans said to the Christians, “Okay, the emperor says that we are now Christians; show us how to do it.” Well, those Christians surely tried, but Rome’s old system of pagan religion, which was built around the mother-child idolatry of ancient Babylon, was just too ingrained in the people to go away. Just because an emperor forces Christianity onto his people, that doesn’t make those people truly Christian.

So what happened? Over a period of about four hundred years, those lost Romans, mingled in with true Christians, created a bizarre mix of Christianity and Babylonian cult paganism. This mix ultimately became what we know as the Roman Catholic Church.

Let me cite four specific examples to help explain what happened. Keep in mind now that these things didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual process that played out over about four centuries. But they did happen.

Example #1 centers around the worship of the queen of heaven. When the lost Romans came into the Christian churches, those pagans looked for Christianity’s version of the queen of heaven and her son. But they soon found out that Christians didn’t worship the queen of heaven or her son. So, rather than give up on the worship of the queen of heaven and her son, those lost Romans made Mary the queen of heaven and her son, Jesus, the equivalent of Tammuz. This is why Catholics, to this day, call Mary the “queen of heaven” and pray to her.

Example #2 centers around continuing, blood, sacrificial offerings. Such offerings were a vital part of the Babylonian cult system of worship. Those lost Romans soon found out, however, that Christianity didn’t offer up such offerings. Instead, Christianity looked to Christ’s death on the cross as the one, final, blood sacrifice that eliminated the need for any more blood sacrifices.

But rather than give up on the idea of continuing, blood sacrifices, those lost Romans devised a new interpretation for the Lord’s supper. They began to say that a miracle takes place during the partaking of the Lord’s supper. Through this miracle, the symbolism of the Lord’s supper is done away with as the bread literally becomes the actual body of Christ and the content of the cup literally becomes the actual blood of Christ. Under this interpretation, by partaking of the Lord’s supper, we sacrifice Jesus over and over again for our sins. This interpretation is now known as the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, and it is why mass (the Catholic version of the Lord’s supper) is so important to Catholics.

Example #3 centers around the priests. The Babylonian cult system of worship prominently featured priests, but those lost Romans soon found out that each Christian was a priest in his or her own right. As Revelation 5:9-10 puts it, Jesus has “made us kings and priests to our God…” Instead of having priests who were in charge, the Christian churches had pastors, men who were on the same spiritual level as those in the congregations.

But rather than give up on the idea of having priests, those lost Romans started calling the pastors priests and got them to wear ornate, priestly garments. These garments were actually duplicates of the garments that were worn by the priests in the Babylonian cult system of worship. Furthermore, under the rules of the Babylonian cult, a person had to confess his sins to a priest before that person could be initiated into the religion. So, those lost Romans began to confess their sins to the pastors, a practice which eventually led to the Catholic act of confessing one’s sins to a priest.

Example #4 centers around the vestal virgins. In the Babylonian cult system of worship, a special class of women were set apart for religious service. These women were the vestal virgins. Don’t be fooled by that name, though. Even though these women were supposedly dedicated to God, they, in essence, served as temple prostitutes. To understand this, you must understand that the queen of heaven was associated with fertility, and the subject of fertility brings in the act of sex.

Of course, the pagan Romans soon found out that the Christian churches didn’t have a class of women who were especially set apart in any way for religious service. But rather than give up on the idea of having a class of women set apart for religious service, those lost Romans created the order of women that we now call nuns. You see, in this case, the situation swung from one extreme (temple prostitutes who were set apart for service to God) to the opposite extreme (literal virgins who were set apart for service to God).

Alright, now as long as I am in this deep, let me go ahead and name some other examples of how the Babylonian mother-child religion was mixed with Christianity to produce Roman Catholicism. Again, these Catholic doctrines didn’t come into being overnight, but they were ultimately created:

-Example #1: The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, a priest would offer up prayers for a dead person to get that person into a better afterlife. But he would only do this after a large fee had been paid.

-Example #2: The Roman Catholic practice of last rites has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, the dying were anointed for their journey into death. This anointing was done in the name of the “lord of heaven.”

-Example #3: The Roman Catholic practice of burning candles and incense to Mary has its roots in the Babylonian cult. Remember that Semiramis had shrines to herself placed along the roads leading in and out of ancient Babylon. Worshipers stopped at these shrines and burned candles and incense to her.

-Example #4: The Roman Catholic doctrine of baptismal regeneration has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult, water baptism was one part of the initiation rites into the religion. This explains why the idea of baptismal regeneration was found in places like India and Mexico before Roman Catholic missionaries ever arrived in those places.

-Example #5: The Roman Catholic doctrine of the supreme authority of the Pope has its roots in the Babylonian cult. In the Babylonian cult system, one man served as the greatest high priest. The Latin for “the greatest high priest” is Pontifex Maximus. Keep in mind now that the Roman empire was saturated with the ideas of the Babylonian cult. This was shown in the fact that each Roman emperor held the title of Pontifex Maximus.

But what happened to that title when the empire system was ended? Well, that’s when the Bishops of Rome began to claim it. Today we call the Pope the Bishop of Rome, but Catholicism properly sees him Pontifex Maximus, “the greatest high priest.”

-Example #6 (and this one will shock you): The sign of the cross has its roots in the Babylonian cult. Believe it or not, the sign of the cross was not originally made famous by Christianity. Long before the sign ever represented Christ and His death on the cross, it symbolized Tau, which corresponds to the letter “T,” the initial for the name Tammuz. This explains why the sign has been found on many altars and temples that were built long before the time of Christ.

In ancient Babylon, a cross was placed on coins. In other places, different variations of the cross appeared. Sometimes the cross had a small circle on the top of the cross. That circle identified Tammuz with the sun. Other times a full circle was drawn around the entire cross. This, again, identified Tammuz with the sun. The symbol of the cross was even used on the garments of the priests of the Babylonian cult.

So, to sum up, by the year 700 or so, true Christianity had been dwarfed by an unholy mix of paganism and Christianity. This mix dominated Europe into the Middle Ages. It wasn’t until the age of the Protestant Reformation (led by Martin Luther) that any dent was made in the religious and political machine that the Roman Catholic Church had become. And today we still deal with the fallout of a world that has been deceived and confused by Catholicism.